While Gina picked up the coffee mugs and what remained of the doughnuts, Osborne pulled out his wallet and reached for the note with Joan’s instructions to the logger. Now he knew why it had looked so familiar: The writing style was identical to the words jotted on the envelope with the photo.
Lew waited for the sound of Christopher’s car pulling out. “Doc, you want to come along? Might be good to have a witness if things get tense.”
“Sure,” said Osborne, tucking the envelope and the note into his shirt pocket. As they rounded the corner of the house, they bumped into Parker, hanging back under the eaves and smoking a cigarette, which he tossed into the wet grass as they approached.
He gave them a sheepish look. “Bolstering myself for the rest of the day,” he said. “What I really need is a stiff one.”
“I can imagine,” said Osborne.
A light mist hung in afternoon air. Joan, sitting in the driver’s seat, lowered the window as the three of them approached.
“I refuse to give that man any credibility,” she said. Her voice had the tremor of someone speaking through gritted teeth.
As Lew approached the window, Parker hung back. His head was down, studying the gravel, and he had thrust his hands deep into his pockets.
“I didn’t know you were working for Dr. Forsyth, Joan,” said Lew. “Mind if I ask when you last saw him?”
Joan turned her face away. “I’m not answering any questions without my lawyer present.”
Lew nodded. “Okay,” she said and started to walk away, then stopped to say, “Something else puzzles me, Joan. If I remember right, the first time we met you said you hadn’t seen your sister in months—but wouldn’t you have seen her at the clinic? And you left a message on her answering machine here at the house. I thought it was Peg at first, but the few times you and I have talked on the phone tipped me off. I know it was you.”
Joan didn’t answer. She turned the key in the ignition. “Parker! Get in.”
“I suggest you get in touch with that lawyer of yours if you haven’t already,” said Lew.
“My lawyer is my business and I’ll take care of it at my convenience.”
“Tomorrow morning. Nine. My office. With or without your lawyer.” said Lew, her words clipped but clear.
The Lincoln Navigator swung around and up the driveway so fast, it almost hit a woman walking on the road who watched as the car gunned its engine and drove off. She waved at Lew and Osborne to wait, then hurried down the driveway. Mild-faced and wearing glasses, she was in jeans, tennis shoes, and a light jacket. Her eyes behind the glasses were worried.
“Chief Ferris,” she said, “I’m Cheryl Montgomery and I live next door. I was thinking of giving you a call. Then when I saw all the cars here today …” She faltered.
“It’s okay, Cheryl,” said Lew. “Is something wrong?”
“Well, I know that Peg was murdered and I’ve been worried about something I saw happen over here. She had a bad habit of not locking her doors so I took it on myself to keep an eye on her place. I worried about Peg, y’know. About ten days ago—one of the nights she stayed in town—that big car pulled in here.”
“You mean the Lincoln that just drove out?”
“Yes. It was dusk and I was working in my yard.” She pointed off to the right. Even though the properties were a good distance apart, it was easy to see through the birches and aspen to the front yards. “I saw that car pull up and a blond woman get out and run in. Peg wasn’t home and I had never seen that car there before—so I thought it was a little strange.”
“That’s her sister’s car,” said Lew. “You never saw it here before?”
“No and I’m retired. I see just about everyone who drives down our road. But if it was her sister—that would be okay, I guess. Sorry to have bothered you.” The woman started to walk away, then stopped. “Funny, I’ve talked to Peg so many times and she never mentioned having a sister.”
“They weren’t close,” said Lew.
“Then why did she barge into her house like that?” said Cheryl. “She was in there a long time, too—at least an hour.”
“Good question, I’ll look into it.”
Back in Peg’s living room, Osborne pulled out Joan’s note and the envelope. He set them side by side on the desk for Lew to see the similarities in the writing style. “This could be what Joan was up to the day the neighbor saw her,” he said. “You remember how that envelope had been shoved between the photos?”
