Dead Jitterbug (22 page)

“No, but the boat’s sinking,” said Lew as water rushed in through the holes where the bullet had passed through the sides of the aluminum canoe.

“Thank the Lord that guy’s a lousy shot,” said Ray. “Hold on, we’re close enough to the island, we’ll make it.”

“Yeah? Lot of good that does us,” said Lew. “How do we get from the island to shore?”

thirty

Used trout stream for sale. Must be seen to be appreciated.

—Richard Brautigan

“Shallow
here. We can wade,” said Ray, letting himself over the side of the boat. Osborne and Lew followed, anxious to keep the canoe from sinking farther.

“If you two will get this canoe near shore and dump the water, I know an old Indian trick that’ll fix us up fast,” said Ray, pushing ahead. Leaping over rocks and boulders, he disappeared into the pines that were thick on the island while Lew and Osborne managed the boat. By the time they had the water out, Ray was back, hands sticky with globs of pine pitch. Within seconds he had plugged the bullet holes.

“You think that’ll hold?” asked Osborne.

“Long enough to get us to shore,” said Ray, shoving the canoe into the water. It floated fine.

“Here’s the deal,” said Ray. “I’ve fished this lake so many times—I know the other side of this island extends almost to the shoreline. If we go ‘round the island and head in from that side, we can make it across open water in less than a minute—two at the most. That’ll put us about five hundred feet from O’Brien’s dock and well hidden by trees. Unless he’s right
on
the beach, he won’t be able to see us—and for all he knows he sunk our boat. I’ll bet you anything he’s up searching for Molly in the woods behind his place.”

They cleared the open water in the minute Ray had predicted. Though they stayed hunkered low in the canoe just in case, there was no gunfire. Osborne and Ray raced to pull the canoe up on shore and had just turned to follow Lew when they heard the sound of tires coming from the direction of O’Brien’s cabin. All three stopped.

“Dear God, I hope it’s not Todd,” said Lew. “He’s driving right into trouble.”

As they ran along the shoreline toward O’Brien’s dock, a car door slammed. Hiding behind a stand of young balsam, they looked up towards the cabin. No sign of Molly—or Jerry O’Brien. No police cruiser either. Only a vintage black Cadillac.

“Damn!” said Lew. “What the hell is Lillie Wright doing out here?”

Before she had finished her sentence, they had the answer. Once, twice, three times a trigger was pulled. They waited at the edge of the woods for a long moment. Then Lew darted across the yard, her Sig Sauer out. Fifty feet from the cabin, she positioned herself behind the thick trunk of a basswood.

“O’Brien—Loon Lake Police. Drop your gun and come out.”

The door opened and a stocky figure in black, a hefty-looking handgun in her right hand, hurried out onto the deck. “Lewellyn! Where’s Molly? What did he do to Molly?”

“Lillie! What possessed you? The man has a rifle.”

“He
did,”
said the old woman. “Came after me with it, too. Wouldn’t've shot him otherwise.”

“But you have no business—”

“We’ll discuss that later. Right now—
where’s Molly?”

Osborne and Ray ran around to the back of the cabin. Lew and Lillie followed. The bathroom window was wide open, the screen on the ground.

“She had to have run straight for the woods,” said Ray. “Yep, look at this, Doc.” Ray pointed to a spot a few steps from the cabin where the ground, soggy enough from the previous night’s rain, held the slight impression of a sneaker.

“Don’t worry, Lillie. I’m sure Molly’s safe,” said Lew. “We heard enough through the walkie-talkies that I’m sure she made it through the window in plenty of time to reach cover. If she didn’t, we’d see blood somewhere, and we don’t.”

“Lew’s right,” said Osborne. He watched as Lew, who had spotted Molly’s backpack on the floor just inside the door to the cabin, reached to pull out the cell phone. “Still on,” she said, holding it up like a flag of victory. “Damn good battery.”

“What makes you think she’s not lost in those woods?” asked Lillie, hands on her hips, cheeks waggling. She reminded Osborne of Rumplestiltskin ready to do the anger dance. “I demand you send out a search team.”

“Lillie, we’ve got the best tracker in the county looking for her. You know what they say about Ray Pradt: The man can see around the corner to tomorrow. Now how ‘bout we give him thirty minutes and see what happens. You agree to that?”

Lillie leveled her eyes at Lew, threw her shoulders back as if she was about to argue, then shrugged and said, “Okay.”

