“Not really. We may have exchanged a few words—enjoy, thank you—but nothing beyond that.”
“Had you ever seen her before?”
“No.”
“She didn’t say who she was or what she was doing here?”
“When I saw her the only thing she seemed interested in was food.” Fielder hesitated and then looked out at the crowd that lingered in the area. “If you want to talk to somebody who might be able to help you, talk to him,” he said and pointed to a tall, skeletal man in a wrinkled khaki suit who was loping along the periphery of the gathering. “I saw the two of them arguing.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know, but he must be someone important because he’s always around.”
The man Fielder had singled out was Richard Mayes, and according to the credential hanging around his neck he was Management. Up close, Mayes was even more gaunt than he appeared at a distance.
“What exactly is your job at the festival?” Cubiak said.
“A little of this, a little of that. Basically I grease the wheels, keep things going,” he said, glaring at his inquisitor with sunken eyes.
“Sounds important.”
Mayes was in the middle of making a harrumph sound that was either an affirmation or a laugh when the sheriff held up the victim’s photo. The man recoiled.
“Do you know this woman?”
“No.”
“You were seen talking with her,” Cubiak said.
“I talk with a lot of people. That doesn’t mean I know them.”
“Do you argue with all of them?”
Mayes bit his lower lip. “A festival like this draws a lot of people. Most of them are pure music lovers but some are just wanderers, crazy people, and she was one of those. She came up to me and demanded to be hired as an extra. I told her we were almost finished filming and didn’t need anyone but she kept insisting. So, yes, I lost my patience.”
“Why did she talk to you?”
Mayes gave an exasperated lift to his bony shoulders. “I don’t know. Because she was crazy? Because I was here? Because of this?” He held up his credential. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“I can’t. She was found dead on the ferry yesterday.”
Mayes blanched. “Oh, my God, I am so sorry.”
He seemed about to say more when his phone chimed. Mayes glanced at the screen and threw a panicked look at Cubiak. “Another emergency. Excuse me, but I have to deal with this,” he said.
After the last afternoon rehearsal, the sheriff finally met with the musicians. He had heard bits and pieces of their music over the past two days and wanted to know more about them as people: How old were they when they started playing? Who were their favorite musicians? What did they listen to when they weren’t performing? But there was only time for the matter at hand. It took nearly two hours for him to question the players about Jane Doe, and again he came up with nothing. Everyone was polite, but sorry they hadn’t seen the victim.
Afterward, he asked around for Richard Mayes but was told he had left the island. Cubiak checked in with the station. The deputies had nothing to report, and there had been no leads from the public. Earlier Cate told him she would be shooting into the evening, so there was no reason to wait for her. With nothing else to do, he headed to the ferry dock. He had forgotten sunblock and it had been hours since he had drunk any water. The tinge of a headache appeared at his temples, and as he waited to board, he rubbed his forehead. Something had to give, something always did, he thought.
The ferry was in the open water when a sudden front moved in. Thick clouds rolled across the sun and a powerful, cold wind roiled the water. Caught unawares, the passengers shivered into sweatshirts and jackets or crowded into the lounge to escape the chill. Cubiak stayed on deck. He would rather be cold than sit inside.
How quickly things changed, he thought, and snapped his fingers. One minute, Jane Doe was breathing, and the next she was dead. In the same flash, a bow crossed a set of strings and a performance tent went from silence to sound. Like that, the wind came up and destroyed the calm.
As Washington Island receded in the distance, he tried to imagine Lake Superior, the source of the harsh wind that blasted across the Upper Peninsula and slammed down into Door County. Cubiak had never seen Superior, largest by far of the five Great Lakes, but he had heard many of the stories—fish as big as cars and, in some years, ice even in July. Probably all fanciful tales. But true or not, tales became the stuff of myths. And myths, well . . . they could bring grace to a stumbling world or give rise to a curse that damned the righteous.
5
THE GAR GROUP
Cubiak emailed the names of the musicians and festival staffs to Rowe for him to run through the police databases. Then he headed toward Sister Bay. Near the south end of town, he noticed a crowd outside Sweet Eats. The stylish new bakery-café served only breakfast and lunch and was closing for the day. “Fresh Everyday” was the shop’s motto, and those gathered in the narrow side yard were waiting for the daily giveaway of unsold bread, rolls, and pastries. They were mostly young, and many carried backpacks. They were probably campers or hikers—wanderers like Jane Doe.
The sheriff hesitated. Should he bother stopping? He had struck out all day. Then again, what was one more disappointment? He pulled to the curb and crossed between traffic to the other side of the road. The front door to the bakery was shut but an empty tray sat on the picnic table in the yard. As suddenly as it had come up, the cold front had retreated back north, and those who milled around were eating and enjoying the late afternoon warmth. He went around the crowd with the photo of Jane Doe and was met with a few shrugs, several blank stares, and mostly mumbles of “sorry, never saw her before.”
Cubiak was starting to leave when the back door opened and a short, middle-aged woman emerged. She held a platter of doughnuts at shoulder height. “Don’t be greedy. Please, let’s share,” the woman said as she moved through the cloud of outstretched hands. At the end of her pass, the dish was empty and she was standing in front of him.
