Death Rides the Ferry
Page 14
The room was dark and cold. The blanket lay on the floor, and he shivered in the icy blast from the air conditioner that had been churning at full bore. He closed his eyes and tried to dislodge the image of Cate rushing after the others. Even when the dream had dissolved, the message remained vividly clear: yet another mother and child were doomed to die and he was powerless to help.
The red digits on the bedside clock read 5:22. He rolled out of bed and switched off the AC. Still cold, he retrieved the blanket, wrapped it around his shoulders, and poured water into the hotel coffeemaker. The familiar routine grounded him. Freud be damned, he thought as he tossed the bedspread over the mattress. A dream is the mind playing tricks, nothing more.
When the coffee was ready, Cubiak pulled on his rumpled clothes and carried the first cup outside. To the east, a spear of neon orange light slit the horizon. In the crisp morning air, the coffee steamed and warmed his face. He waited for the night sky to shrink under the sun’s assault, and then he went back in and showered. When he was dressed again, he poured a second cup. By the time he was back outside, the sun was fully up and the new day abloom. Cate once told him that photographers called this blip of time the golden hour, for the softness of the light.
Cubiak started toward the dock. A ribbon of mist blurred the shoreline. Farther out, four black dots emerged from the fading, gossamer fog. Like a loose string of ebony opals, they danced across the waves toward Detroit Harbor. He finished his coffee just as the four smudges transformed into a convoy of ferryboats.
The vessels were running well ahead of the usual schedule, a gesture made to mollify the musicians and audience members who had been forced to spend an extra night on the island because of the theft. From the chatter he had overheard, the sheriff knew that many of the musicians were heading out to other gigs and were worried about being late for their commitments. The others, the music lovers and hangers-on, were either returning home or rushing off to fill their remaining vacation days with fish boils, golf, shopping. Everyone was in a hurry to leave.
A dozen vehicles waited to board the first ferry. Bob Sandusky, the North Dakota gambist, was driving the lead car, a silver Lexus. Curious, Cubiak walked over. Sandusky was unshaven, and his hair was wet. A woman sat in the passenger seat. She was slumped low and had wrapped a checkered scarf around her head, but the sheriff recognized her as Meryl Gregory, the tourist who had been accused of stealing from the harbor gift store earlier that week. So this was the wife who liked to shop?
“Bob. Ms. Gregory. We meet again,” he said.
The musician looked confused. “You know my wife?”
“We’ve met.” Before Sandusky could say anything, the sheriff went on. “I know you’re anxious to get going but I have to ask you to pull off to the side so I can search your vehicle.”
“Why? What’s this all about? What do you mean you need to search the vehicle? Don’t you need a warrant?” Sandusky said.
“It’s a random check. No warrant needed.”
“You haven’t pulled anyone else over.”
“That’s because I’m just getting started, and you’re first in line. Don’t worry, I’ll get to the others,” Cubiak said, knowing he probably wouldn’t be searching many other cars, if any, that morning.
The gambist started to object further but his wife interrupted. “It’s fine, honey. The man is just doing his job. We can catch the next ferry.”
Meryl smiled. Her smug demeanor told him that he would find nothing incriminating in the car, and he didn’t. Sandusky’s viol and two suitcases with their clothes were in the trunk. There were three bags on the back seat filled with two new dresses, several T-shirts, sandals, and a straw hat. She showed him the receipts.
“You like to shop,” Cubiak said.
“I do.”
The sheriff had no choice but to let them depart on the next ferry. Again he watched the car drive on, but this time he noted the license number, just in case. For the next half hour, he made his way down the line of vehicles, questioning the drivers. Most of them were musicians from the festival. The others were tourists. Except for the early hour, it looked like a typical day at the ferry landing. There wasn’t anything suspicious about anyone or anything he encountered. Still Cubiak kept checking.
