Victoria Houston - Loon Lake 14 - Dead Lil' Hustler

by Victoria Houston

  “Any news from Bruce Peters?” asked Lew.

  “He called in to say there’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow, Chief. He’s had the Corbin remains transported to the crime lab for an autopsy. Said he’d be back at the site first thing in the morning. He said it took some doing to find someone who can get a vehicle back in there to salvage the snowmobile. He also said to tell you he’s hoping you’ve got Saturday off.” Marlaine chuckled. She knew the deal Lew made with Bruce.

  “Anything else?”

  “The usual speeding ticket and a rear-ender in the Loon Lake Market parking lot. Officer Donovan is handling that. Oh, and Dani left a note saying the FBI guy got here late this afternoon. She helped him set up his computer.”

  “What FBI guy?”

  “You got me,” said Marlaine. “That’s all she wrote on this note here.”

  “Okay, I’ll deal with that in the morning,” said Lew, perplexed. FBI guy? Be nice if someone had told her what that was all about.

  “Would it be out of line for me to ask why Dr. Osborne has to be at the hospital tonight?” said Jake when she was off the phone. “I thought you said he is retired.”

  “I don’t think he would mind if I told you,” said Lew. “He’s in a situation somewhat similar to yours. His seven-year-old grandson is in an isolation unit with spinal meningitis. The doctors aren’t sure if he’ll make it.”

  To her surprise, Lew’s voice wavered and a sob caught in her throat. She could feel tears starting. “Sorry to get emotional. Anyway, Doc’s relieving his daughter and her husband so they can grab a bite to eat and check on their daughters—they have two. And, ah, I’m worried for Doc.”

  “I can tell,” said Jake, “and rightly so. Don’t apologize.”

  Lew gave him a thankful grin. “Yeah, it’s tough.”

  • • •

  When they reached an entrance to the national forest, Ray’s truck pulled ahead. With the map open on the seat beside him, he led the way along a series of roads snaking through the forest. As they drove, the landscape changed from cedar swamps to groves of hardwoods and stretches of evergreens. At no time did they see any other cars, much less the Jeep Wrangler that Liam had been assigned.

  “Ray, you got any bars for service on your phone?” asked Lew. “Mine is good.”

  “Nothing on mine,” said Jake.

  “That’s okay,” said Lew. “You’ll be with me anyway.

  “Two—enough to reach you if I see anything. For sure, I can text,” said Ray. “Got your compass? I’m going to walk at a diagonal from you so we’re not leaving too large a gap from the territory you’re searching.”

  “That works,” said Lew. “Okay, let’s see what we can do before it’s too late.”

  She trudged off through a dense stand of balsam with Jake at her heels. They were out of sight within minutes, though Ray could hear them moving through the brush. He checked his compass before taking the diagonal track. He moved slowly hoping to see a sign of a human being having passed through the forest near him. Soon he was in a cathedral of old-growth hemlock where the only sounds were woodland creatures moving in the dim light, tracking him. He smiled. He loved these hidden caves of serenity where the only green beneath the towering spires were the ferns waving seductively across the forest floor. How did it happen that the rapacious loggers of the 1800s had missed these few acres of grand hemlocks? He had a hunch: There must have been a man like himself who saw the glory and the grandeur of the forest—and lied on his maps. Lied to save the trees and their haunted havens. Lied to save the owls, the woodpeckers—the predators and their prey safe in their universe.

  He paused. A familiar fragrance in the air. Really? Someone smoking weed back in here? But as suddenly as the smell had hit his nose it was gone with a breeze that blew past him. He waited but the air was crystalline—no hint of marijuana. Finally he shrugged and moved forward. Must have been a flashback to his teenage years when he would sneak into a glen of hemlock not far from his parents’ cottage to light up, lay back, and love life. Yeah, it had to have been a flashback.

