Dead Tease

by Victoria Houston

  “You don’t care much for her, do you?” asked Lew.

  Brenda gave a tight little smile of satisfaction as she said, “Today is my last day working here. I put in for a transfer a couple months ago—so I start at the clinic in Rhinelander next week. Just so you know, I’m not the first to ask for a transfer away from her. Dr. Daniels is not a nice person.

  “But men like her,” she said, raising her eyebrows in wonderment. “The men here adore her.”

  Lew caught her eye and nodded, “And we know why, don’t we.” Brenda chuckled, then checked her watch.

  “Do you need to get back?” asked Osborne.

  “Umm, not really. I’m on break. It’s okay.”

  “Brenda, did you know Jennifer Williams?” asked Lew.

  “Oh sure. I really like Jen. She’s pretty cool. She always wears

  … Oops, sorry, I mean wore the coolest jeans and carried these really funky purses.” She paused, her eyes glistening, “I—we—all of us here …” She took a deep breath, “We can’t believe what happened.” A long pause, then Brenda whispered, “But, umm, Dr. Daniels just hated her. I shouldn’t say this but I’ll bet she’s glad Jen’s … gone.”

  “Any good reason why?” asked Lew. “That you could see?”

  “Um … no,” said Brenda, shaking her head. The “no” was so hesitant Lew and Osborne exchanged glances.

  “It’s okay, Brenda,” said Osborne, doing his best to sound fatherly. “Chief Ferris and I have heard other people mention that Dr. Daniels didn’t care for Jen. We’re just exploring all the reasons why that might be. No one is accusing anyone.”

  “They’ll deny it, I’m sure, but Mr. McNeil and Dr. Daniels have been having an affair. I’m not sure, but I think he’s been trying to weasel out of it.” Brenda gave a harsh laugh and said, “Dr. Daniels doesn’t know this but she’s not the only one he’s fooled around with. He’s the type—know what I mean? I feel sorry for his wife.”

  “Was he involved with Jennifer? Is that what you mean?” asked Lew.

  “Oh no, I don’t think so. I mean someone else.” Brenda leaned forward to whisper, “Corrine Jensen. But that was last summer.”

  “Is the relationship between Mr. McNeil and Dr. Daniels common knowledge?” asked Lew.

  Brenda nodded. “I’m not sure. I’ve known—and Kerry Schultz and some of the other nurses. But if you need proof, I’ve been her assistant for the last year and I’ve had access to her e-mails. All the ones she sent Mr. McNeil—I’ve saved. And some he sent her.” Brenda smirked.

  “Was this in case she tried to have you fired?” asked Lew.

  “Yeah. My dad told me to. He’s a retired cop—from Chicago.”

  “But Brenda,” said Osborne, “let’s back up for a moment. Why Cynthia Daniels’s intense dislike of Jennifer? Does it make sense to you?”

  “She was jealous,” said Brenda. “For one thing, everyone liked Jen. Especially Mr. McNeil. He would go out of his way to say nice things about her work in his Monday morning clinic newsletter. Just last week he went on and on about how our clinic’s brochures and posters all won awards at some big conference. Dr. Daniels did not like that. Not one bit.”

  Back at the cruiser, Lew slid onto the driver’s seat, cell phone in hand, and punched in the number that Cynthia had given her. After reaching the elderly woman who answered and arranging with Gladys to meet at her home later that afternoon, she clicked off.

  “Doc, I’d say Cynthia Daniels just may learn a hard lesson.”

  “And what is that?” asked Osborne, looking forward to the answer.

  “Don’t kick the little guy.”

  As she turned the key in the ignition, Lew’s police radio gave an alert.

  “Marlaine?” she said to the switchboard operator who was on the line, “can this wait? Doc and I are on our way to the station right now—oh, all right, go ahead.” Lew tipped her head, listening. Marlaine being a large woman with a voice that boomed made it easy for Osborne to hear her every word even as he sat over in the passenger seat.

  “First, Chief Ferris, I thought you would like to know that Bruce Peters got here an hour ago and is working the crime scene….”

  “Good. But is that why you called?” asked Lew. She glanced at Osborne—that was one piece of information that could have waited five minutes.

