Dead Firefly

by Victoria Houston

  “What about phone calls coming in?”

  “None that I’m aware of, but he does have a cell phone and, with his office door closed, I wouldn’t know if he’d gotten any calls on that phone.”

  “Thank you, Marion. I’m sure I’ll have more questions. Is there a home number or cell phone where you can be reached? And I want you to have my private cell number, too—in case you remember anything.”

  “Chief Ferris, this is not sounding good,” said Marion. “Are you trying to tell me someone killed Mr. Pelletier?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” said Lew, “but it’s possible. Please keep that confidential until we know more.”

  “Of course.”

  * * *

  Lew walked into the barn where Ellie was still examining the corpse. “Any news?” she asked.

  “This man did not hurt himself falling. He was hit hard, very hard on the side of the head. Possibly twice, but the autopsy will tell us more.”

  “Do you think it happened here?”

  “That’s Bruce’s territory. I just work with the body.”

  Lew returned to Osborne who was outside, leaning against his car with his arms crossed and head down, thinking hard. “Doc, Ellie said Chuck was struck on the side of the head at least once with enough force to cause his death. She won’t know more until after the autopsy.” Osborne nodded without saying anything.

  Lew waited then said, “Doc, you haven’t had anything to eat all day. You don’t look good. I think you should go home. I’ll stop by later when things have quieted down here.”

  “No,” said Osborne with a slow shake of his head, “I appreciate your offer to stop by, Lew, but I need some time alone to think all this over. I’ll see you in the morning.” He walked around his car, climbed in, and drove off.

  Watching his car down the drive, Lew knew the ache in his heart. If only she could do something but . . . She turned to walk back into the barn.

  * * *

  Once he got home, Osborne busied himself in the house. He fed the dog, he made a liver sausage sandwich—of which he ate half—then loaded his plate and cutting board into the dishwasher and, flattening his hands on the kitchen counter as he leaned forward, he stood staring down. He felt like he was avoiding himself.

  A low rumbling caused him to glance out the window. Ray’s pickup was going by. He decided to walk next door to his neighbor’s trailer home—the one that had driven Osborne’s late wife nuts. She used to complain about it all the time. “Paul, that awful place ruins, just ruins our view from the deck,” she said at least several times a week. “Call the county again and demand that awful thing be condemned.” Funny how Osborne kept forgetting to make that call. And now it didn’t much matter. He sighed.

  * * *

  Since her death, Osborne had found Ray’s place a welcome sight, especially since Osborne and Charles had a pact: in an effort to control the still-frequent if unwelcome urge for alcohol, they mutually agreed that when either felt that urge, to signal it was time for a chat. Nothing more than a chat until the treacherous urge passed.

  Often they met in Ray’s comfortable kitchen with its view of Osborne’s pristine, architecturally designed white frame lake house that had been built to Mary Lee’s specifications (and approved by her bridge club). Osborne didn’t mind the house—it had bedrooms for his grandchildren to sleep over—but he would have been just as happy in one of the small log cabins that hugged the lakeshore.

  * * *

  As he crossed the clearing to Ray’s front door, which was tucked into the gaping jaws of a muskie, Osborne knew he was in bad humor. Not even the sight of the lurid, neon-green fish that Ray had painted across the front of his trailer could prompt his usual wry grin.

  “Yo, Doc, entre vous,” said the familiar voice from inside the trailer. “You are as welcome as . . . the flowers. Coffee?”

  Ray was speaking so fast as he poured a cup of coffee that Osborne knew something was wrong before he could even think to reply.

  “I am so pissed. I am so . . . so furious.” Ray waved an angry hand as he set the coffeepot back on its stand. “Doc, you won’t believe what has happened—they followed me!”

  “Who, what?” asked Osborne. He was so taken aback by Ray’s obvious distress that he forgot his own despair for a moment.

  “Yeah, goddamn goombahs. Three boats of ’em—from Milwaukee. They watched me guiding a client last week and now, these last two days, they’ve been crowding my spots. I was out before six this morning and there they were. Big, fat, and ugly as turkey vultures.

  “Doc, isn’t there a law against stealing someone’s fishing hole?” Osborne had never seen Ray’s eyes so wide and angry.

  “Don’t think so,” said Osborne. “No law on the books, at least as far as I know. But it is a matter of principle if not common courtesy not to crowd another fisherman’s boat.”

  Shaking his head with anger, Ray directed his attention back to the sink, where he was rinsing off a good-size bluegill. “Where did you catch that?” asked Osborne as he admired the fish.

  “Off my goddamn dock,” said Ray in a mutter. “I’m not going out in my boat until those jerks get off my goddamn lake.” He threw the poor fish onto a sheet of paper towel he’d spread on the drain board. “Hey, Doc—you’re not listening to me. What the hell am I going to do about—”

  Before he could finish, Osborne came unglued. His shoulders shook as he dropped his head, croaking, “Don’t talk to me about doing. I’m the one should have done something. Me. If I had made Chuck come with me this morning he wouldn’t be dead.”

  Ray stared at him, then walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. He motioned for Osborne to take the chair across from him. “What are you saying? What is this all about? I know he was a good friend and I’m sure you’re upset, but I’m also sure that what has happened is no fault of yours.”

