Dead Jitterbug

by Victoria Houston

  “I dunno,” said Lew. “It’s new from Cortland—Ghost Tip. It’s an intermediate sink tip line, clear and tapered. Sixteen pound test class tippet. If it gets my fly down fast without spooking the fish, I don’t care what it costs.”

  She reached into her tackle box and pulled out one of the longest streamer flies Osborne had ever seen. It was orange and brown and black with strands of gold flashing. And it made sense: if a trout fly has to imitate the insects trout are feeding on, then a muskie fly better imitate the fish on which the big girls are preying.

  “Isn’t that going to be tough to cast?” asked Osborne.

  “Not with the double haul,” said Lew, getting to her feet in the boat. “Double hauling makes casting with heavier rods and in tougher conditions so much easier. That’s why I keep trying to get you to learn, Doc.”

  As she tied on the streamer, she said, “Bill Sherer up in Boulder Junction made this. Calls it a Sucker-colored Figure Eight. He customized this wire weed guard, too, so it ought to run smooth.” She got to her feet in the rocking boat, faced the wind, and began stripping line from the reel.

  “Wait, wait,” said Osborne, struggling to keep his voice low. After all this effort, the last thing he needed was to make too much noise in the boat and scare off any fish lurking below. “What do you need me to do?” The wind had begun to throw pellets of rain at their faces.

  “Oh, jeez, I’m sorry, Doc,” said Lew with a light laugh. “I’m so excited—I forgot about you.”

  “Thank you!” He tried for a grumpy look. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Okay, sweetie, tell you what. You take that surface mud puppy of yours, and you bait cast from where you are in the front there. It’s your job to stir things up, and when we get one interested, I’ll do my best to put the fly right in front … get it down where she can see it. We cast into the wind—both of us.”

  “Gotcha,” said Osborne, checking to be sure he had his six-foot net and Boga Grip close at hand. Big muskies like to bite, and he had learned long ago to be ready with the Boga—forget the old “fingers in the gills” routine. Of course, all this was wishful thinking. The “fish of ten thousand casts” bore its nickname for good reason. But Osborne, like all dedicated muskie fishermen, never launched a cast without hope.

  As he got to his feet, Lew tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Doc,” she said with a wide grin, the color high in her cheeks, “I feel lucky tonight….”

  Osborne chuckled, thinking: “Life doesn’t get much better than this.”

  He threw his first cast. The lure was heavy enough to buck the wind for a high, long flight. Watching it fly towards the horizon, he noticed that the clouds overhead were roiling, much lower than when they had set off from the dock. The air was thick and green. Had to be ninety-five degrees. He was glad that he’d left Mike in the house where it was cooler.

  He was on his twentieth cast when Lew gave a low shout: “Shadow!”

  Sure enough, fifteen feet from the boat, a lunker was following his surface mud puppy as it whipped through the water. Keeping the rod tip down, he made a figure eight near the boat.

  “Go for it,” he said to Lew, who was busy stripping line. She started her backcast, her line hand pulling the line in on her power snap, then giving it back as the line unrolled backward. As she forward cast, her line hand pulled the line in on the power snap, this time giving it back as the line unrolled forward.

  Osborne was mesmerized by the grace and physics of the double haul. Watching Lew’s arms move in opposition, her body swaying in cadence to unheard music, he wondered if he could ever master the marvelous movements.

  “You’ll learn,” she’d said after his first futile attempts. “One day it’ll just click, and you’ll dance the dance. That’s when you’ll know what makes me love fly-fishing.”

  “What makes you so beautiful,” thought Osborne, oblivious to how hard the rain was falling. They were protected from the worst of the wind as the fishing boat rocked rhythmically over the waves. Lew was steady on her feet, her eyes fixed on the dark water and the shadow of a very large fish.

  Lew teased again and again, arms in concert, each move flowing into the next, power snaps crisp and delicate. Down went the rod tip into the water each time her streamer neared the boat.

  “She’s staying with my fly, Doc,” said Lew, holding her breath. “She’s gonna take—”

  With a splash and a swirl, the fish inhaled the streamer.

