Dead Frenzy (5 page)

“Lew … you need a break,” said Osborne. “Roger can handle anything that comes up. As far as this young woman goes, even if she were to leave the hospital, you have her home address. She’s not a hardened criminal—she’s a kid who partied too hard.” He knew that sounded a little light, given drugs were involved, but he had seen and heard enough when he went through rehab at Hazelden to know that the girl wasn’t going to be moving too fast too soon.

Lew looked up at him and sighed. “I’m less concerned about that than who’s supplying these kids. That’s the real problem here.”

“True,” said Osborne, “but is that something you need to handle tonight?”

To his credit, for once Roger stepped up to the plate. “Look, Chief, I’ll get her car towed, I’ll call the family. I’ll call around and see what the story is on this rave thing, okay? I’ve got everything under control—you go fishing.”

“Nothing’s under control, Doc, not a thing,” said Lew as they climbed back into the fishing truck. She turned the key in the ignition and waited for oncoming traffic to clear.

“That’s not true,” said Osborne. “You run a disciplined operation.”

“Yeah, but we’re so small.” Lew shifted then, forgetting she had already turned the key once, she gave it another turn. Nellie responded with an angry grinding.

“Ouch! Sorry, Doc, I’m just so stressed right now. I’ve got that fishing tournament coming up with the damn motorcycle rally the same weekend. Then today I get a call I have to be at a five-county emergency task force meeting in Park Falls at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Who knows what the hell
that’s
all about. Jeez Louise!”

“All the more reason to take a break while you can,” said Osborne.

“You’re right.” She pulled onto the highway and swung the truck around to head north again. “By the way, thanks, Doc.” She reached over to pat his hand.

“For what—insisting you go fishing? Count on me for that anytime, kiddo.”

“I mean for the CPR. I had no idea you could do that.”

Osborne shrugged off the compliment. “You can’t practice dentistry these days without knowing CPR, Lew. Half your patients are scared to death just being in the chair, the other half forget to tell you they’re allergic to anesthetic. You better know CPR or you’ll never see a paid bill.”

Lew laughed. He loved the sound of it. That, plus the truck windows were down and the flow of warm air felt good against his face. It occurred to him suddenly that he was very happy she didn’t have a radio in the car—no one could stop them now.

“Oh, one good thing happened today,” said Lew, turning right down a gravel road. “I got your buddy, Ray, a job.”

Osborne sat back in the seat and stared at her. “You’re kidding, of course.”

Lew loved to make the point that Ray was
Osborne’s
friend. Yes, she acknowledged Ray’s talents as an expert tracker through the forests and slash and dark waters of the northwoods. “Outstanding, Doc, I agree.”

But she never let Osborne forget that the guy who had an eye rumored to be as keen as an eagle’s also had an inch-thick file in her office, one that lent new meaning to that word
outstanding.

“Misdemeanors today, felonies tomorrow,” she loved to trill when they discussed his neighbor. Osborne had to concede she was right. Ray’s file had been hefty before he was out of his teens, and his efforts at agriculture throughout his twenties only added to the department’s paperwork.

Still, on occasion, Lew would draft him as a deputy. While his reputation as a pothead and his penchant for poaching gave the good mayor and certain city council members bad dreams, it also gave Ray access. Access to walking, talking human nightmares. And Loon Lake had a few too many of those.

“Ray? You aren’t hiring him on during the tournament next week?” Osborne’s heart sank; he’d been hoping she would ask
him
to help out.

“Heavens no. Rhinelander is lending me two deputies.

You know I can’t deputize Ray unless I’ve got a serial killer on the loose. Nope, guess again.”

“A new guiding client—a
rich
guiding client.”

“Uh-uh.” Lew shook her head and gave him a sly grin. “Guess again.”

“O-o-kay … some dead out-of-towner needs a grave. An
obese
out-of-towner who needs a grave wide enough and deep enough to pay Ray’s overhead through Christmas?”

“No-o-o!” Lew chortled. “
Bodyguard
. I got him a job as a bodyguard for this woman. You may know her. She’s the star of one of the fishing shows on cable. Her name is Peyton or Hayden, something like that.”

“Ah,” said Osborne. “I heard that ESPN Two is coming in. But I don’t watch enough TV to know who you’re talking about.”

“I set it up so he’ll be paid a fair amount, too. They asked me what we pay our deputies—and I doubled it. We don’t pay our people enough, so the hell with that approach.”

“I’m surprised Ray didn’t say anything when I saw him today.”

“The Steadman people didn’t call until late this afternoon.”

“The
Steadman people
?” Osborne repeated blankly. His first thought was of Catherine with the beat-up face and her garbage truck of a husband. Those idiots with the loons tattooed all over their bodies are on television?

