Dead Frenzy

by Victoria Houston

  “Tell me when you need help, guys,” she said, then turned to Osborne. “Surprised to see me, Dr. Osborne?” she said. “I’ve been training as an EMT this past year, taking classes at Nicolet College over in Rhinelander. I got certified a couple months ago, now I’m training for the next level.”

  “Wow,” said Osborne. “After a long day in the office?”

  “Well … I don’t have a personal life,” she grinned a little sheepishly. “And I’ve been thinking about making a career change—maybe going back to school in medicine, so I thought this would be a good test.”

  “You don’t want to give dentistry a shot?” he kidded.

  She gave him a quick smile and shook her head. “How come you ‘re out here tonight?”

  “Chief Ferris and I were on our way to do a little fishing when we saw something was wrong—”

  “Oh?” Jessie glanced over at Lew, then back at Osborne. A funny look in her eye triggered a feeling of mild embarrassment, which Osborne did his best to shake off. But Jessie’s amusement faded fast. “Whatever—that girl is lucky you two came by. Excuse me—”

  At a wave from Chris, Jessie stepped forward to carry the IV and supplies as the other two lifted the stretcher. As another siren wailed in the distance, Lew and Osborne followed the EMTs as they carried the stretcher to the ambulance.

  “Chris, is she in good enough shape for you to wait until my deputy gets here? He’s about thirty seconds away,” said Lew.

  “Sure,” said Chris, “she’s stable. We can wait a few minutes, Chief.” He appeared to be in charge of the operation.

  “Chris?” Jessie called out from inside the ambulance as they eased the stretcher into place. “Do you know Dr. Osborne? He’s a dentist in Loon Lake, friend of my dad’s.”

  “Retired,” added Osborne, shaking Chris’s hand.

  Jessie backed out of the ambulance and looked at her male colleague. “This looks like another overdose to me, Chris. What do you think?”

  “What do you mean another?” said Lew with an edge in her voice.

  Stripping off his disposable rubber gloves, Chris paused before answering. “I’m just a paramedic, Chief, but I think you should know that we got a call on another young kid, a boy, about two hours ago. Similar symptoms—high body temp, seriously dehydrated. He wasn’t convulsing but he’d passed out. My guess is Ecstasy.

  “Picked that one up down near Elcho. Bunch of kids held a rave back in on some farmland over off Highway 55 this weekend. I heard they had ten thousand people show up.”

  “Ten thousand?” Osborne gasped. “Where do they come from?”

  “Everywhere,” said Jessie. “Wausau, Madison, Milwaukee. And they party all day and all night. It’s crazy.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t hear about this.” Lew looked at Chris as she spoke.

  “When we brought the boy in, someone at St. Mary’s called the Rhinelander cops,” he said. “First they heard anything, I know. Shouldn’t they have called you, too? Those kids are going in all directions.”

  “Hell, yes, they should have called me,” said Lew. “But what really makes me mad is I’ll bet those jerks down in Wausau knew all about this and never said a word to any of us up here. Elcho and that area off Highway 55 may be out of my jurisdiction but this location sure as hell isn’t.”

  Chris looked uncomfortable. “I have no idea what the story is—but I’ll sure have someone at the hospital get in touch with you.”

  Just then one of the Loon Lake police cruisers pulled up behind Lew’s truck. A slight man, late middle-aged and balding, hurried over. The expression on his face was always the same: a mix of worry and hesitation as if he was about to be asked to do some real work.

  Poor Roger. Osborne was quite familiar with the deputy’s distress. Several years earlier, the man had made a bad decision. Thinking he had discovered an easy way out, he had traded the pressures of running a small insurance agency for a position as a police officer, a deputy. Roger’s plan had been to coast into an early retirement with a nice pension.

  He had assumed his most serious duty would be the emptying of parking meters. But life took an unfair turn. The northwoods became a “lifestyle destination” for young professionals from Milwaukee and Chicago. Almost overnight, the population base outside the township limits exploded as monied newcomers bought up lake property. Tourism had always added twenty thousand people to the summer population—now that number was soaring exponentially as well. Loon Lake had become a magnet for real estate investment and all the attendant misbehavior.

