Dead Spider

by Victoria Houston

  “And?” asked Lew in a calm voice.

  “I was with Gloria yesterday. All afternoon. She’s my . . . ” He didn’t finish his sentence and he didn’t look up. “Do you have to tell . . . Charlotte?”

  “No, we don’t,” said Lew. “But I could certainly use a better witness than a girlfriend who might be willing to cover for you.”

  “Could one of her neighbors be a witness? They see my boat and trailer in her drive.”

  “Worth a try,” said Lew. “Name and phone number?”

  Lew had Osborne make the phone call as the neighbor Jerry mentioned was a retired worker from the paper mill and someone Osborne knew from when he had treated the man after he’d taken a hockey puck in the mouth.

  “Am I going to get that poor guy in trouble?” asked the gruff voice on the speaker phone.

  “Quite the opposite, Frank,” said Osborne. “If you can vouch for his being next door yesterday afternoon, you’ll be keeping him out of a great deal of trouble.”

  “He was next door alright. He’s there every Saturday so far’s I know. Lucky sonofabitch.” He snorted.

  “But did you actually see him coming or going?”

  “Yes, I did. My wife and I were spreading mink manure in the garden when he drove up. I was worried Gloria might complain so I asked him to tell her the smell would go away in a couple days. That stuff stinks, y’know.”

  Jerry paused in the doorway and turned to say, “Charlotte told me that you asked that anyone who had photos or videos from yesterday’s tournament to e-mail them to the Loon Lake Police. Is that right?”

  “Yes, we’re hoping that someone may have inadvertently taken a picture of whoever it was that shot your father. We’ve received quite a few and several of us—myself and Dr. Osborne included—will be hoping to see something that’ll help with this investigation,” said Lew.

  “I think we may have something that will be of great help,” said Jerry. “Our events manager, Carlyn Shaw, had a video crew working in the booth and during the awards ceremony yesterday. I’m going to have her give you a call right away.”

  He left, closing the door quietly behind him while Lew and Osborne sat with their mouths open.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lew’s phone rang ten minutes after Jerry had walked out. “Chief Ferris? This is Carlyn Shaw from Pfeiffer’s Fishing, Golf, and—”

  “Yes, Carlyn, Jerry Pfeiffer said you would be calling,” Lew interrupted. “He said you may have some video that can help us?”

  “Let me tell you what we have and I’ll be happy to send you a link to the material. It isn’t edited yet but that may be what you need anyway. First, I’d like you to know that the two people who set up and manned the Pfeiffer booth were from my staff. They were helping the family all afternoon until the awards ceremony when they were down on the dock giving Mrs. Pfeiffer a hand with the awards.”

  “You mean Rikki Pfeiffer?” asked Osborne.

  “Yes, and after the awards were taken care of they came back to the booth where they thought Mr. Pfeiffer was taking a nap—which he has been known to do before—so they packed up their things and left. They were supposed to return later to take down the booth but I think you know that we’ve been told not to touch anything until the Wausau Crime Lab gives us the okay.”

  “Correct,” said Lew. “But what is this video that you referred to?”

  “I planned for us to make a video of the Youth Fishing Tournament to be shown at the company’s annual meeting in September. I don’t know if you’re aware but our little Loon Lake event’s been written up in national sports pages like the New York Times and USA Today. Gosh, even CBS Sunday Morning has been interested in airing some of our footage. Of course, now that is out of the question, but we have excellent footage. The videographer in charge, Mike Burlington is his name, will be happy to work with your IT people since there are editing tools they may not be familiar with.”

  “That is terrific,” said Lew, sitting straighter in her chair. “Can you give me some idea of what was taped and when?”

  “Sure, Mike had three video cameras set up and running. One was a roving camera to record my staff as they strolled through the crowd giving away candy fishing lures or stopped to capture the kids getting ready to fish. Another was down on the dock to watch kids bring in the fish they’d caught and the awards ceremony.

