Dead Water (25 page)

“Nick, did you see how Dr. Frahm set that hook? That was superb.” Nick nodded, not taking his eyes off the battle. “Now you see what I mean?” said Ray, pleased with the look on Nick’s face, “When you got a fish on the line, you forget the rest of the world.”

“This is
so
exciting.” Nick’s fascination was infectious.

“Damn right.” Ray put his feet up on the side of the boat and crossed his arms, a big, happy grin on his face.

Finally, Joel pulled the muskie alongside the boat and deftly popped the hook, letting it swim away. “Just a small one,” he grinned. “But fun. A good sign. We might raise something really big tonight, boys.” Osborne saw him turn away with a pleased look on his face: Ray had made him look good in front of his son. No doubt about it, Ray had just made himself another friend for life.

Ray got Nick set up and watched him cast. ”
With
the wind, Nick,” he said gently, taking the boy’s rod from his hands to unsnarl a huge wind knot that hung from the reel. “My fault, I should have said something sooner. Here, use my rod. You have to watch the breezes tonight. Read the water, see? See that breeze coming at you?

“Whoa, Zenner.” Ray stepped back. “You got a follow—good-sized, too. Watch … watch Zenner, Nick. If that fish strikes, you’ll see it hit with a pop, then
pound.
Nothing like it.” The exuberance in Ray’s voice was catching.

“Where? Where? I don’t see anything,” said Nick. The aloof teenager who had arrived at the Rhinelander airport one day ago had disappeared. In his place was a kid with all the enthusiasm of a five-year-old with his first cane pole. Osborne smiled and cast. Things might work out after all.

The night was lovely but the muskies wary. Joel’s small one and Zenner’s follow were all they saw during the first hour. The cloud bank with its threat of weather dissipated. Finally, Ray called a halt to the casting. He handed out paper plates, sodas, and the cold chicken. Munching happily as the Triton rocked them gently on the water, they ate in peaceful silence. Two fishing boats came by, slowed as the occupants studied the big Triton, then waved and sped on.

“Ray, don’t you ever get tired of fishing?” asked Zenner, talking with his mouth full of potato salad.

“This is my church,” said Ray, wiping his fingers on a paper napkin after devouring two drumsticks. He stuck his long legs out in front of him and twisted the cap off an O’Doul’s. “I made a trade with the Good Lord three years ago. If he would let me fish every day I wanted to, then I promised to leave a stringer of bluegills once a week at the convent and once a week for some old folks. Now, Zenner, you ask why do I do that?

“For me, fishing is an art form. Observe the cast, the retrieve, setting the hook….” With the two front fingers of his right hand, Ray pulled at his beard, thinking. Then he pointed with his index finger. “And the filleting. Yep, fishing is an art form.”

That seemed to be as much as he wanted to say on the subject. It was enough for Osborne. No one else urged him to say more. They just sat and chewed in the gently rocking boat.

“I’ve never heard it be so quiet,” said Nick, looking around him. Two other boats could be seen, anchored at a distance.

“We put a bounty on jet skiers,” said Ray. “That keeps the noise down.”

“Really?”

“No, but we should. Strawberry moon up there tonight, our first full moon of June,” he said apropos of nothing in particular. Then he reached for a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies. He passed it around.

Osborne took a bite of his. It tasted wonderful … like the lake, like the breeze over the water, like the wind in the pines. He took another bite.

“Tomorrow I’ll show you how to use my Aluma Craft,” said Ray to Nick as he held out a paper sack for everyone to dump their paper plates. “I need the big boat for guiding, but you and Zenner can take the other one out whenever you want.”

Nick nodded, happy with the thought. Every trace of chicken, potato salad, and cookies had disappeared. The crew in the boat seemed all of the same mind: sated, drowsy, and ready to call it a day.

As the boat flew back across the lake, Ray put on the lights and swung to the north. “Anyone in a rush?” he asked. “I have to return this tomorrow, and I’d like to show Doc how good the clearance is on this boat.”

“Fine with me,” said Joel, twisting the cap off a beer. Zenner and Nick giggled at some private joke and settled into bucket seats for the ride. The boat moved soundlessly through the channel at the north end of Loon Lake, then turned into the bog, heading for the brook that marked the entrance to Lost Lake.

“I’m not sure I want to go all the way up there tonight,” said Osborne.

