Osborne followed her in. They stood for a moment, taking in the details of the living room. The setting sun sent rays of light through a picture window facing west. Dust motes floated in the gold air. All was silent, expectant.
An old oak desk situated to the left of the door held an oval brass bowl into which had been tucked a number of pieces of mail. Also on the desktop were three more items: a blank notepad, a ring-bound weekly calendar, and a small address book, set side by side and in line with the edge of the desk. A tall ceramic mug, painted with a map of Wolf Lake, held pens, pencils, and a pair of scissors.
“Very neat,” said Osborne, glancing around the room. The house felt good—warm, welcoming, everything in its place, from pillows on the sofa to newspapers stacked neatly on a side table. It was as if Peg had dusted and vacuumed before she left.
“Peaceful … and undisturbed,” said Lew. “Certainly doesn’t look like anyone’s been in here rummaging around, does it. I’d like to do a quick check—see if anything jumps out at us—and come back in the morning for a thorough search.
“And just so you know, Doc, it’s legal to look over everything that’s out in the open. Anything else has to wait until tomorrow when I’ll have that search warrant.”
Lew waved toward the far side of the living room where two doors were closed and another, to a bathroom, stood open. “I’ll start in here—why don’t you check the back entrance and the kitchen area.”
Earlier, while Lew completed the paperwork for the warrants that would allow her to do a thorough inspection of each of the victim’s homes, Osborne had walked Pauline out to the curb and waited with her until the weasel drove up. She seemed to stand straighter now, and her face was less fallen than when she had arrived. She told Osborne that in spite of her grief, she felt a little better knowing she had been able to give the Loon Lake Police valuable information.
“You certainly pointed Chief Ferris in the right direction, Pauline,” said Osborne. “I hope you know you can trust her to follow up on anything else that might come to mind.”
“Oh, yes,” said Pauline, “I trust her all right—I can tell she’s damn good at what she does.” Osborne was relieved to hear that. Pauline may have walked in angry and defensive but she was leaving eager to cooperate.
After asking her not to disturb any of her daughter’s belongings until they could be examined, Lew had given Pauline her business card—on the back of which she had written both her cell and her home phone numbers. “Anything you think might be important—please call me right away,” said Lew, her arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Do not hesitate. Understand?”
Pauline had nodded, eyes glimmering with tears.
Ralph got the same card, but without the extra phone numbers. No doubt he would have multiple theories on what had happened to his daughter—input Lew preferred to filter. Marlene would know how to handle him.
“In the meantime,” Lew had said, shaking his hand, “I’m going to bring on an extra deputy or two so I can get somebody up to those poker tables where Donna was training. Thanks to you and Pauline, we have some excellent leads here, Ralph.”
Before Lew left the office, she touched base with Bruce, who was still hoping to make the Shania Twain performance. He had nothing new to report, except that the overturned convertible had been thoroughly checked for trace evidence and was on its way to Robbie’s warehouse. He added that Robbie had been able to reach his friend in Rhinelander and Bruce gave them the go-ahead to pull the car’s electronics for a computer analysis first thing in the morning.
Walking to their cars after talking to Bruce, Lew told Osborne that the call that came in while she was questioning Ralph and Pauline was from a security guard at the Hugo Garmin headquarters in Chicago, where she had left a voice message earlier. The guard refused to give out any personal phone numbers, but promised to get the necessary information to “the right people.”
“He wouldn’t even give me names,” said Lew. “Even though I told him it was official police business. Can you believe that? So I gave him all my numbers and asked that the family or someone close to the family call me as soon as they get the news—no matter how late. I made sure he knew to tell them I would have my cell phone with me and, even if I’m out of range, I should be able to return their call within half an hour.”
As they arrived at Peg’s cottage, Lew was still waiting for the call.
Before walking off toward the kitchen, Osborne took a long look around the spacious living room. One wall held a television with a VCR and DVD player and a stereo systern. Shelves along the wall on either side of the TV were laden with CDs and videotapes.