  Osborne watched the line race from Lew’s reel as the fish headed for the open water downstream. That’s when he saw the funnel moving across Loon Lake in their direction.

  “Tornado!” he screamed.

  twenty-six

  The end of fishing is not angling, but catching.

  —Thomas Fuller

  What happened next took less than five seconds: Osborne hauled at the anchor with both hands. Lew grabbed clippers from the tackle box at her feet and cut the line. Osborne yanked the cord on the outboard and had it full throttle just as Lew was shoving the fly rod onto the bottom of the boat.

  A small clearing a hundred yards off was their only hope. If they were lucky, there’d be no hidden deadheads to stop them. As they got close to shore, Osborne gunned the motor one last time, yanked the outboard up, and shouted, “Hold on!” The boat hit the shore and ran up a good twenty feet onto the beach.

  They were out and running. Osborne looked back to see the funnel veer slightly to the north. “This way, Lew,” he said, grabbing for her hand. “Down!” They hit a basin of hillocks, swampy but low, and lay flat, hands covering their heads as the “train” roared by. Trees cracked, limbs crashed, and Osborne figured his boat of thirty years was long gone. But they were safe.

  When the roar had moved on, he lifted his head just as the rain poured down and lightning split the sky all around. Before he could say a word, Lew had jumped up and was running toward the boat, which had been blown over by the wind. “Don’t worry about it,” he shouted through the storm, but she was on her knees scrambling for something.

  “Lew, we can’t stay here.”

  “I know.” She ran back toward him, her eyes sparkling through the rain as she held up the tackle box. “Sandwiches!”

  “I see a path over here, let’s see where it goes,” said Osborne, pushing through tag alders heavy with wind. Black as the sky was, the path was easy to see in the rapid flashes of lightning. After five minutes, they found themselves in the parking area of a small tavern and raced for the door.

  Inside all was dark, but there were people and voices. Cars were pulling over in the downpour, and more people ran in behind them. The bartender was just lighting a candle when he looked up and saw Osborne. “Oh, my gosh, Doc, were you out on the lake? You are one lucky son of a gun. Holy smokes! Who’s this good-lookin’ dame you got with you? At least she was good lookin’ before you tried to drown her.”

  “Hey, we’re alive,” said Lew, shaking the water out of her hair. “Lew Ferris, pleased to meet you.”

  “Wally Gunderson,” said the bartender. “?l’ Doc here was my dentist.”

  “Whew! We almost got nailed by a small tornado coming off the lake, Wally.” Now Osborne recognized where they were: Wally’s Place, beer, bait, and tackle. A cozy little tavern.

  “So I been hearing from some of these other folks,” said Wally, waving towards the room. Even in the dark Osborne could make out at least a dozen people who, judging from their wet hair and clothes, were also refugees from the storm.

  “Sit right up here, people,” said Wally to the room. “No power doesn’t mean refreshments aren’t available. Can’t run the cash register, but I sure can open the fridge. What can I get you—first one’s on the house.”

  Just as he spoke there was a loud crack, followed by a thudding crash. “Holy cow!” he said, running for the screen door. Everyone followed, “Who’s driving that big red Expedition?” he asked.

  “Oh, no, that’s my dad’s car! He doesn’t k
now I got it,” said a tall, lanky boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen. The kid looked past Wally and groaned.

  “I think we better wait it out here, don’t you?” asked Osborne as they walked back to the bar.

  “Doc, we are lucky to be here.”

  “Hey, you two, what’ll you have?” asked Wally as they sat down.

  “Coke for me, and a Bud for the lady,” said Osborne. Lew grinned. She reached into the tackle box and pulled out a sandwich for each of them, followed by a bag of tortilla chips and two apples.

  “When was the last time peanut butter tasted so good?” she asked as they inhaled their food. “So, you want to hear what Bunny DeLoye told me this morning?”

  “Of course.”

  “What she said is quite contrary to what I heard from Julia Wendt. Fact is, Julia did not leave the house any night last week. Bunny would know—her apartment is above the garage.” “So what you’re saying is Julia—”

  “Lied. Has deliberately made up a story to incriminate her good friend Kitsy. So I ask you, Doc, why would she do that?”

