Dead Boogie

by Victoria Houston

  “What is unusual if you check his clinic Web site, is that he states he has “courtesy privileges” at the university’s prestigious hospital. I checked and their surgical director said and I quote: ‘He most certainly does not.’ Forsyth also states that he is a clinical professor at the Wisconsin Eye and Ear Infirmary. I checked and such an infirmary doesn’t exist. Fun, huh?

  “However, no one other than me appears to have challenged any of that information, so Dr. Forsyth has had smooth sailing since he opened for business—until Thursday, when the tips were phoned in.

  “Not only was the clinic raided this morning, but also a reporter from the Milwaukee paper called him yesterday morning to do a confrontation interview. After questioning him about the recruitment of patients who had more than one procedure done, he asked Forsyth how he was able to walk away from the Illinois lawsuits and set up a new practice in Wisconsin.”

  “How did Forsyth react to that?” said Lew.

  “He was definitely caught by surprise. By the end of the interview, he told the reporter they could announce his retirement. Said the story would ruin him.

  “Chief Ferris, no doubt that interview will make your job more difficult. When it comes to Peg Garmin, he’s sure to have his guard up. You may have to go through his lawyer.”

  “If I have to, I will,” said Lew with a shrug.

  “Then …” Gina paused to shuffle her notes. “I decided to do some background on the Nehlsons. I found a court filing, a public record that popped up during a simple Google search if you can believe it, of Joan Nehlson’s challenge to her mother’s will. That was filed five months ago. She alleges her mother changed the will during a time she was suffering from dementia.”

  “So we have two people who might not be unhappy that Peg isn’t around any longer,” said Lew.

  “That’s how I see it,” said Gina. “Joan Nehlson would be next of kin if Peg had no heirs, and Ed Forsyth would have one less lawsuit to deal with.”

  “One less lawsuit and two less witnesses to his recruitment of people for unnecessary surgical procedures,” said Osborne.

  “Ray—you’re next.”

  “I got the photos you wanted, Chief. The prints are drying as we speak. I’m a little worried as to how good they’re going to be. It’s been so dry these last few days—not sure I was able to get the definition you need.”

  “We’ll hope for the best,” said Lew. “Okay, my turn.”

  She reached for a long, white envelope that she had set beside her notepad. “This arrived in Peg’s mail today,” she said as she pulled a sheet of stationery from the envelope. “It’s from a young man living in Eau Claire. His name is Christopher and this letter is his answer to an invitation from his birth mother, agreeing to meet with her at her home in Loon Lake.”

  No one at the table said a word. Finally, Ray whispered in a voice hoarse with emotion, “When?”

  “Tomorrow. He was planning to drive up tomorrow, be here by eleven. He was also planning to bring his baby daughter.”

  “So he is coming?” said Osborne and Ray simultaneously.

  “Yes, I called him right after I read the letter. I told him what happened—though I made no mention of the forty-eight million dollars that he may inherit. I suggested that he come as planned and use this as an opportunity to meet his aunt and uncle and learn more about his mother’s family. I’m in the process of making arrangements for everyone to meet at Peg’s home tomorrow morning.”

  “Who is ‘everyone'?” said Osborne.

  “Everyone around this table, along with Christopher and the Nehlsons.”

  “And he knows nothing about the money,” said Ray.

  “No. I thought it just as well he hears about that from the lawyer handling Peg’s estate. I did find a copy of her will when I went through her files this afternoon. She specifically names the young man as her heir.”

  “Well, this should be an interesting social gathering,” said Gina with a twinkle.

  “In the meantime,” said Lew, “I have one problem. The Nehlsons are not answering their phone. Not even an answering machine, doggone it. So I’ve written them a note and, Doc, as we head out to fish this evening—if I haven’t been able to reach them, we’ll drive in so I can tape it to their door.”

  twenty-seven

  … until man is redeemed he will always take a fly rod too far back …

  —Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

  Lew pulled over to one side of the road where a sandy patch large enough for three or four vehicles hinted of visits from other fishermen. But tonight they were the first and, Osborne hoped, the only ones to arrive.

