Dead Angler Read online

  “I found her, hon. I was fly-fishing the Prairie River last night, and I slipped and fell and stumbled over Meredith’s body …” Osborne paused. He hated saying even that much not knowing who was listening.

  “Oh-h-h, she drowned, Dad. That’s just awful,” Mallory’s voice slowed as she processed the news. “And she was so happy. She had the divorce behind her. She told me she had a new boyfriend, a new business. She had this great joke, y’know. She said she had what every woman needs—a good lawyer, a good shrink, and an excellent hairdresser. She said she had it all. We had such a good time that day. Gee, Dad, I’m stunned.”

  “It wasn’t an accident, Mallory,” said Osborne, “that’s as much as I can say right now. Don’t forget I’m stuck with a party line on this darn phone.” Looking out the kitchen window as he talked, he saw Ray’s truck pull up in the driveway.

  “Meredith murdered?” Mallory’s disbelief was palpable over the phone line. “Dad, I’m catching a flight today. I’m coming up. She was one of my dearest childhood friends.”

  “So you two have really stayed in touch?”

  “Dad, we lived in the same town here. We belonged to different clubs, but, yeah, we’ve stayed pretty close.”

  “What do you think of Ben—?”

  “Ben? Well … I don’t know. Let me think about that. I know he’s got a cheap, sleazy girlfriend, but I don’t think Ben’s the type to kill anyone. Boy, now that’s something to think about. Oh darn, Dad, I’ve got to go. I’ll make some plane reservations.”

  “Honey, there’s no reason for you—”

  “Dad. I’ll be there. See ya.”

  “Wait—Mallory!” Osborne tried to keep her from hanging up.

  “What? Sorry I gotta rush, but I’ll call you later.”

  “One question—does the name Clint Chesnais ring a bell?”

  “Nope, never heard it.” Mallory hung up, and a series of two more clicks followed.

  “Gosh, I hate this party line,” said Osborne grimly, setting his phone back on the hook. “I’m surprised it doesn’t put the Loon Lake News out of business.”

  “Hey, old buddy, it’s a glorious day out here.” Ray shouted through the open kitchen window as he walked towards the back porch. An entirely new version of Ray that was heading his way. The distinctive loopy walk that always seemed to roll his torso into a room minutes ahead of the rest of his six-foot-six frame was the same, but this Ray Pradt was clearly dressed for success.

  This was not the grave-digging Ray, the minnowing Ray, or the leech-harvesting Ray—but the “Ready-for-ESPN Ray.” Resplendant in chestnut-colored rhinohide fishing pants and a long-sleeved heavy cotton shirt to match, Osborne fully expected to see a leaping walleye embroidered in gold over the left pocket.

  But the pièce de resistance was the hat. No one in the world had a hat like Ray’s. Due to the warm weather, he had tucked the ear flaps up under the battered leather cap, which sported the large stuffed trout, head and tail protruding over both ears. Draped across the breast of the fish, like a jeweled necklace, was an old wood and metal fishing lure, its silver disks glinting in the sunlight as Ray crossed Osborne’s yard.

  Ray paused in front of the jalousied porch windows to study his reflection. He tipped his head to one side, then tweaked the angle of the hat ever so slightly. Only then did he saunter up the steps and into the house.

  “Whaddya think?” he said, spreading his arms in a grand gesture, turning first this way, then that.

  Osborne laughed in amazement. He did have a walleye embroidered over the left pocket. “My god, Ray, where on earth did you get that walleye patch?” he asked, squinting to see it better as he took a sip of his coffee. Just then the phone rang. “Excuse me.” Osborne picked up the receiver. It was Lew.

  “Doc?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m in the office. Alicia’s due in a few minutes—” “Lew,” Osborne interrupted, “I’m on a party line out here—you should assume you’re talking to at least three of me, know what I mean?” Two clicks confirmed his suspicions.

  “Thanks for telling me,” Lew’s tone changed, “I hate party lines. We’ll have to do something about that.”

  “Good luck, I’ve been trying for years.”

  “At any rate,” she continued carefully, “I was wondering if you could drive up to the reservation with me later today. To see that fellow—you know who I mean.”

  “What time were you thinking? I’m Ray’s guinea pig this morning for his television debut.”

