Dead Jitterbug

by Victoria Houston

  “I can’t answer that,” said Lew. “But I suggest you plan to stay several days, both you and your daughter, while the investigation gets underway. I’ve deputized Dr. Osborne here to help out since he’s familiar with your wife’s family and their history in the community. I want you to feel free to call him at any time if something comes to mind.

  “Now, I have a serious concern that within a few hours you, your daughter, and myself, not to mention everyone in Loon Lake, are going to be swamped with television crews, newspaper reporters—”

  “No, no, no,” said Ed, dismissing her concern with an airy wave. “That won’t be a problem. I’ve taken care of all that.”

  “You have?” asked Lew, surprised.

  It was not the first surprise of the morning.

  fifteen

  She is neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring.

  —John Hey wood

  Osborne had awakened to the sound of voices in his kitchen. Lew, wearing his bathrobe, was drinking coffee with Ray. And it wasn’t even six yet.

  “Jeez, Ray,” said Osborne as he reached to pour himself a cup of coffee, “how many times have I asked you not to drop in before—”

  “Hold on, Doc,” said Lew, raising one hand. “I called him. Woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, kept thinking about this.” She pointed to the Sucrets box, which was sitting open on the kitchen table.

  Ray looked back and forth at the two of them, making sure it was safe to continue.

  “Go on,” said Lew.

  “Like I said a minute ago,” said Ray, “I gave Jenny half a dozen of my smaller lures—including that Jitterbug—for her birthday. The kid loves to fish smallies.”

  “And you gave ‘em to her in this same box.”

  “Oh, yeah. Easy to keep in her back pocket. She was so excited to get those—I’m surprised she left it somewhere.”

  “Me, too,” said Lew, looking at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Darn, too early to call her house. What do you think, Ray—if I wait until seven? Is that too soon?”

  “Want me to call?” asked Ray. “She knows that I know she was fishing the shoreline over on Secret Lake. Might be easier for me to get her to talk.”

  “Do you mind? But talk to her mother first. That child looked so terrified last night. Who knows what she saw.”

  “Let’s hope she didn’t see it happen,” said Ray. “What an awful thing that could be…. Tell you what—why don’t I just drive on over there and give you a call after I chat with Jill. That’s her mom. We’re good friends.” Lew cocked her head, eyebrows raised. “Okay, better than good friends. Jenny won’t be afraid to talk to me.”

  “Ray, you just said something that worries me,” said Lew. “If that girl did see it happen, whoever killed Hope McDonald might go after her. If that’s the case, we’ve got to be sure that information does not get out. Her mother, the little brother—they need to know that.”

  “You betcha,” said Ray. He threw the rest of his coffee in the sink and headed for the back door. Then he stopped. “I assume you’ve spoken with Kitsy?”

  Lew nodded. “And her father. Meeting with each of them later today.”

  “How did Kitsy take it?” asked Ray.

  “Well … I’m not sure it registered. I woke her up, of course. She was groggy, glassy-eyed. Kept trying to focus. I think she’d taken sleeping pills. Sure seemed difficult for her to grasp what I was saying. I ended up placing the call to her father with her sitting beside me. After I told him what we found and the situation, I went to put her on the phone, and she was asleep. I managed to keep her awake long enough for the two of them to talk, but they couldn’t have said more than twenty words to each other.”

  “Was she drunk?” said Osborne.

  “No. Dopey. Had to be sleeping pills or a strong tranquilizer—maybe she’d been drinking earlier, then took something.”

  “Ouch,” said Osborne.

  “Whatever—it was hopeless. I told her to go back to bed, and we’d go over details today. And I tried to make it clear she was not to go to her mother’s home, but who knows if that registered. It was strange—I don’t think I was in that house more than twenty minutes.”

  “Lew, something I saw yesterday that I didn’t think of until just now,” said Osborne. “When Kitsy was helping me get the bags with our lunch supplies, she got a call on her cell phone, opened her backpack, and a small handgun in a fancy red leather holster fell out. I’m pretty sure it was a twenty-two pistol.”