  “And he had a third camera set up on one of the awning supports to record the general public walking past the booth so we could show the scope of the event—how successful it has become. Chuck was so . . . proud of his tournament.” The poor woman’s voice cracked as she spoke. “There’s no audio because we were planning to have an announcer do a voice-over, but the picture quality is excellent.”

  “All three videos may be helpful,” said Lew, “especially that third one, the one that shows the people in the crowd going by the booth. How soon can we get this?”

  “I’ll have Mike send it over right away. But you need to let your IT people know that these are very large files. They aren’t compressed like what you see on your phone. Watching them will take time. On the other hand, the good news is that you will be able to zoom in for close-ups if needed. Again, this is professional video and will require an experienced videographer like Mike to handle the editing tools.”

  “This is more than I had hoped for,” said Lew. “I think that our IT person, her name is Dani Wright, should be able to access the files but I’m sure she’ll need help from your videographer. Will he be available soon?”

  “Right away. If you can transfer this call, I’ll have him talk to Dani so they can get this going and . . . ” Carlyn was quiet for a moment then said, “Jerry has made it very clear that whatever you people need to find out who—” She choked, unable to say more.

  “It’s okay,” said Lew. “I understand. Please thank Jerry for taking care of this so quickly, will you? I’m transferring this call to Dani right now.”

  “Chief Ferris, that is going to be one mother lode of video,” said Bruce after leaving Dani’s office to return to Lew’s. “And thank goodness because the videos that people sent in are not great. Well, no, I take that back. They are fine for the parents and grandparents but you aren’t getting a good look at people milling around behind the subjects. And you cannot manipulate the visuals like we’ll be able to now.”

  “Were you able to see anything in the ones sent in so far?” asked Osborne.

  “The overwhelming majority of personal videos were of the parents and grandparents of the fifty children that had entered the contest. This was obvious from the focus on children posing with one or more adults.”

  Ray walked into the office while Bruce was talking. “How ’bout you, Ray, seen anything or anyone unusual?” asked Lew.

  “Not yet, Chief,” said Ray with a shake of his head. “I was just sitting down to watch with Bruce here when Dani got that video guy on the phone. But . . . I believe,” he said with a tip of his head and an index finger raised high, “we will have puh-len-ty to see . . . shortly.”

  “Really?” Lew sounded like she was trying not to be too hopeful. “You seem pretty excited.”

  Ray dropped his banter. “Chief, I’ll bet you the camera recording people passing by the Pfeiffer booth has better quality than a grade A surveillance video. If we can’t see who approached Chuck Pfeiffer now . . . ”

  “Then why are you in here?”

  “To let you know the video is streaming in and it’s time we all sat down to watch like . . . right . . . now.”

  Five o’clock came and went. Six o’clock, too. At six thirty, Lew called a halt. “Okay, everyone, my eyes are glazing over. Let’s pick up on this first thing in the morning.”

  Dani turned toward her with relief in her eyes. “Mike and I have a suggestion,” she said, gesturing in the direction of the twenty-something man sitting beside her. “We have run through all the video from the cameras but Mike had it going at a faster-than-normal speed so you could decide w
hat footage is the most important.”

  “I know what I would like to see and I would like to see it slowed down quite a bit,” said Bruce. Ray and Osborne nodded in agreement. As they had been watching in silence, the flow of people had been constant and more than a little distracting as staff or Pfeiffer family members stood to walk in front of the cameras from time to time.

  “So far we’ve seen no surprises,” said Osborne. “The roving camera picked up the other booths and bystanders including the Lions Club, St. Mary’s Auxiliary, and the elderly folks from the Senior Center. Then we got the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Y, and all the teenage babysitters. None of that is critical to what we’re looking for. Frankly, it’s chaotic—hard to see anything other than too many bodies milling around.”

  “Hey,” said Ray, “did you notice the Loon Lake Pub serving brewskis on property owned by the Tall Pines Tavern? Isn’t that a violation of property rights?”

  “Please don’t mention that,” said Lew. “I got enough on my plate. Speaking of which, isn’t it time for dinner?”

