Dead Creek

by Victoria Houston

  “She’s not a prostitute,” said Lew. “The girls here are well aware of the legal limits.”

  “You think she cares?” Deirdre dismissed Lew with a toss of her blond head. “You don’t do what she’s doing and not go all the way.” And with that, Deirdre swept up three drinks in two hands and walked off to join the others at the table. She was obviously a woman accustomed to winning all arguments.

  “This establishment is pretty careful on that score,” countered Lew as she walked by.

  Deirdre paused and swung around to confront her, “And how would you ever know for sure?” Her strident voice electrified the air. Rosemary winced.

  “Because one of my daughters danced here.”

  Lew’s voice had remained calm, her eyes never leaving Deirdre’s face.

  Osborne watched a slow flush move up the blond’s neck, past the collar of her buttercup cashmere sweater to her ears and across her cheeks. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly, not unlike a smallmouth bass sucking in a minnow. And like a flailing fish, she spun away toward the safe haven of the table where her friends awaited their drinks.

  Osborne leaned toward Lew, his voice low. “You didn’t warn her about trench mouth.” “No, I did not.”

  seven

  Most anglers spend their lives in making rules for trout, and trout spend theirs in breaking them.

  George Aston

  Rosemary reached across the counter to touch Lew’s arm.

  “Don’t mind Deirdre,” she said, a sympathetic glow in her eyes, “she’s got the personality of a fork.” Then, as if to further distance herself from her companion’s remarks, she added in a low voice, “She’s a travel agent … a doctor’s wife.”

  Rosemary unzipped a fanny pack she was wearing under the balloon jacket and pulled out a business card. She handed it to Lew. “Unlike Dierdre, I live in the real world,” she said, her eyes intent as she talked fast. “I’m an editor for the Chicago Tribune metro section—investigative stories. What you just said fascinates me.” Now she moved around Lew to stand between her and Osborne, her back to her friends.

  “I mean—what a juxtaposition,” she kept her voice determinedly low and thrust her hands deep into her pockets as if to keep herself from hopping and flapping about too excitedly. “Mother a police officer, daughter an exotic dancer. If we were in Chicago, you’d be a cover story. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  “Only if it’s off the record,” said Lew, a little taken aback at the force of Rosemary’s reaction. Then she relaxed. “Sure, I don’t care, I’m proud of my daughter.” She slipped a small napkin under her soda can as she leaned her left elbow on the bar. Rosemary, glass of wine in hand, moved in even closer.

  “What made her choose bar dancing in the first place?”

  “We’re talking about my eldest, Suzanne,” said Lew. “She had a rough streak starting out. She had to get married right after graduating from high school, to a no-good creep, had twins four months later, a divorce six months after that, and the bum she married never paid a cent of child support.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, seven, eight years ago. So at nineteen she has no money, two kids, no future, right? The mill offered her a secretarial job, but she couldn’t make enough to cover day care. Then she heard what the girls here were making and ended up getting an offer she couldn’t refuse. She worked the six-to-eleven shift, I watched the kids, and the money she made she saved. And she made good money. But she was a dancer, she was only a dancer,” Lew said pointedly.

  “What about the other dancers?”

  “The same. Thunder Bay was under different management at that time, with owners who knew the minute you let that other stuff happen, you’ve got problems with the mob, with law enforcement, with hysterical wives. You get an element you can’t control, and those folks did not want trouble.”

  “You have the mob up here?”

  “Since Prohibition,” said Lew. “This is a good area for cooling off. It’s easy to disappear in the Northwoods.” Then she lowered her voice, “I know people think the women who dance here are all hookers, but if they are, it’s strictly on their own, off the premises. I’m here today to be sure the new ownership understands the law. Believe me, I’ve been doing this job for eight years now. I know what goes on.”

  “Does Suzanne still dance?”

  “No.” Pride crept into Lew’s voice, “She worked here about a year, and the money made it possible for her get out of town and back to school. She met a nice guy down in Milwaukee, and she’s married and doing just great now. She’s a CPA—makes fifty-two thousand a year.” Lew beamed.