  Then Lewellyn Ferris was promoted to chief of police. With the full support of the mayor and city council, she took an aggressive stand when it came to errant fishermen, hunters, snowmobilers, and idiots running their personal watercraft too close to shore. No more meter maid for Roger; he had to perform. And he wasn’t happy. Nor was Lew for that matter; she was counting the days until his retirement. Meanwhile, she had to make the best of it.

  “Roger,” said Lew as the deputy edged his way toward her, shoulders hunched as if he expected to duck a flying object, “I want you to follow this ambulance and stay with the victim. I want confirmation from the emergency physician on duty that this is a drug overdose. Under no condition do you let this young woman leave the hospital until I am able to question her when she regains consciousness. Understand?”

  Roger’s face brightened. Sitting outside a hospital room? Reading magazines? He could do that.

  Lew turned to Osborne. “Doc, I better pass on fishing tonight. With Roger at the hospital, I need to head back. Someone has to be available if we have any other problems tonight and Todd Reimer is at a training session in Green Bay.” Todd was her other Loon Lake police officer.

  Phooey, thought Osborne. What a frustrating day this was turning out to be.

  “Chief Ferris?” Chris called out from where he had just climbed into the driver’s seat in the ambulance. Jessie had climbed in beside him and both their windows were down. “I don’t know that it’s really necessary to have an officer at the hospital,” said Chris. “I understand your concern but no one has to accompany us. This girl will be kept overnight for observation, regardless.

  “When there is any question of drug use by a person under twenty-one—and there certainly is in this case—our policy at the hospital is no release until family members arrive to sign her out. You go fishing, Chief; she’ll be in supervised care through tomorrow morning, I promise.”

  “I’m on duty until midnight,” said Jessie. “I’ll keep a close eye on her, too. This is probably the most activity we’ll see until the drunks head home after closing time.”

  “You might have more of these kids,” said Lew.

  “We don’t think so,” said Chris. “Rhinelander sent two cops over to clear the area. This girl must have left just before they got there. We would know by now if there was any trouble between here and there, I’m sure.”

  “Well …” Lew hesitated. “Roger, just to be sure, why don’t you drive down that way. Doc and I have to buy licenses at the Michigan border and I’ll call in to see if everything is okay.”

  “Lew … you need a break,” said Osborne. “Roger can handle anything that comes up. As far as this young woman goes, even if she were to leave the hospital, you have her home address. She’s not a hardened criminal—she’s a kid who partied too hard.” He knew that sounded a little light, given drugs were involved, but he had seen and heard enough when he went through rehab at Hazelden to know that the girl wasn’t going to be moving too fast too soon.

  Lew looked up at him and sighed. “I’m less concerned about that than who’s supplying these kids. That’s the real problem here.”

  “True,” said Osborne, “but is that something you need to handle tonight?”

  To his credit, for once Roger stepped up to the plate. “Look, Chief, I’ll get her car towed, I’ll call the family. I’ll call around and see what the story is on this rave thing, okay? I’ve got everything under
control—you go fishing.”

  “Nothing’s under control, Doc, not a thing,” said Lew as they climbed back into the fishing truck. She turned the key in the ignition and waited for oncoming traffic to clear.

  “That’s not true,” said Osborne. “You run a disciplined operation.”

  “Yeah, but we’re so small.” Lew shifted then, forgetting she had already turned the key once, she gave it another turn. Nellie responded with an angry grinding.

  “Ouch! Sorry, Doc, I’m just so stressed right now. I’ve got that fishing tournament coming up with the damn motorcycle rally the same weekend. Then today I get a call I have to be at a five-county emergency task force meeting in Park Falls at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Who knows what the hell that’s all about. Jeez Louise!”

  “All the more reason to take a break while you can,” said Osborne.

  “You’re right.” She pulled onto the highway and swung the truck around to head north again. “By the way, thanks, Doc.” She reached over to pat his hand.

  “For what—insisting you go fishing? Count on me for that anytime, kiddo.”

