Dead Water

by Victoria Houston

  “Sit down, sit down,” said Osborne, pulling another chair up to the table. “What’s up?”

  With a heavy sigh, Ray dropped into the chair. “I’m stuck, Doc. Nick’s mother signed him up for summer school, which starts tomorrow, and I have no way to get him there. I’ve got that woman from the Dairyman’s that I’m supposed to take out shooting clays with her new boyfriend, and I can’t reach her to reschedule. Is there any chance you could drop him off for me?”

  “I don’t see why not. What time?”

  “Eight … and could you pick him up at noon? Just bring him back here. He’ll be all right on his own, doncha think?”

  “Oh, he’ll be fine. I’ll be around, or I’ll let him know where I am if he needs anything,” said Osborne, relieved it was such a small favor. “Where is he right now? I’d like Lew to meet him.”

  A look of unhappy resignation came over Ray’s face. “He’s taking the telephone apart. He’s trying to wire in or whatever the hell it is those computer kids do. I’ll tell ya, that kid is pret-ty darn unhappy with the phone situation. He’s been going on about staying in touch with his friends and all this stuff he has to do on the Internet. I had to tell him our phone lines won’t be replaced until—”

  “You two and your damn party line,” said Lew. “Doc, I thought you told me you were being switched over this month.”

  “August we get the new lines,” said Osborne.

  It had been a ten-year struggle. Ever since he and Mary Lee had built off Loon Lake Road they had been restricted to the antique phone line maintained by the locally owned phone company. The company had refused to lay any new lines until every customer agreed to the increase in billing that would result.

  Three elderly sisters, each living in separate homes, had refused, holding the remaining twenty-four households hostage to rotary dial phones and a party line system. Osborne wasn’t sure if the old biddies were against the modest increase in their bills or if they didn’t want to give up their opportunity to eavesdrop. He suspected the latter. But two of the three had passed away over the last year. The surviving sister had agreed to an update in the system only when she was told that she couldn’t have a personal safety alarm installed unless she had the new telephone cable. Grudgingly, she caved in. Plans were already in place to celebrate at the annual Loon Lake Association Fourth of July picnic.

  “Why don’t I put the boy in touch with Hank Kendrickson?” said Lew. “He does something with computers at the game preserve. Maybe he can help—”

  “I have an idea,” interrupted Osborne, desperate to put the kabbosh on Hank. “Joel Frahm’s son is good with computers. He’s been computerizing dental records for Joel. And, you know, I think he’s Nick’s age, or close.”

  “Joel Frahm … Why does that name sound familiar?” asked Lew.

  “He’s the dentist who bought my practice when I retired three years ago,” said Osborne. “I’ll give him a call right now,” he said, jumping up from his chair and hurrying into the kitchen to find the phone book.

  Joel answered immediately. Osborne explained that one of his neighbors had a teenager visiting from New York City who needed advice on a computer snafu. Could Joel’s son help out? To Osborne’s surprise and relief, Joel was immediately agreeable.

  “Paul,” he said, treating Osborne with the deference he had accorded him since they first met, “Carl has a part-time job working evenings. I’m due to pick him up in about twenty minutes. Would you like us to stop by your place on our way home?”

  Osborne winked at Ray, who had followed him into the kitchen. “That would be terrific, Joel. See you in half an hour then.”

  “Carl Frahm?” Lew raised her eyebrows as Osborne walked onto the porch with his good news. “That’s why the name rang a bell. That’s the kid they call Zenner, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Just wondering,” she said. The look on her face generated a swift glance between the two men. Did she know something they didn’t?

  “What?” said Ray. “Is he trouble?”

  Lew looked at him with a twinkle in her eye. “No more’n you were at that age. He’s okay, Zenner. But if I were you, Ray, if those two hit it off …” She raised an eyebrow. “Keep an eye out.”

  “What are you getting at?” said Ray.

  “How old is Nick?” she countered.

  “Sixteen.”

  “All I’m saying is be wary. You haven’t been a parent, Ray. Your instincts aren’t honed. If Nick had grown up here, you would know that the combination of summertime, adolescence, and genetic patterning—”

  “Come on, Lew—” Ray started to protest.

