Dead Creek (12 page)

“I’ll bet you didn’t tell Mary Lee that,” interjected Ray.

“No, I did not,” said Osborne, shooting Ray a dirty look. He was not real happy to be caught capitulating to a woman he was beginning to dislike more and more. Now that Mary Lee was gone and he had the opportunity to spend more time with folks like Winnie and Walter and Ray, he was realizing what a small world he had let Mary Lee restrict them to, small in several senses of the word.

“Hell, he wanted that meat loaf on the table,” humored Walter. He winked at Osborne.

“Thank you, Walter,” said Osborne, clipping his words, “confirmed bachelors have no idea how treacherous are the reefs of marriage. But seriously, Winnie, I
do
know what the YPO is. It’s a prestigious social club for men who become presidents of companies before age forty. Most of them inherit the position from their fathers, but there’s a few self-made types. It’s an upscale Rotary Club.”

“Why were they staying at the Dairy?” Ray asked Winnie.

“A two-week fly-fishing clinic,” said Winnie. “We do a lot of those with classes and guides, and we mix in business-type speakers so the guests can write off the hunting and fishing. Sort of silly, if you ask me. These people have so much money the last thing they need is a write-off.”

Walter interrupted, anxious to keep the conversation on track. “But, Dr. Osborne, no one arrives, then disappears for six weeks, almost seven now, like this group did. That’s what Winnie and I think is so strange. Why did they all leave together one night and never come back?”

“Right,” said Winnie. “We have all their stuff, we have their clothes, their fly rods, we even have their rental cars…. I finally called one of the wives to see what she knew about it.”

“And?” asked Osborne.

“She wouldn’t tell me,” said Winnie. “She said that her husband often went on YPO business and it was confidential. She was concerned about the length of this trip, but she said he had been gone as long as eight weeks before without telling her where he was. She said they were into ‘study groups’ and would ‘go to the source'—whatever that means.”

“That means they don’t have enough to do, they’re trying to justify being alive, they’ve got too goddamn much moola—that’s what that means,” said Ray.

Winnie had paused to pour almost a half cup of cream into her coffee, stir it in gently, add a packet of sugar, take a sip, and now she looked around at the men. “I thought that wife actually sounded relieved that her hub-bie wasn’t back yet. She wasn’t making a big deal of it, know what I mean? I’ll tell ya, I thought it was pretty weird she wasn’t even worried!”

Osborne and Ray looked at each other. Walter leaned forward, his chin cupped in his hand. More hot coffee arrived along with menus, which everyone glanced at quickly. They all ordered the same thing: buttermilk pancakes, ham off the bone, side orders of homemade bread toast, orange juice, and more coffee.

“Did you meet these men?” asked Ray.

“I saw them,” said Winnie. “I took their reservation cards and I told them which way their rooms were.”

“What were they like?”

“Just … the usual. Businessmen. Fly-fishing shirts, ironed Levi’s. Very pleasant.” Winnie stirred her coffee again. “Frankly, I barely looked at them. But when I heard you found those bodies, I couldn’t help but think it might be these guys. We’ve just never had guests go off and not return. It’s a big problem, you know. Those rooms were booked for new arrivals, and no one knows what to do. When people pay five hundred dollars a night, you don’t just boot them out.”

“Five hundred bucks a night!” Ray was incredulous.

“Yeah, see?” said Winnie. “The wife I called said it was just fine to keep on billing it, too.”

“Who’s running the Dairy these days?” asked Osborne.

“They brought in a guy from Minneapolis who used to run one of the big hotels and wanted to semiretire,” said Winnie. “He’s in a panic over this. I guess—now, I don’t know this for a fact—but I think the Dairy has not been doing that well financially for the last few years. So he wants no publicity on this. I’ll be fired if he finds out I’m talking to you. But I was going to call you today anyway.” Walter reached over and patted his wife’s hand. It was clear they’d discussed the risk before approaching Osborne.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Osborne. “Did they drive themselves off when they left?”

