Dead Boogie

by Victoria Houston

  “That has to be Peg,” said Osborne. He handed the photo back to Lew, who was shuffling through the rest of the photos. She reached for a square, buff-colored envelope with four words scrawled across it: Peg O’My Heart.

  The envelope was unsealed. It contained one black-and-white photo. Lew groaned as she held it so Osborne could see it, too. He looked—then looked away. It was as if a spider, black and horrid, had crawled out from the envelope.

  “Taken by a medical examiner or a coroner,” said Lew. “Documenting the assault.”

  “Do you think it’s the same child?” Osborne knew the answer before he asked.

  Lew read notations jotted on the back of the picture. “She’s identified as Mary Margaret Garmin. Age seven. Offender unknown. Found by her mother in the family pool house.”

  “Age seven,” said Osborne, shaking his head. “Lew, the rage I have for people who do this—”

  “Doc, it is the worst part of my job. Believe me.” She gave a deep sigh as she slipped the photo back into the envelope. “Could explain a few things, I suppose,” said Lew. “Not that this has anything to do with her death.”

  “I’d like to know who gave her the picture—and who wrote those words. That’s nasty.”

  “And when she got it,” said Lew. “That envelope was right on top when I opened the box—before I tipped everything out.”

  “Something else, Lew,” said Osborne. “I spotted the box because it was so close to the edge of the bed—as if Peg might have been interrupted while shoving it back under so it wasn’t hidden all the way.”

  “Or someone else was interrupted while trying to hide it.”

  twelve

  If a man is truly blessed, he returns home from fishing to be greeted by the best catch of his life.

  —An unknown wife, somewhere

  “Wait—I recognize the name on that return address,” said Osborne, laying his hand over Lew’s as she fanned the assortment of envelopes across the top of the desk. Most of the letters that had been stuffed into the brass container appeared to be bills. “Dr. Gerald Rasmussen. He’s an oral surgeon. We’ve met.”

  As he scanned the letter, Lew sorted through the remaining pieces of mail.

  “Well, this is interesting,” said Osborne. “Looks like Gerry Rasmussen was giving her a second opinion on the results of some surgery … and he mentions his fee for appearing as an expert witness in a trial … apparently she was considering a lawsuit of some kind.”

  “Against her plastic surgeon, perhaps?” said Lew.

  “Could be. Rasmussen does more than oral surgery—he’s also a maxillofacial guy. Excellent reputation. If you’d like, I’ll give him a call in the morning, see what this is all about?”

  “Thank you, Doc, that would be very helpful. I was hoping you would have the time to sit down with Dr. Westbrook, too. One on one. He might open up better if I’m not there. But do you have the time?”

  “I do, but speaking of time, Lew—you have got to take some time off. I’ll be happy to do whatever you need so long as the minute this weather cools down, we can get in some time in the water. I know July fishing isn’t the best—but you need a break.”

  “I wish,” said Lew, fatigue washing over her face. “I have to admit I’m feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment. Oh, say … what’s this?” She pulled a piece of notebook paper, edges ripped, from a small white envelope. “This was tucked way in the back behind some credit card offers.” She gave it a quick read then handed it to Osborne.

  Whoever scribbled the note had such poor penmanship that he could barely make out the words: Dear Margaret, it began. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to do this. Christopher. That was it. The rest of the page was blank.

  Lew checked the envelope. “No return address. Postmark shows it was mailed three weeks ago—from Evanston, Illinois. Christopher, huh. Now there’s someone I’d like to talk to. And I’ll hold on to both these pieces of mail until we know more.”

  “Anything else you want to see before we leave?” said Osborne. Lew looked so tired, he hoped she would call it a day. He checked his watch—it was after nine.

  “I wish those Garmin people would call,” she said, flipping the pages of the address book that had been set so carefully on the desk. “I’m hesitant to contact any of the names in here—could be family, could be a client …”

  “Why don’t you let me take that address book and run some names past Ray to see if any sound familiar. Remember, he’s known Peg since he was a kid.”