“And the box was only halfway stored under the bed as if someone was in a hurry,” said Lew. “Someone who alleges she had minimal contact with her sister but was compelled to enter her home and leave something that could only cause pain. If I were in Peg’s shoes, finding that picture would bring back awful memories. It would ruin any of the good memories she might have found in there.”
“But what’s the point?” said Osborne. “How would she even know if Peg was likely to look in that box given what she wrote on it?”
“Very likely she would have,” said Lew. “When I was going through Peg’s correspondence from the lawyer handling her mother’s estate, the photos were mentioned. The lawyer said Mrs. Garmin wanted Peg to have the photos and that they had been sent under separate cover. That would have been about a month ago. Joan was copied on the letter so she would have known the box was here—somewhere. I’m sure it took her a while to find it.”
“I still don’t understand,” said Osborne.
“Anger … hate … emotions that go all the way back to childhood,” said Lew. “What I find curious is that Joan must have known Peg wouldn’t be home. That may be why we have her voice on the answering machine—she was making sure her sister wasn’t here.”
“All she had to do was drive by Harold Westbrook’s,” said Osborne, “and see if there was a blue convertible parked out front. Or have her handyman George do it. His house is five minutes away.”
“Speaking of George—what time is it, Doc? Let’s see if that guy has Sundays off.”
thirty-one
Fly fishing twists fate like a dream and, together with wilderness, makes anything possible.
—Ailm Traveler
Osborne spun the wheel on the shore station holding his fishing boat. Just as the Alumacraft hit the water, he heard the phone ring. Dashing up the walk to the porch, he reached the kitchen just as the ringing stopped. He waited to hear a message on the machine but no one spoke. Instead the phone rang again.
“Doc—”
“Yeah, Ray—was that you that just called?”
“That was Lew. She asked me to call you. They got a 911 from people down the lake from the Nehlsons. They’re hearing gunfire coming from that direction. Lew’s on her way and asked me to pick you up and meet at the intersection of 51 and 47. We’ll decide what to do from there.”
“Be ready in two minutes. Just have to pull my boat back up out of the water.”
“Bring your twenty-gauge just in case.”
“Got it.”
So much for perfect conditions for muskie, thought Osborne, as he spun the boat back up and latched it down. He hated to take the time but the sky was dark enough that a good wind could blow up. Then he grabbed his shotgun and a box of shells: intended for grouse but enough to slow down a predator of any size.
The afternoon had ended innocently enough: George Buchholz was nowhere to be seen when he and Lew drove by his house. She decided to go home and try to get in baking the bread and cinnamon rolls that she hadn’t been able to get to on Saturday. Osborne took Mike down to the lake for a swim, finished the Sunday paper, grilled himself a cheeseburger, and had the vain hope he could squeeze in some fishing.
Lew was pacing outside her police cruiser when they pulled into the parking lot of a bait shop near the highway intersection. “I have Todd and Roger going in by boat,” she said, leaning into the window of Ray’s truck on Osborne’s side.
“One of the neighbors paddled a canoe close enough to confirm that the g
unfire is definitely coming from an area near the Nehlsons’ house—though it could be from Forsyth’s, too. They were instructed not to get too close. I’m afraid if we take the road in, we could end up in the line of fire.”
Ray had pulled out his plat book and was studying the page. “That Garmin Family Foundation property borders state land. I’ve hunted there. We could come in from the side along the bog and not be seen. I know a logging road that we can take in. It’ll bring us alongside the property line. Be a five-minute walk at the most—and safe as hell because that’s all balsam and spruce. Good cover.”
“All right, Ray. Since you’ve been there before, I’ll follow you.”
The pickup rocked its way down the lane to an open area near the edge of the bog. Lew pulled up behind, jumped from her car, and opened her trunk. “I want you two wearing bulletproof vests—just in case.”
Ray jumped into the bed of his truck to unlock the steel case he kept there. He pulled out his .357 magnum and a box of cartridges. He proceeded to load the gun. “You say we don’t know who we’re dealing with? Forsyth, maybe?”
