Death Stalks Door County (29 page)

“What the hell is this? Why aren't these men on duty?” Cubiak said.

Halverson lifted his fork in protest. “It'll get done. This here's tradition. I can't ask my boys to work on empty stomachs.”

Cubiak bent to Halverson's ear. “You got ten minutes. That's it. If they're not ready, I hold up the parade. And it'll be your ass in the fire.”

In the hostess tent, two lines of tourists snaked past locals who cheerfully handed out plates of food. At one of the service tables, Cate arranged a small mountain of crisp bacon. She wore the ubiquitous red-checked apron and wielded a pair of oversized tongs. Ruby, another of the volunteers, spied Cubiak in the entrance and motioned for him to come eat. He waved off the invitation and slipped away. Outside, the hungry horde stretched to the beach. “People come eat, then get a prime spot for the parade,” Caruthers had told him.

The roadway through town was rimmed with camp stools, lawn chairs, and a maze of towels and blankets. In the bay, a flotilla of sunfish, wooden rowboats, and cabin cruisers assembled off the shore, ignoring the half-dozen noisy jet skis that buzzed past. The crowd at Milton's stood three deep.

At the northern edge of Ephraim, traffic was detoured off Route 42, leaving a stretch of vacant highway where the floats and marchers could assemble. Most faces were unfamiliar to Cubiak but none seemed out of place. He talked with several of Halverson's men, but they hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary either.

A
t ten o'clock, the siren at the Ephraim Volunteer Fire Department shrieked, announcing the start of the parade. The town's new fire truck led the procession, its bright red metal sides and bumpers polished to a hard sheen and draped with bunting. Three volunteer firefighters and their families, selected by lottery, clung to the side and rear straps and waved to the crowds massed along the parade route.

Cubiak watched the entourage wind around the first bend in the road. The parade was rough edged and homespun, a small-town combination of charm and kitsch: A trio of bagpipers loud, but not precisely communicating with each other. A high school marching band that strutted out of step and out of line. In loose formation, the members of the local VFW who had all but outgrown their starched and pressed uniforms. Straggling behind in piecemeal, hodgepodge fashion, three Vietnam veterans wearing remnants of jungle camo. Local celebrities ran to Girl Scouts bearing handmade pot holders, a bevy of Miss Lynn's preschool ballet students in pink tutus, and an acned cluster of shy 4-H representatives brandishing homemade birdhouses and home-canned cherry preserves, one leading a reluctant heifer by a leather halter.

The audience applauded them all: the youngest descendants of the town founder who sat nervous and self-conscious in the front seat of a vintage restored Buick Roadmaster; the contingent of greeters who tossed flower petals into the street; the irrepressible Bay City Cloggers, who click-clacked their cleated shoes down the pavement as if determined to pulverize the roadway. One group after another was warmly welcomed: the ladies auxiliary of the Moravian church; the Door County Lions, Moose, and Rotary; Cate and Ruby, arm in arm with other members of the Door County Conservation League. In honor of the Native Americans who had owned the land first, the two women wore traditional fringed, fawn-colored shifts fashioned from deerskin. An intricately beaded band sparkled around Cate's long hair. A red smear marked Ruby's forehead; a black feather dangled from behind her left ear. Among those receiving the loudest cheers were the royalty spawned by the celebration itself: a five-year-old town princess and a preteen king and queen.

At the reviewing stand, the entrants paused for special recognition from Beck and other officials. Then they moved on, scrambling to catch up with the rest of the parade.

An attack on the procession would have been easy to plan and implement. The parade route was a half mile long, and marchers and onlookers were vulnerable for the entire distance. They could have been targeted from the ridge or the water or even from the immediate area. Yet the event passed without incident. Cubiak doubted the increased police presence was the deterrent. He was on his way back to the park when he realized there was another possible reason there hadn't been an attack on the parade: the killer was one of the participants.

A
t twelve noon, the phone rang in the kitchen at Jensen Station. While Ruta jotted down the information provided by the soft-spoken gentleman at the other end of the line, a piercing air-horn blast heralded the start of the annual Peninsula State Park Golf Tournament. On the clubhouse patio, the crowd of spectators stood and cheered. Cubiak jumped to his feet with them. Unlike the onlookers, he'd heard more than just the screech of the air horn. With a singular clarity honed by years of training as a soldier and police officer, he'd also registered the sharp ping of a distant rifle report. The sound reached him as one of Beck's foursome crumpled to the ground at the first tee box.

“Quick, get inside! Someone is shooting,” Cubiak yelled as he zigzagged between the tables. A middle-aged couple in matching pink golf shirts glanced up from their mimosas and regarded the park ranger as if he were crazy. A woman in a straw hat pointed toward the fallen golfer. “Look, the man's had a heart attack,” she said. Cubiak shoved two teenage girls toward the clubhouse entrance. “Get the fuck out of here,” he shouted again as he reached for his .38. At the sight of the weapon, onlookers screamed and scattered.

Certain the shot had come from the ridge above the course, Cubiak leapt into an empty golf cart and drove toward the fairways, keeping his head down and his foot pressed to the accelerator. The tournament was sold out, and the other players were not yet aware of what had happened. Caught up in the excitement of the game, they had heard only what they wanted to hear, the familiar signal that marked the start of play.

A burst of gunfire shattered the last vestiges of the day's equilibrium. Bullets tore into one tee box after another, startling the players and generating explosive ripples of confusion that quickly fanned out across the rolling terrain. In a wave of mad motion, terrified golfers dispersed. Many ran to the trees, propelled farther into the woods by high velocity bullets that nipped at their heels. Others raced toward the clubhouse, speeding recklessly in their carts or sprinting on foot. Gunfire peppered their paths and punctuated the air around them. There were so many shots it sounded like a semiautomatic had opened fire.