  “Okay, okay, all kidding aside.” Lew waved her hands and gave Ray a sympathetic smile. “Zenner, Nick, whoever. These kids are bright, their hormones are raging, and they’ve all got that look in their eye. I expect trouble from boys that age, but it is rarely something serious: beer, a little pot, girlfriends with orange hair and black lipstick. You know what I’m saying, Ray.

  “Add to that the fact that this is your busy season. You’ve got your guiding, graves to dig, leeches to trap. Think about it. You won’t be here every minute for this kid, you can’t be.”

  Lew stood to pick up her plate and Osborne’s. She looked down at Ray. “I’ve raised teenagers, Doc’s raised teenagers, and somehow your parents survived you. Call it karma, my friend.” With a wink, she disappeared through the doorway.

  “Welcome to the club, Ray,” said Osborne with a smile and a lift of his glass. “Do you want to call Nick and tell him to head on over?”

  “I did, Doc. I told him to come up when he reached total frustration. He’ll be by.”

  “I didn’t think you would want him around Kendrickson after what you told me last fall,” said Osborne, hoping Lew was out of earshot.

  “You better believe I don’t,” said Ray, “That goombah. Guiding him once was enough, let me tell you.”

  “You guided Hank?” said Lew, coming back into the room. “I didn’t know that. How did it go?”

  “Well …” said Ray, crossing his legs, relaxing back into his chair, and making a tent with his fingers, a classic signal that he was about to launch what the locals called a “Ray tale.”

  Mutual expressions of alarm crossed the faces of Lew and Osborne. They knew better than anyone that Ray, if allowed to run loose, could turn a two-minute story into a full-hour ramble, interesting enough but so detailed and lengthy that any audience would scream for closure.

  Ray caught their look. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it short,” he said. “Mr. K.—known to me and my buddies as Mr. Answer Man—called up one day last fall and said he wanted me to help him find some trophy walleyes. Said he had an important client he wanted to impress. Now, as you may recall, we had a lot of rain last October.”

  “I remember,” said Osborne. “Ground was saturated, and we had flood warnings in some areas.”

  “Thank you, Doc.” Ray nodded. “He was a little authoritative on the phone, y’know. Made it clear my boat wasn’t going to be anywhere near good enough for his party, so we would have to take his boat. Use his rods, et cetera, et cetera. Basically, all he wanted from me were the damn fish. Heck, I didn’t argue, five hundred a day is five hundred a day.

  “So I get up to Boulder Junction where he has this big honking-new bass boat. He’s waiting, he’s got this blond with him. The boat is rigged with every gadget, including six rods, and Mr. K. is so duded up, I’m hoping he doesn’t go overboard. He weighed more than the anchor.

  “The next thing I know is our man talks big but has no idea what he’s doing. He didn’t know a jig from a spoon. He turned white when I pulled out the leeches. But we’re still okay. Five hundred bucks, remember; I’m workin’ hard to make him look good.

  “So I lay out a plan.” Ray gestured with his hands. “We fish the Flowage, guaranteed fish. But, no, he’s got a better idea. He wants to fish Anderson Lake. I told him that’s a poor walleye lake. I na
med two more close by that would be much better, but he wouldn’t hear of it. When we get to Anderson, the lake is in full bloom, and it’s hotter ‘n heck. I offered to go out for an hour and if there was no action we could try later. No extra charge, I’d take them out that night and guarantee fish.

  “He won’t hear it, he’s sure this’ll work. I realize at this point, he doesn’t want a guide, he wants a lackey. He wants some poor jerk to take orders, put the leech on the line and tell those damn fish to bite. But, what the hey, I’m still thinkin’ five hundred a day, I can do that. Meanwhile, I’m getting looks from this blond, and I’m hoping to hell that she doesn’t become too obvious, you know what I mean?”

  “And you’re ignoring her, right, Ray?” Lew’s dark eyes were quite amused.

  “I am,” said Ray. “Well … you know. Kind of. Very attractive woman. So we try a few spots where the structure looks good. Hank doesn’t get a bite. I, unfortunately, boat five fish. And, unfortunately, the blond is impressed. Hank gets nothing. He makes me switch sides of the boat. Still no luck. Fact is, he can give orders until he turns blue, but the guy is not an experienced bait fisherman. So he misses every gol’ darn fish. And I could see he wasn’t going to take any instruction in front of the little woman.

