Victoria Houston - Loon Lake 14 - Dead Lil' Hustler (3 page)

A crackle from the police radio interrupted her thoughts.

“Chief Ferris? Dani, here. I’m back at the station—is Dr. Osborne’s grandson okay?”

“They’re running tests,” said Lew. “See you in a minute, Dani, I’m only a few blocks away—”

“That’s why I radioed, Chief. The Forestry Service called in a few minutes ago. Two kayakers found a body in the Pine River. Sounds like it’s in bad shape—like really dead. Y’know—like bones and all?”

Lew couldn’t help getting a kick out of Dani’s take on some of the situations that the police had to deal with. The young woman had never considered herself a candidate for police work but after being assigned to help the Loon Lake Police with an investigation at the local tech college, she surprised everyone, including herself, with a natural talent for using the computer for advanced searches and data analysis.

“I’m a geek and I never knew it,” she had laughed when praised for using the computer to locate the source of criminal activity on the college campus.

It didn’t take much for Lew to convince her she had a future on the investigative team. Although the nineteen-year-old changed her major at the tech college from cosmetics to law enforcement, she had not lost her less-than-sophisticated perspective on dead bodies.

“Yeah, so, at first the ranger who took the call thought they must have found a dead bear but the kayakers told him bears don’t wear snowmobile suits so—”

“Okay, okay,” said Lew with a sigh. “I’ll get Pecore on the line and have him meet me there. Do you have an exact location?”

“Yes, I do,” said Dani.

Lew pulled over to jot down the directions.

“Damn,” she said to herself as she scrolled through the numbers on her cell phone looking for Pecore’s home number. Wasn’t the day bad enough without being forced to work with that razzbonya?

Thanks to his brother-in-law, Loon Lake’s longtime mayor, Pecore had been appointed Loon Lake’s coroner in perpetuity or, at least, until the mayor expired. This was in spite of the fact that his prior work experience was limited to running a tavern—though which side of the bar he preferred was a subject for debate among many Loon Lake citizens.

Worse had been Pecore’s longtime habit under the former chief of police of letting his two golden retrievers into the coroner’s office and its long-out-of-date small morgue where bodies had once been stored until identified. More than once the dogs had been seen nosing around the shelves holding evidence bags—thus violating the chain of custody and compromising more than one criminal case. The nightmare among some Loon Lake families had been that the dogs may have had access to the dearly departed stored nearby.

Outraged when she heard about Pecore’s habits—and after being promoted to Chief—Lew had been able to limit his access to evidence and the bodies of the deceased. Given he was not a pathologist, she effected a policy change that ensured that the bodies of any victims not claimed by families were now stored in the hospital morgue before being sent south for autopsies.

Time and again Lew had argued that Pecore should be replaced by someone with credentials in the health-care field, each time struggling to find a nice way to say that the man was so incompetent she worried he would declare a live person “dead”—and get them all sued.

These days the one redeeming factor for Loon Lake’s Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris was Pecore’s habit of spending a good chunk of his days and most of his nights so over-served that she had a handy excuse for deputizing a certain retired dentist to step in for him. Pecore didn’t mind—he was salaried.

But this was no day to ask Doc to help out.

Punching Pecore’s home number into her phone, Lew sighed as she waited for the usual voicemail. Neither Pecore nor his wife believed in answering their phone. If they didn’t pick up, she decided after two rings, she would drive right over to his house and physically tear numbnut away from the
History Channel
. All he had to do today was declare a poor soul dead who had been in the water for months. She hoped he could rise to the occasion for once. It was ten in the morning but this wouldn’t be the first time she might find him on his fourth or fifth beer.

To her surprise a cheery male voice answered.
Cheery and sober
. “Hello, this is Ed Pecore—is this Dr. Portman?”

“Sorry, Pecore, this is Chief Ferris. Who’s Dr. Portman?”

“Oh.” The disappointment in Pecore’s voice was palpable. “He’s my orthopod, what’s up?”

Lew couldn’t help but notice how quickly he changed the subject.