  And with that, Osborne spilled Chuck’s story of Gordon Maxwell and Patti Pelletier trying to run him down in the driveway early that morning. How Chuck had driven to Osborne’s immediately afterward to tell him what had happened only to resist Osborne’s insistence he go with him to the police immediately.

  “He said he had an important conference call and then he would meet with Lew . . . Ray, I shouldn’t have let him go to that office,” said Osborne, eyes glistening. “I shouldn’t have let him go.” He pounded the table with one fist as he spoke. Then he dropped his head and covered his face with his hands.

  Ray was silent. After a few moments, Osborne looked up. He saw the concern in Ray’s eyes and said, “If there is one thing in life I have learned, it is that friends like Chuck Pelletier are hard to find . . . you’re one, Ray. You are one. Thank you for listening.”

  “Sorry for my rant,” said Ray. “I didn’t realize. . . .”

  “Of course not. How could you have known?”

  The younger man reached across the table to grasp Osborne’s hands, which he was holding, fingers clenched, on top of the table in front of him. “What can I do to help?”

  Osborne thought hard, then took a deep breath. “Maybe I can do one thing right today. One thing that might help. Up for a boat trip?”

  “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  At the thought of what had just popped into his head, Osborne shifted in his chair, heart lifting for the first time in hours. “What if I show you my secret muskie hole—where the really big girls are? The spot my dad took me to years ago and where his father took him. I’ve never told you—”

  “You aren’t supposed to,” said Ray with a gentle smile. “You know the rule: a fisherman should never share—”

  “Forget that. You got these creeps usurping your best fishing spots? We’ll show them. Plus life is too short. I’ve shared this with only two other people in my life—my daughter, Erin, and her daughter, Mason. If he behaves, I may share it with my grandson, Cody, too. But those are the only people who know my secret . . . and now you. But only so long as you promise
to keep the secret, Ray.”

  “Can I take clients? You know, special clients?”

  “Only if you kill them afterward. No, you may, of course, but be judicious. Only out-of-towners without the know-how to find their way back another day.”

  “Agreed.”

  And with that they shook hands, Ray grabbed the key for his inboard, and they ambled down to the dock in the late afternoon sun.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Throttling down, Ray raised the boat’s propeller to maneuver through the buoys in the channel from Loon Lake to Mirror Lake. After passing over the shallow flats and avoiding the boulders lurking beneath the surface of the channel, he sped across the lake to the channel leading from Mirror Lake to Silver Bass Lake.

  Again the outboard’s propeller came up and Ray guided the boat through buoys and across Silver Bass until they reached a final set of buoys marking the entrance to the Loon River. “How far, Doc?” asked Ray.

  “Not far,” said Osborne, welcoming the sense of peace he felt every time he reached the river on his way up the Loon Chain. For him, a trip up the river was a trip into the past, a journey with ghosts: he had first fished here with his grandfather, then his father, then many close friends, some of whom were gone. One of those friends was Chuck Pelletier.

  Much as Chuck favored fly-fishing for trout, he had indulged Osborne when Osborne insisted on taking him up the chain of lakes and especially the Loon River. It was home to the great blue heron and an ancient eagles’ nest that had survived decades of winter blizzards and summer tornadoes, and still served as home for eaglets and their extended family. And home, too, to turtles—lots and lots of turtles. But not even Chuck had been shown what he was about to share with Ray.

  I guess I’m feeling mortal today, thought Osborne, as he raised his right hand to alert Ray to slow down. “As we enter this bay,” he shouted over the roar of the outboard motor, “head for the north end and slow way, way down.”

  Ray nodded and did as he was told. The motor died and the fishing boat drifted into a wider expanse of water. “Great temp tonight,” said Ray, glancing around him. “Love fishing when it’s in the upper seventies this time of the year. Great for action, don’t y’know.” He looked back at Osborne who was sitting near the bow of the boat. He waited for instruction.

  “All right,” said Doc, “you can’t see down through this dark water but we’re over the only forty-foot hole along the entire chain. My grandfather told me years ago that it’s fed by a cold underwater spring that the big muskies—you know, the forty- to fifty-inch big girls—love. He got a fifty-five-incher here one year. I didn’t see it, my old man told me about it. There’s a deep weed bed here that draws ’em in.”

  Ray scanned the shoreline, noting the patterns in the tamaracks crowding one another in the wetlands: along with the outline of the treetops against the sky, he committed to memory the bleached skeletons of two fallen tamaracks and a mound of boulders on the shore. He would need those images to find this place again. That would be a challenge, as the Loon River wound through the wetlands for nearly two miles with every turn looking identical to the one before and the one after.

  Reading his mind, Osborne said, “Two minutes at medium speed past that eagles’ nest.”

  “Going for suspended muskie here?” asked Ray as he moved to get his muskie rod and open his tackle box.

  “Yep, I’d use a surface mud puppy if I were you. I like yellow or white—nice and bright on stained water.”

