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For Mike
I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.
Joan Didion
(on the importance of keeping a notebook)
CHAPTER ONE
Doc Osborne relished the final swallow of his fourth cup of coffee before pushing his chair back from the kitchen table. Time to get down to work. He had insisted Lew hurry off to her morning meeting and let him take care of the dishes.
Nothing better than a slow start to a sunny summer day, he thought, especially after sharing a good night’s sleep with the woman who had changed his life. He leaned over to stack the breakfast dishes before standing up coffee cups in one hand and plates in the other with knives and forks on top. He turned back toward the kitchen sink.
Whoa. Startled, Osborne dropped the cups, which shattered across the tile floor. A man, his face framed in the window over the sink, stood staring at Osborne. It took a moment for Osborne to realize he knew the face.
“Chuck?” he asked, his voice hesitant as he wondered how long the man had been there: silent, watching.
Setting the breakfast plates down, Osborne hurried through the mudroom to hold open the back door. Chuck Pelletier was standing among the waist-high forsythia bushes Osborne’s late wife had painstakingly planted along the back of their lake house.
“Chuck? Are you okay? How long have you been standing there? Why didn’t you knock? For heaven’s sake, don’t just stand there—come in. Please.”
Chuck Pelletier was the lead accountant for Northern Forest Resorts (NFR), a real estate development project owned by a hedge fund out of New York City. The project was an ambitious effort to turn ten thousand acres of woods and water into a luxury bird hunting and fly-fishing preserve modeled after New Zealand’s Huka Lodge. Millions of dollars had been poured into purchasing the land, and now the hard work of stabilizing riverbanks and restoring spring creeks along with building lodges, cabins, and service buildings—not to mention a first-class wine cellar—was under way.
But Osborne had gotten to know Chuck through a very different venue, one having nothing to do with water, woods, and certainly not wine. Once a week the two met behind the door with the coffeepot on the glazed glass window: they were members of a private club dedicated to keeping the names of its members secret: Alcoholics Anonymous.
“Thank you,” said Chuck, his voice low and serious as he walked past Osborne into the kitchen, where he sat down at the table, which still held juice glasses. Osborne took a moment to kick shards of the broken coffee cups to one side before taking the chair across the table from his visitor, who was sitting with his back straight, hands resting on his knees as he stared down at the tabletop. Osborne sensed Chuck was bracing himself to speak.
“Hey, bud,” said Osborne, urging in an understanding tone. “What is it? Are you drinking?”
“No.”
“Do you feel you need a drink?”
“No.”
Osborne waited, watching. Chuck was casually dressed in crisp khaki fly-fishing pants and a long-sleeved light gray-and-blue-checked shirt. He might have been on his way to a Trout Unlimited meeting.
“Well, what . . . why—”
Chuck raised his head, his eyes meeting Osborne’s as he said in a matter-of-fact voice: “My wife and Gordon Maxwell tried to kill me this morning. I was walking up my driveway after checking for the mail when the two of them in his SUV tried to run me over.”
CHAPTER TWO
Osborne’s turn to stare: Had he heard right?
Thirty years of dealing with patients in his dental office on matters ranging from the private (“I’m afraid I see signs of an STD in your mouth . . .”) to the irritating (“Your child refuses to behave while in my dental chair. I insist you find another dentist . . .”) had not prepared him for anything like Chuck’s allegation. Not even the heartrending confessions heard in AA.
“Chuck, why tell me? You should be going to the police.”
“With my record?” said Chuck with a snort. “They wouldn’t believe me. Doc, I’ve got two DUIs on my record. They’ll think I’m drunk—or hallucinating.”
“But—” Osborne started to interrupt, eager to remind his friend that he had had no issues with alcohol in the almost two years since his marriage.
“No,” said Chuck, shaking his head as he raised both hands to quiet Osborne. “Please. Listen to me. I’ve heard you say you’ve been deputized to help out the Loon Lake Police when dental forensics are needed and that you know the chief of police pretty well. . . .”
“True.”
“So I thought, since you know me, too, and better than most people”—he spoke with a grimace that acknowledged their shared experience seeking solace in the bottle—“that you have to be the best person for me to tell. The cops will listen to you, right?” The hope in Chuck’s eyes was naked.
“Maybe they will,” said Osborne, desperate to be helpful but still bewildered by what his friend had said. “Why don’t we drive into town together and meet with Chief Ferris and, you’re right, she is aware that you and I have a lot in common. . . .”
* * *
That was true: both men were in their early sixties, both had lost wives to whom they had been married for decades, both had daughters, and like Osborne, Chuck was a tall, lanky man who still had all his hair. But those details aside, shortly after they’d met in the AA room six months earlier, he and Osborne had been quick to recognize that they shared something else: a love of the outdoors and fishing.
For Chuck it was fly-fishing, a sport he had pursued since his teens growing up on the Beaverkill in the Catskills. Once he heard that, Osborne had invited his new friend to his home to share grilled bratwurst and fly-fishing stories. For Osborne a highlight of the evening had been showing off the new Winston fly rod to which he had just treated himself and a dozen trout flies tied especially for him by someone whose name he was hesitant to mention.
