Dead Hot Mama (11 page)

Osborne
didn’t show up at Lew’s office until after one. The morning had started earlier than he expected with a six a.m. phone call from Ray.

“Yo, Doc, ready for breakfast?”

Osborne raised himself up on one elbow. He could have slept another half an hour. That plus the thought of everything he wanted to accomplish that day made him cranky.

“What do you need?”

“Not a thing. Just thought you’d enjoy some blueberry pancakes with me and the kids.”

“Ray, I’ve got a busy day—this is Christmas Eve.” Osborne waited.

Four years living next door to the house trailer with the neon green musky painted across the front had taught him to decode Ray’s offers. Sautéed bluegills were payback for something borrowed without asking, while an offer of pancakes was a precursor to a request for a favor, a big favor.

“Now that you mention it, I was hoping I could borrow your car this morning. Nick and I thought we’d drive Lauren up to her dad’s place in Three Lakes, then I’ll drop Nick off at his grandmother’s and get the car right back to you. That open window on my truck will be hard on the kids the way the wind is blowing this morning.”

“Yeah, well, you can fix that window, y’know.” Osborne exacted some pleasure in not making it too easy. “A little duct tape and plastic …”

“I know, I know. But, Doc, I can’t drive up to a multimillionaire’s house in a truck taped shut with duct tape. How would that look? Think how embarrassing that would be for poor Nick.”

Poor Nick, baloney. Ray was cooking up a scheme of some kind. Much as he loved his battered old truck with its missing window and the walleye leaping off the hood, what he relished most were the looks he got when he drove up. For Ray, making an entrance was a work of art—carefully planned with precision timing. Thus, any change in costume and choreography was meaningful.

Osborne had a hunch that if he could peek through the trailer window at this moment, he would see a Ray Pradt freshly showered, closely shaven, and with his beard neatly trimmed: a man in need of a nice car. No doubt about it, he was up to something.

“Why doesn’t Lauren’s father come down here and pick her up? Wasn’t that the plan anyway?”

“Well, ah …” While Ray sputtered, Osborne ran down his agenda for the morning. He had to finish trimming the Christmas tree, he didn’t mind passing on coffee at McDonald’s, as holiday chores meant that very few of his buddies were likely to show up, and Mallory’s car was available if they did need a trip into town.

“Okay, okay, take the car. But I need it back by noon. No later.”

“Love ya, man.”

As Osborne rinsed and loaded the coffeepot, he mused over his neighbor’s motives. Of course Ray wanted to drive up to Three Lakes. He was dying to meet a man rich enough to send his daughter to a prep school out east. Guys like that were prime client material. Not only did they book fishing guides on a full-day basis, but they often asked the guide to hold one day a week all summer long—and paid whether they used it or not. Yep, landing a client like Lauren’s old man could make Ray Pradt’s summer.

Maybe he was wise to play down his eccentricities until he got to know the client better. Especially in the winter when he didn’t have his boat and all his fishing equipment hitched to the back of the truck. Summertime, Ray could count on his professional accoutrements to counter the wacky personal appearance.

But there was one problem with this technique for scouting new business over the winter: He needed someone else’s car to do it. “I’m paying your overhead,” Osborne would complain, then hand over the keys.

He did owe the man. How many nights might he have skipped the meeting behind the door with the coffeepot on the front, if Ray hadn’t insisted on driving together, in his truck, window or no window. Without Ray and the AA meetings, there would be no Lew, no trout stream, no merry Christmas.

Nor was that all that he owed Ray. It was nearly three years ago now, that Osborne had called down to the little trailer desperate for help.

Nearly two feet of snow was blocking the Osbornes’ driveway the night that Mary Lee’s simmering bronchitis turned deadly. St. Mary’s emergency room was their only hope, but a raging blizzard put it an impossible six miles away.

Forget that the woman had done her best through constant haranguing to get Ray’s trailer home moved from the sight lines of her living room windows. Forget that she had called the county inspector on at least five occasions to report that his septic “technique” was highly illegal (which it was, but the inspector was a fishing buddy of Ray’s who owed him big time for the forty-seven-inch muskie mounted over his fireplace).

