Dead Water (11 page)

“I’d like to be a good father. I’d like to not embarrass the kid, y’know?” Ray stood up and stretched. “Thanks, Doc. Time for bed. And no booze … I promise.” He picked up his chair and started to walk north toward his own property. When he reached the path he could follow through the trees to his trailer, Osborne called out.

“Ray,” he said softly, knowing his voice carried through the still air. Ray paused on the rise above him, his face hidden in the shadows. “I didn’t keep
all
my promises. Look at Mallory.”

“She’s you through and through, Doc.”

“She’s having a hard time. That’s my fault.”

“C’mon, we all have to find our own way.”

And then he was gone.

Osborne remained where he was, rocking. The loon called. Mourning. Once. Twice. And yet again. For the first time in a long time, Osborne felt at peace. He had no idea why.

The pockets were heavy in his old fishing pants. Osborne looked down in surprise. He hadn’t seen these pants in years. Didn’t Mary Lee throw these out? He pulled at the waistband to adjust the trousers. The weight was pulling them down.

Damn. What
did
he have in his pockets, anyway? Thrusting both hands deep, he yelped in surprise as something clamped hard on both sets of fingers, clamped and bit and kept on biting.

Screaming with pain, Osborne yanked both hands out.

The teeth in his pockets began chattering. The two mouths opening and closing in a fierce staccato, leaping against the fabric as though they could tear right through the pockets. Terrified that they might come at his eyes, at his face, Osborne struggled with his belt. He couldn’t get it undone, he couldn’t get the pants off! My God, they were biting through the fabric. He screamed.

He woke to a pitch-black room. Mike’s anxious wet nose pushed against his shoulder. Osborne lay perfectly still, registering where he was. He was in his own bed, he wasn’t wearing pants, no teeth were coming at him. He flexed his hands where they lay at his sides. They were free.

He shivered in the dark and sat up to reach for the quilt and the sheet that he had thrown off.

“It’s okay, Mike,” he whispered to the black Lab who now had a paw up on the pillow. “Go lie down. Be a good dog.” Mike gave a quizzical cock of his head, turned, and loped back to his sheepskin pillow.

But even as Osborne dozed off, he could still feel where the teeth had seized his flesh.

thirteen

“Of course, folk fish for different reasons. There are enough aspects of angling to satisfy the aspirations of people remarkably unalike.”

Maurice Wiggin

Gina
Palmer flew down the stairs from the Northwest plane and pushed through the doors of the Rhinelander airport like a dragonfly in flight.

She was dressed all in black and quite tiny, though her slim figure was topped with a largish head. Her big eyes were startling in their intense blueness against luminous white skin. Or maybe it was just the intensity with which she stared as she headed in his direction. Osborne braced himself for a landing.

She headed toward where he stood behind the small cluster of people waiting just beyond the security door. “Dr. Osborne?” Her voice was deep and loud, the voice of a woman three times her size.

“How did you know?” he blurted.

“You look like a dentist,” she said. “No, of course not.” Her voice might be loud, but it was friendly. “Look around. How many older gentlemen do you see? You told me you were retired, right? And I was hoping you weren’t that idiot over there with the fish on his head.”

Osborne glanced around. She was right. The only other people in the tiny airport were a young couple greeting an elderly woman and two college boys, probably camp counselors, lining up a gaggle of youngsters that had been on Gina’s flight.

“You’re very observant,” he said.

“Not really.” She shifted a bulging black leather bag to another shoulder. “Years of reporting make it second nature. You rarely have more than fifteen seconds before the cops bump you from the crime scene, so you grow fast eyes.”

“You have luggage?”

“I sure hope so,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting a puddle-jumper. They stuck my carry-on underneath and made me check my computer. Where will I—oops, I see it.”

“Yep, right there.” Osborne pointed to a metal bin, which was the top of a luggage carousel in the middle of the one-room airport. Next to the carousel, elevated on a wooden stand, was a plastic column housing a display of local real estate agents. At the moment, it was also supporting the right arm of Ray Pradt, who leaned against it as he sipped from a cup of hot coffee.

“My people are on United,” he said, waving his cup to catch Osborne’s eye. “Looks like they’re a few minutes late.”

