“Who the hell are you, asshole?” Ronnie shouted, handing his rifle to Paul.
“I'm the new sheriff and you're about this close to being arrested,” Lark snapped, holding his finger and thumb an inch apart in front of Ronnie's face.
Salt and Pepper had been quiet, looking back and forth between people as they talked. He'd given his rifle to Paul without resistance. Suddenly, he turned towards Ann. “Did he say your name is Ranson?”
“Yes,” she said as he walked over to her.
He poked his finger in her face, nearly hitting her cheek. He reeked of alcohol mingled with tobacco and sweat. His eyes were shot through with red streaks. “Are you that bitch that took over down to the hospital?” he asked, swaying back and forth. Both dogs growled and Duke lunged forward, snarling at him. John pulled them back and took a few steps away.
Lark walked over and stared into Lonnie's eyes. “Get your finger out of her face.”
Lonnie dropped his hand. “Are you that fucking bitch from the hospital?” he yelled.
“I work at Mason Memorial,” Ann said, standing her ground.
“If I'd known that, we woulda killed them fuckin' dogs,” he shrieked, his face flushing. “You're making my wife's life a living hell. Making her work night shift and weekends. She hates you, you fuckin' bitch.”
“That's enough,” Lark said, stepping in front of him.
“Who is your wife?” Ann asked, her voice calm. She heard the faint sound of a snowmobile in the distance.
“Betty Chevsky,” he screamed, his face reddening so dramatically that Ann thought he might have a stroke. “She hates your guts. They all hate you. It was a good place to work'til you came.”
“That's more than enough,” Lark snapped. He grabbed Lonnie's upper arms and walked him over to Paul as Jim arrived with the snowmobile. “If these two give you any trouble, arrest them.”
Ann watched Paul escort them away, Jim following on the snowmobile. John returned her mitten and she slipped it on, marveling that she hadn't noticed how cold her hand had become.
“Boy, I really need a break,” she said. Even the dogs seemed tired, lying down in the snow rather than playing. Ann rubbed her mittened hands over her face. “I had no idea Betty Chevsky felt that way. She volunteered to work nights and weekends. I can't believe she's married to that bastard.”
“Those guys are just one of the reasons I didn't want you out here today. They could have hurt you,” John said, putting his arm around her waist. “Why did you challenge them?”
“Challenge them?” Ann muttered, stunned by his comment. She pulled away and turned to face him. “Jesus, John, after five years on night shift in the ER I think I can handle myself. What do you think I was doing? Having a tea party? I spent more than my fair share of time dealing with chauvinistic drunks, violent drunks, drunks with knives and guns, and women who had the shit beaten out of them by drunks. Believe me, these guys don't listen to shy, retiring women. Those are the ones who get beaten up or killed.”
“She's right,” Lark said. “How about we call it a day?” He dug his watch out from under his glove. “It's after eleven, we can head back for lunch.”
“I agree. We can come back out this afternoon,” John said.
“Lark, I almost forgot in all the excitement. Did you find anything in the sumac grove?” Ann asked.
“A couple of old beer cans and a lot of squirrel tracks, all covered with fresh snow.”
Ann frowned and shook her head. “I don't think our dogs roam much further than this, so I'd rather continue to look and get it over with.” She took Buck's leash from John.
They decided to search for a couple more hours. Once again Lark
pulled the red boot out of his backpack. The dogs sniffed it and strained at their leashes.
As they moved through the snow at the edge of the woods, Ann found herself relaxing in the beauty of the marsh. The dogs flushed two enormous, shaggy rabbits. The size of their coats suggested that Big Oak was in for a long, harsh winter. Birds chattered at them from the brush and a hawk floated over, looking for dinner. Ann thought about how hard it must be for the animals to survive and made a vow to add more feeders before she went back to work.
They crossed the snowmobile trail again. Despite repeated attempts to keep the dogs together, Duke veered off into the brush on the south end of the marsh while Buck strained to go north along the trail. They decided that Ann would let Buck go where he wanted as long as she didn't leave the trail, and John and Lark would head into the woods.