  He gazed across the road to tiny Dragon Lake. It was just after seven and the lake glistened under the evening sun. A cotton candy swath of cloud threw shadows of hot pink, periwinkle, and peach across the serene surface. Lew, hands thrust into the pockets of her green fishing shorts, followed his gaze. Her eyes searched the air along the shore and over the water.

  “I see rises!” she said with a yelp of anticipation. Sure enough, looking closer, Osborne could see that the lake surface was speckled with rings radiating as fish broke the surface to inhale unwary insects. He listened to her chortle and smiled. Most people get upset when they see clouds of bugs. Not fly-fishermen.

  “Oh, ho, they’re big enough for streamers,” said Lew. “C’mon, let’s hustle on out to play with some fish.”

  “Lewellyn,” said Osborne, reaching behind the front seat for his waders, “I still don’t believe we’re here. Back at the Nehlsons', I kept expecting you to make a right turn and head down to the Forsyth place. Aren’t you anxious to catch up with that guy?”

  He’d held his breath as she walked across the Nehlsons’ porch to tape her note on their door. Driving north, Lew had tried several times to reach them on her cell phone, but was met with nothing but ringing. Still, he expected them to be home. Home and checking their Caller ID, deliberately refusing to take her call. But he had been wrong. No one was there.

  “Doc, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—I’ve never not gotten the job done just because I took two hours to go fishing. Best way to clear my mind. Before I deal with Forsyth, I need a plan. And you know I do my best thinking on water.”

  “Let me help,” said Osborne as Lew unlatched the back panel of her fishing truck. He yanked out a float tube while she undid lines anchoring an inflated pontoon fishing rig to the top of her truck. “How did you get that up there?” said Osborne. “You’re strong, Lew, but not that strong.”

  “Ralph gave me a hand,” she said, referring to the owner of the sporting goods shop in Loon Lake. “He wants my opinion on this single-seat float boat. I’m sure he’s hoping I’ll want to spend six hundred and ninety-five dollars on the damn thing. It may be easier to maneuver than that float tube of mine, but seven hundred bucks’ worth?”

  “You know Ralph’ll make you a deal,” said Osborne with a straight face.

  Lew cut her eyes his way and gave him a teasing look. “You think so, huh.”

  She knew Osborne had no use for Ralph. He found him pretentious, overbearing, and way too interested in Lew in spite of being on his third wife. Ralph had a way of making neophytes feel they needed a graduate degree to succeed at fly-fishing, which Osborne maintained was his strategy for selling you more gear than you really needed.

  “Not only is the man condescending,” said Osborne after his last encounter with Ralph, “but it’s a known fact that he lies—he exaggerates the size of every trout he catches by at least three inches.”

  Lew waded through the grassy muck at the water’s edge to where Osborne was struggling into a pair of rubber fins after wedging himself, with a remarkable lack of grace, into the seat of the float tube. He had shoved everything he hoped he would need into the various pockets sewn onto the arms of the tube: two boxes of trout flies, powdered floatant for the dry flies, forceps, snips, a Ketchum release should he be so lucky as to hook a fish, sunglasses, ex
tra leaders and tippets, water, and bug spray.

  At the last minute he had remembered to slip in his birthday present from Lew: a cap light with three bulbs that clipped to the brim of his hat and threw more than enough light to tie on a trout fly in the dark.

  Fins on finally, Osborne started to thread fly line onto his 5-weight 8½-foot fly rod. He was thinking over what trout fly to tie on when Lew reached for his rod and snipped off the leader. “We got largemouth bass in this lake, Doc,” she said, pulling a new leader from her shirt pocket.

  She gave his fly rod a critical look, then shrugged. “You really need to consider investing in a 6-weight rod one of these days. Sage makes a nice one. Maybe a Cortland Duo reel, too. With these bigger fish, you need a heavier rod and a sinking line.”

  “What are you tying on there?” said Osborne.

