Secret in Whitetail Lake Read online

  SECRET IN WHITETAIL LAKE

  Sixth in the Winnebago County Mystery Series

  Christine Husom

  Copyright © 2015 by Christine Husom.

  Smashwords Edition

  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. 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.

  Also by Christine Husom

  Winnebago County Mystery Series:

  Murder in Winnebago County, 2008

  Buried in Wolf Lake, 2009

  An Altar by the River, 2010

  The Noding Field Mystery, 2012

  A Death in Lionel’s Woods, 2013

  Firesetter in Blackwood Township, 2017

  Snow Globe Shop Mystery Series:

  Snow Way Out, 2015

  The Iced Princess, 2015

  Frosty the Dead Man, 2016

  This story is dedicated to each of you who lost a loved one in a way that left you wondering what happened, and why.

  Acknowledgements

  It’s amazing what a team effort it is to take an idea for a story and build it into a book. I have many people to thank, and give credit to. I asked about the disintegration of clothing and leather in water on the crimescenewriter, and appreciate the responses I got from Wally Lind, Hilary Catron, and Dr. Judy Melinek, forensic pathologist with Pathology Expert, Inc. Dr. Melinek shared her expertise and provided me with valuable information and corrected my mistakes. She also consulted with Lindsey C. Thomas, MD, Assistant Medical Examiner, Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office, on my behalf. Many thanks to both of you. Dr. Tia Larson offered enlightening medical advice and explained it so I understood it. Jake Hermansen with the Wright County Sheriff’s Office gave me important details of what is involved in a water recovery, from the divers and their gear, to the towing operation itself. And my faithful team of proofreaders gave me their time, careful reading, and sound advice: Judy Bergquist, Rhonda Gilliland, Elizabeth Husom, Judy Lewis, Chad Mead, and Edie Peterson. I truly appreciate all of you, and your willingness to lend a helping hand.

  1

  My English setter Queenie nudged me with her nose so I bent over and took her head in my hands. “You want to go outside, girl?” She jumped up and down, telling me that’s what she wanted all right.

  When I opened the front door, the smells of spring tickled my nostrils open wider to savor them. Queenie loved the acres and acres of open space surrounding our country home, and ran around for her vigorous morning exercise.

  I surveyed the grass on my lawn, still packed down from months of resting under a heavy blanket of snow. The blades were coming out of their hibernation and would be standing on end before long to bask in the warming sun.

  A Winnebago County Sheriff’s squad car, crunching the gravel on the township road I lived on, caught my attention. It slowed down, pulled into my driveway, and stopped. Deputy Todd Mason climbed out, leaving the car door wide open. The morning sun settled on his face like it was a spotlight drawn to his eye-catching features. He smiled and Queenie bounded to him, begging for attention.

  “Enjoying your day off, Sergeant Corky?” He bent over and ruffled Queenie’s coat.

  “With the weather being about perfect, it’s hard not to.” I stretched my arms.

  “You know it. Goodbye winter and hello spring.”

  I nodded and smiled. “What are you up to?”

  “Just cruising by when I happened to see you.” Mason’s pager went off. He unclipped it from his belt, glanced at the display and said, “It’s Captain Randolph.” He replaced the pager, pulled his cell phone out of its holder, and dialed. “Captain, it’s Mason. . . . Out on Whitetail, really? . . . Okay, I’m about five minutes from the office so I’ll go change, grab my gear, and be out there in twenty or so minutes.”

  Todd pushed the end button on his phone and frowned. “Warner decided to try the new-fangled sonar equipment that his water division just got out on Whitetail Lake. Seems he got an indication something is down there that needs to be checked out. They’re assembling the dive team.” Sergeant Tim Warner was head of the recreational vehicle and underwater recovery division for the county.

  “Randolph didn’t say what it was?”

  “Nope, just that it was a large object.”

  “A large object, huh? Whitetail is one of the deeper lakes in the county, and it’s a long way down to the bottom.”

  “Yeah, seventy feet, give or take. We did a dive out there what, two, three years ago now. It’s cold and clear, but once we stirred up the silt on the bottom we could see next to nothing, so we called it quits,” he said.

  “It’s curious what’s down there, anyway. Maybe a boat that sunk and just got left there,” I said.

  “Most likely, and we’ll find out soon enough.” Todd climbed into his car and backed out onto Brandt Avenue.

  Queenie and I watched him drive away. “Well, girl, I best get that last report turned in and then we’ll figure out what to do with the rest of our day.”

  The Winnebago Sheriff’s Office was a beehive of activity. I met Detective Elton “Smoke” Dawes in the hallway on my way to the squad room. “You heard about the find in Whitetail?” he said.

  “No details, just that the divers were called out. What’s going on?” I said.

  “You know how Warner has been itching to test the new side scan sonar. Now that the winter ice is off most of the lakes, he couldn’t wait any longer. Long story short, he went out on Whitetail, and found what looks like a vehicle at the bottom. On the south side.”

  “A vehicle, on the south side? There’s no road, or even a shore over there to speak of. That steep hill starts at the water and goes up fifty or sixty feet to where those houses sit at the top.”

