Dead Creek (14 page)

“More frequently observed, in your region, has been the feminization of male fish and some birds and mammals, along with decreased fertility and, in some cases, impaired metabolism. I would be hard-pressed to tell you just how a pregnant woman might have ingested the chemicals. For problems as severe as those I see in the victim, the mother had to be living in a veritable hothouse of superestrogens. Also, it could have been for a brief period of time but during a vulnerable stage of her pregnancy.”

“Doc, going back to the problem I have identifying this individual,” said Lew, “I have information that points to this victim being from the Kansas City area and having spent just a short period of time up here. I think that shoots Ray’s theory that the victim is from this area.”

“But you don’t know the individual’s life history. Where was he born? Where did he grow up? As Ray may have mentioned to you, the question my team has been dealing with is just how widely distributed are the source chemicals in the Great Lakes region. More specifically, throughout the watershed that includes Loon Lake.”

“Why choose Loon Lake?” asked Lew. “Why not an area farther north? Like around Lake Superior?”

“Because we know the industrial chemicals in question have been released in your region. For years, they were spewed by pulp and paper mills into your streams and rivers. More to the point, your area had mills that manufactured food wrappings, a primary source of alkyl phenols, which break down to produce the superestrogens. The big question is: How seriously has your groundwater been affected?

“But again, I must hedge and say nothing is certain. We are having a heck of a time because different species metabolize these chemicals in different ways. Also, the mix of endocrine disruptors in the environment is constantly changing. All we know for certain is there have been times in your area when the concentration of the chemicals in question has exceeded acceptable thresholds.

“That’s why I am going to go out on a limb and theorize that this victim was exposed to a unique environmental situation. This could lead us to a more potent source in your region than any we have found to date. Back to your question: The individual could be from somewhere else, but the coincidence is rather striking from my point of view. To find a body in this region, a known source region, exhibiting so many signs of endocrine disruption … well, you get my point.”

“We have the name of the victim, Dr. Shanley,” said Lew. “When our investigation is complete, you may want to check over the medical records, but I’m afraid I have to cut this short. We have a site we need to investigate before dark and a list of possible victims to check out.”

Osborne could see Lew was anxious to get off the phone and out to Dead Creek before dusk.

“I have a favor to ask, Chief Ferris,” said Shanley. “When it is appropriate, would you allow me to talk to the family? It would be of enormous value to our study if they would donate the remains.”

“That’s a tough one,” said Lew, “I’ll certainly do my best.”

“Do you have any more questions for us, Rick?” said Ray.

“No, just a heartfelt thank-you, everyone. This just pushed my research forward a good couple of years.”

“Does this mean I get a bonus?” asked Ray, winking at his friends.

“A bonus? Let me put it this way. When I publish the paper that will be written as a result of what I have observed this morning, I can guarantee FIEH will get funding for future projects up the wazoo. You won’t be able to get me enough specimens. You’ll get calls from scientists around the world looking for someone to harvest for them. A bonus? Man, you got a
business.”

“Dr. Shanley, thank you for your time and for your immediate attention to this.” Lew stood up, directing her voice toward the speaker on the telephone. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I have a confirmed ID. Please keep these results confidential.”

“Of course. Chief Ferris?”

“Yes?”

“Tragic though it may be, this is very exciting stuff.” Lew managed a weak smile. “Not to someone who loves pan-fried bluegills.”

They
decided to use Osborne’s car so he wouldn’t be worried about the dog. Ray took the backseat with Mike sniffing over his shoulder. At Ray’s urging, the three had attached a trailer carrying one of the police boats to the car. Osborne noted Lew’s 9mm semiautomatic was strapped securely to her hip because she patted it about six times as if to be sure she hadn’t forgotten it.

By now, it was four in the afternoon. The light was flattening out, and the air had a cold, damp edge, though it still smelled of spring.