  “I’m going to give you”—Lew paused as she unwound the leader—“a nine-foot ten-pound bass leader with a weighted streamer that I call a ‘tongue depressor.'” Her fingers moved fast as she tied, then licked the knot and gave it a quick pull. “There, that’ll work.” She handed his rod over.

  Osborne followed her onto the water, kicking hard under the float tube and trying to get up some speed. Somehow it always felt like being in a nightmare: You kick hard and go nowhere. After a few minutes, he found he was moving—slow … but moving. Lew, meanwhile, skimmed along in the pontoon, stopping every few minutes to let him catch up. Osborne was now convinced Ralph had loaned her the stupid little boat just to make him look bad.

  The water in Dragon Lake was crystal clear, making it easy to see all the structure below. They had covered a good five hundred yards and were about fifty feet off a log-strewn shore, when Lew dropped the oars on the pontoon. “You fish here, Doc,” she said. “Look down.” He did—into white basket-looking structures on the floor of the lake. “Bass spawning beds,” said Lew. “Let’s see you give that streamer a try.”

  Osborne raised his rod, made a roll cast, then lifted his line for the backcast.

  “Wait, stop!” said Lew. “Please don’t rip your line off the water like that—you’ll scare every fish within a half mile.”

  “Sorry.” He tried again, well aware that with Lew watching he was bound to do it all wrong. He did his best to lift the line as sweetly as he could, then follow his backcast with a power snap forward. The line pooled thirty feet out.

  “O-o-kay,” said Lew, a cautious tone in her voice, “think about your target. Don’t just hope, Doc, aim. Remember—thumb covers the target.” Osborne cast again. This time the fly line pooled a miserable twenty feet from the float tube.

  “Ooh …” said Lew and had to say no more. It was bad. It was awful.

  “Doc, the fish are farther out.” Her voice was gentle. “Just … a little farther. Try again. This time retrieve on a diagonal instead of straight towards you. If you have a little more resistance, maybe you can get more power into your forward cast and get that streamer farther out.”

  Again a pathetic effort. Lew rowed the pontoon toward him. “It’s not your fault, that leader is too long. Let’s shorten it.” She was right. The shortened leader made a difference. With Osborne set at last, Lew rowed off.

  The minute she was far enough away not to see what he was up to, Osborne snipped off the heavy leader with the streamer, tied on a lighter leader with tippet and a favorite dry fly that he knew he could cast with significantly more success: a size 14 Royal Wulff.

  No sooner did he drop that trout fly on the surface than he felt a tug. He shouted as he set the hook, then let the fish run, doing his doggone best to keep slack out of the line. Minutes flew by as he played the fish. At last he reeled it in close enough to catch sight of a rainbow trout that had to be at least fourteen inches long. So sleek and pretty! And the colors were stunning: vibrant pinks.

  “Lew!” Gosh, he wanted her to see this beautiful fish, but at the same time, he didn’t want to have the rainbow out of the water too long. Kicking furiously, he hollered again. Rowing his way and grinning at the excitement in his face, Lew was just ten feet from him when the fish bolted.

  “Oh, darn,” said Osborne. “It was a gorgeous rainbow, Lew. The largest I’ve ever caught.”

  “Good for you, Doc. All I got so far are two scrawny largemouths. Think I’ll get rid of this tongue depressor and tie on a Woolly Bugger—see if it makes a difference.” And off she rowed.

  Osborne put in another ten minutes of casting, kicking back toward the spot where they had put in. The float tube sat low in the water and soon he found himself fighting cramps that traveled up his calves if he kicked wrong: the one drawback to fly-fishing in a float tube.

  Nearing the shoreline close to where the truck was parked, he decided to set his rod down and drift. For the next thirty minutes he drifted, happy to let Lew fish the opposite shore while he faded into the landscape. He watched as the sun dropped, the water darkened, and the moon rose. He listened for the slurps of rising fish, the hoots of a great horned owl. Somewhere a rabbit screamed as it lost its head and the oboe wail of a solitary loon haunted the air. Lew drifted closer.

