Dead Jitterbug (13 page)

“I didn’t pay attention—I was busy with my own sand pile. When Sandy came back after giving Dad his beer, she asked me where Brian was. I said he was on the dock, she said he wasn’t. I said he was, too. We walked out to see if he’d fallen into one of the boats or something. Dad had a lot of boats in those days.”

Kitsy closed her eyes. “I will never forget … he was floating in the water facedown. Sandy screamed for help and jumped in to pull him out, but he was unconscious. He died on the way to the hospital.”

As if to shake the memory, Kitsy pulled off her headband and ran her fingers back through her hair. “All I know is from that day on, I have always felt my parents blamed me. No,” she said with a bitter laugh, “I
know
they blamed me.”

“How could they?” asked Lew. “You were five years old.”

“If anyone should be blamed,” said Osborne, “it’s a grown-up telling a baby-sitter to leave two youngsters alone near water. Idiots know better than to do that.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that my father has never forgiven me,” said Kitsy. “When he came back from the hospital that afternoon, he screamed at me that I was the one who should have been watching Brian. Once when he was drunk, he accused me of pushing my brother off the dock on purpose.”

Kitsy leaned back and glanced sideways out the window. Following her gaze, Osborne could see Ed Kelly down on the dock, drink in hand, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, looking out over the water.

Kitsy sighed. “Growing up with a father who hates you. Who looks at you like he wishes for all the world you weren’t you—that you were the son he could take fishing, the son he could teach to play golf. You feel so helpless, you know. Like he said when Lillie walked in—'you always do it.’ What he means is I always screw up, I always ruin things.”

“I doubt that’s true,” said Lew, her voice brisk.

“Believe me, I’ve the therapist bills to second your opinion,” said Kitsy. “But that doesn’t stop his treating me the way he does. I’m just sure he’ll find some way to make me feel responsible for Mother’s death. Like I should have been sleeping here instead of at my place—whatever. It’ll be my fault, you wait and see.”

It was noon before Lew finished questioning Kitsy. After turning Kitsy’s gun over to the team from the crime lab, she and Osborne headed back into Loon Lake together. He’d left his car in the lot behind the police department.

“Not much to go on, Doc,” said Lew, pulling onto the road outside the gate. “Still no sign of a break-in. I have to hand it to the Wausau boys—they’re doing a helluva job. That old place has more doors and porches than an Advent calendar and they’ve been checking and rechecking every possible point of entry: house, garage, dock area, front gate, deck, upper decks, everywhere. Whoever got into the house also had to get by the locked gate. We figure they had to have a key.”

“At least you have shell casings from the murder weapon,” said Osborne. “That’s something.”

“Yeah,” said Lew without enthusiasm. “I gave Kitsy’s pistol to the boys for analysis. It’s a twenty-two, all right.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“We’ll see. Intuition tells me she’s not a likely suspect.” Lew snorted. “Not that my intuition hasn’t failed me on occasion.” She grinned at Osborne. “How many times have I been skunked trying to tease a big old brown trout out of a good hole? I’ll match the hatch perfectly, drop my fly with absolute precision, know in my gut he has to take it … nada.”

Osborne smiled. He liked her like this: intent on her work but happy.

“Tell you one thing, Doc,” said Lew, interrupting his reverie, “I do not like guns of any kind in the hands of people who are chemically dependent. I may have to revoke Kitsy’s license. Although …” she paused to glance over at him, “I’m kinda glad she had that today.”

“Why? I would think the opposite.”

“You don’t hold on to a pistol you just used to kill someone. You throw it in the woods. You throw it in the water. You bury it in the garbage.”

“Lewellyn, what if she did do it and doesn’t remember …?”

Lew gave him a long look. “For the record, Doc, I will be heartily surprised if the shell casings we found at the scene match Kitsy’s gun.”

“How soon will you know?”

Lew shrugged. “I’ll ask Gordon when I talk to him later. In the meantime, I’m hoping his lab is able to rush the analysis from the autopsy—I sure could use a decent estimate of the time of death. That, and a lead from those letters I found, although I figure that’s a long shot.”