“I’m calling because I need the services of our trusty Loon Lake coroner this morning,” she said, trying hard to sound friendly. “Couple kayakers just called in saying they found a body in the Pine River over in the national forest. Sounds like a snowmobiler who went through the ice a few months ago—so be prepared. Got a pen? I’ll give you directions where to meet me.”

“Guess I don’t have much choice, do I?” asked Pecore in a dull tone.

Before he hung up, Lew made him repeat the directions to be sure he had them right.
An orthopod, huh,
thought Lew as she put her phone away.
Wonder if he’s having some surgery? That would explain why he’s still sober.
She knew that anyone about to have a knee or hip replacement would be told by some orthopedic surgeons to stay off alcohol for at least two weeks beforehand. Now wouldn’t that be just like Pecore—schedule major surgery and not tell her until the last minute?

Turning the squad car around, Lew headed for the entrance to the national forest. She had been relieved to find the man fairly articulate, but then the day was young. Because her mind kept wandering back to the events of the morning, she found she had to check the directions from Dani twice. Even so she still managed to miss the side road leading back to where she needed to be. Frustrated, she willed herself to concentrate on the dire task ahead. Nevertheless, she knew the grave concern on Doc’s face would haunt her morning.

• • •

It had been three years since Lewellyn Ferris and Dr. Paul Osborne met unexpectedly on a riverbank one quiet June evening. Lew was there because the owner of Ralph’s Sporting Goods had hired her to teach one of his customers how to cast a fly rod. Not yet promoted to chief, she had the time and jumped at the chance to moonlight teaching the sport she loved.

She assumed the customer would be similar to others Ralph had sent her way: a young doctor, college professor, or engineer—the classic young professional—new to the Northwoods, home of the largest population of native brook trout in the country. But to her surprise the student she was expecting was not the usual young professional but her dentist! At least he
had been
her dentist. It was two years since Osborne had retired from his practice.

She learned later that her new student had been just as surprised. He had been told to meet “Lou”—whom he assumed was a guy—for a lesson in casting a fly rod. Not just any fly rod but one that he had purchased years earlier and never used for a rather sad reason, as Lew would discover as she got to know Osborne better.

Over the months that Lew and Osborne spent time together in the water—thanks to his interest in having her teach him how to cast and to a personal chemistry that surprised them both—she could tell that Mary Lee, his late wife, had not been a woman naturally given to kindness. Nor was she appreciative of the time her husband might need to refuel from long hours in the dental office by spending time on the water fishing alone or with other fishermen.

From the snippets of information that escaped from Osborne during moments when he let down his guard while wading in the trout stream, Lew was able to piece together an understanding of his life as a husband and a father and a man who had loved the outdoors since childhood. That was when she learned the history behind his showing up for his first lesson with the fly rod. Even though he was a longtime muskie fisherman, Osborne said he had been so intrigued by the stories of friends touting the thrills of fishing “the shark of the north” that he had decided to give it a try and bought himself a fly rod.

“Problem was,” he told Lew, “I forgot to ask permission.”

Once Mary Lee got wind of the $300 purchase, she had ranted for days. “What? You already fish two days a week. Look at all the money spent on those dumb fishing lures and muskie rods. Paul, I need a new sofa—not a fishing rod!” Osborne had shared that story in a tone of embarrassment as if he had made a mistake and should have known better.

To appease his wife, he had hidden the rod away without ever attaching a reel or threading the fly line. But with Mary Lee now “redecorating the big house in the sky” (as his neighbor, Ray Pradt, liked to say) he was free to give fly-fishing a try.

Lew, on hearing of Mary Lee’s reaction to her husband’s interest in learning something new and exciting (to him), was happy she would never have to meet the woman. She also found herself admiring Osborne’s loyalty to a wife who did not (in Lew’s opinion) deserve it.

That first night of instruction three years ago went so well that Osborne asked if he could have another lesson… and another. As the lessons multiplied, Lew could see that Osborne might be a man of a certain age but young at heart with an enthusiasm for spending time in the trout stream that matched hers.

