Dead Creek

by Victoria Houston

  “We only have one close to Loon Lake,” said Lew, still clipping her words, “you must be checked in at Cranberry Hill in Rhinelander?”

  “No,” said Julie, “I’m out on a lake at a place called Marjorie’s Bed and Breakfast. It’s rather … rustic … but cozy. I saw a sign on Highway 8 after I missed a turn coming into town and blew by Loon Lake. I was doubling back when I saw the sign. Maybe genteelly shabby would be a kinder description of the place, but I like it. I’m quite comfortable there.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Ray as he folded his lanky frame into the backseat of Lew’s sedan alongside Osborne. “That place and the area around it always reminds me of something out of Deliverance.” He looked at Osborne and Lew. “I know I’m repeating myself, but there is no better description of that lovely neighborhood. You know, Miss Rehnquist, we do have backwoods types that eat their own around here. Not rednecks, human mutants.”

  Before Julie could say anything, Ray went on in a kinder tone, “You wanted to get the lay of the land? Or you wanted to check things out without all of us leaning over your shoulder?” His point was unmistakable: He didn’t believe her. And he wasn’t going to let her off the hook.

  “Is something wrong?” Julie looked from face to face. “Who knows? Certainly something’s very wrong when you have four murder victims,” said Lew with a shrug and a very businesslike tone in her voice. Her eyes were as hard as the twist she gave the key in the ignition.

  Lew looked over at Julie in the seat beside her, “But you’re the one who said one thing and did another—so you tell me.” Without waiting for an answer, Lew said, “We’re heading over to the State Crime Lab in Wausau, and we’ve got an hour’s drive ahead of us. We’ll leave your car here and be back to pick it up later. That is,” she said with exaggerated politeness, “if that’s all right with you? On the other hand, maybe you’d prefer to drive down alone.”

  To Osborne’s ear, Lew’s message was unmistakable: if you think you’re going to take the lead on this investigation, then go it alone, babe. Osborne felt like the odd man out; his gut instinct was to like the young woman. Right now, he felt a little sorry for her.

  “Oh, no, I’m with you,” said Julie, again with a smile. Only this time Osborne noticed that her eyes stayed serious over the gently smiling lips. “So …” She turned around from where she sat in the front seat to face Ray sitting immediately behind her. “You’re a detective with the police department?”

  “Not exactly,” Lew interrupted as she swerved the car onto Highway 17 and tromped her foot on the accelerator. “Both Dr. Osborne and Ray are filling in as deputies on this case. I’m the Loon Lake chief of police. We had a big designer drug bust outside Wausau two weeks ago that pulled two of my regular team off for duty on that, then a senior deputy has been hospitalized with pneumonia for a few days. Dr. Osborne’s forensic skills have been very appreciated, and no one knows this region like Ray. Ray’s a jack-of-all-trades and probably the best hunting and fishing guide you can find—when he’s sober. Right, Ray?”

  “Lew?” Ray made no effort to conceal his annoyance, “I thought we had a deal….”

  Julie kept her eyes on the road straight ahead. Osborne wondered if she felt like she was in the middle of an argument in a highly dysfunctional family.

  “We do, Ray.” It was Lew’s turn to look back at him. “We do. Ray knows everybody who’s anybody and everyone who’s not. Do you want to let Julie in on your secret?”

  There was a silence in the car. Finally, Ray leaned forward in the seat and lowered his voice behind Julie’s head, “I dig graves on the side.”

  “You’re kidding!” Julie spun around with a laugh.

  “No, he’s not,” said Lew with a slight smile. “Between the three of us, we got ‘em covered—the living and the dead.” Then she chuckled. Later, Osborne thought that was the play that won the game: Lew’s chuckle broke the tension and, for the first time, signaled that Lew might consider cooperation.

  “What do you do in the winter when the ground is frozen?” asked Julie with genuine curiosity.

  “Besides getting busted for smoking dope while ice fishing—” interjected Lew.