“Yeah, you know Parker Steadman—the billionaire who owns all the sporting goods stores, the one that started this bass tournament. He’s coming to Loon Lake later this week and bringing his wife and her television crew. Apparently they’re making a documentary of his life—the wife is, which is why she’s coming. She’s the one who needs a bodyguard.

“Hey!” Lew looked over at Osborne. “Were you his dentist? Maybe they’ll interview you. I’m sure they’ll want to talk to people who knew him when he was growing up…. ”

“Well, that’s not me. Parker Steadman is ten, maybe fifteen years younger than I am. And he didn’t really grow up here, Lew. His family is from Chicago. They owned a lot of potato land up here and had a huge summer place out on Lake Consequence. Even though he spent his summers up here, Parker Steadman’s really a city boy.”

And a major razzbonya, Osborne might have added. Up until ten years ago, when he began to make his name in sporting goods, he was better known to Loon Lake locals following his exploits in the
Wall Street Journal
as Parker the Predator—he had skirted the SEC more than once with a habit of raiding companies. But he was shrewd: Buy cheap, restructure, let the stock run up, and sell. A little too often the stock would crash shortly thereafter.

“Why on earth does his
wife
need a bodyguard? Parker’s the one investors might have the urge to kill.”

“The person who called me said she’s been the target of death threats—”

“From someone in Loon Lake? Does anyone here even know her?”

“Not
from
Loon Lake, Doc. The threats are being phoned in from somewhere outside the state—they didn’t give me details. They said they’re afraid whoever it is will follow her here.

“They seem quite worried. The woman on the phone kept insisting that I assign an officer
full-time
—twenty-four hours, in fact. I told her that was absolutely impossible. It is, you know. We don’t have the budget for that.

“So I gave them Ray’s phone number and told them that he’s done very good work for me as a deputy on special projects. I said, hey, you want someone who knows their way around, who can keep a sharp eye out—he’s the best. Don’t you agree?”

“Lew,” said Osborne, only half listening to what she was saying, “do you remember what I was saying before we stopped to help that girl? I was telling you that I bumped into Catherine Plyer today. She’s a Steadman—she was Parker’s
first
wife.”

It
had been over twenty years since he had last seen Catherine Plyer Steadman but he had not forgotten a moment of those final hours. Nor would he ever.

Osborne had just turned forty. In fact, Mary Lee still had some leftover birthday cake sitting on the counter that June morning that Tim Knudson stepped out in front of him, blocking his way to the door that led to the stairs to his office over the Merchants State Bank building.

“Doctor Osborne? Do you have a minute?”

At first, given the intense look in Tim’s eyes, Osborne assumed he was in pain from an abscessed tooth. Tim’s uncle and Osborne frequently fished muskie together in those days, and Tim had been a patient of his for several years.

Osborne checked his watch. “I have a patient in ten minutes, Tim. I’m sure we can work you in later this morning.”

“No, no, that’s not the problem. Dr. Osborne…. ” Tim, who was the operations manager for the telephone company, whose offices were right around the corner, looked hard at Osborne before saying, “Are you all right?”

Osborne chuckled, taken aback. His first thought was that his buddies were pulling a prank of some kind. “Am
I
all right? No, I’m not all right, Tim—I’m forty.”

But the man wasn’t kidding. “Dr. Osborne, someone is making obscene phone calls from your office. The police will be in touch with you shortly, but I talked to my uncle and he suggested that I talk to you first. We, ah, neither of us can believe that you’re the type that—”

For a brief moment, Osborne was speechless. “My office? Are you sure …
my
office?”

“Someone has made half a dozen calls to three different women in the last week. Not only have we traced the calls to your office phone but the women—they’re all patients of yours, Dr. Osborne.”

Osborne didn’t know what to say.

Tim continued, “The calls were all made at seven forty-five in the morning and it’s a man’s voice…. ” Tim waited. The sad, worried look on his face told Osborne everything. “I thought … well, the police are willing to keep this confidential if we can work something out.”

Osborne resisted an overwhelming feeling of rage. Anger would not help. He took a deep breath, dropped his head, and thought hard for a long minute.

“Tim, I don’t get to the office until eight or five after, my first patient is at eight-fifteen. I have a ten-minute walk from my home, which I do every morning, and I have several neighbors or friends that I greet on the way—so you can check on my whereabouts at the time the calls are made.

“My receptionist isn’t here much before me—
and
it’s a young woman. I’m assuming you’ve tapped the women’s lines? Did you tape the calls?”