  “Doesn’t make sense, that’s for sure. You probably don’t remember this, but there used to be an old farmhouse on that site. In fact, I may have gone to a beer party there myself back in the Stone Age. I’m thinking it’s some old piece of farm equipment that slipped out of gear and plunged in. From back when it was pasture land.”

  “Pasture land for goats?”

  The corners of Smoke’s lips lifted and he raised and lowered his eyebrows. “Or maybe it’s a hay wagon that they couldn’t get out. It would have been a big challenge without the right equipment back then.”

  “When you’d have to use a team of work horses to do the job?” I teased. Smoke was twenty years my senior, but far from old.

  “You are on a roll this morning, Corinne.”

  I held up my memo pad. “I have one last report to write I didn’t finish yesterday. Then I think I’ll head out to Whitetail and watch the action.”

  “Nothing better to do on your day off?” I lifted my shoulders, and he added, “I may do the same after I wrap up a few things here. In any case, I’ll check in with Warner for the particulars.”

  After I’d filed my report, I left the office and drove west on County Road 35, past the road I lived on for another half mile. Whitetail Lake was mid-point between Smoke’s house and mine. A number of personal vehicles and squad cars were sitting on the shoulder of the county road where a hopeful fisherman or two parked when the fish were reportedly biting. There wasn’t a public access by the lake, to speak of. The launching area was tricky to maneuver, and I was a little surprised Warner had chosen Whitetail to test his new
equipment. Maybe the fact that it was deep, and scarcely explored, added to the appeal.

  Deputies Vince Weber, Brian Carlson, and Todd Mason were outfitted in their scuba gear, prepared to climb into Warner’s boat, a twenty-one foot whaler with a square bow. It was tied to a sturdy post on the shore. I swung my classic 1967 Pontiac GTO around in a U-turn and parked on the same side of the road as the lake.

  Warner waved at me when I got out of my car. “Hey Sergeant, wanna ride along?”

  “Sure, why not?” I jogged over to the boat and climbed on behind the three divers. Warner loosened the knot on the tie rope, jumped on board then moved to the steering wheel. He turned the key and the 125 horsepower motor purred to life.

  “So there’s some sort of vehicle down there?” Carlson said.

  “Yeah, it’s crazy, but it looks like an automobile. And that’s just not logical,” Warner said.

  Weber pointed. “Nah. On the south side there? There’s no road access. Nothin’.”

  “I know,” Warner said and focused on the lake.

  Whitetail was small and deep and almost perfectly round. The depth of the lake was proportionate to the height of the overlooking hill. And like Mason said, it had a silt-covered bottom that clouded visibility when it was stirred up. The divers had three hundred lakes in the county to practice on, and Whitetail was not their first, or even their one hundredth choice.

  I sat down on a bench in the boat and studied the side scan sonar screen and spotted a few objects on the floor of the lake. At that spot on the north side, it was around fifteen feet deep. “Tim, how does this system work exactly?” I said.

  Warner pointed at the screen. “It sends out a sonar beam that does a sweep of the bottom and reflects off any object down there. Then it sends that image to the tow fish, the instrument in the water. That in turn sends it up the tow cable to the display here. You can see that we get a fairly decent view. It even works in more mucky bottoms like Whitetail here, which is why I wanted to check it out on this lake, to see how good it works.”

  That explained that. I watched the screen, waiting for an identifiable item to show up. “It’s pretty amazing. I think I could get hooked on this technology, checking out the lake bottoms for buried treasures,” I said.

  “You can always join the dive team,” Mason said and I lifted my eyebrows. Maybe some time.

  “It’ll take more than one summer to scan all the lakes we got here in Winnebago County,” Carlson said.

  Warner reached the site in question and the object came into view. It wasn’t immediately recognizable, but as I studied it, I made out the windshield, roof, and hood. “It’s not a hay wagon,” I said.

  “Huh?” Weber said as he, Carlson, and Mason crowded in beside me.

  “Detective Dawes offered that as a possibility.”

  Warner split the screen, revealing a red area where the vehicle sat. I asked Warner what he’d done, and why.

  “The green on the new view shows soft returns and the red indicates hard returns. That’s how we know it’s not a natural object down there. It’s man made, and tells me it’s a vehicle,” he said.

  “Ah. Geez, it looks a car, all right. Gotta be an older one with that longer hood, boxy shape,” Weber said.

  “That is a long hood.” Mason shook his head then pulled his goggles over his eyes. “So you want us to take a closer look and report back, Tim?”

  “That’d be good.” Sergeant Warner pointed to the houses sitting at the top of the hill. “I wonder if one of them is missing a car.”

  I shook my head. “You’d think they’d notice.”

  Warner shrugged slightly then nodded at the divers. “The lake’s about twenty-five feet deep where it’s sitting, so at that depth you shouldn’t need a safety stop coming back up.”

  “It’s my turn to be the rescue diver. Control your descent with your BCDs, and be careful not to go too far down or let your fins catch the bottom. If that silt is stirred up, you’ll have zero visibility. Are we ready, team?” Mason said.

