Read Online Dead Jitterbug by Victoria Houston - Free Book Online
Authors: Victoria Houston
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she had asked to use his boat. With three hundred lakes located within five miles of Loon Lake, it didn’t make sense for the police department to keep their boat moored anywhere except on land. Further complicating water access were the locations of public landings—not always easy to reach, not to mention deep enough to handle the propeller. Getting the police boat in water was not easy and never fast.
“Of course not. Need help?”
“If you’ve got time, I would appreciate it.” Osborne resisted the urge to say, “Are you kidding?” Instead, he segued into an emotional state of heightened awareness tempered with happiness. The sight of her never ceased to hijack his heart—a heart, he admitted only to himself, that was of a sixteen-year-old trapped in the body of a middle-aged man.
Though his crush on the Loon Lake Chief of Police was well into its second year, he had known her longer. During his years as one of only three dentists in their small town, its population recently skyrocketing to 3,412, she made appointments twice a year, along with her young son and daughter, for a checkup and a cleaning.
Her teeth were excellent: small and hard in a jaw square enough to hold four wisdom teeth easily. A near-perfect bite and only two fillings.
Those were difficult years for Lew. A single mother, she worked at the paper mill and paid her dental bill in small monthly increments. But she always paid it off before her next appointment, which was more than he could say of too many of his more well-to-do patients.
But he sold his practice right around the time that Lew Ferris had joined the Loon Lake Police Department. They might never have gotten together if he hadn’t decided to clean his garage one Saturday morning and stumbled onto a fly rod he had hidden away so well it was forgotten.
Years earlier, at the urging of a fellow dentist who had been an expert in the trout stream, he had wanted to try fly-fishing. He’d bought a couple books, even invested in basic equipment. But Mary Lee, a chronic complainer about the time he already spent in the boat pursuing muskie, walleye, and panfish, nixed the idea. The prospect of one more way for him to escape to water infuriated her. And so, bowing to the wifely harangue, he gave up after one try.
Two years after her death, he decided to reorganize the garage the way he would like it—and came upon the gear from that aborted attempt. The bamboo rod appeared to be in excellent condition, as did the reel and the trout flies.
He decided to take one lesson in casting before selling the equipment. Just to be sure that selling was the right idea. To his great surprise, the instructor referred to him by Ralph Steadman, who ran Ralph’s Sporting Goods, was a woman. And since their first hours in the trout stream, he had found himself angling for more time with her—in water, on water, near water. Anywhere.
It wasn’t easy. Unlike Mary Lee and her bridge partners, Lewellyn Ferris didn’t need a man to bait her hook or tie on her trout fly, carry her equipment or give her a hand in the current. She was quite capable of doing it all herself. She wanted to do it herself.
But the one thing he was pleased to discover that she didn’t have, following her promotion to Chief of the Loon Lake Police Department, was a reliable forensic odontologist. Budget restraints statewide hammered law enforcement staffing. Not even the Wausau Crime Lab, sixty miles away and Loon Lake’s primary resource in the event of a serious crime, had a full-time forensic dentist.
Osborne, who prided himself on eyes sharp enough to spot a muskie twenty feet away in dark water, saw opportunity: Every corpse needs a reliable ID, and no ID is more reliable than teeth. And so it was that he honed his forensic skills—tools to trade for time in the water with a woman who made him feel young again.
Ray’s pontoon lingered at the end of Osborne’s dock, his neighbor waiting to be sure help wasn’t
“Of course not. Need help?”
“If you’ve got time, I would appreciate it.” Osborne resisted the urge to say, “Are you kidding?” Instead, he segued into an emotional state of heightened awareness tempered with happiness. The sight of her never ceased to hijack his heart—a heart, he admitted only to himself, that was of a sixteen-year-old trapped in the body of a middle-aged man.
Though his crush on the Loon Lake Chief of Police was well into its second year, he had known her longer. During his years as one of only three dentists in their small town, its population recently skyrocketing to 3,412, she made appointments twice a year, along with her young son and daughter, for a checkup and a cleaning.
Her teeth were excellent: small and hard in a jaw square enough to hold four wisdom teeth easily. A near-perfect bite and only two fillings.
Those were difficult years for Lew. A single mother, she worked at the paper mill and paid her dental bill in small monthly increments. But she always paid it off before her next appointment, which was more than he could say of too many of his more well-to-do patients.
But he sold his practice right around the time that Lew Ferris had joined the Loon Lake Police Department. They might never have gotten together if he hadn’t decided to clean his garage one Saturday morning and stumbled onto a fly rod he had hidden away so well it was forgotten.
Years earlier, at the urging of a fellow dentist who had been an expert in the trout stream, he had wanted to try fly-fishing. He’d bought a couple books, even invested in basic equipment. But Mary Lee, a chronic complainer about the time he already spent in the boat pursuing muskie, walleye, and panfish, nixed the idea. The prospect of one more way for him to escape to water infuriated her. And so, bowing to the wifely harangue, he gave up after one try.
Two years after her death, he decided to reorganize the garage the way he would like it—and came upon the gear from that aborted attempt. The bamboo rod appeared to be in excellent condition, as did the reel and the trout flies.
He decided to take one lesson in casting before selling the equipment. Just to be sure that selling was the right idea. To his great surprise, the instructor referred to him by Ralph Steadman, who ran Ralph’s Sporting Goods, was a woman. And since their first hours in the trout stream, he had found himself angling for more time with her—in water, on water, near water. Anywhere.
It wasn’t easy. Unlike Mary Lee and her bridge partners, Lewellyn Ferris didn’t need a man to bait her hook or tie on her trout fly, carry her equipment or give her a hand in the current. She was quite capable of doing it all herself. She wanted to do it herself.
But the one thing he was pleased to discover that she didn’t have, following her promotion to Chief of the Loon Lake Police Department, was a reliable forensic odontologist. Budget restraints statewide hammered law enforcement staffing. Not even the Wausau Crime Lab, sixty miles away and Loon Lake’s primary resource in the event of a serious crime, had a full-time forensic dentist.
Osborne, who prided himself on eyes sharp enough to spot a muskie twenty feet away in dark water, saw opportunity: Every corpse needs a reliable ID, and no ID is more reliable than teeth. And so it was that he honed his forensic skills—tools to trade for time in the water with a woman who made him feel young again.
Ray’s pontoon lingered at the end of Osborne’s dock, his neighbor waiting to be sure help wasn’t
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