As the fourth ferry loaded, a silver Toyota pulled up to the landing. The driver was a blonde woman, about the same age as Bob Sandusky’s shopaholic wife. She put the car in Park and smiled. It was a friendly gesture, unlike the smug look the shoplifting woman had given him earlier. He swore softly.
“What’s wrong?” a dockhand asked.
“I’ve been duped.”
Earlier that week when Cubiak escorted Sandusky’s wife from the store in Detroit harbor, she was carrying the turquoise jewelry and silk scarves that she had paid for to avoid being arrested. But he hadn’t found any of those items when he searched the car that morning. She must have stashed them off island. The new dresses and other purchases in the vehicle were things she bought for herself; that’s why she had the receipts. The rest isn’t for her, he realized. While her husband played the festival she was out stealing merchandise, which she then hid on the mainland. She would pick it up on her way out and sell it on eBay after she got home. What was it the musician’s friend had said? Lucky for us she likes to shop.
Did Sandusky know about his wife’s scheme? Cubiak wondered.
It was too late to nab the couple at Northport but they had to cross one of the bridges at Sturgeon Bay to get off the peninsula. He called the city police chief with the make, model, and license number of their car and asked him to post his deputies at the bridges. “We need to stop the car before it goes any farther,” he said.
Out on the water, another black spot appeared. It was too small to be a ferry.
“I think it’s your guy,” the dock worker said as the Speedy Sister II swung around the harbor buoy.
Rowe’s energetic leap onto the pier made Cubiak realize how tired he was.
“What are you doing here? I thought you had the day off,” said Cubiak.
“I do but I’ll take it another time. This is too important. Remember you asked me to keep checking on Eric Fielder? Well, something about the name kept bugging me. I took a couple years of German in high school, and it dawned on me that in German the name Fielder is Acker. So I went back and checked under that name and bingo. It looks like our Eric Fielder is really a man named Ubell Acker. The DOB is the same as on his fake ID, but place of birth is Madison.”
“You’re telling me that Fielder was born here?”
“Yes, sir. And he holds dual citizenship. US and German.”
“The viol that was stolen at Dixan I belonged to a German musician named Franz Acker. Acker’s wife was pregnant, and she died in Madison after giving birth to a premature infant.”
“Boy or girl?”
“I don’t know. No one ever said, and I didn’t think to ask.”
“Give me a minute.”
The deputy retrieved his laptop from the boat. “Nothing,” he said after he had worked the keyboard for several minutes. “Nothing,” he said again.
Cubiak stayed quiet. He knew that Rowe was churning through sites he wasn’t even aware existed. If there was any information to be found, his deputy would ferret it out.
Finally, Rowe looked up. “The baby was a boy.”
“A child born under the worst circumstances on a night from hell,” Cubiak said.
Rowe bent over the computer again. “I’ll be damned. You know what Ubell means?”
The sheriff shook his head.
“It’s German for evil.”
Cubiak started toward the boat. “I need to talk to George Payette again. You got enough gas to get us there?”
They were midway across the strait when Rowe’s phone dinged.
“It’s a response from Interpol, sir. Acker has a record. One charge of domestic violence, which was dropped, and a conviction for assault and battery. Seems he put two men in the
hospital during a fight. Also, an email from the merchant marine. They have no record of either an Ubell Acker or an Eric Fielder.”
The sheriff remembered the steely cold in Acker’s eyes the first time they talked. “The son of Franz Acker turns out to be a liar with a violent temper who spends time in Chicago, where Annabelle Larson lived with her daughter and the mummified remains of a woman are found in the apartment of the missing, real Helen Kulas. Then, pretending to be just another pleasant foreign worker, he gets a job serving food at Dixan V, where two more people are murdered. Why?” Cubiak tilted his head and squinted at the horizon. “The bastard is here for the yellow viol.”
“You mean it’s in Door County?”
“He thinks it’s here.” Cubiak remembered what Cate had said about seeing two mugs in the dish drainer at the condo. “And if I’m right, the woman who claimed to be Helen Kulas is in on this with him.”