“Hell, no, I just want to go up past the bog,” said Ray. “You know how shallow this gets close to shore.” He was right about clearance. The boat was built to ride well in the shallows. And it handled magnificently.

Ray put the outboard into reverse and started to back out. As he neared the brook, the lights from the boat threw shadows against the massive boulder marking the entrance, shadows that gave it a slightly different appearance from when the harsh light of midday sun flattened ridges and curves.

The boat moved slowly past the landmark as Osborne, fully relaxed in the padded luxury of the Triton’s bucket seat, studied the patterns thrown by the lights. The boat had such exceptional clearance that Ray was able to steer close to the big boulder, so close that it looked less like a solitary rock than the wall of a cliff.

Osborne tensed in his chair. A cliff wall. That rock was the backdrop in the photo of Hank Kendrickson and his trophy brown trout, the trout he had insisted he caught in the Deerskin. He didn’t catch that fish in the Deerskin. He caught it right here, near the entrance to Lost Lake.

Now why would he lie about that?

twenty-eight

“When God created the earth, he made two-thirds of it water and only one-third of it land. It seems only natural that two-thirds of one’s time should be spent fishing.”

Anonymous

Ray
was able to maneuver the big boat alongside Osborne’s dock with time to spare before the sun dropped below the horizon. Osborne rose slowly to his feet, moving in the slow motion of the satisfied fisherman to unload his gear. For fifty years, he had moved this way whenever the fishing had been good. Tonight the fishing had been excellent: no fish, but that didn’t matter. It had been a fine time on the water.

Ray, Joel, even Zenner and Nick, moved as languidly as he did, each in the unspoken acknowledgment that shore time was very different from lake time, and no one wanted to let go.

“Hey, Doc?” A man’s voice called down from the top of the flagstone stairway. Osborne peered up at the silhouetted form.

“Yeah,” he answered. The voice sounded familiar. “Is that you, Roger?”

“Yes. Is Ray Pradt down there?”

“As present as I’m ever gonna be,” shouted Ray up the hill. “Hold on, we’ll be right up.” And so the five of them trooped up, rods, tackle boxes, minnow pail, and picnic hamper in hand. Osborne tripped a switch on the dock, and small knee-high lamps came on to light their way up the rock stairway.

Roger waited in silence. He had retreated to the patio outside Osborne’s back door. His cruiser was in the drive, the signal flashing. Osborne’s heart started to pound. Lew! He ran suddenly, letting his tackle box bang against his knees, “What’s wrong? Is someone hurt?”

“Dead,” said Roger flatly. “Ray, you’re under arrest.”

Everyone stopped moving and stared at Roger.

“Who’s dead?” asked Osborne, afraid to hear the answer.

“We don’t know who they are,” said Roger, “but they were killed at the shooting range. Dwayne Rodd saw you with ‘em, Ray. What the hell happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened?” said Ray. “I had a client and her friend out shooting clays. I left ‘em there at four-thirty. Are you saying that my client is dead?”

“I saw her myself,” said Roger. “I called the paramedics and they tried to resuscitate, but they were hammered at short range.”

“Wha—! I had nothing to do with it,” said Ray. “You’re trying to arrest me for murder?”

“Where’s your head, Roger?” said Osborne. “Does Lew know about this?”

“Can’t find her.”

“What do you mean, you can’t find her?”

“I mean I can’t find her. She told Lucy she was taking that woman from Chicago to dinner at the Pub, but the Pub is closed for cleaning tonight. They aren’t there.”

“Jeez, man, there are only four restaurants in Loon Lake. Did you check them out?”

“Yes, I did. No sign of her. Doc, I have a job to do. Can I ask Ray a question?”

“Shoot,” said Ray. Osborne rolled his eyes. This was not a time for jokes; that much was clear from the expression on Roger’s face.

“Did you fire a gun this afternoon?”

“Of course. I was demonstrating, I was teaching. Yes, I fired a gun.” Ray’s voice was soft and deliberate.

“And where is that gun?”

“In my cabinet,” said Osborne. “It’s my side-by-side.”

“I’m sorry, I have to ask you to give me the gun,” said Roger.

“No one is touching that gun until I talk to Lew,” said Osborne. He was so furious, he could feel himself vibrating. “Roger, you stay right there. I’ll call Lucy and have her patch me through. This is ridiculous—you can be sued for false arrest, you know.”