  “No,” said Bruce, his moustache twitching—a tic familiar to Osborne as a sign that a pleasant thought had just entered the forensic scientist’s psyche: “It’s time to tighten our lines, doncha know.”

  The young videographer, Mike, looked confused by Bruce’s remark.

  “He means time to go fly-fishing,” said Lew as she pushed back her chair and got to her feet.

  “That may not be a bad idea. But on one condition, Mr. Peters. First, you deal with those two reporters who’ve been hanging out in the entrance hall. Tell them we’re working with the videos sent in but haven’t found anything significant yet; that we will be taking a break and they are welcome to return in the morning.

  “While you do that, I will escape by the back door, rush home, and get my fishing truck and a peanut butter sandwich. Pick you up at the motel in half an hour?”

  Bruce jumped to his feet. “You betcha, Chief.”

  “Doc, you interested?” asked Lew. “We’ll hit the Coon River. I can use an hour or two in the water. Time to relax and think over what we’ve just seen.”

  Osborne smiled. Like Lew he often did his best thinking in the fishing boat or in the stream. “Count me in,” he said. “I’ll be at the motel with Bruce after I grab a bite, feed the dog, and get my fly rod.”

  “And while you people get your feet wet, I’m goin’ to sit on my dock and watch dragonflies,” said Ray. “Dani, Mike, you want to join me?” The two young people declined and guessing from the way their shoulders touched as they sat in front of Dani’s computer screen, Osborne had a hunch they might end up having dinner together.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Wading up the Coon River from where Lew had parked her little white pickup and Bruce his SUV, Osborne was concerned that the water might be too warm for the fish to be feeding. He sure couldn’t see a hatch of insects, which did not bode well for an evening of practicing his improved catch-and-release technique.

  On the other hand, he knew that Lew had decided to fish the Coon River for two reasons: It was less than half an hour from town, and it held a sparkling run of riffles among the rocks and boulders where small but active native brook trout liked to hide. Even a magisterial brown trout deigned to show up from time to time.

  More important, the stream was wide enough to satisfy Bruce, who was desperate for a lesson on his casting. “I’m so bummed,” he’d said when he’d arrived the day before. “Not sure if I bought the wrong fly rod or my fly line and tippets are too heavy. But my casts are so sloppy, Chief, I’m embarrassed for anyone to see me. My dry flies land on the surface like they’re made of rock—boom! Can’t catch fish with that happening.” He was so distressed. But Osborne was sympathetic: He’d been there and was forever grateful that the woman who often shared his breakfast table was an expert fly-fisher who didn’t mind him tagging along in the stream.

  “I am going to give you a midge fly, an adult, for you to try, Bruce,” Lew was saying as she and Bruce waded a short distance behind Osborne. “With no other hatch tonight, this might work but use a 7X tippet if you have it.” Osborne paused to watch as she handed him the pale olive dry fly, which she had tied.

  “You sure?” asked Bruce. “I brought my stomach pump hoping I might catch something and see what insects it’s got in its gut.”

  “Sweetie pie, forget the stomach pump,” said Lew. “You’ve got plenty of trout food under those wading boots of yours. And why kill a trout to find that out anyway? Look at me, Bruce,” she said, forcing him to stop and face her. “How would you like to have someone stick a stomach pump down your throat, through your esophagus, into your stomach, and suck out your dinner?”

  The bushy eyebrows went up and Bruce gave a shrug with a sheepish look on his face. Sitting down on a nearby boulder, he bent to tie on a new tippet and the trout fly she had handed him. Getting to his feet, he raised his fly rod and cast forward with Lew watching.

  “I’m doing something wrong, I know,” he said, sounding frustrated. “I don’t seem to be able to place my dry fly where I want it no matter how hard I try.”

  “And you are trying too hard, Bruce,” said Lew. “How many times have I told you to stop muscling your way through the cast?”

