by Gail Lukasik
“She’s still going to know you gave me the note.”
“Maybe, but at least I’m not the one giving it to the police.”
His reasoning was convoluted, but Martin always seemed to be ruled by passion when it came to Sarah.
“What are you going to tell her?”
“I haven’t decided. What’s important is that Sarah gets help.”
“This would all be a lot easier if you gave the note to Jorgensen,” I reiterated, reading the note again.
“This is way past easy,” he snarled.
“Besides me, have you shown the note to anyone else?”
Martin hesitated for a second. “Just Eva. I thought she should know.”
It wouldn’t have been my call. “You thought she’d give the note to the police?”
“No, I wouldn’t ask her to do that,” he snapped. “I wanted to prepare her. She’s been through so much.”
“What did she say?”
“That Sarah’s sick, that she needs help. That I’m the only one who can help her now.”
“So it was your idea to show me the note first?”
“What difference does that make?”
“I don’t like the idea of being a go-between. I feel like I’m being set up.”
“I told Eva, just like I told you, that I wouldn’t take the note to the police. She said to show it to you. You’d know what to do.”
That sentiment didn’t seem to jibe with Eva’s last words to me. But then, she had been angry at the time.
“So you’ll do it?”
“Okay,” I answered reluctantly, shoving the note in my pocket. Suddenly the sun slid from under some clouds and turned the water silver. I felt my face warm with the light. We both looked up.
“Well, that’s pretty spectacular,” I said, shielding my eyes from the glare.
"What?” he asked.
“The sky, that sudden burst of light, the water turning silver.”
“It’s because we’re surrounded by water,” he answered in an even tone. “The two bodies of water play off each and that creates the sudden changes in the light.” He waited a moment to see if I understood.
“You know how to get back,” he said.
* * * * *
I drove straight to the police station in Sturgeon Bay, another aging stone edifice in the older section. Lucky me, Deputy Jorgensen was in his office. The receptionist directed me to his desk. Behind the partition and against the wall. I expected to find a deer head sprouting from the knotty pine. Instead, his work area was the picture of police décor, right down to the miniature American flag on his desk.
“Aren’t ya supposed to be in bed?” He blushed to his blonde roots.
“Something too important came up.” Now I was blushing. I took out the note and handed it to Jorgensen.
He stared at it so long, I thought he’d dozed off.
“Rob Martin gave it to me this afternoon. He found it next to Sarah Peck the night of her suicide attempt. He’s pretty sure it’s her handwriting.”
“Why’d he wait so long to turn it in, then?”
“You’ll have to ask him that.” I had agreed to deliver the note, not to be the lawyer for the defense.
“We’ll have a handwriting expert take a look at it. Ya know I gotta check out your story with Rob and Sarah.”
“I wouldn’t expect any less from the county’s finest deputy.”
He smiled. “Okay then, if this is legit, he’s an accessory.”
“In his mind, some things supersede the law, God, and country.”
“Anyways, I questioned everyone who coulda slipped you that drug. Nothing much came of that. ‘Cept Eva Peck remembers Carl bein’ prescribed some drug to stop him drinkin’. Last time she remembered seein’ it was in the medicine cabinet. I told her, check it out.”
“That’s odd,” I said.
“What’s odd?”
“How did Carl Peck get the drug? Dr. Porter told me that he refused to prescribe it to him. He said the drug would kill him, because his cirrhosis was so far advanced. So how did he manage to get a physician to write him a prescription for it? And why would he want it, if he knew it would kill him? This isn’t making sense.”
Chet's phone rang. “Hold on.”
While he took the call, I studied the photo on his desk. In it, Chet posed next to a ten point buck with an arrow sticking out of its chest. The buck’s eyes were open.
Chet hung up the phone. “That there was Eva Peck. Medicine ain’t there.”
* * * * *
Summer, 48 years earlier
Her mother had poured that smell into the bath water again. Lavender. She wanted to tell her the smell made her sick. But the words for it hurt her stomach. Only the shiny razor took the pain away.
