Dead Water (2 page)

Osborne studied her, deciding not to express the opinion that someone had been watching too much TV. “Listen, kiddo.” The sternness crept back into his voice, “If you found a body back there, chances are it’s a hunting accident. You’re in Loon Lake, Marlene, not Milwaukee. Besides, you didn’t see anyone, did you?”

“No … but that’s no hunting accident.”

A little face leaned out from behind Marlene. He couldn’t have been more than five years old. “That dead lady lost her pants.”

“I did
not
intend for my son to see what he saw,” said Marlene, switching from fear to anger. Her tone implied it might be Osborne’s fault that she had stumbled onto something ugly.

The sudden change in Marlene’s attitude triggered an equally sudden and unpleasant memory of his late wife, who had a talent for placing blame elsewhere, elsewhere being him. Some folks learn to drive defensively; Osborne had spent thirty-odd years
living
on the defense.

Enough of this,
was his immediate thought. “I wouldn’t worry, Marlene.” He worked at keeping an edge out of his voice and resisted the urge to tell her the kid was in much better shape than she was.

“Why don’t you and your son head for my place and call the police. The house is open. My dog is loose in the yard, but he’s friendly. The phone is in the kitchen, and I want you to see if you can reach Chief Ferris, okay? She knows exactly where I live. If you can’t reach her direct, let the switchboard know where you are and what’s going on. Then help yourselves to anything in the fridge—a pop or some iced tea. There’s hot coffee on the counter, too. I’m going upstream and take a quick look. Okay? Can you manage that, Marlene?”

“I … how do I get out of here, Doctor? We came in from Shepard Lake, but I don’t know my way out this direction. Once I got past that body, I couldn’t bear to go back. And be very careful. Someone may be back there, y’know.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve done this before,” Osborne assured her. “The way back is easy. Just head straight downstream, bear right as you enter the bog, and that’ll take you to the channel between First and Second Lake. Take a right through the channel markers into Loon Lake, then a left down the west shoreline. My dock is the sixth one down, the one with two rocking chairs.”

“Got it.” Marlene raised her paddle. Sitting up straight, the fear out of her eyes and the redness in her cheeks subsiding, Marlene took on an air of competency. Her son’s eyes were sparkling. Osborne could see this was all great fun for him, blood and guts included.

Osborne pulled his kayak tight to the bank so she could glide past. Then he thrust his paddle deep into the water. He had forgotten to ask where the body was, but it wasn’t necessary.

No sooner had he emerged from under the trestle than he heard, even before he saw, the cloud of flies to his immediate right—a distinctive sound he remembered well from his tour of duty as a forensic dentist during the Korean War. Twenty feet beyond the cloud, the stream widened to become Lost Lake, but he was no longer interested in the lake.

Osborne pulled up to halt the kayak. He let it drift toward the bank. The air was pungent with death. But it was the sight rather than the smell that pulled at his gut: Loon Lake was so small, the odds were great he was about to encounter someone he knew, someone who hadn’t expected to die and whose death would cause grief to others he knew. He just hoped he didn’t know them well.

At first glance, the corpse appeared to be standing on its head, the face turned away from him toward Lost Lake. The lower torso, buttocks, and legs were naked and hung up on a tag alder bush. The upper back and shoulders still wore a woman’s halter top, and the head was tipped down onto the bank, almost but not quite touching the water. She couldn’t have been dead too long as the color was not bad. Certainly not black, thank goodness. The last two nights’ temperatures had dipped into the low forties, and the days had been cool. That would help, too.

The limbs were splayed as if someone might have tossed the body through the air. He looked up. They had. She either fell or was dropped from the trestle. Could this be someone who was taking a walk along the old bridge only to be hit by a stray bullet from a hunter? Not with hunting season five months away. Osborne’s stomach tightened. Marlene’s theory was looking good.

With a quick thrust, he drove the kayak onto the grassy bank, unsnapped the skirt from around his waist, and boosted himself up, out, and into the water. He decided to walk in the shallows as much as possible so as not to disturb any footprints or other sign that might be left near the body.

