Dead Boogie (6 page)

When he had finished, he let the camera swing from the strap around his neck and, sitting back on his heels, covered his face with both hands. He stayed there, not moving. Just as Osborne started forward, anxious to help, Ray stood, gave a slight wave to the EMTs, and walked off. He couldn’t have gone ten feet when a cloud appeared on the crest of the hill: the van from Channel 12.

Pulling up behind one of the two ambulances parked in front of the tow truck, a stocky figure in tan slacks and a short-sleeved green plaid shirt jumped out, flung open the side door of the van, and leaned in to reach for his equipment. Dave Schoeneck, red-haired and raspy-voiced, worked for a TV station out of Rhinelander that was so small he had to function as cameraman, sound tech and reporter—simultaneously.

He spent so many hours covering high school sports and local social events that anything smacking of real news was heartily appreciated, which explained his behavior at the moment. Arms and elbows flashing, he rushed to load himself down with equipment and sprint across the gravel road, face flushed from the heat.

“Sorry, Dave,” said Lew, moving to block his way before he could get past the ambulance. “Until I have a chance to notify the families, I cannot allow the press anywhere near the scene of the accident.”

“Oh, so it’s an accident?” Dave shouldered the camera as he reached for the switch on his battery pack. He thrust a mike at Lew. “Chief Ferris, are you saying no foul play is involved? We received a call that three women had been found shot to death—”

“All that I can confirm is that we have a traffic fatality on a back road in the township of Loon Lake. No more information will be made available until the family or families of the deceased are informed. Now turn off that camera or you will spend the night in the brand-new Loon Lake jail—do I make myself clear?”

“Sure.” Dave gave her a sheepish look. “Had to get something, Chief. I persuaded the news director to let me cover this instead of Shania Twain’s bus. Ray Pradt’s the one who called and insisted I get out there. I see his truck—is he around?”

Just then he spotted Ray crossing the road toward the pickup. “Hey, guy!” said Dave. “Looks like I’m outta luck. Chief Ferris said no can do on this so-called accident. How ‘bout we shoot a quickie on that incident with the smelly fish this morning. That way at least I got
something
for the six o’clock news—where’s that hat of yours?”

“Dave, I can’t do that right now. I just … I can’t,” said Ray, backing off.

“Don’t do this to me,” said Dave. “Hell, you’re the one got me to drive all the way out here—”

“I—I—” Ray couldn’t finish. Tears glistened on his cheeks. He ducked into his truck.

The cameraman watched him, then turned to Lew. “That’s a first. You can always rely on that guy for B-roll. Well … now—why do I feel something big
is
happening out here?”

Dave took his time unloading his equipment, then climbed into the driver’s seat of the van. Lew had walked back to talk to Bruce but Osborne remained nearby, ready to buffer Ray if Dave changed his mind.

Through the rolled-down window of the van, he heard the reporter call in to the station, “Bob, send Rory over to cover Shania Twain. I’m gonna stake out St. Mary’s—the morgue. Once the families ID the corpses, we got a story. How big? Not sure yet—but it’s weird out here.”

Osborne waited to follow the ambulances into town. Lew had asked him to meet her at the morgue, where she would need help with the families once they had identified the victims. Teaming up to interrogate sources and suspects had worked so well in the past that she had come to depend on Osborne’s presence. It was yet another reason why she kept him on as a deputy.

“Y’know, Doc, it’s not the two of us asking questions,” she had said one summer evening as they were wading the Prairie River, “it’s the two of us
listening.
I hear answers to my questions—but you hear between the lines. You pick up on answers to questions I haven’t asked yet.”

Osborne gave silent thanks to this unexpected benefit of his profession. Years of practicing dentistry had taught him the source of a problem might not be in the actual symptom, but in a patient’s history or in nearly forgotten details.

“And when you’re with me, people tend to open up more easily.”

“Oh, come on—that’s because they’re afraid of dentists,” said Osborne, embarrassed by the compliment.

“Hardly,” said Lew. “I doubt anyone’s afraid of you, Doc. You have such a quiet, reassuring way—you make people feel comfortable. Even a crook responds to kindness and patience.”

Osborne was grateful for the darkening sky—she couldn’t see him blush. And who knew if it was the hatch two nights later or the lightness in his heart that prompted four brook trout to torpedo his Grizzly Kings.

