Dead Rapunzel

by Victoria Houston

  “I hate to pull Roger and Todd off their shifts. The minute I do that, we’ll have six snowmobiles collide outside the Birchwood Bar—plus Todd has a wife and young children. He would never complain, but he’s the last guy I want working overtime.”

  She gave Osborne a baleful look as she said, “And you know how much confidence I have in Roger.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Lew, I haven’t had a chance to mention this, but Mallory surprised me this morning with the news that she’s coming home. Not sure why or for how long, but it sounds like she’ll be around for the next few days. So I am happy to help out, but I may need time to handle a few things back at the house. I’ll know more this evening.”

  “Oh, well, Doc, if your daughter is coming home I better see if one of the sheriff’s deputies—”

  “Lew, stop,” said Osborne, raising both hands as if to prevent her from calling the sheriff. “Of course I have time to help you search. We can get started right now if you wish. Yes, Mallory is coming, but I have no idea what she is up to and it wouldn’t matter anyway. She is a big girl who can take care of herself.”

  He didn’t add that spending time around Chief Lewellyn Ferris—whether on the department’s ticket as a deputy, in the trout stream as her student, or in the boat as a fellow fisherman—made his day. In fact, when she wasn’t nearby, he wasted too much time thinking about her.

  “If you’re sure about that, Doc, I appreciate all the help you can give me. But before we start, let me give Dani a call. That slip of paper you found in Rudd’s wallet—the one with the passwords on it—I’m sure she’ll be all over that. If Rudd received any suspicious emails, she may be able to flag them. Let’s hope anyway.”

  While Lew was on her cell phone giving Dani directions, Osborne decided to take a stroll through the spacious living room of the house. Looking up he saw the loft-like balcony where Judith was making her calls. It opened to a hallway lined with doors he assumed were bedrooms or closets.

  From where he was standing on the ground floor, he glanced around and was struck by the integrity of the room’s proportions: the ceiling height, the curve of the walls, even the dimensions of the windows. The design was the work of a talented architect, the kind who does not come cheap.

  Early in Osborne’s college years he had taken classes in studio art and discovered he loved working with wood and stone so much that he had entertained the thought of becoming a sculptor. That was until his father bluntly informed him: “Son, that is no way to make a living.” He may not have followed his heart, but it didn’t hurt that he brought to dentistry an eye for proportion: the ability to recognize when line, shape, and space are unified.

  Continuing to explore the main room, he was aware of the furnishings, but nothing seemed overdone: The living space struck him as simple and lovely and utilitarian as a wooden dock over still water.

  Just beyond the entrance to the room were two sofas, three groupings of armchairs, and a scattering of tables and lamps. To his left was a kitchen with white cabinetry masking shelves and appliances. The kitchen would have seemed sterile, but a wood plank floor and bright tea towels hanging from brass hooks added warmth.

  Separating the kitchen from the comfortable living area was an all-white island set for dining with crisp china painted in bright yellows, light blues, and a cheery red. The table settings were so inviting he couldn’t help but wonder what Rudd had planned to serve that evening. A sad smile crossed his lips as he turned away.

  Color and warmth dominated the room as paintings, pottery, and gleaming brass sculptures were scattered across the walls and tables. While the furnishings had to be expensive they radiated a warmth and simplicity that made the interior feel cozy in spite of its size.

  Lew walked up to stand behind him. “What a lovely home this is,” she said, looking around. “If I was forced to move out of my farmhouse, I could live here.” She brushed an appreciative hand across one of the sofas, which was plump and upholstered in a cream-and-spring-green pattern that reminded Osborne of summer grasses.

  “Come on now,” said Osborne, “you know you’ll never leave your place.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I keep asking and you keep refusing.”

  “I know,” said Lew with a grin. “I’m just saying I like the feel of this place. I’m sure that the Tomlinsons must have loved it here. How very sad . . . ” She didn’t finish her comment.

  “Well, you are out of luck, kiddo. Because if a house like this is what it would take to get you to move in with me—it is w-a-a-y out of my price range.”

