Death Stalks Door County (9 page)

Beck thrummed his manicured fingers on the arms of the chair. “You know, Halverson says he doesn't trust you because you have nothing to say. But I believe the old adage about still water running deep. The question is: what's down there?”

He paused, waiting for a response. Then he went on. “Okay, it doesn't matter. You don't want to talk to me, fine. Just so long as you listen. There are people up here who can't think beyond today. They have no vision. I'm not like that, and I'm sure you're not like that. Some of these people will be at the meeting. I need to keep tabs on them and what they're thinking. The festival is coming up fast and it's important it goes off without a hitch. It's always important, but this year more than usual. Make sure you understand that.”

“Right.”

Beck winked. “Good things are going to be happening and you could benefit,” he said as he stood and brushed himself off. “Better have some more coffee, before you get behind the wheel.”

As Beck walked away, Cubiak offered a one finger salute.

C
ubiak was irked that he'd acquiesced to Beck, but he'd been too numbed by alcohol and sadness to argue. Grudgingly, he coasted downhill into Ephraim, trailing the remnants of an early evening storm. Low, wind-driven clouds scudded inland over the sleepy village, backdrop for a pale rainbow that arched over the gray chop of the town's U-shaped harbor. At the base of the incline, the road leveled and followed the bottom rim of the shoreline, running past vacant cottages and under giant sugar maples that shivered raindrops over the jeep's windshield, enough to require an occasional swipe of the wipers. One of the oldest communities in Door County, Ephraim was quixotically laid out, with a hodgepodge of spider-leg lanes that radiated out from the old Village Hall and ran steeply uphill to the top of an inland ridge. The village's genteel, fairy-tale look was enhanced by whitewashed shops and cottages nestled amid miniature flower gardens and elfin lawns. Ephraim banned the sale of liquor and imposed strict limitations on live music, yet despite its prudish demeanor, it was one of the most popular resort towns on the peninsula.

Tourists adored the waterfront village, and the faithful returned every summer without regard to lake levels, gas prices, or weather. On his way to the Conservation League meeting, Cubiak passed the ever-popular Milton's Ice Cream Shoppe where a man and a woman in heavy sweaters huddled under a red-and-white striped umbrella on the roadside patio and dipped long-handled spoons into enormous whipped cream–topped sundaes as new clouds gathered on the horizon. In the fading light, a lone sailboat bobbed alongside the long, wooden dock, its halyard clips chiming rhythmically against the metal mast, and a handful of fishermen in sturdy slickers cast for bass and perch off a low wall of large, gray rocks. Behind the young lovers—for what else could they be in that setting—smatterings of cars and bicycles peppered the parking lots of the surrounding B&Bs. Only the Christiana, a grand, clapboard hotel near the town's center, was deserted. Clinging to an old custom, snobbish in a way few could comprehend, the Chris waited until summer was well underway to begin the annual season, opening its doors with a fresh coat of white paint and setting out the rocking chairs along its famed porch in time for the Fourth of July Festival.

Uphill from the Chris was the Holy Light Moravian Church, where the league met. In direct counterpoint to its name, the church was a bleak, cold edifice. A granite plaque near the front door honored the founding minister, who, it explained, made the church of simple measure so as not to compete with the natural surrounding beauty. A paper sign directed meeting attendees downstairs to the social hall where Reverend Thorenson manned a small table inside the entrance.

The minister's warm greeting embarrassed Cubiak, who had no interest in the organization and was attending the event under false pretenses. He took a seat in the last row. Among the sparse crowd were Bathard and Les Caruthers. On one side, Evangeline Davis and Martha Smithson sat shoulder to shoulder. A stern Anne Cooper perched nearby, notebook in her hand, talking to herself. Cubiak listened to the hum of voices. In the five days prior, three people had died within a ten-minute drive of the church. One of the funerals had been held upstairs. He found it unsettling how quickly life returned to normal for those on the outskirts of loss. For a week after Lauren and Alexis died, he'd failed to pick up the morning newspapers from the front porch, not because he forgot but because everything commonplace seemed superfluous. His perspective had been so altered by death, he could not comprehend a world in which someone would continue to drop a daily paper at his door. He was only beginning to understand that for those not directly touched by it, death was a transient event.

Thorenson banged the gavel. Cubiak looked up. Six people he'd never seen before sat two rows ahead. Thorenson called the meeting to order and gave the lectern to Ruby. The room quieted instantly. Following the minutes and treasurer's report, Ruby spoke about the future of Door County and the need to balance development with conservation. “The league does not stand in the path of progress. We are its partners. The challenge to protect the natural environment is one we take very seriously.” Ruby paused. “However, our resources are not limitless. We have finite time and only modest funds for our noble work. So we choose our battles carefully.”

Otto Johnson, she explained, had developed a proposal regarding the future of Peninsula State Park. Ruby looked across the room to the superintendent, who stood framed in the rear doorway. “Otto, do share your thoughts with us.”

Johnson was the antithesis of Ruby, as nervous and unsure of himself at the podium as she had been calm and confident. Speaking so quietly the audience had to strain to hear him, Johnson reminded his listeners that for years he had lobbied for ways to reduce tourist amenities in the park. Due in large part to support from the league, the park had fewer cross-country trails per acre than other public-use lands. Snowmobiling was banned. Campsites were limited. The previous year, bow hunting had been sharply curtailed, a first for any state facility.