  Ray nodded. “Yeah, you might be right, Doc. But I’m going for my bucktail. I’ll let it skitter along on the top of the water like surface bait though. Lately I’ve had luck with bucktails. I think they look natural and that seems to be working for me right now.”

  It wasn’t until he stood to cast that Ray noticed Osborne hadn’t moved. “What? Aren’t you going to fish?”

  “Not sure. Do you mind? I’m happy just watching. It’s been a long day.” Ray gave him a look of understanding before reaching his rod back and forward, the bucktail arcing high and far into the evening air.

  Osborne looked around him, pleased to be out on the water, pleased to be in the company of someone for whom he could do something good. He knew the fishing hole would prove priceless for his friend: Ray might not catch any fish tonight, but he would soon, and when he did, the muskie would be a trophy.

  The sun lazed its way toward the horizon, turning the sky into a fog of molten gold: soft, iridescent, enveloping. Osborne had a sense of Chuck being nearby; Chuck, who, like himself, had loved being close to water.

  Ray’s boat rocked gently on ripples and all Osborne could think was that sometimes a day comes along that unpredictably punctuates the story of your life. It had been that kind of day.

  He had no need to fish.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The next morning Lew was in her office by 5:00 a.m., hoping to complete some of the paperwork generated by the death of Chuck Pelletier. To her relief, the pathologist for the Wausau Crime Lab had conducted the autopsy late the evening before and confirmed the medical examiner’s opinion. The e-mail she had received shortly after midnight made the conclusion all too clear. The victim, it read, an adult male, died of two episodes of blunt force trauma. . . .

  She waited until six thirty before waking Bruce up in his room at the Loon Lake Motel. “I got the same e-mail, Chief,” he said. “You need a statement for the press?”

  “Yes, and any chance we could have a brief press conference by eight thirty? I have a meeting at ten that I can’t miss. Oh, and Dispatch told me that Chuck Pelletier’s oldest daughter, Molly, checked into the motel last night, too. I’m hoping to connect with her and meet with her around eleven this morning out at Pelletier’s barn. She told Dispatch she wants to see where her father died and I understand that.

  “You’ll want to be there, of course, and I’ll include Doc, too. He’s a good listener and we may learn something from the daughter.”

  “Is that the only family besides the wife?” asked Bruce.

  “No, one more daughter, who is probably arriving today.”

  “What about Pelletier’s boss? This Maxwell guy? After what you and Doc told me about Chuck thinking that Maxwell and the wife tried to run him over, I’d be interested in what he has to say.”

  “That makes three of us,” said Lew. “I talked to Pelletier’s secretary late yesterday afternoon after she’d told me Maxwell was in Las Vegas with investors. Apparently he flies there regularly on a private plane. She said she called him about Chuck’s death and he said he would fly back immediately. We should be able to catch up with him today, too.

  “Okay, Bruce, you can go back to sleep now.”

  “Oh sure, thank you. See you at eight thirty—in front of the courthouse, right?”

  * * *

  The press conference with three reporters—one each for the newspapers and local shopper covering Loon Lake but based in Rhinelander, as well as a young woman from the Rhinelander television station—went smoothly.

  Immediately after introducing herself and Bruce, Lew deferred to Bruce, who emphasized that the investigation was ongoing. He explained that the only information currently available was the news that an executive from the Northern Forest Resorts development group had died unexpectedly. “There’ll be more information to come once the official results are in,” he added.

  Lew clapped Bruce on the shoulder afterward. “You Wausau boys know how to handle the press. But more important, I’m pleased you didn’t say too much.”

  “I’m not stupid,” said Bruce, “except when it comes to matching the hatch in the trout stream.” He grinned. “I know today will be crazy but maybe we can fish tomorrow?”

  “Let’s hope,” said Lew, checking her watch. “Oh, excuse me, I’ve got a meeting. I’ll catch up with you and everyone out at the Pelletier barn in an hour.”

  * * *

  Lorraine arrived five minutes early. Lew walked out to greet her and was surprised to find her al
one. “I thought your friend, Gloria, was bringing you,” she said to the woman whom she hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years.

  “She had to take her dog to the vet,” said Lorraine. “She’ll be back to pick me up. Lewellyn, thank you so much for taking the time to help me with this.”

  Lew waved away her gratitude. “It’s my job. Come on, this way to my office.”

  “You know you haven’t changed,” said Lorraine, “you are still so strong. Just like always—you make things happen.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Lorraine, you are giving me way more credit than I deserve and I am not sure that I can help you. So, please, sit down and show me what you found.”

  After the elderly woman had settled into one of the chairs in front of her desk, Lew said, “I’m hoping you’ve got more information on the sale of your home and the men who bought it. Do you?”

  * * *

  Over the nearly twenty years since Lew had last seen her, Lorraine had put on so much weight that Lew might not have recognized her. The voice had not changed, however, and hearing her brought back—just as it had a day earlier when she heard the message on the old landline telephone—a memory flash of her son’s death. A flash of sadness and the anger she still felt toward her late, former husband whose bad behaviors had started to manifest themselves in the eighteen-year-old.

  But was it really fair to blame Jamie’s father? Lew had to admit he was not solely at fault. She was still angry with herself for what she might have done differently—if only she had known what to do.