  “I’d like to be heading up there by one if we could. I see Alicia again at three. I think this gives us enough time …”

  “Be happy to, Lew. I’ll be at your office by one.” He hung up.

  “Donna sewed it on for me this morning,” said Ray. “Pretty neat, huh?”

  “Yet another reason to wed the woman,” kidded Osborne. It was a running commentary between them. Poor Donna. She helped the guy out time and time again, even though she was plenty busy herself as sales manager of Loon Lake Trailer Homes. Practical, no-nonsense, Donna might have a lot of rough edges, but she overflowed with kindness and good humor.

  Once, when Osborne pressed Ray on why he hadn’t married Donna after nearly six years of off-and-on courtship, Ray had offered an excuse Osborne found lame yet telling, “Doc, she’s a very sweet woman, but whenever I take her somewhere, she always wears the wrong thing.”

  Then there was Ray’s insistance that he still carried a torch for his high school sweetheart who’d fled Loon Lake to become a fashion model in New York City and marry a real estate tycoon. The torch was just an excuse, Osborne figured, Ray’s way to insure his independence. And Osborne thought he was probably wise to stay single. A married Ray just wouldn’t be the same. What wife would put up with ice-fishing at midnight in the icy winds of the North Woods winters? He was certainly safe from any involvement with his old girlfriend. What fashion model would be seen with a guy wearing a fish on his head?

  “What’s new with the Chief? Any leads?” asked Ray.

  “Yeah, Alicia thinks either the ex-husband did it or a fellow off the Lac Vieux Desert reservation by the name of Clint Chesnais. Ever heard of him?”

  “No-o-o. Know a lotta guys up there, too.”

  “Yeah? Funny you don’t know him.” Osborne did find that unusual. Ray knew everybody. Particularly around the casinos where he frequently unloaded his guiding clients after a long day’s fishing. “Lew asked me to go with her to see him later. Want to come along?”

  Testy as she might be with Ray because of his intermittent habit of smoking dope, Osborne knew he could argue one simple reason for including the guy: his vast network of contacts throughout the North Woods. Everyone liked Ray, men, women, locals, tourists, teenagers, old folks, priests and nuns, felons. Knew him, trusted him, talked to him.

  Osborne was no longer surprised by this. Over the last couple years, as the two had grown closer, he had learned a lot about Ray. He knew that his neighbor might appear to be a numnut with a fish on his head, a man not to be taken seriously, but that wasn’t exactly the case—though it certainly was what Ray wanted people to think.

  Why was that, anyway? Osborne had consciously mulled that over while sitting on his front porch in the cool lake breezes and warming his hands with a hot cup of coffee. To date, he’d probably spent several hours of his life musing about Ray Pradt.

  He still didn’t know the answer. He did know that the real Ray was a canny son of a bitch. Alert to the eagle’s whisper on the wind, quick to see the fault in a beaver dam, Ray had the eyes and ears and intuition of a deer. Just as smart as his siblings, he’d told Osborne over black coffee one dawn that the difference between him and them was “real simple: I’d rather barter with the river than some asshole right-winger any-day.” Given what Osborne had learned over the years, who was to say he wasn’t the wisest of the three.

  “Doc, I can’t go,” said Ray, “I’m on Zolonsky’s butt for those boats right after we do th
is TV thing. I’m goin’ nuts. I got two pros flying in tonight that are expecting to pre-fish tomorrow. I have to track George down this afternoon if I’m going to nail those suckers.”

  As Ray was talking, Osborne filled his thermos with coffee. He set out some fresh water for Mike and opened the door to hurry Ray back to the truck. “You take your truck, and I’ll follow,” said Osborne.

  He knew better than to rely on Ray, much less Ray’s vehicle, to get where he needed to go.

  When you drove with Ray, you took two risks: one physical, the other existential. Since the passenger door on his truck was frozen shut, you exited by climbing out the window. That meant you had to be fit enough to crawl through a 22 × 22 inch opening. You could crawl across the seat but the gear shift was perfectly situated to do serious harm to any male hoping to continue to propagate his kind upon the earth. That hazard ran parallel to a time frame so wide open to circumstance that Osborne had learned on more than one occasion you might not get home for days.