  Lew raised her eyebrows. “You positive?”

  “No.”

  “What about her friend, Julia, who’s staying there,” Ray inquired. “Did you talk to her?”

  “Kitsy insisted she was alone,” said Lew.

  “Really? I could swear Julia was staying there. Well, heck, this is going to be a big deal, Chief,” said Ray. “Hope McDonald is like one of the most famous women in America.”

  “No need to tell me that,” said Lew. “A couple of the Wausau boys are meeting me at the McDonald place right at seven. I’ll work with them and hope that Roger and Todd can keep everything running smoothly around town.”

  She glanced between Osborne and Ray. “Any chance you two can give me forty-eight hours of your time while I figure out what I’m dealing with?”

  Both men nodded.

  “Good. Ray, call me the minute you’ve talked with the girl.”

  It was nine a.m. when Lew and Osborne sat down at a weathered picnic table in the yard of the little house catty-corner from the gate leading down to the McDonald estate. Ray, Jill, and the two children were waiting. The morning was bright and warm and the white birches had leafed out, throwing a canopy of shade over the table.

  Osborne recognized Jennifer’s mother. She was a waitress at the Fireside, a dinner club where he had eaten often after fishing lakes west of town. Petite with a square, elfin face and huge brown eyes, she was wearing her hair pulled back in a short ponytail and no makeup to hide the fatigue in her face.

  Jennifer was her mother in miniature: big eyes, ponytail—even the fatigue. But she did seem calmer this morning, perhaps because she was holding tight to Ray’s right hand.

  “Jenny did not see it happen,” Ray had said as they walked across the road towards the little group.

  “Thank goodness,” said Osborne, exhaling with relief. What the child had seen was bad enough.

  “So, Jenny sweetie,” said Ray when everyone was settled, “tell Chief Ferris exactly what you did last night, and why you were so worried.”

  The girl took a deep breath. When she had finished telling them what she had seen or not seen over the previous three days, and why she had trespassed onto the McDonald property, Lew said, “Jennifer, you have no idea how helpful this is.”

  “I should have told you last night,” said the girl. “But I was so scared.” Tears welled in her eyes.

  “That’s okay, it’s okay,” said Lew. “The important thing is that we now know it was you who set off the alarm when you tried the door handle. That’s important. And the fact that you think you saw Mrs. McDonald sitting in the same spot for three nights gives me a better idea of when she may have been killed.”

  “Oh …” said Jill, “so it wasn’t suicide?” She had been serious before, now she looked frightened.

  “Very much not suicide,” said Lew. “That’s why I need to get from each of you a list of all the people you’ve seen coming and going through that gate. Or any unusual traffic on this road. Jennifer?”

  “No one in the last couple days,” said the girl.

  “What about her daughter?”

  “If you mean that Kitsy, the one with the tattoos? She hasn’t come to visit for a long time—like a couple weeks maybe.”

  Lew raised her eyebrows and looked at Ray and Osborne.

  “I wonder if we’re talking about the same person,” said Ray. “I don’t remember seeing any tattoos on Kitsy—and I saw a lot of Kitsy. What sort of tattoos, Jenny?”

>   “The makeup stuff. Like her lips are tattooed red and her eyes—all those black lines are tattooed on.”

  Osborne and Ray looked puzzled. “How do you know that?” asked Osborne.

  “Oh, she showed me,” said Jennifer. “On Memorial Day I went over to fish, and she was on the dock in her swimming suit getting a tan. Mrs. McDonald was there, too. She was sitting in a chair reading. When she saw me, she invited me to visit with them—they got me a Coke.

  “Kitsy was reading People magazine and showed me this article about girls getting their makeup tattooed on. She asked me what I thought—then she showed me hers—like on her eyes and stuff. She said the tattoos are a lot less expensive than buying makeup.”

  “I wondered why you asked me about that,” said Jill, shaking her head. “Honestly. What next?”

  “She used to visit her mom a lot,” said Jennifer. “But not lately.”