The intensity of Mary Lee’s animosity towards Ray had escalated to a point where Osborne finally had had enough and for only the second time in their thirty years of marriage, he told his wife to “put a lid on it.” Whereupon she stomped off and refused to talk to him for three days. To his surprise, they were not the worst three days of his life.

But all that was set aside the moment Osborne called. Ray did not hesitate to go out into the driving snow, bolt on his plow, and drive them into Loon Lake. He waited with Osborne the long two hours that ended in sorrow, then drove him in silence to his daughter’s home. When it came to tragedy and grief, Ray Pradt did not fool around.

Osborne poured a cup of coffee and walked back through the living room to look out at the lake. A gray landscape greeted him, soft with promise that the sun was lurking somewhere. At the moment, refracted through a smother of clouds, its only influence were brushstrokes of lavender and mauve crisscrossing the icy dunes. He could feel a snowstorm hovering overhead, holding back for its own reasons.

He sipped from the hot mug. Maybe he should rethink this son-in-law thing—at least that way he could write off Ray’s miles as a business expense.

The door to Lew’s office stood open, and he could hear voices from the far end of the room, opposite her desk. Osborne peered in. The armchairs she used for informal meetings had been shoved back against the wall. In their place stood an oblong metal folding table and a wooden stool. A laptop computer lay open on the table.

In front of the computer was perched a slim woman in a bright red turtleneck and black pants. Two thick catalogs on the seat of her chair boosted her high enough to bring her arms level with the keyboard. One person stood looking over her shoulder. Neither she nor Lew had heard him enter, so intent were they on the computer screen.

He recognized the visitor by her cap of sleek black hair. He enjoyed the contrast between the two women: one petite and small-boned with porcelain skin that set off the black of her hair and eyes; the other much taller with a sturdy, athletic frame. Standing beside Gina Palmer, Lew’s shoulders looked wider, her breasts fuller, her skin darker.

But Osborne knew that when they looked his way their eyes would share the same alert intelligence. And though the women could not be more different in their background and experience, Lew had once offered up her theory on why they worked so well together: “We’re on the same wavelength. That’s all. She’s ‘take no prisoners,’ and I like that.”

Osborne rapped lightly on the open door, and the two women turned. Delight spread across Gina’s face as she hopped down to head his way, dark eyes snapping.

“Doc-tor Os-borne!” she said, her voice booming as she stood on her toes and reached up to give him a big hug. He’d forgotten how loud she spoke—and how fast.

“Where have you been—I got here at eleven—and where’s that Ray guy? I need to give him my stuff before all my makeup freezes in my car, dammit.” As quickly as she had crossed the room to greet him, she hurried back to the stool. The woman had the patience of a dragonfly.

Lew leaned back against the table, arms crossed. “I told Gina she’s welcome to stay with me. I didn’t know if Nick would still be at Ray’s—”

“No, he borrowed my car to drop Nick and Lauren off this morning. Gina, you can stay at my place, too,” said Osborne. “My daughter is visiting, but I have plenty of room—”

“Thanks, you two, but no thanks.” Gina hoisted herself back up on the catalogs. “I love staying at Ray’s. I can walk from his place along the lake to my own property, which I plan to do every morning while I’m up here. Take some coffee in my thermos, sit on the bank, and reflect on my good fortune.”

“Oh, sure,” said Lew. “Stay with Ray so you can check out your property, huh. And if I believe that, what else can you sell me?” The two women laughed.

“Hey, I’m a big girl. My honor is my business.” Gina winked. “So that’s settled. Now, listen, I love you guys, and I’ve arranged to stay till New Year’s. If I can finish this up today,” she pointed at a small black unit on the table next to the computer, “I’ll have almost a week for fun and games in the snow.”

“Chief,” her voice dropped a decibel, “Does Doc know what we have here? You said he’s helping with the case.” Gina threw Osborne a quick glance. “I could not believe what Chief Ferris told me about this new coroner. I’ll do a search later today—I know I can find documentation on how towns and municipalities the size of Loon Lake require that the coroner position be filled by a licensed medical examiner—not a political appointee. I mean—this is absurd—you could have a bartender as your coroner.”

“We did—before Pecore,” said Osborne. “Gina, I’m sure Lew’s told you that documentation does not stand up to connections in a town like Loon Lake. I wouldn’t waste the time.”