Buck and Ann worked their way slowly along the trail. It was obvious that a snowmobile had recently been through the area. They had gone about three hundred yards when Buck swerved into the woods, following a set of animal tracks. Ann pulled him back but he whined and lunged forward, unwilling to return to the trail. Swearing, she reeled him in to ten feet of leash and followed, expecting another bunch of deer to fly by her. Thankfully, no deer appeared, but Buck did flush a rabbit that he chased halfheartedly before getting back on the trail.
Then Buck stopped about a hundred feet into a deep thicket of sumac. He began digging around the end of a snow-covered log, then ran to tug at something at the other end. Ann slogged forward and bent down to sweep the snow off it. It was a yellow mitten like the one Buck had found earlier. She stood up and scanned the log, suddenly realizing that she was looking at a snow-covered human body. She stooped down and attempted to turn it over. It was facedown and frozen stiff, the arms splayed out and bent at the elbows. It was impossible for her to move it by herself. The person was obviously dead. She dragged Buck a few feet, yelling at him to heel. He reluctantly fell in line beside her. They followed their own trail out of the woods.
Once Ann got out to the marsh, she looped her scarf around a tree branch. The trail was obvious to her but she wanted to be sure the sheriff could find it. She thought about the body. Obviously, it wasn't missing a
foot because it had on a pair of black boots. She tried to absorb the ramifications of this as she walked back to where John and Lark had entered the woods. She was debating whether to go in after them when a snowmobile came roaring down the trail and stopped in front of her. Paul took off his helmet.
“Where's the body Lark radioed about?” he asked, getting off the snowmobile. Seeing the stunned look on Ann's face, he walked over and took her arm. “Ann, are you OK? You suddenly got very pale. Hey, you look like you're gonna be sick.”
Ann didn't realize she'd covered her mouth with her hands. For once, Buck sat quietly at her side. “Lark doesn't know about the body I found,” she blurted out.
“He must, because he radioed me just as we were dropping the Chevskys off at the station. He told me to get back here ASAP.”
“I'll show you what Buck and I found. I know it isn't the body we were looking for because it has on two black boots.” She pointed back up the trail.
Looking at Ann like she was crazy, Paul radioed Lark and asked for directions. Lark's voice crackled over the radio, telling him to stay put; they were on their way out.
While they waited, Paul explained that they gave out minimal information on the radio. Listening to scanners was a way of life in the northwoods. He stopped talking as Duke, John, and Lark emerged from the thicket.
“Did you find a body?” Ann asked.
“A skeleton and some clothing,” Lark replied.
“I can't believe this. Buck and I found one, too.”
“What the hell,” John said. Both men started talking overtop of each other.
“Hold it,” Lark yelled, waving his hands around.
“You found a body?” John asked Ann.
“Must be an animal,” Lark muttered.
“No, it's a person,” Ann snapped, beginning to realize the impact of what she had found. One body was beyond comprehension, let alone two. The possibility of a third and fourth crept into her mind. Things began to float around her. Lark grabbed her arms and lowered her onto a log. She saw his lips moving but his words didn't make sense. Through a
haze, she saw John wrestling with both dogs, which meant that she'd let go of Buck's leash.
“I'm putting your head down between your knees,” Lark said, pushing on her shoulders.
“Hey I'm OK,” Ann said, resisting his pressure. “I'm not going to faint. Let me sit up.”
John dumped the dogs on Paul and sat down beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Ann, you're very pale. Put your head between your knees.”
“Jesus, you guys,” Ann said, looking from one to the other. “I'm not going to faint. Besides, with all these clothes on, I don't think I can bend into that position.”
“Are you sure you found another human body?” Lark asked, glaring at her.
“I'm positive. It's about three hundred yards up ahead.” She pointed out her red scarf. “It has on a yellow mitten. Buck must have found the body earlier and stolen the other one. It has on two black boots and a red coat. There are animal tracks leading in to it. I tried to turn it over but it's frozen stiff.”
“I can't believe this,” Lark said. He closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. “We found skeletal remains and a mate to the red boot. Now I'm wondering how many bodies are out here.” His face was grim as he surveyed the marsh. “John, why don't you and Ann take the dogs back to the house. Paul and I will meet you there later.”
