Dead Water (12 page)

“This way,” he said to the boy with a hearty friendliness. “I want you to meet one of our neighbors and my good buddy, Doc Osborne. Doc’s a retired dentist and a blow-your-socks-off muskie guy. He’s got a fifty-three-incher in his living room you won’t believe.

“Doc … Nick.”

“Huh,” said the kid, holding tight to his strap and his briefcase. Nick was obviously a city kid, pale and lightly pimpled. Osborne also counted six silver earrings, three in each ear. Jeez. Looked like Nick could give Ray a run for the money when it came to personal adornment.

“Welcome to the Northwoods, Nick,” said Osborne. “I think we’ll be doing some muskie fishing together in the next few days. Isn’t that right, Ray?”

“I was hoping to learn how to fly-fish,” the boy said. “That’s what my friends do.” His tone made it clear he could care less about any other kind of fishing.

“Oh?” Ray looked surprised. More than a little disappointed. “Doc can maybe give you a few pointers. He’s been trying his hand at it, haven’t you, Doc?”

“You’ll want to try both, son.” Osborne jumped to rescue Ray. “One gets you on the lakes; the other gets you back into the backwoods on streams and small rivers.”

“I just wanna fly-fish.” The kid was obstinate and, in Osborne’s opinion, not a little rude. Surprise. He was Elise’s son.

Before anyone could say more, Gina Palmer popped up at Osborne’s side exclaiming, “Say, is that a laptop you got there? What the hell size is that thing? That isn’t that new IBM I heard about? I’m thinking about getting one. How’s it working?”

Osborne and Ray backed up as if they’d been hit by a straight-line wind, tornado strength.
Rapid-fire
didn’t begin to describe Gina’s delivery; she was more intense than she had been on the phone the day before.

Nick’s face underwent a transformation. Gone was the impassive, almost sullen scowl. A passionate, spirited expression took its place. “Yeah! My mom just got it for me. Gotta minute, I’ll show ya. It’s
real
cool.”

Gina, her own much larger computer case slung across her back, motioned him over to a nearby rack of chairs. Nick sat down, set the briefcase on his bony knees, and unzipped it to pull out a flat black box. Osborne, knowing little about computers, glanced over at Ray, who knew even less and was standing there mute, a quizzical expression on his face as if he had no idea what to do next.

“Ray? You have an ISP, don’t you?” The boy looked up from where he was banging on keys in a way that made sense to Gina. She was leaning over Nick’s shoulder, her eyes fastened on his monitor.

“What?” asked Ray.

“No, son,” said Osborne. “I’m afraid we still have a pretty antiquated phone system out in our area. My daughter tried to go on-line a couple weeks ago when she was visiting, and the phone company told her we can’t get Internet service until they replace our party line. That’s not for another couple months, I’m afraid.”

The boy stared up at Ray. He looked like he was about to cry. “You mean you’re not
wired?”

“I’m plenty wired,” said Ray.

“That’s not what he means,” said Osborne, weighting his words so Ray got the message. “The boy is serious.”

“Is
anybody
wired up here?” Gina stood up, a look as stricken as the boy’s on her face.

“Lew is, I think,” said Osborne lamely. “She said they laid fiber optics out to her offices and the new jail.”

“Who’s Lew?” asked Gina.

“I’m sorry,” said Osborne. “I should have said Chief Lewellyn Ferris, head of the Loon Lake Police Department. That’s who we’re meeting in Wausau to complete the ID. And …” Osborne looked at his watch. “We’re almost half an hour late, I’m afraid.”

Gina looked over at Ray. “Didn’t you say you’re a deputy? Maybe she’ll let us plug in over there, huh?”

Nick looked up from his computer. A look of astonishment flooded into his face as he asked Ray, “You mean you’re a cop?”

“No. I’m a guide,” said Ray. “Fishing, hunting … I am not a cop. We’ll talk about it later, okay? Now let’s get the rest of your luggage.”

“Nice kid,” said Gina as they piled her luggage into the rental car and locked it up. “I’d like to get another look at that laptop of his.”

“I’d like to know why he’s wearing all the jewelry,” said

Osborne. “He has something in his tongue, too. Did you see that? Good thing he doesn’t wear braces. Damn thing would get hooked.”