  “Jeez, Lew, ease up! Now that’s a go-o-od question,” said Ray to Julie. “Very few people think ahead to ask me questions like that. Actually, I do quite a bit. I shovel snow for some of the commercial establishments in town—the bank, the pub. Other odd jobs—the outdoor stuff. Up here you can make a modest living shoveling snow off rooftops for three to four months.”

  “I see.” Julie was thoughtful. “What did your father do?”

  Now it was Ray’s turn to look taken aback. “He was a surgeon.”

  She turned around to look at him again, her eyes shifted to Osborne and then to Lew. This time, the eyes stayed dark and the mouth didn’t smile. “What we are really discussing here is that things are not always as they seem. Right? That Ray can track in the world of humans as easy as in the wilderness?”

  Again there was silence in the car, and Osborne marveled at the communication that was taking place between the law officer, the undercover agent, and the lawyer who was making it clear she was no dummy. She knew that no one was being totally honest, including herself, but what little Lew and Ray were saying was, at least, true.

  “I’m real curious,” said Ray. “Why are you so convinced your client was murdered?”

  Now Julie stared straight ahead, eyes glued to the highway. “Because I know exactly who did it. Don’t underestimate me. I have a lot at stake in this case, and I am not bullshitting around. You’re right, of course. I came up early to do some of my own checks. I’m staying at that weird little place because Robert Bowers stayed there once, and I want to know why. Why would a multimillionaire stay in such shabby little resort?

  “I know it’s close to property he inherited from the Cantrell side of his family. I like that proximity because I have a hunch that I have a better chance of running into someone who might know something.” She was quiet for a moment, still watching the road ahead. “You know, it’s too bad those other people had to die, because Robert was the real target.”

  “Really?” said Ray. “You’re sure of that?”

  “Oh quite. I’ll tell you who did it, too. I was introduced to him as Brad Kirsch, an antique silver dealer,” said Julie. “He also goes by the name Fred Shepard. Fred Shepard is a known silver thief who operates out of Las Vegas. He’s very canny, and he always works with a woman. But …” Julie paused as if trying to remember something she’d forgotten, then she gave a shrug and smile. “I guess I’d rather talk about Robert, if you don’t mind?”

  “Shoot,” said Lew. “Doc, since I’m driving, would you please take notes for me?” She handed him a long, narrow notebook, spiral-bound at the top. Osborne flipped it open, past pages filled with a neat, slightly slanted script. Random phrases or entire lines were sometimes highlighted in yellow. He could see that Lew was meticulously well-organized. A little unnerved by her careful attention to detail, he tried to write as quickly as Julie talked so as not to miss anything. Fortunately, Julie seemed more relaxed, and her story unfolded at an easy pace as the police car sped toward Wausau.

  nineteen

  Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.

  Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

  “My father was a psychiatrist at Menninger’s and old Mrs. Bowers brought Robert to Dad for therapy when he was fourteen. She trusted Dad, so when he wanted to bring Robert home to spend time with our family—there were five of us kids—that was fine.

  “I was a little tyke and always thought of Robert as one of my big brothers. I never knew there was anything wrong with him. That was Dad’s point: if Robert had a chance to build a sense of self-esteem before the social taboos set in, maybe he’d be strong enough to make it as a whole human being, even though his body was so different from everyone else’s.”

  “What exactly was wrong with him?” asked Lew.

  “As a y
oung child, he had been absolutely beautiful. Delicate features, big eyes with long, long lashes, lovely, soft skin. A stunning-looking child, the kind that’s always picked to play the angel in school plays. The problem was that at the age of fourteen he was still a beautiful child.

  “Delayed puberty turned him into a Dresden doll instead of a growing boy. He went from being the perfect child and everyone’s pet to the runt of the class—picked on, made fun of, everything that happens to you when you’re so different from everyone else. I don’t know if it was that or body chemistry or what, but Robert was suffering from severe clinical depression by the time Mrs. Bowers brought him to Dad.

  “No one knew what to do. They tried giving him shots of testosterone to bring on puberty, but he had severe reactions to the medication, so they had to stop. I don’t know all the details. I do know that in his late teens, they found something to work—at least he grew to normal height, but his body never developed the way a boy’s should. Even as a grown man, for example, he never had to shave, and he put on weight like a woman does, in his hips and lower torso.