  “No. Chief, I’ve got a very upset individual here at the station insisting we put out an APB for his truck that he says was stolen by a friend of his.”

  Lew rolled her eyes. “Well, did you tell him we don’t do APB’s on stolen vehicles?”

  “I tried. He says he’ll lose his job if we can’t find it for him. Said he loaned it to Alvin Marski yesterday who promised to return it last night. Chief, he’s very upset.”

  “Okay,” said Lew with a sigh, “tell him I’ll be there shortly and we’ll discuss it then. Is that it?”

  “Yes, it’s just the guy is losing it and I wanted you to be prepared.”

  “Thanks, Marlaine. See you in a minute.”

  Clicking off the phone, Lew said, “Alvin Marski. Great. There’s a guy with a rap sheet of misdemeanors way longer than our pal Ray Pradt. Specializes in petty theft—gas cans out of boats, little kids’ Halloween candy. Stealing a vehicle doesn’t sound like Alvin, although last fall I nailed him for growing weed in his mother’s backyard. She insisted it was hers—if you can believe it. Poor woman. I’m sure that jabone’s half way to Detroit by now.”

  “Is that Rhonda Marski’s son?” asked Osborne, remembering the exhausted but sweet woman, a widow who cleaned houses and spent money she couldn’t afford when her teenaged son had to have his front teeth replaced after losing them in a fight. Osborne charged her all of twenty-five dollars for the work. He couldn’t bear sending the poor soul a bill for close to a thousand.

  Alvin, good-looking kid born under the sign of bad behavior.

  “We got a call from the Loon Lake Pharmacy where he’s been buying too much Sudafed recently,” said Lew. “I don’t think he’s cooking meth but he’s got friends with bad ideas.”

  Preoccupied as he pulled past the screen of pine trees fronting his driveway, Osborne was startled to see two mountain bikes parked in front of the garage door. He hit the brakes just in time.

  Beth must have ridden home for lunch. With a friend. Either that or the kid was capable of riding two bikes at once. Sure enough, as Mike charged toward him across the yard, he heard a girlish voice call up from down near the dock.

  “Grandpa … Harry and I are down here. Okay?”

  “Sure,” said Osborne, heading down the rock staircase toward the water.

  Recalling Lew’s caution that Beth’s constant text messaging was likely to involve a boy, he steeled himself to perform as a good grandfather should. Given he had raised two daughters now functioning as capable adults, he must know something about how to handle young people. At least he hoped.

  “My friend Harry borrowed one of your spinning rods, okay, Gramps? Not a good one—the one you let Cody use,” she said, speaking fast and referring to her kid brother.

  “That’s fine. How long have you been here? Nice to meet you, Harry,” he said, walking onto the dock to join the two teenagers.

  Beth was tall and willowy with the same flaxen hair as her mother. Harry was nearly six feet and quite skinny with a shock of straight light brown hair that did a good job of hiding his eyes. Kid needs a haircut was Osborne’s first thought.

  “Harry, how did you manage to make the girls’ basketball team?” said Osborne, walking up to the boy, extending a hand, and smiling at his own joke. “What’s your last name, son?”

  “The boys’ clinic is over in the junior high gym,” said Beth, jumping in a little too fast.

  “Harry Gardner. We … um … Beth and I have to get back for afternoon practice but we thought maybe it was all right to have our sandwiches out here?” His voice rose, leaving his question hanging in the air.

  “Sure,” said Osborne. “I
don’t mind but will you kids let the dog into the house before you leave? I’m going to make myself a quick bite to eat and skedaddle. Beth, did your mother bring your things by?” Osborne wondered why he felt awkward.

  “Yes. She left a note for you on the kitchen table.”

  “And when do you get out of practice this afternoon?”

  “Um … four o’clock?” This time it was Beth’s voice ending on a high note. “But Harry and I—we—we’re going to bike the Bearskin for an hour….”

  “Really? Aren’t you going to be exhausted after basketball practice?” asked Osborne. “I don’t mind if you go for a bike ride, but don’t overdo it in this heat, young lady.”

  “I won’t, Grandpa. The coaches want us to either run or bike an hour a day before or after practice.”

  “Your mother didn’t mention that.”