Ray drove off first, then the emergency vehicles. Osborne pulled onto the road behind them—toward the main highway and in the opposite direction of the clearing.

For a third of a mile, the road continued to run straight, but then it made a sharp ninety-degree turn, following the property line of an old farmstead. Osborne slammed on his brakes and hit Reverse. He backed around the sharp corner for a good look: a windbreak of sturdy oaks. You hit those trees at fifty, sixty miles an hour …

nine

Make voyages. Attempt them. There’s nothing else.

—Tennessee Williams

Twenty
minutes after the EMTs had delivered the three corpses to the morgue at St. Mary’s Hospital, Pat Kuzynski’s mother arrived. Osborne hadn’t seen Pauline Leffterholz since fitting her with a bridge years ago. He had heard that she was widowed for the second time and running her late husband’s dog kennel in a hamlet west of Gleason.

Unsteady on her feet, Pauline moved slowly down the narrow hallway, one hand clutching the arm of a man in navy blue shorts—shorts so short they could have been swimming trunks. They
should
have been swimming trunks. Unfortunately they weren’t.

As Pauline and her escort neared, Osborne could see that under the brim of his black baseball cap, which was emblazoned with a gold Budweiser logo, were the eyes of a weasel—a weasel who appeared to a good deal younger than Pauline.

Pauline did not look good. Her eyes were dull and sunken, her skin sallow. Where she had once been a pleasant-faced woman with prominent cheekbones, generous cheeks, and a pumpkin-wide smile, now her face was pouched and drooping—ravaged by hard drinking. Though Osborne was sure she had yet to turn fifty-five, she looked seventy.

“Doc,” said Pauline, her voice deep and thick from cigarettes, “how long’s this gonna take?”

“I’m not sure, Pauline,” said Osborne. “I’ll help you through the identification here, then Chief Ferris needs to meet with us over at the Court House.”

“Fred …” said Pauline, letting go of the man in the short shorts, “I’ll meet you at the Elbow Tap later. No reason for you to be stuck here. You take the truck—I’ll call the bar when I’m finished.”

That worked for the weasel. He gave her quick peck on the cheek and fled.

“Doc?” said another voice, reedy and hesitant. Osborne spun around.

“Ralph,” said Osborne, extending a hand to a thin, stooped man dressed in jeans and a faded pink flannel shirt. With the exception of the pink shirt, the rest of Ralph Federer was gray: his hair, his skin, even his worried eyes. “I am so sorry—”

Before Osborne could finish, Ralph pointed at the swinging doors leading into the morgue: “How much you think all this is gonna cost?”

For the second time, Osborne had to admit he didn’t know.

What he did know, after a brief but close viewing of the bullet wounds in the heads of the three victims before the two parents arrived, was what had caused Ray to break down as he took that final set of photos: Peg Garmin’s face. Her eyes wide open, her teeth clenched. She had seen death coming.

It was after six when the four of them gathered in Lew’s office, their chairs spread around the front of her desk with Osborne seated off to the right. Pauline sat slumped against the arms of her chair while Ralph hunched forward, elbows on his knees, arthritic fingers clutched in a tight ball. He had been the only one to speak up so far. Pauline seemed determined to remain silent, swinging her head like a turtle when someone spoke, her eyes heavy-lidded and sullen.

“Don’t ask me,” said Ralph, repeating his ignorance of Donna’s comings and goings. “I jes dunno, Chief. Since my wife died, Donna’s always had her own place, so I don’t see too much of her. Alls I know is, she was working at Thunder Bay ‘til she could audition at the casino. Called me a couple months ago pretty excited ‘cause she got accepted to train to be a dealer up there—at the poker tables. Pays good money, y’know. Health benefits and better tips than she got dancing—”

“From the winners,” said Lew. “Losers can get touchy. Think she might have had an opportunity to be around some unhappy losers? Maybe somebody who blamed her for their losses?”

“Like I said—she was still in training,” said Ralph. “After that you gotta audition before they let you work the table. So, no, I don’t think so.”

“Boyfriends? Did she dump anyone recently?”

Ralph shrugged. Short of recognizing his daughter’s face, he seemed to know little about her life. From the sound of it, they rarely spoke. Osborne cautioned himself not make the same mistake, to stay in better touch with Mallory. Erin he chatted with daily—but Mallory… . Why did he always hang back when it came to his older daughter?

