The ferry captain harrumphed. “Comes with the territory. Whenever there’s a special festival, we do whatever’s needed to accommodate folks. Used to be people here could make a living off the water or the land. Some still do but more and more the locals depend on the tourists.” He shrugged. “Well, what are you gonna do?”
The query needed no answer, so Cubiak gave none.
“You’ve been doing this a long time,” he said finally.
“Pretty much all my life. But I got no complaints. There are worse ways to make a living. And it’s a helluva nice place to live.”
“You were here for Dixan I?”
“I sure was.”
“Was it this busy?”
“Not so much. I was a punk kid back then but I remember it as being what I’d say on a scale of one to ten was about a four or five in terms of how hectic things were. It was a much smaller event, but there were still plenty of people coming and going. And, of course, we had fewer boats then too. After that fancy violin went missing, it was slow and tedious as hell getting people off the island.”
“Viol. The instrument was a viol, not a violin.”
Norling shrugged and scooped up a handful of fries. “Whatever. It was worth a small fortune. Whole place went into a panic. Every vehicle was searched top to bottom. All the instrument cases opened and checked at the dock. Same with every large suitcase and duffle. Took forever to load the ferries. Folks were not happy.”
“I imagine not.”
“It wasn’t just the time they had to spend waiting in line; it was the weather too. It’s usually pretty cool up here on the island, but that year it was hot as blazes, and those stuck on the road in the sun were downright miserable. But Dutch wasn’t to be hurried. It didn’t matter how important you were or where you said you had to be, he made them wait. Every single person leaving the island went through the process.”
Norling pulled at his chin. “He searched the ferries, too, every square inch. He made us open every door and cubby. He maybe figured that someone had squirreled it away, though there aren’t many hiding places on any of the boats. All of us crew were scrutinized as well. He was real polite about it and said he didn’t mean to insult us, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility that one of the locals was in on the heist. We practically had to turn our pockets inside out to convince him we had nothing to do with it. No, sir. Nobody got a pass from Dutch Schumacher.”
“What about before the festival, when the musicians were arriving?”
The boat captain ran a fry through a pool of ketchup. “Before the festival? Nothing unusual that I can remember. The musicians straggled in at their own pace. Some showed up at the last minute, in time for the first rehearsal, and some came early with their families, so they’d have a little vacation time up front. That German fellow, the man who owned the stolen . . .” Norling hesitated. “What did you say it was called?”
“Viol.”
“Yeah, that. He was here with the early birds. Came over with his wife. I remember that she was very young and very quiet, kind of scared-like or maybe just shy. I took them both up to the bridge to meet my uncle Sven—he was the captain—and remember her saying that it was her first time in America outside of New York City. She spoke good English and said she hadn’t realized what a lovely country it was. Too bad, what happened to her.”
“Nobody inspected instrument cases?”
“You mean, coming in? Not that I recall. Why would they?”
“No reason, just wondering.” Cubiak swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “What about the storm?”
Norling pushed his plate away and folded his arms on the table. They were muscled and leathery brown. “Now that’s a day I’ll never forget. I’ve seen plenty of weather in these waters since, and I can tell you that was one of the worst storms ever. We knew it was coming and urged anyone who needed to leave the island to get down to the harbor as fast as they could because at some point all the runs would be canceled. Things were all shut down already when that German musician showed up and begged us to take him and his wife across. We didn’t dare. We couldn’t.”
“She’d gone into labor, hadn’t she?”
“I don’t know exactly. She was having some kind of pains, and a couple of the local ladies said it was probably those false ones, whatever they’re called. My uncle said he couldn’t chance the run but the foreigner kept pleading and finally old Sven relented. ‘If we go down it’s on your head,’ he told him. We got word out in case there were folks who wanted to cross. Told them they had ten minutes to get to the dock. But nobody else showed up. And so we took off.”
“You went, too?”