“C’mon, Doc, you’re not into pierced body parts?” Gina chortled. “Don’t worry about what you can see; it’s what they’ve got
under
their clothes.” As Gina climbed into Osborne’s car for the drive to Wausau, he lowered the windows. The sun was bright with fluffy white clouds scudding across the brilliant blue sky. The air was heating up. It would be a nice drive.

Just then, Ray and Nick emerged from the front entrance of the airport lobby. Ray hoisted Nick’s duffel onto his left shoulder and pointed the boy in the direction of his pickup, parked right across from Osborne’s station wagon. The boy started toward the pickup, then stopped, looking up in amazement. Osborne leaned forward in his seat, curious to see what had caught his attention.

“Whoa,” said Nick. “You guys got a lotta sky here.” He stood there for a good fifteen seconds, taking it all in. Unaware Osborne was watching, he let a look of excitement slip over his features, but it vanished the minute he heard Ray’s footsteps behind him.

Still, Osborne knew teenagers. Maybe there’s hope, he thought. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe the kid’s got a little bit of Ray in him after all. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, Gina had leaned out her window to wave good-bye. Ray waved in return.

“Now watch this.” Osborne lowered his voice and motioned to Gina to watch the proceedings across the way.

Ray tossed the duffel into the back of the beat-up blue pickup and opened the door on the driver’s side of the truck. He stood there looking over at Nick. The leaping walleye hood ornament flashed silver in the sunshine. And the passenger door refused to give in to Nick’s yanks on the handle.

“Oops, sorry,” said Ray, “that door doesn’t work. You gotta either climb through the window or go in on my side.”

“For real?” Nick was taken aback.

“Yeah, I need to get it fixed,” said Ray.

“What do most people do?” said Nick, his voice a little edgy.

“Go through the window.”

With that the kid gave a shrug, swung his briefcase in first, then heaved himself up to wriggle through the generous opening. As he did so, Osborne heard Ray say loudly, “Gotta Wisconsin joke you can tell your buddies back in New York City.

“What’s that?” Nick’s voice was muffled.

“Whaddaya call cheese that isn’t yours?”

“Nacho cheese,” said Gina with a groan and a smile. “That is one joke. Does this go on all the time?”

“You betcha.” Osborne gave the ignition a healthy twist.

fifteen

“There are matters beyond the knowledge of non-fishermen…. Forests … can insulate you against the woes of the world as completely as the widest water of an ocean voyage.”

Frederic F. Van de Water, author

Leaving
the airport, Osborne turned right onto Highway 8. He hadn’t driven a quarter mile before he heard a siren. He looked up to see Lew’s cruiser in his rearview mirror. He pulled over.

Lew jumped out of her car and ran up to his window. “Doc, thank goodness I caught you. Roger never did get the van back to Timber Lake. One of the lab guys came up at the crack of dawn this morning to do a preliminary. I tried to reach you at the airport. The victim is still in Loon Lake, so we can do the ID at Saint Mary’s. Thank goodness, too. I did
not
want to take four hours to go all the way down to Wausau.” She looked past Osborne. “Gina Palmer?”

“Yes. Are you Chief Ferris?”

“I sure am,” said Lew, “and very glad I intercepted you two. Can you follow me back to Loon Lake, and we’ll meet at the hospital? I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible.”

“Me, too,” said Gina.

Ashley Olson was no longer curled into a fetal position, nor was she in running clothes. Her body, naked and straight, had been reduced to a landscape of bumps under the morgue linen.

Earlier, while waiting for a hospital attendant to let them in, Gina had spoken of her friend in such vivid detail that Lew and Osborne were able to understand the magnitude of her death. Gone was a vibrant, savvy woman who had pumped life into a new and respected marketing firm, holding her own easily among senior executives from major corporations. Gone was a woman, generous and kind to her friends and to those who worked for her.

The more good things were said, the more Osborne wondered what went wrong. If Gina knew her as a woman of vision who could build a management team as easily as she built a landmark mansion, then where did she make her strategic mistake? And why did she travel so far from her home—so secretly? What made her so determined to see someone who wanted to see her … dead?

A wave of sadness played across Gina’s face as she pulled the sheet up and back, then layered it, fold on fold, across the waxen surface of her friend’s naked abdomen. She looked down, studying the still form. Her professionalism showed; someone unaccustomed to violent death would have turned away.