  “Let’s do that right now,” said Lew. “I’m very concerned about our friend. Much as I need his help right now, I’m worried he may be too emotionally invested in this case. I can’t have him involved if he’s likely to come down too hard on someone—”

  “I have the same worry, Lew. He was so upset this afternoon. Are you sure you’re up to it tonight?”

  “You know me, Doc. Just as soon sort it out right now and get things moving. Or not moving …”

  Her cell phone rang. It was the dispatcher on the switchboard with news of a traffic accident on the road leading into Country Fest. “Okay,” said Lew, sounding defeated, “I’ll call Roger and get him out there right away. Any calls for me from Chicago? Darn,” she said, disappointed. After signing off with the dispatcher, she checked her phone log to be sure a call hadn’t come in while she was talking.

  “Isn’t Roger suspended for another week?” said Osborne.

  “Not anymore he isn’t,” said Lew with a grim smile. Roger was the deputy she had inherited when she was promoted—a former insurance agent who had tired of forty-hour weeks and joined the police force thinking he could while away his days emptying parking meters until qualifying for an early retirement and a good pension.

  But the day Lewellyn Ferris became Chief of the Loon Lake Police Department, Roger’s life changed. Unlike her predecessors, she refused to close or set aside a case until she was positive an investigation was complete. She insisted that an officer be present at the site of all traffic accidents, break-ins, and other types of disturbances—and write up a detailed report. To his surprise, Roger found himself working. Hard.

  Worse than Roger’s allergy to hard work was his talent for narrow-minded thinking. Too many times, Lew had had to scold him for being “a bullet head” and send him back into the field with a list of questions. His most recent exercise in poor judgment had devastated the department’s budget—not to mention generated a series of jokes aired on local radio stations.

  On spotting a beat-up suitcase set out in front of the Loon Lake Union High School during his daily check of the school parking lot, Roger leaped to the conclusion that it was bomb. Lew was in court that morning, her cell phone turned off as ordered by the judge, or she might have been able to prevent his call to the nearest bomb squad—in Milwaukee! One helicopter, six men, and twenty-two thousand dollars later, the suitcase turned out to be nothing more than a moldy prop once used in a school play and set out by the janitor to be taken to the dump.

  Lew handled her frustration with the well-meaning deputy by arranging to have him out of her sight for four weeks—suspended with pay.

  “Oh, oh, Lew, wait just a minute,” said Osborne as she was about to close and lock the front door. “The phone machine in the kitchen was blinking. Do you want to check it before we leave?”

  It held one message. A woman’s voice, husky and relaxed, said, “Hey … are you there? It’s me. Peg.” It was difficult to tell if the last word was a declaration or a question. Lew replayed it three times and they still could not tell.

  “You may think I’m crazy but that sounds like Peg,” said Osborne. “But why would she be calling herself?”

  “Could be she was trying to reach someone who was waiting for her—here.”

  Ray’s truck was in his drive and his dogs yelped happily at the sound of Osborne and Lew’s footsteps—but there was no Ray. No lights in his trailer. No figure on the dock bench. No boat.

&n
bsp; “Any idea where he might be?” said Lew, standing on the dock beside Osborne.

  “I have a hunch,” said Osborne. “Could be wrong. But it’s a ten-minute bet—want to take a boat ride?”

  “That I could use.”

  Within minutes, they were climbing into Osborne’s boat. The dying sun caught cloud banks overhead to throw pink, purple, coral, and orange in ripples across the water. The air was orange against the black silhouette of the far shore.

  “What a beautiful evening,” said Lew, settling herself near the prow of Osborne’s Alumacraft. He spun the shore station wheel, lowering the craft so quietly that two ducks, black against the hot peach of the water, glided by without a ruffle or a squawk.