“I don’t know, Lew. Between the letters you found here, and what they’ve got down in Madison, who knows? Just the fact that anyone could use the Internet to find Hope McDonald’s home addresses—not to mention phone numbers—is creepy. Reminds me of the guy who shot John Lennon. People get fixated on celebrities, people like Hope.”

“Which reminds me, Doc. Marlene radioed that the photocopies of the letters found here are on my desk. But I’ve got to take some time with Roger before I can go over those. He’s picked up at least twenty of those marked bills around town. I have to figure out what we do next about that situation.”

“Too bad you can’t put it on hold for a few days. Your hands are full with this investigation.”

“Unfortunately, the word is out, and Marlene’s had calls from the tribal council. Someone over there is convinced that the fact the bills are showing up in such numbers could mean that the two guys who robbed the bank are from the area.”

“The tribal council? What’s their problem? Surely that cash was insured….”

“The cash was insured, but not the goodwill. The tribe owns the bank, and their insurance company is putting pressure on them to either build a new building or pay much higher premiums. Not to mention all the business they’ve lost since the robbery. No, Doc,” said Lew, “I can understand the tribe’s position. Would you put your savings in that bank right now?

“Also, finding these bills is a break for the Wausau boys. I can see why they want to act fast. They’ve been waiting a year for some to surface. The first bills were used at the Best Buy in Wausau, then the Wal-Mart over in Rhinelander—that was last month. Now, to have so many showing up in Loon Lake …”

“What I don’t understand,” Osborne asked, “is why a year after the robbery? Why now and not months ago?”

“Whoever the guys are, I’m sure they thought that waiting a year before using the cash would make it safe. This time of year—what with the tourists throwing money at everything—they figure merchants won’t take the time to eyeball their twenty-dollar bills. You gotta remember, these are two men who made a major mistake during that robbery. No reason they can’t make another. Greed helps, doncha know?”

“What mistake—besides robbing a bank in the first place?”

“Oh,” said Lew, “I guess I didn’t tell you this. This case goes way beyond one bank robbery and the tribe’s loss. These two jabones have robbed seventeen banks over the last four years and every time, they have threatened the tellers not to put in the dye packs. Only this time, they got so excited when they saw they had the duffle with all the cash from the casino, they forgot about the dye packs. “What’s so silly is that of all the cash that was taken that day, only three thousand in twenties is marked. Now, you would think that with three million bucks
unmarked
—couldn’t you just toss the three thousand? But, no, they have to make every penny count.

“And Gordon is right: the window of time for using that marked money is limited. Since he’s got his boys working overtime on my case, the least I can do is sit down with Roger, give Gordon call, and see what he wants us to do next. Isn’t it always this way, Doc? Especially during tourist season: everything at once.”

“Would you like me to take a look through Hope’s letters—see if there’s anything that jumps out at us?”

“I never thought you’d offer,” said Lew, her voice light. “That would make my day. But weren’t you planning to get out on the water?”

“Gosh, no,” said Osborne. “Supposed to hit ninety this afternoon. Too hot to fish. I’ll just sit on my deck and read through those.”

“If you’ll do that, I’ll be in touch with the office manager in Madison,” said Lew. “See if they’ve flagged any disturbing letters on their end.”

“Nice of Ed Kelly to detour the press. At least you don’t have that to worry about.”

“Not yet anyway,” said Lew. “But that can change the minute I have an arrest. No matter how much control Mr. Important may think he has, there are a few things money can’t buy. The press is one.”

“Try harmony in the family,” said Osborne. “What a razzbonya—dumping his guilt on a five-year-old.”

“I suppose it helps explain his daughter somewhat,” said Lew. “You have to wonder what motivates a woman to want to look so … so … hydroponic.” Lew swung the car off the highway and onto a city street. “I found it hard not to stare—that woman exposes more skin than my daughter did when she was working as a stripper at Thunder Bay. And now she takes over advising eighty million people on how to manage their lives? ‘How to make it through the night’ from a woman who spends her own nights blotto on painkillers so potent she can’t remember a thirty-minute conversation with a police officer informing her of her mother’s death?” Lew shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

“If Kitsy Kelly is capable of shooting anyone, I would hope it would be her father,” said Osborne. Lew looked over at him as she pulled the police cruiser into the parking spot next to his car.