During the first winter that she had known him, she taught him how to tie trout flies. A man who had loved the field of dentistry where he worked with agile fingers in a small space, Osborne delighted in the art of tying trout flies and was happy to find a new hobby in his retirement. Before long, he had decided to rename a seldom-used space in his house (his late wife’s beloved formal dining room) and called it the “dead animal room,” filling it with all the tools and accessories needed for tying trout flies: more feathers and moose manes, squirrel tails and hunks of deer hair than he could use in a lifetime. The nights that Lew chose to bring her equipment and tie beside him were the best. After an hour or more of fly tying, they would retire to sit in front of the log fire burning in his living room. Fine evenings that ended well.

During these hours Lew learned that although Osborne might be retired from his dental practice, he had never left the science, especially his interest in forensic odontology with which he’d had experience when he was in the military. Because forensic dentistry remains the gold standard for identifying dead bodies, Lew was delighted to discover she might have an alternative to the dreaded Pecore.

And so it was that Osborne found himself deputized so often he began to think of helping out the Loon Lake Police Department as his second career. It did not hurt that the position of deputy coroner kept him close to his fly-fishing instructor.

• • •

Lew drove her squad car onto a grassy area alongside the road where two forest rangers and Pecore were waiting. Behind the three men, she could see a hint of a path, likely a deer trail, leading into the woods.

“I asked the kayakers who found the body to stay at the site,” said one of the rangers as she approached. “I wasn’t sure if you and Mr. Pecore could find us if we didn’t wait for you out here. It’s about a half-mile trek to get back there—think you can make it?” As he spoke, he gave Pecore a worried glance. A skinny, small-boned man with a face wizened by weather and booze, Pecore had walked with a limp ever since Lew had known him. The half-mile trek might be a challenge.

“I’ll give it a try but I’m scheduled for a hip replacement later this week,” said Pecore, “might need a hand if it’s rocky or steep.” He looked at Lew and said, “How ’bout you take some photos and I wait here?”

“Good try, Pecore, but I’m afraid that’s not legal,” said Lew in a dry tone. She didn’t add that she knew he knew better. How many times had he been chastised by the Wausau Crime Lab for his sloppy work? She shook her head and the forest rangers motioned for them to follow. Against her better wishes, Lew decided to walk behind Pecore in case he fell.

After pausing three times to let Pecore catch his breath, they arrived at the Pine River where a man and woman in shorts and T-shirts stood, waiting. Two dark green kayaks had been pulled onto a hillock of swamp grass behind them.

As Lew approached, walking ahead of the rangers and Pecore, the woman pointed to a spot twenty feet away. A once-vivid neon green-and-black snowmobile suit bobbed in the gentle rhythm of the slow-moving current.

“Everyone, please stay back,” said Lew, scanning the riverbank for footprints. She was hoping to see that very little had been disturbed in the area surrounding the body. “I want one path up to and back from the victim with only two of us examining the body—myself and Mr. Pecore, the Loon Lake coroner. Mr. Pecore,” she waved Pecore forward, “would you examine the remains while I get details from the witnesses, please?”

After writing down the couple’s names and address, she asked them how they had discovered the corpse.

“Pretty simple,” said the man, “just paddling through here and watching for loon nests when we spotted it. I work for the DOT in Rhinelander so I called into our office and asked them to call 911. I knew the back road we took to where we put in but it isn’t well marked. I was hoping the office could pinpoint our location here through the GPS on my phone. Easier than asking a 911 operator to guess. I hope I did the right thing.”

“You did fine,” said Lew, watching as Pecore leaned over the body, which was lying face down. “Hey, before you touch anything,” said Lew, dashing over to grab Pecore by the arm, “put these on—on the off chance this isn’t an accident. Please, Pecore, it only takes two seconds to be careful. Recently I’ve had too many families question circumstances and demand autopsies. And autopsies cost a lot of money so let’s be sure.” What she didn’t mention was the way the Wausau boys from the crime lab rolled their eyes every time they had to deal with Pecore’s shoddy reports and sloppiness in the vicinity of crime scenes. She handed him a pair of Nitrile gloves. “No unnecessary moving of that body and no fingerprints.”

“Oh gosh—you really think someone might have killed this person?” asked the woman. “We’ve been thinking whoever it is must have gone through the ice by accident.”