“Ray, I’d like you to meet Gina Palmer,” said Osborne as they walked toward the carousel. Before he could finish the introduction, Ray had curled the upper right corner of his lip and let go with a bird sound. The soft trill went on for several seconds before ending with a “tyeep.” Then Ray set his cup down on top of the case and extended his right hand.

Osborne sighed. Ray’s lack of appropriate behavior would drive him nuts someday. Here he was with a woman still grieving over the death of a close friend, and Ray had to make weird noises.

“Gina, this is Ray Pradt. He moonlights as a deputy for Chief Ferris when she needs us.”

“Apparently he moonlights as a warbler as well.” Gina kept a straight face.

“Nope. Robin,” said Ray. “Spring song.”

“Ray is one of our premier fishing and hunting guides.” Osborne gave his buddy a dim eye as he hastened to correct Gina’s first impression. “Excellent tracker. Best in the region. He’s helping out on this case.” He motioned to Ray to remove his hat, which he did, hiding it behind his back.

“I apologize,” said Ray as he shook her hand. “I thought you were someone else. I realize this is a sad occasion—”

“Forget it,” interrupted Gina. “We’re all here to do something about it. That’s what counts.” Her clipped tone made it obvious she wanted nothing more said about Ashley Olson’s death at the moment. If she was grieving, she was keeping it to herself.

Osborne checked his watch; Lew was expecting them in Wausau in one hour. He was surprised the luggage wasn’t up yet. It only had to be carried a few hundred feet from the plane.

Suddenly, Gina flashed Ray a generous smile, looking him up and down. “How interesting; you’re a fishing guide,” she said, cocking her head. “Depending on how long I end up staying, maybe you’d have time to take me out?”

“I dunno,” said Ray. “I’m not sure what my schedule is over the next few days. Doc here’s darn good. Maybe he can take you out.”

Osborne was stumped. This was the first time he hadn’t known Ray to jump at the chance to take an attractive woman fishing. Brother, he
had
to be stressed over the kid’s arrival.

Impatient with the delay on the luggage, Doc checked his watch again. Gina, on the other hand, was enjoying the attention of the two men. She crossed her arms and spread her feet apart as if to balance herself against the weight of her heavy leather bag. “I feel like I just walked into Banana Republic, you two. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much khaki. Is this like a local costume or something? Maybe I need to buy some if I want to fit in, huh?” She laughed. Her laugh was musical, bell tones moving up and down the treble scale, filling the small room. Ray grinned at her pleasure.

Osborne gave a soft chuckle. Again she was right. Almost every day of the summer he wore khaki. He owned exactly three pairs of good khaki pants and ten or more variations in shirts. Khaki was easy; it was formal enough for anything you ever had to do in Loon Lake, yet you were ready to fish on a moment’s notice. Khaki was cool in the sun, warm in the breezes, and the shirtsleeves protected from mosquitoes.

Ray, too, was always in khaki, though today he had dressed with particular care. Like Osborne, he was wearing freshly laundered and pressed pants, khaki of course. But his shirt was one Osborne hadn’t seen before: an expensive hemp fishing shirt, albeit khaki in color. Given his propensity to have walleyes embroidered across everything, including his underwear, today he was unusually sartorially restrained. Not a walleye was in sight. And for the moment, the stuffed trout was hidden behind his back.

Osborne was about to compliment him on this restraint when Gina, leaning to peer around Ray’s lanky form, piped up, “So what’s with that hat?”

“Ah, the hat …” Now this Ray could deal with. Anxiety-ridden or not, he could always talk about his hat. Pulling it out from behind his back, he placed the precious object carefully on his head, backed off from the plastic column, bent his knees to better see his reflection, and carefully set it at a jaunty angle. He looked from side to side, then gave it yet another slight adjustment. Finally, he straightened up and turned to look down into Gina’s questioning eyes. “You’ve heard the famous saying, “ ‘A fish on a bonnet is worth ten on a plate?’ ”

“Yes, I have, and that’s not how it goes,” said Gina. “It’s ‘A
bird
on a bonnet—’ ”

“Oh, picky, picky,” said Ray, obviously tickled. “Now how do you know that?”

“I’m a newspaper editor,” said Gina. “I spend my life checking facts. Facts and phrases and anything else I don’t believe. I’m very good at what I do, too.”

