Death Stalks Door County (14 page)

“Thank you. She's all I've got.”

Mara looked up. Safe in her mother's embrace, she grinned at the handsome man in the wrinkled uniform. He tousled her hair. “You stay with your mother now, you hear.”

Cubiak watched them walk away, hand in hand. Mara and her mother. Alexis and Lauren.

“This is for you,” he said and tossed the half pint into a blue-and-white checkered trash barrel.

C
ubiak crawled out of a soft canyon of sleep and for a long while remained motionless as if stitched to the bed by threads of slumber. He had forgotten the weighty luxuriousness of such intense repose. When the final remnants of inertia dissipated, he rolled onto his side, swung his feet to the floor, and pushed upright. The room took a moment to settle, but even in the dim light and without his glasses, he was able to make out the two empty quart bottles that leaned against the wall under the window. For a moment he feared that he had drunk them dry and thought that the sleep he had so enjoyed had come as a result, but then he remembered pouring out the contents the previous evening after the long climb back from Ephraim.

After reuniting Mara and her mother, he'd hiked the village's shoreline and hilly terrain in search of Ben Macklin's elusive drinking pal. The festival drew vendors from throughout the region, and although many worked the event every year, most had never encountered Buddy Entwhistle. Even many local business owners didn't recognize the name. Three hotel managers remembered hiring the old drunk for odd jobs the previous fall and in late winter but none had seen him since. The boardinghouses that provided cheap temporary rooms were filled with summer staff from area resorts. Maybe Beck was wrong about Entwhistle living in Ephraim. If he was around, he was keeping a very low profile. A smart move, thought Cubiak, as he massaged his right knee. Macklin died after telling his friend about a mysterious second person on the tower with Wisby. Maybe Entwhistle figured he knew too much and went into hiding. Or he fled, scared for his life. Which meant he could be anywhere.

Cubiak looked out the window. The view was all forest. He envisioned Falcon Tower looming above the tree line. At that early hour its upper reaches would appear smudged and black against the bright blue of the sky. That's where it all began, he thought. But why and how had Wisby died? And what about the others? Cubiak craved coffee, but even more urgent was the need to organize his thoughts.

On a dresser mounded with books and clothes, he pulled a yellow notepad from under a pile of socks. Perched on the edge of the bed, he flipped to a blank page and jotted the names of the dead across the top, listing them in chronological order: Wisby, Macklin, Jones, Delacroix, and Anders and Pithy. Down the left margin, he noted five topics—PI or personal information; LC, local contacts; COD, cause of death; Opportunity; and Motive. Separating the headings with vertical and horizontal lines, he fashioned a crude chart and started to fill in the blanks.

Other than Wisby, Cubiak knew very little about the people who'd died or why anyone would want them dead. Initially, Halverson insisted that Wisby had leapt off the tower platform, but Bathard had ruled the death accidental. Not just because of the proximity of the body to the tower, although Johnson admitted he might have moved the victim in the initial confusion of trying to revive him. But because, according to the family physician, Wisby was fearful of heights. The coroner understood that suicides valued control and chose a method of dying that allowed them to guide every step of the process, avoiding any factor that jeopardized their tragic goal. A woman scared of guns wouldn't use a pistol to take her own life; she'd worry that she might pull the trigger too soon or not aim correctly. A young man afraid of heights would not climb a tower with the intention of jumping off. He'd worry about losing his nerve or his footing at the wrong moment. Wisby either accidentally slipped to his death or was shoved off the tower by someone intent on murder and strong enough to heave him over the railing. Macklin supposedly saw someone with Wisby. Was the unknown second person the killer? Did Macklin die because he saw Wisby pushed to his death and could identify the attacker? Jones, the third to die, had been murdered. But by whom and why?

Delacroix, the next victim to be discovered, was an insurance agent from Iowa. His death could have been an accident, but again that was improbable. Anders and Pithy, the final two, were students from UW–La Crosse. It was unlikely that they died as the result of a prank, as Beck insisted. That left two possibilities: either the three visitors were known to someone who wanted them dead, or they were random victims targeted for a reason or reasons unknown.

Had one person killed Wisby and Macklin? Another, the three tourists? And Petey, Alice Jones? Or were there two killers: Petey and the person responsible for the other five deaths? Possible but not likely, thought Cubiak. Despite the different MO's, simple logic pointed to one killer, which meant the six incidents were connected. But how? He hoped the evidence gathered at the crime scenes would provide a clue.

S
heriff 's headquarters was in the new Justice Center outside Sturgeon Bay. From the jeep, Cubiak watched the herd of Holsteins across the road. One of the black-and-white cows occasionally tossed its massive head and another flicked its tail, but most focused on eating. They seemed a contented lot, unlike the shifty raccoons that foraged for food in the Dumpsters behind his old Chicago precinct center. Cubiak hadn't been inside a police station in a year and a half, and the proximity alone was enough to remind him how much he missed his former job. He'd been a good policeman, and along with regret for his vanquished life came confusion over his present role. What exactly was he? A cop masquerading as a park ranger, or a park ranger pretending to be an officer of the law? This morning, with a half-day off from work, he wore jeans and a T-shirt and could have passed for a tourist.

Cubiak sensed a reckoning waiting and reached for the key. Then he remembered Mara and realized it didn't matter if he was a cop or a ranger or just a civilian; he'd vowed, if only to himself, to see this through.

Inside, he stepped into a familiar past. Door County sheriff 's headquarters was modern and quiet yet he felt instantly at home. He had a job to do and he knew how to do it.

Behind a glass wall, a young receptionist looked up.

“Dave Cubiak for Sheriff Halverson,” he said.

She tugged at the heavy green cardigan draped around her shoulders and hit a button on the phone console. “Somebody to see you,” she said, then buzzed him in and pointed down a long hallway.