  Lew squeezed his arm. “Thank heavens for that.” She looked up at Osborne. “I’d say we’re both happy where we’re at.”

  “Really?” Osborne lifted an eyebrow as he gazed at the woman, the sight of whom in the early mornings when they shared a pot of coffee could make his heart feel like a bird. He watched as Lew crossed the room toward the far end, where the entire wall was of curved glass facing west across the frozen lake. There was not a seam in the wide, long wall of glass. Now that had to be very expensive.

  “This place must have cost millions,” said Osborne as Lew approached the window.

  “Looks plenty cold out there,” said Lew, shivering as she peered through the glass wall. Dark figures could be seen in the distance. “Those are some brave ice fishermen. Not sure a walleye is worth freezing to death.”

  “I’m with you, but tell that to our friend Ray,” said Osborne. “Ray—who would rather ice fish on a day like today than from his boat on a warm July afternoon. Sometimes the world confounds me.”

  Lew had turned around and pointed up. Overhead wooden beams ended in a steeple of glass, echoing the diagonal timbered wings at the entrance. “I wonder if that’s reclaimed wood?” she asked, referring to the beams and planks salvaged from old buildings and prized by the builders of expensive homes in the Northwoods. “I’ll have to check with Judith. She might know. I’ve always wanted to see what reclaimed wood looks like.”

  Murmurs from the loft indicated Judith had reached someone by phone. While they waited for her to finish, Osborne and Lew walked in different directions along the perimeter of the large room. On the far end, opposite the glass wall, was a fireplace, its mantel sculpted from a slab of ebony granite. Gas logs burned brightly in its depths.

  In a corner near the fireplace was a tall cherry cabinet containing a collection of fly rods—bamboo and fiberglass. “Lew, come here. Take a look at this,” said Osborne with a wave toward the cabinet. Wood-handled fishing nets hung from brass nails on the walls, and two antique creels hung in each corner. Peering through the glass door, he and Lew studied the fly rods in silence.

  After a moment, Osborne said, “Philip must have been quite the fly-fisherman.”

  “He certainly had taste in his gear,” said Lew. “Here’s the Winston rod designed by Joan Wulff—just like mine. I keep telling you, Doc, you should get one. That thumb indent could make a big difference in your casting. Winston may advertise it as designed for women, but I see plenty of men using it, too.”

  “Is that your kind way of criticizing my casting technique?” Osborne kidded her.

  “That’s Rudd’s fly rod,” said Judith, her voice catching Osborne off-guard. He hadn’t heard her approach. “Coming down the stairs, I overheard you talking about the rods. I have the Joan Wulff rod, too, but mine is at home.”

  She walked over to join them in front of the cabinet. “Rudd and I took up fly-fishing together fifteen years ago—right after we met.”

  “Fifteen years,” said Lew. “Wow, you two must have caught a few trout in your lifetime. Do you . . . ” She paused to correct herself. “Sorry, I meant to say ‘did’ you fish around here? I’m surprised I haven’t run into you on one of the local streams.”

  “Sure, we’ve fished the Elvoy, the Bois Brule, and the Middle Ontonagon—and every winter we liked going to Florida for bonefish, too. Our timing was always a bit strange because I had to take time off work—I’m a professor at
the University of Wisconsin. Art history.”

  “So you and Rudd have known each other a long time,” said Osborne, leaning back against one of the sofas near the cabinet.

  “Yes, Rudd lost her husband and their little girl in a car accident right about the time my husband died of leukemia. We were in our early thirties and both working on PhDs in art history at the University of Minnesota when friends told us about one another, so we decided to get together for coffee and just hit it off.

  “You know how it is,” Judith went on, glancing over at Lew. “Some women—you know in an instant if you’re on the same wavelength. Back then both of us agreed we had to find some way to deal with our grief and we wanted it to be healthy. Not booze, not men, not too much television, not losing ourselves in work—so we decided to learn how to fly-fish.” Judith smiled at the memory.

  “Neither of us had much money, but we had time off that summer so we booked ourselves into a weekend at the Wulff School of Fly Fishing out in the Catskills . . . It was a good antidote to grief for both of us.