  The two kids stared at him. Osborne backed off. “Okay, that’s fine. Just so you’re back here by five-thirty. Maybe you and I will go out in the boat? Lew might join us. Harry, you look like a fisherman—want to come along?”

  “You bet I would,” said the boy. “I know this lake—my dad fishes it with a buddy of his. You got trophy muskies in here, Dr. Osborne.”

  “You’re right, we do,” said Doc. “See you two later, then.”

  Walking back up to the house, he wondered if Beth appreciated the fact his trophy muskie lake might lure a boy or two. His granddaughter was an attractive girl, but let’s be real: big fish count too, doncha know.

  The thought made him happy in spite of the dread he had felt ever since Lew asked him to join her in questioning Gladys Daniels.

  Gladys Daniels: one of the few people in Loon Lake who frightened him.

  Chapter Eleven

  A lush lawn, mowed with precision, swept along Bobcat Lane, all the way from where it turned off the county road to where it ended in a circle drive fronting the brick and stone mansion owned by the Daniels family. Buttery daylilies in full bloom filled the center of the circular drive, the blooms bouncing off one another in the summer breezes.

  A pitched roof of dark gray shake shingles guarded the front entry, and a granite chimney anchored the far end of the house. Along the right side of the lane a wall of stately pines fended off inquisitive neighbors.

  Built in the early 1900s as a summer home for a dairy magnate from Chicago, the house was a landmark coveted by the wives of Loon Lake’s professional men—including Osborne’s late wife. Gladys Daniels had scored quite a coup when she and her husband bought the property from the widow of the retired boat manufacturer who had owned the home.

  According to Mary Lee and her bridge group, Gladys had cheated her way into ownership by convincing the soon-to-be bereaved widow that she would be short of money unless she sold the home to Gladys and Marvin before her husband’s death—a transaction that Gladys swore would allow the family to avoid tens of thousands of dollars in real estate taxes.

  She had exaggerated the tax issue—or as Mary Lee put it: “She lied!” But that didn’t surface until months after the purchase had gone through. Everyone knew it was Gladys, not Marvin, behind the scheme. The ladies took their revenge: she was banned from the bridge table, and it was a decade before she was allowed back into the Loon Lake Garden Club.

  Gladys could not have cared less. Shoulders back and smile fixed, she was mistress of one of the most elegant homes in the Northwoods. That was all that mattered.

  Before Osborne could raise his right hand to knock, the front door swung open. Though he had seldom run into the woman in the years since her husband’s death, he could see at a glance that Gladys Daniels was proof some things never change.

  She had to be well into her seventies but the helmet of curls salon-pressed to her head remained ink black. Her face was still an unnatural white under a mask of foundation, the makeup flaking along the lines of her jowls. Her eyes, rimmed with mascara, were dark and hard as ever (“pinpoints of evil” according to his daughter Mallory, who had been at the butt end of Gladys’s gossip the summer after her junior year of high school), and the usual scarlet slash marked her lips.

  A buxom woman with spindly legs, today Gladys was wearing a dark purple blouse that reached to her mid-section where it hung over slacks of the same shade. Pale arms protruding from elbow-length sleeves held a small, yapping dog with long hair whose beady eyes, not unlike those of his mistress, peered out from below a topknot tied with a purple ribbon that matched its owner’s blouse.

  “Hello, Paul,” said Gladys without breaking a smile. She had a reedy, nasal voice pitched high—an echo of Cynthia’s shrill ultimatums Osborne had overheard while standing outside Jim McNeil’s office that morning.

  “Come in, you two.” It was less a welcome than a demand. The heavy wooden door swung wide.

  Gladys stepped back into a dark foyer while Osborne waited for Lew to enter ahead of him. “I imagine you’re the chief of police my daughter told me about?” Eyebrows arched, Gladys made it obvious both she and Cynthia had a hard time believing that to be a fact.

  “Yes,” said Lew, ignoring the put-down. “I’m Chief Lewellyn Ferris with the Loon Lake Police, and I understand you already know Dr. Osborne,” Lew gestured toward Osborne as she spoke, then said, “and we appreciate you’re taking the time to meet with us, Mrs. Daniels.

  “When we spoke with Dr. Daniels earlier, she indicated you were out walking yesterday and may have seen someone in the vicinity of the crime?”