Cubiak knew that wasn't the case. He recognized the gun as a bolt-action rifle and knew the person handling it was an expert. One weapon. One shooter. Numerous targets. He among them. His only hope of stopping the attack was to reach the top of the ridge and find the sniper.

Maneuvering the golf cart onto a little-used service road, he traveled along the base of the cliff and then up into thick brush until a fallen tree forced him to get out and claw his way up the punishing vertical rise on foot. Burrs bit into his cheeks and neck, and the calloused pads of his hands shredded on the rocks. Near the top, he slipped and broke the fall on an outcrop of rough boulders. With a final toehold in a narrow crevice, he grabbed hold of a low-hanging branch and pulled himself up onto level ground. The gunfire ceased. The shooter was reloading or repositioning. The respite was brief—he estimated it at only about forty-five seconds—just enough time for a sharpshooter to attach a second clip.

During the lull, Cubiak ducked into a narrow clearing that provided a view to the clubhouse below. A fresh round of gunfire erupted, blowing out a wall of windows on the clubhouse restaurant. Busboys and patrons streamed out, swelling the crowd of terrified players, caddies, staff, and spectators. Several sheriff 's deputies were directing people into carts and cars; screams and shouts punctuated the air as the vehicles competed for room on the narrow road leading out of the park. The barrage continued but Cubiak realized that the shooter was no longer aiming at people. Beck's party had been the only human target.

On the ridge, the eerie whine of the bullets ricocheted off the limestone cliff, making it impossible for Cubiak to pinpoint the attacker's exact position. Crouched low, he made his way toward the highway, figuring the shooter was counting on the road to provide a ready escape.

Between the outcroppings of trees and bushes, he glimpsed the bay and the town. So far, neither had been attacked and activities at both seemed obscenely normal. The first of the caravans from the park rolled into town to the upbeat sound of a tuba band practicing near the bandstand. At the sight of the frenzied golfers and their bullet-riddled vehicles, the crowd laughed and applauded. They think this is part of the post-parade entertainment, Cubiak realized.

A fresh volley of bullets shredded the bunting on the grandstand, and dazed silence gave way to hysteria. The shooter was behind him. As he doubled back, the attack intensified. Rapid-fire gunshots riddled the water and sliced through the hedges along the waterfront park. One shot hit the wrought iron weather vane atop Milton's and sent the decorative peacock spinning. Another tore through the flag on the front lawn of the Christiana.

In the confusion, a car rammed a food stand behind the Village Hall. A tank of propane ruptured and burst into flame, setting the bunting on the historic building on fire. Clouds of black smoke roiled through the square.

The gunfire intensified again. Cubiak picked up his pace. Suddenly several bullets smacked the ground nearby. He dropped to his stomach and snaked off the path into a clump of brush. More shots splayed behind him. Two rifles were being fired. One aiming down from the ridge. The other up toward it.

The last shot he heard—fired from the ridge—was a tracer bullet. As Cubiak scrambled to his feet, a police vehicle near a private dock exploded in a fireball of blue and green flames, and the man standing near it toppled into a shallow marsh.

Below in the village of Ephraim, the fire department siren screamed, but on the cliff, there was a complete absence of sound. Not the normal hushed quiet of the woods but a ghostly unnatural stillness. In a low crouch, Cubiak plowed forward. He sensed that there would be no more shots from below. But he made a handy target to anyone still up on the ridge. It took him five minutes to traverse the rest of the path, but he found nothing. There was only one spot, other than the trail itself, the sniper could have used.

Several hundred yards in, Cubiak slid down an overgrown footpath onto a narrow ledge. The landing was deserted, but someone had been there. Cubiak scooped a handful of shell casings off the packed dirt and dropped them into his shirt pocket. Climbing back up to the path, he searched for the sniper's escape route. Not a single bent branch. Not a scuff mark or rock kicked aside on the trail. Whoever had been on the ridge had left no further trace.

The attack was over.

C
ubiak scuttled down the cliff and jogged across the course. Near the first tee box Beck huddled under a tree. He was in shock. Traces of vomit ran down his shirt, reminiscent of his son at an earlier scene of carnage.

Nearby the sole victim of the onslaught lay motionless in the bright sun. Blood pooled around his shoulders; brain matter spattered on the freshly cut grass. Beck's golf partners knelt on either side of the body. Arms lifted in humble supplication, they filled the air with the piercing wail of an ancient prayer offered over their dead companion.

“Who?” Beck repeated the question as he staggered to his feet.

“I don't know,” Cubiak said.

“Why?”

Cubiak wanted to punch the man. “I think you know the answer to that better than anyone,” he said and walked away, leaving Beck spitting a barrage of protests into the wind.

A
t the clubhouse, Cubiak pointed the medics toward the dead golfer. As the ambulance rolled up the fairway, he sucked down a beer at the deserted bar.

The park jeep had disappeared, probably used as an escape vehicle by someone who knew how to jump wires. Cubiak found an old bike in a storage shed and was about to set off when the sheriff arrived, abusing a vintage pink Thunderbird he'd commandeered from a tourist.

Halverson was dripping wet and bloated with excitement. “The bastard got me. But not before I got some good shots off,” he said. No number of parking tickets could match this for a pure adrenaline rush.

“You were shooting at me,” Cubiak said dryly.

“Fuck! You were up there! What did ya see?”

“Not much, but I found these.” He produced the shell casings.

Halverson sniveled. “Hell, these could be from anywhere.”

“Maybe.” Cubiak gave one to the sheriff and dropped the rest back in his breast pocket.

“The director of the state boys bound to be calling my office soon—maybe right now—wanting to come in.”

“Good. Tell him we'll need help with traffic. The roads will be jammed.”

“What about roadblocks? They could help set them up.”