  “All of a sudden, he decides that the leeches I have him using are all wrong. Has to have minnows. What’d I tell ya? Mr. Answer Man. So off we go back to the landing, buy some minnows, and we head back to the same darn lake. We go back to the same hole, he puts the minnow on and, doncha know, he hooks a weed. Insists it’s a fish. She thinks it’s a fish. I said, ‘That’s not a fish.’ Meanwhile, he has his drag set too loose, so it keeps giving and he keeps working this imaginary fish.”

  Ray grinned ear to ear. “He fought … that … weed for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes! Thank God, the darn thing came loose finally. Now he says it’s all my fault he lost his fish. I worked the boat all wrong. Well, I have my pride, not to mention my reputation—”

  “Not to mention the blond watching,” offered Osborne.

  “True. So I showed him his minnow. Not a mark on it, hale and hearty. Still, he insisted it was a fish. Okay, I drop the subject.

  “Now our blond friend has to visit the lady’s room. ASAP. Can’t wait to return to the landing. I’m looking for a suitable spot, but we’re way up on the north end of Anderson where it’s all wetland and bogs. Remember, the ground is saturated to boot, right? This doesn’t register with old Hank, he insists I beach the boat immediately so she can get off for a few minutes. I counsel against this but …” Ray raised his hands in a gesture of futility.

  “So I pull up on a spot that looks promising, I get out and I test to see if it’ll be safe. Before I take two steps, he’s pulling her out of the boat. ‘Hold on, folks,’ I said, ‘this is real treacherous in here.’ But Mr. Answer Man has no use for that, doncha know. He makes some unkind remark and veers off to the right with the girl holding onto his hand, and before I can say a word, they’re down. Up to their knees in muck … and sinking. Hank is bellowing and thrashing and sinking, sinking, sinking….”

  “Which you are enjoying,” said Lew.

  “Yes and no,” said Ray. “I gotta pull the mother out. And he’s wearing fifty pounds of bullshit fishing fashion. The blond is losing it, even though she was lucky enough to get a foothold on a boulder down in all that muck so she only went in up to her rib cage.

  “It was not a happy scene. Took me three hours to work those two commodes out of there.” Ray’s face lit with glee as he said, “You shoulda seen ‘em. Muck up to their ears—leeches, black flies, ticks—you name it.

  “I ask you, what was that guy thinking? I tried to tell him where to walk, but no. He has to do it his way. When I finally get the two of them back to the boat landing, he yanks the blond out of the boat and starts in on me. Like screaming at me is going to make a difference.”

  Ray inhaled and settled his shoulders back. “I let him go on, didn’t say anything. Just let him go on. Finally, he threw some bills at me. After I had my money, I told him that I would prefer he didn’t call again.”

  “Poor sport,” said Osborne.

  “Are you kidding me?” said Ray, an irate look in his eye.

  “Not you. Kendrickson,” said Osborne, suddenly remembering something he wanted to ask Ray.

  “Yeah? Well, that’s not the end of the story.” Ray, his legs crossed, plucked at a piece of lint on top of his left knee. “A few weeks later, I go into the Thirsty Whale with a couple of clients. There’s Hank at the bar with some fellow I’ve never seen before. I was genial, I walked by, said hello, shook his

  hand. You know. My group goes over to a table, and we order sandwiches. I’ve got my back to Hank the whole time, so I can’t prove anything, but when we get back to our boat, someone has broken all seven rods we had rigged up, ev-very single one.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Hank,” said Lew. “He’s always been a gentleman in the trout stream.”

  “You haven’t seen him up to his armpits in muck. And it’s his own fault.”

  “True. But destructive behavior like destroying expensive fishing rods? That sounds more like kids, Ray. Were there any around?”

  Ray thought for a minute. “Probably, it was a Saturday afternoon…. Okay, I’m sure you’re right, Lew. It had to be kids but y’know, I just felt like it was the kind of thing that guy might do.”

  Osborne’s phone rang suddenly. “Excuse me.” He left the room, missing Lew’s response to Ray’s remark. The caller was Lucy.

