Dead Jitterbug (3 page)

“Seriously, Doc. What do you think of that last one?”

“I think you should mind your own business. An unhappy married woman? You’re asking for trouble—you know that.”

But Osborne had another thought that he kept to himself, one laced with guilt. How often had he gone fishing during his thirty-plus years of marriage just so he didn’t have to listen to Mary Lee. A habit honed in desperation within three months of their wedding and two years short of
his
thirtieth birthday.

four

I’m not saying that all fly-fishing, yes, even bait-casting, is not a fine art
…,
but I do think that there are far too many people who are satisfied to accumulate tackle and terminology, rather than to fish.”

—Negley Farson

Osborne
ambled down the pine-needle path that passed for Ray’s driveway. Nearing the small house trailer, he paused to take a long look around. Wow. No doubt the sunshine helped and the fresh air helped and the lush white pines gracing the sky overhead helped—but wow. Ray had outdone himself. Either that or a miracle had taken place.

Whether it was a heaven-sent downpour or a plain old garden hose, something had blasted the thatch of dead pine needles and dried leaves from the top of the rusting trailer—and splashed across the windows, too. They gleamed squeaky clean in the morning light.

Even the garish green muskie that Ray had painted across the front of the trailer seemed younger, livelier,
greener.
Osborne suspected a touch-up. The old “shark of the north” had been positioned so that its gaping jaws framed the entrance to the trailer. Today those raked spears glittered more ferociously than ever: thanks to a painterly piscatorial dental hygienist. By the name of Ray Pradt.

Backed in tight to one side of the trailer was the battered blue pickup, fenders peeling paint where rust had taken over. But even that managed to look spiffy, its leaping walleye hood ornament so polished and shiny it might have been made of sterling.

Osborne glanced at his watch as he strolled past the trailer towards the lake. It was not quite seven thirty, and the women weren’t due until eight. But Ray must have been up since dawn. Over a dozen spinning rods rested side by side on the picnic table near the dock, price tags fluttering in the breezes. Five tackle boxes stood open on the table benches, their contents sorted into plastic trays as carefully as if they were spices in the pantry of a French chef.

At the sound of the screen door opening, Osborne turned. Ray descended from the jaws of the muskie, a happy grin on his face, a mug of hot coffee in one hand and his stuffed trout hat in the other. He was so freshly showered that the wet curls clustered across his forehead still glistened. Crisp khaki shorts and black Teva sandals exposed long, tanned, well-muscled legs and his shirt, sleeves rolled up, was freshly ironed to match the shorts.

“Hey, Doc. Whaddaya think?”

Walking over to the picnic table, Ray brushed at some invisible dirt before setting his hat down. Osborne could swear that trout was sporting new stuffing, and the silver on the lure crisscrossing its chest sparkled from a recent polish.

“Looks like you got everything under control,” said Osborne. He paused to study the contents of the tackle boxes. “Using some of your custom tackle?”

Ray liked to paint his own lures, deliberately reversing traditional color schemes. Since he caught more walleye and muskie than anybody else Osborne knew, he was probably on to something. But it was tough to say.

Could be the custom paint job, could be the poaching on private stocked lakes (Ray
never
said where a fish was caught nor was he expected to), or it could be the penchant for fishing out of season. Whatever it was, no one had better stats than Ray Pradt on the numbers of fish caught and mounted, fish caught and eaten, fish caught and released. Assuming you believed everything he said, which some folks found difficult. Not Osborne. He could always tell when his friend was exaggerating.

“Yeah, a couple of these are mine,” said Ray, bending over one of the tackle boxes. “I want the ladies to try spoons, poppers, jerkbaits, crankbaits, surface baits. Some live bait, too—got plenty of minnows and leeches on the pontoon all ready to go. Speaking of which,” he turned and pointed off to the left, “did you see the
We B Miss B Haven?”

“No, I did not,” said Osborne, noticing for the first time the surprise bobbing at the end of Ray’s dock: a brand-spanking-new pontoon boat, the platform white with creamy leather seats and forest-green carpeting.

“Now, Ray, where the heck did you get this?” Osborne walked onto the dock. Ray followed. “This isn’t yours….”

