Death Stalks Door County (16 page)

“Do you ever regret it?”

Bathard furrowed his brow and tamped the bowl. “Sometimes. But mostly not. Life was very good for many years, before Cornelia became ill.” The coroner looked past Cubiak. “Tuesdays are the worst. That's when the obituaries appear. She reads them all and recites the details to me when I get home. If the cause of death is not included, she gets annoyed, as if she's been cheated out of some necessary data. Age is important, too. Dying young upsets her. On one visit to the hospital, she saw a child leaving chemotherapy. Diminished to a shadow, poor chap, and crying. She refused to enter the department until he was gone. Next trip, she wore headphones—not that they were plugged in to anything. Just to block sound. She said she simply could not tolerate the thought of a child's soul ascending to heaven.”

Cubiak saw Alexis with wings.

Bathard scowled at his unlit pipe. “The awful dilemma is that I could intercede and accelerate the process,” he began again. “We've discussed it, many times, but her ultimate decision, which I respect, is to let nature take its course. ‘You are burdened as my witness,' she said, ‘but it is the lighter burden.'” The coroner signaled for another round. “She's been in excruciating pain for days. Hence her sister's arrival.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Thank you.” For several minutes they sat in a companionable silence, both of them watching Amelia work the bar across the room.

“You'd think she'd hire some help,” Cubiak said at last.

“Not enough business to justify an employee—full or part time. Reluctant to part with any more money than necessary. Too stubborn to admit she can't do it alone. Any number of reasons she'd give not to.”

Amelia limped toward them and set their drinks on the table. “Gentlemen.” She forced a tired smile, and then moved away.

Bathard took a hearty swallow. “Well, what is it?”

Cubiak related his conversation with Beck.

The doctor was quiet a moment. “It's as I feared, then. More than we thought and certainly more than our sheriff can handle.” Bathard looked at the ranger. “What made you change your mind?”

“Things you said.” Cubiak paused. “Things that happened.”

“Well, I for one am happy to know you're on the job. Did Leo acquiesce gracefully?”

“As well as could be expected, I guess. Beck was supposed to tell him but I ended up having to lay everything out this morning. I've been going over the evidence and trying to track down Buddy Entwhistle.”

“Try Thorenson. Buddy sometimes does odd jobs around the church. The reverend might know something about his whereabouts.”

“I will, thanks.”

“Anything else?”

“Halverson's locked up more bikers but I don't think that's going to mean anything.”

“Too random.”

“And too easy.” Cubiak shifted uncomfortably. “I don't think Petey is involved either. Alice's death wasn't a crime of passion. This is someone with a plan. At this point, Peninsula Park is the only common thread. There has to be a reason for everything happening there or near there, in Macklin's case.” He hesitated, and when he finally spoke, it was with caution. “It might be Otto.”

Bathard looked at him with disdain. “That's preposterous. Utterly and completely preposterous. I can't believe that you would even consider Otto a suspect.”

“He has no alibi for any of the murders.”

“Or so you assume.”

“He discovered Wisby's body and was close enough that he could easily have been the first person on the scene for the others as well. More often than not, that scenario alone points to the killer. The person who finds a body is often the one responsible for its being there in the first place.”

“You're referring to police statistics. There are always exceptions. At any rate, you were at the dock when Macklin's boat blew up and with Johnson when the bicyclists were discovered.”

“Otto's truck was in the park not far from the pier where Macklin had docked his boat. He might have been working in the woods or skulking around the pier. On Saturday, he could have been out for hours before I saw him at breakfast and then pretended the lighthouse was his first stop. When I went back there with him, he did his best to contaminate the scene.”

The two men were quiet a moment.

“Otto has a motive,” Cubiak said finally.

“Too transparent.”

“You think so? He wants to close the park. Make it off limits to people and transform it into some kind of nature preserve. He said so in public. At the meeting, he told everyone they'd be sorry for not backing his plan.”

