Dead Boogie

by Victoria Houston

  “It may take six weeks for the Wausau boys to get around to it, but I’m confident we’ll have a ballistics report that’ll match Joan’s gun to the bullet that killed George, and George’s .22 Long Rifle to the bullets that killed Peg and her friends.”

  “What about Ed?” said Parker. “What did she—”

  “That we don’t know. These lakes keep their secrets. But he hasn’t made any attempt to access any of his bank accounts so we have no reason to believe he’s left the country.”

  Parker picked at lint on the hospital blanket before saying, “I told her I wanted out. I told her I wanted a divorce—that no way would I put myself in a position of being an accomplice to what she has been up to.”

  “Is that what set her off this afternoon?”

  “That and the fact that she finally realized that Peg’s will leaving everything to Christopher was a valid legal document. I saw the look in her eye today when I got into the car after seeing you people. So when I told her I wanted out of the marriage, I also said that if anything ever happened to that boy and his family—that I would point the finger at her so fast …” Parker shook his right index finger as if it were Joan, not Lew and Osborne, sitting at his bedside. “ ‘You’ve been warned,’ I said to her. ‘You’ve been warned.’ ”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I left the house. Went for a walk in the woods, tried to get my head straight. I didn’t really know what to do next but I knew I had to get out of there. Right after I got back, all hell broke loose.”

  Osborne reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out an envelope. He slipped out the photo of Mary Margaret at the age of seven and handed it over to Parker. “Have you seen this before?”

  Parker averted his eyes. “Yes. When Joan and I were in the lawyer’s office for the reading of her mother’s will, she was given a letter and that picture. The letter was her mother’s confession that she had covered up Hugo’s abuse and this picture was proof of what Hugo had done.

  “In her letter, Mrs. Garmin said that since Joan had received her inheritance already, she wanted the rest of the money to go to Peg and some to the Church. She never knew that Joan had lost all her money in the stock market. The will stunned my wife. She never expected not to inherit her mother’s money.

  “And the old lady’s last sentence was that she wanted Joan to find a way that she and Peg could be friends.”

  “Orders from the grave to be sisterly,” said Lew.

  “Made Joan furious. She hated Peg. With all her heart she hated Peg since they were kids. Joan always felt that Peg got all the attention. That no matter how well she did in school, no matter how hard she worked to be the socialite her mother wanted, it was Peg their mother focused on. Was she up to something new and awful that would damage the family name? That was the constant refrain. When it came to Joan, her mother was always critical, always giving orders—rarely, if ever, showed her any affection. I saw it myself.”

  “And you had an affair with Peg. That couldn’t have helped,” said Osborne.

  “I was stupid. It happened when Peg was home after one of her wild runaways. She was so pretty and she really came on to me …”

  “Which is not unusual for girls who’ve been sexually abused as children,” said Lew. “Unless they get good counseling, they’re in danger of acting out. And they can be very seductive. How did Joan handle it?”

  “Mrs. Garmin made me swear not to tell her. She didn’t want any cloud over our wedding. Joan didn’t know about the pregnancy until six months after we were married. She found out by accident when I had to sign papers for the baby to be given up for adoption. Not one of the proudest moments in my life,” said Parker.

  “Did you have any good years in your marriage?” Osborne asked the question before thinking, but Parker didn’t seem to mind.

  “At the time I got engaged to Joan, I thought I loved her. Of course, at that age who knows what love is. Half the reason you get married is to make your parents happy. Then Joan turned out to be … difficult. But I learned to put up with her. It was easier that way. My dad put up with my mother. Mrs. Garmin put up with Hugo. What can I say?”

  Leaving the hospital, Lew linked an arm through Osborne’s. “So sad, Doc. Old Mrs. Garmin is the one who should be held responsible. She damaged both her daughters: One she refused to protect, one she bullied. Money for both—but love? None.”

  thirty-three

  Blessings upon all that hate contention, and love quietnesse, and vertue, and Angling.

  —Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler

  One week later, at eleven o’clock on a balmy Tuesday morning, Osborne found himself standing near the dock at Wolf Lake. Peg had been cremated, a Mass said in her honor, and Ray had just set the bronze container holding her remains in the shade of the pines protecting the bench at the end of the dock. A mother duck with ten ducklings drifted nearby, mildly interested in the proceedings.

  Christopher had walked out onto the dock with his wife, Holly—a pleasant-faced young woman, tall and slim with long, straight black hair held back from her face in a barrette. Perched on Christopher’s arm was Violet, who was so cute in a pink outfit with bunnies and a matching sun-bonnet that Osborne couldn’t help mulling over the intricacies of parental etiquette: Should he or should he not suggest to Erin and Mark that they consider having one more child?

  Parker, his left arm in a sling, stood on shore next to Harold Westbrook, who looked distinguished in a dark blue pinstriped suit. Standing across from Harold was Osborne with Gina on one side and Lew, who had just arrived, on the other.

