Dead Angler (5 page)

“Well ol’ Bill used that hole for his stash,” said Ray. “Then one day he found a six-pack of Bud in there and realized some high school kids knew about it, too.”

“You think a lot of people know about it?” asked Lew.

“Hard to say, but if anyone does, it’ll be a local, that’s for sure.”

Lew turned back towards the clearing. A bright half-moon lit the final few yards and seemed to cast a halo over the woman’s body, which lay undisturbed just as they had left it.

“Who is this?” asked Ray as he knelt with Osborne to lay the tarp alongside the victim, his voice gentle with concern.

“Do you remember Meredith Marshall?” asked Osborne. Together they rolled the body onto the tarp, then folded the rubber sheets over and back until they had a neat sling.

“Oh, sure—about three years ahead of me,” said Ray. “She had a sister who was quite a bit older, didn’t she?”

“Alicia Roderick,” said Osborne.

“Oh yeah? The dachshund’s wife,” said Ray.

“The who what?” Lew gave Ray a quizzical look.

“You know that really rich guy with the Range Rover who sells lighting fixtures—he looks like a dachshund. That’s Peter Roderick, Alicia’s husband,” said Ray, “Once a year I take him up to Canada for walleyes. Now there’s a guy travels a lot—every week almost.”

“I wonder if he’s home tonight. I’m afraid I need to wake up his wife,” said Lew.

“Alicia was a good friend of my late wife’s,” said Osborne. “Would you like me to come along?” he asked, feeling more presentable in his dry clothes.

“I wouldn’t mind,” said Lew. Then a look crossed her face as if she was about to get bad news. “Doctor Osborne …,” she hesitated, tightening her lips, “I have a problem. In order for that dental exam to be official, which I need it to be … Well, Jack Pecore is on vacation all week,” she referred to the Loon Lake coroner whom Osborne knew and despised, “and to make this official I need to deputize you right now. In fact, I need to write it up as if you were a deputy at the time you examined the victim—” “Fine,” said Osborne.

“Really?” Lew stopped short in surprise. “But I might have to keep you on for a week if that’s okay. With Pecore gone, I’m stretched to the limit over this Labor Day weekend. If the autopsy confirms criminal activity, I’m going to need extra help. You know the family and you have all that military experience …”

“Whatever I can do, just let me know,” said Osborne. “My schedule is wide open.” Not to mention his life. The thought of being a professional again, of working around a woman as interesting as Lew, had a sudden, intriguing appeal.

“The department will pay you for your time.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Osborne had an idea. “We’ll barter. You give me some more pointers on my fly-fishing, and I’ll help you out with whatever you need over the next few days.”

“You’ve got a deal,” said Lew, extending her hand to grasp his in a firm shake.

“Just don’t ask me,” Ray raised his hands, “I’m up to my ears with the Walleye Classic—”

“Not a chance, Ray,” laughed Lew. “Not with your record. I don’t mind your untimely toking, fella, so much as your total lack of remorse. I’ll tell ya, Ray, you’re the kinda guy,” she shook a finger at him good-naturedly, “I never know what you’re gonna do next.”

Ray shrugged. Some things he just couldn’t help. He wouldn’t be Ray if he could.

Lew eased up, “But I’m impressed you’re chairing the Walleye Classic, huh? That’s a big job!”

Ray cut his eyes in a “ya gotta be kiddin’ “ look. “Me? Heck, no,” he said. “That’s
work.
I’m just in charge of the boats for the pros.”

And his image, noted Osborne with amusement. For the first time in years, Ray had been to the barber. His distinctive head of rich, reddish-auburn curly hair and chest-length, very curly auburn but greying beard had been stylishly trimmed.

Lew noticed, too. “What’s with the class act, Ray? Something wrong? Death in the family?”

“Jeez, Chief, didn’t Doc tell you? We’ve got ESPN coming in, we’ve got a hundred thousand dollar purse—lots of excitement.” Then he rolled his eyes in an expression of total frustration, “but now that damn George Zolonsky is late delivering our boats!”

