Dead Rapunzel (24 page)

“Doc,” Ray called through the open window.

“Yeah,” Osborne answered from inside.

“Call the station. Tell them to call for help. Someone broke into her house from here—”

Before he could finish, Osborne was on his cell. When he called the station this time, the dispatcher listened. “Got it, Dr. Osborne,” she said. “I'll get that information out ASAP, but Dani is standing right here and wants to talk to you.”

“Put her on,” said Osborne. “Dani, I don't have time to talk. Ray and I are on our way back to the station. This is not good—”

“Hold on, Dr. Osborne. You need to know we have GPS on all the squad cars. I'm activating the GPS tracker for Chief Ferris's vehicle right now. Call you as soon as I see where she is.”

“Oh, God,” said Osborne, turning to Ray. “Dani can trace Lew's cruiser. Please pray she's all right. Oh, dear God . . . ”

“Calm down, Doc, and get back in the truck.”

“All right. But first, let's turn off the lights.” Ray gave him a quizzical look, but he followed orders. They went through the house methodically turning off the lights.

“Feel better now?” asked Ray as they climbed into his truck.

“Lew doesn't like to leave lights on,” said Osborne, praying as he spoke that he would have the chance to tell her everything at the house was in order.

Lew woke to the whispers of a strange woman. “Sh-h, don't move,” said the voice. “The ambulance will be here any minute. You need to lie still.” Leaning over Lew, the woman took her hand.

“I'm Nancy Nickel. My husband, Jim Nickel, and I live right over there.” She pointed over her left shoulder. “If your car had gone another fifty feet you would have hit our house. I can't believe you didn't hit more trees. Did you know your car flew forty feet in the air? Jim checked the snow and he could see right where you landed.”

“I'm cold,” said Lew in a weak voice. She found it difficult to keep her eyes open. She could hear the woman moving, then felt something being laid over her.

“My jacket should help,” said the woman. “There—does that feel better?” She placed a warm hand on Lew's forehead and said, “There, there, just relax. Hear the sirens? They're almost here. Black ice all up and down the highway—they said you're the fourth accident in the last half hour. It's been an amazing morning.”

Lew took a deep breath and tried to open her eyes. But it was such an effort . . . She heard footsteps as another person approached. “She doing okay, Nancy?”

“I think so. Geez, Jim, don't look at that guy. Too gruesome.” She squeezed Lew's shoulder ever so slightly as she said, “I'm afraid your friend . . . Well, he's dead. So sorry . . . ”

Over the next hour, Lew felt the haze lift as she was placed on a board, her neck was cuffed, and she was loaded into the ambulance. Quizzed for her name, date of birth, and the name of the current president of the United States, she was able to mumble the correct answers. “You have to call Loon Lake Police,” she managed.

“We'll take care of that,” said an efficient voice. “Right now we're taking you in for a CT scan. You may have had a concussion and we want to make sure that's all . . . ”

“Lew, would you like some ice water?” It was Osborne, and Lew realized two hours had passed since she had been wheeled into a private room.

“How did you get here so fast?” Lew asked as she sipped the water through a straw.

“You went off the road just two hours north of town.”

She pushed herself up against the pillows. “It was snowing so hard, I wasn't sure where we were. I know I made it past Florence.”

“The roads were so bad, you couldn't go very fast.”

“I tried to tell that to Vern—”

“Doesn't matter now. Vern's dead. And you are lucky. The tree limb that went through your windshield got him in the neck and sheared his head halfway off his body. The EMTs said he bled out.”

“I got him to admit that he and Tim were conspiring against Rudd but no more than that. Too bad I hit black ice 'cause I had just got him talking.”

“Don't worry. Greg got the whole story when he confronted his father. He got Vern to admit that he stole the mask, took Kenzie's car that morning, and pushed Rudd. He's also the person who killed Chip and shoved him under the ice.”

“Too bad he's dead. He should be paying for that.”

“Lewellyn, count your blessings. Who knows what might have happened to you if he hadn't been killed. You have to make me a promise now.”

“What's that?”

“You cheated death twice today. I want you to promise you won't do that again for at least . . . um, six months?”