  He spent the next two hours crisscrossing a vast swamp, following deer trails when he could, and hoping he wouldn’t stumble into a deep hole of the muck that liked to pretend it was quicksand. Just to be sure, he carried a long, sturdy branch he could use to break a fall or provide some leverage if he was lucky enough to fall close to firm ground. Should that happen, he could signal with a text message, screaming for help. As an added precaution, he pinned his compass up on his shoulder. Moving slowly, he scanned the landscape of swamp grasses, brush, purple loosestrife, and tag alder, hoping every moment that he might spot an unfamiliar shape or evidence that Liam Barber had passed this way. When his flashlight dimmed in need of new batteries and the cloud cover over the moon made it difficult to see, he decided with reluctance to give up for the night.

  But it’s warm, he thought. If the kid can find cover, he’ll be okay. I’ll find him in the morning—and treat him to a Ray Pradt Special of sautéed bluegill and fresh brown eggs. If I really like the kid, he can have a slice of that lemon meringue pie I made yesterday. Yes, that’s the ticket. Sleep well tonight, kid, and all will be well in the morning … I hope. Ray refused to let himself think otherwise. He believed in happy endings.

  It was ten o’clock when Ray pulled his pickup over to the side of the road, walked back to the cruiser, leaned in through Lew’s open window, and said, “Too dark, folks. I think we’ll all do better if we get a few hours sleep and start again first thing in the morning. And I have an idea.”

  He held out the open Gazetteer and pointed to a spidery web of county roads, forest roads, logging lanes, and old railroad grades weaving through the national forest. “See this? And this doesn’t even show all the new logging lanes or roads recently opened for forest management—we’re looking for a needle in a haystack. If you can afford it, Jake, I suggest you let me contact a buddy of mine who owns a small Cessna Skyhawk he charters out of the airport in Rhinelander. Holds four and we can cover a lot more ground—”

  “Done. How soon can we start in the morning?”

  “Let me call Terry now. If he’s not booked, we’ll meet him at five A.M. and be in the air as the sun comes up.”

  • • •

  It was after nine when Osborne got home from the hospital. Finding it hard to concentrate, he puttered around making sure the dog had fresh water. He checked his phone at least six times to see if Lew had called. She had not.

  He knew the smart thing was to get in bed, maybe read a little—in spite of a nagging sense that he had left something unfinished. Walking into the mudroom to let the dog out for the last time, he spotted the flask of whiskey that he kept on the shelf over the freezer: a reminder he would always be tempted.

  To date he was three and a half years recovering. Mary Lee’s death had been the trigger that sent him into a lonely, lost haze of alcohol. Even as he treasured the life he had now, he would never forget those days. If his daughters hadn’t cared enough to perform the intervention that changed his life, he would have missed getting to know his grandson these past few years.

  Thinking about Cody reminded him of how the boy loved to fish. After letting the dog in, Osborne walked through the living room toward his bedroom when a breeze from the porch and a glimpse of a crescent moon changed his mind, luring him down to the water.

  He strolled onto the dock, hands thrust deep in his pockets, and stood gazing at a lavender lake quiet but for a lone duck quacking into the stillness. Sinking onto a nearby bench, he thought about the hours he had sat right there showing Cody his fishing tackle and helping him learn to cast the spinning rod he’d bought the boy for his fourth birthday.

  When the two of them went out in the boat, Osborne always packed Cody’s favorite lunch—never had he seen a kid eat an egg salad sandwich with such gusto. The excitement of catching his first smallmouth bass had Cody jumping up and down and making so much noise that Osborne had to warn him h
e was scaring all the fish away.

  More memories of their times together kept Osborne smiling into the dark. Cody was the boy he had hoped to have years ago. If these times together were all that he was to have—these memories—then that would have to be. Gratitude swelled in his heart. He could deal with the loss another time.

  After a while, he looked down at his watch. He had been on the dock for two hours. Osborne got to his feet and started up to the house. Once again the lake had conquered whiskey.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lew woke undecided about what to tackle first. On the one hand, she wanted to help with the search for Jake’s son; on the other, she had reports from Officers Donovan and Adamczak to review—not to mention calls to the DA if arrests had been made or subpoenas were needed. Staffing for the coming weekend was still to be determined, too.