Lew, her Sig Sauer out of its holster and ready, said, “No—for all I know, it could be some lunatics left over from the Country Fest.” Osborne slipped two shells into his shotgun.
They started along the edge of the bog. Lew took the lead, Ray and Osborne behind her. The cloud cover had cleared and the summer sun was still strong in the sky. Osborne could see across the bog to the Nehlsons'. Just beyond a thicket of tag alder, they found themselves blocked by the decaying trunk of a massive white pine that had been struck by lightning. Lew and Ray circled off to the right, scrambling over the wide trunk.
To save time, Osborne went left, pushed his way through the dead branches, and hurried to catch up in the clearing on the other side. He had good footing along the edge of the bog, when suddenly he lost traction. Down, down, the water was up to his chest before his feet hit the bottom hard. Too hard—he wasn’t in muck, which was strange. He held his arms high, trying to keep the shotgun from getting wet.
“Doc!” Ray stopped and turned back to help. He teetered at the edge of the bog. As Lew came up behind him, Ray put both hands back to keep her from getting closer. “Careful,” he said, pointing down at his feet, “someone has been cutting along here, right through the bog. And, look—tire tracks leading right up to this point.”
“Take my gun,” said Osborne, edging forward toward Ray until he felt his feet begin to slip off the hard surface he was standing on. As soon as his gun was safe in Ray’s hands, Osborne backed up, took a deep breath, and ducked down, his fingers reaching to define whatever it was under his feet. He came up for air. “I think I’m standing on a car.”
“Give me a hand, Ray,” said Lew. The logger’s chainsaw and the action of the vehicle as it sank had loosened sections of the bog, making it easy to push a section off to the side.
The water of Lake Alice was crystal clear. Beneath Osborne’s feet they could see the roof of a dark blue pickup. Osborne pushed at the bog and it separated enough for him to see a human arm, sleeve rolled up to its elbow, suspended in the quiet water near where the truck’s window would be.
“So that’s where ol’ George has been sleeping,” said Ray.
Though he couldn’t see it, Osborne knew what they would find on the inside of that forearm: the symbol for patience, the praying mantis. “I’d just as soon not go down there again,” he said, accepting a hand from Ray to hoist himself high enough to gain firm footing.
A gunshot rang out. They looked across the bog toward the Nehlsons’ big house. More gunfire. “I see the shooter,” said Lew. “By that tree in the yard to the rear of the house. Be very careful.”
Joan Nehlson was hunkered down behind a towering basswood tree surrounded by a ring of white gravel. The tree was in the center of the long, sloping lawn, midway between the house and where the road crested to meet the driveway. From where they were crouched behind an outbuilding at the far end of the drive, Osborne could see that she was holding a revolver in both hands—aimed at the house.
As they watched, she pulled the trigger and one of the long windows along the back wall of the house shattered.
“Joan!” shouted Lew. “Hold your fire. This is Chief Ferris. Please, put down your gun.”
“I can’t do that,” said Joan, twisting sideways to look in their direction. “Every time I move an inch, he fires at me.”
“Who fires at you?”
“Parker. He’s in the foyer with a deer rifle. He’s trying to kill me.”
“Take it easy, Joan. You’ll be safe. Just put down that gun.” Joan remained where she was. She did not put down her gun.
“Parker!” called Lew. “I want you to come out with your arms over your head.”
“Chief Ferris?” cried a male voice through an open window in the house. “Is that you?”
“Yes. Please, Parker. Come out with your hands up.”
The front door opened and Parker, wearing red plaid Bermuda shorts and a white T-shirt, took half a step out, his right arm held high. The gun in Joan’s hands barked and Parker spun around, falling back into the house.
“Goddamnit, Joan—what are you doing?” said Lew.
“He was faking. I saw a gun in his left hand—he was going to shoot the minute he saw me.”
“Ray,” said Lew, her voice low, “think you can get into the house from the lakeside? Take Parker from there?”
“I can try.” Ray ducked back around the building and dashed across the drive. A line of balsams guarded the perimeter of the long yard. Osborne could see flashes of Ray’s khaki shirt as he darted along behind the trees. So could Joan. She swung to the right and, holding her revolver in both hands, leveled it at Ray.
