Buried in Wolf Lake Read online

  BURIED IN WOLF LAKE

  Second in the Winnebago County Mystery Series

  Christine Husom

  Copyright © 2009 by Christine Husom

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights to this book are reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in printed or electronic form without permission. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in, or encourage, piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locale is coincidental.

  Also by Christine Husom

  Winnebago County Mystery Series:

  Murder in Winnebago County, 2008

  An Altar by the River, 2010

  The Noding Field Mystery, 2012

  A Death in Lionel’s Woods, 2013

  Secret in Whitetail Lake, 2015

  Firesetter in Blackwood Township, 2017

  Snow Globe Shop Mystery Series:

  Snow Way Out, 2015

  The Iced Princess, 2015

  Frosty the Dead Man, 2016

  To my beautiful, multi-talented, hard-working mother, who knew what was important and taught by example.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, Niki Turner for superb editing, and to my family and friends for their unselfish love and unending support.

  1: Langley

  From a distance he wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart, even if they were standing side by side. Eve’s twin. He could easily take her for the evening and keep her for all eternity. He continued to stare as he got closer. He wasn’t imagining things. Definitely Eve.

  Damn! He’d waited too long and hadn’t moved in fast enough. Someone else had gotten her attention and whisked her away. Where to, he didn’t know. He couldn’t think about that. There was no reason to get upset. He knew who she was, and he’d be back for her. If not later that night, then the next one, or the one after that.

  Impatience could never get in the way of his mission. Following the steps in the plan, one by one, was the key to success.

  There were plenty of fish in the Hennepin Avenue sea. He went back to searching. It was possible there was another one out there. He looked for another hour, but none of them fit Eve’s description.

  He’d find her; it just might take a little time. Meanwhile, he had videos to take the edge off his hunger.

  2

  “Sergeant Aleckson, report to my office.” Sheriff Twardy’s voice dropped like a bomb from the public address system speaker in the squad room where four other Winnebago County deputies and I worked on reports.

  Instead of phoning or paging me, the sheriff always called me over the rarely used system, letting everyone in the department know I was being summoned again. He didn’t do it to humiliate me. The sheriff was in his late fifties and old-school cop in many ways.

  As I hit “save” on the computer and pulled out the zip drive, the chiding began.

  “Wha’d you do this time, Corinne?” Brian Carlson mocked, throwing his head to the side to look at me.

  I wracked my brain for a second and shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.” For once. “You guys can stop your gloating. I’ll tell you when I get back.” I stacked my reports and shoved them to the side.

  “You mean if you get back,” Todd Mason paused from his typing to dig in.

  “Very funny, Mason. You know, I really love the moral support you give me around here. Remember, what goes around comes around. Next time one of you guys gets called before the sheriff—”

  “Are you kidding? Hey, we’re not the ones who are always getting ourselves in trouble—you are,” Todd shot back.

  I looked back over my shoulder as I crossed the threshold. “Only because, as your sergeant, I take the heat and keep you out of it.”

  “Whatever,” Todd murmured.

  “Huh.” Brian added.

  As I weaved my way to the sheriff’s office, I reflected on the camaraderie I had with most of the other deputies in the department. A few weeks before, Mason and Carlson had helped stop a madwoman intent on killing my friend and me. I hoped I would never have to return the favor, but we all knew I wouldn’t hesitate if it came to that.

  “Denny, there is no way she is going in there!”

  I heard Detective Elton Dawes’ voice resound from the sheriff’s office.

  “That’s not up to you, Smoke. It’s up to her. You’re too protective of Aleckson. She is a trained professional, for godsakes,” Sheriff Twardy shouted back.

  Oh, boy, now what? Everyone in the secretarial pool was no doubt as curious as I was about the exchange. I knocked, stepped inside, and closed the door before more words could escape into the outer office. The sheriff’s hazel eyes and Smoke’s sky blues fixed on me.

  Instead of demanding to know what was going on, I politely said, “Yes, sir?”

  “Take a seat, Sergeant.”

  I eased onto a chair across from the sheriff. The creases in his face seemed deeper than usual. Twardy continued to scrutinize me, and I fought the urge to shift in my seat. I glanced at Smoke. He was looking down and running his hands through his thick salt and pepper hair. What was going on?

  “I got a call from Captain Palmer,” the sheriff said.

  Palmer was the administrator of the Winnebago County Jail.

  “Alvie Eisner wants to see you. Alone.”

  Sheriff Twardy watched for my reaction. I tried to process why Alvie Eisner would possibly want to see me. Alone.

  Smoke leaned forward. “Forget it. That monster almost killed Corky, and now she wants to see her? Just forget it.” He looked from me to the sheriff. His long dimples deepened as he worked the muscles in his lean, angular face.

  I tuned out Twardy’s and Smoke’s voices as visions of Alvie Eisner jumped to life in my mind. Her only son, a miscreant, had been sent to prison for his crimes and committed suicide while incarcerated. Alvie had determined that revenge would be best served by killing everyone she held responsible for his death. She’d murdered a retired judge, the county attorney, and the public defender. It was sweeter still to her when she made the deaths look like suicides so their families would suffer as she had.