  “From the look on your face, I have a hunch you’ve got the answer.”

  “Yes, sort of. When I got back from seeing Bunny DeLoye, I had several phone messages waiting for me. The first was from Hope McDonald’s office manager. While they had no evidence in the Madison office of Hope receiving any threats from readers, she did pass along a tidy bit of information on Mr. Kelly. Seems his most recent hotel bill included a charge incurred at the hotel spa—a facial and a massage—for a party going by the name of Julia Wendt.”

  “I wonder if Kitsy knows—or has known.”

  “I doubt it. She’s so angry with her father—that would have come out first thing. But the best news came from the least likely source.” Lew took a big bite from her sandwich and chewed slowly, a twinkle in her eye. “Pecore.”

  “Pecore?”

  “Yep. I thought it was hopeless asking him for the evidence from the McBride case. He found it. We have everything, including the baby’s pajamas. Marlene pulled the files, which I’ll look over first thing in the morning before the meeting with Molly and her aunt—and Lillie—tomorrow.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll need me—”

  “You better be there—you’re one of the few people who’s known Jerry O’Brien over the years. No, Doc, with the McDonald case still up for grabs, my budget may not be in the best of shape—but I can’t let that get in the way of doing the job.”

  Wally, a kind, wide-faced man looked up from where he was washing glasses.

  “Did I hear you mention Jerry O’Brien?”

  “Yeah,” said Osborne. “He’s got a place around here, doesn’t he?”

  “Across the road on Little Moccasin,” said Wally, drying his hands on a towel, then leaning forward over the bar. “Keeps his boat in my marina. Uses it to go back and forth ‘cause he owns all the property on the point. Takes an hour to get there by county road, maybe ten minutes by boat.”

  “Friend of yours?” asked Lew. “Nice guy?”

  “Oh, no, no friend. Just a patron. Strange one, that guy. Wouldn’t you say so, Doc?” Osborne nodded his head. “Yep, scared the bejesus out of my kids years back. Nearly had to put ‘em in therapy.”

  “You’re not serious?” asked Osborne. “He frightened your children? How did that happen?”

  “You gotta hear it from my wife,” said Wally. “It’s her story. Cindy!” He hollered down the bar to a short, trim woman who had been helping him serve. “Cindy, come over here for a minute.”

  Cindy finished handing a customer a beer, then walked towards her husband, wiping her hands on her jeans. “What’s up?”

  “Cindy, you know Dr. Osborne—”

  “Of course I do. And I know Chief Ferris, too. You folks got caught in the storm, I take it.” Cindy had a wide smile and cheekbones to match under a thatch of salt-and-pepper hair.

  “We were just talking about Jerry O’Brien, and I was saying how he scared the dickens out of our kids—but you tell it better’n I do.”

  Cindy looked around as if to be sure Jerry O’Brien wasn’t standing behind her. “Really? You want me to dredge all that up? It’s not like he hurt anyone, y’know.”

  The noise in the bar had settled to a low hum. The rain was less thundering, and no one was crowding the bar. Cindy put her elbows on the bar and leaned in toward Osborne and Lew.

  “This happened maybe fifteen or sixteen years ago. Our boys were eight and ten, and we owned a couple of lots over near the point. Sold ‘em since, but there were real nice blueberries on our land that abutted O’Brien’s.

  “To keep the boys busy one day, I sent ‘em over to pick berries, and they took the dog along. Well, the dog disappeared as dogs do, and the boys went into the woods after her. Wouldn’t you know she’d head straight for Jerry’s trash? So the boys find themselves walking onto his property, and Jerry is out in the side yard, but he doesn’t see the boys.”

  “Tell ‘em what he was wearing,” said Wally from where he was leaning back against the counter, arm crossed, listening to his wife.

  Cindy turned to give him a dim eye. “Wally? You want to tell the story, or you want me to?” Wally raised both hands in submission.

  “The boys had started to run after Ginger but stopped when they saw Mr. O’Brien lying in a lawn chair sunning himself … in women’s underwear. Not a swimming suit, mind you—but women’s underwear. The boys described it as shiny silk. They didn’t know what to think—and it scared them. So now the dog is running down to the water, but they don’t dare let O’Brien see them hiding in the woods.”

