Dead Jitterbug (19 page)

“Tornado!” he screamed.

twenty-six

The end of fishing is not angling, but catching.

—Thomas Fuller

What
happened next took less than five seconds: Osborne hauled at the anchor with both hands. Lew grabbed clippers from the tackle box at her feet and cut the line. Osborne yanked the cord on the outboard and had it full throttle just as Lew was shoving the fly rod onto the bottom of the boat.

A small clearing a hundred yards off was their only hope. If they were lucky, there’d be no hidden deadheads to stop them. As they got close to shore, Osborne gunned the motor one last time, yanked the outboard up, and shouted, “Hold on!” The boat hit the shore and ran up a good twenty feet onto the beach.

They were out and running. Osborne looked back to see the funnel veer slightly to the north. “This way, Lew,” he said, grabbing for her hand. “Down!” They hit a basin of hillocks, swampy but low, and lay flat, hands covering their heads as the “train” roared by. Trees cracked, limbs crashed, and Osborne figured his boat of thirty years was long gone. But they were safe.

When the roar had moved on, he lifted his head just as the rain poured down and lightning split the sky all around. Before he could say a word, Lew had jumped up and was running toward the boat, which had been blown over by the wind. “Don’t worry about it,” he shouted through the storm, but she was on her knees scrambling for something.

“Lew, we can’t stay here.”

“I know.” She ran back toward him, her eyes sparkling through the rain as she held up the tackle box. “Sandwiches!”

“I see a path over here, let’s see where it goes,” said Osborne, pushing through tag alders heavy with wind. Black as the sky was, the path was easy to see in the rapid flashes of lightning. After five minutes, they found themselves in the parking area of a small tavern and raced for the door.

Inside all was dark, but there were people and voices. Cars were pulling over in the downpour, and more people ran in behind them. The bartender was just lighting a candle when he looked up and saw Osborne. “Oh, my gosh, Doc, were you out on the lake? You are one lucky son of a gun. Holy smokes! Who’s this good-lookin’ dame you got with you? At least she was good lookin’ before you tried to drown her.”

“Hey, we’re alive,” said Lew, shaking the water out of her hair. “Lew Ferris, pleased to meet you.”

“Wally Gunderson,” said the bartender. “?l’ Doc here was my dentist.”

“Whew! We almost got nailed by a small tornado coming off the lake, Wally.” Now Osborne recognized where they were: Wally’s Place, beer, bait, and tackle. A cozy little tavern.

“So I been hearing from some of these other folks,” said Wally, waving towards the room. Even in the dark Osborne could make out at least a dozen people who, judging from their wet hair and clothes, were also refugees from the storm.

“Sit right up here, people,” said Wally to the room. “No power doesn’t mean refreshments aren’t available. Can’t run the cash register, but I sure can open the fridge. What can I get you—first one’s on the house.”

Just as he spoke there was a loud crack, followed by a thudding crash. “Holy cow!” he said, running for the screen door. Everyone followed, “Who’s driving that big red Expedition?” he asked.

“Oh, no, that’s my dad’s car! He doesn’t know I got it,” said a tall, lanky boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen. The kid looked past Wally and groaned.

“I think we better wait it out here, don’t you?” asked Osborne as they walked back to the bar.

“Doc, we are lucky to be here.”

“Hey, you two, what’ll you have?” asked Wally as they sat down.

“Coke for me, and a Bud for the lady,” said Osborne. Lew grinned. She reached into the tackle box and pulled out a sandwich for each of them, followed by a bag of tortilla chips and two apples.

“When was the last time peanut butter tasted so good?” she asked as they inhaled their food. “So, you want to hear what Bunny DeLoye told me this morning?”

“Of course.”

“What she said is quite contrary to what I heard from Julia Wendt. Fact is, Julia did
not
leave the house any night last week. Bunny would know—her apartment is above the garage.” “So what you’re saying is Julia—”

“Lied. Has deliberately made up a story to incriminate her good friend Kitsy. So I ask you, Doc, why would she do that?”

“From the look on your face, I have a hunch you’ve got the answer.”

“Yes, sort of. When I got back from seeing Bunny DeLoye, I had several phone messages waiting for me. The first was from Hope McDonald’s office manager. While they had no evidence in the Madison office of Hope receiving any threats from readers, she did pass along a tidy bit of information on Mr. Kelly. Seems his most recent hotel bill included a charge incurred at the hotel spa—a facial and a massage—for a party going by the name of Julia Wendt.”