Lark gave several instructions over the radio and took the snowmobile to find the other body. John and Ann headed back to the house. It was only twelve-thirty, but it felt as if they'd been at it for three days instead of three hours.
As they walked back, John described what he and Lark had found. Duke had led them two hundred feet into a thicket and right to a snow-covered, partially dismembered skeleton. One of the hands was missing as well as the booted foot the dogs had found. Lark had searched the clothing for identification but none had been found.
“Probably a woman,” Ann said as they trudged past the sumac thicket where they'd found the yellow mitten.
“Why do you say that?”
“Small shoe size, red boots, and no sign of ID,” Ann said. “My ID is
in my purse and I wouldn't take my purse on a walk in the woods. It all points to a woman.”
“You're probably right. I thought it was a woman or a kid when I first saw the boot.”
“How long do you think that body's been out here? The other one looks like it hasn't been here long. Until I realized it was frozen, I thought we might need the EMTs.”
John stopped to light a cigarette. “Lark guessed at least a year but said it could be longer.”
Tears spilled down Ann's checks. She brushed them away before they could freeze. “I wonder if there was something we could have done for either of them if we'd being paying more attention to what's going on out here.” Hand in hand, they walked the rest of the way home in silence.
NOVEMBER 21âTHE RANSONS
When Ann and John got home, they took a hot shower. As they came out of the bathroom, they heard Lark's voice on the answering machine saying he and Paul would be back in half an hour. John grabbed the phone and offered them lunch.
The front doorbell rang just as Ann was defrosting chili. “They got here early,” she said, glancing at her watch as she hurried to the foyer. She opened the door to find Sara Waltner smiling at her.
“Hi, Ann. I thought I'd pick up my Venetian glass and Steve's Flow Blue. I just couldn't wait to see what you found.” Ann stumbled back, shocked to see her, and Sara stepped into the foyer. For a minute, Ann couldn't figure out how Sara knew she had anything for them. Then she remembered the message she'd left on their answering machine over the weekend, back when life was normal.
“Let me run and get your glass. I don't have Steve's Flow Blue unpacked yet so I'll have to get it to you later. You can pay me then,” Ann said, hurrying to the family room. “John and I are having company for lunch.”
Sara yelled hello to John as she followed Ann into the family room. She picked up the heavy, white, heart-shaped bowl ribboned with burgundy glass and held it to the light. “How lovely. I can't thank you enough,” she said, handing it to Ann to be wrapped. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.
“I hear the sheriff's been over here,” she said, surveying the haul from the weekend. “What excuse did you use? I'd sure like to have that hunk stop by my house.”
“Good grief, Sara,” Ann said, sliding the tissue paper-wrapped glass into a paper bag. “What about Steve?”
Sara leered and raised her eyebrows. Ann thought Sara always acted like she'd hit the matrimonial motherload, even though rumors abounded in the community that Steve was having an affair with his assistant. Her interest in the sheriff surprised Ann. Steve Waltner, quite the handsome guy himself, owned several businesses in Mason County, all of them bearing his name and purported to be very profitable. If there was such a thing as high society in a county with more cows than people and more deer than cows, Sara and Steve were it. The Waltners appeared to be the personification of the American dream, complete with Michael, twenty-four, and Sandra, twenty-two, both attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
Ann studied Sara's peaches-and-cream complexion, mass of chestnut colored hair, and huge brown eyes. Sara was older than Ann but she looked thirty. Women joked that they'd never seen her in the same outfit twice. True to form, she wore a plum colored sweater and matching skirt that Ann had never seen. Ann felt positively frumpy in her forest green sweats and crew socks. She envisioned them together on
Glamour's
Do's and Don't's page, Ann as the fashion Don't.
“Ann, we're married but we aren't dead. We can still look.” Sara flashed Ann an amused smile and patted her arm, her well-manicured left hand showing off the biggest marquise diamond Ann had ever seen. “I'm sure John's just like Steve, he's not blind to a good-looking woman. Why should we be any different?”
Ann didn't have time to answer her. The oven timer went off just seconds before the doorbell rang.
