Dead Creek

by Victoria Houston

  Osborne, Lew, and Ray looked at each other.

  “Holy shit,” said Ray on behalf of all three. They ran for the dock. With no boat however, they were marooned. There was no way they could get out to the plane. The moon was bright now, but Osborne still could not make out the face on the figure in the canoe, even though it was only about three hundred yards away.

  “Hey! Who’s there?” shouted Lew, “Police here! Put that damn gun down and tell me who you are!”

  Silence. Then the canoe turned slowly, pointed its bow toward them and, with a delicate motion, the canoist dipped a paddle into the black surface of the lake. Osborne watched the boat move silently toward them. Ray gripped Osborne’s arm above the elbow, signaling he had recognized the figure, but he said nothing.

  Meanwhile, not a sound came from the plane, but even if it had, they wouldn’t have noticed. About fifty feet from the dock, Osborne recognized the figure holding the paddle: Marie.

  She brought her boat close in and smiled up at them in the light, squinting into the glare. “Don’t ask me to paddle out there, ‘cause I’m not going, and you aren’t either,” was all she said. Her voice was sure and strong. Then she turned and looked out into the dark. Strange black angles jutting against the moon was all they could see of the plane. The angles were drifting lower and lower into the water. “No one goes anywhere until that plane is ten minutes underwater.”

  “Marie!” Lew was clearly stunned.

  “They don’t swim,” said Marie, ignoring Lew as she rested her paddle in her lap and reached down for her gun. “Lew? Did you hear me? I said no one goes near that plane until I say so.” The canoe floated about four feet from the dock.

  “Marie, only Judith is in that plane,” said Ray. “She put a bullet in Brad. His body’s in the boathouse.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” said Marie. Osborne was amazed at the transformed woman before him. All her strange mannerisms, her staccato chuckle, her silly smile, had disappeared. This Marie was very still and very strong.

  “Marie, will you give me your gun, please?” asked Lew. “I refuse to allow you to hold that rifle on us. Not if you want to avoid arrest.”

  “If you promise me you won’t take my canoe and go rushing out there.”

  “I promise,” said Lew without hesitation. “I promise. Believe me, it’s the last thing I plan to do, even though I should. She left us all locked in the freezer to die. This is self-defense.”

  Marie looked at Lew for a long moment. “Ray,” she said finally, “pull me over to the dock.” With those words, Ray knelt to grab the edge of the canoe. He pulled the wooden boat toward them, and Osborne recognized it. It was the very same one that had been resting on sawhorses at Herman’s place.

  Marie handed up her rifle. Then she got to her feet, holding to the sides of the canoe to steady herself, and let Ray give her a hand up beside them. Osborne noticed she even moved faster than she had earlier that day. She stood tall and straight.

  “How did you get involved in all this?” Ray put his arm around her shoulder.

  “They’re family. You know that, don’t you?” She looked around at the three of them, and all three nodded. “Some folks don’t, but you do know that they were my baby brother and sister?”

  “Yes,” said Ray softly, “when did you first know?”

  “Herman told me two years ago when they first looked me up and asked me to do some work for them,” said Marie. “They weren’t particularly nice, but I decided to do it anyway for the money. They promised to pay me,” said Marie. “They promised me a lot of money. That’s why I built that house for them. That’s why I built cases for their art. Judith promised me.

  “She promised …” Marie took a deep breath. “But I acted dumb like I always do, and pretty soon they started talking in front of me. I knew when they killed those men, and I knew when they killed Ted Bronk. But when I heard ‘em planning to kill Ray, I decided someone had to put a stop to it. Look at me—no one in Loon Lake was going to believe me, you know? So I took care of it myself.”

  She drew herself up tall for a long moment and then, almost instantly, she sagged. She stood there all alone on the dock, her arms limp at her sides and looking to Osborne for all the world like a person deserted. Ray opened his arms like a welcoming big brother and stepped toward her, folding Marie’s short, stocky body into his. He pressed her head to his chest and patted her shoulders.