  “For you, Lew,” said Osborne. He waited until he could hear her talking before he asked Ray in a low voice, “What’s the deal with the Deerskin Dam? Hank followed Lew out to Timber Lodge yesterday to show her a picture of this huge trout he caught in the Deerskin. Somehow she knew he was lying.”

  “Did he say where he caught it on the Deerskin?”

  “Yeah, south of the dam.”

  “No trout south of the dam, Doc, the water’s too warm because it’s so shallow. I harvest suckers out of there.”

  “That’s interesting. Why would he lie about that?”

  “He found a good hole, and he wants to keep it a secret. I don’t tell everyone my best spots. You know that.”

  “Doc?” Lew stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips and her dark eyes darker. “Will you take this call, please? Lucy has patched through one of the Wausau boys with results on those bite marks.”

  “Sure.” Osborne hurried back through the living room to the wall phone in the kitchen.

  “Dr. Osborne,” said the male voice on the other end. “Chief Ferris asked me to let you know. On the victims’ shoulders? Those are the marks of human teeth all right, with some trauma to the skin and tissue, but no human made those marks. At least no living, breathing human.” “Run that by me again?” said Osborne. “I mean I can find no bacteria in or around those bites. Not what I would expect to find from a human bite, anyway. The marks you saw can be wiped off—like washable tattoos.”

  “Same on both corpses?”

  “Yes, sir, identical on both Sandra Herre and Ashley Olson … Dr. Osborne, nothing living bit those women.”

  twenty-two

  “There is certainly something in angling … that seems to produce a gentleness of spirit, and a pure serenity of mind. ”

  Washington Irving

  When Osborne returned to the porch, Lew gave him a quizzical look. “What do you make of that?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Osborne. “Let me think about it.”

  She turned to Ray. “I assume you surveyed that area around Timber Lodge and didn’t find anything?”

  “I’m sorry, Chief. I haven’t had a chance. Tomorrow morning on my way to Boulder, I promise. I was tied up with Nick all day today.”

  “Oh….” Lew was obviously disappointed. “Forget it … all the rain.”

  “No, the rain shouldn’t make much difference,” said Ray. “That’s a fifty-year-old pine forest
back in there. A thick carpet of pine needles, very little undergrowth, and a canopy that doesn’t let much wind and rain in. If anyone was back in there, I’ll know. I’ll call in tomorrow morning if I find anything, okay?”

  The back door rattled as he spoke. “I’ll bet that’s Nick. C’mon in,” hollered Ray, tipping back in his chair.

  The kid slouched through the doorway onto the porch, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his baggy black shorts. His eyes peered out, sullen under bushy brown eyebrows and a wide forehead he hadn’t yet grown into. Osborne could see the boy would be as tall and broad-shouldered as Ray someday, but right now he was all raw material. The soft lighting on the porch didn’t help, either, pooling in his eyes to make his mood seem darker than it might have been. Osborne couldn’t help thinking the kid cast a shadow over what had been a very pleasant evening so far.

  “Hey,” said Ray, his voice softer than usual, “phone didn’t work, right?”

  “Right.” The word was clipped and full of blame as if Ray, and only Ray, was responsible for the acute dysfunction of the entire Loon Lake regional telephone system. Nick glanced at the adults without changing expression, then walked across the porch to plunk his frame down on a sofa.

  “Have a seat,” said Lew, after the fact but with a smile.

  “Nick,” said Ray hurriedly, “I’d like you to meet Lewellyn Ferris. She’s our Loon Lake chief of police and an excellent fly-fisherman. Chief Ferris, Nick wants to learn how to fly-fish.”

  “You mean fisherwoman.” Nick had a real knack for making his opinion of Ray’s intellect quite clear. Pulling himself up from the sofa with great effort and shuffling all his knees and elbows across the brief expanse of flooring, he made the effort to shake Lew’s hand. His posture shouted, Well, if I have to … Osborne was bemused. In the space of less than five minutes, the boy had managed to be rude to both of Ray’s good friends. His opinion of the kid was hardening into a firm dislike.

  “No, I said exactly what I meant,” said Ray. “She’s a terrific fisherman.”