  While Lew and Rosemary chatted on about Suzanne’s successful second career, Osborne’s mind slipped off to thoughts of his own daughter Erin, his youngest, wife, mother of three, and president of the Loon Lake School Board.

  They had breakfast together once a week, and he thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the frustrations of daily life in a small town, the kids in school, her husband’s law practice. He’d developed a strong friendship with his daughter since Mary Lee’s death. Through her he’d learned it wasn’t the money but the listening that counted. She was happy in her life. He knew that.

  Osborne tuned back into the women’s conversation just as Lew took a slow sip from her can and chuckled. “Yep, when it come to kids, you never know, y’know. Suzanne was my little one who played the Madonna in the Christmas play in third grade and—”

  “I remember,” said Osborne, interrupting. “She got the part instead of my daughter Mallory. We certainly had the weeping and gnashing of teeth in our house over that. But Suzanne did a very nice job.” Truth was, he knew Mallory never did understand how she’d lost out to Suzanne. Nor did her mother.

  Mallory went on to get everything else: the expensive degree from Radcliffe, the big wedding to the investment banker, and the estate in Lake Forest. Mallory. The one with the bad year, last year, whose words slurred on the rare occasion that she called, and Osborne knew it wasn’t a problem with the phone line. But that was changing now. At least he hoped it was.

  Lew caught his eye. As if she knew what he was thinking, she looked over at Rosemary, “We do all we can as parents and then just hope for the best, you know?”

  Her eyes shifted suddenly toward the back of the room to check the door, which had just opened. Osborne looked, too, only to be disappointed. Just two men he didn’t recognize, no sign of Ray.

  Rosemary lifted her wineglass, ready to return to her friends. “Can we stay in touch?”

  “Certainly,” said Lew. “I have a case right now that may involve some people in Chicago. Don’t be surprised if you get a call from me.”

  “Please,” said Rosemary. “My reporters have very good sources on the street. And I’m so glad you weren’t upset by Deirdre.”

  “Takes more than that to upset me,” laughed Lew.

  “What do you say to a person like that?” Rosemary shook her head.

  “Tell her what I used to tell my kids,” said Lew. “When in doubt—be kind.”

  “Like she’ll get it?” Rosemary rolled her eyes as she left.

  Suddenly Osborne didn’t want to be sitting in the brazenly seductive haze of women and booze another minute. He checked his watch. “Lew, it’s twenty after four. Ray’s not coming. I don’t like this place. And I rea-a-ally don’t want to stay here much longer.”

  “I can see that, Doc,” Lew said. “It’s written all over your face. But it was our best shot for finding him. Brother, you’d never make it in law enforcement long-term,” she chuckled. “I’ll tell you, some of the places I have to go …”

  “That’s why I’m not in law enforcement,” said Osborne, hoping he sounded curt enough to get her out the door.

  “Oh-h, yes you are!” she answered in surprise. “John’s memo said he made you a deputy so that ID you did will hold up legally. You’re in the game again, my friend.”

  “Uh-oh, I guess you’re right.” His s
pirits lifted. Her words meant he had a job to tackle. And with that, the bar took on a slightly more comfortable feel: if it ever made it back to the McDonald’s crowd that he’d been seen at Thunder Bay, Osborne could say he had the authority to be there. He liked the sound of that.

  Still, Ray had not shown up. The bartender let Osborne use the phone next to the cash register. Nope, still no answer at Ray’s home, either.

  “Maybe we should check in with Donna?” offered Osborne. “Ray might have called her or she might know which direction he went.”

  From the corner of his eye, Osborne checked on the dancer’s progress. The men at the large table were keenly interested as her body was writhing on the small dance floor, dollar bills tucked into strategic sections of her costume.

  “Five to ten more minutes,” said Lew, glancing at her watch. “This is high traffic time. If Ray doesn’t walk in shortly, he ain’t comin'.”

  The bar had been filling up as they waited. Groups of men in twos and threes. Rosemary and her friends gave up their table to one foursome that looked like out-of-towners. Most just glanced casually at the dancer and headed straight for the bar or a table nearby. No one entered that Osborne knew well enough to be concerned about, thank goodness. Now the sound of frying and clanking pots could be heard behind the kitchen doors that were just to the left of where he and Lew were seated near the end of the bar. The smell of fresh-popped corn mingled with the bourbon fumes.