It
was two o’clock in the morning when Osborne and Lew climbed into the police cruiser to drive the short mile from the hospital and its tidy six-body morgue to the Roderick home. They had been lucky to find space for their victim. The Highway 51 accident had been bad: four dead.

They left Meredith in a drawer, her naked body resting on cold steel. Osborne had found it mystifying that her torso and extremities were nearly free of contusions. Even at that, the few random bruises he did find on her arms and legs appeared to be days older than the massive skull fracture that may have killed her.

“In my opinion,” Osborne had said, leaning over Meredith to study a mark just below her right knee, “these bruises on the arms and legs are perfectly normal, Lew. Like the ones we all get from everyday banging around.” He looked up to emphasize his point. Lew leaned against the wall in the brightly lit examining room, her arms crossed, her dark eyes intent on watching Osborne work.

He wasn’t having an easy time of it. Meredith’s body was that of a young woman in her prime, a woman who had been physically active, who ate a healthy diet, a woman who kept herself prepared for life, not death. A woman like his own daughters. It must have registered on his face as he withdrew the Shepherd’s hook explorer from the victim’s mouth.

“Are you bothered by the body?” asked Lew softly.

“Is it that obvious?” said Osborne, peering at her over the rims of his glasses. “I can’t help thinking this could be one of my own daughters.” Osborne sighed as he lay his instruments on the nearby metal tray and started to remove his gloves. “Do you ever feel this way?”

“Hah!” Lew pushed herself away from the wall. “More than you can imagine. I bailed that son of mine out so often, I tried so hard to tell him what he was doing to his life—when I see that same arrogant look on the faces of some of these young kids …”

“Really?” said Osborne. He struggled to remember what he knew about her son. “Amazing they survive, isn’t it? What’s he doing today?”

“Pushing up flowers in St. Mary’s cemetery,” said Lew with a tight little grin. “He was knifed in a bar fight, Doc. Bobby Fallon went up the river for that one. That’s the first I met your friend Ray—he dug Jamie’s grave.”

“Oh,” Osborne gave himself an internal kick in the shins. How did he always manage to make such terrible faux pas around this woman? Why did he always forget she hadn’t lived the same Loon Lake life he did? Why did he have to sound like such a middle-class jabone? He changed the subject as fast as he could.

“The only good news is the fillings were definitely yanked out after death. That I can tell from the angle of the scratches on the enamel and bruising on the interior of the mouth. She had to be unconscious or dead for someone to manage this. They might have used a drill, but I can’t be sure. But I will say, whoever it was took great care to get every iota of gold.”

“Just a fomality, Doc,” said Lew, “but would you say for certain that this was not an accidental death? Strictly on the basis of the missing fillings?”

“No. Not just that. I’m convinced this body did not travel far down the Prairie. That current is vicious. Throw in all the loose timber and branches and other debris pounding through there from the storm…,” his eyes scanned Meredith’s form one more time, “… the
entire
body should show serious contusions, not just the neck and the back of the head.”

Silent and thoughtful, they had both stood staring down at the naked dead woman. Lew looked up at Osborne as if to see if he would change his mind. He would not. “Foul play, kiddo.”

“Good,” said Lew. “The Wausau boys may argue but this is one autopsy I’ll log on their budget.”

That said, she had marked the drawer holding the body, indicating it was to be sent to the forensic investigators in Wausau for an autopsy immediately following an ID from the family.

“Let’s stop by Pecore’s desk,” she said before they left the building, “I’ll leave two notes. I don’t need that dimwit sending our Mrs. Marshall over to Johnson’s for embalming with the accident victims or have his dogs destroy any evidence. You and I both know he’s entirely capable of screwing this up. Pecore is one big reason I would love to have you on board to help me out, Doc.”

The local coroner was not exactly respected in the town. A pathologist of questionable skill, he had irritated the townspeople when they discovered he let his two golden retreivers roam unrestricted in his lab. Truth was the dogs probably minded their own business but Loon Lake residents were appalled. Since every death in the community had to be run by Pecore, many families had taken to accompanying the bodies of loved ones through the entire process just to be sure the canines didn’t lick Grandma.