  It was early in the morning and she was thrilled to see her new coffeemaker, a birthday gift from Doc, was dependable as opposed to the old one that had had a mind of its own. The old one drove her nuts. She would set it for six in the morning but it preferred to brew at six in the evening—no matter how carefully she programmed it. But this new one had a feature unique to most coffeemakers: no programming. So at 4:45 she pulled on her robe and slippers and padded into the kitchen where she loaded fresh-ground coffee into the basket and proceeded to execute a complex move: She pressed the “on” button. Brushing her teeth, she inhaled the heavenly aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. Ah, the day was off to a fine start.

  A full mug of hot coffee in one hand, a manila envelope holding three days of reports from her officers in the other, she walked down to a wide wooden swing at the shoreline. She loved this hour on a mid-summer morning. Birds trilling in the white birches circling her tiny lake (some party poopers called Silver Birch a “pond” but not Lew—she insisted it was a lake), a splash from a smallmouth bass feeding under the lily pads, and a light breeze bearing the fragrance of wildflowers.

  Taking a careful sip from the hot mug, she laid the file on the seat beside her and picked up Officer Roger Adamczak’s reports. He’d had a call from Joan Frank on Coolidge Lane who was sure she had seen “a strangely dressed man running from the scene of a crime.” Roger checked it out—a runner training for the Minocqua Marathon.

  Mrs. Kirsch had stopped Roger on Lincoln Street to complain “for the seventh time” that her neighbor’s son, Jared, “is parking his beat-up disgusting rusty old pickup, covered with mud splatters, right in front of my lovely home!” She was livid and accused Roger and the Loon Lake Police of taking bribes from Jared’s father who managed the local McDonald’s. After assuring Mrs. Kirsch that was not the case, Roger went next door where he tried to persuade the kid to park his truck in front of his parents’ house but the young man was so high on something Roger wasn’t sure he heard.

  Lew made a note to Roger that next time Mrs. Kirsch complains he should search the pickup for drugs.

  Next she checked the reports from Officer Todd Donovan. He was on night duty that week and twice he arrested two young women who were sleeping in a car parked in front of the TipTop Bar after closing hours. They weren’t drunk, they were high and admitted to smoking marijuana they had bought from some boys in the bar earlier. They called it “blueberry” and said they had been high for hours on it. Todd noted that he had confiscated what dope they still had and was sending it in for testing. He made a note that it might be more potent than the marijuana the department had confiscated early in the spring.

  Lew refilled her coffee mug and walked back to the swing, thinking. The report from Todd bothered her. This was not the first time she had heard the word “blueberry” and not in connection with someone picking the local fruit. Nearly fifty people—she would have to check the numbers to be exact—had been arrested for possession of marijuana since late April, and they all admitted to buying it from someone who called it “blueberry.” Their descriptions of the dealers from whom they made the purchase varied. Some bought from friends (whom they would not identify and Lew didn’t blame them), some from women they didn’t know, some from men they’d never seen before, and a few said they thought their dealers might have been Hispanic. The good news was the people arrested were for “possession only”—they weren’t dealing. The bad news was that someone was. Todd had written in his report that, looking back at all the arrests they had made since spring that, “I think we’re looking at an epidemic. I’ve never seen so much weed so readily available in years.”

  Lew set his report down. Todd was right. The seventies in Loon Lake had mirrored a national increase in drug use with marijuana and LSD the drugs of choice. But in the eighties and nineties, drug arrests in Loon Lake and the county had been few and far between. The police heard of cocaine and heroin in the cities but rarely in the Northwoods. That had changed in the last five years as meth labs flourished in the region, especially down around Wausau and Stevens Point—but even that had faded recently. Not that it didn’t exist but it wasn’t driving the Loon Lake’s police agenda the way it had previously.

  But now this increasing traffic in marijuana—and evidently a high grade of marijuana—was alarming. Maybe it was time to call in the DEA for help. Lew decided to run that by the police chiefs in nearby towns and see if they were having the same problem. Aside from that, she was relieved to find that the officers’ reports held nothing that couldn’t be handled over the next few days.