“I wonder if Kitsy knows—or has known.”

“I doubt it. She’s so angry with her father—that would have come out first thing. But the best news came from the least likely source.” Lew took a big bite from her sandwich and chewed slowly, a twinkle in her eye. “Pecore.”

“Pecore?”

“Yep. I thought it was hopeless asking him for the evidence from the McBride case. He found it. We have everything, including the baby’s pajamas. Marlene pulled the files, which I’ll look over first thing in the morning before the meeting with Molly and her aunt—and Lillie—tomorrow.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll need me—”

“You better be there—you’re one of the few people who’s known Jerry O’Brien over the years. No, Doc, with the McDonald case still up for grabs, my budget may not be in the best of shape—but I can’t let that get in the way of doing the job.”

Wally, a kind, wide-faced man looked up from where he was washing glasses.

“Did I hear you mention Jerry O’Brien?”

“Yeah,” said Osborne. “He’s got a place around here, doesn’t he?”

“Across the road on Little Moccasin,” said Wally, drying his hands on a towel, then leaning forward over the bar. “Keeps his boat in my marina. Uses it to go back and forth ‘cause he owns all the property on the point. Takes an hour to get there by county road, maybe ten minutes by boat.”

“Friend of yours?” asked Lew. “Nice guy?”

“Oh, no, no friend. Just a patron. Strange one, that guy. Wouldn’t you say so, Doc?” Osborne nodded his head. “Yep, scared the bejesus out of my kids years back. Nearly had to put ‘em in therapy.”

“You’re not serious?” asked Osborne. “He frightened your children? How did that happen?”

“You gotta hear it from my wife,” said Wally. “It’s her story. Cindy!” He hollered down the bar to a short, trim woman who had been helping him serve. “Cindy, come over here for a minute.”

Cindy finished handing a customer a beer, then walked towards her husband, wiping her hands on her jeans. “What’s up?”

“Cindy, you know Dr. Osborne—”

“Of course I do. And I know Chief Ferris, too. You folks got caught in the storm, I take it.” Cindy had a wide smile and cheekbones to match under a thatch of salt-and-pepper hair.

“We were just talking about Jerry O’Brien, and I was saying how he scared the dickens out of our kids—but you tell it better’n I do.”

Cindy looked around as if to be sure Jerry O’Brien wasn’t standing behind her. “Really? You want me to dredge all that up? It’s not like he hurt anyone, y’know.”

The noise in the bar had settled to a low hum. The rain was less thundering, and no one was crowding the bar. Cindy put her elbows on the bar and leaned in toward Osborne and Lew.

“This happened maybe fifteen or sixteen years ago. Our boys were eight and ten, and we owned a couple of lots over near the point. Sold ‘em since, but there were real nice blueberries on our land that abutted O’Brien’s.

“To keep the boys busy one day, I sent ‘em over to pick berries, and they took the dog along. Well, the dog disappeared as dogs do, and the boys went into the woods after her. Wouldn’t you know she’d head straight for Jerry’s trash? So the boys find themselves walking onto his property, and Jerry is out in the side yard, but he doesn’t see the boys.”

“Tell ‘em what he was wearing,” said Wally from where he was leaning back against the counter, arm crossed, listening to his wife.

Cindy turned to give him a dim eye. “Wally? You want to tell the story, or you want me to?” Wally raised both hands in submission.

“The boys had started to run after Ginger but stopped when they saw Mr. O’Brien lying in a lawn chair sunning himself … in women’s underwear. Not a swimming suit, mind you—but women’s underwear. The boys described it as shiny silk. They didn’t know what to think—and it scared them. So now the dog is running down to the water, but they don’t dare let O’Brien see them hiding in the woods.”

“Cindy’s brother is gay,” said Wally.

“Jeez, Wally, let me finish, will ya?” asked his wife. “So they come home without the dog, crying, and I am especially worried because, yes, my brother is gay, and I don’t want the boys to have the wrong idea. Like I don’t want them to think their uncle is weird or whatever.

“So we talk, and I try to explain to the boys that we all grow up differently and there’s nothing wrong with that. And I do my best to help them understand that some men may want to wear women’s clothing—but that doesn’t mean their uncle does.