Like a string of kisses across her wrists, she made one X after another. Not too deep, just break the skin. Bring a slight rise of blood. No veins or arteries severed, nothing severe.
29
Wednesday, November 22, Present day
“We think Sarah Peck’s left the peninsula.” Even over the phone, I could tell Deputy Chet was rattled.
I was on my bed watching a woman on one of those talk shows tell her husband that she’s in love with his sister. I muted the sound.
“What happened to the drawbridge? Couldn’t get it up in time?” I was going stir crazy just lying around the house. Stevens had banned me from the office until Monday. When I told him about Sarah's note, he had grumbled something about my not leaving the house, and his coming over later with dinner.
“Have ya seen her or heard from her?” Chet asked. His cheerfulness sounded forced.
“Nope. But then, I’m probably the last person she’d contact. What did you find out about the note?”
“Okay, I guess I owe ya one. That handwritin’ expert said that note’s a pretty close match to Sarah’s writin’. And we found Carl’s prescription bottle.” I waited, already sure of what he was going to say. “It was in the back of Sarah’s medicine cabinet. Two tablets were missin’.”
“Are you charging her with murder?” The evidence certainly pointed at Sarah, but instinct told me that it was too clean and neat. Too much like a script.
“Right now, all we want ta do is get her in here for questionin’.”
“Then Rob confirmed my story?”
“Haven’t found Rob neither.”
“Nothing like leaving the best part out.”
“Look, ya hear from either of ’em, call me. Let us deal with it.”
“Of course.”
* * * * *
Summer, 51 years earlier: Chicago
It was hot, and the bathroom smelled of urine and lavender. He knelt beside the bathtub. The water was slick with bath oil. He had come in to wash her back. But now his hands were on her belly, then between her legs. The light from the shaded window yellowed his skin, her skin, the cracked floor, the peeling walls.
“You’re so beautiful, you’re so beautiful,” he whispered over and over as his fingers moved back and forth.
Then he lifted her from the slick, cold water, dried her and took her to another room. The damp bed held her body, but she floated to the ceiling. The smell of onions filled the room as her body was peeled back by his mouth.
When it was over, when she returned to her body, she put on her cotton panties, undershirt, white anklets, red sandals, blue starched sundress. He came into the room holding something in his hand. He was smiling.
“This is for you,” he said, putting the gift in her small hand.
It was a pin studded with green stones. They were the same color as his eyes. Her tiny fist closed around it. She felt the prick of the pin through her palm. She kept her hand shut.
As he drove her home through the long shadowed streets, her head fell forward and hit the dashboard. Then someone was slapping her face gently, saying “Wake up, wake up.” She opened her eyes. They were two blocks from her house.
“You must never tell anyone
what we did. Or I’ll have to hurt every member of your family. Understand?”
She shook her head yes.
Once inside her bedroom, she opened her hand, removed the pin and hid it in the bottom of her jewelry box. In the middle of her palm was the indentation of a heart and a small red dot of blood. She watched as the heart slowly faded, leaving only the small wound in the center of her hand. For two weeks, she kept her hand closed around it, afraid someone would see. Then it too disappeared.
Every time he saw her, he gave her a dime. She bought candy with the dimes: chocolate bars, peppermint sticks, lollipops.
He never touched her again.
30
“Meet me at the cave. You know the one, South Heaven.” Her voice was tight with fear. “I've got a gun. If you bring anybody, I’ll kill myself."
“Sarah, don’t do anything rash. Let me help you.”
“You’ve got forty-five minutes.” Her voice faded in and out. I could hear the crackling of a cell phone connection. “Come alone. I mean it.”
“I will, Sarah, I promise. But wait . . .” The line went dead.
