Dead Hot Mama (2 page)

“Watch
the steps, they’re icy,” said Osborne over his shoulder. Erin and Mason were following so closely he could hear their boots crunching snow as the three of them hurried down the stone stairway to the lake.

Two doors down, the Kobernots’ dock lamps were lit and angled out, throwing pools of light across the small rink. A snowmobile trail running along the shoreline made it an easy run, and they got there in a matter of seconds. As they arrived, one of the sons was slamming hockey pucks into a goal at the far end.

Some pucks made the net, others flipped up and over the snowbank and onto the snowmobile trail that wound around the back of the rink. That was an accident waiting to happen: A passing snowmobiler could easily take one right in the head. Even as Osborne noted the danger, he saw points of light bobbing towards them from across the lake.

Snowmobiles were out in large numbers this year due to the early and deep snow cover. While he hated the noise and the congestion on the lakes, even Osborne had to admit the Loon Lake economy needed these alien-looking riders with their cash-heavy wallets. The roar of the snowmobile was the sound of money.

“Your dog is acting weird, Dr. Osborne,” said the boy as he bent down to dig an errant puck out of the snow behind the goal. Osborne stepped up and across the snowbank to where he could see Mike, his black coat barely visible in the inky shadows on the far side of the mounded snow.

Head high, nose up, and eyes intent on an area where a plow had pushed the snow much higher, Mike was air scenting. His tail whipped with an enthusiasm that signaled he wouldn’t quit until he had his master’s approval. As Osborne slid slowly down the bank towards the dog, the black lab trotted in his direction, then backed off with a bark ending in a yelp.

A yelp he recognized. Years of hunting together had forged an intuitive bond between Osborne and his dog. And though Osborne had heard that yelp only once before, he knew exactly what it meant.

Never would he forget the day that he and Mike had found the hunter, one of Osborne’s partners in his deer shack. He had been missing since breakfast. Obscured by a clump of tag alder where he had fallen from his deer stand, the man was dead of a heart attack suffered hours earlier. Fifty yards before Osborne could even see the body, Mike had signaled the presence of death.

“Erin, sweetheart,” said Osborne at the sound of boots scrabbling up the icy bank behind him, “why don’t you and Mason stay on shore while I check this out.” Keeping his voice level as Mason tumbled down the snowbank to land at his feet, he said with more emphasis, “I want you both to stay back …
way
back.”

Erin grabbed at the sleeve of her daughter’s jacket. “Mason! Stop, I want you here with me. Come on now, you heard Grampa—back on the dock.” The little girl, sensing something was up, pulled away from her mother and tried to peer around Osborne. “Mason, I mean it.” Erin gave her a yank.

Just then Mallory scrambled up onto the snowbank. She had stayed behind to dig a pair of ski mitts out of her suitcase. Her arrival was too much for the Kobernot kid—he gave up on his hockey pucks and skated over to watch. Osborne put up a hand, signaling both to stay right where they were.

Then he began pushing at the snow with his gloved hands. Drifting spray from the water gun used to ice the rink had glazed the surface of the snow, but he was able to break through with one thrust of his fist. Beneath the glaze, the snow was airy and light: It had been mounded recently.

“Mallory,” said Osborne, pausing to look up, “would you stand behind me and hold this so I can see what I’m doing?” He handed over a flashlight he’d jammed into his pocket as he rushed out of the house.

“Sure, Dad.” She slid down, grabbed the flashlight, and positioned herself behind him. “Does this work?”

“Yes, thank you.”

When he felt his gloved fingers encounter resistance, he took them off, reaching down and in with bare hands … skin. After so many years of working in people’s mouths, he knew the feel of it, fresh or frozen.

“Come closer,” he motioned to Mallory. “Shine that light right here.” A swift intake of breath from his daughter told him she could see what he had felt.

He kept working. Fingers tender and light, he dusted the snow back and back, exposing a slender wrist, then a forearm, then a hand—a hand with long, graceful fingers and nails—nails painted dark blue and silver.

Osborne looked up at the boy, who was watching with worried eyes. It was the older of the two sons. “Is your father home?”

The boy nodded.

“I’d go get him if I were you,” Osborne said.