“Heavens, no. This is forty thousand bucks’ worth of boat and motor. Borrowed it from the marina. Brusoe said if I can sell it to one of the gals, he’ll give me a commission.”

Ray stepped into the boat. “Look here,” he flicked a switch near the steering wheel, “it’s got a state-of-the-art locator/GPS system. You can see structure at the same time that you can pinpoint exactly where you are on the lake. Or zoom back and see where you are in the
county,
for God’s sake. It’s amazing.

“And here,” he raised the lid of one of the seats, “LED lights to illuminate the livewells from the bottom up. Up here on the throttle—here’s a button that’ll raise and lower the prop without so much as a
whisper.
And that’s one big outboard, too—you can pull a skier with this boat.”

Osborne was beginning to think Ray wanted him along, not so much to help out but so he could show off these temporary toys of his. “The ladies will like the leather seats,” he said, brushing his hand across one. It might be vinyl but it looked expensive.

“My ladies like
everything,”
said Ray with a wink as he sipped from his mug.

“Your
ladies, huh? You had a good first day, I take it.”

“Great day. Doc, I’m on to something. I’ll tell you, I’m a darn good teacher—and you won’t believe the money these girls got to spend. I may not sell the boat, but you wait and see how many rods and all the tackle they’ll buy—which they should if they want to fish with decent equipment. I’m not selling them anything they don’t need, y’know.”

“And you make a commission on everything, right?”

“You betcha.” “Well, who knows Ray, if you’re having fun with the teaching…. Nice people, these women?”

Whatever his cash-flow crisis of the moment, Ray had standards. More than once he had refused to guide clients who were rude, too demanding, or just plain unpleasant.

He paused before answering. “Nice enough. Their answers as to why they signed up got me thinking though.” His face tightened as he took a final sip of coffee then tossed the rest into the lake. Osborne caught the change of expression.

He shook his head as Ray walked back up to the trailer. It was going to be interesting to find out which of the five women was “pretty as a forget-me-not.” Osborne was not going to be surprised if the poor husband who hated water found himself at risk of going overboard.

five

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Five
minutes before eight, the first of Ray’s students appeared on the horizon. She came by water and she came full-bore, not cutting the motor on the big outboard until the last second.

“Show-off,” said Ray, hands thrust into his pockets as they watched the boat drift towards the dock. The high performance black Skeeter bassboat sparkled with the brilliance of a billion sequins: a dais befitting a lake queen and her entourage.

Make that
two
imperial images, thought Osborne, at the sight of the women on board. One sat watching from a rear seat—arms folded, legs crossed, eyes hidden beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat tied down with a scarf and dark glasses. Aloof, if not haughty. Not so the one behind the wheel: she was waving with all the enthusiasm of a Dairyland Princess in a Fourth of July parade.

And wearing a lemon meringue pie on her head. As the boat neared the dock, close enough for the driver to toss Ray a line, Osborne could see it wasn’t a pie after all. The woman, who couldn’t be more than five feet tall, had short hair, streaked blonde and swept back and up into a kind of pouf guaranteed to add at least two inches to her height.

“Doc,” Ray ducked his head so his words wouldn’t carry, “check out the name on this Skeeter.” Along the side of the watercraft, custom-painted in silver edged with scarlet was one word: boatox.

“Ray, hoo-hoo! Good
moorning!”
As the woman continued to wave, she hollered at a decibel level six times louder than necessary.

“Ouch—is she always that loud?” asked Osborne, voice low under the throttle of the idling engine as Ray nursed the boat towards the dock.

“Yep, lives at the top of her voice.”

As Ray stood by to help the driver up onto the dock, Osborne got a good look and all he could think was, “Please, Lord, don’t do this to me.”

Over the years, when he had encountered women like this, he did his best to avoid them. If they arrived in his office as potential patients, he’d waste no time referring them elsewhere. If they were friends of his late wife, their presence at a bridge game in his home would spur him out the door and into the boat no matter how bad the weather.