I threw on jeans, a sweatshirt and my down-filled parka. As I was closing the front door, I remembered Stevens and his promise of dinner. I tried him at the office, but he’d left for the day. Marge told me to try his cell phone. When he didn’t pick up, I left him a voice message. “It’s Leigh. Sarah Peck contacted me. I’m meeting her at Peninsula State Park, Eagle Trail. By the South Heaven cave. She’s got a gun and is threatening to kill herself if I don’t come alone.” In case he didn’t pick up his voice messages, I also wrote a hurried note with the same information and taped it to the door.
As I drove up Highway 42, I called Chet Jorgenson at the station on my cell phone. The dispatcher told me he was already out combing the peninsula for Sarah, so I left him the same message I'd left for Jake, except that I added he should get there fast, because Sarah was armed and threatening suicide. Even using extreme caution, it was impossible to approach the caves unseen. Besides, Sarah was sure to be on the lookout. I didn’t want her to do anything foolish. If a bunch of cops showed up, she might panic.
Though I sped through the fading light, it occurred to me more than once that I should turn around, go back home, and let Chet handle this. Sarah’s insistence that I come alone had my hackles up. She could use me as a hostage to get off the peninsula. Or maybe she wanted to kill me for giving the police her note, or for pursuing her father’s death, or just on principle, before she took her own life. And then there was Rob Martin, who also was missing. Was he a player in Sarah’s plan?
By the time I reached Eagle Tower, a quarter moon was cresting the trees, even though the sun had yet to set. The black Dodge Ram was parked near the trail head. I looked at my watch. Thirty minutes had passed since Sarah’s phone call. It would take me at least fifteen minutes, if not more, to reach the caves. Where the hell was Chet? I sat in the truck nervously tapping the steering wheel and staring out into the woods. I looked at my watch again. Five more minutes had passed. Sarah had said forty-five minutes. Her voice had sounded desperate and scared. She had attempted suicide once, and I had felt some responsibility for pushing her too hard. If she used the gun on herself this time, there’d be no saving her.
I jumped out of the truck, slammed the door, and started for the trail head. Before I reached the caves, I’d have to find something to use for a weapon—maybe a thick tree branch. Then I remembered the extra set of bow and arrows that I'd stuffed behind the truck’s cab when Chet loaned them to me. After my encounter with Woulff at Newport State Park, I had decided to keep them in the truck. Now I hurried back, grabbed the bow and slung the sheaf of arrows over my shoulder. The bow beat a tree branch, but a gun would beat both. Nonetheless, I would play what I was dealt.
I took one more look toward the road for Chet’s police car, but the asphalt road shone empty. I decided not to wait any longer. I felt in my jacket pocket for my flashlight and pepper spray.
Just as I began the difficult descent, the sun slid into the bay, turning the air sharp and the woods dark. A burst of panic surged through me. I stood still on the sharp incline for a few moments, taking deep breaths, letting my eyes adjust to the moonlight. The landscape was leached of color and definition. Then slowly, as if a door was opening, the trees, rocks, and cliffs emerged into black and white shapes: the colors of night, the colors of dreams. I blinked several times.
When I could distinguish the birches from the other trees, I moved cautiously down the trail. A thick crust of snow and ice covered the path and my every step sent a slippery, crunching sound echoing through the woods. Animals I couldn’t see scurried through the snow, startling me. I kept hearing Chet’s words: “There’s some bears in the forests,” he had said, “so bear huntin’s limited.” I dug in my pocket and retrieved my flashlight, switching it on.
I shook my head as if that would free me of the fear that was now seeping into every fiber of my body. For a moment I stopped and listened, hoping to hear Chet making his way down the trail. But all I heard was an owl somewhere in the distance who seemed to be repeating the phrase, “Me too.” I took another deep breath and looked up. A cloud had momentarily smothered the frail moonlight with its vast white body. I slowed my pace, directing the flashlight beam on the trail that wound downward like a white river. By the time I reached the pine forest, the moon had freed itself from the cloud and once again the night sky was filled with icy light.