  With an easy yank of the cord, the 10-horsepower Mercury purred awake. The boat swerved north, and with a low roar as he kicked up the speed, they were heading for the first of the channels linking the five lakes that made up the Loon Lake chain. The rush of air was humid but cool against their faces. As Lew turned sideways to watch the shoreline, the wind blew back the open collar of her shirt.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” she said with that look in her eye that always undid him as she unbuttoned two more buttons so the cool breeze could travel across her breasts. She tipped her head back to let her hair blow in the wind. “Oooh … this feels so good.”

  “Lewellyn, don’t do this to an old man,” said Osborne with a chuckle. She winked in return.

  That’s when he knew what he had to do sometime over the next few weeks: find a winter escape that might appeal to her. Maybe some fly-fishing for saltwater trophies off the Florida Keys? She refused to take her vacation during the hectic summer months—but she needed a break.

  Tomorrow, he decided. He would stop by Erin’s house and ask her for advice on the best approach—after all, if he and Lew spent occasional nights together—why not a full week? Maybe two?

  The thought banished any feeling of fatigue; he had a plan. And so he drove the boat with one eye on the upcoming channel, the other on the woman he found as spectacular as the sunset.

  thirteen

  … the good of having wisely invested so much time in wild country …

  —Henry Middleton, Rivers of Memory

  It was along the ribbon of water between Third and Fourth Lakes, known to locals as the Loon River, where Osborne was sure he would find Ray. No cottages or homes marred this mile-long expanse of pristine vistas protected by wetlands bordering both sides.

  Half a mile up was a hole, difficult to locate and known to only a few fishermen: a final resting place of virgin timbers sunk during the lumber rush of the late 1800s—fine underwater structure for predators of a trophy size. The beauty of the place always took Osborne’s breath away even as it explained his friendship with a man nearly thirty years his junior and who would rather fish than make a buck.

  Every time they approached by boat, Ray would turn to Osborne and utter one word: “sacred.” And every time Osborne would nod in return. Not another word was necessary.

  “You’re sworn to secrecy, Lew,” said Osborne, his voice low as he slowed the outboard motor before rounding the bend just ahead. “C’mon, Doc,” said Lew, busy buttoning her shirt, “you know better than that.”

  He cut the engine and lifted the prop up and out of the water. The boat rocked gently in the wake. They drifted in silence. His eyes adjusted to the dark; Osborne could see the expression on Lew’s face and knew what she was thinking.

  “The eloquence of quiet water,” he said in a whisper.

  “Did you make that up?” she whispered back.

  “N-o-o-o. Have to credit our favorite razzbonya.”

  When the boat was still, he reached for the oars. He looked up. The clouds had vanished, unveiling a universe of stars. Dipping the oars one at a time, he pulled the boat around the bend. Then he let it drift.

  Off to the right, about fifteen feet from the tamaracks crowding the shore, was a large dark mass, barely visible in the shadows. As they drifted toward the darkness, moonlight spilled from behind the trees to illuminate Ray, eyes closed as he leaned back, sitting high in his chair at the front of the long, flat bassboat. His arms were folded, his legs extended and crossed at the ankles.

  “Yo …” said Ray without opening his eyes. He sounded as if he had been expecting them.

  “Are you okay?” said Lew. Osborne dipped the oars to keep his boat from bumping Ray’s.

  “Oh yeah,” said Ray a little too quickly. He turned his head away as he spoke.

  No, you’re not, thought Osborne. The water lapped. Somewhere off on Third Lake a loon called.

  “Do you want us to leave?” said Osborne.

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve been here awhile,” said Ray. “Good place for thinking. For looking and listening and thinking. Moon’s two nights short of full—did you notice?”

  “I’ve got a few leads,” said Lew, trying to sound upbeat. Very quickly she told him what they had learned from Ralph and Pauline, as well as discovering the letter that indicated Peg was involved in a lawsuit and the cryptic note from someone named Christopher. What she did not mention was the awful photo.

  “But no luck reaching Peg’s family,” she said. “I guess … well, since it seems you knew her pretty well. We found an address book at her house, but not knowing who’s who—I thought maybe you could help.”