The sheriff was ruddy from the sun. “Hey, what are you doing here? How come you ain't in uniform?” he said, waving his visitor to a chair in his corner office.

Cubiak swore under his breath and pulled the door closed. “My morning off,” he said. “You talk to Beck?”

“Not since the meeting. I been busy arresting more of them bikers.”

Cubiak approached Halverson's desk. “We got a new situation, which I'm sure you can appreciate. And whether you like it or not or whether I like it or not, it's what we're dealing with. So we need to come to some sort of accommodation on this.”

The sheriff looked confused. “What do ya mean? Why you talking so much, anyways?”

“Beck wants me to help with the investigation. You have questions, you have to take them up with him.”

Halverson picked up a bundle of reports. “Meaning?” he said as he tapped the documents on the desk, taking care to align the edges.

“You'd be in charge officially, of course. You do what you think needs doing, long as it doesn't interfere with what I'm doing or want done. If I ask for men, I get them. If I want you somewhere, you go.” Cubiak paused. “Think of me as kind of a consultant.”

“This 'cause of what Macklin told Entwhistle?”

“Yes. New ball game.”

“But I got all them bikers under control. I thought we agreed they were the troublemakers.”

“And you may be right, Leo.”

Halverson flushed a deep crimson. “Kind of an unusual arrangement,” he said after a moment, his voice flat.

“It is.”

Again, the sheriff took his time responding. “You mess up, it's your ass.”

“My ass.”

Halverson cleared his throat. “I still don't like it.”

“Didn't think you would.”

“This all going to be real quiet-like?”

“Absolutely.”

“Sure hope you know what the hell you're doing,” the sheriff said resignedly. He had recruited another five men that morning, he told Cubiak. “They can help with traffic or whatever.”

“Good. We'll need them,” Cubiak said. His biggest concern, he told the sheriff, was for public events like the water show on the festival's opening day.

“I got twenty years in with the county, one way or another. Five more to my pension,” Halverson said.

“Understood. No one's going to mess with you on that. Now, if you'd be so kind, I need the salvage from Macklin's tug.”

“What do ya want with that stuff ?” Leo tried to sound breezy.

“Just fishing.”

The sheriff led Cubiak to a vacant office and then barked an order to a gangly, boyish officer who retrieved two plastic bags from the evidence room and dropped them on a table along with a pair of latex gloves.

“Help yourself,” Halverson said.

Cubiak pulled the gloves on. He disliked the clammy feel of the material, but he knew the rules. There wasn't much to inspect in the first bag. A few scraps of wood, the pathetic remnants of the
Betsy Ross
, smelled of fish and gasoline.

The other bag gave off the same bad odor. It held the detritus scooped from the water where the boat had been moored. Cubiak sifted through the bits and pieces: chopsticks that had once been part of fishing poles, scraps of netting, a dented aluminum pot, a shredded cushion, shards of cloth, a twelve-inch piece of rope, and a baseball-size chunk of black plastic. He set the remnants of rope and plastic on the table. The rope fragment was charred at one end and neatly sheared on the other. From the diner, Cubiak had had a clear view of Macklin on the boat. He'd seen the old man bend down and retrieve something from the deck. A vague image of a sinewy, gray object flashed through Cubiak's memory, and he realized that Macklin had picked up a fragment of rope. There'd be lines and ropes all over an old fishing trawler. Why would one particular piece catch Macklin's eye?

Cubiak studied the hunk of plastic. The piece was slightly rounded and embossed with clear white markings near the ragged upper edge. He rolled it in his palm, thinking.

“They were good ones. Strong.”

Cubiak started. He hadn't realized the junior officer was still in the room.

“The old man's binoculars. The numbers give the rating.”

“Sure?”

The deputy blushed. “I'm an amateur astronomer.”

Probably not the kind that studies the night sky, Cubiak thought. What about Macklin? Was he a star gazer or a voyeur? Had he seen something he shouldn't have through the lenses?

Cubiak jotted down the number rating. Then he looked at the rope again. “Let me see what you've got from Delacroix, the guy at the lighthouse,” he said.

There were three clear plastic bags, the contents black with dried blood. When he unzipped the clothing bag, a sharp, musty odor filled the room. The deputy gagged but Cubiak didn't react. He pulled out the cap and fingered the stub of yarn that extended from the peak. He'd once had a cap similar to this one.

“No tassel?” he said.

The officer looked around as if he expected the missing piece to suddenly materialize in the room. “We ain't got it,” he said after a moment.

The tassel could have fallen off long before Delacroix was pinned to the door of the lighthouse. Or, Cubiak thought, the killer was collecting souvenirs.

“One more, if you would. Suzanne Pithy. Just the personal stuff.” He didn't need to see more blood.

From the back room, the deputy returned with a single bag, pitiful in its size and contents. The young cyclist hadn't much with her the morning she died: driver's license, credit card, two dollars and some change, sports watch, high school graduation ring, and a single, silver hoop earring. Women lost earrings all the time. Lauren had kept a small box full of what she called earring orphans. A missing earring might not mean a thing.

Halverson was dozing in his chair when Cubiak returned. He coughed and the sheriff bolted upright. “You done?”

“For now.”

C
ubiak tried two stores in downtown Sturgeon Bay before he found a pair of binoculars comparable to those salvaged from Macklin's boat.

“On a clear night, you'll see the rings of Saturn,” the shopkeeper promised.

Cubiak pulled out his wallet. He didn't need to see that far.

To avoid traffic, he used the peninsula's interior county roads and came to Jensen Station the back way. He made a quick call, changed into his ranger outfit, and hurried to the docks at Ephraim. It was late morning and the bay was dotted with recreational boaters.