  “Every year since, even though she was teaching at the Art Institute in Chicago and I was in Madison, we’ve carved out time . . . ” She sank into a leather armchair, dropped her face into her hands, and sobbed. Lew went to the kitchen for one of the colorful dishtowels, which she brought back and handed to her.

  “I’m sorry,” said Judith, her voice muffled in the towel. “I am so sorry . . . ”

  “Don’t be,” said Lew. “Doc and I have both lost people close to us. You have to cry sometime. Now is good. And this won’t be the last time.”

  Osborne waited until Judith’s tears had begun to subside. “Funny,” he said as she wiped her nose and eyes. “You might appreciate knowing that I did the same thing, sort of.”

  “Really?” Eager to pull herself together, Judith encouraged Osborne to keep talking.

  “My late wife got pretty upset when I happened to mention I was interested in learning to fly-fish—this was years ago. Her point being that I had already spent enough money on spinning rods and fishing tackle—not to mention too much time on the water fishing muskies. And she was right. So in the interest of staying married I didn’t think about fly-fishing again until after she died.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear you lost your wife. Was that recent?”

  “Several years ago,” said Osborne with a wave of his hand. He chose not to mention that Mary Lee’s unexpected death from a bout of pneumonia that turned deadly in the midst of a blizzard had turned into a gift. There were times he felt bad about feeling that way—and times he didn’t. “I’m doing fine today, but I struggled with the grief.”

  He didn’t add that his grief was less a feeling of loss than one of being totally unmoored. Over their thirty years of marriage, he had grown so used to being bullied into following Mary Lee’s directives (his only escape being the fishing boat) that without her demanding he “do this, do that,” he sank into an aimless depression fueled with whiskey.

  It was only his daughters’ confronting him with the reality that he was going to kill himself—“or someone else on the road, Dad. Someone who doesn’t want to die”—that made him get help. That courageous intervention by his two daughters had saved his life. He hadn’t known he was so loved until then. Every morning since he had said a silent prayer of thanks.

  “To be perfectly frank, Judith,” said Osborne, “I ended up in rehab at Hazelden. When I got out, I felt like you and your friend must have: What can I do to fill my life in a positive way? After all, I have two daughters and grandchildren I would like to enjoy.

  “It was right about then that I was cleaning my garage and found the fly rod I had hidden years earlier. On the advice of Ralph, who owns the sporting-goods store, I decided to give fly-fishing a try—and discovered how much I enjoy it. I’m not the best caster, but—”

  “But you do catch fish,” said Lew, interrupting. “Doc left out the important part of his story. He signed up for fly-fishing lessons and got me as his instructor.”

  “Yeah,” said Doc, “Ralph set me up to meet ‘Lou’ down at the Prairie River late one afternoon. He said ‘Lou’ would get me started. And ‘Lou’ turned out to be . . . ” He held out his right hand toward Lew.

  “Me,” said Lew. “My full name is Lewellyn, but friends call me ‘Lew’ and I have fly-fished for years. And not unlike you two, I took it up to deal with grief after I lost my son. He was the victim of a bar fight in his late teens.

  “I’ll never forget the day of my son’s funeral. My grandfather handed me his fly rod and told me to stay in the water until I could feel my heart start to heal. Took two weeks, but Granddad was right. Since then I’ve become pretty good—won some awards for distance casting.

  “At the time that I met Doc,” Lew went on, “I had not yet been promoted to chief so I had time to moonlight as an instructor. No longer. Way too busy these days.”

  “So you both fly-fish,” said Judith.

  “Yep. In the winter I tie flies,” said Lew. “Now, Judith, I hate to put an end to this conversation, but I have an investigation—”

  “Of course you do. But tell me, please, what should I do? I was planning to stay here at the house, but I know I shouldn’t do that until you’ve searched it.”

  “Correct,” said Lew. “The Loon Lake Inn is right in the center of town. I suggest you get a room there, and you can walk over to one of the local restaurants for some dinner later.”

  Standing up, Judith said, “Food is the last thing on my mind. If you don’t need me here any longer, I wrote down a list of Philip’s children with their names and cell phone numbers. You’ve met Sloane. She is staying down the road at her place.