  “I mean for the CPR. I had no idea you could do that.”

  Osborne shrugged off the compliment. “You can’t practice dentistry these days without knowing CPR, Lew. Half your patients are scared to death just being in the chair, the other half forget to tell you they’re allergic to anesthetic. You better know CPR or you’ll never see a paid bill.”

  Lew laughed. He loved the sound of it. That, plus the truck windows were down and the flow of warm air felt good against his face. It occurred to him suddenly that he was very happy she didn’t have a radio in the car—no one could stop them now.

  “Oh, one good thing happened today,” said Lew, turning right down a gravel road. “I got your buddy, Ray, a job.”

  Osborne sat back in the seat and stared at her. “You’re kidding, of course.”

  Lew loved to make the point that Ray was Osborne’s friend. Yes, she acknowledged Ray’s talents as an expert tracker through the forests and slash and dark waters of the northwoods. “Outstanding, Doc, I agree.”

  But she never let Osborne forget that the guy who had an eye rumored to be as keen as an eagle’s also had an inch-thick file in her office, one that lent new meaning to that word outstanding.

  “Misdemeanors today, felonies tomorrow,” she loved to trill when they discussed his neighbor. Osborne had to concede she was right. Ray’s file had been hefty before he was out of his teens, and his efforts at agriculture throughout his twenties only added to the department’s paperwork.

  Still, on occasion, Lew would draft him as a deputy. While his reputation as a pothead and his penchant for poaching gave the good mayor and certain city council members bad dreams, it also gave Ray access. Access to walking, talking human nightmares. And Loon Lake had a few too many of those.

  “Ray? You aren’t hiring him on during the tournament next week?” Osborne’s heart sank; he’d been hoping she would ask him to help out.

  “Heavens no. Rhinelander is lending me two deputies.

  You know I can’t deputize Ray unless I’ve got a serial killer on the loose. Nope, guess again.”

  “A new guiding client—a rich guiding client.”

  “Uh-uh.” Lew shook her head and gave him a sly grin. “Guess again.”

  “O-o-kay … some dead out-of-towner needs a grave. An obese out-of-towner who needs a grave wide enough and deep enough to pay Ray’s overhead through Christmas?”

  “No-o-o!” Lew chortled. “Bodyguard. I got him a job as a bodyguard for this woman. You may know her. She’s the star of one of the fishing shows on cable. Her name is Peyton or Hayden, something like that.”

  “Ah,” said Osborne. “I heard that ESPN Two is coming in. But I don’t watch enough TV to know who you’re talking about.”

  “I set it up so he’ll be paid a fair amount, too. They asked me what we pay our deputies—and I doubled it. We don’t pay our people enough, so the hell with that approach.”

  “I’m surprised Ray didn’t say anything when I saw him today.”

  “The Steadman people didn’t call until late this afternoon.”

  “The Steadman people?” Osborne repeated blankly. His first thought was of Catherine with the beat-up face and her garbage truck of a husband. Those idiots with the loons tattooed all over their bodies are on television?

  “Yeah, you know Parker Steadman—the billionaire who owns all the sporting goods stores, the one that started this bass tournament. He’s coming to Loon Lake later this week and bringing his wife and her television crew. Apparently they’re making a documentary of his life—the wife is, which is why she’s coming. She’s the one who needs a bodyguard.

  “Hey!” Lew looked over at Osborne. “Were you his dentist? Maybe they’ll interview you. I’m sure they’ll want to talk to people who knew him when he was growing up…. ”

  “Well, that’s not me. Parker Steadman is ten, maybe fifteen years younger than I am. And he didn’t really grow up here, Lew. His family is from Chicago. They owned a lot of potato land up here and had a huge summer place out on Lake Consequence. Even though he spent his summers up here, Parker Steadman’s really a city boy.”

  And a major razzbonya, Osborne might have added. Up until ten years ago, when he began to make his name in sporting goods, he was better known to Loon Lake locals following his exploits in the Wall Street Journal as Parker the Predator—he had skirted the SEC more than once with a habit of raiding companies. But he was shrewd: Buy cheap, restructure, let the stock run up, and sell. A little too often the stock would crash shortly thereafter.