  Due to my level of involvement in the investigation, Alvie Eisner had determined I should die too. She’d threatened my friend Sara, a probation officer, and me with a gun. When I knocked the gun out of her hands, she went after me with the full force of her body. Eisner was many inches taller and close to one hundred pounds heavier, so she was a worthy adversary. I battled Alvie Eisner for a matter of minutes, but they were very, very long minutes. Thank God my colleagues had arrived when they did.

  A little more than a month later, I continued to wake from terrifying nightmares in a cold sweat, with my heart pounding. I knew I should talk to someone about my dreams, but I wasn’t ready. The thought of putting words to my angst sent waves of increased anxiety through my entire body. I shuddered slightly.

  “That woman is out of her gourd.” I came back to Smoke’s words. “There is no reason she should be allowed to talk to Corky. She’ll face her in court when Corky testifies against her. They can’t discuss the case, so what in the hell could she possibly want?”

  “Palmer told me Eisner said it was something personal—not about the case.”

  Smoke craned his neck toward the sheriff. “Personal? Personal? She is totally off her rocker if she thinks Corky wants to discuss anything personal with her.”

  The sheriff and Smoke were both right. Alvie was off her rocker, and Smoke—my mentor and dear friend—had always been
a little protective of me. He was even more so after the incident with Eisner.

  “I’m here,” I reminded the men, interrupting their stalemate. “Okay, I agree. Alvie Eisner is a monster, but I can’t help but wonder what she wants. I mean, don’t you?” I looked from Smoke to the sheriff, but neither replied.

  I continued, “I don’t think I heard five sentences come out of her mouth through our entire investigation. I was lucky to get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ the times I talked to her.”

  “Bad, bad idea,” Smoke said.

  “I’ll tell Palmer I’ll meet with Eisner after her trial is over with. The jail can shackle her. We’ll be on opposite sides of a heavy conference table. Someone can watch through the glass.”

  Smoke crossed his hands on his chest. “I still say no. She’s a damn nut case.”

  “That’s a news flash.” I waved my hands in front of me like I was holding a newspaper. “We’ll have the jail strip search her before the interview, check for hidden weapons—”

  My words were interrupted by the sheriff’s phone.

  “Sheriff Twardy . . . What! . . . Tell me again. . . . What’s the location? . . . Okay.” I watched the sheriff’s face grow red, the visible sign his blood pressure was climbing. He stood and straightened to his full five-foot-eight-inch height.

  “Call the mobile crime lab. Who’s working major crimes this week again? . . . Okay, good. I got Dawes and Aleckson with me. They’ll meet the crime lab team out there. Send the call information to the squad computers, but don’t put this out on the radio. Flag it as confidential. We’ll find out what we got first.” The sheriff hung up and shook his head. Silver-gray hair framed his red face.

  Smoke’s body had tensed during the sheriff’s conversation, and my own muscles tightened in turn.

  “That was Communications. This is a new one. A dog just came home with a human leg, appears to be from a female.”

  “Where?” Smoke asked.

  “Dayton Township, Wolf Lake. You two get a move on. I’ll see you there.” The sheriff led the way out of his office and stopped by his secretary’s desk to fill her in.

  “I gotta grab my reports from the squad room. Beat you there,” I challenged Smoke.

  “Yeah, right.”

  Smoke was, hands down, the most skilled driver in the department. He could push one hundred miles an hour on curvy roads. All the deputies were good, but no one was that good.

  The squad room was empty, so I grabbed my things without needing to converse. I hustled to my squad car. “Six oh eight, Winnebago County.”

  “Go ahead, Six oh eight,” Communications officer Robin answered.

  “I’m clear ten-nineteen.” The station.

  “Ten-four, at fifteen thirty.” Three thirty p.m.

  Winnebago County had recently equipped our squad cars with portable computers linked to the county Communications department, sheriff’s report and arrest records, as well as Minnesota state driver and vehicle registration records. I read the call for service on my computer.

  The reporting person was a Tara Engen of 8539 Abbott Avenue Northwest, Dayton Township. Not a name I recognized. There were a number of people who called in to report various extraordinary, sometimes downright unbelievable, things on a regular basis. They were seldom valid complaints. Some of the callers had mental health issues. Others were bored, hyper-vigilant, or just plain too nosy for their own good. But, like the little boy who cried wolf, even our frequent theatrical reporters had a legitimate call from time to time.

  It was a suspicious circumstances call. Tara Engen had reported that her dog found a woman’s leg in Wolf Lake. My mind scanned through reports of missing people in the county. We had our fair share. Most were teenagers who left without telling their parents where they were going and turned up a day or two later. There was the occasional dementia patient who wandered off on foot or in the family car. The majority were found fairly quickly. Once in a while, a non-custodial parent would run off with his or her child. But a missing woman? I could not recall one in the recent past.

  How long had the leg been in the water? Days, months, years?

  Suspicious circumstances, all right.

