Death Stalks Door County

by Patricia Skalka

  “I attended one meeting where Otto’s father talked about the ‘Inner Light,’ the Quaker belief that there is that of God in every man. All humanity expresses the divine. All men are equal, as it were. They don’t take it lightly. This is not the empty verbiage of some preamble no one is intended to read, but rather the very basis for daily life. Quakers were antislavery before the Revolutionary War. The day after Kristallnacht, a group of German Friends confronted the Gestapo and preached fair treatment of the Jews. To kill or injure someone, to act in a violent fashion, represents the greatest affront to God. It is the height of arrogance. You can harm someone only if you feel you have the right, the power, to assume control of that person’s fate. A humble person cannot be violent. Violence defies the very nature of humility.”

  “Otto’s not a humble man,” Cubiak said.

  “He takes pride in his work. There’s a difference,” Bathard said. “After the U.S. began bombing Hanoi, his father published an antiwar brochure. Very moderate, more a treatise on love. He and the missus drove to Madison and distributed their pamphlet on the steps of the Capitol. The governor had them arrested. Big headlines, good political move on his part. His issue for the day. Gave him his requisite fifteen minutes of fame.

  “But here, Otto had to live with the repercussions, the ongoing small-town scrutiny and relentless disdain. A pack of high school bullies jumped him and beat him so badly he had to be kept home for a month for his own protection. Halverson’s father was among the thugs. You can imagine the poison he poured into Leo about the Johnsons.

  “A year later, Otto turned eighteen and became draft eligible. Most boys here were. They enlisted. He claimed CO status, but the climate was still very pro-war and the local draft board denied the request. Otto was sent to jail. The authorities held him for six months, clearly a violation of his rights as no charges had been filed. His parents both died while he was imprisoned but the judge wouldn’t release him for the funerals. Claimed it was for his own good.”

  “All of which could have made him mad enough to strike back.”

  Bathard squelched a smile. “Quakers seek justice, not revenge. Otto persisted with one appeal after another until the Army formally recognized his conscientious objector status. He was assigned to public service, working with the criminally insane at a Milwaukee hospital. God only knows what he was subjected to during that time, but he never complained.

  “Otto was the original flower child. Long before it became fashionable, he believed peace would prevail. Then the Weathermen bombed Sterling Hall at UW–Madison and fatally injured a physics researcher. To Otto, the inadvertent killing of this one innocent man made the protesters no better than the most bloodthirsty general. He washed his hands of them and everything associated with the antiwar movement. At the time, he was dating Beck’s sister Claire, did you know that?”

  “Yeah, I heard. Probably not to Beck’s liking.”

  Bathard nodded. “At any rate, a couple months later they were driving on an open stretch of road near Fish Creek when they hit a patch of black ice and slid into the oncoming lane. A milk truck rammed them broadside and, well, you know the rest. Claire’s death, combined with his sense of responsibility, broke him completely. Otto became a recluse. Nature and animals became his sanctuary.”

  The coroner emptied his glass. “Otto Johnson has devoted his life to peace and the environment. And what does he end up with? Friends who won’t back his fight to save the park, and a genuine war hero as an assistant.”

  “I’m no war hero,” Cubiak objected.

  “Please, I know about the medals. You’re a war hero whether you want to call yourself one or not, but Otto’s no killer.”

  “You haven’t proved that.”

  “You haven’t proved he is.”

  On his right hand, Cubiak counted out the arguments. “Number one: Johnson had a motive. Number two: he found two of the bodies. Number three: Opportunity. He was near the Betsy Ross the day it exploded and less than half a mile from where Alice was killed when he ran into Barry. Number four: circumstantial evidence.” Cubiak related Johnson’s odd behavior, his comings and goings at unusual hours.

  “What’s number five?”

  “Number five’s a hunch.”

  “Not admissible.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll even concede that none of the other four are strong enough taken individually to nail him. But considered together, they form a convincing argument.”