“Anyone with a grudge against
you
who might want to hurt Donna?” said Lew.

“Me! Hell, no,” said Ralph. “Ain’t got nobody I owe money to. Pay cash for everything. Ain’t even got a dog for the neighbors to shoot. What the hell makes you ask me that anyway?”

Pauline’s heavy lids had flickered when Lew asked the question of Ralph. Now she propped herself up on one elbow to say, “Ain’t nobody mad at me neither. ‘Cept two stepkids who think I got all their old man’s money when he died two years ago, which I did, but only after nursing him through three years of cancer. Don’t think I don’t deserve it. But they sure wouldn’t take that out on my Patsy … would they?”

“Who knows,” said Lew. “We have to explore all the possibilities. Pauline, what about Pat—had she been in any trouble recently?”

“Now hold on right there,” said Pauline, her tone belligerent. “My Patsy was a good girl.” She shook a finger at Lew as she said, “Just ‘cause she danced at Thunder Bay is no reason for you to think she was a slut or she did drugs or she gambled—”

“Did I say any of that?” said Lew, returning Pauline’s glare.

“You don’t have to say it—I know what you’re thinking!” The accusation was fierce.

Lew glanced down, aligned some papers on the desk in front of her, then looked up to meet the hostile eyes. “No, Pauline, you don’t know what I’m thinking. So let me tell you: I’m thinking that three women were shot to death by an individual who is still at large. How do I find that person? By doing my best to get some questions answered
as soon as possible.

“Why were these three women in that car together? Where had they been? Where were they going?”

“I got a theory,” said Ralph, shaking his head with conviction. “I’ll bet we got ourselves a serial killer hangin’ out at that damn Country Fest. You wouldn’t believe the jabones they got there.”

“That’s possible, Ralph,” said Lew with a respectful nod before turning back to Pauline. “You know my daughter worked her way through her first year of college dancing at Thunder Bay. About eight years ago.”

Pauline stared at her, speechless for a second, then said, “Not when the Broomleys owned it?”

“Yep,” said Lew. “And
those
were hard people to work for. Did you know them?”

“Oh yeah, b-a-a-d news that pair. Do you know that old lady would steal the girls’ tips right off the table before they had a chance to pick ‘em up? Used to stop by there once in a while with my first husband, and I tell you I saw her do it. Couldn’t believe my own eyes. So you had a kid who worked there, huh. You a cop then?”

“No, I was a secretary over at the mill.”

“Oh, I had a lot of friends at the mill up until a few years ago.” As Pauline spoke, her face lightened up and ten years dropped away. “Surprised we haven’t met—'course I do live way the hell down Highway 17. Can I smoke?”

Lew got up and walked over to open two windows. “Sure.”

“Where’s your daughter now?” said Pauline, reaching into her purse for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“In the Milwaukee area. She’s in the accounting business. I’ve got two grandchildren.” Lew smiled.

“That’s nice,” said Pauline. “I like hearing that. Patsy was on her way, y’know.” She lit her cigarette, sat back, and inhaled deeply. “Yep, she got rid of the creep husband and was planning to enroll at Nicolet College up in Rhinelander—she wanted to do the culinary arts thing.”

Pauline paused, turned her head to one side, and covered her eyes with the back of the hand holding the cigarette. She gave a short sob, then sat rigid in her chair. Lew stood to walk around the desk and set a box of Kleenex in her lap. Pauline plucked one and held it to her face.

As Lew returned to her chair, she walked behind Osborne. She tapped him lightly on the shoulder: his turn next.

“It’s my fault,” said Pauline, her voice muffled by tears and smoke. “I got the money for her to go to school. Why the hell didn’t I just give it to her? If she hadn’t been working at that damn club, she wouldn’t be dead.”

“How’s that?” said Lew, her voice soft.

“That’s how she got in with those two.” The bitterness in her tone made it sound like Donna and Peg were up to no good.

“You wait a minute,” said Ralph, thrusting his face at Pauline, “my Donna was a good woman. You watch what you say, lady.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Pauline, wiping at her cheeks. “I just meant they wouldn’t have all been out together if they hadn’t met, and they kinda met because of Thunder Bay.”