Bough Cutter

by Jeff Nania

  Northern Lakes Mysteries

  Figure Eight (Book 1)

  Winner 2020 Midwest Book Awards

  As former police officer John Cabrelli struggles in the wake of a career-ending event, he retreats to his late uncle’s lakeside cabin in Wisconsin…but it’s far from the peaceful refuge he expects. Danger awaits—along with the truth behind his uncle’s death.

  * * *

  Spider Lake (Book 2)

  A missing federal agent, suitcases full of cash, a secluded cabin in the woods. Spider Lake is no longer the peaceful retreat John Cabrelli needs to recover and start life anew. Knowing Cabrelli is former law enforcement, the new chief of police recruits him to help untangle a string of strange events in the little town of Musky Falls.

  Bough Cutter

  A Northern Lakes Mystery

  Jeff Nania

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Looking for more?

  About the Author

  Feet Wet Writing

  Portage, Wisconsin

  www.feetwetwriting.com

  Copyright © 2021 Jeff Nania and Feet Wet, LLC

  Cover Design: Chris Nania

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Contact office@feetwetwriting.com for permission requests.

  For more information or to contact the author, visit www.feetwetwriting.com.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2021907787

  ISBN: 978-1-942586-99-9 (Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-7363373-4-9 (Hardcover)

  ISBN: 978-1-7363373-6-3 (EPUB)

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, place, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or place or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgments

  It would be impossible to thank all the people who have been a part of the success of my first two books, but I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart you are as much a part of the Northern Lakes Mystery series as I am. 2020 has been a challenging year, and I hope my stories have allowed you to escape for even a little while. Our books are for sale at many places, and we are glad that you buy them wherever you buy them. However, during the last year many of our treasured community bookstores have really faced some challenges. As these stores reopen, if you get the chance, stop by, see what they have to offer, and maybe even pick up a Northern Lakes Mystery or two.

  During the writing of Bough Cutter, I imposed upon many of my friends and family who helped make certain that technical details of the story were correct: Sheriff’s Captain Ret. Tanya Molony, Sheriff’s Lieutenant Ret. JJ Molony, Sheriff’s EOD Deputy Ret. Jeff Wolf, FBI Special Agent Ret. Kent Miller, Dr. Michael Chalifoux, and EMT Amanda Halatek. A special thanks to Niizhoodewii Denomie for her expertise in Ojibwe language and culture. Thanks to the Huffaker Five and Marilyn Davis for making sure the story was worth telling and to Karin O’Malley, Karen Ferrell, and Terry Rydberg for making sure that the final draft was really the final draft. Any errors are my fault, not theirs. Finally, thanks to Kristin Mitchell and Shannon Booth at Little Creek Press, for once again helping me turn words into a book to put into the hands of readers.

  My entire family and the traditions we share are very much part of this story. I especially want to thank my family members, my wife Victoria (the brains behind this outfit), my son Chris who designed another incredible cover, and Rebecca, Jim, Jay John, and all the extended Nania family for their unwavering support.

  Thanks again to Tommye Heinemann for keeping the tradition of Spider Lake alive.

  For Camille Inez Chalifoux—

  I can’t wait to teach you

  how to catch bluegills off the dock.

  1

  Nearly every chair was full in the Musky Falls High School cafeteria. Merry chatter filled the room as friends, neighbors, and family members reacquainted after a busy summer season, waiting for the program to begin.

  The crowd quieted as a smiling woman walked up to the podium with a purposeful stride. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail, and she was wearing a bright green tie-dyed sweatshirt emblazoned with Northern Lakes Academy. She faced the room and introduced herself and her students.

  “Welcome. My name is Julie Carlson. I am the teacher at Northern Lakes Academy, and these,” she said with a sweeping gesture to the chairs behind her, “are my students.”

  “Tonight, they will present the research project they began last spring and will continue through the rest of this year. Each individual or small group designed and researched an aspect of the larger project based on firsthand, real-world circumstances. The individual and collective outcomes of the students’ research and investigation must lead to a potential solution they can implement by working with community partners. So, without further ado, let me turn the program over to the students.”

  Julie Carlson didn’t mention that besides being the lead and only teacher at Northern Lakes, she was also the love of my life.

  She smiled and stepped down and took a seat with the audience. A girl about fourteen years old took Julie’s place at the podium. She wore a sweatshirt two sizes too big and had purple hair on one side of her head and blonde on the other.

  “Welcome to the Northern Lakes presentation night. My name is Amber Lockridge. I am an eighth-grade student at the school, and this is my second year. Our school researches a local topic of interest three times a year. It can be any topic as long as it fits the guidelines we developed with Ms. Carlson.