  “Kenzie is the youngest and she lives with her husband, Greg. They have a house further down the road from Sloane.

  “And then there is Tim,” added Judith with a sigh of exasperation. “I am not sure where he is. I left him a voicemail asking him to call me. He likes to say he lives in Quebec, but he is here a lot. Oh, and he also spends his winters on the island of Bonaire, so he may be there. I have no clue.”

  Looking down at the sheet of paper that Judith handed her, Lew said, “Thank you. This is very helpful. Does Rudd have siblings? Parents? Other people who need to be informed? I am happy to make those calls.”

  “No, just Philip’s adult children, her stepfamily. Her folks are dead and no siblings. Except for me. Like I said, I was her closest friend.”

  “And heir. Isn’t that what you told Sloane?” asked Lew.

  “Afraid I exaggerated a bit,” said Judith. “Her will puts me in charge of her assets but in the sense that her wishes will be carried out. I can tell you about that later . . . happy to. It’s sure to infuriate some folks.”

  “So perhaps you should be careful?” Lew made it sound like she was kidding.

  Judith paused and looked hard at Lew and Osborne. “If anything happens to me, nothing changes. The sooner Sloane, Tim, and Kenzie learn that—the better.”

  Judith picked up her coat and headed toward the door leading into the foyer.

  “Judith, hold on just a minute,” said Lew. “I want to run something by Dr. Osborne before you leave.”

  Lew motioned for Osborne to follow her into the kitchen, where she lowered her voice to say, “What would you think of the three of us getting dinner at the pub, Doc? If you have time, it could really speed up getting more background information on the Tomlinsons. I know nothing about that family, and you did say that you might have some information in your files. Maybe you could check on that before we meet for dinner?”

  “Good idea,” said Osborne. “Although . . . are you planning to tape our conversation? It can get pretty loud in the restaurant.”

  “Not yet,” said Lew. “I want to keep this casual. But we can both take notes.”

  “You mean I can take notes,” said Osborne, correcting her with a smile.

  “If you wouldn’t mind—you’re awfully good at it.”

>   “Sure.”

  Lew walked back across the room to where Judith stood waiting. “Dr. Osborne and I are planning to have dinner this evening at the Loon Lake Pub, which is not far from the Inn. Would you like to join us? That is, if you’re not too tired. This has been a grueling day.”

  “I would. I would like that very much,” said Judith. “I’m anxious for you to know more about Rudd before you meet Philip’s family.” She paused. “I’m not sure they’ll be fair in their remarks about her.”

  “This won’t be exactly social,” said Lew. “One or both of us will be taking notes as we talk. Are you comfortable with that? If you aren’t, I’ll arrange for a more formal interrogation tomorrow.”

  “No, no, however you want to discuss things is fine with me,” said Judith. “Frankly, I would just as soon not be alone right now. I feel so . . . flat. Company will be good.”

  Lew gave her a pat on the shoulder. “I know what you mean. Now, if you are okay driving yourself into town, get yourself a room at the Inn and I’ll pick you up at six-thirty for dinner. But you’ll have to look for a beat-up red Mazda pickup with a white topper—after office hours I drive my fishing truck.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” said Judith with a grateful smile.

  Chapter Eight

  As he drove home to change for dinner after Lew had dropped him off back at the police station, Osborne thought back over the day. Seeing Sloane had jogged his memory of her mother, Caroline. He remembered that summer day long ago, when Caroline had rushed a teenaged Sloane into his office after she had fallen walking down to their dock and loosened one of her front teeth.

  “You have to be very careful now, Dr. Osborne,” Caroline had said, making her opinion of small-town dentists clear. “My Sloanie is the prettiest eighth grader in Shorewood Country Day, which is the most prestigious private school down where we live.” Caroline spoke in a high-pitched, nasal tone, emphasizing the name of the private school and stroking her daughter’s hair as she spoke, the implication being that no one else had a girl child quite so lovely, and certainly no children in Loon Lake could even hope to attend a private school.