Osborne knew she was feeling better when she punched him in the arm. “Promise. How soon can I get out of here, and where are my clothes?”

“Over on the chair. When you feel like you can stand up without getting woozy, I can take you home. Once we're at my place, I'll serve you soup and sandwiches and put you to bed. Then I have to wake you every two hours or so to check you. Do you agree to that?”

“C'mon, Doc, is that really necessary?” Osborne gave her the dim eye, and she got the message. “All right then, but can we stop by my place so I can get my robe and a few things?”

“Let me check first. At the moment your farmhouse and the barn are a restricted crime scene. You were abducted, remember?”

“Oh,” Lew's shoulders drooped, “that's right. I bet Bruce Peters is out there, too. Poor guy. He's had a heck of a week. Man, do I owe that guy time in the trout stream.”

One week later Osborne found himself in the midst of a potluck dinner party at the Tomlinson main house. In anticipation of spring and the opening of fishing season (or so they alleged), Judith and Mallory had strung ropes of fat little green fish lights around the kitchen, anchoring the strands on the top corners of cabinets. The electricity must have been infectious, as the room buzzed with people.

Ray, in one of Rudd's aprons—bright blue and studded with fish outlined in sequins—was busy over the stove. Butter sizzled in a large frying pan as he flipped fillets of bluegill, which he had dusted with seasoned flour before frying. As each fillet came out, he added it to a white platter already heaped with lightly fried fish.

“Oh, my gosh, I can't stand it,” said Kenzie, jumping up and down as she peered over Ray's shoulder. “How soon can we eat?” She was the happiest Osborne had ever seen her. Had to help that Greg was recovering and able to be there without the wheelchair he had been using.

Standing alongside Ray was Mallory, carefully tending a large pot of water. When the water reached the boiling point, she set a buttered strainer filled with wild rice over the water to steam. Osborne knew the next steps well. After all, it was he who had taught her the secret to cooking wild rice.

Now he watched as she covered the strainer with a blue-and-white dishcloth and waited for the steam to pop the grassy kernels. On the counter beside her was a bowl of sautéed mushrooms, a saltshaker, and a black-pepper grinder, along with more butter—all ready to be tossed with the wild rice. That last step would be his job: He had supplied the rice, Mallory had cooked it, and it was up to Osborne to add the finishing touches to his secret recipe.

Earlier that evening, driving over with his daughter, Osborne had dared to ask Mallory how she felt about Ray and Judith seeing each other almost daily. “I know you and Ray . . . ”

“Dad, don't worry about it. Ray and I are friends.” She turned to Osborne. “It's odd, maybe, but we're better friends than we ever were lovers. Don't ask me why, but I'm happy with it—and so is he. It'll be interesting to see how serious it gets between those two. Just hope they don't break up before they can help me move.”

With an affectionate pat on the knee, Osborne had said, “I am so pleased you got the old Kirsch cabin. It'll be nice to have you close by.”

Mallory had smiled. “Almost uncanny how it came on the market right when I was looking for an older place on Loon Lake. It needs a new roof and I'll have to update the plumbing, but it has so much character, Dad. I love it.

“Now that Judith is moving forward on the Tomlinson Museum, I have the job security and the income to enjoy that antique.” And she had chuckled with satisfaction.

Osborne didn't say anything, but he was pleased, too. It hadn't been easy, building this camaraderie with his oldest daughter. Maybe it was fighting the same battles with alcohol, paired with their stints in rehab, but they had a friendship now that had not existed when Mallory was growing up.

Or maybe it was as simple as having Mary Lee, with her disparaging comments on just about everything Osborne did or tried to do, now happily ensconced in a heaven designed for neurotic upper-middle-class housewives whose husbands fish too much. Whatever the reason for their newfound bond, Osborne was determined to keep it close to his heart.

Over at the vegetable sink, Judith was busy washing and drying lettuces for tossed salad. She had already mixed a vinaigrette of olive oil and sherry vinegar with a touch of tarragon. And not to be outdone by any of the other guests, Kenzie and Greg had arrived bearing two homemade pies: wild blueberry (“with berries we picked ourselves,” Kenzie bragged) and apple (“from trees Dad and Rudd had planted”). Even Sloane was there, though grudgingly. She had contributed a plate of cheese and crackers. The cheese was a store-brand cheddar. Cheap.