  “Okay,” said Osborne, pacified. A quick glance confirmed his residual worry over the activity on the stage. The young dancer was rapidly approaching complete nudity. This was a far cry from a spring Saturday of two years ago when he and Mary Lee had attended Saint Mary’s annual quilt show. In spite of his mounting anxiety, Osborne allowed himself a small, secret smile.

  “By the way, Doc, how would you like to fish the Bois Brule with me? I want to try out my new rod, and I know a series of holes up between Stone’s Bridge and the Win-neboujou that are classic trout water.”

  If she was trying to divert his attention, she succeeded. Osborne’s spirits soared. “A day trip?”

  “Oh, no, this requires a weekend, Doc. Do you have a good tent? Or you can share mine, but the big browns only bite at night. We have to night-fish if we want to see some action.”

  “Night-fish? Really?” Osborne hesitated. “I heard there’s quicksand.”

  “No, no, you’re thinking of the White River. I don’t fish the White, too risky. Whaddya say? Want to give it a try?”

  “Well …” He tried his darndest not to say yes too fast. “What do I need for trout flies?”

  “Deer-hair mice are my favorites. And a big, blunt-nosed, red-and-white deer-hair bug called a Hank’s Creation. I’ll get you one, Doc. Most folks use Hank’s Creations for smallmouth bass, but, brother, do they work on browns. I cast right along the edge of the weed beds and retrieve with sharp strips of line. Those big browns want commotion. They want it glugged and popped, and when they hit, man, it is ka-whomp! You won’t believe those fish—thirteen, sixteen inches. It is wild.”

  Her eyes were sparkling again. The perfect moment to propose an exchange: a weekend on the Bois Brule in exhange for equal time in Osborne’s muskie boat. Just as he opened his mouth to set up the trade, the expression on Lew’s face changed.

  “Well, well, that’s interesting,” she said, tipping her head back toward the door. Osborne’s eyes followed hers. In had walked a curious couple.

  Whether they were together or not was unclear. The tall, broad-shouldered, blunt-nosed blond who led the way was Judith Benjamin, new owner of Thunder Bay Bar. Her large, dark eyes were framed by tortiseshell glasses, which seemed to restrict the quick, darting glances that took in every detail as she headed toward the bar. Her mouth was set in a sullen straight line and her very yellow hair was lacquered into a tight French twist. If she had a body, not a curve could be seen under the boxy beige trench coat that was buttoned to the neck and tightly belted. If Judith Benjamin looked like anyone, she looked like a cross between an old-fashioned school marm and a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers.

  The darting eyes seemed to linger for a fraction of a second on Osborne. He felt rather than saw her march down the full length of the bar, sensing a long, tall shadow fall over him as the advancing footsteps neared. She stopped just short of his bar stool. Her lips parted in a slit of a smile that exposed the edges of perfect white teeth, a pale, large-fingered hand with rather bulbous knuckles jutted out from her sleeve.

  “Hello, Dr. Osborne.” Her voice was very low, husky even, as she shook his hand. She did not seem surprised to see him there, even though it was his first visit to any establishment of hers in the seventeen years that she’d owned taverns in the region. Taverns that always had a reputation. Yes, thought Osborne as he shook her hand, Thunder Bay was the perfect addition to her portfolio and, yes, Lew’s decision to put Benjamin on her watch list was wise.

  “Nice of you to stop in.” And then she was gone, vanished behind the kitchen doors. Osborne was a little stunned. All he could think at the moment was that she looked exactly like she looked when he saw her every Sunday, rain or snow, at 6:30 Mass when she took her place in the last pew at Saint Mary’s Church. She never took Communion, but she never missed Sunday Mass. And she wore that trench coat winter and summer, spring and fall.

  It had been a long time since he’d seen her up so close, too. That nose. A Loon Lake landmark. A mark of shame and violence, proof that man’s inhumanity to man starts very young. For reasons he couldn’t explain, Osborne was in awe of Judith Benjamin. She frightened him.