“Perfect day for muskies.” Osborne looked back at Ray. Ray nodded in agreement. But neither of them seemed to mind being where they were. As the car sped toward Shepard Lake and Dead Creek, Osborne told Lew and Ray about the Kansas City conversations. He also told them what had happened to Erin. Just as he finished Erin’s description of the threatening figure on the porch, they drove past the very road she had taken: the road with the sign for Marjorie’s Bed and Breakfast. Osborne slowed. The road they wanted was the next one, just around the bend in the highway.

“Well, that’s interesting.” Osborne turned to look back at Ray. “We found you in the same area where Erin saw that guy.”

“I always feel like it’s
Deliverance
territory back in there,” said Lew. “I don’t think Erin was too smart driving in there all alone.”

Osborne turned onto the dirt road where they’d found Ray. The car bumped along on rough sand and gravel, heaving from side to side. It ran alongside a desolate-looking swamp where water appeared to have drowned thousands of trees. The spiky, leafless, needleless skeletons spread in gray formations for miles.

“Beaver,” said Ray as they drove along. His comment said it all: A beaver dam could trap acres and acres of healthy forest and turn it into a swampy wasteland almost overnight.

“Who on earth would want to live back here?” shivered Lew.

“Somebody who doesn’t need company,” said Ray. It seemed like ten miles before Osborne and Lew recognized a police flag Lew had left behind to mark the spot where they’d found Ray. Osborne pulled his station wagon into a small clearing. They parked, leaving the dog in the car, and continued on foot along a fairly well-worn track.

“My hunch is I probably put my boat in back here,” said Ray, loping ahead of the other two along a nearly invisible deer trail. “Boy, I sure hope it’s still there.” He pulled at his beard and talked as he walked. His strong legs, used to striding through brush and climbing beaver dams, cleared low branches off the path for Osborne and Lew.

“That boat’s a collector’s item. It’s one of the last ones old man Terney built, y’know. Two years to select each strip of that wood, twenty-seven coats to laminate it just so, without ever changing the color of that cedar, just gorgeous. You can’t buy a boat like that today.”

Ray paused and looked back at his friends. His tanned face had its color back, and his eyes seemed happy in spite of his concern. “I traded ten bucks, each one six points or bigger, for that boat—ten bucks over five years of deer hunting. I paid through the nose, but it was worth it.”

“Ten bucks in five years isn’t legal, Ray,” said Lew.

“Whatever,” said Ray with a wide grin.

“Now, what would anybody besides you be doing back here?” asked Lew, her attention back to the dense brush around them. “You got no houses, not even trailers back here. I don’t have a thing on my fire maps. I checked after we found you, Ray.”

“Place is desolate,” said Osborne a little crossly as a branch whipped across his face and nearly poked him in the eye.

Ray stopped suddenly and thrust his arms out to his sides so that Osborne and Lew bumped into him from behind. “Wait a minute…. I know where we are! I know this place. It’s coming back to me. Lew, you won’t find anything on your maps. C’mon, I’ll show you why.”

“Wait, wait, wait, slow down,” said Osborne. “Are we on private land? I don’t want to get into any trouble back here.” Lew looked relieved he’d asked the question.

“Trust me,” said Ray, “we’re safe.”

Osborne and Lew glanced at each other. Neither with confidence. “So far, I think we’re on state land,” said Lew to Osborne. “We’re okay.”

“We are not on state land,” said Ray to his partners. “This is the old Cantrell place.”

“Cantrell?” said Osborne. “Where the mill used to be?”

A look of deep satisfaction crossed Ray’s face. “Yep. I drove over here after I saw old Herman that morning to check out exactly where he said he found those little babies years ago. That’s what I was after, all right. Just foolin’ around really. I haven’t been back this close to Dead Creek since I was a kid.”

“Oh my God, duck!” Lew shouted, crouching suddenly. From over his left shoulder, Osborne felt rather than saw a huge shadow sweep up from the brush alongside the trail. A sickish, sweet odor had just drifted into the air around them as the magnificent bald eagle spread its wings, hovering momentarily as if to shelter the three of them, then rose in a simple elegant spiral to disappear over the tips of the Norway pines guarding the narrow trail.