Molly was still running when Ray caught up to her. It took awhile to calm her down, and it was nearly an hour before they came walking down the drive to O’Brien’s cabin. Lillie, sitting on the deck with Osborne, saw them first. She jumped to open the door and holler at Lew who was on the phone with Marlene. “They’re here. She looks okay!” She rushed over as Molly climbed the stairs to the deck. “Are you all right, child?”

“Fine. I’m fine. A little shaky. Ray said you shot Jerry. He’s dead?”

“Very. I made sure of that,” said Lillie.

“Is he inside?” asked Molly. “I—I need to see.”

Osborne opened the door to the cabin for Molly to enter. Ray and Lillie followed, as did Osborne. Molly walked to the middle of the room, then stopped to look.

What was left of Jerry O’Brien would have to be sorted out from the cabin wall. Unlike a .22, a .357 leaves little to chance. As Molly turned to leave, Lillie put an arm across her shoulders. “Better me than you, kid.”

“But Lillie, you could have been—” said Molly.

“That’s what I said. Better me than you. I’ve got a full life behind me. You’ve got a full one ahead.”

“It’s all over now, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said the old woman. “No more nightmares.”

thirty-one

You must lose a fly to catch a trout.

—George Herbert

Early
the next morning, Osborne had just sat down to a bowl of shredded wheat topped with peach slices when he heard the back door slam. As Ray sauntered in, he threw a thick white envelope, end flap open, on the kitchen table. “Coffee ready?”

“Help yourself. What’s that?” asked Osborne, scooping up a spoonful of cereal.

“Those are my photos from ‘Fishing for Girls.’ Assuming you’re recovered from all the excitement, I thought you might enjoy seeing ‘em.”

“Can I look later? Need to catch up with Lew. You caught me just finishing my breakfast before heading into town.” Osborne checked the clock on the wall. “Oh, heck. I got five, ten minutes. Have a seat.”

“Oh, yeah, poor Lew,” said Ray, filling a mug. “What a bum week this is, huh. Talk about working overtime. Good thing she’s running for sheriff—make other people do all the work. Y’know, Doc, the way these storm clouds keep moving through—she’s likely to miss a great night for muskie.” Ray raised his mug as if to toast the best weather ever for enticing the old shark of the north.

“Say, you got my message about your buddy Darryl? We need to find him—he’s the one been helping Hope McDonald all these weeks.”

“Sure ‘nough.” Ray leaned back against the counter. “Doesn’t surprise me. ?l’ Darryl may be a scary-lookin’ son of a gun, but talk about a good heart. Got a joke for your grandchildren, Doc—how come,” Ray’s eyes twinkled, “there is no mad cauliflower disease?”

Osborne gave him the dim eye. “I don’t get it.”

“The kids will. Works better with brussels sprouts. Hey—so who are these jabones?” Glancing sideways, Ray pointed his mug at the lab enlargements of the bank robbers, the set Osborne had brought home from Lew’s office. He had laid them out on the counter under the bright kitchen lights. Ray scooped up the oversized photos, moved them over to the kitchen table, and plunked himself into a chair.

He sipped his coffee as he studied the photos. “So, Doc, did you hear the one about the jumper cables who stopped by Birchwood Bar the other day?”

“You’re in fine form this morning,” said Osborne, putting his cereal bowl in the sink and reaching for the coffeepot. He had time for one more cup and one last joke before heading into town to find Lew. If listening meant getting Darryl’s address sooner rather than later, he could manage.

“The bartender said, ‘I’ll serve you—but don’t start anything.'”

It was a bad joke, but Osborne chuckled anyway. That was one his grandchildren
would
like. “Here,” he said as he turned around, pot in hand, “let me give you a warm-up.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Ray, holding out his mug. “Every time you do that—the gates of heaven open.”

With his left hand, Ray shook his photos out of their envelope. “Just a quick look, Doc. I’ve got a good shot of you here, you handsome dog.

“And, by the way, think it’s too soon to ask Molly out for fish fry?” Ray spread the photos across the table as he spoke.

Osborne, still standing behind him with the coffeepot in one hand, didn’t answer. Ray looked up. “What’s wrong, Doc?” Osborne set the pot on its burner and turned back to the kitchen table.

“Look at this,” he said, sliding one of Ray’s photos away from the others. It was a shot of Carla and Barb standing on the pontoon, arms around one another’s waists. Carla was grinning at the camera, Barb looked tense. Osborrne set the photo alongside the enlargement of the two masked individuals caught by the surveillance cameras.