This particular version resembled an overripe raspberry. Her eyes were too bright, her lips too red, and her bosom too generous. The latter was pushing its way up and out of a sleeveless red blouse, shirttails knotted before meeting the waistband on her shorts, which were also red and way too tight. A fuzzy little pin with glittering eyes substituted for the most important button on her blouse. If it was intended to draw the eye to the valley of her cleavage, Osborne made sure not take the hint.

Looking everywhere except there, he estimated a dozen thin gold bracelets climbing her left arm and a scattering of rings across pudgy fingers tipped scarlet. Miniature diamonds outlined the lobe of one ear; at least as many pierced the other. No doubt she was fishing for more than just fish—but did she realize that if she fell in the lake, she might sink?

Even Ray noticed. As he gave her a hand up and out of the boat, he said, “What’s that in your ear, Kitsy? Been tagged by the National Park Service?” With a mock grimace on her face, Kitsy punched him in the arm.

“Hello
there,” she said, pushing past Ray to thrust a hand at Osborne. “Dr. Osborne, remember me?” She had a grip so firm he could feel every ring. Returning the handshake with a silent wince, he struggled to place her face then gave up. He focused on the line of the jaw and the expanse of forehead—the two features least likely to have been surgically altered. “Well … now, I’m not sure….”

“Kitsy Kelly! Dr. Osborne. Kitsy
McDonald
Kelly. You used to check my teeth every summer when I was a kid. Don’t you remember? My mom would haul me into your office insisting I was eating so many marsh-mallows, every single one of my teeth would fall out.” She hooted loudly.

“Of course, Kitsy. My apologies. How could I forget?”

He hadn’t seen the woman since she was eleven—or was it twelve? Had to be twenty years ago, maybe longer. And this incarnation bore no resemblance to that sullen preteen. Certainly not those lips. Boatox, indeed.

Osborne was no stranger to the impact cosmetic surgery was having on dentistry. He may have retired from his practice but not his profession, not since Lew Ferris had been willing to trade time in the trout stream for his assistance with dental forensics.

Eager to maximize any opportunity to fish with the woman who had shown him how to cast a trout fly even as she hooked his heart, he made sure to keep current with national dental journals and stay active in the Wisconsin Dental Society, attending monthly meetings and seminars.

So he was familiar with Botox. Along with other advances in cosmetic surgery, it had become both a dollar sign and a favorite topic of conversation among the younger dentists. Lips fat with Botox signaled a patient likely to want her teeth whitened, straightened, capped, or crowned. Not to mention dental implants. It all translated to serious money. How much of that money was in Kitsy’s mouth? He was happy not to know.

“Julia!” Kitsy turned to her friend, who was just stepping off the boat. “You won’t believe who’s here. Remember I told you I had that terrible crush on my dentist when I was a kid? This is the one!”

Kitsy turned back to Osborne, “Dr. Osborne—you still married?” Her eyes met his: bold and teasing. He gritted his teeth. If this continued all day, Ray would really, really owe him.

“Doc’s widowed,” said Ray, his tone soft and blunt enough to curb the conversation.

“Oh? Sorry to hear that,” said Kitsy, not looking sorry at all. But she got the message. Waving a dismissive hand, she peered past Osborne, “Ooh,” her voice ratcheted up six notches,
“loook
at all that good stuff….” And off she scurried towards the picnic table.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Osborne,” said the second woman, removing her hat and sunglasses as she walked toward him, a ghost of a smile on a face so pale that Osborne hoped she had brought along some sunscreen.

“Julia Wendt.” She extended a hand he was relieved to find free of metallic objects. But her grip was slight, fingers only. He wondered if she would have the strength to handle a spinning rod. Everything about her was fawn colored: her long-sleeved shirt, her trim pedal pushers, even her hair and eyes. She wasn’t small. Her features were full and round, but she gave the effect of needing protection.

“So you know Kitsy from way back, I take it?” asked Julia, her voice so soft that Osborne had to lean in close to hear her better. So close he could smell her scent. It, too, was soft and lovely.

“Haven’t seen her since she was a youngster,” said Osborne. “I knew her mother’s family and her parents, but I’m retired from my dental practice. I’m afraid I didn’t recognize her. She’s … changed.”

“That is putting it mildly,” said Julia with a laugh so pleasant, Osborne had to smile. “Kitsy is
addicted
to change.”