  Years ago she’d endured the humiliation of being different in a small town where being different made you a target of those stronger and meaner—and turned it around on those who tortured her. She walked the edge of the law to gain a crude but effective control over the fantasies and realities of their sex lives. Her lakeside brothel was not just her livelihood, it was her revenge: Osborne had lost count of the number of Loon Lake marriages that were irretrievably strained after a wife learned her man had been with one of Judith’s girls.

  Eventually, a local judge, one of her protectors, passed away, and Judith refocused her business: investing in taverns, scaling back on the higher-risk enterprise. But if the history of her business acumen was still grist for bar tales, the story behind Judith’s remarkable face was a chapter long closed. Twenty-seven years had passed. Osborne wondered if anyone even remembered.

  The man who had walked in behind her was also advancing on Osborne. But now the good dentist could not repress a groan as he turned away, hoping against hope he wouldn’t be seen. He despised Brad Miller. He had despised him since he was a child and took a big chomp out of Osborne’s right thumb during a school dental exam.

  Osborne was new to Loon Lake at the time and had just opened his practice. He also had just met Miller’s father, Joe, who would become one of his favorite hunting and fishing buddies. But Brad, who was adopted, had nothing in common with Joe. He had nothing in common with most people. Osborne always felt very guilty that he’d taken such a strong dislike to this child, small for his age with pinched features, a mouthful of teeth that rotted too easily, and so uncommonly bright that he scared grown-ups.

  Peggy Miller, Joe’s wife, had doted on the boy, and town lore was that she dressed him in all white, sometimes in frills even, until he went to nursery school. That was absurd, of course. Osborne doubted the story was true, but it did help explain Brad’s fastidious ways. When she finally let Joe take him fishing, it was too late. The kid wouldn’t get close to a worm much less hook a wriggling mud puppy or a leech. Actually, no one could take much of Brad. He had a supercilious way of appearing to sniff the air around you as you spoke as if something bad had entered the room. When Brad had won every scholarship there was to win and left Loon Lake, few regrets were whispered behind him.

  Joe died in a boating accident during one of Brad’s vacations from Princeton. Osborne had helped Brad and
Peggy with the funeral arrangements but then he hadn’t heard from him in years. Brad, Peggy had bragged to Mary Lee, had had a stellar career as a professor of art history at Yale University.

  Then, nine months ago, he took early retirement and returned to Loon Lake. He moved into his mother’s house on the best street in town, talked of someday donating an art collection he told someone was worth over a million dollars to the town and, after much arm twisting, condescended to the wishes of the local arts council to teach a few classes at the local university branch.

  Why he had to arrive at Thunder Bay Bar just as the dancer challenged Code 2116B was beyond Osborne’s ken. Sometimes life just wasn’t fair.

  “Huh?” asked Lew in response to the strange grunt from Osborne. Her eyes had narrowed to watch Judith’s reflection in the mirror that ran the length of the bar, not unlike a cat cautiously considering a spider. Now she slowly swung her gaze from the kitchen door behind which Judith had just vanished to look at Osborne.

  “Oh, jeez,” said Osborne, tapping his empty can with irritation on the bar and raising his eyebrows in grim anticipation. “Getta load of this….”

  Miller had spotted him and stepped right up behind the two of them, a big grin on his squarish face. Even though it was a cool day and a little early in the season, he was wearing khaki bermuda shorts under a red plaid woolen jacket. Academic horn-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. Osborne thought he looked like a hunter out of a Far Side cartoon.

  “Why, Oz-z-zie, what are you doing here?” Only Joe had ever called Osborne Ozzie, and the dentist cringed at the sound of his nickname nasally abused by Miller. He turned around to face Miller, noticing with some surprise that the creep had lost a lot of weight since Osborne had last seen him.

  Once quite portly, now he was remarkably thin through his legs and shoulders, though he still carried a doughy tire of a midriff. Only the too tightly cinched belt of his khaki shorts kept it from expanding farther. As he planted himself behind Osborne and Lew, he leaned back like a pregnant woman, a pose that emphasized he was all angles and no muscle. He looked very out of place in Thunder Bay Bar, which didn’t seem to bother him in the least.