  “Interesting, not convincing,” Bathard countered.

  “I don’t have anything else to go on.”

  Bathard pulled a small notebook from his inside breast pocket, scribbled across the top sheet, then tore the page out and handed it to Cubiak. “Until tonight, only three people knew about this. You’re the fourth. I expect you to honor our commitment to confidentiality.”

  Cubiak held the paper to the light. It was a crude map with several lines of directions beneath the drawing.

  “Go on, then,” Bathard said impatiently.

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Posthaste.”

  Cubiak shoved the map into his pocket. “What do I find there?”

  “Your comeuppance.”

  Cubiak cut a sharp diagonal across the peninsula toward Lake Michigan and the Mink River Estuary. “The naturalist’s Eden,” the coroner had said in describing the area.

  North of the river, thick fog slowed Cubiak to a crawl. Even at that, it was sheer luck that he found the narrow passage marked on Bathard’s hastily drawn sketch. The lane was pockmarked with deep ruts. When he came to a patch of thick scrub that made it impassable, Cubiak left the jeep and continued on foot. In the inky dark, the chime of crickets rose and fell. A fox darted past, a blurred streak in the beam from his flashlight. The ground was soft and smelled of moss and rotting wood. Brambles snagged Cubiak’s shirtsleeves. A low-hanging branch slapped his face. He was about to turn back when he came to a small clearing, a woodland oasis ringed by a series of unobtrusive plywood sheds. In the center was a one-story log cabin with strips of light seeping from the tightly curtained windows.

  At the cottage door, Cubiak knocked twice, paused, and then banged the door hard three times, as Bathard had directed. The sound of muffled footsteps came from inside followed by two brisk raps from the other side of the door. Cubiak thumped once with his fist. Several locks were undone and the heavy wooden portal pulled open a crack.

  A ribbon of Johnson’s rough-hewn face shoved into the opening. If he’d expected anyone, it wasn’t Cubiak. Anger supplanted surprise. He started to close the door, but Cubiak put a quick hand out.

  “Bathard sent me. He said to tell you I’m acceptable. His term exactly.”

  “He has a reason,” the park superintendent said finally, more statement than question.

  “Yes. I’m checking alibis.” It was a stupid thing to say, and Cubiak regretted it immediately.

  “In the middle of the night?” Johnson was incredulous. “Who for? Why?” he demanded.

  “Beck. Because of all the people dying in the park. He was supposed to tell you.”

  “Well, he didn’t. I thought you were through being a cop.”

  “This is different.”

  “It’s always different for him,” Johnson said with marked bitterness. The park superintendent went quiet, and when he spoke again Cubiak heard the note of resignation in his voice. “I’m supposed to believe you? Trust you?”

  “Not me. Bathard.”

  Johnson snorted and jerked the door open. Instead of the stark hermit’s retreat Cubiak had expected, the ranger entered a jumbled room that combined elements of a library and a research lab. Bookshelves filled with science journals and reference books covered two walls while metal file cabinets, stacked four high, lined a third. Most of the interior was taken up by four large tables shoved together to form a massive work island that was littered with microscopes, unopened boxes of slides, and racks of test tubes, most of them empty. A large steel box, lid up, occupied t
he center spot. Harsh but exceedingly bright lights hung from the ceiling. The only decorative element was a carefully mounted display of National Geographic photos near the entrance. Cubiak recognized a few of the animal subjects, but he ventured a guess they all represented endangered species.

  “Please,” Cubiak said. “You’re going to have to start at the beginning. I don’t know anything about what you’re doing here.”

  A truce had been struck.

  “You know how I feel about the desecration of nature and the park?” Johnson said.

  Cubiak nodded.

  The superintendent gestured around the room. “That’s what this is all about.”

  Moving from one workstation to another, the old ranger explained the process by which he collected animal blood and tissue and plant sap and seeds from Peninsula State Park. Each specimen was catalogued, then dehydrated and processed in order to preserve the DNA for study, and possible regeneration, in the future.