  Okay. One more cup of coffee after her shower and it would be time to drive into town.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was just past six A.M. when Lew pulled the cruiser into her parking space. With a quick wave toward the dispatchers, she walked to her office. To her surprise, the door was locked. It had been a year since the cleaning crew had made that mistake. She fished for her keys and opened it.

  Someone had taken over her desk. A laptop computer stood open there, its screen dark. Her desktop computer was missing along with the metal file holder with the manila files containing paperwork for active cases. Even the height of her office chair had been changed to accommodate someone else’s legs. Scanning the room to see what else had been disturbed, she spotted an unfamiliar dark green fleece jacket on the coat rack in the corner.

  Picking up the phone on her desk, she called the dispatch center. “What’s going on? Who’s been in my office?”

  Before she could say more a slim, dark-haired man about her height walked through the door.

  “Me,” he said. “I need this space. We moved you across the hall to that big conference room,” said the man. “Alan Strickland, FBI.” He held out a hand to shake hers.

  Ignoring the hand, Lew picked up the laptop from her desk, unplugged it, and shoved it into his arms. “The big conference room? It’s all yours. You just let my assistant, Dani, know what else you may need.” Before he could answer, Lew bent down to readjust her chair.

  “You don’t understand. I have a federal case breaking—money laundering.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, Alan, but I have cases breaking, too. Homicide, search and rescue. I need you out of here now.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Strickland said. “This is a federal case—and federal trumps local in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “I know that,” said Lew, “but I have a lot going on right now and your taking over my office is… well, it just won’t work. Tell you what, Mr. Strickland. How about I set you up in the conference room but also give you full access to my assistant, Dani? She’s an expert with computer searches and I’ll tell her to help you with anything you may need. Will that work?”

  Strickland gave her a long look before acquiescing. “Okay—but if it doesn’t work for me, you can count on a call from the regional office with pushback on this.” He grabbed his jacket from the coat rack.

  “I understand and I’ll explain to them everything we have going on here besides your investigation—and I’ll suggest they give me a heads up next time. I don’t think that is too much to ask, d
o you?”

  Strickland exhaled in frustration. “All right. But may I bother you with one question? Do you have time for that?”

  “Shoot,” said Lew.

  She walked past him to rescue her computer from the conference room. Her computer was still on a wheeled cart with the file holder on the shelf below. With Strickland following her, she wheeled the cart out of the conference room and back where it belonged. Strickland tagged along behind.

  “I’m looking for a Herbert L. Jarvison,” he said. “Ever heard of the guy? I can’t find him in the Loon Lake phone book and a search online gives me only a B. and N. Jarvison. I’m about to try the DMV—”

  “Oh, sure. You mean Bud Jarvison. That online number should be correct. Is that it?” She made the question sound like a door slamming shut.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  When the door had closed behind him, Lew clicked on her computer. Waiting for it to boot up, she mulled over the confrontation with Strickland. She cautioned herself to reserve judgment but right now she didn’t like the guy. Didn’t like his looks with the flat, pursed lips and dark eyes too close together. And she didn’t like his taking over her office without asking. Would he have done that to a man in her position? What a weasel.

  She glanced up at the wall clock. Doc had a habit of dropping in for one last cup of coffee after meeting with his McDonald’s buddies. She was hoping to hear there had been some improvement in Cody’s condition.

  The phone rang and the dispatcher said a woman was on the line with an emergency call for Lew. She was refusing to give any details other than her name and that she was a nurse with the Office of Public Health with information on Liam’s missing car.

  “I’ll take it,” said Lew. “Hello, this is Chief Ferris.”

  “Kathy Winter here,” said a female voice, shaking as she spoke. “I am sorry to call so early but I had stopped in at the sheriff’s department late yesterday afternoon and saw the alert for that missing Jeep. Our offices are down the hall and I was giving one of the secretaries a ride home. It didn’t register at first, but I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I may have seen that car. Twice in the last two days. I drove by the office early this morning to write down the license number and then I just now drove out there to check the car and I’m sure—”