  “Lew,” whispered Osborne, “you got away?”

  “For two hours,” she whispered back. She looked more relaxed than she had in days and he knew why. The paperwork on all the arrests from Country Fest had been completed. The results from the Wausau Crime Lab had come in and they were conclusive: The tread marks on the road near the site where the women had been murdered matched the treads on George Buchholz’s truck.

  In return for a fly-fishing lesson, Bruce had pushed for the ballistics tests to be completed ahead of schedule. They confirmed that it was Joan Nehlson’s gun that fired a bullet through the skull of a man who should have known better than to take his eye off her: George Buchholz. And it was George who had slain Peg, Donna, and Pat.

  Over the weekend, two kayakers came upon Ed Forsyth, his body snagged in the branches of a white birch half-submerged along the shore of Little Pickerel Lake. A blow to the back of his head appeared to be the cause of death. However, Wausau’s forensic pathologist was quick to point out that the blunt-force injury resulted in “anatomical alterations” greater than any that might be caused by falling off his boat and hitting his head on a rock or a stump.

  “We figure that helping Joan get rid of Ed was the one job George had to complete before getting his check,” said Lew in response to a question from Harold.

  “Ed was the one who could link Joan to the insurance fraud, while George knew everything. She had to get rid of him. Hiding him in the bog might have worked, too. He had no family to worry about his disappearance. Certainly not his neighbors.”

  “I know where she got the idea,” said Parker. “Hugo used to have the caretakers sink scrap vehicles rather than haul them away.”

  “Speaking of George,” said Ray, “if only Joan had called his references, she might have learned that he always did the job halfway.”

  Gina punched him in the arm. “Ray, it is tasteless to speak of the dead like that.”

  Ray wrinkled his brow to give her a puzzled look: “Really?” Gina responded with a dim eye, then grinned.

  Parker seemed to enjoy their kidding around. He was in good spirits even though it would take a chunk of what remained of his grandmother’s trust to pay off Joan’s gambling debts. Still, he wouldn’t lose the lake house. “I’ll sell it and build a much smaller place on a piece of the land,” he’d told Osborne earlier. “Too many memories.”

  He wa
s also relieved to hear from his lawyer that the team investigating Ed Forsyth’s clinic and the insurance fraud had no reason to believe that he was involved in any way, in spite of his wife’s actions. But Osborne guessed that what really made him a happier man was getting to know Christopher and Holly and, especially, Violet.

  “Shall we get on with this?” said Osborne with a nod to Ray. “The good ladies of St. Mary’s Parish have a luncheon ready. We don’t want to keep them waiting.” More than fifty Loon Lake residents had attended the Mass for Peg, many of whom were hungry and waiting in the church cafeteria for their return.

  Harold walked onto the dock. He held a silver scoop, which he dipped into the container holding Peg’s ashes. “I shall miss her light,” he said as he waved the scoop. A soft breeze out of the south carried the ashes across the water.

  Christopher took the scoop from Harold. He said nothing, just smiled, as the wind caught the dust. Then it was Ray’s turn.

  When the container was empty, he turned to Christopher and Holly, “If it’s all right with you folks, since you’ll be the owners of this cottage, I’d like to contribute a white granite marker to be placed here by the shore. Peg loved to feed the ducks and the hummingbirds. She loved sitting on this bench and listening to the loons.”

  “We would like that,” said Christopher.

  Holding a sheet of paper in one hand, Ray said, “Then I’d like to read what the marker will say:

  Here where the pines sigh to the sun Lives the spirit of one who was always A lover of soft winged things.”

  After the church luncheon, Osborne walked with Lew from St. Mary’s to the courthouse. As they neared the entrance, he gathered his courage to ask her a question that had been on his mind for the last few days.

  “Lewellyn,” he said, “I’ve been thinking …”

  “That’s always dangerous, Doc,” said Lew with an easy grin.

  “You work so hard during the tourist season, you need a break. Gina helped me search the Internet the other day—for the best locations for bonefishing.”

  “Are you serious?” Lew stopped and looked up at him. “What did you find?”

  “The Berry Islands in the Bahamas. I ran it by Ray, and turns out he’s guided a fellow who knows the right guides to book if you want to fly-fish. Very few people know about that area, Lew. We could count on good fishing as well as peace and quiet … what about it? Take a week off and we’ll go together?”

  The perplexed look on her face caused Osborne’s heart to sink. “Just one problem, Doc …” He held his breath.

  “You will need a much heavier rod.”

  “I’m counting on that, Lew, but … do I have to buy it from Ralph?”

  The way she laughed—he knew he could order the plane tickets.

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  ublished in Electronic Format by

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  Copyright © 2006 by Victoria Houston

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  his is a work of fiction.

  Any similarities to people or places, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-3155-2

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3155-2

  This work has been previously published in print format by:

  The Berkley Publishing Group

  A division of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

  Print ISBN: 0-425-20895-8