  “Hey, Marie, you did the right thing,” he said. “If it weren’t for you … well, if I’d known what you were up to, I would have asked Lew if you couldn’t be deputized today to help me and Doc out.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lew’s voice cut in crisply, “I thought you did.”

  “That’s right, I did. Didn’t I, Doc? When we were out to Herman’s.”

  “We’ll have to ask Julie,” said Osborne. “I’m sure she remembers.”

  Marie stepped away from Ray’s comforting arms. “I decided to do this when I heard them planning this trip to Japan. I knew what they were up to.”

  She looked back out to the lake, which had a still, unbroken surface now, gleaming quite beautifully, Osborne thought, under the moonlight. “I packed that plane so that it would be more than a little unbalanced. Know what I mean? I figured if I could bring it down, the weight would do the rest.”

  “But they could have escaped through the windows and the door,” said Lew.

  “I rigged it,” said Marie. “The door and windows are locked shut so they won’t open after Judith set the interior lock. I cut a hole near the engine so the body of the plane would fill with water pretty fast.”

  “Marie,” Lew spoke, “were you involved in killing the men whose bodies we found?”

  “No,” said Marie. “Ted Bronk helped ‘em. That’s why they killed him—so they’d have no witnesses.”

  “But you knew. Why didn’t they kill you?”

  “They didn’t really know that I knew,” said Marie. “See, I’d work all day and act the fool, you know. They didn’t know that I would come back here at night. I came to fish at first. Beautiful walleye in this lake. And then I found that I could hear what they were saying inside the house because they always had windows open. So I started to watch them. That’s how I knew they were going after Ray that night.”

  She looked at Ray. “After you and Doc found those bodies, Brad tapped into the phone line and recorded all your calls. When he knew you were going to see Herman, he figured Herman might send you this way. They were waiting. Ted’s the one who hit you from behind.”

  “Why didn’t they kill me?” asked Ray.

  “They were trying to,” said Marie, “but they wanted it to look like you’d been drinking and got lost. They were pretty surprised that Doc found you, y’know. They thought Ted had dragged you way back in the woods to die.”

  “Marie, you were in the woods that night, weren’t you?” asked Osborne. “Yes.”

  “Why?” Lew jumped in with the question.

  “I was going to move Ray before they could come back,” said Marie softly. “I wasn’t going to let them kill Ray, too.”

  “Marie …” Lew took a deep breath. “I think I can work this out so you won’t be charged with the murder of Judith Benjamin. Our lives were at risk. All our lives. You made the difference.”

  twenty-six

  The muskie is one fish that is hard to catch, whether you are rich or poor. It makes fools out of professional muskie fisherman as well as novices.

  Tony Rizzo, Secrets of a Muskie Guide

  It was three-thirty the next morning when Osborne found himself ecstatic that the Loon Lake Pub was open twenty-four hours, seven days a week. He’d never been so hungry in his life. From the looks on the faces of Ray, Julie, and Lew, the sentiment was exactly the same.

  “Poor Sloan’s not doing well at all,” said Lew as she got out of Osborne’s car after he’d parked at the curb outside the pub. “I checked with the nurses while you were in the emergency room w
ith the baby.”

  They had just dropped Erin and the baby at the hospital for twenty-four hours of observation. Mark was there to meet them. Osborne wasn’t too worried. The prognosis from the two physicians who examined them were excellent. Though the baby had slipped into unconsciousness, he revived quickly under treatment for hypothermia.

  “If he had to suffer a trauma,” said the pediatrician who’d rushed to the emergency room to meet Erin, the baby, and Julie, “this is the one to choose. The lower temperatures are the least likely to cause brain damage, and I see no evidence of frostbite. He’s still chubby enough with baby fat that his appendages aren’t long enough to be endangered. Nothing on his little body is too far from his heart.”

  Erin herself was still shaken, but she’d be okay. Osborne was worried she might have frostbite on her fingers and toes, but the trauma doc told Osborne she looked pretty good. The adrenaline rush spurred by her determination to save herself and her baby had kept the blood flowing in spite of the freezing temperatures. Once she had warmed up, the numbness in her fingers and toes was gone. They checked her over carefully to be sure she might not have a late reaction and slip into shock, but she had calmed down after finally getting to nurse the baby.