“Oh, no,” said Winnie. “The college hired Ted Bronk to drive them. That’s the next weird part. A number of us from the Dairy have been calling Ted’s house, but there’s no answer. He seems to be gone, too.”

Ray looked around the table and scratched at his beard. “Now, why the heck would the college have ol’ scumbag Ted driving some head honchos around? That sure as hell doesn’t figure.”

“Yeah, Ray, they coulda hired you,” laughed Walter.

“For their money, yes, they could,” said Ray. Suddenly his eyes shifted to the doorway. “Doc, Lew just walked in.”

Osborne set down his coffee cup and looked around to wave Lew over.

“I want you to tell Chief Ferris everything you just told us,” said Osborne to Winnie and Walter. He moved over to make space at the table and motioned to Susan they needed one more place setting.

“Ted Bronk is a popular guy,” said Lew after Winnie and Walter had cleaned their plates and left Susan’s. Her dark eyes caught and held Osborne’s. “Remember the dancer out at Thunder Bay yesterday? She said our Mr. Bronk took her friend somewhere, too.” Lew looked at Ray and Osborne both as she spread honey on her toast. “Time to talk to Ted.

“But, first, I have some other news for you two. Sloan was admitted to the hospital this morning with acute pneumonia and a collapsed lung. So I continue to need help. Doc, do you mind staying on as a deputy to work with me on this case? I’m sure it won’t be for much longer.”

“Me, too,” said Ray, wiping up the last yellow of his yolk with a small piece of crust. “Count me in.”

“Ray …” Lew looked hard at him, “I’m having a hard time with that. Professionally, I can’t risk it. Sloan reminded me it’s only eighteen months since the warden booked you for smoking dope out on the Flambeau Flow-age.”

Ray chuckled and looked down at his plate, “I blew that one, didn’t I.”

Osborne looked surprised. He hadn’t heard. Seeing the look on his face, Ray volunteered, “Yeah, I had some weed on me and there I was out in my boat minding my own business when ol’ Joe Schmidt rolls up and we haven’t liked each other since first grade and he wants to know what I’m doin’ sittin’ in my boat minding my own business so I said I was fishing for golf balls and wham he hits me with a misdemeanor and wrecks my budget. You know what they say about that asshole: ‘Joe happens.’ ”

Lew was unimpressed with the excuse. “How do I know you don’t have grass growing on your back porch these days? Ray, I’m not kidding. You cannot work in law enforcement with felonies on your record.”

Ray shrugged, “Misdemeanors, Lew. I got off, remember?”

“Only because Schmidt went easy with you after he received a package of frozen venison chops,” said Lew.

Ray folded his arms and leaned forward on the table. He looked straight into Lew’s eyes and lowered his voice. “Lew, I do certain types of work for people not unlike yourself, relationships that must remain confidential. Dr. Shanley is one I can mention. I’m not breaking any laws unless it suits my purposes, and when it does, I’m protected. I hope that explains something. Please don’t ask me to tell you things I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“I see,” said Lew. “I’m not surprised.”

“I didn’t think you would be,” said Ray.

Osborne listened in quiet amazement. He had no idea what they were talking about, and he didn’t think it would be wise to ask any questions at the moment.

“Fine, then,” said Lew. “I’ll count on both of you, and please stop by the station to do a little paperwork for me later today. The town will pay you, of course.”

“Do we have the report in from Wausau?” asked Osborne.

“I’m expecting it any time,” said Lew. “This delay is getting ridiculous.”

“Excuse me a moment,” said Ray, standing up and wiping his chin with his paper napkin. “Let me use Susan’s phone to try my sister again.”

He got up and went to the phone back in the kitchen while Osborne watched Lew scarf up two eggs over easy, three pork sausage links, homemade bread toast, and a side of ham off the bone.
No wonder she looked so healthy,
he thought as he downed another cup of black coffee. He waved to Susan for a refill.

“Hey, Doc,” warned Lew, “you drink way too much coffee. How many cups have you had just since I’ve been sitting here? That stuff’s gonna rot your stomach.”