“Erin,” Osborne turned his head in the other direction, “take Mason up to the house and give Lewellyn Ferris a call at the police station, would you please? Ask to speak to her directly, and if she’s not there, let whoever is on the switchboard know it’s an emergency and they need to patch you through to wherever she is. Tell Lew …” Osborne, aware of Mason’s wide eyes, paused, “… tell her there’s been an accident and a … casualty out here.”

“A casualty? No ambulance, Dad?” Erin knew he was protecting his granddaughter from nightmares.

“Not on an emergency basis, but she’ll want to alert Pecore—she’ll need a coroner’s report on this.

“Now Mason, your job is to call Mike,” said Osborne. “He needs a reward, and I want him to stay in the house with you, okay? Can you do that for Grampa? Can you make sure that Mike gets two treats?”

Delight crossed Mason’s face as she called the dog. With a hand signal from Osborne, Mike followed the little girl, bouncing happily behind her up the stairs and back to warmth.

Mallory waited until they were out of earshot before she said, “We don’t want to do anything further, I guess, huh?”

“Not until Lew gets here. I just want to be sure no one moves anything or touches anything around this—”

“Holiday nails,” said Mallory, interrupting.

“What?”

“You see them everywhere in the city.” She pointed at the painted fingernails. “Acrylic and expensive. I can tell you one thing, Dad—this is no hockey player.”

Even
as the police cruiser pulled into his driveway ten minutes later, Craig Kobernot was vomiting off his dock.

“God Almighty, I think I did it,” he choked, wiping at his face. Osborne stood by, arms ready in case the neurologist slipped and fell. One body was enough for the moment. “I plowed late last night,” said Craig, wiping at his mouth as he pointed over at a small shed. Behind it was parked an ATV with a plow attached.

“My night vision isn’t real great, and I remember feeling something I thought were chunks of ice. Man, if that snowmobiler was alive when I plowed—my insurance is going to …” He couldn’t finish.

“I don’t think the victim was on a snowmobile—”

“Of course they were,” Kobernot cut him off, “how the hell else could they get here?” He retched again.

“Well …”

Osborne paused, knowing anything he said would be ignored, “I wouldn’t beat myself up until we know more.”

What a self-centered pain in the butt. He never had liked the guy and now he had yet another reason to find him irritating. Tall and rangy with the insouciant smirk of a man who knows he’s attractive to women, Kobernot had the opposite effect on Osborne and his buddies. More than one liked to poke fun at the physician, noting his resemblance to a raccoon, the sly forest thief with the perpetual smile, beady eyes, and brazen ways.

It didn’t help that Kobernot was a known womanizer, that he had managed to build a million-dollar home in spite of two malpractice suits, and that he owned three extremely loud personal watercraft. Oh, and four snowmobiles. How many times had Osborne walked over and graciously requested that Craig and his sons tone it down a little only to hear, “I’ll see what I can do, old man, but you know boys …”

As if that wasn’t enough, Kobernot was a fisherman who couldn’t tell a spinning rod from a fly rod: “Hey, Doc, I’ve got some friends coming up from Appleton—can you show me how these damn things work? Where do you buy worms?”

As far as Osborne was concerned, Craig Kobernot might be a professional man and he might have had enough taste to buy property on Loon Lake—but that could not hide the fact he was an out-and-out jabone. And now—to be more concerned about his insurance liability than the fate of some poor human being? High time someone wiped the smirk off that face.

The two of them stood alone on the dock. Craig had banished his son to the house, and Mallory had run back up to Osborne’s to help Erin. Mark was due any moment with the pizza and the two boys, and Osborne wanted to be darn sure his grandchildren were kept far away from the disturbing scene behind the snowbank.

“Doc? Is that you down there?” A figure in a khaki-colored parka tripped quickly down the Kobernots’ wood stairs and skidded towards them across the slippery rink.

“Sorry to take so long—you must be freezing.” Dark and serious, Lew’s eyes caught the light. Black curls fell in a tangle across her forehead, struggling out from under the circle of fur that anchored her hood.

The parka was new. After one of her deputies, wearing the traditional dark green, was nearly killed by a motorist who didn’t see him in the dark, Lew had insisted the entire Loon Lake police force—all three of them—switch to lighter-colored jackets. Though the decision was made strictly for safety reasons, Osborne found her new uniform quite easy on the eyes—or maybe it was just Lew and not the uniform at all.

Every time he watched her approach, the tawny band of possum framing her face, he was reminded of a favorite story from his childhood: the tale of an ice princess whose sled sped along moonbeams. Not an image the chief of the Loon Lake Police Department would appreciate. No siree.