Bathard looked doubtful. Cubiak went on. “In the late fifties, three young women were murdered in an Illinois state park. The place was near Chicago and popular with tourists. It took them a decade to recoup the numbers. People panic. They get scared. I think Otto's counting on that happening here and helping him realize this crazy scheme he has.”

“He'd never kill Benny. They were friends.”

“He had to, to protect himself. Remember, Macklin saw the second person on the tower.”

“He claims he saw someone. He didn't actually identify anyone, did he? If Benny thought the second person was Otto, why didn't he tell Entwhistle?”

Cubiak had already considered the question. “Loyalty.”

“I don't buy it.”

Amelia appeared with pretzels and fresh drinks. “On the house. In honor of the festival,” she trilled.

“Otto couldn't have done it,” Bathard said when they were alone again.

“Convince me.”

Meticulous in his preparation, Bathard refilled his pipe and struck a match. “We're near an open window. Amelia doesn't mind,” he said. When the tobacco grabbed at the flame, the coroner took two long draws. “Just how knowledgeable are you about Quakers?”

“I know that they're pacifists.”

“It goes further than that. Pacifists don't kill, end of definition? To call a Quaker a pacifist is comparable to labeling Itzhak Perlman a violinist. It doesn't even begin to convey the entire picture.”

Bathard inhaled another puff. Can't smoke at home now, he explained matter-of-factly. After several more draws, the coroner went on. “Most people around here are Catholic, Lutheran, or Moravian. Otto's a Quaker. His parents were, too, as were his grandparents. They were Moravian originally and became converts. Quakers by convincement, to use their terminology. As often happens with those who embrace a new religion as adults, they were purists who subscribed to the older, more orthodox form of the faith. The original Quakers eschewed format and ministers. Their meetings were unstructured. They simply sat and prayed quietly. Sharing the silence, I believe it's called. If someone had something to say, that person stood up and said it. Personal conviction was strengthened when others concurred. Unanimity amounted to God's blessing. That's the kind of religion these people practiced.

“I attended one meeting where Otto's father talked about the ‘Inner Light,' the Quaker belief that there is that of God in every man. All humanity expresses the divine. All men are equal, as it were. They don't take it lightly. This is not the empty verbiage of some preamble no one is intended to read, but rather the very basis for daily life. Quakers were antislavery
before
the Revolutionary War. The day after
Kristallnacht
, a group of German Friends confronted the Gestapo and preached fair treatment of the Jews. To kill or injure someone, to act in a violent fashion, represents the greatest affront to God. It is the height of arrogance. You can harm someone only if you feel you have the right, the power, to assume control of that person's fate. A humble person cannot be violent. Violence defies the very nature of humility.”

“Otto's not a humble man,” Cubiak said.

“He takes pride in his work. There's a difference,” Bathard said. “After the U.S. began bombing Hanoi, his father published an antiwar brochure. Very moderate, more a treatise on love. He and the missus drove to Madison and distributed their pamphlet on the steps of the Capitol. The governor had them arrested. Big headlines, good political move on his part. His issue for the day. Gave him his requisite fifteen minutes of fame.

“But here, Otto had to live with the repercussions, the ongoing small-town scrutiny and relentless disdain. A pack of high school bullies jumped him and beat him so badly he had to be kept home for a month for his own protection. Halverson's father was among the thugs. You can imagine the poison he poured into Leo about the Johnsons.

“A year later, Otto turned eighteen and became draft eligible. Most boys here were. They enlisted. He claimed CO status, but the climate was still very pro-war and the local draft board denied the request. Otto was sent to jail. The authorities held him for six months, clearly a violation of his rights as no charges had been filed. His parents both died while he was imprisoned but the judge wouldn't release him for the funerals. Claimed it was for his own good.”

“All of which could have made him mad enough to strike back.”

Bathard squelched a smile. “Quakers seek justice, not revenge. Otto persisted with one appeal after another until the Army formally recognized his conscientious objector status. He was assigned to public service, working with the criminally insane at a Milwaukee hospital. God only knows what he was subjected to during that time, but he never complained.