  Ray Pradt lived in a world measured by what Osborne and his morning coffee buddies called “Ray time.” That meant a world defined not by hours, minutes and seconds, but by whom you stopped to chat with on the street or the county road, how deep your truck got stuck in swamp muck, how hard the ground was frozen when a grave had to be dug, and whether or not there was a yard sale or a flea market on the way to anywhere.

  “So, Ray, where’re we going?”

  “Follow me.”

  Osborne knew that signal: Ray was planning to poach.

  “Of course, I’ve got some funny business planned,” said Ray under his breath. Osborne had quizzed him as they got out of their respective vehicles in the Pine Valley Resort parking lot. “These people want to see some fish caught, right? Trust me, Doc. And don’t worry. Okay? Don’t worry.”

  Osborne did worry. But he understood the problem. He doubted if the TV crew would, however.

  A shiny van from Rhinelander’s Channel 12 was parked in the lot, its front passenger-side door standing open as they walked towards it, rods in one hand, tackle boxes in the other. “I thought you were ESPN,” said Ray to the open door.

  “We are—we just borrowed the equipment from a local crew,” said a female voice. From the door popped a round face capped with sleek, short dark-brown hair that fell over her brow and crowded her chubby cheeks.

  “I like the hat!” A smallish woman, she had a figure like a good-sized tree trunk, straight up and down and pretty darn solid. She wore crisp Levi’s and a shirt to match, neatly belted. Osborne was happy to see little evidence of flapping purse straps or eye make-up. The woman was dressed for the outdoors and ready for business. He like her immediately.

  “Whadda know about walleye fishing?” asked Ray, extending his hand.

  “Not a thing. I flew in from LA yesterday. What do you know about producing talk shows?” she said, pumping his hand. “My name is Marilyn, and this is my crew,” she jerked her right thumb over her shoulder. “Rich works the camera and Wayne the mikes.”

  As she spoke, two men emerged from the back of van, arms full of cords and black boxes. Tall and slim, Rich wore baggy shorts, an over-sized black T-shirt and a buzz cut that made it tough to determine what color hair he had. Osborne guessed him to be in his late twenties. Wayne was a good ten years older, as chubby as Rich was skinny, and sporting a thick, unruly mass of black hair. He wore a dun-colored T-shirt tucked into well-worn Levi’s that rode low but safe on a pudgy torso. A beer belly tested the buttons of his 504s.

  “Talk show? I thought this was a fishing show,” said Ray.

  “A fishing talk show.”

  Ray looked at her, slightly taken aback, “That’s a conversation stopper.” Then shook his head and grinned. “You’re the boss. Where do you want us?”

  “I have a lovely boat from our sponsor,” said Marilyn, herding them towards the boat landing where a red Toyota Landcruiser had backed a boat trailer down into the water. Ray looked at the sleek fiberglass rig and whistled.

  “My audience is wannabes, and my advertiser wants to sell, sell, sell—so I need you to talk boats for a few minutes, then we hit the water, and you show us how to catch a fish. We have two hours. Okay?”

  Marilyn handed Ray a glossy brochure, “Here’s the info on the boat.” He took it, scanned it carefully, then walked over to check out the boat. He looked over at Osborne, nodded approvingly as he pointed to the positioning of the rod holders.

  “Okay, except for one small item,” he said finally, turning to Marilyn, who had been giving directions to Rich and Wayne. He raised both his hands in front of him. Ray had a way of spreading his long, slender fingers when he was making a point that reminded Osborne of a concert pianist attacking a keyboard.

  “That item is this…,” said Ray, showcasing particular words for effect, “no … walleye … will be biting in … this lake … this morning. Walleyes in this lake don’t even begin to bite until sunset.”

  Marilyn looked at him, her face set, intense. “That won’t work, Mr. Pradt, we need daylight to shoot. This is a perfect day.”

  “Call me Ray, Marilyn. Now listen … all I said was the walleyes aren’t biting on this lake.” “You have a better idea?”

  “Better than discussing it with the fish. Follow me.”

  Twenty minutes later, the Landcruiser backed down a grassy bank that had seen little trailer traffic and prepared to unload its eighteen thousand dollar cargo. Osborne, unmiked, positioned himself in the cushioned chair at the front. He was happy to be Ray’s silent student. He was even happier to see that the huge log home off to their right appeared to be dark.