“Lew, it’s my only vice,” said Osborne with a sheepish grin.

She looked at him and smiled. “We oughta do something about that….”

Suddenly Ray was back, wearing a big grin on his face, “Sis said Bill remembers the kid well. His name was Robert Bowers, and he was from Kansas City. Parents were very, very wealthy, Bill said, and he thinks the family may still live there. He said that young Rob was a good kid, quiet type. He was a junior counselor Bill’s last year there, and his family paid for him to have his own cabin, which was considered outrageous by the other counselors. But that fits for what we’re looking for, don’t you think? Bowers is the family name. Bill figures the guy’d be about 42 to 43 years old, which is right—”

“Bowers? That’s one of the names on Winnie’s list,” said Lew, interrupting and pushing back her chair. “Time to call Kansas City. Which one of you has some time? I have a couple calls to make before I can get back to work on this.”

“I’ll do it,” said Osborne. “An old college friend runs the newspaper in that town. Let me check in with him and see—”

“Great,” said Lew, “just be sure he knows we have no firm ID yet, and we can’t release anything to the press until that report is in.”

“I’ll tell you what, Lew,” said Osborne. “Let’s go over a few things right now so I don’t make any mistakes on this.”

Fifteen minutes later, after Lew’s detailed instructions, Osborne was headed back to Ray’s to get his own car.

“So how’s the new management at Thunder Bay?” asked Ray as they got in the truck, a twinkle in his eye.

“What was all that about ‘working for certain people'?” countered Osborne.

“Oh, that. That was pure bullshit,” said Ray, pulling on his beard and glancing at Osborne with eyes that seemed to be smiling. Osborne thought they also looked sly, and he looked away, uncomfortable. “Now she thinks I do surveillance for the DNR or somebody.” “Do you?”

“Nah,” said Ray, “that would add stress to this good ol’ boy’s life. But it got me what I wanted, didn’t it?” Ray winked at him.

Osborne decided not to believe him, but he kept his mouth shut. “Thunder Bay is quite the place,” Osborne said to change the subject. He offered up the details of their visit. Ray got real interested when Professor Bradford Miller showed up in Osborne’s story.

“You’re serious? The professor walked into Thunder Bay Bar and strip joint with Miss Judy?”

“We-ell, it was close; you couldn’t swear they were together, but it sure looked to me like she was giving him free beers,” said Osborne.

“How so?”

“Of four or five of us around the bar, he was the only one she served and I never saw him go for his wallet.”

Ray took it all in thoughtfully. “Now, isn’t that an odd pair: Brad Miller and Judith Benjamin? Maybe he swings both ways….”

“Brad Miller is one of the few people that I really, really dislike,” said Osborne. “He was a creepy little kid, even if he was my best friend’s son, and age has just made him worse. The man is smarmy, if you know what I mean.”

“Gee, Doc,” Ray looked at his friend, “give the guy a break. At least he’s smart. What does he have—a Ph.D. from Harvard or something like that?”

“Yeah, well, there’s smart and there’s smart. What I
really
don’t like about him is just what’s happening now: I feel guilty for thinking the creep’s a creep. Now, why is that? It makes me mad because then you bend over backward to be nice to the guy because you feel guilty, and before you know it, you’ve just about invited him to dinner. I give up.”

Ray laughed, “I think a lot of us feel that way. When we were kids, you knew that he was the guy to pick on, and everyone did. He was such a runt. So I think a lot of people in Loon Lake put up with his BS because they haven’t forgotten they were pretty mean to him way back when.”

The two men drove along in silence for a while. “But you know,” Osborne finally spoke, “he asked for it.”

An
hour later, Osborne parked his station wagon in front of Erin’s big white Victorian house. His heart lifted at the sight of the open porch with the bright yellow and green trim. His youngest daughter had a way of making everything around her seem sunny.

“Hey, Mike,” he directed his voice at his dog’s crate in the back of the the station wagon, “I’ll be back in about thirty minutes. You be a good dog.”

And he set off up the sidewalk, humming.