The wounds were more obvious now that the crusty blood had been cleaned up. Osborne found them hard to look at, especially the slashing across the upper torso. He backed off to lean against the wall. Lew stood quietly behind Gina, moving with her as she moved around the body. In a low voice, she asked Gina to confirm that this was indeed Ashley Olson. Gina whispered an answer, then stood perfectly still, staring down in silence.

And as she stood there, her back straight, her head bowed slightly, a phrase from a Native American prayer for the dead ran through Osborne’s mind: “Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there; I did not die.” Nice phrase; not true.

Gina turned and gestured for Lew and Osborne to stand beside her. Her face was slick with silent tears. She pushed a few loose curls back from Ashley’s forehead and then, touching her chin, tipped the dead woman’s head slightly to the right to more fully expose the gaping wound left by an exiting bullet. Her face hardened, but she said nothing. Then, pointing to the slashes that crisscrossed Ashley’s chest and sliced into the throat, Gina threw her hands up in an expression of futility. “This is hate,” she said. “Fury.”

She lowered the sheet further. She examined the left hand, then the right. “No cuts. She didn’t even try to defend herself.”

“I don’t believe she had the opportunity.” Lew spoke softly. “The preliminary lab report states she died instantly from the bullet with all this occurring later. We’ll have a complete report in a day or so.”

Gina nodded.

Lew had been watching Gina carefully as she studied the corpse. Now she placed a comforting hand on Gina’s shoulder as she leaned forward. “Did you see these?” she said, pointing.

“No.” Gina had to bend over to see the bite marks on each shoulder. She looked up, confused.

“Human bites,” said Lew. “We found the same marks on another victim. Please keep this confidential, by the way.”

Gina looked at her in surprise. “The other one … killed with a high-powered rifle?”

“Yes,” said Lew.

“No.” Gina shook her head angrily, the blue eyes sparking. “If you think Ashley was the victim of some random attack, some serial killer, I can assure you, I disagree. This … this slashing and cutting … I know that Michael Winston did this. I have proof that I’ll show you when we leave here.” She paused for a moment. “Did the other victim have slash marks like these?”

“No,” said Lew. “Only the bite marks are similar … but they are in the same location on both victims.”

Gina shook her head. “I don’t know how or why that could happen, but I am convinced that if we can find Michael Winston, we’ll have the man who killed Ashley.” She reached to pull up the sheet, then paused. She leaned forward like a parent over a sleeping child.

“And so we die before our own eyes,” she whispered, bending to place a kiss on the shattered face. She laid the sheet down gently, then turned to Lew. Still whispering, she said, “I spoke to her lawyer and several close friends. When you release the body, I’ll arrange for cremation, and I’ll take Ashley home with me.”

Lew held her arms out as if she expected Gina to weep, but Gina shook her head, straightened her shoulders, wiped at her cheeks, and walked briskly out of the small room, grim resolve, not grief, on her face.

sixteen

“Fishermen are born honest, but they get over it.”

Ed Zern, Field & Stream

Hauling
the wooden armchair across the oak floor in the sunny office, Gina planted herself in front of Lew’s desk and slapped down a stack of the file folders.

“I brought you everything I’ve got. Except for any photos of Winston. Our paper has been converting all the paper files in the morgue onto disk, but very slowly, with society photos having the last priority, dammit. The ones I wanted, which are from four years ago, haven’t been scanned in yet. But I am having them pulled and FedExed up here, hopefully by Friday. These are my own files.”

Gina leaned forward, arms on her knees, a cup of black coffee in her right hand. Osborne noted once again what a striking woman she was. Quite slim in narrow-legged black slacks and a long-sleeved black shirt, Gina’s porcelain face with its crystal-blue eyes looked carved from stone, an effect reinforced by the severe cut of her straight black hair. The hair, cut blunt to her lower jaw, framed the outline of her perfectly oval face. She was a tiny woman, he realized. Even her teeth were tiny. But her sex and her size hardly diminished her.

Osborne was amused to find that her direct, no-nonsense approach mirrored Lew’s to a point. Lew’s speech pattern, however, was quite the opposite of Gina’s. Where the reporter ran on nonstop, scarcely taking a breath, Lew was a listener, always watching and succinct in her remarks.