Osborne marched into his kitchen and yanked the kitchen phone off the hook. He dialed the switchboard and got Jennifer instead of Lucy. “Jennifer, please patch me through to Lew right away,” said Osborne.

“We don’t know where she is,” said Jennifer. “Did Roger find Ray?”

“Okay, patch me to Lucy at home.”

“She’s playing bingo somewhere on the res,” said Jennifer. “I left a message with her granddaughter, though. If you see Roger, will you tell him Wausau is sending a tech … should be here in half an hour.”

Osborne slammed down the phone. He went to the gun case and grabbed the Browning. As he passed through the back porch, he picked up the padded case for the gun and slipped the shotgun inside. Then he walked outside. Joel and the two boys stood silently in the driveway. Ray was already seated in the cruiser with Roger. At least he was in the front seat and not handcuffed in the back, noted Osborne with some relief. He walked up to the car. He opened the rear door and laid the gun carefully inside.

“Roger, this gun is very important to me. I trust you will take good care of it, please. My prints are all over it, too. Why don’t you arrest me as well?”

“Doc, I’m sure this will all be cleared up by morning. But you have to see it from my side. Ray was there with a gun, the gun has been fired, two people are dead. I have strict guidelines I have to follow in situations like this. Without Lew, I have to follow those orders. What would you do?”

“For chrissakes, Roger. You know damn well Ray Pradt is not capable of such an act. Now you’ve gone and had him arrested for a crime we all know he didn’t commit … and you’ve done it in front of his son and his good friends.”

“Might as well be in front of all Loon Lake,” added Joel from where he stood in the shadows, his arm across Nick’s shoulders.

Roger shrugged. “Department procedure. I’m sorry, fellas.”

“Doc,” Ray leaned across Roger, “could Nick stay with you tonight?”

“Of course. Don’t you worry about it, Ray. I’m going to give Gary Paulson a call, too. You need a lawyer.”

The magic of the evening was gone. Joel and Zenner loaded their two cars in silence. When the Frahms were ready to leave, Joel lifted one hand in a silent wave. Zenner spoke a few words to Nick, which Osborne couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, the boys seemed to agree on it. Then Nick walked down to Ray’s trailer to drop off his gear and get a toothbrush.

He wasn’t gone long. When he returned, he had such a stricken look on his face that Osborne decided to break one of his long-standing rules: “Nick, would you like a drink? I have beer, gin, some good bourbon.”

The offer caught Nick off guard. A look of embarrassment crossed with confusion crept over his face, “I thought … Ray said you were recovering—”

“I am,” said Osborne. “But when you’re a recovering alcoholic, you don’t have a horror of alcohol, you have a horror of yourself and alcohol. Alcohol—as all good fishermen know—has its virtues. I shouldn’t offer it to you, I know. You’re a minor. But the way this evening is going, I need some vicarious relief. This is one of those times when the best you can do is pour yourself a drink and think it all over.”

“Oh.” Nick puzzled that one. “Well … what are you gonna have?”

“I would love a gin martini, but I will have a glass of milk.”

“I’ll take the beer—if that’s okay?”

“Good. We deserve it. There’s beer in the refrigerator on the back porch. Choose what you want.”

His drink in one hand, a lawn chair in the other, Osborne led the way down to the dock. He took the rocker and handed the lawn chair to Nick. Seated, they drank in mutual silence, looking up at the stars. No phone rang up in the house, no cars drove down the road. The night was so still, Osborne could hear Nick swallow. The boy finished his beer and excused himself to get ready for bed.

While he was in the bathroom, Osborne changed the sheets in Mallory’s room. Then, after making sure Nick was comfortable, he left another message on Lew’s home phone. Where the hell was she? He called the switchboard for the umpteenth time. Not a word from Lew. Meanwhile, Ray was enjoying the comforts of the new jail, according to Jennifer. She also said that the Wausau tech would say only that a shotgun was definitely the murder weapon. He would not check out Osborne’s gun until morning.

Nick went into the bedroom shortly after eleven. Osborne, anxiety clutching his chest, tried to do the same, but he lay in bed with his eyes wide open. He must have fallen asleep at some point because the phone, when it rang, sounded very far away. He struggled up through sleep to answer groggily.

The clock radio at his bedside indicated it was nearly two in the morning. “Doc?” Lew’s voice was sharp with urgency.