Dead Firefly

by Victoria Houston

  “Likely one of Ray’s usual bad jokes. Pardon me—one of Ray’s embellishments is more accurate. What do you want to bet the truth is closer to two pounds? We’ll know shortly. We’re due at Ray’s for breakfast at six. With Peter and Bruce there, he’ll have to tone it down.”

  “You think,” said Lew with a snort. “Has Ray Pradt ever toned it down?” The two of them sipped happily as they listened to the busy chatter of Osborne’s winged neighbors.

  * * *

  “So tell us the truth, Peter,” said Lew as she sat down to Ray’s breakfast table with a full plate of eggs scrambled with sharp cheddar cheese, two lightly sautéed bluegill fillets, and a slice of homemade bread, “does New Zealand really have twenty-two-pound brown trout or did Ray make that up?”

  “Let me ask you something,” said Peter Bailey as he slathered butter on his toast. “Do you really have fifty-inch muskies?”

  “We do. Care for some thimbleberry jam?” Lew pushed the small jar Peter’s way.

  “Wow,” said Peter after a bite of his toast. “Ray, did you make this?”

  “You’re avoiding the question,” said Lew.

  “He didn’t make it,” said Osborne. “He delivers strings of bluegills to a couple elderly ladies here and they keep him stocked with jams and breads and . . .”

  “Cranberry muffins,” said Ray. Sitting beside Ray, Bruce had his mouth full but kept nodding as everyone spoke, his bushy eyebrows raised high with delight. Osborne couldn’t be sure if he was happy with his breakfast or the questions.

  “To answer your question now that I’m finished chewing,” said Peter, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. “Yes, we have twenty-two-pound brown trout. Large rainbows, too. But those are trophy fish. A ten-pounder is considered a very nice catch. And, yes, relative to the rest of the world, our trout may not be native but they are massive.”

  “Same goes for our muskies,” said Bruce, anxious to chime in. “Fifty inches is remarkable but any one of us is happy with a thirty-six or forty-incher. My question for you is how does it happen that your trout get so big? A different species than ours, maybe?”

  “No,” said Peter, “but we have a much more temperate climate and I would have to say that with a total population of four million people on both islands, New Zealand waters are lightly fished in contrast to yours. With only a few exceptions, too, I have to brag that our rivers and streams, thanks to the glaciers, are so pristine you can drink from them.

  “We have so much water. Where I live, which is near Lake Taupo on the North Island, I have twenty-five rivers within an hour. Another town not that far away, Rotorua, has eleven rivers and fifteen lakes nearby.”

  “Loon Lake has three hundred and fifty lakes within a five-mile radius of here,” said Lew. “Over a thousand lakes in our county.”

  “Hey, you’re in my wheelhouse,” said Bruce. “This whole lake region of northern Wisconsin has the highest ratio of water to land in the world—more than Minnesota, more than anywhere in Russia.” Everyone stared at him as he set his fork down on his empty plate and looked around the table with an air of satisfaction. “And that’s scientific,” he added.

  “I certainly won’t argue how much water we all have,” said Peter. “Afraid the bottom line is we do have bigger trout.”

  “How do you fish those?” asked Osborne, enjoying another swig of coffee.

  “Same as you,” said Peter. “Although one difference that I’ve noticed since I’ve been working on the Partridge Lodge project is that we wade slower because we are not allowed to have felt on our wading boots—to avoid issues with invasive species. So we have rubber-soled boots, and you can take quite a tumble if you move too fast on those.

  “But that isn’t a problem because we sight fish. Our waters are so clear with currents running over stretches of pea gravel that you can easily see the fish lurking. And vice versa I should add. Because our trout can see us and see colors, one rule I follow is to use a gray or dull brown fly line. Any line that isn’t bright.”

  “What about your leader and tippet?” asked Lew. “Same as what we use?”

  “Close. Most of us fish a nine-foot leader with a little tippet on the end. Other than that, we take our time. Most often, you get one shot at dropping your fly by that fish. I sometimes wait fifteen, twenty minutes between casts. One thing I don’t do is false cast, especially since our fish spook so easily. That’s another reason I tend to fish rivers where I can cast a good twenty feet or more.”