“I’m looking for a killer consumed with rage….”

“Well, if it were Kitsy, don’t you agree the target would have to be Ed Kelly, not her mother?”

“Can’t be sure of that.”

Osborne thought of his own daughter, Mallory, and the coldness between them for so many years. Years when she and her mother had shut him out. Maybe Lew had a point. Now that he and Mallory were working hard to find their way toward each other with a friendship that might even turn into love someday—he could see her questioning the things her mother had done and said. Between AA and therapy, Mallory was learning that he wasn’t quite the bad guy Mary Lee had made him out to be.

“Think about it, Doc. Where was Hope McDonald the day her little boy drowned? Where was Hope when Ed said things that broke a little girl’s heart?”

nineteen

When you bait your hook with your heart, the fish always bite!

—John Burroughs

It
was so breezy outdoors that Osborne decided to work at the kitchen table. He set the two manila envelopes down, filled a tall glass with ice cubes and cold tap water, then sat down with a fresh pad of yellow legal paper and his favorite pen. He slipped the pages out of the first envelope and shuffled them into a neat pile. These were the draft columns, typed on
8½
by 11 sheets of paper and dotted with edits made with a blue pencil.

He opened the second envelope and slid out copies of letters sent to Hope. Stapled to each letter was a copy of the envelope in which it had been sent. Good, he thought, return addresses and postmarks. Osborne pushed back in his chair and rested his feet on the seat of the chair to his left. He decided to read through the columns first.

As he leaned back to read the first column, he heard a car slow down and pull into the driveway. A door slammed.

“Hey, Dad!” Erin’s face appeared in the window over the kitchen sink. “Will you be seeing or talking to Lew this afternoon?”

“I hope so, why?”

“Would you remind her that I’m picking her up at six to canvass the homes north of Highway Forty-seven and up around Spider Lake, Black Lake—that whole area. Lots of registered voters in there, so if she can shake forty hands tonight, we’ll have a shot at working the entire county before the election.”

“I should be seeing her at Lillian Wright’s office around three o’clock. But, Erin, she has so much going on right now—I’m not sure she can take the time.”

“She doesn’t have a choice, Dad. Not if she wants to win this election. You tell her I said so, and I’m the manager.”

“Where are the kids?”

“Swimming lessons. I’m serious, Dad. Lew has got to do this. Say, did you hear that Hope McDonald passed away?”

“Yes, I did. And there’s more to it than that.”

“Serious?” asked Erin. “Can you tell me about it?”

“I don’t see why not. Lew is expecting it to make the news anytime now. Come inside.”

When he had finished telling Erin what he had seen and heard, he asked, “Did you ever read her column?”

“Every day. Not that there’s a lot to read in the
Loon Lake Daily ‘Snooze
,’ as you well know, Dad. But, yeah, I’ve read it since I was in high school. I like ‘Ask Hope.’ Interesting topics, good advice, and a
great
sense of humor. Sometimes cute and funny, other times quite touching. I’d seen her in the Loon Lake Market once in awhile and had the urge to tell her how much I like the column, but that seemed so goofy I never did. Dad, it’s bizarre that someone would kill Hope McDonald. She’s famous for helping people, for heaven’s sake.”

“Lew asked me to read over these columns and letters that she found in Hope’s office. See if there are any red flags, anything that might have set someone off. I was just getting started when you drove up.” Osborne sat forward and laid his hands on the two stacks of papers. “Would you have the time to look at a few? Since you’re familiar with her writing, you might pick up on something I’d miss.”

“Sure. How many you got there?”

“About twenty columns and not sure how many letters. Here, you start with this half.” Erin pulled out a chair and sat down, copies of the columns in her hands.

“Interesting. I’ve always wondered what stuff like this looked like before it appeared in the newspaper.”

They read in silence, each setting a page facedown on the table as they finished. Osborne found nothing unusual in the ones he was reading. Every column featured one or two letters starting with “Dear Hope” and continuing for several sentences. He assumed they had been shortened from the originals and the names of the letter writers had been changed. At the bottom of each page was a note to the editor at the newspaper syndicate on which booklet or book they should suggest that readers purchase. This was always followed with a reminder to include ordering information.