  “Why?” Cubiak said.

  “To protect as many species as possible from dying out. Isn’t that obvious?”

  “And if it doesn’t work?”

  “It will. It has to.”

  “You’ve been professionally trained to do this?”

  “Some. Mostly self-taught. I read a lot.”

  Cubiak fished. Who helped him? Bathard?

  Johnson said he worked alone.

  “I want to see a specimen.”

  “I can’t show you the actual specimens. Once they’re completed, they are stored in vacuum pacs. But I’ve got these.” From a file drawer Johnson pulled out a thick stack of plastic sheets, each containing a series of photos that documented the specimen preparation process. Each was imprinted with the date and time it was taken. Cubiak sorted through the pile. The dates went back to the previous summer. According to the recent dates—unless the imprints lied—Johnson had been here working when the first incident occurred and the most recent killings took place. If he hadn’t shoved Wisby off Falcon Tower and shot the arrow at the lighthouse or strung the wire at Ricochet Hill, there was little reason to link him with the other killings.

  “The camera’s here?”

  Johnson unlocked a tall metal cabinet, pulled a camera from a shelf, and set it on the worktable. The camera reminded Cubiak of his mother’s old Brownie, but it was nearly twice the size.

  “Bathard special-ordered it from a scientific supply company in The Hague. I got the instruction booklet. You want to see that, too?” the park superintendent said.

  Cubiak leafed through the well-worn pamphlet. The first section was in English. He read several pages. Date and time monitors were preset at the factory, at the time of shipping.

  “Who besides you and Bathard are in on this?”

  Johnson pulled at his chin. “Ruby,” he said after a moment.

  “But she voted against you at the meeting.”

  Johnson flushed. “Yes, and I don’t understand why. Maybe she felt this was enough. Anyway, I haven’t talked with her since. You got to understand that Ruby’s sometimes got her own ideas.”

  “What’s back there?” Cubiak pointed to two doors along the rear wall.

  Johnson opened the first, revealing a neatly organized supply closet. At the second, he hesitated. “It’s where I sleep,” he said.

  “Sorry,” Cubiak said and waited.

  The bedroom was little more than a cubicle, a monk’s cell absent a crucifix above the bed. A muslin curtain covered the one small window. The narrow cot was neatly made, with a rough wool blanket tucked precisely under a thin mattress. A jacket and fresh shirt hung from hooks on the wall. The only decorative item was a small photo of a woman on the simple, pine bed table. Claire. Loyal still. Haunted still.

  Cubiak shut the door and retreated back into the main room, where Johnson waited. The park superintendent’s face was unreadable. “Want to see the sheds?”

  The smaller barn housed injured reptiles, garden snakes mostly, that Johnson had scooped up from the paths and roadways of Door County. The larger building was filled with an assortment of mammals in various stages of recovery from accident and injury. Johnson indicated a fat raccoon that he’d found choking on a marshmallow at the Turtle Bay Campground. It would be returned to the park later that night.

  “How’d Beck rope you into this?” Johnson asked as the two retraced their way across the yard. Cubiak gave him the version that didn’t include Malcolm or the lost girl. The superintendent listened without comment. “Beck’s a snake. Be careful,” he said finally.

  “I have to see this through.”

  “Of course.”

  In deepening fog, the two men shook hands.

  So, Claire died and Johnson’s life became anchored in that one tragic moment. Not too unlike his own situation, Cubiak realized, as he tramped through the dark woods to the jeep. The therapist had said people could never change what had happened, but they could learn to live with it and go on from there. We must learn to forgive ourselves our worst sins, he’d said. Those who do have a stab at happiness.