Below the picture window on the west wall was a sofa angled to face two matching armchairs upholstered in gold corduroy. The furniture, including lamps and a coffee table, was arranged on a dark green rug. At one end of the room was a stone fireplace next to which was an ottoman. A folded afghan was draped over one arm of the sofa. The room radiated casual comfort—but yet, something was missing. Osborne puzzled for a moment, then gave a shrug and set off to check the rest of the house.
The kitchen faced east. It was a long, narrow room with appliances along the inside wall and a small round table with two chairs nestled into a nook, with floor-to-ceiling windows on the far end. Osborne looked through the windows: Peg had a morning view of the lake, too. She must have loved the place.
On one counter, below a wall phone, was an answering machine, its red light blinking. A quick check of the cupboards, which had glass fronts, disclosed stacks of dishes and glassware, a bar set for mixing martinis, and six bags of chocolate chip cookies. A pantry held cereal boxes, some canned soups, and a few baking supplies. Everything was so neat, he was surprised the soups were not in alphabetical order.
Osborne opened the refrigerator. At least a dozen bottles of beer—all different brands but each brand lined up one after the other, along with tonic water and sodas—filled three shelves. A selection of cheeses and a bowl of fresh limes were packed into the crisper. The overhead freezer opened to display boxes of frozen meals—all Weight Watchers brand.
The kitchen of a single woman who entertained.
“Hey, Doc,” said Lew, calling from the front of the house, “come here—tell me what you think of this stuff …”
He found her in the bathroom examining the contents of a tall white cabinet with glass doors. Four of its five shelves held neatly arranged bathroom appliances—blow dryers, a basket of curlers, a curling iron—along with an assortment of cosmetics and perfumes. The top shelf held bottles of aspirin and Advil, several cold remedies, and several vials from a pharmacy. Osborne could identify the contents of the prescription drug containers through the glass.
“Painkillers,” he said, pointing to two. Of the remaining two, he said, “This one is a decongestant—and this a medication for dizziness.”
“The dates are all pretty recent,” said Lew.
“She had an infection of some kind. Must be related to the plastic surgery since the prescribing physician listed on these is Forsyth.”
“I saw that,” said Lew. “Interesting, isn’t it. If we didn’t know better, we might assume she had been having dizzy spells, which could cause her to lose control of her car … right?”
“I would give it serious thought after seeing all this medication,” said Osborne.
The first of the two closed doors in the living room opened to a light, airy room, which seemed smaller than it was due to its occupant: a large brass bed. The bed was covered with a cheery yellow, white, red, and spring green patterned quilt that, along with a tumble of colorful pillows, lit up the space. The quilt matched the curtains, which were pulled to let in the western light.
Alongside the bed was a lamp table laden with magazines and a paperback novel. Nearby was an antique dressing table and matching mirror. Bottles of perfume and makeup were set in a row across the top of the dressing table. A handsome cherry dresser stood against one wall.
“Compu
lsively neat,” said Lew.
“Wait ‘til you see the kitchen,” said Osborne. He took a long, slow look around the room. “Lew, I can’t put my finger on it—but I feel like something is missing. I felt it in the living room, I feel it here …”
“Really?” Lew gave him a thoughtful look.
The door to the second bedroom opened to darkness. The room smelled of mothballs with a hint of what Osborne imagined to be stale sex. Lew flicked the light switch. Brown and tan striped curtains were pulled closed. The curtains matched the bedspread on the queen-sized bed, which had a simple oak headboard. Cabinet-style tables on each side of the bed held lamps with light brown shades. Otherwise, the tables were empty. No books, no magazines, no ashtrays, no coasters.
A tall wooden wardrobe stood against one wall, one door ajar. Except for half a dozen suit hangers, it was empty. Directly across from the bed, resting on a wooden trestle table, was a flat-screen TV with a built-in VCR and DVD player. A chest of drawers was angled into the remaining corner of the room.