  “But bright! Robert was smart and good and kind, a thoughtful, sensitive person. He was also a very pleasant-looking man. He never lost those lovely, gentle features.

  “My older brothers and I, we all loved Robert. He’d come for weekends, and he came all one summer to stay with us. Then Mrs. Bowers did something that my father urged her not to do. She sent him to an elite prep school on the East Coast. I think it was Choate. Maybe he was there for a month. Not much longer. Dad got a call in the middle of the night and flew out there to get Robert. Something terrible had happened to him. I never knew what exactly, but I can imagine.

  “Dad kept him at Menninger’s through high school and, I believe, most of the college years. He came by the house sometimes, but I was all wrapped up in my own life and really didn’t pay too much attention.

  “I got married in college, divorced in law school, worked for a New York law firm for nearly ten years. I moved back to Kansas City three years ago. Mrs. Bowers was ninety-seven years old and fading fast. One afternoon, Dad gave me a call and asked me to meet with Robert.

  “I hadn’t seen him in nearly fifteen years. He asked me to meet him out south at the big house. Robert had never married and he lived there with Mrs. Bowers and a housekeeper. He wanted to see me for advice, relative to the effect on the estate, on whether to donate Mrs. Bowers’s magnificent antique English silver collection to the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kanas City or to Yale University. Mrs. Bowers had received a letter from an antiques dealer who bought for very wealthy collectors, and that individual was coming into Kansas City to meet with Robert.

  “That’s when I met Brad Kirsch. I thought he made a rather curious dealer….” “In what way?” asked Lew.

  “To begin with, he had the social skills of a spider—at least with women,” said Julie. “He would be so charming in a social scene, then bait you in a subtle way and thoroughly enjoy making you look like a fool. Always in front of a crowd. When it came to business, I couldn’t get straight answers out of him on financial details. He was a master at putting me off. For weeks.

  “Meanwhile, two things happened: Mrs. Bowers died, leaving Robert sole heir to a fortune worth seven hundred and fifty million dollars. Two weeks after her death, while Robert was off on a business trip, the house was robbed of almost the entire silver collection. Actually, he was on one of these YPO trips when it happened.”

  “How long ago was this?” asked Lew.

  “I have a question—sorry to interrupt, Lew,” said Ray. “This antique dealer—what did Robert think of him?”

  “That’s what was so difficult,” said Julie. “Robert liked him. He trusted him. Apparently they had some soul-to-soul talks, and Brad had some elaborate story how he had been abused as a child, so Robert felt all this sympathy for him. I think it was a big fat lie, but at that point, I couldn’t say so. Brad was gay, and he made like he’d been discriminated against for that, too.

  “Anyway, Robert trusted him, and I didn’t, but I couldn’t come out and say so. It was so bad that when I called a few of his supposed clients and they had never heard of him—I couldn’t tell Robert. I was going to be the bad guy for telling the truth. Get the picture? This had become an absurd situation and, I know now, a very dangerous one.”

  “Do you think that Robert and this Brad had a relationship?” asked Osborne.

  “On the surface you might think so,” said Julie. “Certainly Grant Moore thinks they did. But I don’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?” asked Lew.

  “I asked Robert, and he said no, and I believe him,” said Julie. “He said he felt great affection for Brad, but not a sexual attraction.”

  “What does this Brad guy look like?” asked Ray.

  “He’s a small man. Pudgy, just short of being a real tub. He has a round face, white, white hair. Very thick and bushy. Too bushy—I think he wears a piece. He is exceptionally fair-skinned and always flushed in the cheeks. For lack of a better description, he looks like Santa Claus.”

  “So the silver was stolen. Anything else taken?” asked Lew.

  “Well … I think so,” said Julie. “Brad said he had a written approval from Robert to pack up all his art and send it to Brad. Supposedly, Brad was assembling an international art exhibit featuring works owned by YPO members. All very hoity-toity and very hush-hush. Not a public exhibit, you see, but one for YPO members only.”