  “Cindy’s brother is gay,” said Wally.

  “Jeez, Wally, let me finish, will ya?” asked his wife. “So they come home without the dog, crying, and I am especially worried because, yes, my brother is gay, and I don’t want the boys to have the wrong idea. Like I don’t want them to think their uncle is weird or whatever.

  “So we talk, and I try to explain to the boys that we all grow up differently and there’s nothing wrong with that. And I do my best to help them understand that some men may want to wear women’s clothing—but that doesn’t mean their uncle does.

  “I guess,” Cindy paused, “they loved their uncle and had no image of him doing anything like that, which was a very bizarre sight for the boys. Now, I don’t know if my brother cross-dresses or not, but if he does, that’s his business. To this day, our sons love and respect their uncle—and have, I don’t think, ever associated him with what they saw that day.”

  “How did you explain it?” asked Lew.

  “Thank you for asking,” said Cindy. “In fact, I didn’t at first. I called a friend of mine from college who’s a psychotherapist and asked her what to say. She suggested I explain to the boys that some people need softness in their lives. That maybe Mr. O’Brien had an experience early in his life that made him want to touch and feel soft, pretty things. Sounds wacky but it worked. The boys settled down. Instead of being frightened, they felt sorry for Jerry.”

  “So what you’re saying is Jerry O’Brien forced you into therapy,” said Lew with a chuckle.

  “At least I didn’t have to pay for it,” said Cindy. “You want to know how fast we put that land on the market? The next day.”

  “Any more encounters with O’Brien?” asked Osborne. “Did he know the boys saw him?”

  “Heavens, no,” said Wally. “But he is one odd duck, I’ll tell ya. Keeps to himself like you wouldn’t believe. In all these years, I’ve never seen him take anyone else out to his place by boat, and he’s back and forth all the time. What about you, Cindy? You ever see him with other people?”

  “No, but he’s always pleasant,” said Cindy. “We run a small business down by the water. You know, some bait and staples like milk and bread. He’ll stop in for things but never says much.”

  “You know,” said Osborne, “that’s Jerry all around. He ran that newspaper for years but now that you mentio
n it, he’s not very social. I can’t think of a time I’ve seen him at a Friday fish fry. Can’t be Catholic, I’ve never seen him at Mass.”

  “We’re Methodists—and we’ve never seen him there,” said Cindy.

  “He’s not a member of Kiwanis,” said Wally.

  “Here’s what’s really weird,” said Cindy. “He never comes to our lake association meetings. Now for the investment in lake frontage that he’s got, you’d think he’d at least show up for that. We’re not talking social—we’re talking money!”

  twenty-seven

  But what is the test of a river? “The power to drown a man,” replies the river darkly.

  —R.D. Blackmore

  It was as if the tornadoes that swept through the northwoods were a figment of the imagination. The morning was brilliant with sunshine, and the sky so clear it turned the lake cornflower-blue. The water was still—not a breeze blemished its innocence. Only the tree limbs and swatches of pine needles littering Osborne’s backyard bore testament to nature’s bad behavior the night before.

  To his relief, the boat had not been damaged, even though an ancient white pine less than five feet away was yanked and heaved with enough violence to leave only a gaping wound where its roots had been.

  With Lew helping, he was able to right the boat, slide it across the sand, and back into the water. The outboard chugged into action with the first pull. But it was midnight when they reached his dock.

  The effect of the adrenaline rush from the night before lingered as fatigue, which Osborne struggled to shake as he drove into town the next morning. The sluggish sensation lifted as he caught sight of the old courthouse dome, its Tiffany glass sparkling in the sun.

  Lew’s office was buzzing. Lillie was there along with Molly’s aunt who had arrived and was seated in a chair next to Molly, with whom she was deep in conversation. The elderly lawyer, dressed in something black and flowing, refused to sit. She stood toward the back of the room, behind Molly, listening, watching. That body might be eighty-seven years old, thought Osborne, but not the eyes. Lillie’s eyes were exceptional: curious, wise, and young.