They’re all connected, he thought. He pictured the principals—Ubell Acker, the fake Helen, Lydia Larson, Richard Mayes, Annabelle Larson, and George Payette—lined up like dominoes in a parade that stretched from Dixan I through the years to Dixan V. If he discovered the truth about the man at either end, the pieces would all topple.
Cubiak had a bad feeling about where this was heading. He wished he could go back and not involve Cate. How could he live with himself if he had put her in danger?
He needed to warn her, but he wasn’t sure about whom or what.
She didn’t answer his call, so he sent a text: New developments. Take extra care today.
The sheriff and deputy talked little on the rest of the ride. At Payette’s Sister Bay estate, they tied up behind his white yacht and followed the cinder path to the house. Both levels on the water side were glass, but the first-floor drapes and blinds were pulled, preventing them from seeing in.
Cubiak knocked on the patio door. There was no answer. Rowe pounded on the window but still there was no response. He tried the door, but it was locked. They moved to the yard and rang the bell by the stately wooden door, but still there was no answer, and the door was locked as well.
The red car hadn’t moved from its spot. Rowe peeked inside the garage. “There’s a bike against the wall. Maybe Payette walked into town,” he said.
“Does he strike you as the kind of man who walks anywhere?”
Rowe shrugged. “Not really. Maybe he’s in the recording studio. He wouldn’t hear us from in there.”
They continued to circle the house and found another door behind a row of hedges.
Cubiak pointed to the small pane nearest the knob. “Try that,” he said and braced for the shriek of the alarm. But when Rowe smashed the window, there was only the sound of glass hitting the floor.
“Let’s go,” the sheriff said.
They passed through a narrow porch to a short hall that opened onto the kitchen. The room was in shambles. Broken pieces of plates and glasses were scattered over the counters. Cupboard drawers had been wrenched from their glides and turned upside down, the contents spilled out. The refrigerator doors were open and the shelves emptied. Milk pooled on the floor mixed with broken egg yolks and shells. The walls were splashed with vinegar.
“Jesus, that stinks,” Rowe said.
Cubiak held his hand up. “Listen.” He thought he had heard a noise.
A second passed, and they both heard a sound, like that of a can rolling across bare wood. It came from behind the closed pantry door.
The housekeeper lay inside on the wooden floor. She had been beaten and gagged and left curled in a fetal position with her arms and legs bound together behind her back. There was a can of soup near her blood-smeared face. Somehow she had managed to push it with her chin.
Cubiak knelt by the woman. “Call for an ambulance and then search the rest of the house. Hurry,” he told Rowe as he loosened the cloth from around her mouth.
When she was free, he helped her sit up against the wall. “Anything broken?” he asked. She stared at him. She’s in shock, he realized.
He filled a cup with water and brought it to her. “How many were there?”
She murmured something that sounded like un.
“One?” The answer surprised him.
She blinked.
“A man?”
Another blink, a second sign he interpreted as yes. Ubell Acker, he thought. It had to be. But where was the pretend Helen Kulas while this was going on? He had paired up the two because of the two mugs at Cate’s place and because they both disappeared around the same time, but what if she wasn’t Fielder’s accomplice?
“Did he have a gun?”
The housekeeper’s eyes opened wide with fear, and she tried to move her head.
“Did you ever see him before?”
“No.” The word was a whisper.
“Sir!” Rowe called out from somewhere in the house.
Cubiak brushed the hair from the housekeeper’s forehead. “Help is on the way. It’ll be here soon. You’re going to be OK,” he said.
The deputy shouted again. “Up here. The second floor.”
As he moved toward the staircase, the sheriff took in the mayhem along the way. In the living room, furniture stood upended and cushions were slashed. The drinks table had been smashed and the bottles tossed to the floor. In the dining room, the china and crystal were shattered.
Rowe watched from the landing. “Watch your step, sir. They poured something on the stairs.”