“The shape of Carla’s head … see how unusually small it is … and that truncated jaw of hers?” Osborne pointed. “Look how quickly it tapers from cheekbone to chin. You don’t see that very often. Now look how similar it is to the bone structure you see on the head in this enlargement.”

“I thought you were looking at this,” said Ray, pointing at the other figure. “The set of those shoulders. That could be Barb….” The two men leaned close in to examine the photos. Even the difference in height between the two robbers appeared to be identical to that between Carla and Barb. Osborne put down his coffee mug. “Excuse me a minute.”

Letting Mike in as he opened the back door, he ran across the yard to the back of his garage, through the fish porch and into the room holding the files from his dental practice. Yanking open a drawer in one of the tall oak file cabinets, he found the years most likely and worked his fingers through the
Ws.
Took less than two minutes to find a dental record for Carla at the age of sixteen. He opened the file and … yes, he had what he needed. He ran back to the kitchen.

“What’d you find?” asked Ray.

“Took measurements of her jaw when she was a teenager,” said Osborne. “I thought I might have. So remarkable to see bone structure like that and not have a kid need orthodonture. Who knows, this might be enough for the Wausau boys to work from—see if they can prove a match. Can I take that photo?”

As Ray handed it over, Osborne tried Lew’s direct number at the office. Marlene answered. “She remembered something important she’d forgotten to ask Bunny DeLoye. We tried to reach her by phone, but she was on her morning walk, so Chief Ferris headed out to catch up with her about a half-hour ago,” said Marlene. “I’m sure she’s still there. Need me to page her?”

“Please,” said Osborne. “Have her call me at the house right away.”

Within a minute the phone rang. “Doc,” said Lew, “what’s up?”

He spoke quickly, giving a brief description of the matching photos. As he talked, his eyes caught Ray’s. The morning’s good humor had given way to an expression of intense concentration.

When he finished, Lew said, “Looks like the day’s got Wolniewicz all over it, Doc. I want to find Darryl first. Bunny just told me the only person besides herself who has a key to the McDonald’s main gate is the garbage man: Darryl Wolniewicz. I feel like such a dumbyak, Doc—it never occurred to me that the garbage collectors have keys to all these private estates. Ask Ray what’s the quickest way out to his place.”

“Ray,” said Osborae, holding the phone aside, “she needs to find Darryl—now.”

“His place is back in off Spider Lake Road. No fire number, no running water. I’ll have to show you guys. Hard to find if you don’t know where you’re going. But no use rushing. He’s on the garbage run until eleven. You’d be hard pressed to find him before then. First you have to track down the town chairman, then hope he’s got the pick-up schedule somewhere. By the time you do all that, you’re better off just waiting for him at his place later this morning. I’ve done this; I know.”

“I heard,” said Lew. “Meet you two back at my office as soon as you can get there.”

thirty-two

All fish are not caught with flies.

—John Lyly

“The
weak link is Barb,” said Ray, once Lew had had a chance to examine the photos. “I would start there.”

“You think she’ll cave?” asked Lew, looking at him from across her desk.

“She gets shook pretty easy,” said Ray. “Based on what Doc and I saw when Carla got the message that the IRS was doing an audit—I’d say Carla beats up on her.”

“She likes Ray,” said Osborne. “Don’t know if that helps.”

“Here’s a thought,” said Ray. “Ask Barb why Carla stopped by my place with nine-thousand-nine in hundred dollar bills and is insisting on separate payments for that pontoon. She wants the receipt made out to the realty office, so we can assume Barb knows about it. Ask her why it’s so important to stay under the Feds’ radar.”

“What are we talking about here?” asked Osborne.

“Cash payments of ten thousand dollars or more have to be reported,” said Lew.

When they got to the realty office, Carla’s red SUV was nowhere in sight. A forest-green Lincoln Town Car was parked near the front door. Osborne and Ray, in Osborne’s station wagon, pulled up alongside Lew’s cruiser.

The half-log building was so new, the interior smelled of fresh paint. They entered through a narrow foyer, devoid of furniture, into a carpeted “great room” that featured a wide, rock fireplace at one end and a vaulted ceiling. The room was sparsely furnished. Two large desks, one across from the other, anchored the far end of the room. A scattering of chairs faced each desk.