But it was when Osborne was describing his frustration learning how to double haul fly line that Chuck learned that Doc’s fly fishing instructor, Lewellyn Ferris (“Chuck, you wouldn’t believe it. I thought I had signed up to take casting lessons from a guy named ‘Lou,’ ” Osborne had said with a grin), was also Loon Lake’s chief of police.
Left unsaid that evening, however, was the fact that Osborne’s instructor (also the source of his precious trout flies) had become a regular at his breakfast table—and vice versa. But then he assumed Chuck had been around enough to figure out the breakfast scenario on his own. Apparently he had.
Over the coming months, as the two men got to know each other, Osborne learned they shared quite a bit more than a love of fishing and a determination to survive their addiction.
Chuck had lost his first wife to cancer just three years earlier and, like Osborne after Mary Lee’s bronchial infection turned deadly, had fallen into an alcoholic swoon immediately afterward. But he was recovering—and changing his life.
Not only had he accepted a generous financial offer from the hedge fund developing the Partridge Lodge Fishing and Hunting Preserve to become the chief financial officer on the project—but he also had been able to purchase on the nearby lake a lovely home into which he had mo
ved with a new bride. A fractured life restarted.
Osborne knew he had two adult daughters, who sounded like strong-minded young women. The daughters had collaborated to force their father into an intervention that saved his life—again, an experience he had in common with Osborne.
But new beginnings are not guaranteed to work perfectly: Chuck’s grief from the loss of his late wife remained so raw that it could surface at unexpected moments, which happened the evening Osborne introduced him to the Prairie River.
That night, as the two men waded under a star-studded sky, Chuck paused to gaze overhead. After a long moment, he said, “Lois would have loved a night like this, Doc. She was an expert fly fisherman—better than me, in fact.
“You know,” he’d said with a grudging grin, “women are naturals in the trout stream. You and me—we try to muscle that trout fly while they just let it go as if releasing a butterfly. Yep, Lois and I met in college and the minute I heard she loved to fly-fish, I was a goner. Just watching her cast . . . Doc, that woman moved with such grace. . . .”
Tears had shimmered unexpectedly, and Chuck, knee-deep in riffles, had choked out, “My God, you wouldn’t believe how I miss that woman. She”—his voice had faltered—“she laughed at all my stupid jokes, Doc. Even when she’d heard them seventeen times before. God, I miss that laugh.”
“But you’ve found someone,” said Osborne, anxious to help him through the moment, “and moving on is healthy, Chuck, even if it is . . . different.”
“Different?” Chuck had given a wry smile. “Patti is different all right. Yes, she’s younger and energetic, but she doesn’t get it, not like Lois and I did.” Raising his right arm to cast, he said, “I made a mistake getting married again. I’ll live with it, but my advice to you when you’re tempted to remarry, if you’re tempted: Don’t compromise. It’s not worth it.”
* * *
Observing Chuck from where he sat across from him at the kitchen table, Osborne recalled it was Chuck who had characterized his second wife, Patti, as “energetic.” Maybe she was too energetic? But trying to run over your husband? That didn’t make sense.
“I do think you’re wrong about the police not listening to you, Chuck,” he said, convinced there was more to Chuck’s story. “Think about it: here in Loon Lake you are highly respected. People are impressed with the Partridge Lodge, and you play a major role in that—”
“I’m just the goddamn bookkeeper,” said Chuck angrily. “Gordon Maxwell is running the show. He’s the guy spreading a hundred million bucks around. Not me. Who the hell is going to listen to a bookkeeper whose wife has decided to screw the big dog?”
“Okay, I get your point,” said Osborne. “But at the risk of sounding like an idiot, can you give me some idea why your wife and Maxwell would go to such an extreme?”
Chuck shook his head as he said, “I have no idea. I mean if the woman wants a divorce, all she has to do is ask me, you know?” The despair in Chuck’s eyes worried Osborne. There was no mistaking he believed two people had tried to kill him.
“Look, I’m calling Chief Ferris,” he said, getting to his feet. “You have to tell her what—”
Before Osborne could say more, Chuck’s cell phone rang. He pulled it from his shirt pocket and, looking down, jumped to his feet. “Oh God, I have to go, Doc. I forgot I have a nine o’clock conference call with New York. But I’ll be back right after the call. I just . . . don’t have the time right now. Don’t worry,” said Chuck with a quick clutch of Osborne’s shoulder as he hurried by. “I’ll be safe.”
“But, Chuck, I really—”
The man was gone. Through the kitchen window Osborne saw him dash for his car. Sitting back down at the kitchen table, Osborne pondered what had just happened. He was baffled: something didn’t make sense. He got up to reach for the broom and sweep up the broken pottery littering the kitchen floor but stopped midway to the broom closet. He had to alert Lew: Chuck was not hallucinating.