“I wonder if she gets to write this off as her home office,” said Lew in a wry tone. She reached for the cell phone that hung from her belt and checked it.
“Do you have service here?” said Osborne.
“Yes, funny they haven’t called yet.” She looked around the room, “I’m hesitant to open drawers until I have that search warrant …”
Osborne walked around the queen-size bed and out of instinct bent to close a half-open door to the cabinet under one of the lamps, only to have a stack of magazines slide onto the floor. The kind of magazines that were masked on the highest racks and sold bagged at the convenience store.
“Doc, wait—let me pick those up,” said Lew, holding out her gloved hands, “In case I need them checked for prints.”
“Wait,” said Osborne as she came around the bed. He put a hand on her arm to stop her as he pointed to the floor. Where the magazines had slid near the bed was a long white box, its length visible just below the bedspread. “Does that qualify as being ‘in plain sight'?”
Lew didn’t answer. She knelt to pull the box forward. It was an unusual size. Osborne guessed it to be about sixteen inches by twelve inches and three inches deep—and made of a heavy-weight cardboard. Across the top of the box, scrawled in black marker and printed in capital letters was the phrase: pictures of people who hurt people.
eleven
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
—Henry David Thoreau
“Pictures.” Osborne snapped his fingers. Lew looked up from where she was leaning over the unopened box.
“That’s it,” he said. “I knew something was bothering me as I walked through these rooms. The woman has nothing on her walls. No pictures, no photos, no paintings—nothing.”
“Are you sure?” said Lew, her eyes questioning. She moved past him into the living room. He followed, watching as she scanned the walls in that room, the front bedroom, and the kitchen. “That is odd, Doc. You and I have family photos sitting out all over the place. Too many in my case, that’s for sure.
“Even here,” said Lew, pointing in amazement from where she stood in the middle of the kitchen. “Now when was the last time you saw a refrigerator door that didn’t have something stuck on it with a magnet? Reminders, postcards, the little things that bring back memories …”
“Memories—that’s a good way to put it,” said Osborne.
He had to admit that he was extreme himself when it came to personal photos. Framed pictures of his daughters at every age could be found throughout his house. Heck, he had one whole photo album devoted to pictures of his buddies from the deer shack. Thirty years of overserved men in long underwear and crummy beards? Mary Lee had found that collection disgusting. But he loved to page through—it brought back all the fun.
“Doc, to me memories mean family,” said Lew. “And while this house feels lived in, I don’t get a sense of family.” She grimaced. “Makes me not want to open that box.”
As he followed Lew back to the bedroom where the box was waiting on the bed, he thought of the Peg he had known in the days when she was a patient: the perfect porcelain skin, the coiffed and sprayed blond hair—and her eyes. Those eyes that always looked away so quickly, that refused to hold his gaze. Eyes that would stare down while he spoke. He always felt bad when she left the office: What he had done to frighten her?
“No sense of family.” Osborne repeated the phrase, thrusting his hands into his pockets as he followed her back through the house. “But maybe, given what we know about Peg—maybe that shouldn’t surprise us.”
“Well, let’s see what we have here, Doc,” said Lew, sounding resigned and not a little worried as she sat down on the bed, the box in her lap. “ ‘Pictures of people who hurt people,'” she read the message again. Before lifting the lid, she glanced up at Osborne. “Don’t let me forget to look through the mail on the desk before we leave—see if there’s anything with her handwriting on it. Be nice to know if she’s the one who wrote this.”
The box was packed with loose photos. Dozens and dozens, color, black and white, all different sizes—some were tiny, so old that their edges were pinked and curling. Lew gave the box a quick shake that exposed a .38-caliber revolver in a worn holster and a badge. “Thought it seemed a little heavy on one end.”