Now the cruiser moved silently down a side street, turned right to pass the baseball park, then left onto Ojibway Drive. Osborne cracked his window for air. He stared out at the sleeping town. The storm had blown through Loon Lake around midnight, leaving a trail of broken tree limbs, some heavy with leaves, strewn across the street and yards. Loon Lake was used to violent weather. By mid-morning the evidence of howling winds would be gone.

“Quiet out there,” he said softly, “I don’t even hear an owl hooting.”

“Yep,” said Lew. He could tell she was thinking about something else. Probably how to break the news to the Rodericks.

They passed the modest frame houses that lined the streets close to the hospital, their windows dark. The night was moonless, the only illumination the soft pools thrown by street lamps. As they neared the Rodericks’, the houses grew taller, the front yards deeper, wider and landscaped. This was the east side of Loon Lake, the prestigious side by Mary Lee’s standards. Here lived the doctors, the lawyers, and the paper mill executives.

Osborne pointed off to their right, and Lew slowed to turn. An imposing stone manor anchored the corner of one of the town’s oldest and loveliest neighborhoods.

“That’s it,” said Osborne. “See Peter’s Range Rover in the drive?”

“I’ll turn around at the school and park in front,” said Lew.

Directly across from the Roderick home was Loon Lake’s original elementary school, a two-story red brick building erected in 1910. The Rodericks’ front door faced a quiet street, bounded on the far side by a tall, dense hedge of lilacs that guarded the schoolyard, nearly blocking the building and its grounds from view.

“Just look at those lilacs,” Osborne said in a low voice, making small talk to keep his mind off the pending confrontation, “they must be eighty years old, Lew. What a sight they are in the springtime.”

“Umm,” Lew agreed. Everyone in Loon Lake agreed. The Carlton School lilacs were the pride of the entire town.

“I think this is the biggest house in Loon Lake,” said Lew as she swung the cruiser around, pulled up to the curb, and turned off the ignition. “They must have a hell of a heating bill in January.” She had her way of stalling, too.

“The old Martin house around the corner may be larger,” said Osborne. “I know this was originally built by old man Daniels in 1891.”

“I thought he died in the twenties,” said Lew. Everyone in Loon Lake knew about the man who founded the paper mill, the life blood of the little town for fifty years.

“Yes, you’re right. But his widow’s family kept it for a long time. I think she died here. Peter told me the kids would come up from Alabama for the summer, close the place down for the winter. One day he and Alicia rang the doorbell and made them an offer. That was right after their marriage, a few years before Mary Lee and I met them.”

“When I was a kid I always thought the people who lived in houses like this had perfect lives,” said Lew.

“Umm,” said Osborne.

Lew reached into the back seat for her briefcase, “well … ready?”

“Not really.”

They looked at one another, then out at the dark windows of the manor. On the second level, four bedroom windows running along the front of the house appeared to be half open to catch any breezes. At ground level, a series of tall French casement windows, which Osborne knew opened into the front hall and the dining room, had been cranked open, too. But the moon, still hidden behind clouds, did not help illuminate any more details. Not even the corner street lamp with its hazy glow made a difference.

As they braced themselves to enter the stately home, the night air grew warmer, heavier. Osborne rolled his window down all the way. He reached for the door handle, then paused.

“Listen …,” he said. “I hear music …”

“Odd this time of night,” said Lew, rolling down her window. “I do, too. Tony Bennett. ‘I Left My Heart In San Francisco.’ Is it coming from the Rodericks’?”

“I can’t tell,” Osborne strained to listen.

Lew cleared her throat gently. “Doc, you know Alicia, right?”

“She was a close friend of my wife’s,” said Osborne. “I know her husband better.”

“Would you mind telling them?”

“Well … okay.” Osborne didn’t move. He felt his shoulders slump slightly.

“Doc … if you don’t want to …”

“No, no, that’s all right.” Osborne still didn’t move, “… Jeez, y’know, Lew, I just remembered something. This won’t be the first time they’ve gotten news like this. Their only child, their son, committed suicide.”

“Oh …,” said Lew. “Recently?”