  Heads nodded around the breakfast table. “Trout flies,” said Bruce, “you use a lot of different ones, really work the hatch?”

  “Nah, I’m not a purist that way,” said Peter. “I have a couple favorites—on a stream I like a Mrs. Simpson, which trout love. It resembles a cockabully, which is kind of like your tiny sculpin. For fishing in lakes, I’ll go deep with a Hamills Killer Red Body—looks like a dragonfly. That’s the one I’m going to try here.”

  “Can I come?” asked Bruce, brows high with anxiety.

  “Not unless I go, too,” said Lew. “I want to see how you load and shoot line when you’re casting twenty-five feet. That’s one heck of a long cast.”

  “Count me in,” said Osborne, getting to his feet and carrying his plate to the sink.

  “Okay, guys, I’m up for it, too,” said Ray, surprising Osborne with a sudden and uncharacteristic interest in fly-fishing.

  “But not until Doc and Bruce and I find who killed Chuck Pelletier. Fly-fishing has to wait until then, I’m afraid,” said Lew.

  “Of course,” said Peter. “Please, let me know if there’s anything more I can do to help. I brought all my invoices with me. They’re in my van.”

  “I’ll take those,” said Bruce. “We have a forensic accountant on staff who will check them against Pelletier’s financial reports. Dani has been able to find those reports on Chuck’s laptop and print them off.”

  “Thank you for the wonderful breakfast, Ray,” said Ray with a petulant look on his face.

  “Oh gosh, this was so good. Sorry we forgot to say thank you,” said Lew as she walked toward the door. She stopped. “Ray, are you still searching the Pelletier property for that driftwood? You would have told me if you found anything. . . .”

  “Nothing yet, Chief,” said Ray. “I’m going over the entire area again this morning. You’ll get a call if I see anything. If you don’t need me later, I was going to take Peter out muskie fishing.”

  “Okay by me so long as you keep your phone nearby.”

  “Show him our spot,” said Osborne.

  “You sure about that, Doc?”

  Osborne nodded. For all his goofiness, Ray never lacked respect for a friend’s secrets—fishing spots and otherwise.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Peter flinched. “Yikes,” he said, “that is so loud.” He was sitting in the bow of Ray’s boat, comfortable in the padded captain’s chair when a large bucktail lure had sailed over his head to land fifty feet away with a pleasant plopping sound.

  “What?” asked Ray, who was standing near the stern, “something wrong?”

  * * *

  After hitting the Pelletier property at five that morning for one more fruitless search for the missing piece of driftwood, Ray had swung by Peter’s cottage, where he woke the New Zealander up.

  Two mugs of hot coffee and three glazed doughnuts (each) later, they were headed out. For the “legendary hunting ground for big girls, according to the gospel of Dr. Paul ‘Muskie Hunter’ Osborne,” Ray had said, assuring Peter he had permission to share the location of the secret bay.

  “Course, if you weren’t a friend of mine this wouldn’t be happening,” Ray had said, adding that “after landing a fifty-incher all Doc—or myself—will ever tell a nosy fisherman is ‘look for the big rock.’ Period.”

  “But there are rocks everywhere,” said Peter.

  “Right,” Ray had said with a smug smile.

  * * *

  “Nothing wrong,” said Peter in
answer to Ray’s question, “just that how you fish these muskies is so different from how we sight fish trout. When I cast, I try not to make a sound. Not even a whisper if I can help it, whether I’m dropping a Mrs. Simpson or a Hamills Killer Red Body.”

  “That is not how you fish muskie,” said Ray. “Not only can muskies hear but they have a lateral line that senses vibrations and movements in water,” said Ray. “These fish are predators waiting to ambush a duckling or a frog, even a small bird. They eat other fish, too, of course, but ambush is their game—so the trick is to lure them in.

  “That’s why I like the bucktail: as I reel it toward me, it vibrates. If you watch close you’ll see me pull, then stop for a minute to pick up slack in my line, then pull again, and as the lure nears the boat, I’ll do a figure eight, keeping the lure in the water. If I’ve had any luck, you might see a big mother following that bucktail.”