  A message from Smoke appeared on my screen. 20? He wondered where I was.

  “CR 10, at 50th,” I typed back with my right hand, keeping the squad car under control with my left.

  “10-4, crossing 70th.”

  Smoke was two miles ahead of me. I pushed down my accelerator, knowing I wouldn’t catch up with him, but I could try. Wolf Lake was about twelve miles from the station. Officially, it wasn’t a red lights and siren call, but to the person keeping watch over a woman’s leg, it would be. The faster we got there, the better.

  “Seven ten, Winnebago County.” It was Deputy Todd Mason on the radio.

  “Go ahead, Seven ten,” Robin answered for Communications.

  “Show Seven ten and Seven twenty-three, ten-eight with unit three.” Mason and Carlson were rolling with the mobile crime lab.

  “Ten-four, at fifteen thirty-nine.”

  Dayton Township was sparsely populated. Lake Pearl State Park occupied about half the nine square mile area. Lowlands, unsuitable for building or farming, took up another quarter. The remaining ground was rolling tree-covered hills, pastures, and farm fields. The south and west sides of Wolf Lake butted up to the state park.

  County Road 10 crossed County Road 27 on the southern border of the Minnesota state park. I slowed down as I approached County Road 27 and turned left. Abbott Avenue was the first crossroad, and I pulled my steering wheel right. It was a gravel road, and dust hung in the air from a vehicle ahead of me. My squad car stirred up more. I saw nothing but a cloud behind me when I glanced in the rearview mirror. I crossed Eighty-fifth Street Northwest, the road that led into the park.

  Abbott ran close to the west bank of Wolf Lake, and I surveyed the water as I drove by, half-expecting a hand to pop up like in the old movie Deliverance. What had happened to the rest of the woman? Coyotes? Cougars? Coyotes were prevalent, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources reported occasional cougar sightings. Either was possible, but would an animal leave a leg in the lake? Not likely.

  I continued to the north side of the lake and pulled into the Engens’ driveway. An older yellow farmhouse sat on a small rise with a barn and several outbuildings. It was the only dwelling on the lake, built many years before the state purchased the nearby land for the park in the 1960s.

  I phoned Communications to tell them I had arrived and hopped out of my car. A dog barked in the distance, perhaps from the barn or a kennel behind the house. He sounded big enough to carry a woman’s leg in his mouth.

  Smoke and a forty-something brunette woman stood together near some patio furniture on the east side of the house. Actually, Smoke stood and the woman rolled from feet flat on the ground to tippy-toes in a continual rocking motion. Her arms crossed her body in a self-hug as she peered at the ground.

  Smoke looked at me as I approached, creased his eyebrows together then blinked at a spot a few feet away. I fixed my eyes on the gruesome sight of a woman’s right leg—from the tips of her scarlet-red polished toenails to the top of the thigh. The cut that had severed the leg from the rest of the body was clean, not jagged or torn. Not the work of an animal —a non-human animal, at least.

  “Missus Engen—Tara—why don’t you have a seat on the chair there,” Smoke directed in a calming tone. He put a hand on Engen’s shoulder to guide her to the patio furniture.

  Engen released a loud breath. She stopped rocking, but shook her hands at her sides for some seconds. “Um . . . I’m gonna be sick.”

  She ran a short distance and retched a few times before vomiting. I swallowed and slowly sucked in air through my nose to calm my own churning stomach. Smoke’s eyes traveled from Engen to the ground and back for the duration of her sick spell.

  Engen’s peaked face was splotched with red circles when she finished. “Okay if I go get cleaned up?”
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  “Of course,” Smoke assured her.

  Smoke and I moved closer to the leg. “Hopefully, she’ll be feeling a little better now,” Smoke said.

  “Don’t count on it. Not for a long, long time,” I countered.

  The grass on the lawn was recently cut, a neatly trimmed combination of grass, clover, and plantain. The pale white leg with its red toenails, on a bed of green grass, struck a frightful contrast. The colors of Christmas on a warm August day.

  “Okay, this is the creepiest thing I have ever seen,” I said.

  “I got a lot more years in than you, so I’d have to think about that.” Smoke squatted to get a closer look and moved the readers from his breast pocket to his face. “Yeah, I’d say this would be on my top ten list. Let’s see what we got here.”

  I could observe perfectly well from where I stood.

  “Pretty clean cut. Power saw? Miter saw, fine blade? A butcher’s saw?” he guessed. “Appears to be from a fairly young Caucasian woman—I don’t know, twenties, thirties. Takes care of herself: pedicure, shaved, maybe waxed, legs—or leg—to be precise.” Smoke squinted against the sun to find my face. “Which brings up the obvious question. Where the hell is the rest of her?”

  I glanced around, taking in the surroundings. The yard was mown to a few feet from the water. Swamp grasses filled the space between the lawn and the lake. Poplars grew close to the water on the east bank. Pines and hardwoods—maple, oak, and basswood of the state park—filled in behind them.

  Where was the rest of the victim’s body, and how had her leg wound up in a small, rural Winnebago County lake?