Norling nodded. “I was part of the crew. My uncle didn’t want to take me but he was shorthanded and had no choice. Scariest damn ride of my life. And then to land at the old dock at Gills Rock? I don’t think there was another ferry captain who could have managed it. We got the lady there, like her husband wanted, but in the end it didn’t matter. The poor woman died anyway.”
In the nearby park, a child squealed and then a man shouted. “Saaammee!” he called out again and again. The captain laughed. “Look at that,” he said.
Cubiak turned to see a young boy barrel headlong toward a young man who sat on the edge of a wooden bench. The two had the same olive complexion and dark curly hair and wore matching Door County T-shirts. Both were laughing.
“Daddy!” the boy shouted as he ran toward his father’s outstretched arms. When the boy was nearly in his father’s grasp, he spun on his heel and started to dart away.
But the man was too fast for him.
“Saaammee!” he cried as he pulled the boy into his arms and swung him in the air. All the while Sammy shrieked with delight. For a moment they were nearly nose to nose, the young man on the park bench and the boy with his arms and legs outstretched as if he were flying.
Then the man set Sammy back on the ground, and the boy started running in circles and pretending to dodge his father’s reach, but invariably giving in and letting his father catch him. Over and over the game went on. People walking past stopped and watched but the father and son were oblivious.
Norling swiped at his eye. “You got any kids?” he said.
The question stopped Cubiak, as it always did. He took his time answering. “I have a daughter, but she died,” he said.
Norling cleared his throat. “Sorry. That’s gotta be really tough.”
They fell into an uneasy silence as the Sammy game continued behind them. Finally, Norling spoke. He was subdued, almost wistful.
“You know, when I was a kid, I was always a little scared of my dad. I never knew how he felt about me because he never said. Hell, I can’t remember him ever so much as giving me a hug, but I figured he loved me. He had to. I guess I never really gave it much thought. Things were what they were. But that boy”—the ferry captain watched Sammy and his father stroll hand in hand along the dock—“that boy is never going to have any doubts. He is going to grow up knowing he is loved.”
Cubiak left Norling with a slice of cherry pie and headed to the ferry. He was on the top deck when his cell buzzed. The call was from the 312 area code, not the same number as the music school but from Chicago. He answered and found himself talking to a homicide detective from his former district. It was an odd sensation: the county sheriff talking to a version of the city cop he had once been. Their conversation was sprinkled with the raised a, a linguistic feature of the old rust-belt cities that made a word like cat sound like cayet.
The detective was no-nonsense and direct. Whether he was oblivious to Cubiak’s history with the force or didn’t care about it, the sheriff couldn’t parse.
“I got your number from the owner of the music school. He came into the station nearly hysterical, going on about us needing to check on a missing woman named Helen Kulas. Based on what he had to say, it sounded urgent, so I figured I’d better contact you myself. Call it professional courtesy or whatever,” he said.
�
��You checked her apartment?”
“Just got back a few minutes ago. The apartment was locked up nice and tidy. No sign of forcible entry to the apartment, but we discovered the remains of a woman in the bedroom. We’ll need dental records to ID the body but it bears a resemblance to the missing woman.”
“Any obvious cause of death?”
“No trauma that we could see. The coroner’s ordered an autopsy. I’ll get those results to you ASAP. I’ll tell you one thing; someone went through a lot of trouble either to preserve the body or to prevent anyone from finding it after the victim was dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“The bedroom was sealed and the body was sprinkled with salt and herbs and wrapped in layers of linen. The pathologist said it looked like an amateur attempt at mummification. Never seen anything like it before and I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“Was the apartment ransacked?”
“Nope. Everything in its place.”
“What about the neighbors?”
“We found two at home. They said Helen Kulas had lived there for as long as they could remember but neither had seen her for several months. She generally kept to herself so they weren’t alarmed. The upstairs tenant said she remembered her saying she was going on vacation,” the detective said, and a touch of sadness tinged his coarse laugh.