“Just the last one. She got called two days in a row so we were able to set up and wait. We were lucky—the calls aren’t made every day. Doctor, who besides you has access to your office and your office phone?”

“No one—no, wait … I gave Catherine a key so she can open and close. I wonder if someone might have gotten a hold of her key. Come on up and we’ll talk to her. Oh yes—and there’s the woman who cleans for me.”

“It’s a
man’s
voice.” Osborne could see the uncertainty in Tim’s face. He wasn’t sure yet that Osborne was not the perpetrator. Osborne could understand that. One of his best friends in college had turned out to be a peeping torn, had terrified neighborhoods for months before he was found out. Who was to say a dentist couldn’t be off-kilter.

“Any call this morning?” asked Osborne.

“No, we waited until just before I walked over here—nothing today.”

“Tim, let me go upstairs and think about this. Maybe I’m forgetting something—”

“I’d like to go up with you and look around if I may.”

Osborne balked at that. What would his patients think?

“I know, I know.” Tim raised a hand. “I’ll just say we’ve got a line out of whack. But I would like to check this out. I’m afraid it’s either me or someone from the police department—”

“Fine,” said Osborne, giving up.

They were nearing the top of the dark, narrow stairway that opened into a hall at the end of which were Osborne’s offices, when the door at the bottom of the stairs opened. The light, lovely eyes of seventeen-year-old Catherine Plyer looked up at them.

“Sorry I’m late, Dr. Osborne,” she said, bounding cheerfully up the stairs. Osborne decided not to say anything yet; he didn’t want to frighten her.

While Tim walked through the examining rooms and the hallway that made up Osborne’s dental office, Osborne hung up his sport coat, pulled on his light blue gown, then stepped into the bathroom to scrub.

He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like he always did: wavy jet-black hair, black-brown eyes, and a deep tan from the sun reflecting off the waters he fished at least four to five times a week. He might be forty but he prided himself on looking much younger thanks to the high forehead and strong cheekbones that he owed to his Meteis grandmother. He knew he was a tall, good-looking man. What he didn’t know was if he was losing his marbles. How could someone be making obscene phone calls from his sacred space without his knowing?

Just then it dawned on him. “Tim!”

He stepped into the hall and motioned to Tim to follow him into the back room. Once there, he closed the door and indicated with his hand that they should keep their voices low. The room where they were standing was a combination study-supply room. Quite small, all it held was an easy chair that faced two windows four feet away, a coat rack to the right of the chair where Osborne hung his sport coat, winter coat, and an extra dental gown. The rest of the space was given over to shelving on which he kept a selection of dental supplies.

“I forgot about this,” said Osborne, pointing to a door at the back of the room. He opened it and flipped a light switch. This was a storeroom. Very tidy with more supplies neatly stacked on shelving in front and to the right of them as they peered in. To the left was another door.

“I keep this locked,” said Osborne. “It opens into the McKenzie law firm’s front office. When I moved in here, their offices and mine had been used by a title company. They were split to make room for us.”

“So someone from the law firm could enter through here?” said Tim.

“If they had a key.”

“Doc, do you have a key?”

“Yes, right here.” Osborne reached into his pocket for the ring with his three office keys. “Downstairs front door, my office door, this door.” Osborne noticed Tim’s use of the more familiar “Doc.” He felt a glimmer of relief.

“Does that young woman at the front desk have copies of all three?”

“No, not the key for this door. No reason for her to.”

“Okay—let’s go next door,” said Tim.

Fifteen minutes later, after a brief talk with a shocked Harry McKenzie, Tim and Osborne left his office. Harry, who was just back from a two-week fishing trip to Canada, had an alibi so his involvement was out of the question. But he was quite shaken at the thought that one of his two partners—or their paralegal—might be up to no good. Osborne felt sorry for him but he was enormously relieved to see the suspicion shifted.

Still, someone was invading his office and, worse, terrorizing his patients.

Between the three of them, they decided on a plan. Now it was Harry’s wish to avoid any more police involvement than was absolutely necessary. Assuming the perpetrator was someone in his firm, he would hope to negotiate a warning rather than an arrest. After a quick call from Tim to the police officer handling the complaints, they had an approval to proceed.

At six-thirty the next morning, Tim and Osborne arrived at Harry’s office. He was waiting. No one else had arrived yet. A quick glance down the hall showed that Osborne’s office was dark, too.

Entering the storeroom through the door in Harry’s reception area, Tim and Osborne opened the door that led to Osborne’s study. The office was dark and silent. They decided to hide in the bathroom. Osborne checked his watch: six-fifty.