  “And then?” asked Peter.

  “And then I have to set the hook. Which is not as easy as it sounds,” said Ray, reeling, then casting again.

  “Okay, I’ll give it a try,” said Peter, getting to his feet. Raising the borrowed muskie rod, he cast forward, following Ray’s instructions.

  Half an hour later, no muskies in sight, Ray set down his rod and poured each of them a cup of hot coffee from his thermos. “Could be the girls aren’t hungry this morning,” he said. “I’m a night man myself. Guiding I take most of my clients out right around dusk.”

  “Oh, yeah?” asked Peter as he sent his bucktail out across the water. “Say, what are those drawings I saw on the desk at your place? Look like coffins. Am I wrong?”

  “I’m experimenting,” said Ray. “When my guiding business is slow, I dig graves for the Catholic cemetery here and I’ve been thinking of getting into the coffin business. Kind of a guaranteed business opportunity, y’know,” he said with a grin.

  “Some Amish fellas I know are making a killing—sorry for the pun—with nice wood coffins, so why not me? I haven’t sold one yet—just getting started.” He sipped from his coffee.

  “Lots of people do that in New Zealand, which is why I asked,” said Peter. “We have coffin clubs where folks build their own. They call ’em the ‘D.I.Y. Coffin Clubs.’ ”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very. My mum is building hers. She painted it burgundy with white hydrangea blossoms and it has a waterproof lining. Since she’s quite alive still, she’s put cushions on it and uses it on the porch for extra seating.”

  “This is interesting,” said Ray. “Can you ask her to e-mail a photo?”

  “Sure. You’ll like her club’s motto: ‘Fine and Affordable Underground Furniture.’ ”

  “That sounds like one of my jokes,” said Ray. “Think your mum and her club members would mind if I used that?”

  “I’ll ask but I’m sure she’ll be okay with it.”

  “How old is your mum?”

  “Ninety-four. She used to fish a lot but she said this has been almost as much fun.”

  Ray was leaning over to stow his thermos when a movement on land caught his eye. Wetlands crowded the banks of the Loon River with the exception of one area across from where Ray had anchored the boat. This was a wide swale running uphill to one of the few buildable lots along the river. Tamaracks crowded the rocky ditch until up on higher ground hardwoods took over.

  Raising his binoculars, Ray studied figures he could see moving along the tree line with chain saws. Given that logging is one of the economic drivers of the northwoods, he wasn’t surprised. But as he watched the trees fall, he realized that whoever was logging the area wasn’t cutting pine trees—they were harvesting birches.

  The devastation on Lew’s property came to mind immediately. Ray watched for another minute, focusing in on the loggers. He recognized one of the young men—a kid he had bought weed from two years ago.

  “Peter,” said Ray, interrupting his friend’s concentration on the lure he had just cast, “please sit down. I have to move the boat. Something’s happening up on that hill there, and I need to get a good look.”

  Peter took his seat and set down the muskie rod. He threw a questioning glance at Ray, who put a finger to his lips. Keeping the outboard at a low throttle, Ray eased the boat up to one of the few docks along the river. It was a good five hundred yards from where the swale emptied onto a sandy section of riverbank.

  “Tell you about it when I get back,” said Ray, rapidly tying the boat to the dock and stepping out. “This shouldn’t take more than ten minutes or so.”

  The dock ended at a path that led in the opposite direction of where the logging was happening. Ray’s only choice was to hike across a section of bog. He hurried through the brush, hoping for solid footing among the tag alder until he reached firmer land. He figured out his approach as he wound his way through tamarack toward higher ground.

  He knew the property: a large summer home at the very top of the hill belonged to a wealthy family from Chicago who used it only on holidays, the Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends. He doubted they knew they were losing their birch trees.

  He kept going until he reached the road so that it would appear to the men cutting the trees that he had parked up there. “Yo, Lanny,” he called as he walked down the driveway from the house and across an open area to where three men were busy with chain saws.