“Gee, Dad, I think that’s pretty neat,” said Erin. Her long blond hair hung down her back in a braid as she bounced 18-month-old Cody, Osborne’s first grandson, on her knee as they shared the dregs of the coffeepot at the big oak table in Erin’s kitchen. The house was the oldest Victorian in Loon Lake, and Osborne could never get over how much hard work had gone into restoring it, and how much of it Erin and her husband, Mark, had done themselves.

“Lew said we’ll be paid by the town,” continued Osborne. “I just hope I don’t grow dependent on this new income.” He grinned broadly. He was finding that being paid for his services did make him feel good, even if he also felt a little sheepish: His job description sounded more dramatic that it was.

“You’re kidding, of course,” said Erin. “You don’t really want to become a police officer, do you, Dad? I mean, not permanently, not after this case. Right?”

“And ruin my muskie fishing? You know your old man.

“Say, I’m going to be calling an old college friend of your mother’s and mine. Remember Dick Halstead? He was an editor for the
Milwaukee Journal
and now he runs the
Kansas City Star.
Didn’t he have a daughter your age?”

“Marci. We went to Girl Scout camp together, remember? Hey, Dad.” Erin jumped up. “I’ve got to change this kid’s diaper. Why don’t you call Mr. Halstead from here? Find out what Marci’s up to and get her phone number for me. I’d like to give her a call.”

“Oh, hon, this is going to be a long call. I don’t want to tie up your phone.”

“Dad, it’s Sunday afternoon, for heaven’s sake. Take your time. If you don’t call from here, I
know
you’ll forget to ask about Marci. Here.” Erin pushed the cordless phone across the kitchen table toward him. “I’ll do diapers, you do phone.” With a grin and a flash of braid, she was off to conquer poopy pants.

Osborne smiled. Then he reached into his left shirt pocket and pulled out the small, dog-eared address book that held what was left of his life. His blunt fingers turned the pages carefully. He picked up the receiver.

Dick was home. He was nursing a bad cold and glad to hear from his old buddy. Osborne took a good five minutes to catch up on personal news: Dick’s wife was recovering from a hysterectomy, the paper was down to a miserable 20 percent profit margin due to newsprint cost increases, Dick thought their new publisher was a little young for the job, and Marci had a thriving law practice. She also had a phone number. Osborne scrambled around the kitchen for a pen, which he finally laid hands on. He took down Marci’s number before he could forget.

“Dick, I’ve got a couple of questions for you.” Osborne finally got to the point. “I’m helping out as a medical investigator up here on a murder case, and there may be a Kansas City connection. Are you familiar with the name Bowers?”

Silence greeted the question. A lengthy silence.

“I am very familiar with that name,” said Dick. His voice was suddenly subdued, measured. He spoke in a staccato, as if rehearsing facts he had reviewed many times: “An old blueblood family here in town, major donors to the Nelson Museum, money goes way back to the early days when Kansas City was a hub for the rail industry. They made their money in transportation, then diversified. The late Mrs. Bowers was a Cantrell, another old Kansas City name. Her husband worked for her family, then made his own fortune as a very successful commodities trader on the Kansas City Board of Trade. He died a good twenty years ago. His widow passed away about three years ago, leaving the whole kit and kaboodle to their only child, an adopted son. I know all this because I’m a trustee for the museum, along with Robert Bowers.”

“So you know Bowers pretty well?”

“In a manner of speaking, Doc. A slight matter of class difference perhaps. Irish Catholic still doesn’t cut in some circles in this town,” said Dick with the touch of irony that had led to the friendship between him and Osborne years earlier.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Oh, gosh … six or eight weeks ago? It’s funny you ask, because we’ve been trying to schedule a board meeting, and that guy has been out of town for over a month now. We can’t get an answer from his office on when he’ll be back, either.”

“He may not be coming back if we’re both talking the right Bowers,” Osborne said. “We’ve had a multiple slaying up here, and his may be one of the bodies.”