CHAPTER THREE
Too anxious to wait for Chuck to return, Osborne decided to call Lew right away. He punched in the number for her personal cell phone and waited. Within seconds his call went to voice mail. Darn, he thought, remembering as he waited that Lew had planned to attend a multicounty meeting with law enforcement and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) personnel.
He left the message: “Please call. Got an emergency.”
The meeting, which had been called at the last minute, was the reason Lew had rushed into her office earlier than usual. As she was leaving she had mentioned that it was scheduled to last several hours, which meant she and Osborne would have to skip their usual midmorning coffee break. The subject was a bizarre series of thefts occurring across northern Wisconsin. The stolen goods? Birch trees.
Lew was particularly interested, since her department had received twenty-three calls in less than a week from Loon Lake property owners reporting that someone had cut down trees on their land without permission. At first, assuming the usual illegal logging for firewood, Marlaine on Dispatch had neglected to ask for more details. But calls back to the owners clarified that the damage had been done to birch trees exclusively, and the problem appeared to be escalating.
Osborne knew Lew would not want to miss that meeting—but what was more important: a dead tree or a dead person? He decided it was worth risking her irritation if only for a moment to be sure he and Chuck would be next on her list.
Before he left for town, Osborne made one more call. He wanted Chuck to know where he was headed, why, and when he would be back. Chuck’s secretary answered the call: “I’ll let Mr. Pelletier know to call you the minute he’s off that conference call, Dr. Osborne, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be another forty-five minutes at least. These calls with the New York office run long.”
That did it. Osborne decided not to wait. He’d drive to the county courthouse, where Lew was in her meeting, and persuade her to take a break or, at least, whisper in her ear. Once she heard what had happened to Chuck, Osborne was sure she would want to see him ASAP. If Osborne moved quickly, the three of them could meet back at his house within an hour.
Stepping into the backyard, he called Mike. The black Lab bounded from the far corner of the backyard where he had been conducting surveillance on a rambunctious chipmunk teasing him from the other side of the fence. Hooking the dog onto the yard leash, Osborne gave him a quick pat and said, “Mike, you’re in charge. Watch the house for me, will you?”
With soulful eyes, the dog acknowledged his responsibility then circled twice before settling down on a cushion of pine needles.
Climbing into his car, Osborne was relieved to see he had plenty of gas to make it to town and back. This was one morning he did not want to waste time at the gas station.
No sooner had he turned onto the county road than he spotted a turtle in the middle of his lane inching its way toward the shoulder on a mission to lay eggs. With too much oncoming traffic to swing out and around the creature, he had no choice but to brake and wait.
And breathe in the soft summer air. In spite of Osborne’s concern for Chuck—and the turtle—he couldn’t overlook the beauty of the day. As he waited he studied the balsams lining the road. Refreshed by spring rains and with boughs no longer straining under the burden of wet snow, the trees stood like robust teenagers: shoulders back, spires reaching for the sky.
Three long minutes passed before the turtle was safe on the shoulder and Osborne could take his foot off the brake. He hadn’t gone five hundred yards before a doe leaped from a clump of bushes on his right to dart in front of the car. Osborne hit the brakes and waited, certain a fawn was likely to follow. After a moment and confident that wasn’t the case, he was about to press down on the gas pedal when a gang of turkeys waddled onto the road from the left. Traffic in both directions came to a halt.
Only in the northwoods, thought Osborne with a shake of his head as he wondered if it would be possible to reach the courthouse before the end of the damn mont
h. He checked his watch. He had half an hour before Chuck might make it back to his house. Good thing he lived seven minutes from town.
* * *
“The murder weapon is a chain saw,” said the DNR conservation officer who was running the meeting. “The thieves go in wherever they see birches—state, county, federal, private land—doesn’t matter to them, if they find a grove where they can cut a lot of trees in a short time.”
“Have you been able to catch any of these people?” The question came from the back of the room, and Osborne, who had just crept in through a side entrance, recognized the voice: it was Lew asking the question.
“Only seven so far, and we know there are a lot more out there doing this because of all the missing trees,” said the officer. “Used to be small-timers supporting drug habits, but this is on a much larger scale.
“That’s why we’re here today. We think there may be an organized effort going on and you people may be able to help us put a stop to this. If you see what looks like an unusual logging site, please check it out to be sure it wasn’t a couple hundred birches that were stolen.”
“All this for home decor? You mean those cute little logs that hold candles on the dining room table?” asked another audience member.
“The size of the market for these trees has surprised us,” said the DNR officer, “used to be people stole spruce branches at Christmas, but this is on a much larger scale. Stores buy them, interior designers, wholesalers for the hobby market. People like them in their outdoor containers as well as indoors in homes and offices. The birches are a hot item right now—a huge and growing business that has caught us by surprise.”
As she listened to the discussion and watched slides of sites where dozens of trees had been chopped down, Lew had a sudden thought. She raised her hand. “I think I’ve had birches stolen off my land,” she said. “It’s an area in the far left corner of my property where I thought I had wind damage but these photos are making me think. . . .”
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