“A good ten years ago. He had just finished med school and started his internship. It was a real shock. Mary Lee came over that day to help out…,” Osborne shook his head, “I forgot all about that until just now.”

“I assume you weren’t the one to deliver
that
news …”

“No, fortunately …” Osborne sighed and braced himself. “All right, Lew, I’m ready.” He stepped into the night, closing the car door behind him. The faint strain of music could no longer be heard. A flagstone walkway led up to an imposing front door.

“Remind me to tell you about this door later,” muttered Osborne as he reached to press the doorbell.

A massive slab of dark wood, it was adorned with a single square of leaded glass into which was etched a delicate design of a fairy princess. The door had been shipped from England right after Peter and Alicia moved in, a non-negotiable “surprise” purchase that Alicia had made in spite of her husband’s horror at the price. The door and Peter’s inability to reverse his wife’s decision had been the talk of Loon Lake husbands for years.

Osborne pressed the doorbell and listened to the chimes pealing in the distance. Though at least three years had passed since he’d been to this house, the musical notes instantly reminded him of the time, nearly thirty years ago, when he first met Alicia. He met Peter then, too, but it was Alicia who left the indelible first impression.

Their lives had first intersected at a dinner party hosted by the couple about two years after the Osbornes had moved to Loon Lake. For Osborne’s wife, the invitation to that dinner party had been like winning the lottery. It meant she’d been chosen.

Alicia and Mary Lee were introduced at a bridge club luncheon, when Mary Lee was asked to substitute for a regular. While Mary Lee recognized immediately that Alicia was a woman she dearly wanted as a friend, Alicia was more guarded.

She let outsiders into her circle slowly, carefully. Only those women whose husbands had a certain kind of professional status, only those women who clearly demonstrated that they had taste and the means to afford it, were chosen by Alicia. Osborne had found it curious to discover that Mary Lee admired this kind of discretion. It was something he hadn’t expected in his wife. But she found Alicia classy and sophisticated. She described her once to Osborne as “ ‘old’ Loon Lake, you know,” as if a community founded in 1885 and boasting a total population of 2657 could pretend to an aristocracy.

One day, Alicia chose to elect Mary Lee as a regular in the Wednesday bridge group. This meant excluding someone else, so it was an occasion of note among young Loon Lake matrons.

Then, months later, came the golden dinner invitation. From that time on, the two women were the best of friends. Only much later, years later, did Osborne understand why.

In the early days of their marriage and their life in Loon Lake, he was too busy building his dental practice and developing his own network of hunting and fishing buddies to pay much attention to the woman Mary Lee was becoming. So it wasn’t until a number of years into their life together that he became aware of traits his wife shared with her friend that he really didn’t like.

The first was an insatiable drive to acquire. They devoured the women’s magazines, constantly lobbying their husbands for the latest in everything from wallpaper to curio cabinets to six-burner stoves. The friendship between Osborne and Peter initially grew out of their mutual frustration with the many ways their wives could find to spend hard-earned dollars and the women’s ability to make their husbands feel bad for not being able to afford it all.

The second trait was an equally intense need for their children to be the first and the best in everything. Fortunately, Alicia’s only child was male and one year older than his elder daughter, Mallory, so the two never competed. Osborne did not even want to consider the consequences if they had. As it was, he had often felt left out and not a little resentful of the attention showered on his firstborn.

But he knew none of this thirty years ago. Instead, that first dinner party was great fun. Osborne was more than a little bowled over by Alicia. He found her lovely to look at, smoothly charming and, at times, a wonderfully witty woman. She had a magnetism that took over the room. And when she wanted, she could make you feel like you were just as fascinating. Alicia was the first and only woman Osborne ever had a crush on during his marriage, news he was wise enough not to share with Mary Lee. Over time, he learned that he wasn’t the only man in Loon Lake to fall under Alicia’s spell.

Peter seemed content to play back-up, to provide the stage setting for his vivacious wife. Older than Alicia by thirteen years and quite well off financially, due to his success as a manufacturer’s rep for an industrial lighting company out of Chicago, he adored and indulged her.