  “Interesting,” said Ray. “Was everything sent off?”

  “Yes, it was,” said Julie. “I think Brad has stolen the art. The Bowers family has … had …” Julie seemed to correct herself with effort, “some very fine pieces, about ten in total. A complete folio of original Audubon prints, which is priceless today. Several Impressionist paintings, including a Monet. Robert himself had two phenomenal early Georgia O’Keefe watercolors that are museum quality. Mrs. Bowers was given them by her uncle, who lived next to O’Keefe in New York years and years ago. He pulled them out of the trash.”

  “Serious capital gains on those babies,” chuckled Ray.

  “You know art?” Julie’s voice did not disguise her complete surprise that Ray would have the vaguest idea what she was talking about.

  “Just because I trap leeches doesn’t mean I’m uncivilized,” said Ray, ever so slightly petulant.

  “Ray’s older sister has one of the finest Japanese print collections in the country,” said Osborne. “She and her husband also collect some large paintings—Ray, who’s the artist?”

  “Helen Frankenthaler.”

  “I see,” said Julie. “Serious collectors.”

  Lew interrupted again. “What else was missing. Any other valuables?”

  “I have a list,” said Julie. “Robert and I had inventoried his mother’s estate for probate purposes. I kept a separate list of Robert’s properties so there would be no confusion. I would ballpark the value of the missing art and several pieces of jewelry to be well above five million dollars. Not the silver. It was an exceptional European collection, but the police and I agree that the pieces were probably melted down within hours of the heist.”

  “Have you run a check on Brad Kirsch?” asked Lew.

  “Of course,” said Julie, obviously pleased to be asked and quite willing to share her findings. “Yes. He is listed as a member of all the professional antique and art dealer associations, which is how he gets his leads on collections to rob. There were reports filed suspecting him of theft, but no one has ever nailed him.

  “When I called the Las Vegas police to check the profile of the silver thief, Fred Shepard, I hit pay dirt. Shepard’s photo matched Brad. No question. Unfortunately, I did not run these checks until after Robert was gone. By that time, Brad was gone. The only clue I had that he might be up this way was the new house.”

  “The new house?” Osborne, Lew, and Ray exclaimed simultaneously. “What new house?”

  “Robert wrote me a lovely let
ter the day … several weeks ago,” said Julie, starting to say one thing and looking again as though she was trying to remember something. “I have it at home, but I’ll send you a copy. In it, he describes a beautiful log home he was having built up here on property formerly owned by the Cantrell trust and part of his mother’s estate. It has its own private lake. Did I tell you he had taken up fly-fishing? Brad was helping to design the interior. Robert planned to move his favorite paintings and art objects up here.”

  “Where is this?” asked Osborne, curious she hadn’t mentioned the home earlier.

  “I don’t know,” said Julie. “He said it was in a hidden wilderness area with trout streams nearby, but he never told me where exactly. When he left Kansas City the last time, he said that he would be at a YPO retreat, then stop to see how work was going on the house. The house was supposed to be a surprise of a certain sort.”

  Julie sighed deeply. “If I sound matter-of-fact about this, it’s only because I have reached a point of complete despair. I just … I see so many ways I might have been able to stop Robert had I just been more alert to what was happening.” She sighed again and dropped her face into her hands.

  Ray patted her on the shoulder. “What makes you think you sound matter-of-fact? You sound like someone who’s lost a very close friend.” Everyone in the car was silent for a few minutes as they sped toward Wausau.

  Finally, Lew broke the silence. “I checked my fishing maps yesterday. Ray?” She didn’t take her eyes off the road, but she made sure she had Ray’s attention.

  “My geographical surveys are from 1955, and I went over the area real carefully up behind Moen Lake, Stella

  Lake, Angelo, looked over by the Nelson and Brown Landings; I followed the Gudegast way north and over to the right by Hutchinson Creek. I drew a triangle between Moen, Mud, and Shepard Lakes. Nothing. No lake. Totally different terrain from what we found yesterday. I don’t understand. What do you think? The new surveys were just finished, and we won’t have new maps for another six months.”