At seven thirty-five, they heard a key turn in a lock. It was the front door to Osborne’s office. The door opened, closed. Footsteps. Tim and Osborne looked at each other. What if Catherine was early? Would she need to use the bathroom? They would scare her to death. The two men waited anxiously but the footsteps stopped at the front desk.

Tim cracked the bathroom door slightly. Papers rustled, the wheels on the receptionist’s chair squeaked. Silence. Then the sound of a rotary phone dialing.

A man’s voice, low, insulting, obscene. Tim edged toward the bathroom door. They knew whoever it was could make that call and leave before Catherine arrived. Neither Tim nor Osborne intended for that to happen.

Just as they were ready to throw open the door, the man’s voice changed its low, intimate, insidious mutter. It took on a shrill, angry tone as it shouted, “Lady, this isn’t your husband! This is an obscene phone call.” And the phone was slammed down hard.

Tim bolted for the hallway, followed by Osborne.

The caller stood over the desk, hand still resting on the phone. Tall, angry, and dressed in a short white nurse’s uniform. It was Catherine. Or as Osborne would always remember it—the
other
Catherine.

Tim stepped back as Osborne moved forward. “Catherine … you—?”

She turned and stared. Her eyes were dark, burning. Then she started to walk toward him, her head high and thrust forward like the rabid raccoon that had stalked him in his yard that spring. Fear galvanized Osborne. He backed away.

“Out, get out,” he managed hoarsely. “Get the hell out of my office.”

Catherine laughed. A harsh, deep laugh. Without taking her eyes off Osborne, she reached down for her purse and swung it over her shoulder. Then, in a swift move, she grabbed the phone and threw it at them. Osborne ducked. By the time he looked up, she was gone.

Catherine Plyer was the daughter of a prominent professional man. No one wanted to make an issue of the situation, certainly not the police. As far as Osborne, Tim, and Harry McKenzie ever knew, she wasn’t even warned. But the phone calls stopped.

“Hmm,” was all Lew said when he’d finished. “Hmm.” She drove in silence for about a minute. “You must have run into her after that—what happened then?”

“I didn’t, actually. The few occasions that I might have seen her, like at the grocery store, I managed to avoid her. The family wasn’t Catholic so it’s not like I would have seen her at church. Anyway, she left town not too long after that.”

“That must be why I never knew her,” said Lew. “Because I knew those brothers. Dickie’s living back up here, y’know. He was arrested in Vilas County last year for dealing coke, and I had him overnight in the Loon Lake jail when Vilas County’s facility was undergoing some renovations. His lawyer got him out on a technicality of some sort. Bruce Johnson, the new sheriff up there, didn’t think old Dickie was the brightest bear in the woods. He was trying to figure out who was giving orders. I wonder if it’s the big sister?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her. I wouldn’t put anything past that woman. If Parker Steadman shows up, you should ask him about her, Lew.”

“How long were they married?”

“Don’t know. And what I do know was told to me by Mary Lee so I’m sure the details were more than a little twisted. But keep in mind Catherine, as I said earlier, was a very pretty young woman in those days, very attractive.”

What Osborne didn’t say was that the girl was too attractive. There had been moments in the office when he had had to remind himself that she was seventeen and he was a married man, a father. He had never known, before or since, a woman who could ooze sex like the young Catherine Plyer.

“It was that same summer of my run-in with her that she started dating Parker Steadman and got pregnant. They were married pretty soon after that and moved to Minneapolis, if I remember right. Maybe it was Chicago … anyway, wherever it was, he had a job in the family business.

“The next thing we heard was the baby was born and the couple split. Only they didn’t just split—this is Mary Lee’s version now—Catherine
assaulted
Parker. His family was so horrified, they paid her off. They paid her to file for divorce. We heard it was a lot of money, which she took—and disappeared.”

“Until today.”

“Until today.”

“What do you mean she assaulted him? Like what—beat him up?”

Osborne looked over at Lew. “She shot at him. With a deer rifle. Obviously missed, but the story was she tried to kill him. But see, this was all rumor. Who knows if that’s what really happened. I mean, there aren’t that many women who can handle a deer rifle.”

“Unless you grow up hunting with your brothers. And those two boys were pretty proficient with firearms, I can tell you that. They were a dangerous duo, Patty Boy and Dickie, people you don’t want to tangle with if you don’t have to.

“Hey—enough of that. Here we are.”

Lew slowed the truck. At a small sign reading
birch lake
, she turned right. As Nellie bounced along, Osborne stole glances at Lew’s face. He really enjoyed watching her demeanor change as they neared a fishing spot. It happened every time: The worry lines dropped away, her brow lightened, fatigue disappeared, and by the time she parked, she was grinning like a kid.

Osborne knew the feeling well—happened to him, too: sixty-something going on sixteen.