  “Why on earth does his wife need a bodyguard? Parker’s the one investors might have the urge to kill.”

  “The person who called me said she’s been the target of death threats—”

  “From someone in Loon Lake? Does anyone here even know her?”

  “Not from Loon Lake, Doc. The threats are being phoned in from somewhere outside the state—they didn’t give me details. They said they’re afraid whoever it is will follow her here.

  “They seem quite worried. The woman on the phone kept insisting that I assign an officer full-time—twenty-four hours, in fact. I told her that was absolutely impossible. It is, you know. We don’t have the budget for that.

  “So I gave them Ray’s phone number and told them that he’s done very good work for me as a deputy on special projects. I said, hey, you want someone who knows their way around, who can keep a sharp eye out—he’s the best. Don’t you agree?”

  “Lew,” said Osborne, only half listening to what she was saying, “do you remember what I was saying before we stopped to help that girl? I was telling you that I bumped into Catherine Plyer today. She’s a Steadman—she was Parker’s first wife.”

  seven

  “Regardless of what you may think of our penal system, the fact is that every man in jail is one less potential fisherman to clutter up your favorite pool or pond.”

  —Ed Zern, Field & Stream

  It had been over twenty years since he had last seen Catherine Plyer Steadman but he had not forgotten a moment of those final hours. Nor would he ever.

  Osborne had just turned forty. In fact, Mary Lee still had some leftover birthday cake sitting on the counter that June morning that Tim Knudson stepped out in front of him, blocking his way to the door that led to the stairs to his office over the Merchants State Bank building.

  “Doctor Osborne? Do you have a minute?”

  At first, given the intense look in Tim’s eyes, Osborne assumed he was in pain from an abscessed tooth. Tim’s uncle and Osborne frequently fished muskie together in those days, and Tim had been a patient of his for several years.

  Osborne checked his watch. “I have a patient in ten minutes, Tim. I’m sure we can work you in later this morning.”

  “No, no, that’s not the problem. Dr. Osborne…. ” Tim, who was the operations manager for the telephone company, whose offices
were right around the corner, looked hard at Osborne before saying, “Are you all right?”

  Osborne chuckled, taken aback. His first thought was that his buddies were pulling a prank of some kind. “Am I all right? No, I’m not all right, Tim—I’m forty.”

  But the man wasn’t kidding. “Dr. Osborne, someone is making obscene phone calls from your office. The police will be in touch with you shortly, but I talked to my uncle and he suggested that I talk to you first. We, ah, neither of us can believe that you’re the type that—”

  For a brief moment, Osborne was speechless. “My office? Are you sure … my office?”

  “Someone has made half a dozen calls to three different women in the last week. Not only have we traced the calls to your office phone but the women—they’re all patients of yours, Dr. Osborne.”

  Osborne didn’t know what to say.

  Tim continued, “The calls were all made at seven forty-five in the morning and it’s a man’s voice…. ” Tim waited. The sad, worried look on his face told Osborne everything. “I thought … well, the police are willing to keep this confidential if we can work something out.”

  Osborne resisted an overwhelming feeling of rage. Anger would not help. He took a deep breath, dropped his head, and thought hard for a long minute.

  “Tim, I don’t get to the office until eight or five after, my first patient is at eight-fifteen. I have a ten-minute walk from my home, which I do every morning, and I have several neighbors or friends that I greet on the way—so you can check on my whereabouts at the time the calls are made.

  “My receptionist isn’t here much before me—and it’s a young woman. I’m assuming you’ve tapped the women’s lines? Did you tape the calls?”

  “Just the last one. She got called two days in a row so we were able to set up and wait. We were lucky—the calls aren’t made every day. Doctor, who besides you has access to your office and your office phone?”

  “No one—no, wait … I gave Catherine a key so she can open and close. I wonder if someone might have gotten a hold of her key. Come on up and we’ll talk to her. Oh yes—and there’s the woman who cleans for me.”