  And so he watched as a woman with history in her face moved with silent grace under the glow of the rising full moon. Watched her turn, look back as her fly line unfurled in the long smooth loop of her backcast, then forward as she gave a power snap that sent the fly line flowing, flowing … to land like a whisper on the still surface.

  Every so often, he heard a whoop and chortle as she set the hook. She was happy, he was happy, and all was right with the world.

  The harsh ring of a cell phone punctured the serenity. He knew that Lew had an understanding with Marlene and Fern on the switchboard: “Ladies, no calls unless a life is at risk.”

  Osborne kicked fast to the shore, yanked off the rubber fins, and pushed himself up and out of the float tube. He stumbled up the bank, wading boots wet and slippery on the grass, then crossed the road to the truck.

  The phone had stopped ringing but its digital readout exhibited the numbers he had hoped not to see: the emergency code for the Loon Lake Police switchboard.

  twenty-eight

  The best fish swim near the bottom.

  —John Clarke

  “Go ahead and patch me through, Fern,” said Lew. “I’ll talk to him.”

  Ed Forsyth’s lawyer had called three times demanding that his client be declared a “missing person.” With the lawyer on the line, Lew listened in silence, then agreed to have the switchboard put out the bulletin. “I’ll call you the minute we hear anything,” she assured him. She gave Fern the wording for the APB and asked her to phone the county sheriff’s department with the same information.

  “Lots of excitement,” said Osborne when she had clicked off the cell phone.

  “Forsyth’s lawyer is worried. Said he’s been calling the lake house since late this afternoon and no answer. They’d had a conference call earlier and he felt his client sounded despondent—he’s worried about suicide. He got a friend of his with a summer home in Manitowish Waters to drive over to Forsyth’s place but no one was there, even though Forsyth’s car was in the driveway.”

  “Could be at the casino,” said Osborne.

  “Or on his way to Canada is what I was thinking,” said Lew. “Until the lawyer mentioned that Forsyth has a big new pontoon party boat. His friend who checked on the house found no sign of the boat. So he’s convinced Forsyth is on the lake somewhere. I said I would check it out.”

  “See, I was right after all—you will be working tonight,” said Osborne.

  “Not until after we have something to eat,” said Lew, slipping out of her waders. Together they packed up, working swiftly but with care as fly rods were wrapped and slipped into cases, reels and gear restowed in the correct pockets of their fishing vests. When they had finished lashing the pontoon rig back to the top of Lew’s truck, she pulled out a small cooler and handed Osborne a sandwich: liverwurst on light rye with lettuce and Dijon mustard. His favorite.
Also in the cooler were two bottles of water and a Ziploc of dried cranberries.

  As they sat on the back bumper of the truck, wolfing their food, Lew said, “We’re in luck that the worst of the Country Fest traffic is over. I told Fern to have Todd get the police boat up to the public landing on Horsehead Lake. Work our way down to Lake Alice, where the Nehlson and Forsyth homes are. No public landing on their lake, of course. Wonder who they pay off to swing that?”

  “I think you’re crazy, Lewellyn,” said Osborne. “That’s a twenty-six lake chain. We’ll be there all night.”

  “I have no intention of checking every lake.”

  “Every bar and restaurant?”

  “I have no intention of doing that either.”

  “Okay, I give up. What’s the plan?”

  “You know there’s a lock between Lake Alice and the next lake in the chain …”

  “Yes, but I’ve only been through there a few times. Why?”

  “Well, I fished that chain quite often in my muskie days. I know the couple who operate the lock. We got to be pretty good friends. Jerry, the husband, knows every good fishing hole on the chain—though he won’t tell you unless he likes you. And Mildred, his wife, knows all the news. All the news. If Ed Forsyth took his boat out today—Mildred will know. Chances are she may know where he went, too.”

  “How on earth—”

  “What do you think those old folks are doing sitting out on their docks all day?”

  The lake was calm, the moon high. A light breeze stirred the night air as the wide-bottomed police boat sped up the chain. Once in Lake Alice, Lew cut the inboard motor to a slow crawl as they passed a bog behind which loomed two dark shadows: the Forsyth and Nehlson lake houses. Only the driveways were lit.