Lew’s gun flashed six times as Joan dropped. She never got a shot off.
Bleeding from his left shoulder but conscious, Parker lay where he had fallen inside the front door. Osborne grabbed towels from the nearby bathroom and applied pressure to staunch the bleeding until the EMTs arrived.
“You’ll be okay, Parker,” he said. “Just lie still. The bullet may have shattered some bone but it doesn’t look like it hit an artery.”
“She’s had me trapped in here for over an hour,” said Parker, wincing through his pain. “She cut the line on the house phone and took the cell phones so I couldn’t call for help. Every time I tried to get out of the house, she shot at me.”
Ray found two guns in the house. One was an antique deer rifle still hanging on its rack above the fireplace in the den. The other was a loaded 12-gauge shotgun that was resting on a table on the sun porch near the front door.
“Is this your shotgun, Parker?” asked Lew as they waited for the ambulance.
“No, when we got back here this afternoon, Joan had me bring it down from the upstairs den so she could polish it. Said she was planning to sell it to some woman she knew from the casino. It’s always been in the gun cabinet but it belonged to Hugo,” said Parker. “I’m not a hunter. I’ve never shot a gun in my life. I wouldn’t know what to do with that thing. I—I,” he stammered, “if I was going kill someone, I’d have to club them to death with a nine-iron.” He gave a weak laugh.
“Ssh, that’s enough now,” said Lew. “No more talking until we have you fixed up.”
Joan’s acid yellow hair, still splayed across the white pebbles surrounding the basswood, was turning black with blood. Lew would testify at the inquest that with her deputy’s life at risk, she had aimed to kill. But it was Joan’s sudden movement as she took aim at Ray that may have put her in the path of the bullet that slammed into the base of her skull, killing her instantly.
Osborne turned to Lew as the ambulance carrying Parker headed back up the driveway. “Why on earth was she shooting at Ray?”
“My hunch is Joan thought we would take her word that Parker was armed and shoot him. And if we didn’t, she would. Then lie and claim he had been terrorizing her so she shot in self-defense. With his
prints on the shotgun, it would be easy to believe.
“But if Ray got to Parker first—we would know the truth.”
thirty-two
Fish like an artist and per adventure a good Fish may fall to your share.
—Charles Cotton, The Compleat Angler/Part Two
Two hours later, after the emergency room physician had cleaned the bullet wound and found no shattered bone, Parker was weak but able to talk. Lew and Osborne pulled up chairs next to his hospital bed.
“After you told me about Joan’s gambling debts and the lien on the house, I decided to confront her. At first she denied it. Then I asked how involved she was with what had been going on at Ed’s clinic. That’s when she told me there wouldn’t be a problem because Ed wasn’t going to be around to tell anyone.”
“And what do you think that meant?” said Lew.
“I asked her and she just gave me this look. I could be wrong,” said Parker, “but I think she killed him. I’m certain she had something to do with Peg’s death. She said ‘I’ve taken care of things so I am next of kin. Mother’s money is my money.’ Those were her exact words.”
“Well, that’s one time she was telling the truth,” said Lew. “Gina Palmer was able to check the phone records on your lake house phone and found that George Buchholz placed a call to your house from the pay phone at the bar the night the women were killed. Joan hired George to kill Peg and her friends and sabotage the car. When it didn’t work out quite as they had planned, he was supposed to burn the car the next day but the forester found it first.”
“So you talked to George?” said Parker.
“Oh no, no one’s talking to George,” said Lew. “About an hour after we packed you off to the emergency room, Robbie Mikkleson pulled George’s truck out of the bog by your house. George was still at the wheel, and he had a check in his wallet from your wife for twenty-five thousand dollars. Payment for services rendered. He also had a bullet in the head—from the back. Same type of bullet as used in your wife’s Smith and Wesson .38 revolver. His own gun was found in the cab.”
Dead Boogie Page 17