  Lew had gone straight to the police department where she taped statements from Julie, Ray, and Marie. Then she’d hurried over to the emergency room to see how the baby and Erin were doing. She told Osborne that Ray and Julie had gone ahead to hold a table for them at the pub while she ran by John Sloan’s room for a quick check on her ex-boss.

  “If he hadn’t smoked so heavily all these years, he’d have been out in a few days, but this pneumonia is hanging on. The nurse said he still has fluid on the lungs.”

  “I’m glad,” said Osborne. “I mean, I’m not glad the poor man is so ill, but I’m glad that we were able to do what we did. I’m not sure we’d have had the same results if John had been around. He would have made it difficult to include Ray.”

  “Yep, Ray forces you to play your hunches, y’know, Doc,” said Lew briskly. She looked up at him as he held the door to the pub open for her. Their glance held for an instant. Long enough for Osborne to make up his mind.

  Ray and Julie had snagged a comfortable booth for the foursome. “I can’t believe how busy this place is,” said Julie as a harried waitress arrived with glasses of water.

  “The bars just closed,” said Ray. “The tradition around here, if you’ve closed down the bar, is to hit the Loon Lake Pub for a double cheeseburger, fries, and a root beer float.”

  “Or a bowl of Marilyn’s homemade chicken noodle soup,” added Lew with one of her few quick smiles.

  “I’ll take both,” said Julie. “I can’t remember the last time I ate!” She turned to the waitress and gave her order.

  “Save room for their lemon meringue pie,” said Osborne. “Joanne from Eagle River makes it—may be the best you’ll ever eat. Lew said Sloan’s not looking so good,” he added, handing the menus around the table.

  “Speaking of looking good,” said Ray, “I’m still trying to figure out why Judith Benjamin decked herself out like a man. I mean, what difference would it have made? I don’t think the woman is gay or a closet transsexual, do you?”

  “Insurance,” said Lew. “Marie said she’s got Robert Bowers’s passport on her. The facial resemblance is close enough, given how bad those passport photos are.”

  “But her height and weight?”

  “Doubtful they’d even check that,” said Lew. “She probably wouldn’t have needed the disguise, anyway. She and Brad had done this many times before. They had their contacts—and their bribes—all in place. But if anything happened to upset the timing, if just one official asked any questions, she would be covered. She could pass for Bowers, and even if they ran a check on the artworks, everything was registered in his name. She had a fail-safe setup. Now, if only our friend Doc here hadn’t jumped the gun on opening day for muskie fishing …”

  “Now, Lew, I was scouting. Just scouting.”

  “And if you believe that one …” said Ray. Osborne kicked him under the table.

  “Right,” said Lew. She opened her menu, looked quickly, and closed it, putting it down on her plate. Then she leaned forward and crossed her arms on the table in front of her. The swelling on her lower lip was barely noticeable, and she had the no-nonsense, intense look on her face that Osborne now knew meant business. She did not look like a person who’d gone too many hours without sleep. Osborne wondered where on earth she found the energy. But she did, and she made him feel wide awake and twenty years younger, too.

  “Y’know, Ray, try taking it easy on the controlled substances, if you would. Because if and when I have an opening—and I know I will eventually—I would like to talk to you and the good dentist here about working together in the future—on a project-by-project basis maybe?”

  Osborne looked over at Ray. He liked the sound of that. He liked the idea of working around Lew. And life was always interesting around Ray.

  “I’d like to keep my family out of it, but I could handle a career change,” said Osborne.

  “Yeah,” said Ray, “I’ll have to run it by Shanley and make sure he has no problems with that, but our project is pretty low-key with a five-year timeline on it. I can probably work something out.”

  “When did you start working with Shanley?”

  “Oh … right around two years ago.”

  “Is that why you went into rehab?”

