With help from Dani and Marion, the Partridge Lodge development secretary, he had been able to locate the dental offices where Gordon Maxwell and Patricia Milligan Pelletier had last been treated and arranged to have their most recent X-rays sent to the Wausau Crime Lab. While he had yet to match them with the skull fragments located at the site, he and Lew were confident the records would confirm the identities of the victims.
At the news of Maxwell’s death, Tom Patterson had turned eager to help sort through the deception in which he had been a willing partner in hopes he might get reduced sentences for fraud and murder. His cooperation helped Peter determine that Patterson had known nothing of the actual fraud.
Once Peter confirmed that the overpriced bridge construction had, in fact, never occurred, he was able to bring on a legitimate construction firm to complete the work. Meantime, the hedge fund executives had launched a search for a new CEO and CFO to replace Maxwell and Chuck.
Though Patterson had posed as a broker helping Maxwell purchase Lorraine’s property, that was his only involvement in that venture. After Peter and Marion sorted through the papers and files in Maxwell’s messy office, they were able to alert Lew to the fact that a new deed to Lorraine’s property had never been filed.
With that news Lew was able to connect Lorraine with a lawyer who could help restore her ownership of her home and land. The twenty thousand dollars Lorraine had received from Maxwell might have been a paltry sum for her home and land, but it took care of any legal bills connected with the fraudulent purchase.
And hours after meeting with that lawyer, Lew, along with Osborne and Ray, was happy to help the elderly woman move back into her home, plug in her television and coffeemaker, and organize her gardening tools: life as Lorraine had known it was working again.
“Lewellyn, I can’t thank you enough,” Lorraine had said when she got the good news, “I’m going to put you in my will as my heir to everything I own.”
“No, Lorraine, you are not,” Lew had said emphatically. “If you want to do something for me, you can leave all your assets to our local domestic abuse prevention team. Those social workers can use every penny to help abused families.”
As she spoke, Lew could see that Lorraine understood. “Yes,” Lorraine had said, “I wish there had been people like that to help me back in the day, y’know.” And the two had hugged each other.
But Lorraine’s generous offer had triggered another idea. Lew recalled that several residents whose birch trees had been stolen had offered a modest reward for any information leading the DNR to the thieves. She called the DNR officer and after he confirmed that Patterson and his motley crews were behind most of the illegal logging, Lew had said, “If Charlene Rotowski hadn’t been forthcoming about the actions of her ex-husband, we might still be looking for the miscreants. I think she deserves that reward money.” And the DNR officer had agreed.
* * *
“Chief,” Bruce called from where he was threading fly line through the guides on his fly rod, “I’m about to have that lesson from Peter on long casting. You wanna watch in case he does it wrong?”
“Sure, but I’ll bet Peter knows what he’s doing,” said Lew, sitting down to watch.
“Bruce, the good news is you’re starting with the right gear,” said Peter, “five-weight is the standard fly rod for New Zealand trout, too. Then, ’cause we cast long when we’re sight fishing, I like to use a weight-forward taper and a longer leader so I can load the rod with a good twenty-five feet of line.”
“What about tippet?” asked Lew, referring to the end section of fly line that would need to be added onto the leader.
“A 4X tippet is fine,” said Peter. “If you’re hoping to land a good-size trout like eleven pounds or more, you want a tippet strong enough to handle a fish that size.”
Then the coaching began and Lew listened, relieved that she wasn’t the instructor trying to straighten out Bruce’s struggle with his double haul. Osborne, who had squeezed in to sit beside her, was focused on everything Peter was saying.
“Does what I’m telling Bruce make sense to you, Chief ?” asked Peter as he watched Bruce execute a forward cast that plopped disconcertingly close to the pontoon.
“It does with one addition,” said Lew. “When I instruct I emphasize body motion. Shift your weight backward on the backcast and follow through forward like you’re throwing a ball. Peter, when it comes to casting a long line, I follow what my teacher, the famous Joan Wulff, taught me: count on body motion.”
“What trout fly would you suggest right now, Lew?” asked Osborne. “I’ve got that nice buggy-looking Firefly that you tied for me last winter—”
“Gee, Doc, with Gray Drake’s hatching along the shoreline and Loon Lake’s dark water—I’d stick with an Adams, maybe a size eighteen.”
“Oh yeah? I fish Adams all the time,” said Peter, “great reliable dry fly, whatever hemisphere you fish in.” And he laughed.
Jessie walked over in time to watch Bruce make a better forward cast, this time dropping his trout fly soundlessly. Water flashed and to Bruce’s amazement he had a small bluegill on his line.
“Jessie,” said Peter, “would you help me release that bluegill? I’ll use forceps while you cradle the little guy. Be sure to keep its head and gills in the water so I can get that barbless hook out without hurting him.”
“Not to worry. Dad showed me how,” said Jessie, leaning over the side of the pontoon with the net. “We can do this.”
Lew watched the two as they caught, cradled, and released the little fish. Then she checked on Osborne, who was busy tying an Adams onto his tippet. That left Molly alone up front with Ray.