Dick was very quiet for a long moment. Then his voice tightened, and Osborne got a very real sense of how his old pal behaved in the office. To say Dick Halstead could focus was to put it mildly, thought Osborne later. The sudden appearance of breaking news catapulted Dick from the easygoing banter of his Sunday afternoon foot-on-the-ottoman style to the terse style of the newspaperman driven by the urgent, ongoing need to get it first and get it right and get it before TV, damn.

“Listen, buddy,” said Dick, “I have a Pulitzer-winning investigative guy on staff that I want you to talk to. He can give you some background, and I’m gonna tell him to give you some off-the-record stuff, too. Now is this … Are you official on this?”

“I’m deputized to help with the investigation, but we haven’t made any official announcements. We don’t have positive IDs yet,” said Osborne.

“Great. I need you to do something for me in return. Don’t talk to any other news media about this before you confirm with us, all right? Call me immediately when you have that confirmation,” said Dick. “If one of those victims is Bowers, this will be big news down here. And, Doc, here’s something that my reporter knows but that we haven’t released to the public: there’s a sting investigation under way down here, and we have to keep it under wraps until the KBI gives us the go-head.”

“The KBI?”

“The Kansas Bureau of Investigation. But let me put you through to the reporter, because he’s got the details. His name is Grant Moore—”

“What’s his phone number?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m going to patch you through to him. I think he’s downtown, just hold on.”

Less than a minute passed before Osborne heard a new voice on the phone. “Dr. Osborne? This is Grant Moore. The boss said you’ve got some interesting news….”

Quickly Osborne told the reporter exactly what he had just said to Dick Halstead. He went over the details of where the bodies were found, what he’d seen for physical evidence, but he said nothing about the peculiar genitals of the corpse that appeared to be from Kansas City. He didn’t think he should share that information until they had a solid ID. He did tell the reporter about Ray’s disappearance, the assault, and the strange woman in the woods.

“None of this makes a lot of sense,” he apologized, “but my dental records do seem to point in the direction of Kansas City.”

“I see,” said Moore. “I’m going to air freight a packet of clips for you—photos and background on the family. That will help with your investigation, but you need to talk to Bowers’s lawyer right away. She’s been bugging me for weeks to look into where he is because she’s sure there is something wrong. We didn’t have a clue where to start because he didn’t leave any word with his housekeeper or anyone else that we could find.”

“What kind of a man is he?” asked Osborne.

“Very private person,” said Moore. “Midforties, single, very unassuming. I guess he’s worth about two hundred million bucks, but I’d never heard anything about him until the robbery. Dick set up the interview—that was about two months ago—but we haven’t run the story yet.”

“A robbery?” asked Osborne.

“That’s what Dick asked me to tell you about,” said Moore. “The Bowers family home, which he inherited from his mother, was robbed of a very famous collection of European sterling silver, which is what precipitated the paper’s involvement. The police down here weren’t as responsive as Bowers thought they should be—the silver collection is worth millions—and he mentioned it to Dick during a board meeting. He refused to let us publicize the robbery, but he is cooperating with the KBI, which has set up a fence operation they think may lead them to the perpetrators—which, in my opinion, it won’t.”

“You sound pretty sure of that,” said Osborne.

“I know that,” said Moore. His voice was genial but serious. “I have a source in the Kansas City, Kansas, police department that told me they know exactly who took the silver: when, how, what happened to it, and why it will never be found.”

“But no one believes them?”

“Oh, they’d believe them just fine,” said Moore. “But this information is off the record. I can’t publish this. I can’t even tell Bowers—but Dick Halstead told me I better tell you. So I have to ask you to agree to keep this confidential before I tell you anything more. Agreed?”

“Of course.”

“There’s a known silver thief who operates out of Canada,” said the reporter. “He gets his information from antique dealers. We think he masquerades as an antique dealer himself. Then he flies into a city in the morning, pulls the heist, and is out on a plane that night. He’s pulled maybe six or seven jobs in Kansas City over the last ten years because this is a center for some fine collections. A lot of money in this town.”

“Why don’t the police get him?” Osborne asked.

