Dead Deceiver (6 page)

“Problem is, there’s no sign of Mrs. Beltner’s snowshoes,” said Lew. “I was hoping you could take the time to search for them. Might give us some idea where she met up with the person who killed her because there is no evidence that she was shot anywhere around here. No blood spatter, nothing. And if anyone can find where it happened, it’s you, Ray.”

“Yikes,” said Ray, “on a night like this that could take a while. It’s not the dark, Chief, it’s the snow that’s covering everything—I’d be better off searching in the daylight.”

“Well, just so you’re in my office first thing in the morning. Got a call from Roger about you scattering someone’s ashes on private property without permission. You and I need to get that matter resolved—”

“I know, I know and I’m sorry about that but I didn’t do anything wrong.” Ray set his tripods down and, hands on his hips, said in an exasperated tone, “I tried … to explain to those people that ‘wildcat … scatterings’ … are … legal. It’s a new and accepted practice in the burial business.”

“A wildcat
what?”
Lew sounded incredulous. “But, hey, I don’t have time for this now. In the morning.”

“Say … ah … Chief, I have a kinda life changing m-e-e-e-et-ing at nine?” said Ray, wheedling with raised eyebrows. He waited.

“Yes, you do. In my office. It likely affects if I am able to deputize you again … ever.”

Ray said in a chagrined tone: “I have an audition for that reality show … if you’re late, you don’t get another chance. The producers only got two days to do over a hundred people …”

Lew hesitated a long minute then gave in. “All right but immediately afterwards, Ray. My office. I’m sorry but this ashes issue could involve the Mayor and the City Council. That was the Wheedon College president whose land you trespassed on.

“Promise me that following our meeting you’ll head back out here. Okay? Terry will cordon off the entire trail and the access road as we leave here tonight. No one will be allowed in until you have covered the territory.”

“That works, Chief. That works great—and I promise I will search every inch of this place—north, south, east and west,” said Ray, waving his arms to include the universe.

C
HAPTER
9

B
ack on the trail, Osborne walked to a spot about twenty feet from the west end of the bridge where Rob Beltner was standing with the forest ranger. Both were quietly watching Ray as he set up his tripods along the snow bank near the bridge. Figuring that for Rob, watching Ray shoot photos was kind of like watching his house burn, Osborne thought it wise to divert his attention.

“Hello, Rob,” said Osborne, trying for the low, reassuring voice he had perfected for calming patients anxious over pending root canals. He reached to shake the man’s hand saying, “I believe Chief Ferris told you that I would be standing in as acting coroner due to Mr. Pecore’s accident?”

“Yes, she did, Dr. Osborne,” said Rob, “not sure what you need from me, though. I’ll do my best.”

“What you can’t answer tonight we can take care of in the morning, but it’s pretty boilerplate and maybe will take us less than half an hour at the most.”

Looking over at the ranger, Osborne extended his hand again and said, “Lorene, we haven’t met. I’m Dr. Paul Osborne. Don’t know if Chief Ferris mentioned I would be filling in for Mr. Pecore?”

“Lorene Manson, Dr. Osborne,” said the forest ranger. “Yes, Chief Ferris told me she was lucky to be able to bring you in on this tonight. I know you need to complete some paperwork so let me give you two some privacy.” She walked over to join Lew, who was deep in conversation with the EMTs.

“This way, Rob,” said Osborne, motioning for Rob to follow him over to the large ATV, “let’s take a seat here.”

They settled into the front of the four-wheeler and Osborne pulled a clipboard from his medical bag. Rob answered his questions in a voice that grew more clipped with each query. When Osborne had to ask for the names and addresses of Kathy’s parents, Osborne could see that the poor guy was barely holding it together. “That’s enough for now,” said Osborne, slipping the clipboard back into his bag.

“Dr. Osborne,” said Rob, his eyes full of pain, “what do I do now? What the hell do I do now? How do I tell our children? Oh, my God,” he said, and wept.

Osborne put an arm around his shoulders. He had no idea how to answer.

Two years earlier, after the trauma team had taken Mary Lee off life support at three a.m. that winter morning, he had asked himself the same question: What the hell do I do now?