The only person missing at the moment was Chief Lewellyn Ferris. She was working late, as there was to be an arraignment early the next morning of Tim Tomlinson for conspiring with the late Vern Steidl to murder Rudd Tomlinson.

Just as Ray scooped the last bluegill from the frying pan, the door to the foyer opened and Lew bustled in, carrying two six-packs—one of Leinenkugel's Original and another of Sprecher Root Beer. Shrugging off her police parka, she said, “Am I too late?”

“No,” everyone said in chorus, “just in time.”

Chairs were pulled out and everyone sat down to dinner.

“First, a toast,” said Judith, getting to her feet. “To my dear friend, Rudd, without whom so much of the good feeling around this table might not have happened. If only she could be here, too. Cheers.”

“Cheers,” said all the guests.

When dinner was over and the pies—and ice cream—had been attacked with relish, coffee was served. Again, Judith stood to speak.

“I talked today with the architects for the museum. Over the coming weeks, Mallory and I will be meeting with them and the construction teams so that we can break ground for the museum in early May.

“I want to thank Ray and his friend at Wisconsin Silica Sands, as they were very helpful with the soil testing. The mining engineers tested the fields all around the property and found that the coarse Northern White sand, which is in such demand right now, is limited to a small area close to the shoreline. There is not enough there to make it financially feasible to mine, which is a relief because I love this landscape. Rudd loved it, too. So I am relieved I do not have to decide between building the museum and looking at a mountain of sand. Whew!”

“You have to be the only person in Wisconsin happy
not
to have that sand,” said Ray.

“You're right,” said Judith. “The other conversation I had this week was with the bank, to return the assets in the Tomlinson estate not needed for the museum to the family. Except . . . Tim.” There was silence after that statement.

“What if he's acquitted?” asked Sloane. “He'll need money to pay his defense lawyers.”

“You're kidding me, right?” asked Judith.

Osborne was aware that Sloane had been quiet during dinner. She'd responded when spoken to but had not joined the conversations otherwise.

“I doubt he will be acquitted,” said Lew. “I was reviewing the police reports this afternoon. Tim Tomlinson and his defense team have an uphill battle ahead.

“Bruce leaned on a good friend of his and we got the DNA reports in late yesterday. Because we were able to get samples from Vern's remains, it did not take long to find matches with the samples on the cigarette butts Ray found by where Kenzie's car had been parked behind the Grizzly Bear Café the morning Rudd was killed, the butts left near the holes in the ice where poor Chip Dietz had been fishing, and the saliva stains inside the old-man mask. Tough to argue with DNA no matter what Tim thinks.

“And that's only the beginning. Not only will Greg testify to what his father told him about Tim and Vern's collaboration to put the blame on Kenzie, but I will testify that Vern told me he and Tim planned to split the money resulting from the death of Rudd Tomlinson. Tim's lawyers are going to find that I'm a damned good witness for the prosecution.”

“To answer your question, Sloane,” said Judith, “I wouldn't care if he was acquitted. That could only happen on some technicality. As Chief Ferris just said, we know the bargain he made with Vern.
No money
.

“On a happier note,” said Judith, leaning down to take a sip of her wine, “Kenzie, you will be receiving close to twenty million dollars. You'll want to talk with a financial planner and decide how to manage that—”

“No, that has been decided,” said Kenzie with a broad smile directed at her husband. “We're using half to start Greg's business. The rest will go to endow a treatment center for teenagers diagnosed bipolar, schizophrenic, or with related mental health issues. I'm already talking with the clinic in Woodruff because I would love for the center to be based there.”

“Sloane, what about you? You'll get the same. Do you have plans for your share of your father's estate?” asked Judith.

“I'm moving to La Jolla, California,” said Sloane with a smirk. “I am
so
over the Northwoods.” She gazed around the table. No one looked upset about that plan. But no one was rude enough to say, “We're so over
you
, too.”