“Now what the heck road kill would you get way out here?” said Ray, marching toward the spot where the bird had obviously been feeding on something. He stepped off the trail and moved forward slowly, brushing the tall, dried grasses away with his hands. Lew and Osborne remained rooted where they were, waiting.

“So that’s what they didn’t want me to find,” said Ray. He stopped and looked down. “Don’t move too fast, folks. We’ve got a ripe one here.”

“What is it?” asked Osborne, happy to stay back.

“You mean what
was
it.” Ray’s voice was calm as his eyes studied whatever it was at his feet. Dead grasses hid it from Osborne’s view.

Then, as Lew strode toward him, Ray looked up at her. “Walk carefully, my friend. You’ll be looking for evidence in them thar briars.”

Then his tone turned serious. “Ted Bronk,” he said. “I recognize the boots. He got those up in Alaska last year when he did some heavy construction work for his brother-in-law. Nobody else in town’s got boots like that. Boots and bones, Lew. That’s all the Wausau boys’ll have to go on with this one. The fox and the eagle have done their job on old Ted. Too bad, too. There’s a lotta folks would’ve liked to have had a piece of Ted before he checked out, ya know?”

Osborne watched Lew nod her head solemnly. He knew she knew what an evil guy Ted had been, doing way too much damage over his thirty-four, maybe thirty-five years. He’d been a bully, a wife beater, and a man who was suspected of raping an eleven-year-old girl on her way home from the ice rink. The parents of two classes of junior high boys had been appalled ten years ago when they found out Ted had been running an after-school porno film club for the kids, charging two bucks an afternoon. No, thought Osborne, few would mind Ted’s departure from Loon Lake, and many would be pleased if he’d suffered on the way out.

As if she was reading his thoughts, Lew looked over at Osborne. “I just wish I’d been able to ask him about those parties he was driving the dancers to,” she said. “I am sure he knew what happened to that English girl. Well, let’s keep going. I’ll call this in on our way back.”

Ray had moved past the carcass to the woods behind. He seemed to know where he was going, though Osborne could see no evidence of a trail. The front line of brush and shrubs gave way to a darkly lit and vast, silent space. The forest floor was wall-to-wall pine needles, the ceiling broad branches of Norway pine, spruce, and tamarack. The skeletons of fallen, dead trees lent an eerie cavelike quality. But it wasn’t absolutely quiet. They could hear a soft burble of water, even if they couldn’t see it.

Osborne leaned forward to peer over a massive fallen log and spotted a stream running just behind it. Five feet wide, maybe three feet deep at its deepest. And hidden from view behind the same log, neatly tucked under dead limbs so no winds could shift it, tipped over to protect the interior, was Ray’s canoe. Ray leaped over the fallen log and ran to his boat. He smoothed his hands over the cedar-strip surface and gently turned it over, his eyes rapidly scanning the interior. Two paddles lay on the ground beneath it.

“Not a scratch,” he breathed with relief.

Lew put her hand on his shoulder, “Ray, is this where you left it?”

“No, I didn’t. I know I didn’t because I always store my paddles up inside the gunwale on these racks, see? Someone else put this boat away. I am absolutely sure I didn’t leave it here.”

“Then you have a guardian angel,” said Osborne.

Lew and Ray looked at him a little oddly. But Osborne barely noticed.
It was the mushroom woman,
he thought. Now the expression on her face made perfect sense, she had been watching over Ray, waiting to make sure he was okay.

“Does Ted Bronk have a sister?” asked Osborne.

Ray looked over at him as he carried the canoe toward the stream. “Nope. He had a brother who was killed in a knife fight a few years back, but no sister that I know of. Why?”

“Just a thought.”

The canoe slipped downstream with Lew in the front, Osborne in the center, and Ray at the back. It was a beautifully proportioned, steady canoe that moved across the water like a mother duck, serene and perfectly silent. The creek grew wider and deeper, which Osborne could judge from the dark shadows of rocks below the surface. As Lew and Ray dipped their paddles, the boat glided forward. Twice they ducked below ancient railroad ties carrying rusted rail.

“Some of this forest was clear cut in the late 1800s, and no one’s been through here since,” said Ray, “not even the beavers. But the water looks okay. It used to have a gray-green tinge to it. Now it’s clear.”