* * *
Lew motioned for Ray to let her take over steering the pontoon. He nodded, getting the message that she wanted time alone with the older sister. Settling into the captain’s chair, Lew glanced over at Molly, who still had her feet up, lounging on the bench with a sun hat pulled down over her eyes.
“Will it take long to settle the estate questions now that both your father and stepmother are . . . gone?” asked Lew.
“A while, I’m sure,” said Molly, straightening up and swinging around to place her bare feet on the floor of the pontoon. Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she leaned forward, elbows on her knees as she watched the shoreline go by. “I’ll be flying back up here off and on over the next few months. Have to sell the house and stuff.”
“Sell everything?” asked Lew.
“No, Jessie and I will divide the antiques that were my mom’s and we’ll divide up my dad’s fly rods and his fly-fishing gear. The rest we’ll sell.”
The two women were quiet for a while, the pontoon motor humming as the boat sailed along over the glassy surface of the lake.
“I was wondering, Chief Ferris, if you and Dr. Osborne might be up for letting me go fly-fishing with you? Maybe show me the streams you like? I never did have a chance to fish up here with my dad.”
“I would like that,” said Lew. “Say, Molly, if you don’t mind, there’s something I’d like to share with you, something that happened to me twelve years ago.”
Molly said nothing. She kept her eyes on Lew.
“My son, Jamie, was stabbed to death in a bar fight when he was seventeen. Jamie was drunk, he’d pulled a knife and started the fight, which I’m sorry to say was a pattern of bad behavior he’d picked up from his father.
“The boy who stabbed him didn’t mean to. He had grabbed the knife away from Jamie and was walking away when Jamie tripped him and as the boy fell he swung around and the knife nicked Jamie’s jugular.
“So my son died in a bar parking lot. Now . . .” Lew looked down at her hands and paused before saying, “I could have been furious with the boy who stabbed him but I understood how it happened. I think about this often and wonder what I could have done to prevent that from happening. Certainly I should never have married a man like his father but that’s easy to say today.
“Where
I’m going with my story is this. If my son had died at the hands of someone who wanted him dead for his own selfish reasons . . . If there had been deliberate malicious intent—I would have gone after that person. It’s a primal urge: I would have made him pay.”
“Umm,” said Molly, her eyes never leaving Lew’s. “So you know.” Molly spoke with a hint of uncertainty.
“What I know”—Lew emphasized the word—“is that the aviation officials have ruled that egregious carelessness due to the plane’s owner not following repair and inspection procedures is what led to the crash of Gordon Maxwell’s plane.
“Now, if you want my point of view on the crash and what led up to it,” said Lew, “Gordon Maxwell killed himself.”
Molly pulled her feet back up on the bench, stretched out, and set her sun hat back over her eyes. The pontoon motored on. Two Jet Skis buzzed in the distance, a dragonfly hovered over Molly’s hat, its wings capturing the sun and its huge eyes reflecting the blue sky, the clouds: life.
Lew, watching her, wondered if the young woman was satisfied. Lew hoped so. She felt she knew what was in Molly’s heart: someone needs to know that Gordon Maxwell did not get away with the murder of my father.
Molly knew that Lew knew. That was enough.
At the back of the boat, Bruce kept struggling. Osborne’s double haul worked for the first time. Peter sat down to watch the two men. Ray fished in his hamper for the egg salad sandwiches. And Jessie helped him set out the lunch.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A warm thank-you to everyone who has worked to make me look good: my editor, Jackie Cantor; her assistant, Sara Quaranta; our copy editor; our production team; and, of course, my wonderful agent, Martha Millard.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© MARCHA MOORE
In her teens and twenties, mystery author VICTORIA HOUSTON was the classic hometown girl who couldn’t wait to leave her small Wisconsin town. She has not only returned to her hometown, Rhinelander, but she has based her popular mystery series on the region’s fishing culture.
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Victoria-Houston
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
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Also by Victoria Houston
Dead Spider
Dead Loudmouth
Dead Rapunzel
Dead Lil’ Hustler
Dead Insider
Dead Tease
Dead Deceiver
Dead Renegade
Dead Hot Shot
Dead Madonna
Dead Boogie
Dead Jitterbug
Dead Hot Mama
Dead Frenzy
Dead Water
Dead Creek
Dead Angler
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Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Victoria Houston
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books trade paperback edition June 2018
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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Cover design by Emma A. Van Deun
Cover photograph by Getty Images/Zoltan Pelle/EyeEm
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Houston, Victoria, 1945- author.
Title: Dead firefly / Victoria Houston.
Description: First Gallery Books trade paperback edition. | New York : Gallery Books, 2018. | Series: Loon Lake mystery ; 19
Identifiers: LCCN 2017060944 (print) | LCCN 2018004925 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440598890 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440598876 (softcover : acid-free paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Ferris, Lewellyn (Fictitious character)—Fiction. | Osbourne, Doc (Fictitious character)—Fiction. | Policewomen—Wisconsin—Fiction. | City and town life—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths. | FICTION / Crime. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3608.O88 (ebook) | LCC PS3608.O88 D429 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017060944
ISBN 978-1-4405-9887-6
ISBN 978-1-4405-9889-0 (ebook)
Dead Firefly Page 16