Death Stalks Door County (20 page)

On the reviewing stand, Beck grabbed the microphone. “Ready?” he yelled, his free hand thrust into the air, urging on the crowd. “Ten! Nine!” Several thousand voices took up the count. “Two! One! Zero!”

A gong thundered, and the balls were released. Cascading downward, bright red, like ripe cherries, they dripped from the sky, unleashing a free-for-all, mad scramble below. In a scene of wild bedlam, summer visitors and locals alike pushed and shoved in a determined frenzy to grab the balls from the air or, failing that, to snatch them as they bounced and rolled on the ground.

“Jesus, this is nuts,” Cubiak said.

“We'll get our share of business from it, that's for certain,” Bathard said, stepping back inside.

I
n twenty minutes the scramble was over, and Bathard's first patient arrived, a preschooler with badly scraped knuckles on both hands. Cubiak left the doctor to his bandages and worked his way down to the waterfront, kicking through a layer of discarded ping-pong balls. Ephraim pulsed with activity. Clowns wandered the crowded streets, juggling oranges and passing out suckers. Outside the Village Hall, a bearded man in denim overalls shoed a workhorse while two women in long calico dresses and bonnets dipped candles from a vat of melted wax. On the main stage, a dog trainer coaxed a dachshund through a series of hoops. Next to Milton's the local high school band played exuberant marches, while the line for ice cream snaked across the parking lot and out onto the main road. Sunbathers lounged along the beaches while sailboats and kayaks drifted across the shallow bay. Happy children and adults maneuvered bright yellow paddle boats near shore, while farther out a half-dozen wind surfers tried to catch a whiff of the erratic breeze. Up the hill at the Christiana, the hotel guests took in the view from a horseshoe of white Adirondack chairs on the front lawn.

Cubiak backed the jeep out of a narrow slot near the docks, made a sharp U-turn, and drove back to the park. If Bathard was right about the wire being secured with a cleat, he'd find the tell-tale puncture marks in the trunk of a tree not far from the one the coroner had dubbed tree B.

At Ricochet Hill, where the cyclists had died, the forest was especially thick, and it took the ranger considerable time to check the nearby tree trunks. Finally he reached a giant oak some ten feet in from the road. A strong windstorm a week earlier had littered the forest floor with broken branches and leaves, but at the base of the oak, the brush had been shoved aside, revealing a patch of mossy undergrowth. As soon as Cubiak knelt down, he spotted the tell-tale holes. The puncture marks were three inches apart and chest high, just the right height for an average or tall adult. Despite the density of the forest, there was a clear line of sight between the oak and tree B, to which the wire had been strung.

Boaters used cleats. But people who sold nautical hardware or hung around the docks would be handy with them as well. Bathard's theory helped explain how the two cyclists had been killed but did little to narrow the field of suspects.

At Jensen Station, Cubiak checked in with Ruta. Armed with a legal pad and several pencils, the housekeeper sat at a card table under the kitchen wall phone.

“I have no news,” she said before he could ask.

“Have you reached everyone?”

The housekeeper pointed to a list of names, each one followed by a complicated code of X's, check marks, and circles. “No,” she said.

“You're leaving messages?”

“If there's a machine, yes. But some people have no machines.”

Cubiak nodded.

“I keep trying.”

Cubiak grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. “Yes. Please,” he said.

T
he water show started at noon. Cubiak found the sheriff in Ephraim wolfing down a brat at a waterfront grill. The ranger took him by the elbow and steered him toward the jeep. “Leo, we need to talk,” he said.

“What's up? Where we going?” Halverson said as they climbed aboard.

“We're not going anywhere. I need some information, that's all.”

“Information? Like what?”

“The personal kind.”

“What do you mean?”

Cubiak pulled out a notebook and pen and turned toward the sheriff. “Where were you the morning of Larry Wisby's death?” he said.