Cubiak called Cate again. Until she answered, he didn’t realize he had been holding his breath. “You’re OK?” he said.
“Of course, I’m OK. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He told her about the body in Helen Kulas’s apartment.
“But who . . . ?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
Cate went quiet. “Do you think all this has something to do with the yellow viol?” she said finally.
“It’s possible. The viol is either at the bottom of the strait or someone has it.”
“And that someone could be in Door County?”
“Or anywhere else in the world.” He hesitated. “You still have your uncle Dutch’s notebooks, right?”
“They’re at the farm, along with everything else.”
Cubiak sensed the tension in Cate’s voice. At the farm was how she referred to the small homestead where her aunt Ruby and uncle Dutch had lived. It was where Cate had spent her childhood summers and where she had last seen Ruby. As far as he knew, Cate had never been back, even though she had inherited the house and property after Ruby’s death.
“Why?” she said.
“Dutch was the sheriff during Dixan I. That first evening I was invited for dinner, Ruby showed me a few of the notebooks, and I remember being struck by his attention to detail. It might help me now to find out what he knew then.”
“You have the key.” It was both statement and question. They each had a key, in case of emergency. Cubiak didn’t know where Cate kept hers but his was in the glove box of the jeep.
13
DECIPHERING DUTCH
The sun was level with the treetops when Cubiak left Northport on the two-lane blacktop that cut across the top of the peninsula. He drove slowly through the lacy patchwork of light and shadow that covered the road. It was still early, but he knew that the deer would start their nocturnal roaming soon. As he rounded a curve, a doe emerged from the thick woods that flanked the road. The animal’s cinnamon silhouette melted into the backdrop, and he barely noticed her in time. But the deer had seen him. Standing knee-high in a patch of milkweed on the narrow shoulder, she froze, head up and alert.
Cubiak flashed his lights and slowed even further. Would the deer cross the road in front of him or run back into woods? He watched. The deer waited. He was about fifty feet away when the animal pivoted on its front hooves and leapt back into the forest. He crept forward another few yards. Then, just as he started to pick up speed, the doe sprang from the trees and vaulted into the middle of the road. He hit the brake as it flew past, with head and white tail high. A fawn trailed behind, inches from the jeep.
Door County was home to some twenty thousand deer. They showed up in open fields and fenced-in backyards. But a good many of the animals favored the rich forests at the northern tip of the peninsula. The sheriff didn’t mind the slow pace. In fact, he was relieved to delay reaching the house where Ruby and Dutch had lived. He had been there twice, and each time Ruby had talked about her late husband, Dutch Schumacher, the legendary sheriff of Door County and the love of her life. Listening to the memories, Cubiak felt her suffering almost as much as his own.
When Lauren and Alexis died, pain became the air he breathed. There was grief in the food he ate and guilt in the vodka he drank. He escaped drowning in that dismal well, but he never fully escaped the agony of losing them. “You don’t ever leave the pain behind. It’s a truth that those who have lost know, and that those who have not cannot fathom,” Bathard had said once.
Cubiak’s pain shrank into a tight capsule that burrowed into a corner of his heart, invisible but viable. A single word was enough to release the tsunami. A memory would do the same. For that reason, he would rather not enter Ruby’s house again. But he had no choice. There would be no dallying. He would grab the notebooks and leave.
From the driveway, he was struck by how little the yard had changed. Although the large vegetable garden was overrun with weeds, the firewood remained piled in neat rows and the old barn that had been Ruby’s weaving studio was barely more weathered than it had been the first time he saw it seven years prior. The familiar scent of cedar still perfumed the air, and the eternal waves still battered the rocks at the base of the cliff.