  “I’ll try.” Ray opened his eyes but didn’t move.

  “You said she was a good friend of your mother’s …” said Osborne.

  “Right.”

  “How did they … what I mean is—”

  “What you mean is how could a doctor’s wife have become such good friends with a high-priced hooker?”

  “Thank you—but I wouldn’t have put it quite that way.”

  Ray shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. They met one night after my folks had been out fishing, caught two muskies, and decided to celebrate with dinner at Deer Haven. This was right after Peg and Frank had opened their place. Peg was tending bar that night and I guess she and my mom just hit it off right away …” He paused.

  Osborne and Lew waited, their boat rocking gently over the black water. The loon called again but the haunting cry went unanswered.

  Ray untangled his legs and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees. He dropped his head for a moment, then raised it as he spoke. “I hated her at first. Hated her. I was fourteen, I guess, when she started stopping by our house in the afternoons. The two of them would sit in the living room and talk for hours. I saw her as one more excuse for my mother to drink, y’know.

  “But she wasn’t. She …” Ray took a deep breath. “She showed me a way to love my mother.” His voice sounded unnaturally high.

  “Ray, if this is too hard—” said Lew.

  “No, no. It’s okay. Better you know the whole story. Doc knows some of it—my mother was a raging alcoholic.

  ‘Two-case Helen’ they called her. That’s how much booze she would order almost every week. My father wasn’t around much during the day. If he wasn’t in the office or at the hospital, he was gone fishing, hunting, you name it.

  “So when Peg came by our house, I thought she was just another excuse for my mom to sit around and get drunk. She—I mean Peg—knew that’s what I was thinking, too.

  “Then one afternoon, I was mowing the yard and Peg came out and asked me to stop. She had me sit down on the porch steps with her. Then she asked me how my mother behaved when she was at her worst. Straight out, y’know. It was the way she looked me in the eye and she was so … kind that I just emptied my heart out. I cried, I told her everything.”

  Ray paused, rubbed his face with both hands, then continued, “Life in our house wasn’t easy. My older brother and sister were already away at college, so I was there by myself. Late at night I would hear my mother screaming, accusing my father of terrible things. I would lie in bed and listen. Christmas was the worst—every Christmas Eve it started and she would be dead drunk through the holiday
s. And always these accusations that I knew weren’t true.

  “I was so surprised when Peg—I called her ‘Mary Margaret,’ by the way. That was her full name though she never used it. I’ve always thought it was as pretty as she was. I was so surprised when she asked me that that afternoon, I spilled my guts. Told her everything.

  “When I finished, she said that I was old enough to know the truth. And in a very simple, direct way she told me that the reason she and my mother had become close friends was because they had been through some things that most people wouldn’t understand. That when they were young girls, they had been hurt by other people: they had been ‘broken.’ That’s the word she used. Broken.

  “I asked her how she knew that about my mom and she said that one night around the bar at Deer Haven, my mother had said something in a certain way—and Peg knew. ‘Maybe it’s intuition,’ she told me, ‘but people like us pick up on it in one another pretty quickly.’

  “Then Peg told me that she was adopted and that when she was six her adoptive father began abusing her sexually—but no one believed her. Even when she had to go to the hospital, her mother refused to acknowledge what was going on.

  “Well, same for my mom. Only she wasn’t adopted. She was the oldest girl in a large family. Her father was a religious fanatic. She had the same thing happen to her. Her mother died without ever admitting to Helen that she knew what was going on. That explained to me why my mother had nothing to do with my grandparents.

  “Then Peg told me that people cope in different ways. ‘When you’re broken,’ she said, ‘you can’t be fixed—but you have to go on. So you find a way.’ Her way was to become promiscuous to an extreme, but she hoped that she was past all that now that she had found Frank. Whatever bad things Frank McNulty did, when it came to Peg, he was a saint. He cherished her.

  “She said my mother used alcohol to take care of herself. She also said that she could see that in spite of my mother’s drinking, my parents loved each other.” Ray’s voice quavered.