Halverson glared. His shoulders jerked and he lurched forward as if to grab the pen from Cubiak's hand. Instead, he settled back down and wiped a smear of mustard from his mouth. “What the fuck? You know damn well I was dealing with that tree that came down outside Ephraim.”

“And before that?”

“At home, asleep.”

“The day Ben Macklin got his?”

The sheriff glowered.

“Or how about the night of the full moon when Alice Jones was killed?”

“Where the hell do you get off ? I don't have to stand for this . . .”

“Everyone stands for it. Like with Dutch.” Cubiak paused and then went on. “I'm doing what Beck asked me to do. You don't like it, talk to him.”

Halverson puffed his cheeks, and then he exhaled slowly and sang out his alibis. “Gun show in Two Rivers. Poker game in Carlsville.”

“Witnesses?”

“You bet.”

Cubiak closed the notebook. “Sorry, Leo, but I had to do this. I'm working this theory that the real objective is to get at Beck by ruining the festival. If I'm right, you've got a great motive.”

A ridge of sweat cut across Halverson's forehead “Beck? What kind of bullshit is that? And what kind of bullshit is trying to tie all this crap to me?”

“Is it? Considering what happened to your father?”

The sheriff bit his lip.

“No thirst for revenge?”

Halverson went sickly white. With a sinking feeling, Cubiak realized that he could make a pretty good guess at the truth. “I need to know,” he said quietly.

When the sheriff spoke, his voice was hard and strained. “Ask Bathard. He'll tell you why not.”

“I will,” Cubiak said. He closed the notebook. “I'm sorry, Leo, but it had to be done.”

The sheriff blinked hard and watched a group of teenagers crossing the road in front of them. “Yeah, well. Now we got work to do.”

“You got that right.” Motioning for Halverson to do the same, Cubiak stepped out of the jeep and leaned against the hood. “Plenty of people will be watching the water show from here, but it's too wide open for our perp,” Cubiak said, pointing to the shore where spots were staked out with striped towels, lawn chairs, and umbrellas. “Our killer likes operating in smaller, more confined areas. It's the bleachers up there in the park along the ridge that I'm worried about. Nothing but trees behind them. That's where we'll put most of the men.” He glanced at his watch. “We got forty-five minutes to get them in position. You keep five or six of your guys with you down here and send the rest up to the park.”

The bleachers were nearly full when Cubiak got back to the park. The prime spots were taken by locals and the more savvy tourists who preferred watching the water show from atop the palisade where they could sit in the shade and still enjoy a clear shot to the bay.

The Thorensons pressed together in the middle of the first row. Behind them, Martha Smithson struggled to save a few square inches of space. She waved to Cubiak. “If you see Cate, tell her to hurry. I can't hold her spot much longer.”

Floyd Touhy strolled past with his black-strapped Nikon dangling from his neck. Nearby, Bathard waited in the shade of a towering American elm.

The coroner's brow was furrowed with worry. But he often looked like that. “I left one of the nurses at the first aid station. Had to come up for my niece. She's in one or two of the waterskiing acts,” he said.

Near the ridge, Cubiak intercepted the sheriff 's recruits. He dispatched half the men into the woods behind the stands and assigned the rest to mingle with the crowd.

“Fan out and keep alert,” he directed.

“What are we looking for?” one deputy said.

“Anything or anyone that shouldn't be there. Anyone acting suspiciously.”

The show opened with an explosion of fireworks that brought the crowd to its feet, roaring its approval.

Sixty minutes of aerial and waterskiing acrobatics followed. For the finale, six statuesque young women formed a human pyramid on the shoulders of four waterskiing Greek gods while five parasailers floated overhead, nylon ribbons of neon pink, purple, and yellow streaming from their shoulder harnesses. It was quite a show. Physical strength. Technical exactness. Skimpy suits. The audience loved it.

Cubiak sat through the spectacle, seeing only imagined disasters.

The performance went off flawlessly. The biggest challenge was unsnarling the traffic that jammed the roads after the show ended and the spectators dispersed.