A ghostly silence greeted him at the back door. Eyes downcast, and with the weight of memory dogging his footsteps, he walked into the kitchen and then through the dining room to the front hall, where Dutch’s notebooks were piled in a narrow pine cupboard. Cubiak grabbed the knob, but instead of opening it, he looked into the vaulted living room. The room was empty and the heavy woven drapes were pulled across the wall of windows at the far end, but no matter. He could still imagine the tall pines and the waters of Death’s Door that lay on the other side of the glass, and he could hear Ruby’s rich voice as she talked of her deceased husband. He had liked Ruby, and although he had never met Dutch, he would have liked him too, and he understood how she had suffered when he died.
The stillness inside the house was paralyzing. Cubiak wasn’t sure how long he stood before the cupboard before he finally opened the door. There were more notebooks than he had remembered. Five shelves were piled with rubber-banded stacks of pocket-sized spiral pads. The notebooks had rainbow-colored covers and were arranged chronologically by years, the most recent on the upper shelves. Kneeling, he searched for the early records. When the yellow viol was stolen, Dutch had been head of the department for a little more than four years. On the second shelf from the bottom, Cubiak found what he had come for: four notebooks filled with information about the event. With those in hand, he retraced his steps through the house, careful not to disturb the thick fog of reminiscence that hung in the air.
Back in the jeep, Cubiak tried to reach Cate again. When she didn’t answer, he left a message. Call me. It’s important.
Then he phoned Bathard.
“I picked up Dutch Schumacher’s notebooks from the Dixan I investigation to see if there’s anything in them that I could use. I thought maybe we could go through them together and see what we learn. Maybe something will jog your memory. I’m heading back from Gills Rock now,” he said.
“Good. I just left Baileys Harbor. I’ll meet you at your house.”
Bathard was on the deck watching a flock of seagulls circle above the shore when Cubiak pulled up.
The coroner held up a white paper bag. “Specials from that new restaurant. I figure the two of you are too busy to cook these days.”
“Thanks.” The sheriff reached for the door, and Kipper trotted out to greet them. “Cate’s up on the island getting ready for tonight. We can save some for her.”
“
How is your lovely wife? I haven’t seen her in a while,” the physician said. He petted the dog as he glanced at the hand-painted ceramic tiles that lined the walls, work that Cate had done.
“Cate’s fine.” Cubiak put out food and fresh water for Kipper and set two bottles of beer on the table. “She’s pregnant.”
Bathard grinned and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Well, well, I must say this is a surprise, but congratulations. That’s wonderful news. What a good thing for you, for both of you.”
“That’s what Cate said.” There was a hard edge to Cubiak’s voice.
“And you don’t think so.”
The sheriff sat down heavily. “No, I don’t.” He looked at his old friend as if wanting him to agree. “There’s her health to consider. She said the doctor assured her that medicine has improved and that things will be better, but I don’t know.”
“She’s probably right. Doctors generally don’t mislead their patients.” When Cubiak didn’t react, Bathard sighed. “Sorry, that was my pathetic attempt at a joke. Sonja told me not to try to be funny; she said that I can’t carry it off.” The doctor took a chair across the table. “What about you?”
Cubiak grunted. “Me? I can’t do this again,” he said. He reached down and scrubbed Kipper’s head. “It’s complicated.”
“Actually, Dave, I don’t think it’s that complicated. I think it’s pretty obvious what’s bothering you.” Bathard softened his tone. “You’re afraid of having another child because you think something horrendous will happen, like it did to Alexis.”
Cubiak hung his head.
“You also think that having a second child makes you disloyal to your daughter’s memory.”
The sheriff did not respond.
“It’s only natural that you feel that way.”
He looked up. “So you agree?”
“No, I don’t. I said it’s natural to feel that way, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t forge ahead. I know you feel guilty about your daughter’s death. What parent wouldn’t? But Alexis was killed by a drunk driver. The man behind the wheel is the guilty party. You’re never going to forget your daughter. And no other child will ever replace her, either. Just as Cate didn’t replace Lauren.
Death Rides the Ferry Page 12