  The three of them affixed their masks in place. Their buoyancy compressor devices—BCDs—were equipped with a second regulator, knife, flashlight, and weights. The air tanks would supply them for over half an hour, even if they overexerted, or became anxious and sucked in air faster than normal. They each rolled backward over the side of the boat into the water. Weber and Carlson dropped under the surface, and Mason stayed on top.

  We watched them on the sonar, but they weren’t clearly defined, by any means. When my cell phone rang a minute later, I looked at the display then hit the talk button. “Hey, Smoke.”

  “Are they in the water yet?”

  “They are. I’m on the boat with Warner, and we’re watching them getting close to the sunken treasure. It appears to be an old car, all right. I’d say about the same vintage as mine.”

  “What in the heck? I’ll head out there shortly.”

  “See ya.” I hung up and refocused on the divers. They were making their way around the car, brushing the windows, looking inside. A moment later, one started an ascent. Carlson surfaced and gripped the side of the boat with one hand, then lifted the breathing mask from his face with the other. His face was reddened from the cold water and camouflaged the freckles on his drawn face. He was panting when he delivered the news. “It’s an old Dodge Charger. We don’t have a clear view, but there are two bodies inside of it, from what we can see.”

  “What?” Warner and I said together.

  “And I’ve never seen anything like it. Real, but not real, like they’re coated with wax,” he added.

  I leaned closer to Carlson and studied his face. He wasn’t kidding. The normal dancing twinkle was absent from his blue eyes. He looked like he’d seen a ghost or two all right.

  “Damn!” Warner said and stared at me like I should know what to do, what to say.

  “You call Sheriff Twardy, I’ll call Detective Dawes,” finally came out of my mouth.

  “Damn!” he repeated and took another moment. “Carlson, we’ll need to figure out how to proceed with a recovery. In the meantime, get some shots from every which way you can down there.” Warner retrieved an underwater camera and waited while Carlson repositioned his mask then accepted the camera.

  When Carlson dove back in, Warner and I kept our eyes fixed on the vehicle that had come to rest on the bottom of Whitetail Lake and the deputies who were investigating it.

  Warner phoned the sheriff, but it went to voicemail. “Sheriff, we’re sitting on top of a possible crime scene on Whitetail Lake. There’s an older car on the bottom, and it appears there are human remains inside of it.”

  Per department policy, the sheriff was notified of any unnatural or suspicious death in the county. Human remains in a vehicle submerged in a small lake fit both of the criteria.

  Warner hung up. “Sheriff must be away from his desk.”

  “Are you going to try his cell phone?” I said.

  He shook his head. “The sheriff will get back to me when he’s clear. I ran into him earlier when I stopped by the office, and he made some noise about needing to spend the morning catching up on paperwork. He might be with a citizen, or in the biffy.”

  I nodded and phoned Smoke. “I’m just about there,” he said.

  It was better to deliver the big news in person. “I’ll see if Warner can pick you up on shore.” Warner nodded. “He says yes.”

  “Thanks,” Smoke said and disconnected.

  “Mason!” Warner called out. “We’re running in to get Detective Dawes on shore and will be back shortly.”

  Mason gave him a thumbs’ up sign.

  “From the way Carlson described the way the bodies look, it can’t be easy working down there,” I said.

  “No.” Warner turned on the engine and shifted into low gear to safely clear the area, then steered toward the north shore. He eased against the landing area.

  “Sometime back the sheriff mentioned purchasing those diving helmets with the communic
ations capability built right in, depending on how much they cost. They’d be handy about now,” I said.

  Warner puffed out a breath. “That’s an understatement. That’ll be the next big purchase for boat and water, especially if we start finding a shitload of stuff with this sonar system. Problem is, having more to investigate will mean more dive time. That might be a tough sell.”

  I pointed at the vehicle stopping by the side of the road. “Smoke’s here. Man, his day just got a lot more interesting.”

  Warner’s lips twisted. “Surprise, surprise, surprise.”

  Smoke got out of his car and jogged to the boat. He was long and lean and the best-looking man on the planet as far as I was concerned: angular face, long dimples, strong chin, full lips, and sky-blue eyes. His dark brown hair was sprinkled with some gray. He was wearing a light tan jacket over his shirt and tie, brown pants, and brown shoes polished to a gleaming shine. Not the usual fishing attire. But this wasn’t a normal expedition. “What’s up?” he asked. I leaned over the boat and offered my hand to help him in. “You guys look like cats that swallowed a bunch of canaries.”

  “It’s bigger than that,” I said and took a step back to give Smoke a place to stand.

  He gave my hand a squeeze then released it. “How’s that?”

  “The guys found human remains in the submerged car,” Warner said as he backed the boat away from shore.

  “It was an occupied vehicle?” Smoke pointed at the steep hill that rose up from the lake on the south side. “How in the hell would they have driven in the lake from over there? It’s not like the cases we’ve heard about where a guy is driving too fast down a road, loses control, and then winds up in a body of water. There’s no road even close on that side.”