  “About that in a minute,” said Gladys. “Of course I know Paul.” She managed to make his name sound as if it tasted bad. “Cynthia tried explaining why on earth he has to be here. I don’t understand what some … dentist has to do with this? And Paul of all people?” In spite of her ill humor, she pointed the way down a short, dark hallway.

  “Well, Gladys, Chief Ferris has deputized me because—”

  Before Osborne could utter another word, she interrupted saying, “Paul, I haven’t seen you since Marvin passed. Why is that?” She paused and turned to glare at him.

  “Well, I—”

  “Never mind.” Again a dismissive wave as she turned away. “Mary Lee was the only one in your family who knew the proper way to do things.” Resisting the urge to defend his daughters, Osborne said nothing—preferring to note that as she spoke, Gladys appeared to be squeezing the life out of the dog squirming in the crook of her left arm.

  They entered a cavernous, formal living room where the French windows along one wall were hung with drapes so heavy they allowed only a hint of afternoon sun. Walking behind the two women, it struck Osborne that while they might be the same height, that was where similarities ended.

  One was sturdy and muscular in her summer uniform of crisp khaki, the fabric of her shirt and pants defining the breasts and hips that he had come to know so well. Her skin was tanned and glowing beneath an untamed cluster of nut-brown curls. In the dim light of the stuffy room, Lewellyn Ferris was a breath of fresh air.

  Gladys, scuttling along in the shiny purple shirt, one skinny arm waving, brought to mind an insect: an iridescent beetle with spidery limbs. Unkind to think that, he knew, but Osborne couldn’t help it.

  “Sit down over there, you two.”

  Following orders, Osborne and Lew sat down, side by side, on a beige brocade love seat with curved wooden legs. Osborne let himself down onto the small sofa with care, not sure it was sturdy enough to hold them both … but it seemed stable.

  Gladys settled herself and the dog into a large wingchair across from them. To her right was an ornate mahogany library table holding a porcelain table lamp made from a Chinese vase and crowned with a cream-colored fringed shade. The dog gave a yap of protest as Gladys pressed it onto her lap.

  Her blunt, officious manner prompted Osborne to wonder (not for the first time) how such a mean-spirited woman had managed to attract good-natured Marvin, a man with whom Osborne had spent many pleasant hours in the fishing boat back when they were neighbors and shortly after Cynthia ha
d been born.

  Marvin Daniels was the kind of man who would go out of his way to shovel the porch and sidewalk for the elderly couple living next door to them, and would not hesitate to stop by with jumper cables whenever a neighbor’s car battery died in the depths of winter. And it was Marvin who always made sure to buy Girl Scout cookies from the neighbor children—no matter how many knocked on their door.

  The two men had met when Osborne and Mary Lee bought their first home on a side street in Loon Lake. The Daniels family lived on the same block. At the time, it was a neighborhood ritual for the husbands to gather one Thursday evening a month for an evening of beer and poker. Marvin, a manager at the paper mill, was a regular.

  Or he was until the night Gladys barged in, grabbed him by the ear (literally), and hauled him out. Osborne and the other husbands had watched in stunned silence. No excuse was ever given as to what Marvin may have done to precipitate his wife’s anger, but he never showed up for Thursday night poker again.

  That was just the beginning. Next Gladys forced him to resign from the Lions Club; then she put the kibosh on his spending all night at the Flowage followed by pancakes with the guys at Pete’s Place—the annual celebration of opening fishing season. Over the coming years, Marvin did manage to eke out a few days of walleye fishing, but only when Gladys and Cynthia were off shopping in Green Bay.

  In fairness to Gladys, Mary Lee had pointed out that she did approve of golf and their family membership at the Loon Lake Country Club. But when Marvin retired from the paper mill and wanted to learn taxidermy, the hammer came down again. She refused to let him buy the equipment and textbooks he would need.

  That was one of the few times he managed to outwit her. Several of his colleagues at the mill ordered what he needed and made sure a workspace was cleared in one of the warehouses. For two years, Marvin conjured excuses to slip off for a few hours here and there. Eventually, after he sold a deer mount for $750, Gladys relented and let him set up a taxidermy studio in their basement.