He had been fortunate not to be alone. In spite of knowing that Mary Lee Osborne was the “anonymous party” lodging complaints with the town board in hopes of forcing him off his property, Ray Pradt had not hesitated for an instant when he got Osborne’s call.

“It’s my wife, Ray,” Osborne had said in a voice quivering with panic. “She’s having trouble breathing and the fever has spiked. I’ve got to get her to the hospital but the ambulance can’t—” That was all Osborne had to say.

Though it was after midnight at the height of a raging blizzard with sub-zero temps and winds gusting forty miles an hour, Ray had stopped him before he could say more. “It’ll take me five to bolt the plow on the truck. Wrap her up real warm. Be sure to cover her face and I’ll be right there, Doc. You call the hospital and tell ‘em we’re on our way.”

He had waited with Osborne while the emergency team worked. He was still there when Osborne got the news. Even as Osborne sat silent and stunned for a good half hour, gathering the strength to call his daughters—Ray stayed with him. Quiet. Ready to help in any way he could.

“Do you have a close friend we can reach by cell phone? Someone who might be able to help you out tonight?” said Osborne. “I’ll make the call for you.”

Rob was silent for a few beats then said, “Yes, I do know someone I would like to call. One of my colleagues in our engineering office. He and his wife are close friends of ours … I think I can make that call.” Looking down, he patted his jacket pockets. “Looks like I left my cell phone in my car.”

Peering over Rob’s shoulder, Osborne noticed that the EMTs had begun their preparations to move the body. This he really did not want Rob to see.

“You are welcome to use mine,” said Osborne, handing over his cell phone, “but I suggest you stand close to the lake. You’re likely to get better reception.”

Rob climbed out of the ATV and walked across the trail to stand on the bank of the small lake. As he placed the call to his friend, Osborne got out of the ATV and walked onto the bridge. He looked out over the ice towards the distant shore then turned to follow the sound of open water noisy in the night air.

The lake was to the south of the bridge and its water spilled under the bridge to flow north, up and into the swamp. As he watched the current, it dawned on Osborne that the killer may have miscalculated when he was deciding where to hide his victim.

Looking around to find Lew, he saw her observing the EMTs as they slipped protective bags over Kathy Beltner’s hands in order to preserve any debris under her fingernails that might indicate a struggle. Next they lifted the body with care and laid it on white sheets, which they folded over and around. Once they had strapped it onto the emergency toboggan, Osborne said, “Chief, do you have a minute?” He waved for her to join him.

“Be right there,” she said as she climbed up the snow bank and walked his way. “I’m pooped, Doc. Ray’s got all the photos I need so we can head back shortly. How you doing?”

“I’m fine but I think I know why we found our victim tucked under here.”

“Because whoever it is thought they could hide the body under the lake ice only to discover it’s so shallow along the shoreline that there was no way they could hide it there?” asked Lew.

“I don’t think they realized that the stream
starts
at the lake and runs north into the swamp. I’ll bet you anything they expected the water to be run under the bridge and
out into the lake
—strong enough to carry a body out, even if it took a while.”

“You may be right, Doc. Ray and I were just saying it appears that some tools were carried in here, too. An axe and a saw at least.”

“No ice auger?”

“Not that we can see.”

“In that case, we’re not looking for an ice fisherman who might have thought to drill a hole ten or twenty feet out from shore and drop the body into the lake …”

“Or someone who didn’t want to risk being seen by skiers out here. Quite a few folks cross-country ski in the dark these days—especially these trails because they are so level and they run around this lake.

“Doc, Ray said you two are parked in the lot at the trailhead so I am going to have Terry drive you two out the snowshoe trail here so he can cordon it off at the trailhead. I’ve told Rob that he can drive his car but he has to leave his wife’s in the parking lot until I can get the Wausau boys up to take a good look at it.”

She shook her head, “I just can’t figure out how Kathy Beltner got down here since we don’t see any sign of someone snowshoeing in to this area. At this point it appears that she was carried in by the individual who walked in from the access road—but how did she get
there
? We have boot prints but no sign of snowshoes.”

As she spoke, Ray walked over to the ATV with his gear and set it down. “All set, Chief, I’ll load these into the computer tonight and send them your way.”