  “She has her own house farther down the road, right?” asked Lew.

  “Jennifer,” said Jill, “tell Chief Ferris what you told me about Kitsy and her mother.”

  “Mom … do I have to?”

  “Jennifer is worried that she has been doing the wrong thing fishing over there,” said Jill. “And maybe she has—but she told me about something she saw and heard a couple weeks ago that I think—now that you tell me Mrs. McDonald didn’t commit suicide—could be important.”

  “Jennifer,” said Lew, “the lakes and the rivers are public property. You are allowed to fish wherever you please. On the other hand, why don’t you tell me how you get over to Secret Lake?”

  “The path behind their fence,” said Jennifer in a small voice.

  “Well, that is private land, but you’ve said that Mrs. McDonald was okay with your fishing over there, right?”

  Jennifer nodded.

  “Then you’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “So tell them, honey,” said Jill. “About the fight.”

  “I heard Mrs. McDonald get real mad at Kitsy, and I think that’s why I haven’t seen her go there since. See, she used to always drive in around four o’clock every day, and she doesn’t do that anymore.”

  “Where were you when you heard the fight?” asked Lew.

  “Fishing by the dock. You can hear everything if the windows are open.”

  “I heard it, too,” said Timmy. “They were screaming at each other.”

  “Any hitting?” said Lew.

  “I don’t know,” said Jennifer. “I couldn’t see anything. I just heard their voices. Mrs. McDonald kept screaming, ‘Get out, get out, get out.’ She was so mad. The other lady was crying, and she kept saying, ‘I’m just trying to help—please let me help.’ Kinda like that. Then she ran out on the deck, saw us, and ran back inside. That’s how come I know it was Kitsy.”

  “Okay,” said Lew, “that helps. Who else has been over there recently?”

  “No one that I know of,” said Jennifer. “But I might not see everyone who comes and goes. I have summer school in the mornings….”

  “Mrs. McDonald must have people who come to cut her grass and clean her house,” said Lew.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Jennifer. “There’s that Bunny woman, but she hasn’t been there either.”

  “Bunny?”

  “She’s the maid,” said Jenny. “She always wears a white dress. And that old man. The one who built the gazebo.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  Jennifer shrugged.

  “The garbage man,” said Timmy. “That scary-lookin’ guy.”

  “That would be Dairyl Wolniewicz—good buddy of mine. May look scary, but he’s a very nice man,” said Ray, in a tone that reminded the kids not to judge a person on their looks.

  “Okay, and the garbage man. Anyone else? What about Mr. Kelly, Mrs. McDonald’s husband? Doesn’t he come pretty often?”

  “If he’s the one who drives the big white car, he came one weekend,” said Jenny. “A while ago.”

  “Memorial Day?” asked her mother.

  “No, Mom, before that.”

  “You know,” said Jill, “I thought it was odd that they had no party this year. They used to always have lots of visitors on the big holidays. Definitely not this year. Funny, now that I think of it.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that Mrs. McDonald was alone most of the time,” said Lew. “I’m surprised. I would have thought such a famous, prominent person would have too many people around.”

  “It used to be that way,” said Jill. “When I moved in here four years ago, once the weather warmed, there was a constant stream—but things changed this past year. It’s been very quiet.”

  “What about Mrs. McDonald? Did she change?” asked Osborne. He had a vivid memory of Hope’s last appointment—she was vivacious, funny even. A petite, striking-looking woman, her personality always made her seem taller. She filled a room with her warmth and laughter. So much so that if her tall, handsome husband was there, you barely noticed him.

  “I don’t think she changed,” said Jennifer. “She always waved and smiled at me. Mom, she wasn’t alone all the time. Some days she drove to the Loon Lake Market and the drugstore.”

  “In the green car?” asked Lew. “The green Explorer. The car that’s in the garage?”

  “Yes—she would wave when she drove by.”

  “When was the last time you saw her drive by?” asked Lew.

  “That’s the thing,” said Jennifer, “not for a long time—two weeks maybe?”

  “So … around the time she had the fight with her daughter?”