C
ubiak was heading back to Jensen Station when a silver Corvette cruised through the park entrance and halted in a patch of bright sun. Despite having Wisconsin plates, the vintage car shimmered like an apparition from a Beach Boys song.

The driver's window lowered, and a woman turned and waved. Her blond hair combined with dark glasses and khaki jacket to evoke the image of a surfer girl on safari.

It was Cate. “I forgot to check supplies for the kids' photo class I teach. I do it whenever I'm around for the festival,” she said as Cubiak approached. “Where you headed?”

“Lunch.”

“I know a place. You want to go? Get away from all this whatever for a little while?”

Later, Cubiak would wonder why he didn't say no.

T
hey traveled east from the park and quickly left behind the tourist side of Door County. Barely a quarter mile inland, cherry orchards and dairy farms took the place of gift shops and restaurants. Cubiak closed his eyes.

The 'Vette was a smooth ride and Cate was a good driver. At the junctures, she downshifted to second, rolled to an easy stop, and then moved back up through the gears in a rhythmic, fluid motion that allowed the thoroughbred vehicle to surge forward effortlessly.

“Someone told me once that if you drive a car a hundred miles an hour and blow the horn, you won't be able to hear it, 'cause you'd be going faster than the sound waves. I tried it when I was sixteen. It worked. I didn't hear a thing.” Cate laughed. “Now I get safety awards from my insurance company.”

Cubiak dozed. When he woke, they were nearing the northern tip of the peninsula. He assumed they were going to eat in Gills Rock but Cate blew past the fishing village and hung a right. Were they heading back to Ruby's? Before they reached the Schumacher homestead, Cate turned into the forest and stopped before an imposing metal gate.

“Where are we?” Cubiak said.

“The Wood.”

“The what?”

“You've never heard of The Wood?” Cate scowled at him. “I thought everyone knew about The Wood. It was my grandparents' summer cottage. Ruby and my mother practically grew up here but no one's lived here since Grandfather died. The house exemplifies his curious and eccentric ways. I haven't been back for years. Wonder if it's changed.”

Cate pulled a large skeleton key from her bag. “You mind?”

The gate was elaborately scrolled and spiked and loomed like a barrier against the world. But when Cubiak turned the key, it swung open effortlessly.

“What kind of place is this?” he said when he got back to the car.

“You'll see.”

A quarter mile into dense woods, they pulled into a large clearing.

Cubiak whistled under his breath. “Jesus. Some cottage,” he said, taking in the stately residence across the yard.

“Yeah, right,” Cate said.

The Wood was an old-money summer retreat. Out front, marble nymphs and deer spurted water in a large fountain surrounded by quadrants of formal rose gardens that were encased by a wide ribbon of Kentucky bluegrass, which in turn was girded by a white stone driveway lined with life-size statues of archers with drawn bows. The huntsmen faced away from the house, a three-story Bavarian hunting lodge that managed to look both ostentatious and comfortable, with its gently sloping roof, dark-stained wood, and red shutters. A balcony ringed the second floor, and lush red geraniums bloomed in the window boxes.

“A bit much, I know, but Grandfather knew what he liked,” Cate said, sounding apologetic.

She led him past the flower beds and around the house to the front lawn, then down a brick path to the edge of a high cliff where a wooden deck cantilevered into the air.

“You first,” she said stepping aside. “I have vertigo. I need a minute.”

Cubiak hesitated. He wasn't fond of heights either and had to think his way to the far side of the platform where water and sky made up the only visible universe. “The ‘Door'?” he said, indicating the white-capped blue spread out before him.

“Yes. But that's not what I wanted you to see. Look there.” Gripping the rail, Cate pulled herself onto the deck and pointed northeast to a white lens-shaped mass spiraling into the azure sky. “It's a lenticular cloud above Washington Island. Locals claim it's a unique meteorological phenomenon triggered by a land mass between two bodies of cold water.”