“Otto was the original flower child. Long before it became fashionable, he believed peace would prevail. Then the Weathermen bombed Sterling Hall at UW–Madison and fatally injured a physics researcher. To Otto, the inadvertent killing of this one innocent man made the protesters no better than the most bloodthirsty general. He washed his hands of them and everything associated with the antiwar movement. At the time, he was dating Beck's sister Claire, did you know that?”

“Yeah, I heard. Probably not to Beck's liking.”

Bathard nodded. “At any rate, a couple months later they were driving on an open stretch of road near Fish Creek when they hit a patch of black ice and slid into the oncoming lane. A milk truck rammed them broadside and, well, you know the rest. Claire's death, combined with his sense of responsibility, broke him completely. Otto became a recluse. Nature and animals became his sanctuary.”

The coroner emptied his glass. “Otto Johnson has devoted his life to peace and the environment. And what does he end up with? Friends who won't back his fight to save the park, and a genuine war hero as an assistant.”

“I'm no war hero,” Cubiak objected.

“Please, I know about the medals. You're a war hero whether you want to call yourself one or not, but Otto's no killer.”

“You haven't proved that.”

“You haven't proved he is.”

On his right hand, Cubiak counted out the arguments. “Number one: Johnson had a motive. Number two: he found two of the bodies. Number three: Opportunity. He was near the
Betsy Ross
the day it exploded and less than half a mile from where Alice was killed when he ran into Barry. Number four: circumstantial evidence.” Cubiak related Johnson's odd behavior, his comings and goings at unusual hours.

“What's number five?”

“Number five's a hunch.”

“Not admissible.”

“Fair enough. I'll even concede that none of the other four are strong enough taken individually to nail him. But considered together, they form a convincing argument.”

“Interesting, not convincing,” Bathard countered.

“I don't have anything else to go on.”

Bathard pulled a small notebook from his inside breast pocket, scribbled across the top sheet, then tore the page out and handed it to Cubiak. “Until tonight, only three people knew about this. You're the fourth. I expect you to honor our commitment to confidentiality.”

Cubiak held the paper to the light. It was a crude map with several lines of directions beneath the drawing.

“Go on, then,” Bathard said impatiently.

“Now?”

“Yes. Posthaste.”

Cubiak shoved the map into his pocket. “What do I find there?”

“Your comeuppance.”

C
ubiak cut a sharp diagonal across the peninsula toward Lake Michigan and the Mink River Estuary. “The naturalist's Eden,” the coroner had said in describing the area.

North of the river, thick fog slowed Cubiak to a crawl. Even at that, it was sheer luck that he found the narrow passage marked on Bathard's hastily drawn sketch. The lane was pockmarked with deep ruts. When he came to a patch of thick scrub that made it impassable, Cubiak left the jeep and continued on foot. In the inky dark, the chime of crickets rose and fell. A fox darted past, a blurred streak in the beam from his flashlight. The ground was soft and smelled of moss and rotting wood. Brambles snagged Cubiak's shirtsleeves. A low-hanging branch slapped his face. He was about to turn back when he came to a small clearing, a woodland oasis ringed by a series of unobtrusive plywood sheds. In the center was a one-story log cabin with strips of light seeping from the tightly curtained windows.

At the cottage door, Cubiak knocked twice, paused, and then banged the door hard three times, as Bathard had directed. The sound of muffled footsteps came from inside followed by two brisk raps from the other side of the door. Cubiak thumped once with his fist. Several locks were undone and the heavy wooden portal pulled open a crack.

A ribbon of Johnson's rough-hewn face shoved into the opening. If he'd expected anyone, it wasn't Cubiak. Anger supplanted surprise. He started to close the door, but Cubiak put a quick hand out.

“Bathard sent me. He said to tell you I'm acceptable. His term exactly.”

“He has a reason,” the park superintendent said finally, more statement than question.

“Yes. I'm checking alibis.” It was a stupid thing to say, and Cubiak regretted it immediately.