  “Tonight, we are here to tell you what we have learned about the Wisconsin State fish, Esox masquinongy, better known as the muskellunge or musky. The muskellunge has become a source of significant revenue for the local economy. Recreational fishing brings in about 1.4 billion dollars in revenue annually to our state, and it is estimated that musky anglers generated 425 million dollars of that revenue. Just as importantly, muskies have played an important role in our history. My classmate Jacob will tell you about the history of the musky.”

  A boy about the same age as Amber took the podium. He was doing battle with his straight black hair to keep it out of his eyes.

  “My name is Jacob Fastfish or Gizhii-giigoonh. Long before the musky was the state fish of Wisconsin, actually long before Wisconsin was Wisconsin, and even before Wisconsin was known as Meskonsing, the Ojibwa called the musky the maashkinoozhe, meaning ‘ugly pike.’ Stories of the great fish, its tenacity and ferocious attitude, have accounted for countless legends and fish tales across the north country. According
to written history, the world’s record musky was caught in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, in 1949 by a guy named Cal Johnson. The fish was sixty and one-eighth inches long, weighed over sixty-seven pounds, and was probably over twenty years old. It was caught on Lac Courte Oreilles, also known as Ottawa Lake by the Anishinaabe. It’s a five-thousand-acre body of water in northern Wisconsin and a perfect place for muskies. Now my classmate Lynsey will tell you more about muskies.”

  “Hi, my name is Lynsey Jones,” she started right off. “There are currently seven hundred seventy-five lakes, rivers, and streams in our state that have musky populations. It is thought that one acre of surface water will support one mature musky. Although depending on available food, they will range much further. They prefer a rocky bottom near heavy weeds to ambush prey. A musky will lay between twenty thousand and a quarter of a million eggs each year, depending on the health and size of the individual fish. When the eggs hatch, the fry are readily eaten by northern pike, large and smallmouth bass, perch, and sunfish. If a musky survives the first year, a hatchling will grow to eleven inches. The bigger they get, the fewer predators they have, and they can reach forty inches long by the age of nine. Now my classmate Danny will tell you about musky fishing.”

  “My name is Danny LeTroy. My dad is a musky fishing guide, and so is my grandpa. We take people out musky fishing all the time, but there is no guarantee the people we are guiding will catch a fish. Sometimes we don’t even see one. Muskies are the trickiest fish around, and even if you hook one, you are in for a fight. They will jump straight out of the water and try to shake the lure. Another trick they use is instead of pulling the line away from you, they will run at the boat and make the line go slack so you have to reel super fast to tighten up the line. They will dive under the boat and tangle the line in the prop and break it off. There is one trick you can use that will help you catch a musky. When people are casting lures for fish, they throw it out, reel it back in, and throw it out again. Every once in a while, they will see a musky follow their lure or swipe at it right next to the boat. Most of the time, they don’t strike. My dad and grandpa will then have their customers finish the cast, and when the lure is right next to the boat, they swirl it around in a figure-eight pattern. It gives you one more chance to get a fish. If a musky is following your bait, the figure eight will sometimes get them to strike. Once they hit, jerk the rod hard to set the hook and hold on, ’cause it’s going to get pretty exciting. My grandpa says catching a musky always depends on a combination of skill and luck. The bigger the fish is, the more luck you’ll need.”

  A figure eight. One more chance. This path that loops around and leads back into itself seems to be the one I follow. But even when I seem to be on a predictable path, events turn life upside down unpredictably.

  An old friend of mine, Manny Pinski, was the rabbi at a Jewish temple located in my old police beat. He had gotten word that I had some troubles and suggested we get together and talk.

  We met at a run-down park on the south side of the city. Broken bottles, used syringes, and trash littered the ground. Sitting on a bench together, I told Manny how I felt like my life was spiraling out of control. Plans for the future, or the next day for that matter, seemed to be thrown to the wind. He listened patiently and nodded.

  He addressed the situation in his clever way of combining a story into a lesson.

  “John Cabrelli, your trials and tribulations have given me inspiration for my next derasha. When my people next come together, I will tell them to go out and buy a notebook, spiral-bound, with one hundred pages—no, no, three hundred pages. Then I want them to get a pencil, a number two Ticonderoga—no, wait two pencils in case the lead breaks in one—and sit down and write the story of their life from this day forward. Every detail they can think of. You know why I want them to do this, John?”

  “No, Manny, I don’t.”

  “I want them to do this because God needs a good laugh, John.”

  Life had indeed become a series of unpredictable twists and turns—figure eights aplenty. I now found myself in a role that I had filled before, but not at my current location and place in life.