“I’ll bet you are.” Something in Ray’s tone made Osborne believe he might change his mind about taking this woman fishing.

Meanwhile, Osborne had noticed something was different about the hat. He was still trying to decide exactly what it was when Ray caught his eye.

“I made me a new one last night, Doc, a summer version. How do you like it?”

The new hat featured the same stuffed trout, but this specimen rode on a baseball cap instead of the usual leather hat with its fur-lined earflaps tucked up. The head and tail of the fish still protruded over Ray’s ears, but he had replaced an antique muskie lure with a brilliant coral red walleye jigging spoon that was hooked across the breast of the fish. The jig, known locally as Ray’s Jive Baby, was his own design and one he was hoping to patent. Ray referred to it fondly as his retirement account.

“This is your marketing dollar at work, I take it?” said Gina.

“You might say that,” said Ray. “I’m known for my first impressions.”

As legendary as Ray’s hat was, Osborne, who had survived the adolescence of two daughters, wondered if Ray had any idea what effect he could have on an unsuspecting teenager. Osborne opened his mouth, then he closed it. Then he opened it again. He owed Ray. He would not let him go into dangerous territory unwarned.

“Do you really want to do this to a sixteen-year-old?”

Ray looked confused. “Why? What? I think I look pretty good, don’t I?”

Osborne shrugged. He would say nothing more, especially in front of Gina. Maybe it was better the kid find out sooner rather than later, anyhow.

“Do you mind if I ask what you two are talking about?” said Gina.

Just as she spoke, the baggage carousel gave a great creaking sound and coughed up one piece of luggage. As she walked toward it, Ray waved. “Here’s my flight, folks. See you later, Doc.”

fourteen

“There is more to fishing than catching fish.”
Attributed to Dame Juliana Berners, fifteenth century

Waiting
off to the side while Gina made arrangements for a rental car she could pick up later, Osborne had a good view of Ray and the passengers alighting from the United Airlines flight, which had just landed. Six people made their way down the shaky metal stairway and toward the airport lobby. Elise was not among them.

Osborne was not surprised. It fit that she would send a young kid off alone to meet a strange man purported to be his father. She probably had a hair appointment she couldn’t break. Once again, Osborne wondered how Ray could be so good-hearted and so fair with people, yet refuse to recognize when his generosity was not returned.

A tall, gangly teenager wearing long, baggy black shorts and a wrinkled oversize purple T-shirt that said “Byte Me” in orange pushed through the plate glass doors, and Osborne could see that Elise had arrived after all. She was all over the face of the kid. His features were raw. He had yet to grow into the heavy bones of his brow, his cheekbones, and his jaw, but his eyes were his mother’s: dark, almond-shaped, and slightly tipped. And even as Osborne knew Elise as a tall, full-breasted woman, he wasn’t surprised to see this kid was already a good six feet two, maybe six four even.

But what if his height came close to Ray’s towering six feet five? Would he have the man’s grace? Could he ever slip through a forest as silently as a deer? Move as swiftly to set a fishhook or dodge the death grip of a snapping turtle? Would he inherit his father’s eye for signs on the forest floor, his ear for the secrets in the wind?

If this was indeed the son of Elise and Ray, which would he most resemble? The one for whom wealth had nothing to do with money? Or the one for whom money was worth the sale of body and soul? Osborne rocked back and forth on his heels, hands deep in his pockets, as he watched the two men approach each other. He was certain Elise was lying. But how would Ray ever know?
We’ll see
, thought Osborne.
We’ll just see.

Ray stepped forward to greet the boy, a friendly smile on his face and hands extended palms up as if he was offering a plate of his superb fried chicken. The kid mumbled something Osborne couldn’t hear, holding tight with one hand to the strap of a backpack slung over one shoulder and to a small black briefcase hanging from his other arm. A polite expression was fixed on his face, betraying nothing he might be thinking about the man in front of him, the handsome bearded man with the fish on his head.

Ray stepped back to let the boy walk past, then laid a light hand on the kid’s shoulder. The boy gave a quick, imperceptible shrug, and Ray dropped the hand. He looked about as if he had stumbled and wondered if anyone had seen him. He caught Osborne watching from where he stood just a few yards off.