  “I dunno.” Bruce dropped his fly rod to his hip and stood still with a pout on his face. “Maybe I’ll give this up, get my spinning rod, and go fish with Ray.”

  “Okay, you’ll do better with that fly rod of yours if you use an open-body stance, which is a lot more versatile for big guys like you,” said Lew. “Watch me. Okay? Start by standing sideways to your target. Place your feet one ahead of the other with your left foot pointing at the target and your right foot dropped back at a 90-degree angle. Then with the power snap that I’ve taught you, I want you to shift your weight backward while keeping your elbow close to your body . . . like this . . . then finish the weight shift on the power snap as you follow through as usual. Right now you look like you’re chopping wood when you should be moving like you’re throwing a ball . . . ”

  Osborne was too familiar with the steps she was taking Bruce through. He had been there many times and still needed coaching, but bad as he was, Lew would say encouragingly, “It’s okay, Doc, you’ll still catch fish.”

  Wading upriver he left the student and teacher behind. As he moved through the water, the trees surrounding the creek reminded him how fortunate he was to live in a forested world of oak and aspen, maple and birch. Glimpsing a pine forest just around the next curve in the stream, he paused to admire the balsams whose elegant spires scratched the blue sky overhead.

  “Doc,” Lew’s voice shattered his reverie. “Bruce and I are taking a break here on the big rock. Want to join us?”

  In between bites of the roast beef sandwich he’d picked up at the KwikTrip on the drive out, Bruce said, “I’ve been thinking about the videos from the three cameras that we watched. I don’t know about you two but I feel like there is something right smack in front of us and I’m not seeing it.” He looked as dejected over the videos as he did his casting.

  Lew patted him on the back. “I know, I know. We have to sit down tomorrow and go over those again minute by minute.”

  “I do have one idea,” said Bruce, hesitating, “but it might cost some money . . . ”

  “This entire investigation is one hell of an expense already,” said Lew. “Maybe that guy who called you from the governor’s office might be willing to help out if we make a good proposal.”

  “This spring I attended a seminar run by the Wisconsin State Forensic Academy over in Milwaukee. They brought in this woman, Patience Merrill, who is an expert in visual perception and she walked us through the Milwaukee Art Museum where we would stop in front of a painting and have to tell her what we were seeing from something like the details of different objects or what facial expressions meant. We were given a set time to study the work of art and then write up a description of what we saw. The idea w
as to heighten our awareness of what we see when we approach a murder scene.

  “The questions she had for us sounded simple at the beginning. For example, she would ask: ‘What am I seeing here? What is the story behind this?’ And, wow, the answers were all over the place. Really made you think hard and look hard.”

  “Bruce, are you serious? In an art museum you were learning how to view a crime scene?” asked Lew.

  “You would be amazed at how different each of us in the group saw things in the paintings. What really struck me was how often there would be a detail so obvious—or so irrelevant (supposedly)—that none of us even mentioned it in our descriptions. What we missed was as important as what we saw.”

  As Osborne listened to the conversation, he remembered how in his late teens he loved studying art, especially studio art where he had had the opportunity to make several sculptures, got flattering feedback from the professor teaching sculpture, and had even flirted with the idea of pursuing sculpture as a career. That was until his father had looked at him in amazement and said, “Forget it, son, that is one hard way to make a living.”

  And so he had contented himself with dentistry, but he always felt a sense of pride when other dentists would compliment his work, especially his work in gold foil. And the truth was he had loved working with the models and materials of his profession. The precise line of a jaw, the elegance of a skull, still caught his eye.

  “Bruce is on to something,” said Osborne. “I think it’s a fine idea. But is that woman somewhere that she can be reached?”

  “And what will she charge us?” asked Lew. “Hundreds of dollars an hour?”

  “I doubt that,” said Bruce. “Her clients are medical students and business executives as well as federal and local law enforcement agencies. She can’t charge too much or she won’t get any business. These are not art collectors who are hiring her to teach them visual perception.”

  “And my next question is whether or not she might be available?” Lew was definitely interested.