“Doc, come over here and take a look,” said Lew, pointing to the computer screen. “Gina’s only been here since eleven, and she’s already got more detail on one of the victims than I was able to get out of talking to his wife and parents.”

“I downloaded his Blackberry—”

“Yeah, Bruce was wrong by the way,” said Lew. “He told me this was a Palm Pilot but it’s not.”

“O-o-h, Mr. Answer Man was incorrect? How could that be?” asked Osborne, borrowing Ray’s nickname for a type of client, always male, and always the expert on everything.

“I’m sure he meant to say it was a ‘
palmtop
,”‘ said Gina. “This model looks a lot like one of the newer Palms.”

“You’re being kind,” said Lew. She gave Osborne a look: She was ready for Bruce to make a mistake.

“We’re lucky the poor guy was smart enough to know he had to keep his battery at a decent temperature—he had that thing wrapped so tight to keep it from freezing that it prevented any water damage. It’s working great.

“And it’s a recent model, the 6710, with a neat feature: It lists all his communications, phone calls, e-mails, and so on—in the same box. Here’s what it’s told us so far … the guy was a sales rep for a paper products company, and he’s on the road quite a bit.”

“Which I know from talking to his family,” said Lew. “But not much more than that. Marlene is checking recent phone calls.”

Gina’s fingers moved over the keys. “We’ve got his appointments for sales calls, client phone numbers, personal numbers, memos on his sales calls, but the big news is the last e-mail in his inbox. Take a look, Doc.”

Gina sat back so Osborne could see what she had on the screen. “It’s a copy of an e-mail he received from a friend—who happens to be the other victim.”

She scrolled the text slowly for Osborne to read. “So they had plans to meet up at the Thunder Bay Bar … and … is that date the day they disappeared?” asked Osborne.

“Looks like it,” said Lew. “Keep reading.”

“These are directions from Thunder Bay—but to where?” asked Osborne. He tried visualizing the path of the written directions, but it wasn’t making sense. “Got an atlas, Lew? Let’s check this route on the map.”

“We think from the tone of the e-mail they were going to a party” said Gina. “The other victim was single, and he sounds excited about a plan to meet some women at a location they’re going to by snowmobile.”

“I understand that,” said Osborne. “These are the trail signs to watch for. But what is odd is here where they are supposed to turn at a landmark and travel down to another trail sign.”

“What’s odd about that?” asked Gina.

“Why not turn at another trail sign?” said Osborne. “Turning at this boulder and a fork in the trail. I don’t know. Maybe it makes sense when you see it.”

“Something else,” said Gina. “That may be the last entry, but it is not the last time someone accessed it. Someone looked at this yesterday. Your man Bruce?”

“I’m sure,” said Lew. “I told him to leave it alone. Takes orders, huh.”

“He just wants to know everything you know, Lew,” said Osborne, secretly pleased. The way things were going, nosey-rosy Bruce was nosing his way right out of a fly fishing lesson.

“Question,” said Gina, raising a forefinger. “Where’s the other guy’s palmtop? It’s likely he had one to send this, and I’m guessing he copied those directions from another e-mail. Be nice to find out who e-mailed him.”

“Nothing like that on the other victim,” said Lew. “We looked through everything in the cabin he rented over on Lake Tomahawk, too. No sign of anything like this.”

“Oh, so they weren’t staying together?” asked Gina.

“No, the owner of this Blackberry was staying with other friends outside Rhinelander—and got in late from sales calls in Wausau, which is why they made plans to meet at Thunder Bay.”

“Gina, is there a way to find out how many snowmobile riders have accidents
on
the trail versus
off?”
asked Osborne.

“Do you need an exact figure, or are you looking for a percentage? Because if a percentage is all you need, I know a quick way to do that. I’ll do a random check of the accident reports of small, medium, and large papers in the state. I’ll see what we get.”

“We have seventeen snowmobile fatalities this year—statewide,” said Lew. While they were talking, she had walked over to her desk and placed a phone call. “Is that what you’re asking?”

Before Osborne could answer, she covered the mouthpiece. “Doc, do you have the time to check out those directions with me? I can have Roger deliver our department snowmobiles to a trailhead out there.”