  “Yeah, I think so. One more thing … sometimes I could hear her talking. But I wouldn’t hear anyone else—just her voice. Like she was talking to herself.”

  “And you fished there how often, Jennifer—every day?”

  “She never said I couldn’t.” Worry filled the child’s eyes.

  “Not to worry, kiddo,” said Lew. “You had permission.”

  “Good to know it was Jennifer who tried the door and set off the alarm,” said Lew as she and Osborne walked back down the driveway to the estate.

  “Better to know we don’t have to worry about someone going after her,” said Osborne.

  “What puzzles me, Doc,” said Lew, “is that as of eight thirty this morning and having checked all the doors and windows in that big house, the Wausau boys could find no sign of anyone breaking in. Whoever killed Hope McDonald had to be someone she knew, someone she had no problem letting into her home.”

  “Or,” said Osborne, “someone who had no problem getting into her home. Not necessarily the same thing.”

  sixteen

  There is nothing which in a moment makes a tired, despondent, perhaps hopeless man suddenly become alert and keen as the hooking of a big fish.

  —Gilfrid Hartley

  Ed Kelly set his drink on the table and, clasping both hands together, dropped them between his knees as he leaned forward. He cleared his throat and waited, then swiveled his flushed, square face from Lew to Osborne and back to Lew as he said, “The press is covered. My buddies at Hope’s newspaper syndicate are taking care of it. They know all the top dogs and will make sure that any inquiries go to my Madison office. I briefed the staff this morning.”

  “Really?” asked Lew. “What are you telling people?” “That my wife died at home of undetermined causes—and that we’ll have a press release sometime in the next few days. Are you aware the Packers fired their coach last night, and the president was rushed to the hospital with chest pains? Hope’s death is not likely to be high on any news budget today.”

  “The coroner’s filing will certainly spark interest from local reporters,” said Lew.

  “Taken care of. Called your man Pecore at the morgue right after my plane landed this morning. Wanted to make sure he records Hope’s death under her legal surname, which is Catherine Hope McDonald Kelly. I doubt the local press will make the connection.”

  “Well, you’ve got everything under control,” said Lew. “
Fast work.”

  “I’ve been preparing for this,” said Ed with a grimace. “You see,” he pursed his lips and wrinkled his brow, “this spring my wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s—early stages but….” He gave a heavy sigh. “We were told to expect a swift decline.”

  The room was quiet. A robin trilled. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Lew.

  Ed nodded. “Not as sorry as we were.”

  “Ed,” Osborne asked, “if that’s the case, why was she living here all alone?”

  “That was about to change. We—meaning my daughter and I—were hoping to hire nursing staff to care for her. But she has been damned difficult to deal with these past weeks. There were good days when she was herself—then she’d go wacko on us. This is not a predictable disease, you know.

  “Kitsy has been driving back and forth from Madison since mid-May. But she needed a break. We thought Hope would be okay on her own for just a week while Kitsy finished moving into her new house.”

  “Two weeks is how long your daughter has been in her new home,” said Lew. “Maybe you can help me with something, Mr. Kelly. I’ve been trying to figure out why this house has bags of potato chips stashed everywhere. I went through it this morning with the team from the crime lab, and we were dumbfounded.”

  “Potato chips?” Ed looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “Under the furniture, on every kitchen shelf, in clothes closets, linen closets,” said Lew. “Everywhere you look there are bags of potato chips. Some opened, some not. There are potato chips in the bathrooms!”

  Ed opened his mouth to protest, but Lew put up her hand—“Let me finish. Oddly enough, Mr. Kelly, your wife’s office is the only room where there are no potato chips. And it’s quite tidy—as if someone came in and straightened it up.”

  Ed threw his hands into the air. “I don’t know. Since this all started it’s been one bizarre act by Hope after another. Hell, she accused me of having another family hidden away, of stealing from her—who knows what she’s been up to around here!

  “Kitsy and I have been doing our level best to keep her mother’s column going until we could make a formal announcement. Maybe Kitsy straightened the office.”