“Ray, I’m trying to figure out one thing,” said Lew, and repeated her mystification over the lack of snowshoe tracks. “I know it’s late but will you keep an eye out in case you see something as you drive back with Terry?”

Minutes later as Terry maneuvered the ATV down the trail through the overhanging branches loaded with fresh snow, Ray raised a hand for him to stop. “Hold on, let me check something.” He got out of the ATV and walked along the trail a few feet, then came back. “Nothing, just a deer trail is all.”

As he got back into the ATV, Osborne asked Terry, “how much snow have we gotten anyway?”

“I was told it’s been falling at the rate of two inches an hour,” said Terry.

“So between four this afternoon and right now, we’ve gotten anywhere from ten to sixteen inches of new snow?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s a bitch,” said Ray. “Only saving grace might be that precip we got earlier. If that stays frozen, I might be able to scout tomorrow in the daylight.”

“I know Lew is hoping you’ll find the snowshoes. Locating where they were dropped might tell us more about what happened out here.”

“Unless the killer kept them—as a trophy.”

Osborne stared at Ray as the ATV bounced along the trail. “That’s an unpleasant thought.”

As Osborne gazed at her across the kitchen table, Lew wolfed down the rest of her dinner. It was past two in the morning and he had been pleasantly surprised when she said she would follow him home: “I have to, Doc, I left all my clothes for tomorrow at your place—oh, it
is
tomorrow. Oh well.”

Soon after they slipped into bed. Osborne was careful to take his side, knowing she had to be exhausted. He turned out the light on bed table beside him. Outdoors, the snow had finally stopped. A haze of moonlight lit the room.

Lew moved against him in the dark.

“Are you sure?” he said.

“Doc,” her voice was soft, “it’s one way to remind ourselves that every minute counts.”

C
HAPTER
10

S
itting at the conference table in front of the west windows in Lew’s office, Osborne sipped from his coffee mug as he checked through his notes from the night before. He wanted to be sure he had covered everything that he had observed from arriving at the trailhead to leaving three hours later.

This afternoon, he and Lew would compare notes. It wasn’t unusual for each of them to see or hear different things. More than once observations that seemed insignificant at the time grew in importance as an investigation progressed.

Setting aside his notebook, he opened the folder holding the death certificate for Kathy Beltner, then checked his watch and considered whether or not to call Rob. Osborne needed Rob to find his wife’s birth certificate in order to confirm the name of the hospital where she had been born. It was shortly after nine and while it might be early to call, Osborne doubted the poor guy had slept much anyway. Sympathy for the younger man swept over Osborne: he knew too well that for Rob Beltner, life would never be the same. For his two children, news of their mother’s death must still seem like a bad dream.

“More coffee, Doc?” asked Lew, glancing over from where she sat at her desk working on the computer.

“Sure. I’ll give Rob Beltner a call in a minute. This death certificate is almost complete—then I’ll get out of your hair.” After handing Lew his mug, he scanned the document one last time, making a mental note to put the name and address of the hospital where he had been born somewhere easy for his daughters to find when it was his turn to go—naturally or otherwise.

“You are
not
in my hair,” said Lew, giving his shoulder an affectionate squeeze and setting the refilled mug down on the conference table. “Take your time, Doc, I like having you around.”

No sooner had she settled back into her chair when the phone on her desk rang. “Yes, Marlaine,” said Lew to the switchboard operator, stationed at the department’s front desk. “Oh? Oh … sure, send her in. And I’m expecting Ray Pradt to arrive sometime soon as well. Please send him right in when he gets here, okay? Thank you.”

Rolling her eyes, she put the phone down and said,
“Doctor
Patience Schumacher is here and demanding to see me ASAP.”

“Doctor, hmm,” said Osborne, the title warring with his memories of a much younger Patience Schumacher. Well, Lew, you’ve been expecting this.”

“Yeah, well, nice of her to call ahead.”

“Time for me to skedaddle,” said Osborne getting to his feet. “If the daughter is anything like her old man this won’t be fun. That gentleman was one demanding sonofabitch. He’d be up from Chicago for the summer, have a toothache all day but not call the office until after I’d left and then torture my poor receptionist until she would give him my home number.