  Cubiak’s redemption grew out of a chance encounter with a little lost girl. Had there been prior opportunities, which he’d missed? How many prompts did Otto ignore, until there were no more and he withdrew from society and began pouring countless hours and money into a venture of questionable worth? As far as Cubiak could discern, the only good to come of the superintendent’s obsession was that it proved him innocent of the murders in Peninsula Park.

  At Jensen Station, Cubiak found a thermos of hot tea and a plate of cookies on his night stand. Dear Ruta. He slept fitfully and was easily roused by a crash of thunder after midnight. As the storm rolled past, he lay still and listened to the wind-driven rain lash the windows. Despite the deep quiet that followed, he was unable to fall back asleep. Restless, he roamed the empty hallways but the dark house yielded little comfort. He took a beer from the back of the refrigerator and retreated to the familiar worn chair in his office. The yard light had been left burning, and the glow through the window filled the room with soft shadows. When Cubiak finished the beer he opened the middle drawer and pulled out a small, hinged frame. He opened the sides into a V, steadied the frame on the desk, and looked into the smiling faces of his wife and daughter.

  The pictures had been taken in the fall, on the deck behind their house. In one, Lauren was seated in a black metal chair. She wore a brown turtleneck, a match for her chocolate hair. She had a gentle face, and the camera caught her in the middle of a careless laugh. If he worked at it, Cubiak could catch a hint of the jasmine perfume on her wrist. Alexis was a pumpkin in her photo, itching for Halloween in the costume her mother had sewn. She stood on tiptoe, brandishing a taffy apple at the camera, one tiny bite missing and her jaws clamped shut around the morsel.

  Cubiak was slumped in his chair when the housekeeper found him. Ruta had been awakened earlier as well, disturbed either by the storm or her own night demons, or perhaps by both. Ramrod straight, long gray hair brushed back from her face, she looked over his shoulder at the photos.

  “My wife and daughter,” he said, and told her the story.

  When he finished, the housekeeper reached into the pocket of her threadbare robe and extracted artifacts from her own past that she laid on the desk. They were sepia prints, dimmed with time and worn on the corners and edges. Photos of people from an era when picture taking was a solemn occasion. The first, her parents, killed during the war, she explained. Next, two boys, golden haired even in the stark black-and-white reality of the image. Her sons. Dead from fever. Last, her brother. He was mustachioed and young. His bearing, regal like hers, overshadowed his too-large and poorly tailored suit. “Borrowed clothes,” Ruta said ruefully. She was quiet a long time. “Secretly, he gave bread to a starving man. One piece only. The Russians said the man was agitator, no-good. So they arrest Simas and send him to a camp.”

  “Who told them about the bread?”

  Ruta stared at the wall as if history was encoded
in the plaster. Her husband had collaborated to get medicine for their sick children, she said, her voice tight. He made the authorities agree Simas would be jailed for only a few days. As a formality, they said. Just to teach him a lesson, they promised. When the soldiers came for her brother, they brought the drug. Such a small bottle, she remembered thinking as they tossed it to her. She forced herself to watch them beat her brother and drag him away. The soldiers were laughing when they left. The medicine, too little, and what was there turned out to be mostly water. Her children died in her arms. Simas died in the camp.

  “Your husband, what happened to him?”

  Ruta put a hand to her throat. “Gone, too,” she said in a whisper.

  TUESDAY

  The rangers were at breakfast when the phone rang. Ruta took the call.

  “For you,” she said, handing the receiver to Cubiak.

  It was Bathard.

  Cubiak moved as far from the table as the cord allowed. “You were right. I was wrong,” he said, conscious of Johnson behind him stirring sugar into his coffee.

  The coroner chuckled. “You were just doing your job. That actually wasn’t the reason I called.” He coughed quietly. “Rather late notice, my apologies,” he said and went on to invite Cubiak for dinner that evening. It was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, he explained, the last chance for a few quiet hours before all hell broke loose the next day. “It’s not at our house,” he added; he and his wife had stopped entertaining some time back. “We’re getting together at Ruby’s.”