  “No.” Ray sat up straight and reached for his cup of coffee. Now it was his turn to lean forward and look around the table. His eyes stopped at Julie. “These folks know that I was a serious pothead and an alcoholic up until—well, two years ago. I always had problems measuring up in a family where all my siblings became doctors and lawyers and I just wanted to go fishin'. To make a long story short, I hit bottom just after I turned thirty-five. Donna found me unconscious one day and drove me to the mental health ward at the hospital and checked me in. I was up there, still resisting, when my good buddy, Dick Harvey, lost his oldest son in a freak accident.”

  “I remember that,” said Lew. “He was terrific kid. Dropped dead from a heart attack playing soccer. He was only thirteen years old.”

  “Right,” said Ray. “It happened in the morning, and that afternoon Dick came to see me at the hospital and demanded that they let him in. You know how many rules they have over there. But he found me and he grabbed me and he looked me in the eye and he said, ‘Ray, you gotta help me. You’re the only one that can help me.’ Well …” Ray looked around the booth at Lew and Osborne and Julie. “I never thought I had anything to give to anybody up to that moment.”

  “What did you do?” asked Julie softly.

  “Not much, really. I put my arms around him and I said, ‘Dick, what’s God gonna do? He needs a new angel.’ “ Ray took another slow sip of his coffee. “That’s all. But it helped. So when I learned Rick Shanley’s group was looking for someone to do this, I gave them a call. The money’s not great, but it gets me through the slow season.”

  “And you’re doing something pretty darn important,” said Julie. She reached over and squeezed Ray’s arm.

  Ray put his hand over hers and kept it there. “Thanks.”

  “Is that why you put in your septic system?” asked Osborne.

  Julie and Lew swung their heads toward Osborne in disbelief.

  “Hey!” Osborne put his hands up defensively. “He was piping his raw sewage into my rose garden,” said Osborne. “I never did know why he stopped.”

  “Actually, Doc, you nailed it,” said Ray. “The institute crowd made me do it. They went over my record and inspected my trailer. They want to make sure you aren’t violating any codes or stuff if you’re working for them. Their inspector caught that, and he helped me get a good deal on a septic. I didn’t mention it because my deal with Shanley is confidential.”

  “How’s Marie?” Osborne asked.

  Ray had dropped hi
m at the hospital to check on Erin and the baby immediately after the powerful spotlights on the police boat confirmed that the plane was in seven feet of ice-cold water with Judith Benjamin strapped tightly into the pilot’s seat. Not only did the spots pick up the plane, but it had sunk at an angle so they could make out Judith’s head against the window. Her head was tipped back and up, the eyes open. Even in death she appeared to be casting a baleful stare at the crowd.

  Marie’s gunfire had scored twice, hitting the plane’s engine and also shattering the door on the pilot’s side. A bullet may have hit Judith, but no one knew for sure. A crew would raise the plane sometime the next day.

  Meanwhile, Marie assured everyone, the precious paintings still on board were quite safe. Airtight and watertight. No moisture was going to seep onto those canvases. Judith had insisted on special packing, concerned that the freight compartments on the international flight might not allow for the necessary humidity control. Little did she suspect why Marie had followed instructions so carefully this time.

  “Marie seems okay,” said Ray. “Lew had me take her to the station for a statement. I asked her to join us here, but she wanted to get home to Herman.”

  “You gave her a ride?”

  “Nope. Wouldn’t take one. She had that old truck of Herman’s, and she insisted on getting herself back. They’re very close, those two.”

  Just then their waitress reappeared with a full tray of soup and burgers and began to set steaming bowls in front of each of them. Then she crowded plates of burgers and fries between the bowls as they all watched in hungry silence.

  “Marie sure can pick and choose who she wants to do carpentry for from now on,” added Julie between bites.

  “How so?” asked Lew, when the waitress had left.

  “She’s Robert Bowers’s next of kin,” said Julie, her eyes smiling mischievously over her cheeseburger.

  “My God, I forgot about that,” said Ray. He set his burger down and wiped his lips and beard carefully with his napkin. “How much is she worth?”