“Can you get that?” John yelled. Sara followed Ann into the foyer and slipped on her coat, a gorgeous midcalf-length mink. She was sitting
on the bench pulling on her boots when Ann opened the door. Sara's mouth dropped open when Lark leaned in.
“We don't want to mess up your floor. We'll come in through your mud room.”
Lark turned to go but Sara was too quick for him. Smiling, she walked over to the door, and extended her hand. “You must be the new sheriff. How nice to meet you, I'm Sara Waltner.”
Lark took off his glove and shook her hand. “Mrs. Waltner.” He beamed her a hundred-watt smile. “I've worked with your husband on a couple of things. Please let me walk you to your car. We'd hate to have another casualty on top of all the deer hunting excitement.” He stepped inside, slipped her package from her hands, and guided her out the door. Sara winked at Ann as she left.
“Well, Jesus Christ,” Ann said, hurrying through the kitchen to unlock the mud room door. “That man's charm is wasted in law enforcement. He should be a politician.”
Ann let Paul in. Exhausted, he flopped down on the bench. He looked at Ann's angry face and jumped up, “Jeez, Mrs. Ranson, is it OK that we came back here? If we're in the way ⦔
“No, no,” she interrupted, raising her hand to silence him. “You're fine, there's nothing going on around here that a prostate exam or a giant dose of salt peter wouldn't cure.”
Paul looked confused, but Lark, who had just come in, almost fell off the bench laughing. Paul glanced back and forth between them, trying to figure out what he'd missed. Ann shut the door and walked back to the kitchen before her mouth could once again betray her better judgment.
John had a pan of cornbread cooling on the island and was busy stirring a pot of chili. He glanced at Ann. “What did Sara want?”
“She came to pick up their glass and find out why the sheriff was here,” she replied, scooping cornbread onto a serving plate. The cops walked in as Ann put out the soup bowls.
When they were done eating, Ann and Paul cleared the table while John and Lark built a fire in the family room. Fifteen minutes later, everyone sat down in front of the fireplace. It wasn't even three o'clock and Ann was ready for a nap. She pulled a quilt around her and picked up her knitting, trying to stay awake. Lark munched a cookie and sipped
a cup of tea as he explained that the state police would help remove the bodies and search the marsh. Then he told the Ransons that he needed to interview them.
Ann grabbed John's hand. “Do you really suspect us?”
Lark sat his tea down on the end table and stretched his legs out towards the fire. “I don't think either of you are responsible for this, but we can't automatically eliminate you. Right now, you are the only people we have connected to these bodies. That will change as soon as we learn who they are and what happened to them.” He sighed. “I'd like to interview you today.”
The Ransons agreed. Paul set up a tape recorder in the study and John went to be questioned. Ann sat alone in the family room. She turned on the television but found the noise irritating and turned it off. She picked up the Janet Evanovich novel that she hadn't been able to put down prior to the weekend, but even it couldn't hold her attention. She pulled an unfinished quilt out of the trunk that doubled as a coffee table.
She willed herself to relax into the quilting and began thinking about how horrible it must have been to die like the two people they'd found in the marsh. She wondered if they were dead before they got into the woods. Did they know who killed them? Did they cry out for help? She wondered what caused their deaths. Did they suffer? Did someone betray them? Someone they loved? Someone they trusted? She worried about their loved ones not knowing where they were and racked her brain to remember if she'd heard about anyone missing from the area.
Most of all, Ann worried that if she'd taken the time to check out the snowmobile in the marsh on Saturday night, just maybe they'd only have one body. The thought that they might have saved a life was almost more than she could stand. She stopped quilting to wipe tears away with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
All of a sudden, John's interview was over. Ann was so startled when she heard the study door open that she ran the quilting needle deep into her right thumb. In her effort to get it out, she ripped it across her thumb, creating a deep, half-inch cut. She jerked her hand away from the quilt and popped the cut into her mouth. She was in the kitchen running it under cold water when John came in.
Ann smiled with relief when she heard John and Lark talking about golf. They seemed very relaxed after the hour-and-fifteen-minute interview.
John's smile vanished when he saw the blood in the sink. He rushed over and grabbed Ann's hand.
“What happened?” he asked, looking at the gash in her thumb.