Along the shore path, the snow was deeper, and I was glad I had worn my hiking boots. I could hear the restless crash of the icy water hitting that stony beach. I didn’t like it. The night seemed too quiet, too expectant.
I was beginning to question the wisdom of not waiting for Chet, of coming here armed only with a bow and some arrows. What made me think I could talk Sarah into giving herself up? There had never been anything veiled about her hostility toward me. A moment of hubris had set me on this course. I could still turn around; I could still head back. Let Chet deal with Sarah. A more looming question arose: how was I going to prevent Sarah from using her gun on me or herself? Then I realized that my charging out of the trees armed with bow and arrows might trigger her to drastic action sooner, so I decided that I’d find a spot to leave them, near the cave where Sarah couldn’t see them.
The trail opened up to a clearing. As I walked along the shoreline path, I stared out at the water. Even in this light, I could see one of the nearby islands—a dark mass surrounded by water. For some reason, I was reminded of Rob Martin’s explanation for the sudden changes in light on the peninsula. How had he explained it? "The two bodies of water play off each other and that creates the sudden changes in the light.”
Two bodies playing off each other? That could describe Sarah and Rob and their volatile relationship. But it could also describe Sarah and her father’s relationship. Whether Sarah killed her father alone or Rob helped her, I still didn’t know. But I felt I was definitely about to find out. Maybe that was my real reason for coming to this isolated place alone?
I shook my head again. That wasn't why I'd come. I was here because right now with the cold biting into my skin and a mad woman waiting for me in a cave, I felt alive. For the first time since my cancer, I felt alive.
The cancer had robbed me of that feeling. In relinquishing myself to the doctors, I had relinquished myself to fate and with it, all sense of control. I had lost that woman who used to move through life with a dancer’s balance.
My memory flashed on the blue recliner at the hospital where I sat weekly, monthly, trying to distract myself by reading or watching television as the chemo’s slow drip entered my body. Hoping the chemo would save me. One day toward the end of the treatments, I felt my body slip away like a dress I was tired of wearing. That day I crossed over a great divide—finally knowing death was always just a matter of when, and that I had no control over it. I was no longer afraid to die. It was a heady realization.
Now against all co
mmon sense, my gut was telling me that if there was a chance I could stop Sarah from ruining her life, I had to try. I would make her see that she still had a choice about living or dying, that she could reclaim her life. That as long as she was breathing, there was hope. And for once, it would be my choice, not fate’s, to stare death in the face.
Another gust of wind hit my face, savagely stinging my skin. But it felt good. I turned from the shore and trudged on down the snowy path. I ascended toward the South Heaven cave and increased my pace. As I came toward the first set of caves, I saw the flickering of a small fire. Sarah was nowhere in sight. Before I reached the South Heaven cave, I slipped off the sheaf of arrows and placed them with the bow just inside the adjacent cave. With the fire drawing all the light within its circle, I felt sure Sarah could not see where I’d hidden them.
Before approaching the fire, I switched off my flashlight, slipped it into my pocket and called out. “Sarah, it’s Leigh Girard.”
I heard a stirring from inside the cave. A flashlight bounced its beam from wall to wall. For a second, the words South Heaven, were illuminated. Then the flashlight blinded me. My hand went across my eyes, trying to deflect the light. “It’s Leigh. Like I promised, I’m alone.”
“You shouldn’t have come,” Sarah said.
“Sarah, come on. Give me the gun, and let’s get out of here.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Sarah, I can get you help. There's no need for you to do anything more drastic. To yourself, or anyone else."
“No. Listen, it wasn’t me. She did it. All those years, it was dead. Buried, right here. Poor Joyce.” Sarah’s voice sounded tight and thready, as if it might break.
When she mentioned Joyce, a cold fear crept up my spine. "What are you talking about?”
“Those bones you found . . .” She held the flashlight beam steady on my face, as if she needed to contain me as she studied my reaction. “They were the bones of Joyce’s baby. Her little girl. And now she’s going to kill me and you.”