Tough-minded, gun-friendly, Lewellyn Ferris would be appalled to think she was making such a frivolous impression. Osborne, who did not always know the right thing to say around her, at least knew better than to share this observation. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t relish it in private. That and the fact that even though Lew had the demeanor of a quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, she had a way of making him feel sixteen all over again.

Right now, having stopped a few feet from where Kobernot was bending over and spitting into the snow, Lew clapped her gloved hands to keep them warm. She cut her eyes towards Osborne. “Is he okay?” As Osborne nodded, Craig straightened up.

“Chief Ferris,” said Osborne, beckoning Lew forward, “this is my neighbor, Dr. Craig Kobernot. Craig is a neurologist at St. Mary’s, and he just wasn’t prepared for what you’ll find over behind that snowbank.”

“This your rink, Dr. Kobernot?” said Lew.

“Yes.”

Lew acknowledged Kobernot with a quick handshake before stepping off the dock. “So what do we have—a snowmobile accident?” She hopped up onto the snowbank. “Erin didn’t say much when she called.” Osborne followed her, then aimed his flashlight down into the snow.

“Oh … I see,” said Lew, pausing at the sight of the bare forearm in the snow. “Any idea what happened here?” She dropped to her knees, and Osborne knelt beside her.

“No, Lew. Mason was walking Mike when the dog air scented the corpse,” said Osborne. “Hoping I was wrong, I uncovered just this much. When I didn’t see any sign of life, I thought I better hold off just in case …”

Lew reached for the flashlight. Osborne handed it over, then leaned in with her for a closer look. Glancing up, he caught a funny look on Kobernot’s face. “The chief and I fish together,” said Osborne, as if that explained their easy familiarity.

“I see.”

Working as gently as Osborne had, Lew brushed away more snow, careful to leave it piled to one side. In less than a minute, she had exposed the head and shoulders of what appeared to be a young woman with spiked blond hair. The head was turned sideways, face tilted down into the snow, away from Kobernot’s line of vision.

Lew sat back on her heels. “No blood in the snow that I can see in this light, no winter clothing on the victim—in fact, she appears to be naked … and no sign of a wound. I don’t know if the body is frozen or still in rigor, but I can’t move her,” said Lew. She pulled off a glove and slipped her hand into the woman’s armpit. “Cold. Very cold. Cold enough to say she’s been dead awhile—and this is no accident.

“I better have one of the Wausau boys take a look. Since I have another situation over on Two Sisters Lake, we’ve already got someone in the area.” She unzipped a side pocket in her parka and reached for a cell phone. She punched in a number and waited. As she waited, she looked at Osborne. “Is this a breakthrough or what?”

She meant the cell phone. Up until two months earlier, cell service in the northwoods had been lousy. Drive just two miles out of Loon Lake, and you lost your signal. While service was still spotty in areas, tonight, at least, it was working.

“Hello, Roger, you have one of the Wausau boys there?” Lew spoke quickly, giving directions to the Kobernot residence. Then she said, “Oh, really … that’s strange. That’s very strange … thank you.”

“Who are the Wausau boys?” asked Craig as she slipped the phone back into her pocket.

“The crime lab from Wausau does our forensic analyses,” said Lew, referring to the larger town located sixty miles from Loon Lake. “They’re not the best in the state, but they’re all we’ve got.” The look on her face said it all.

Lew detested the head of the crime lab. That fall, while fly-fishing for smallies on the Wisconsin River, she had shared with Osborne the extent of her frustration with the man. He was an old-timer who didn’t like seeing women in law enforcement and made it his mission to make her job difficult. His favorite technique was to demand that she fill out and fax a two-page questionnaire before he would take her phone call.

“C’mon, Frank, I’ve completed that damn form at least twenty times, and you are deliberately delaying my investigation,” she would say. He would chuckle.

One thing about the guy that Osborne did appreciate, however, was his refusal to spend state funds on a fulltime forensic odontologist. That encouraged Lew to call on Osborne for assistance when dental records were a last resort for identification purposes, not uncommon in a region dotted with hundreds of lakes, rivers, and streams—and peopled with tourists who thought wearing a life jacket was a negative fashion statement. “Boater today, floater tomorrow,” read a T-shirt popular with Loon Lake locals.