Suddenly, he pulled his paddle back, halting the canoe and forcing its nose into the brush to hold it in place. He handed his paddle to Osborne as he raised a finger to his lips, signaling quiet. He scanned the water running under the canoe, then leaned forward and thrust his arm down. He brought it up immediately, a muddy-colored creature, about twelve inches long and looking like a cross between a dog and fish, twisting in his hand. He held the thing down on the floor of the canoe with his knee, turning it onto its back and pulling the legs away so he could see the torso.

“That’s a mud puppy, for you,” said Osborne, backing away. He hated the slimy bottom-eaters. They looked like something God detested.

“Let’s take a look,” Ray said, “if we’re on Dead Creek right here—and I’m pretty sure we are—then this little mother’ll show us just what shape the water’s in.” He examined the underbelly of the creature closely, then held it out toward Osborne and Lew. “Looks okay to me.”

“Be interesting to know what the hormone count is,” said Osborne. “Shanley’s got me spooked. My fish intake is going to be minimal until we know what’s going on around here.”

“Dead Creek is a special situation,” said Ray. “They say it’s another twenty years before anybody should be eating fish or even living around here.”

“Too bad,” said Osborne, “I’ve always heard that once upon a time Dead Creek had some of the biggest browns and rainbows—”

“You betcha,” said Ray, “I had an old, old geezer—I’ll tell ya this guy fished here around 1920 or so—he told me he took a twenty-two-inch brown trout out of here. Called it Crescent Creek in those days.”

“Wow,” said Lew, “what was he using? Did he say?”

“Worms,” said Ray, “plain old nightcrawlers.”

“Hey, guys,” said Lew with an edge of concern in her voice, “it’s going to be dark pretty soon. Shouldn’t we go back?”

“Hell, no,” said Ray, “I want to see where it takes us. We got an hour until it’s dark, and I promise we’ll be back at the car by then.”

“But—” Lew protested.

“Five minutes,” said Ray, “I know we’re close—” “Now how the hell do you know that?” Lew thrust her paddle into the water with obvious exasperation. “I see no sign of this creek ending anytime in the next century.” She was right. Below the canopy of branches, they could easily see the creek winding ahead through the woods several hundred feet at least.

Slowly, Ray pulled back on his paddle. “O-o-kay,” he said, “I’ll show you.” He pointed with the paddle to a flat-topped rock along the bank. A branch of Norway pine hung over the boulder. Strewn across the top of the rock were small, hairy pellets, smaller than a fingernail. “See those? Owl poop. Northern hawk owl. Where do they like to sit? On power lines and metal fence posts. I spotted the first of these pellets about three minutes ago, and now they’re everywhere. Look.” Ray pointed the paddle four times.

“We are very close to where the owls are roosting, and that means we’re close to people. They only retreat in here during storms. This is a good sign that we’re coming out somewhere very soon, and we’ll find some sign of life when we get there. Trust me, Lew.”

The canoe continued swiftly downstream.

“Say, Lew,” said Ray as they passed over a deep hole, “When does trout season open? If I were you, I’d try a weighted nymph in here just to see if the trout are back. But …” He looked up into the dense canopy of Norway pine. “… with so little sunlight, I’ll bet it’s at least another three to four weeks before this water gets close to sixty degrees. What do you think? Maybe a little black stone fly? Just to see what happens …”

Lew looked back at Ray in surprise. She set her paddle down. “Ray, I had no idea you fly-fished.”

“Years ago. Many years ago—with the old man. Didn’t go often enough to really feel comfortable with it. Dad was always on call, so his time was limited. Bein’ I was a kid who loved to fish, I was damned if I’d wait for him.

That’s how come I talked my way into fishing with a couple of the old guides. You remember Quigley and Kirsch, Doc? I learned everything I know from those guys. They fished everything—muskie, walleyes, bass, panfish—everything except trout. Of course I paid dearly. I had to clean the catch.

“I fly-fished just a couple a times with my dad in my teens, and I never did go again after I started guiding.”