  The bed of an older model blue pickup parked near the loggers was nearly full of what appeared to be four-foot sections of birch trees. Ray noted the license number and committed it to memory.

  “Yo, Lanny,” he called again, hoping he could be heard over the roar of the chain saws.

  The rough-bearded twenty-year-old named Lanny had set down his chain saw and was having a cigarette when he saw Ray coming toward him. “Sorry, man, no weed today,” he said. “This weekend, maybe. How much you want? An ounce or more?”

  “None right now,” said Ray. “I’m looking for work. A day here or there.”

  * * *

  Ray was known among the dealers in the area as a frequent customer. While he limited his indulgence, he had reached an agreement with Lew that she would turn a blind eye on one condition: he not deal (a mistake he had made in his early twenties, hence the misdemeanor file), but enjoying a joint now and then kept him in good stead with a crowd Lew needed to know about.

  The meth cookers, the heroin users, the coke dealers—they might be the underworld of Loon Lake and living down lanes with no fire numbers, but it was the responsibility of the Loon Lake Police to know who they were and where, if only to keep a close eye in order to protect residents of Loon Lake who indulged in less felonious behaviors.

  * * *

  “You guys working for Consolidated Paper?” asked Ray, pretending he didn’t know they were on private property. Some bad actors among the loggers justified stealing from commercial tree farms because of the sheer size of the company investments.

  “Nah, this is a one-shot,” said Lannie. “I’ll ask the guy we’re working for if he can use someone. I thought you were busy guiding all summer.”

  “I wish,” said Ray, turning down an offered cigarette. “Been so hot this past week or two. Business is slow. Got some guys from over in the Hayward area crowding in on my territory, too. That don’t help.”

  “Know right what ya mean,” said Lanny, stubbing out his cigarette and picking up his chain saw. “I’ll let ya know what I hear.”

  “Thanks. Who’d you say’s your boss on this? I might know him.”

  “A guy named Tom. Goes by Tommy P, and that’s all I know. But he always pays cash, so I ask no questions, don’t cha know.”

  “Tommy P, huh. Thanks, man. I’ll bet I can track ’im down.”

  “Well, hell. If you do, don’t tell him I told ya. Know what I mean?”

  “Don’t mean to make you nervous, man.”

  “S’okay. Jes’ I don’t need no trouble and I do need cash.”

  “Yo, got it, man.”

  Walking back towar
d the road, Ray paused to study the wreckage around him: birch trees hacked off a couple feet from the ground, very different from how trees are traditionally logged whether selective logging or clear-cut.

  “Hey, Lanny,” hollered Ray, encompassing the view around him with a wave of one arm, “looks like a tornado blew through here. You guys coming back to trim up those stumps?”

  “Nah. We got our four-footers, and that’s all we’re paid for.”

  * * *

  Walking back over boggy hillocks toward his boat where Peter was waiting, Ray checked his cell phone to call Lew or Doc but he was too far from a cell tower: no service.

  “Peter, my man,” he said, stepping into the boat and reaching over to start the outboard motor, “sorry to do this to you but I got to get into town and find Chief Ferris. Mind if we tackle the big girls another day?”

  “Business first,” said Peter. “I understand. Does this have anything to do with Partridge Lodge and Chuck Pelletier?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Ray, backing the boat quietly from the dock. He didn’t want to alert Lanny that he had been seen from the water and not from Ray’s random drive down a private road. “Why do you ask?”

  “Before you pulled up to the dock, I could see those guys were cutting birch trees,” said Peter, “and I’ve seen quite a bit of that happening on the NFR development land. I assumed Chuck or Gordon had contracted for it. Maybe not?”

  “Maybe not, for sure. That’s information I need to get to Chief Ferris before those razzbonyas disappear.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lew looked up as Ray walked into her office. “Hold on one minute, Ray,” she said as she raised her right hand, “I’m right in the middle of looking over the results of the crime lab’s forensic accountant’s review of invoices submitted to Peter Bailey and recorded by Chuck Pelletier in his financial reports. Let me finish and we’ll talk.”