“Two reasons, no, three,” said Moore. “First, they don’t usually know he’s been here until he’s gone; second, police departments don’t share information. Kansas cops may know one thing, but they aren’t talking to the Missouri cops. None of the cops, Kansas or Missoui, talk to the KBI. The KBI wouldn’t listen if they did. Bowers lives in Missouri, and my informer is in Kansas. The third reason is that on the Kansas City, Kansas, side they really don’t care. That’s the poor side of town. They could care less if a major heist occurs on the other side of the state line.”

“I’m sorry,” said Osborne, “but you lost me. Why the is the KBI involved if Bowers is a Missouri resident?”

“The University of Kansas’s art museum was robbed of a similar silver collection that had been donated by Mrs. Bowers several years ago. The same thief, of course.

“But I have a theory on this, Dr. Osborne, and I couldn’t get Robert Bowers to listen to me. He has been working with two art experts, private dealers, over the last year, and I think they’re involved. I am
certain
of it. And the reason I’m certain is because those two have vanished.

“First the silver disappeared, then Bowers took this unexplained business trip, then his lawyer found hundreds of thousands of dollars paid out of his personal account to one of the dealers—who is missing. Well, we think he’s missing, although we can’t really document that he lived here. He was around a lot, but we can’t find a local address for him.”

“We have more than one body,” said Osborne.

“You can’t miss the woman,” said Moore, “she’s built—like thirty-eight Ds. Very chesty.”

“Nope, that we don’t have,” said Osborne. “What about the male? What does he look like?”

“Middle-aged, kind of stout.”

“That’s it?”

“I only saw the guy once and from a distance at a gallery opening.”

“What about other businessmen in the area—anyone else missing?”

“No,” said Moore. “Dr. Osborne, I know Bowers’s lawyer will be anxious to hear everything you’ve told me. Why don’t you give her a call, then let’s talk again. Here’s her number. I’ve got some reporting on fire here right now, but I’d like to see if Dick won’t send me up there in a day or or two, but let me get back to you on that….”

Osborne placed the second call, and within ten minutes, he was making arrangements to pick up the lawyer at the Rhinelander airport the next morning.

“Dad? I overhead you talking about Ray Pradt getting beat up out there by Shepard Lake.” Erin was waiting for him in the long, airy living room. She was sitting on the sofa, little Cody sound asleep on her shoulder. She spoke softly so she wouldn’t wake up her son.

Osborne loved the picture he saw: his lively-eyed, slender-bodied daughter, jean-clad knees akimbo on an old overstuffed sofa in a room full of interesting and colorful things. Not expensive, traditional stuff like Mary Lee had always wanted, but what Erin called “funky.” Old furniture and antiques, comfortable sofa and chairs, nothing their three children couldn’t clamber on. The room was full of life, and her face was full of thought. Serious thought.

Osborne smiled and sat down carefully on the plump sofa beside Erin. The expression on her face seemed to grow darker, more concerned. This was beginning to look like something requiring lengthy discussion. Was she going to tell him he was making a mistake taking the assignment from Lew? Maybe she had reservations about Ray. Ray was always controversial, and his daughters often chided him for being seen too often with the stuffed trout hat. They had inherited their mother’s conventional attitudes, though in less toxic doses.

Osborne glanced at his watch. If he didn’t leave in five minutes, he’d be late for his meeting with Ray and Lew.

“What about Ray, hon? I told you we found him on one of those old logging roads farther north,” said Osborne. “Why?”

“But didn’t I hear you say it was up behind Shepard Lake?”

“Well, it was,” said Osborne, “closer to Dead Creek but back beyond that old B-and-B.”

“Dad, I had a terrible thing happen to me up there.” Erin laid the sleeping form of her son carefully on a blanket she’d spread beside her on the sofa. “I didn’t want to tell anyone this because I felt so stupid later.” She stood up and motioned him back toward the kitchen.

Osborne followed her, a nasty feeling tightening his shoulders. The look on Erin’s face frightened him. “What is it, Erin? You’ve got me worried.”