An empty olive oil bottle lay near the bottom riser, and oil dripped down the newel post and center of the treads.
Cubiak climbed up along the edges.
“Payette?” he said when he reached Rowe.
“He’s breathing but unconscious. In there,” the deputy said and pointed to the master bedroom.
The room was a confluence of velvet, marble, and mirrors. Payette was naked and lay on the floor of the walk-in closet. He had been bound and gagged with brightly colored ties from his designer collection. The halo of blood around his head looked almost black in the dim light. The flesh around his eyes was pulpy, and his lips ballooned to caricaturist proportions. Several of his fingers were mangled, and there was a nasty slash on his shoulder.
“I called for another ambulance,” Rowe said.
“Good.”
Cubiak felt for a pulse, as a siren screamed from the yard.
“Go and warn them about the steps,” he said.
While he waited for the medics, the sheriff photographed the scene. He was relieved that Payette was alive but puzzled by the fact as well. Why didn’t Ubell kill the musician when he had the chance? he wondered.
He heard voices and the EMTs entered the room.
Cubiak left them with Rowe. “If Payette comes to, call me immediately. I have to go back downstairs. I promised the housekeeper I’d be back,” he said.
The sheriff stayed with the traumatized woman until the second ambulance arrived. While the medics tended to her, he helped the first team of medics lower the gurney with Payette to the first floor.
“Do you have any police tape on the Sister?” Cubiak asked Rowe as the ambulance crew rolled the injured man through the door.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get it and secure the premises.”
Once the second ambulance left, silence again muffled Payette’s imposing home. Cubiak walked through the unnatural quiet to the back rooms. He expected the damage to the business side of the dwelling to be worse than that in the living quarters, but he was still surprised by the extent of the violence. The gambist’s office had been ripped apart. Everything that could be overturned was upended, every drawer emptied. Holes were punched in the walls and ceiling. Mayes’s office got the same treatment. Next door, the equipment in the recording studio was smashed and damaged. Along the hallway, every closet had been turned out, every storage bin emptied and the contents strewn about like rubbish. The track lighting in the performance room had been torn from the ceiling and the sturdy oak stage hacked into pieces.
Cubiak regarded the wreckage with great sadness. The instruments had survived wars and plagues, only to be destroyed in an angry rampage. This was more than a search-and-find mission; this was a search-and-punish vendetta.
But did you get what you came for? he wondered.
The tourist brochures labeled Door County a peninsula but technically the description was a deceit. The Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal, which was dug in the late 1800s, severed the land-link between the mainland and the readily identifiable long finger of land that jutted out between the waters of Lake Michigan and Green Bay. The project left the northern portion of the county completely surrounded by water. It was, in fact, an island. And the only way off was to cross one of the three bridges at the city of Sturgeon Bay.
Cubiak called the bridge superintendent and ordered the bridges raised.
“Must be someone you don’t want leaving,” the tender said.
“That’s right.”
“It’s going to be a mess down here.”
“Can’t be helped.”
“How long you figure this is gonna take?”
“Don’t know. My deputies are on the way now to help sort things out,” Cubiak said, hoping it wasn’t too late.
Finally, the sheriff issued an APB to the counties of Door, Kewaunee, and Brown for one Eric Fielder, aka Ubell Acker. White male. Approximately forty years old. Six feet. Blond. Blue eyes. Suspect in assault and robbery. Armed and considered dangerous. May be traveling with a woman posing as Helen Kulas. Approach with caution.
16
ONE MAN’S REVENGE
His years as a city cop had made Cubiak wary of hospitals. Working in Chicago, he had spent countless sad and angry hours in emergency rooms with perps and innocent victims—women, men, and even children—who had been shot, stabbed, or mercilessly battered. He knew the doctors and nurses who worked hard to save lives within those walls, but he couldn’t help but associate the institutions with death and despair, and so he avoided them as much as he could, even in normally peaceful Door County.