“Sheriff?” she said, in a voice thick with curiosity. The woman smelled like vanilla and wore a name tag engraved with the unlikely moniker of Cookie.
Cubiak explained why he was there.
“May I?” Cookie said, brushing a flour-dusted hand on her cobbler’s apron.
She scrutinized the image. “Yes, I’ve seen her several times. In fact, she was pretty much a regular the past week or so. I kind of got to feeling sorry for her. She was different. Older, more desperate. Hungrier, for sure,” she said finally.
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
Cookie furrowed her brow. “A couple days ago. I can’t really be sure.”
“Did she ever say where she was from or why she was here?”
“No.” The baker frowned again. “But the last time I saw her, she had a flyer for the music festival on Washington Island. She showed it to a couple people and pointed to the name of one musician, asking if they knew where he lived.”
“Do you remember who it was?”
“Sure. George Peter Payette. He’s one of our regulars. George is a wonderful musician and Sister Bay’s biggest celebrity. She said she had important news for him. Can you imagine?”
“Did you tell her where to find him?”
Cookie gave the photo back. “I was going to, but then I thought better of it. I figured if it was important enough she’d find him on her own. Besides, she seemed a bit touched, you know,” she said, tapping a finger to her temple. “And I didn’t want to be responsible if something bad came of it.”
Payette lived north of town along the Green Bay shore. Retracing his route, Cubiak passed three luxury homes, each grander than the next, before he reached the musician’s address. The other houses were visible from the road but not Payette’s. The sheriff turned into a lane flanked by trees and followed it up a slope and over a berm until a modern, streamlined house came into view. L-shaped and fl
at roofed, it easily outsized those of the neighbors. A red sports car sat alongside the four-car garage. The one-story wing stood perpendicular to the shore, leaving the rest of the building to stretch along the water’s edge. As if designed to both intimidate and impress visitors, the first-floor exterior that faced the yard was a solid stucco wall, interrupted only by a single wooden door, while the level above was wrapped in glass.
The large yard was cool and quiet. Wind whispered through the trees, and from somewhere on the other side of the house came the sound of waves lapping against the shore. At the richly oiled door, the sheriff pressed a button. Muffled chimes echoed through the interior and then faded. Back in Chicago, Cubiak had known a half-dozen artists, and all of them had lived in tight and often dismal quarters. How successful does a musician have to be to afford a place like this? he wondered. After a few moments, the walnut door opened. He was ready to announce himself to a maid or to introduce himself to George Payette. Instead, he found himself confronting Richard Mayes. The festival manager seemed as surprised to find Cubiak on the threshold as the sheriff was to see him in the role of butler.
“Sheriff, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you still needed to talk to me. I thought we were finished,” Mayes said, stammering slightly.
“I’m here to see George Payette. I didn’t expect to find you here.”
“Ah, of course, you wouldn’t. Besides my role at the festival, I am Mr. Payette’s personal assistant.”
“Are you?” Cubiak glanced at the red sports car parked alongside the garage. “You weren’t on the ferry I took and there hasn’t been another since we spoke last, so how’d you get here?”
“I came over on Mr. Payette’s boat. We need to have transit available at all times and can’t depend on the ferry schedule.”
“He’s in then, I take it.”
“Actually he’s on the island, meeting with the festival board. Not ten minutes after I arrived, he got called there. You know how it is with these events—always a fire to put out.” Mayes waved his hands to convey a sense of activity.
“Well, as long as we’re both here, let’s continue our chat,” Cubiak said. Before Mayes could object, he stepped across the threshold. From the foyer he had a view into a sunken living room that boasted a massive fieldstone fireplace and was filled with high-end, white leather chairs and sofas arranged in conversation-friendly clusters. Giant oak beams spanned the ceiling, and a glass wall overlooked a sloping lawn, a private dock, and a vast expanse of water that shimmered in the afternoon sun. He could only imagine the sunsets. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier that you worked for Payette?”
“It didn’t seem relevant.”
“Really? I just learned that the woman who was found dead on the ferry had a keen interest in meeting with your boss.”
Mayes smiled. “Proof that rock stars aren’t the only musicians with groupies.”
The sheriff let the comment slide and pulled out the photo of Jane Doe. “I’ll ask you once again: Do you know this woman?”
“As I already told you, I’d never seen her before yesterday.”
“That’s not what I asked.” He waited. The man was playing dodgeball with words.
Mayes was quiet. His shoulders twitched and then settled. “I’m telling you the truth when I say I never saw that woman before. But when she confronted me she claimed that she was Lydia Larson, the daughter of Annabelle Mary Larson. And Annabelle was a woman I once knew.”
Suddenly the dead woman had a name. Jane Doe was Lydia Larson. And more than that, she was connected to Richard Mayes and possibly to George Payette, both of whom were involved in Dixan V. From the start Cubiak had suspected that the victim’s visit to the island was related to the music fest. Mayes had just acknowledged that he knew Lydia Larson’s mother; could it be that she had participated in the first festival four decades earlier?
“By any chance is Annabelle a musician also?” he said.
“She was at one point. I don’t know if she’s still playing.”