Now, Johnson wanted them to go further. He cleared his throat and raised his voice. “I challenge the Conservation League to declare Peninsula State Park a wilderness area.”

A gasp went up in the room. Martha Smithson and Evangeline Davis exchanged worried looks. Three of the young people cheered.

Johnson continued. “All nature programs will cease. All trails, campsites, and facilities will be dismantled. The park would revert to its natural state and be operated as an animal refuge. Public access to the park will cease. Only Jensen Station, restructured as a nature museum, would be open to the public.”

Caruthers jumped up and shook a finger at the park superintendent. “That's the most absurd idea I've ever heard. You close the park and you bankrupt the peninsula. People are going to think we don't want tourists up here. I say no. Absolutely. Positively.”

Ruby rapped the podium with the gavel. “Otto has the floor.”

Caruthers shot an angry look around and plopped back down.

Johnson had found his stride. “Since 1952, we've lost more than twenty-three species of insects and plants in the park. These are not my figures. The data are based on studies by state biologists and botanists. The inner fibers of the park's ecosystem are being broken down and eroded. Just by way of example, garlic mustard is spreading through the undergrowth, choking out native plants and even disrupting tree reproduction. We pull out as much as we can every year, but the seeds are carried in on muddy shoes and tires from cars and bicycles. It's a losing battle.” The larger picture was exceedingly more ominous, he explained, predicting eventual damage to trees and the demise of the deer population from pollution.

“What's happening here in miniature is what's happening to the great national wildernesses out west. We either conserve or destroy. There is no middle ground.”

“There's always a middle ground,” Caruthers protested. The rest of the room was silent. Cubiak waited to see what came next.

“At least a committee to study the idea. It would be a start,” Johnson said.

Ruby called a fifteen-minute recess. When the board filed back into the meeting room, she was somber faced. “Unfortunately, this is simply not a fight we can win,” she said, speaking directly to the park director. The board, she explained, had voted to table the motion indefinitely.

Johnson blanched and spun away, nearly tripping in his rush to leave. In the doorway, he turned back and shouted at the group: “You'll be sorry. You'll all be sorry!”

U
nder cover of night, Door County got its miracle. The prayers said, the candles lit, the silent supplications to the gods of land and sea paid off. In the impenetrable dark, an invisible force lifted the shroud of gloom from the peninsula and from among the general populace vanquished the last lingering concerns about death and bad weather. Daylight ushered in an upbeat attitude along with the sweetness of summer and the requisite accouterments of tourism: blue sky, warm sun, gentle breezes.

Up and down the peninsula, business owners and residents whose livelihoods rode the tide of the visitors' trade quivered with expectation. The festival—and the season—would be saved.

Even as the lingering shards of bad weather dissipated over the Great Lakes, cars and vans throughout the region were being readied for the trek to Door County. Suitcases and duffels were packed with swimsuits and stylish resort wear. Bicycles and golf clubs were pulled from hibernation. For those intent on living outdoors, tents, sleeping bags, air mattresses, cookstoves, even mosquito netting—every piece of camping equipment imaginable—were checked off lists and stuffed into vehicles for the trip to the peninsula.

The Fourth of July Festival kicked off in four days, and the compulsive early birds, eager to claim their share of fun, were already on the road. By late morning, Interstate 43 from the south and Wisconsin 57 from the west were liquid rivers funneling traffic to the Midwest's magnificent answer to Cape Cod.

By contrast, the mood in the kitchen at Jensen Station was somber. Johnson remained visibly upset over the league meeting. He tapped his thick fingers on the oak table and worked his jaw as if he were delivering his speech to a new, more enlightened audience. Having witnessed the superintendent's humiliation, Cubiak found it hard to face him.

Ruta scurried around the two silent men, pouring coffee and piling hot, buttered toast on their plates.

“Eat,” she said to both and no one in particular.

Cubiak blinked and pinched the bridge of his nose. A branch scraping against his bedroom window had kept him awake half the night. Lying in bed, he'd listened to the stiff wind and remembered the time a late spring thunderstorm had knocked out the electricity in his Chicago neighborhood, frightening four-year-old Alexis. Nothing he or Lauren did would console the child. Finally, Lauren announced that she was going to make a picnic and asked Alexis and Cubiak to help. Father and daughter stood in the kitchen training flashlights on the counter and singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” while Lauren prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When she finished, they spread a blanket on the living room floor and ate by candlelight. It had been one of their happiest meals as a family, Cubiak thought, as he looked at the toast cooling on his plate. He wanted that life back.

Johnson pushed away from the table. Cubiak looked up. The superintendent hadn't shaved, and stubble lay thick on his jowls. His hair was surprisingly lacking in gray for a man his age. Only his arthritic limbs betrayed him. His movements were stiff and clumsy. In the doorway, Ruta reached out to help him with his jacket, but he pulled away from her.

“I'm checking for claim jumpers,” he said, glancing back into the room.

Claim jumpers: campers who snuck in early without permits and established camp in areas marked off limits.