“I guess,” Cindy paused, “they loved their uncle and had no image of him doing anything like that, which was a very bizarre sight for the boys. Now, I don’t know if my brother cross-dresses or not, but if he does, that’s his business. To this day, our sons love and respect their uncle—and have, I don’t think, ever associated him with what they saw that day.”

“How did you explain it?” asked Lew.

“Thank you for asking,” said Cindy. “In fact, I didn’t at first. I called a friend of mine from college who’s a psychotherapist and asked her what to say. She suggested I explain to the boys that some people need softness in their lives. That maybe Mr. O’Brien had an experience early in his life that made him want to touch and feel soft, pretty things. Sounds wacky but it worked. The boys settled down. Instead of being frightened, they felt sorry for Jerry.”

“So what you’re saying is Jerry O’Brien forced
you
into therapy,” said Lew with a chuckle.

“At least I didn’t have to pay for it,” said Cindy. “You want to know how fast we put that land on the market? The next day.”

“Any more encounters with O’Brien?” asked Osborne. “Did he know the boys saw him?”

“Heavens, no,” said Wally. “But he is one odd duck, I’ll tell ya. Keeps to himself like you wouldn’t believe. In all these years, I’ve never seen him take anyone else out to his place by boat, and he’s back and forth all the time. What about you, Cindy? You ever see him with other people?”

“No, but he’s always pleasant,” said Cindy. “We run a small business down by the water. You know, some bait and staples like milk and bread. He’ll stop in for things but never says much.”

“You know,” said Osborne, “that’s Jerry all around. He ran that newspaper for years but now that you mention it, he’s not very social. I can’t think of a time I’ve seen him at a Friday fish fry. Can’t be Catholic, I’ve never seen him at Mass.”

“We’re Methodists—and we’ve never seen him there,” said Cindy.

“He’s not a member of Kiwanis,” said Wally.

“Here’s what’s really weird,” said Cindy. “He never comes to our lake association meetings. Now for the investment in lake frontage that he’s got, you’d think he’d at least show up for that. We’re not talking social—we’re talking money!”

twenty-seven

But what is the test of a river? “The power to drown a man,” replies the river darkly.

—R.D. Blackmore

It
was as if the tornadoes that swept through the northwoods were a figment of the imagination. The morning was brilliant with sunshine, and the sky so clear it turned the lake cornflower-blue. The water was still—not a breeze blemished its innocence. Only the tree limbs and swatches of pine needles littering Osborne’s backyard bore testament to nature’s bad behavior the night before.

To his relief, the boat had not been damaged, even though an ancient white pine less than five feet away was yanked and heaved with enough violence to leave only a gaping wound where its roots had been.

With Lew helping, he was able to right the boat, slide it across the sand, and back into the water. The outboard chugged into action with the first pull. But it was midnight when they reached his dock.

The effect of the adrenaline rush from the night before lingered as fatigue, which Osborne struggled to shake as he drove into town the next morning. The sluggish sensation lifted as he caught sight of the old courthouse dome, its Tiffany glass sparkling in the sun.

Lew’s office was buzzing. Lillie was there along with Molly’s aunt who had arrived and was seated in a chair next to Molly, with whom she was deep in conversation. The elderly lawyer, dressed in something black and flowing, refused to sit. She stood toward the back of the room, behind Molly, listening, watching. That body might be eighty-seven years old, thought Osborne, but not the eyes. Lillie’s eyes were exceptional: curious, wise, and young.

Lew was behind her desk and up to her elbows in two cardboard boxes. The flaps were open, and she was bent over the contents. Scrawled across each of the boxes was one word: mcbride.

“Dr. Osborne,” said Molly, standing up as he entered the room, “I’d like you to meet my aunt, Georgia Balczer.”

“Yes, we spoke on the phone,” said Osborne, extending his hand to a butterball of a woman. Georgia was a good six inches shorter than her niece, with markedly different coloring: freckles, blue eyes, and strawberry-blonde hair. Quite a contrast to Molly’s olive skin, dark eyes, and brown hair. Molly had to be one of those daughters who look like their fathers. The only resemblance Osborne could see was a soft kindness around the eyes.

“I haven’t been able to sleep since we spoke,” said Georgia. “I rushed to the bank right after your phone call and was able to find that card right away. Made arrangements at work so I could drive over late last night. Chief Ferris has the card and the envelope.”