Osborne crouched to study the corpse from the back. He thought he could detect an entry wound at the back of the head: a blackish red bubble of dried tissue that stood out against the light-colored short hair. He’d know for sure in a minute. That could rule out suicide. Tough to shoot yourself in the back of the head.

He stood up, chagrined he did not have his tackle box. Too many years of people mistaking the
Dr.
in front of his name to mean
doctor,
not
dentist
, along with too many years of being asked to remove fishhooks from noses, ears, and eyes, had taught him to always approach water with a pair of latex surgical gloves in his tackle box. He sure could use those now. Osborne patted the back pocket of his fishing khakis, hoping against hope he had a pair tucked away. Nope.

Spotting a dead tree limb on the opposite bank, he opted to use that instead. Extending the branch, he prodded the left arm. Limp. Rigor mortis had come and gone. That would put time of death at or over twenty-four hours ago, but—given the amount of maggot activity he could see plus the color of the corpse—still within the last forty-eight hours. That would make sense. He could not imagine anyone in Loon Lake missing more than two days without everyone in town knowing.

Taking as few steps as he could, Osborne hiked up to the back of the tag alder for a better view of the lower body. The lab in Wausau, sixty miles away, was much better prepared than he to assess many details including time of death, the nature of the assault, and the exact weapons used, but his training in dental forensics might help speed up the identification, maybe even point out a few more mitigating factors, something always appreciated by Loon Lake Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris.

And she needed every advantage she could get over the goombahs in Wausau, who had a habit of trying to weasel in on interesting cases, either for publicity’s sake or to pad the bill for their services. In Osborne’s opinion, the Wausau boys relished giving Lew a hard time simply because she had nailed a job two of them had applied for. He knew that in their feeble minds, a dutiful Northwoods female, mindful of the alpha male culture of the region, should have declined the position when it was offered. Not Lew.

She embraced it with enthusiasm, gender politics and all. And the politics were an ongoing issue as Loon Lake, population 3,197, was too small to have its own crime lab, though it held its own when it came to crime. Or so Osborne had learned since helping Lew out on two earlier occasions. Those two occasions had also shown him an easy route to Lew’s affections: She loved whatever he could do to save her time, paperwork, and money by limiting the involvement of the Wausau boys.

From where he stood now, Osborne got a good view of the chest below the halter top. Blood had pooled along the left rib cage, indicating the victim was deceased before she flew off that trestle.

He stepped around the buzzing flies to view the right side of the body. That’s when he saw what had terrified Marlene: the blown-out face. Not a great sight for a five-year-old. Not a great sight for a sixty-three-year-old retired dentist either, forensic experience or not. He looked away fast, then looked back. Had to be a high-powered rifle to do that kind of damage. Made him think .30/06, but he’d let Wausau answer that question.

Even though most of the upper face was missing, the mouth and portions of the lower jaw were intact. The mouth gaped, making the teeth easily visible. Osborne knelt again. The canines and the lateral incisors looked vaguely familiar. The lower front teeth were crowded, a pretty distinctive pattern there. With several fillings visible, the mouth appeared cared for. He had a strong hunch he had seen this mouth before. If so, he would have a record in his files. Thank God he had hidden those when Mary Lee tried to force him to throw them away.

Osborne leaned back on his knees. So … a woman from Loon Lake with a nice smile. A sick sadness flooded his chest as he stood up. Thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, he stood staring at the still, pale form, committing the details of its position and location to memory.

Osborne turned to wade quickly through the stream and pull the kayak into the water. He had to get Lew out here right away. With that thought, the sadness gave way to a sheepish eagerness: The murder would generate just the opportunity for which he had been hoping.

To be honest, more than one opportunity. Given that Lew felt she did her best strategic thinking in the trout stream, and given that she did not like to fish alone, chances were excellent that if she deputized him to work on this case, she would have to include him in her fly-fishing. That could be every night. She had done so in the past, which had improved his fly-fishing immeasurably, not to mention increased the number of trout flies (tied by Lew) added to his box. Her ability to forecast a hatch—
and have the right trout fly along
—impressed the hell out of Osborne.