Ann pulled her hand out of his grasp and stuck it back under the cold water. “I stuck myself with my quilting needle. I don't know how a needle that small can cause so much blood.” She pulled it out of the water, saw that it was still bleeding, and plunged it back under. She didn't look up, concerned that she had mascara running down her face. After a few more seconds she turned off the water and wrapped her thumb in a paper towel.
“I'll get a Band-Aid and be right back,” she said, heading for the bathroom. Ann glanced up to find Lark, Paul, and John staring at her, their faces creased with worry.
John took a hold of her wrist and turned her around before she could get away. “What have you been crying about?” he asked, putting his hand under her chin and gently raising her face so she had no choice but to look at him.
“It's just stress. I've been wondering if we could have saved the second girl if we'd checked on that snowmobile we heard Saturday night. Please let me go deal with this cut so I can get my interview over with,” she said, not meeting his eyes, as she disengaged her wrist and went to the bathroom.
The view in the mirror was not good. She didn't have mascara running down her face; it was long gone. Her face was red and blotchy and her eyes were bloodshot and swollen. She felt a bit like a manic depressive who had hit both ends of the spectrum in twenty-four hours. Yesterday she'd been laughing hysterically and today she was in the crying phase.
Ann plopped down on the commode lid to think. Sometime during her hiatus, she heard the dogs bark and run through the house. Since the doorbell didn't ring, she figured the crime scene team had arrived. She finally got herself together by turning out the bathroom lights and putting a cool washcloth over her eyes. John knocked twice before she was ready to leave.
“Sorry it took me so long,” she said to no one in particular when she came out and found the three men sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. “That stuff will keep you up all night,” she said, getting a caffeine-free Diet Coke out of the refrigerator.
She walked over to the table. “Are you two ready?” she asked, glancing at Lark and Paul.
“Ann, we don't have to do this now. I can come back tomorrow morning,” Lark said as he rolled his coffee mug back and forth between his hands and studied her face. “We're going to be out in the marsh most of the day so it won't be any trouble.”
John wrapped his arm around Ann's shoulders. “That's a great idea. You can get a good night's sleep and do the interview first thing in the morning.”
“I want to get this over with.” She patted John's hand as she walked out of his embrace and headed to the study. She heard chairs scraping the tile floor and glanced back to see Paul and Lark getting up to follow her.
After Ann agreed to be taped and waived her right to an attorney, Lark asked her once more if she wanted to do this tonight. Despite, or maybe because of, his kindness, tears welled in her eyes. She retrieved a box of tissues from one of the bookcases as she assured him that she wanted to get it over with.
“I'm always fine when I'm in the middle of a crisis. It's later that I cry. Too many years as an ER and ICU nurse,” she said, patting her eyes.
“I really think we ought to do this tomorrow,” Paul said. “You look worn out.”
“I look like hell but I'm fine,” Ann said, glancing from one to the other. “You're both probably just like John. It drives him crazy to see a woman cry, especially if he thinks he had anything to do with it. My tear ducts may be in hyperdrive but my mind is fine. I don't have anything to hide. I'll tell you whatever you want to know if it'll help you figure out who killed those poor people. Let's get this over with.”
The interview lasted until seven. Lark questioned Ann about their activities the last few days and the only thing out of the ordinary she could remember was the snowmobile on Saturday night. He probed about any significant events during the time they'd lived there, and she couldn't recall anything other than the construction of their house. She assured them that they'd never been to Big Oak until Sam left them the property. They had vacationed in northern Wisconsin, but they'd always been in the St. Germaine or Rice Lake areas.
Lark seemed uncomfortable but plowed ahead through the personal questions.
His eyes bored into Ann's and she broke eye contact. “Have you ever had an affair?”
“I haven't, and I'd have to see John in action to believe he has. We've been very happy.”
“Do you and John have any family close by?”
She studied the colorful book jackets to the right of his head. “Our families live in Ohio and West Virginia. I'm the oldest of six. I have two brothers, a sister, and a stepsister. My other sister died five years ago in a car accident. My father died when I was fifteen. My stepfather died two years ago. My grandparents are dead. My mother and I aren't on the best of terms, but I'm very close to my brothers and sister.”