  Danny stepped down, and other students took their turn at the microphone. With their journals in hand, each student read a story recounted to them by a local person and their most exciting encounter with a musky. Some stories were hilarious and got the crowd laughing. I especially enjoyed the story of a young boy who was fishing panfish with his dad off a boat dock on Spider Lake. He was reeling in a bluegill with his brand-new kid’s fishing pole when a musky came up from the bottom of the lake and grabbed the bluegill. The boy held his rod tight and tried to reel it in, but the musky turned and ran, breaking the line.

  The final two speakers were a boy and girl, working as a team to explain the next step.

  The boy started, “Northern Lakes Academy has joined in a partnership with the Department of Natural Resources in a project that will provide critical information regarding the future of muskies. We will work together with them at the George Meyer Fish Hatchery to insert passive integrated transponders, known as PITs, in fingerling muskies. The PITs are tiny and have no negative impact on the fish. There is no battery, so the PIT will hopefully work for the life of the fish. The muskies with PITs will be released into a monitored lake. A musky captured in the process will be scanned for the presence of a PIT, using something that looks like a supermarket scanner. If the fish has a PIT, the number will be recorded, and the fish will be measured and weighed then released.

  The girl stepped up. “Anyone who wishes to can join our partnership and adopt a fish. If your fish is recaptured, you will be notified along with your student partner. Our goal is to raise one thousand dollars through the adoption of one hundred fish. We have already made pretty good progress toward that. This year we ordered extra Northern Lakes t-shirts and sweatshirts and sold them. We have raised two hundred fifty dollars. In addition, a local citizen who wishes to remain anonymous donated one hundred fifty dollars. So we are only six hundred dollars from our goal.”

  The crowd gave a round of applause at the early success, and the kids were beaming. I couldn’t help but smile at Julie. I had spent one hundred fifty dollars on worse things.

  The boy finished. “As you walk around the room to look at each person’s project, you will come to Lars Timson, DNR Fisheries biologist, at the front table who has handouts and can explain the project and history of the program. There will also be a bright orange can on his table with a slot in the top for donations.”

  Julie walked up front. “Thank you all so much for coming out tonight. Please stay around and have some refreshments while you look at the individual projects.”

  After the applause subsided, Julie stepped down and waved me over. Standing next to her was a man with a walrus mustache.

  “Sheriff John Cabrelli, let me introduce you to Lars Timson. Lars is taking the official lead on this project,” Julie started. “He has a question to ask you.”

  “I am pleased to meet you, Sheriff Cabrelli.”

  “And I you, Lars. Just John is fine, by the way. What can I help you with?”

  “We would like to do a special project with the school. If possible, working with the kids, we would like to release these fish in the bay that feeds into Spider Creek. The release area would be right in front of your cabin. The sampling point we have used in the past is west of your property, but if you would allow it, we would like to move that point to the mouth of Spider Creek and set everything up on your property for the day. It would give us lots of space for our folks and the students. No permanent structures or anything. We would set up on the spot a couple of days a year. That’s the long and short of it. If you want to think it over, take your time. I better get back to my table. Just let me know.”

  I moved from the city to the wilds of northern Wisconsin to a cabin I inherited from my uncle Nick and aunt Rose. The property was located on a pristine lake, and as a young boy, I remember standing on
the dock looking out across the broad expanse of water. The distance to the opposite shore seemed like miles. When we swam, Uncle Nick had told me that someday when I was older, he and I would swim back and forth across the lake. I couldn’t imagine how I could do it. Now during warm weather, I swam across and back almost every day.

  “I already know the answer, Lars. Use the property whenever you want, so the answer is yes,” I replied.

  “Thanks, Sheriff, or I mean John. Thanks a bunch.”

  Several people were waiting at his table, so he hurried off to talk with them.

  “That was very nice of you, John. Lars has sure been a help with this project,” Julie said.

  “Anything to help with the kids is good with me. You know you could have said yes yourself. I mean, we do live together, and the spot he wants to use is out in front of our cabin,” I teased.

  “I don’t want to overstep my bounds, Sheriff, and while I would like very much to sit here and visit with you, I have to get back to business with the kids.” Julie turned on her heel and was gone.

  As the recently appointed sheriff of Namekagon County, attending events like this was part of the job description. Some others in positions like mine dreaded them. I, on the other hand, enjoyed them thoroughly. Len Bork, the Musky Falls Police Department chief and his wife, Martha, sat next to me during the presentation. I noted that when Martha came in, she had a plate stacked high with her delicious sugar cookies. I needed to find out where she put them before they were all gone.