While Osborne may have had limited forensic experience during a brief stint in the military while he was still in dental school, it was enough to make Lew’s life easier. And his significantly more interesting.

They had met when she volunteered to teach him how to fly fish—in return for a new fly line from the owner of the local fly fishing shop who was too busy that weekend to take on a private student. Since that first night in the river, Osborne had pursued any excuse to see Lew—in, on, or off water.

“Dr. Kobernot, we’ll have to secure the area, including the snowmobile trail and the skating rink, including your dock area—”

“But my son has to practice—”

“I’m afraid there’s a five hundred dollar fine if you violate—”

“All right, all right.” Kobernot raised his hands in surrender. “My family and I will cooperate in every way.”

“Lew, that ATV up there,” Osborne pointed on shore, “Craig used it to plow the snow where the body is.”

“Okay, I need the ATV and the area around it secured, too.”

“How long are we talking, Chief Ferris?”

“As long as it takes to secure all trace evidence.”

Kobernot turned away, throwing his arms up in total frustration. “Honest to Pete. All right. Okay. Well, then—at the very least can you do whatever you need to do as soon as possible? We’ve got a winter storm due in tomorrow sometime, and if I don’t keep my rink cleared, I’ll lose this good ice.”

“I’ll do what works for the investigator out of Wausau, Doctor,” said Lew, keeping her voice level as she made it clear she was not in the mood to take orders.

“Lew, what the heck happened on Two Sisters?” asked Osborne, sensing this was an excellent time to change the subject. He knew she’d been working overtime with the usual holiday influx of skiers, snowmobilers, and ice fisherman—actually more than usual thanks to the snow and frigid temperatures. Still, she never called on Wausau unless she had a serious crime.

“Late this afternoon, some fishermen pulled a snowmobiler out of Two Sisters Lake. Roger took the call. They told him it looked like animals had gotten to the body. I didn’t like the sound of that, so I asked a few more questions. Turns out the body was found right over a sandbar—a
wide
sandbar where you can stand up and climb out if that’s where you go in. Then, oddly enough, there was no sign of his vehicle. That’s when I sent Roger to the scene and called Wausau.”

“Any idea who it is?” asked Osborne.

“None whatsover. Roger checked with the neighbors to see if anyone had friends or family missing. Then I had Marlene call around, and we discovered Eagle River has had two riders missing for over a week! But about that time I got the call from Erin. So I left Roger waiting for Wausau at Two Sisters and hurried out here.”

“Are you talking about Roger Adamczyk?” asked Kobernot. “He used to be my insurance agent. When you talk to him next, tell him to give me a call.”

“I won’t have time to do that. Dr. Kobernot,” said Lew. “Roger’s no longer in the insurance business, you know. He’s been working for me for two years now.”

She darted a quick look over at Osborne, who was repressing a grin. They both knew poor Roger’s chagrin over finding himself more involved in law enforcement than he’d ever planned. When he sold his small insurance agency, he had planned on a few years emptying parking meters down Loon Lake’s Main Street segueing into an easy retirement—then Lewellyn Ferris got promoted and changed his life.

“I know that, but he handled my property insurance—”

“Dr. Kobernot,” said Lew, “your business is not my business.”

Lew turned back towards the victim. Slowly, she ran her flashlight up and down the head and shoulders that lay outlined in the snow. “That face is not familiar to me, Doc. What about you?”

Even though he was retired, after thirty-three years of practicing dentistry in Loon Lake, Osborne still knew many of the people living in the region. He dropped to his knees for a closer look and brushed away more snow, better exposing the face and the line of the jaw.

“No, Lew, I don’t think I’ve seen her before. I’ll be happy to do the dental exam once the body is moved.”

“I would very much appreciate that.”

Lew waved her flashlight towards the dock, “Dr. Kobernot, please step over here and take a look. See if you recognize the victim.”

“I hardly think—” said Kobernot from where he stood at the end of his dock, his hands on his hips. He exhaled with impatience as he let himself down onto the rink, then up and over the snowbank.

The moment his eyes fell on the dead woman’s face, his gloved hands jerked involuntarily. “No!”

“‘No,’ you can’t believe she’s dead or ‘no,” you don’t know her?” asked Lew.

“I’ve never seen that woman before in my life.”

Osborne gave a quick glance at Lew, but her expression was opaque. Then he looked at Kobernot. The smirk was gone, the impatience, too. Craig Kobernot was scared.