  “Don’t worry, Doc,” Ray had whispered as they drove over in the van with the crew, “the caretaker is a good buddy of mine.”

  Ray, miked, stepped forward to angle his lanky frame into the driver’s seat in front of the console, then leaned to open a storage unit, and carefully stowed his hat. Marilyn and Rich settled into the back of the boat.

  “Ray, let me tell you what I’d like you to do,” said Marilyn, a clipboard clutched to her chest, a headset clamped over her glossy hair.

  “Not necessary,” said Ray, waving his hand to Wayne who backed the Landcruiser a few more feet, allowing the the big boat to ease off its trailer into the lake. “I’ve watched ESPN fishing shows plenty. Let me do it my way, and you see what you think. With all my clients, I do the same. See? We get out into the water. I know right where we’re going … then I give the good dentist my BJL routine—that should do it. You just sit back and watch the fish fly.”

  “Well … The BJL?” Marilyn was clearly uneasy with Ray taking command of her production. Osborne minded his own business. He’d watched Ray tell the CEOs of blue chip companies what to do when. And when they listened, they scored. Marilyn was in for an adventure.

  “ ‘Boat-Jig-Leech’—Ray Pradt’s winning walleye technique—five minutes to your five-fish bag limit.” Osborne turned his head away so they wouldn’t see him trying hard not to smile. Ray was, of course, neglecting to mention the key to their pending success: illegal fishing of a private, heavily stocked lake.

  “Jig I know, but leech?” A quizzical but amused look crossed Marilyn’s round face. She might say she didn’t know fishing, but watching her cheery, no-nonsense face made Osborne certain she’d researched bait fishing enough to have some idea what to expect. Like most non-fisherman, though, she’d probably neglected to notice that walleye fishing was quite different from fishing for bass or panfish, not to mention musky or trout.

  “Leech?” She said it again as if the very sound of the word gave her the creeps. Then she threw her head back and laughed a hearty, robust laugh. It was a laugh so spontaneous and gutsy, Osborne’s first thought was how much it reminded him of Lew. “I like this,” said Marilyn. “What a great lead for this story. Go right ahead, guy.”

  “Ready, Rich?” Ray looked at the cameraman who hoisted his rig. Rich looked at Marilyn.

  “Go ahead,” she s
aid, “let’s give it five and see what we get. Dr. Osborne, don’t even think about us back here. We’ll voice over that he’s guiding you so you’ll just keep your eye on him or doing whatever he tells you to.”

  While she talked, Ray had turned the ignition key, the motor purring preciously beneath them.

  “Whoa, listen to that lovely hum. Exquisite. Of course, for eighteen thousand bucks it ought to tuck you in at night,” he said as the button on Rich’s video camera glowed red.

  “Fellas,” said Ray, addressing Osborne as if he was one of a large crowd, “The boat is critical to successful fishing. The boat must be an extension of you for everything to work right. Yet every boat has its own personality. Your challenge is to psych it out, to find the boat that fits you, the boat that is you.

  “Me? I love my Stratos 219CF,” Ray patted the steering wheel on the console in front of him. “This mother has a modified V-hull, a good 19 feet 3-inches with a 91-inch beam. And because you don’t ever, ever wanna underpower your hull, I keep a 175 horse power engine with a 25 kicker for heading into the wind.

  “Now this is strictly personal, fellas, but my interior features one livewell and two baitwells, one forward of my console and one at the splashwell. This single-side console works best for the type of guiding that I do, though you yuppies can get a double if you must. You just better fish good enough to make a double console make sense, or don’t even show up at the bar, know what I mean?”

  Marilyn gave a big thumbs up from the back of the boat.

  “What distinguishes this particular boat,” the lake was smooth enough so Ray could rise slightly from his seat and point, “are the low sides. This makes it easy for me to fish weed walleyes or I can fish musky—very important up here in the northwoods. Bottom line? I need flexibility and Stratos makes it happen for me, y’know. I’ve had this boat up on Lake Erie, and I wanna tell ya it stays right on top. No wave crashing in this honey.

  “Now, the Doc here is getting ready to go for ol’ bubble eyes.” As Ray spoke, Osborne swiveled his seat and readied the spinning rod that Ray had handed him.