“And you knew her when, forty years ago?”
Mayes tensed. “Yes. How’d you know?”
Cubiak ignored the question. “I’ll need the whole story,” he said.
Mayes let his gaze fall to the tiled floor. When he looked up again, resignation had replaced indignation. He reached over and closed the door. “Come with me, and I’ll explain everything,” he said.
From the foyer, Mayes led the way past the living room to a floating stairway. “The bedrooms and guest quarters are on the second level,” he said mechanically, as if he were conducting a tour. Beyond the stairs, they followed a wide hall that ran the length of the house. The stucco wall remained on the right as they passed the kitchen, dining room, library, and media center. Finally, they reached a series of closed doors and Mayes spoke again. “These are the offices—Mr. Payette’s and mine. Also, several practice rooms and the recording studio. George releases at least two new CDs every year. He even has his own label.”
“Which is unusual or not?”
“Today’s software makes it pretty easy to create your own label, but it’s another matter to sell your music. George does both.”
There was another large room at the end of the house. It was similar in size and shape to the living room, but instead of upscale furniture it held rows of padded pews arranged around a low stage. Beyond the stage, a wall of glass opened to the backdrop of Green Bay.
“A private recital hall,” Cubiak said.
Mayes gave a smug smile. “Mr. Payette performs here several times a year, but mostly he reserves the room for the use of his students. George is a renowned instructor, and it’s very prestigious to be invited to perform here.”
“What does any of this have to do with Annabelle Larson?”
“She was part of this world. To understand her, you have to know something of it.”
Mayes unlocked a door in the back wall and a light went on, revealing a steep flight of stairs. “You might want to use the rail,” he said as he started down.
The stairwell was lined with cedar planks and felt cooler and dryer than the upstairs. At the bottom, Mayes opened another door and ushered Cubiak into a high-ceilinged underground chamber. The room was oval and dazzlingly lit and colder still.
“Mr. Payette’s private collection,” Mayes said, indicating the room’s contents. The chamber held an array of antique instruments housed in glass display cases. There were few flutes and horns; most were strings, and all of them looked delicate and valuable.
“Mr. Payette started his collection when he was still a student. He had little money then and became a devotee of estate sales. You’d be surprised by the things people own that they don’t even know the value of. Not that he ever stumbled across anything like a lost Strad, but he did find many exquisite instruments that he was able to procure at very reasonable prices. As his reputation grew, he was able to become more discriminating. This section”—Mayes pointed to the right quadrant of the room—“is devoted to the viola da gamba.”
“There’s what, a hundred instruments here? The collection must be worth a small fortune,” Cubiak said.
Mayes laughed. “Wealthy collectors might not be interested in them, but to early music enthusiasts who’d appreciate the provenance of the pieces, it is a treasure.”
“We still haven’t gotten to Annabelle Larson.”
Mayes flipped a switch and a soft spotlight shone on a slim glass case that stood slightly apart from the others. The case was lined with rich blue velvet, and the single wooden instrument inside shimmered under the light. “That’s Annabelle’s viol,” he said.
A half-dozen framed posters hung on the wall behind the viol. The brightly colored posters promoted a series of concerts, and each featured the same abstract drawing of a needle-nosed fish. The word GAR appeared in prominent font, and below that odd word were three names.
“The GAR group was a trio of gambists,” Mayes said, drawing the sheriff close enough to read the sm
aller print: George Peter Payette, Richard Paul Mayes, and Annabelle Mary Larson.
“All three of you,” Cubiak said.
Mayes attempted a laugh. “Yes, all three of us. We were known as the Peter, Paul, and Mary of the viola da gamba world. Rather lofty praise perhaps, but a very small world, I assure you.”
“So you’re a musician, too.”
“I was then.”
“What happened to the group?”
“We went the way of all flesh. Here one day, gone the next.”
“How long were you together?”
“Ten years or so. Looking back, maybe it was all too good to be true. We’d all just graduated and seemed blessed from the start. It was as if the world opened its arms and gave us a taste of what it would so quickly snatch away. The venues for gambists are relatively modest, but we played the biggest of them. The critics called us the Wunderkind. We were on our way, but then we had the good luck and the misfortune of appearing at the first Dixan festival. Like everyone there, we were tainted by the scandal.”
Mayes looked up. “You know what happened?”
“I’ve heard the story about the missing yellow viol.”
“Missing? It was snatched in the middle of the night in what was the biggest scandal in the world of the gamba. We were all shaken by it. You have to understand, the incident set musician against musician. Everyone watching each other, wondering if that person was the thief. Even after the authorities were convinced that none of us walked off with the viol, there was the suspicion that one of us might have helped whoever did.”
“Making the disappearance an inside job?”
“Something like that, I guess.” Mayes hesitated. “Everyone was suspect, but it seemed like the three of us—the GAR group—got more than our share of attention. It’s all ancient history now, but back then there were other young and talented gambists who resented our success. And you know what human nature is like? The whispers, the innuendo, the snide looks. George and I recovered from the whole business, but Annabelle never got over it. She was always . . .”—he paused, searching for the right word—“fragile.”
Death Rides the Ferry Page 5