She set the gun and the badge on the table beside the bed. “That’s probably her husband’s gun and police badge,” said Lew. “I never met the man but I sure heard about him: Frank McNulty, ex-cop, convicted felon.”
“But a nice enough guy,” said Osborne. “Good fisherman. Muskie—he loved to fish muskie.”
Almost everyone in Osborne’s circle of friends knew Frank. And why Peg Garmin never took her husband’s name, though they had arrived in Loon Lake twenty years earlier as a married couple. Multiple versions had been told of the escapades that drove them north. But whatever story was heard, listeners would agree that it was a wise decision of Peg’s to remain Garmin, not McNulty.
He had been a street cop and she was a prostitute when they met in Chicago. Once Peg married Frank, she left the business, but that didn’t make Frank a hero. He was a bagman for the mob. And took the fall for his bosses. He did time in Marion, never ratted, and when he got out, he got paid. So he and Peg drove north to Loon Lake, where they put all that money down on a small resort on Scattering Rice Lake.
They had a knack for the resort business. They hired a chef who could grill a terrific New York strip while the couple shared the bartending. At first people came out of curiosity, only to find a husband and wife whose notoriety was hard to believe given their open, friendly demeanors. Frank was an encyclopedia when it came to fishing muskie. Peg had a natural sweetness that made her a good listener—not to mention being easy on the eyes.
Within two years, the bar and the supper club were thriving. Osborne and his fishing buddies were among many of the locals who got in the habit of stopping by Deer Haven for a “Leinie” or two or three after a good night’s fishing. And nearly every time he stopped in, Osborne would give a wave down the bar to another couple of regulars: Herb and Helen Pradt—Ray’s parents.
One day, Frank dropped dead. He was only forty-seven. Peg had to sell the resort, and soon after she was selling herself. The first few years after Frank’s death, she went kind of crazy. The town traded stories of angry wives storming into her apartment, of binge drinking, of local merchants’ bills going unpaid. Even Osborne had to turn her account over to a collection agency.
But then she settled down. She gave up the constant hustling and appeared to be happy with one well-to-do client. Well, everyone knew there might be another guy every now and then—but she seemed happy with Harold.
Osborne was only acquainted with the man. Harold Westbrook had retired from a medical practice in Milwaukee, where he had been an orthopedic surgeon. His wife of many years passed away shortly after they moved into a handsome brick home in Loon Lake, which was where she had g
rown up. To everyone’s surprise, Harold chose to stay in town. But they had no children and he loved to fly-fish.
He was a tall man, surprisingly agile for his years and quite good-looking with craggy features under a thatch of stark white hair. Mary Lee had often commented to Osborne that she hoped he would look as good as Harold as he aged. Whenever she said that, Osborne resisted giving her a dim eye. What would be the benefit? She hadn’t shared a bedroom with him for twenty years. Was she planning to start in their seventies?
But it was the baby blue convertible parked for hours in front of his house that made Harold a legend. The early-morning coffee crowd at McDonald’s might snicker when Peg and Harold’s names were mentioned in tandem—but it was only out of envy. More than one guy mulling over his black coffee would look a little wistful, as if he wouldn’t mind having a reputation for bad behavior at the age of eighty.
Lew tipped the remaining contents of the box onto the bedspread. At first glance, the photos were typical of family albums: individuals posing for the camera, family gatherings, first communions, weddings. Innocent photos.
“Look at this,” said Lew, holding out a black-and-white print of a pudgy little girl in a pouf of a white tulle dress that was tied high on her chest with a silk bow.
The baby ballerina was smiling for the camera, her arms reaching up. One hand held a long stick with a tulle pompom trailing a silk ribbon on one end; the fingers of her other hand were spread wide in a happy wave. She had short, straight hair that was brushed back and secured to the top of her head with another white bow. The child was barefoot—caught on her tiptoes in an exuberant leap.
“Now that is one cute kid,” said Lew. She turned the photo over and read the back: “Margaret at age three.”
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