But his urge to help the Loon Lake chief of police went well beyond improving his backcast or learning the hatch. The simple fact was that assisting Lewellyn Ferris bought him time to be around a woman who had no idea he adored her.

As Osborne leaned to lower himself into the kayak, he scanned the landscape one last time. Marlene had seemed so sure someone might be back here. He heard nothing except the flies buzzing and a few random birdcalls. Not a branch, not a blade of grass moved in the still sunshine. A few yards away, Lost Lake looked as peaceful as heaven.

He gave the body a once-over. From this angle, he could see the eagles and turkey buzzards had already begun their work: myriad puncture wounds stood out in sharp relief along the curve of the bare shoulders, so close to the ground that he had almost missed them. His eyes lingered. Something was too familiar in those patterns. Much too familiar.

Shoving the kayak aground and slogging back to the corpse, Osborne dropped to his knees for a closer look. This was not the work of vultures or eagles. No sirree. The Northwoods held many surprises, but that did not include birds with canines, molars, and incisors. Yet he was looking down at four bites, almost symmetrical, two on each shoulder.

Four bites from four
different
sets of teeth. Human teeth.

three

“An expert is a person with whom you go fishing, and if nobody catches anything, knows all the reasons why.”

Anonymous

Marlene
ran onto the dock just as Osborne pulled up in the kayak. Osborne had forgotten the woman was six feet tall. She was strong, too, reaching without hesitation to give him a hand up, then help him hoist the kayak from the water. Behind her, Mike, his black Lab, was bouncing happily.

“I take it you reached Chief Ferris?” said Osborne as they boosted the wooden craft onto their shoulders and started up the river rock stairs toward his house. She nodded. Mike took off ahead and disappeared.

“She’s on her way,” said Marlene. She turned to look at him, her eyes dark with concern. “Wasn’t I right? That was no natural death, do you think?”

“I agree with you … but it’s Chief Ferris who makes the call,” said Osborne, reluctant to say more until Lew could check it out. Word spreads fast in a small town, and he knew Lew would want to control just how many details were out there. “She may ask you to keep this quiet for a while, Marlene.”

Marlene trudged in silence for a minute. “Do you think she was raped?”

“I have no idea. The Wausau lab will test for that. One thing I do know, which ought to make you feel better, is this: That individual has been deceased at
least
twenty-four hours. I saw absolutely no sign of anyone lurking, not even a crushed blade of grass. That body came off the trestle sometime yesterday at the earliest. So don’t you worry that you and your son saw something you shouldn’t have or that you were observed by anyone.”

Marlene’s shoulders relaxed under the weight of the kayak. Even her stride up the rock stairway was suddenly firmer, lighter. Osborne smiled gently at the sight of her relief. He felt like a good father. “Turn right at the gate, head toward the garage, and watch for Mike mines.”

“Mike mines?”

“Dog poop.”

“Ah.” They walked forward in silence. At the gate, Marlene paused to adjust the kayak. “My son is in your kitchen with a strange man,” she said, her voice cheery. “He seems to know you. He walked right in without knocking.”

“Oh yeah? Tall guy?”

“Very tall—with a stuffed fish on his head. Robby is fascinated.”

“My neighbor, Ray Pradt,” said Osborne. “Did you see that trailer home as you paddled toward my dock? That’s his place. You remember Ray, Marlene. He’s just a couple years younger than you and Mallory.”

“That’s
little Raysie?” said Marlene. “Last time I saw him, he was four feet tall. My God, he’s grown!”

Osborne chortled. “Yes, he has.” At six feet five and in his early thirties, Ray would be mortified to learn that an attractive single woman remembered him as little Raysie. Whoa, Osborne couldn’t wait to lay this one on his pal. Little Raysie. Wait till the guys at McDonald’s heard about it; the seven
a.m
. coffee klatch would have fuel for weeks.

“So what does Ray do these days, Dr. Osborne?” She tried to sound nonchalant.

“You mean, why does he wear a fish on his head?”