be real tough. You won’t tomorrow morning I can guarantee you that. Not in the grass anyway. Probably too late already.”
“Damn,” said Lew. “I’m roping off 500 feet each direction from where we found the body. I was hoping for some signs of a fight or—”
“You gotta problem, Chief. I’ll bet you and Doc walked this way less than an hour ago, right?”
“We did.”
“But there’s so much moisture in the soil tonight. Doncha know it’s rained off and on all week, so any grass you two tromped on has sucked it right up and, pop, is right back in place like only your ghost blew through,” said Ray. “I can look for broken branches, but this brush is so dense most folks enter the river at a clearing. Sorry, Chief. I’ll take a look for you, but don’t count on anything.
“How far are we from the body?” he asked.
“Five minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll run on ahead and see what I can see. It’s getting late, y’know, I need to look good tomorrow.”
That said, Ray’s lanky frame disappeared into the blackness of pine and aspen running along the river bank. He was shaking his head in disappointment when they met up with him at the clearing. “Nothing a deer didn’t do,” he said. “On the other hand, this area is pretty damn popular. I’ll bet if you didn’t have all the rain, you’d have found plenty of tracks right here.”
“Including our own,” said Lew drily, accepting Ray’s answer. Osborne knew, despite other opinions she might hold of Ray, Lew had to agree with one voiced by a member of the McDonald’s coffee crowd in Ray’s absence: “That asshole can track a snake over a rock.”
But if Osborne thought the clearing by the river looked startlingly different in the moonlight, to Ray it was quite familiar.
“You found the body here?” Ray asked, raising his voice so they could hear him against the relentless roar of the Prairie.
“Under that log,” hollered Lew, pointing. The three of them walked down to the water’s edge to look in the direction she indicated. Black water capped with pale froth rushed towards a bend in the river where it poured down between two hillocks that couldn’t be more than five feet apart.
“A log? Did it feel real smooth with horizontal striations?” asked Ray.
“Yeah,” said Lew, “runs right across the opening at the bend—right there.”
“That’s no log, Chief,” said Ray. “That’s a rock with a “keeper,” a hole that’s formed in the rock where the river flows over and reverses itself.” He gestured with a swoop of his hands. “Maybe the smoothness made you think it was a log, but I know that rock real well. Too well.
“Can you keep a secret?” Ray shouted, peering at Osborne and Lew. His eyes were twinkling in the moonlight, his left hand pulling thoughtfully at his beard. Osborne recognized all the signs that Ray was about to launch one of his long-winded tales of bad behavior in the North Woods.
“Ray—” The exasperation in Lew’s voice made it quite clear she wasn’t in the mood for a twenty-minute discourse.
“C’mon, Ray,” scolded Osborne. “You’re the one needs a beauty sleep.”
“All right, all right,” Ray raised his hands in surrender. “Rock, hole, whatever. We used to call this spot ‘Bill’s Place,’ after my old buddy Bill Barstow. Remember Billy, Doc?”
“Sure do.” Bill Barstow and Ray had been terrors in their late teens, good-hearted youngsters but a little too familiar with the marijuana dealers out of Madison. Ray had managed to stay just an inch on the right side of the Loon Lake cops, possibly due to his generosity with strings of blue gills in the dead of winter, but Billy ended up doing time. These days he ran a used furniture store that was a front for an illegal pawnshop. Osborne’s McDonald’s buddies defined Billy as a good guy with a twisted sense of business ethics. His father had been an orthodontist and a partner in Osborne’s hunting shack.
“Well ol’
“Damn,” said Lew. “I’m roping off 500 feet each direction from where we found the body. I was hoping for some signs of a fight or—”
“You gotta problem, Chief. I’ll bet you and Doc walked this way less than an hour ago, right?”
“We did.”
“But there’s so much moisture in the soil tonight. Doncha know it’s rained off and on all week, so any grass you two tromped on has sucked it right up and, pop, is right back in place like only your ghost blew through,” said Ray. “I can look for broken branches, but this brush is so dense most folks enter the river at a clearing. Sorry, Chief. I’ll take a look for you, but don’t count on anything.
“How far are we from the body?” he asked.
“Five minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll run on ahead and see what I can see. It’s getting late, y’know, I need to look good tomorrow.”
That said, Ray’s lanky frame disappeared into the blackness of pine and aspen running along the river bank. He was shaking his head in disappointment when they met up with him at the clearing. “Nothing a deer didn’t do,” he said. “On the other hand, this area is pretty damn popular. I’ll bet if you didn’t have all the rain, you’d have found plenty of tracks right here.”
“Including our own,” said Lew drily, accepting Ray’s answer. Osborne knew, despite other opinions she might hold of Ray, Lew had to agree with one voiced by a member of the McDonald’s coffee crowd in Ray’s absence: “That asshole can track a snake over a rock.”
But if Osborne thought the clearing by the river looked startlingly different in the moonlight, to Ray it was quite familiar.
“You found the body here?” Ray asked, raising his voice so they could hear him against the relentless roar of the Prairie.
“Under that log,” hollered Lew, pointing. The three of them walked down to the water’s edge to look in the direction she indicated. Black water capped with pale froth rushed towards a bend in the river where it poured down between two hillocks that couldn’t be more than five feet apart.
“A log? Did it feel real smooth with horizontal striations?” asked Ray.
“Yeah,” said Lew, “runs right across the opening at the bend—right there.”
“That’s no log, Chief,” said Ray. “That’s a rock with a “keeper,” a hole that’s formed in the rock where the river flows over and reverses itself.” He gestured with a swoop of his hands. “Maybe the smoothness made you think it was a log, but I know that rock real well. Too well.
“Can you keep a secret?” Ray shouted, peering at Osborne and Lew. His eyes were twinkling in the moonlight, his left hand pulling thoughtfully at his beard. Osborne recognized all the signs that Ray was about to launch one of his long-winded tales of bad behavior in the North Woods.
“Ray—” The exasperation in Lew’s voice made it quite clear she wasn’t in the mood for a twenty-minute discourse.
“C’mon, Ray,” scolded Osborne. “You’re the one needs a beauty sleep.”
“All right, all right,” Ray raised his hands in surrender. “Rock, hole, whatever. We used to call this spot ‘Bill’s Place,’ after my old buddy Bill Barstow. Remember Billy, Doc?”
“Sure do.” Bill Barstow and Ray had been terrors in their late teens, good-hearted youngsters but a little too familiar with the marijuana dealers out of Madison. Ray had managed to stay just an inch on the right side of the Loon Lake cops, possibly due to his generosity with strings of blue gills in the dead of winter, but Billy ended up doing time. These days he ran a used furniture store that was a front for an illegal pawnshop. Osborne’s McDonald’s buddies defined Billy as a good guy with a twisted sense of business ethics. His father had been an orthodontist and a partner in Osborne’s hunting shack.
“Well ol’
Similar Books
