Death at Gills Rock

by Patricia Skalka

  Cubiak radioed Rowe from the jeep and asked him to call Pardy as well. He read the faded house number over the front door. “Can’t miss it, second to last house on the strip. Big willow and dog out front.”

  The water dish was empty. The dog hunkered near the tree, its head on its paws and its eyes squeezed into two black slits.

  Cubiak got a fistful of dog food from the panty and tossed the kibble into the dish. “You’re not fooling me, buddy. You’re watching my every move, aren’t you?” Cubiak said.

  The dog twitched.

  While he waited for his deputy, Cubiak hooked a hose to the outside faucet and dragged it to the smoldering trash barrel. There wasn’t much inside but kitchen garbage. With the fire out, he checked the garage. An upright freezer was stuffed with packages wrapped in butcher paper and marked Venison and Squirrel. Expensive hand tools and fancy fishing gear were neatly stored along one wall. In the truck he found a CD player and GPS. Joe Millard liked his toys.

  Cubiak was cordoning off the buildings with police tape when Rowe turned in the drive.

  The dog exploded. Rowe went white.

  “He doesn’t cotton to strangers.”

  “No shit.”

  The sheriff walked his deputy through the crime scene. When they got back out front the dog’s dish was empty again.

  “Good boy,” Cubiak said. Then he told Rowe, “You wait here for Pardy. I’ll be back.”

  “Where you going?” Rowe said as the sheriff maneuvered the jeep around the deputy’s patrol car.

  “Over to Huntsman’s. I got some unfinished business there.”

  Cubiak had the Rec Room sealed off when Walter came up, a lit cigarette in hand.

  “What’re you doing?” he said.

  “Something I probably should have done before.”

  Walter took a drag and tugged at the tape. “This ’cause of Agnes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Joe dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “She shoot him?”

  “Someone did.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing, but I intend to find out.” Cubiak double-checked the door. “Your mother home?” he said, motioning toward the house.

  Walter nodded. “They’re all here.”

  Cubiak heard the buzz of conversation from the mudroom, but when he appeared in the kitchen doorway the chatter stopped. Still in their sullied black, the three widows ringed the pine table. They were drawn and pale, their eyes red-rimmed, and their mouths pinched shut. A portrait at odds with the soft comfort of the room. Coffee cups and a plate of sandwiches were set out before them; the food was untouched, the cups half empty.

  Cubiak took the chair at the head of the table, aware that he was usurping Walter’s place. “Ladies, you’ve had a very trying day,” he said.

  Olive and Stella stared at their hands. Only Ida met his gaze. “Mr. Millard?” she said.

  “Joe Millard is dead, shot. Presumably murdered.”

  Ida inhaled sharply but said nothing. The other two women slumped farther into their seats, as if trying to distance themselves from the news.

  “You all heard what Agnes said at the church about the men being four of a kind.” Cubiak spoke slowly, giving them time to reflect. “Do any of you know what she meant?”

  “No.” Ida’s response was quick and firm.

  Stella stifled a sob.

  “Mrs. Wilkins?”

  She lowered her head, refusing to meet his glance.

  He turned toward Olive. “No,” she said in the whisper of a frightened child.

  Cubiak waited a moment. “I’m sorry to have had to intrude on this of all days. But if you think of anything that might be helpful, I’d appreciate hearing it. For now, I won’t take any more of your time this afternoon. Thank you,” he said as he stood.

  At the back door, he shook hands with Walter. Following the brick path through the manicured yard, Cubiak ran through the encounter again: the women had stopped talking when they saw him and then avoided looking at each other when he asked about Agnes. They had lied to him. But about what and whether to protect themselves or their neighbor he didn’t know. One thing he was sure of: they were hiding something.

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON

  In her cell at the Sturgeon Bay Justice Center, Agnes Millard lay curled in a fetal position. Repose had smoothed her creased face and, with the blanket tucked under her chin and her eyes shut, she looked more like a small child asleep at nap time than a woman who had just shot her husband.

  Cubiak watched her from the hall. Rowe came up behind. “You gonna book her?”

  “I have no choice.”

  “Well, I got a call in to the judge about bail. Probably won’t hear anything back until tomorrow.”

  “What about a lawyer?”

  “She doesn’t have one and says she doesn’t need one.”

  “You told her I was coming to talk to her?”

  “Yeah. This morning. She said that she expected as much.”

  Behind the one-way glass, Agnes shuddered and popped to a sitting position. Clutching the blanket, she opened her eyes and stared directly at the two men.

  Rowe took a quick step back. “You know, sometimes I wonder if they can’t really see us. You ever think that?”

  More often than not, Cubiak thought. Not that he’d admit as much to his deputy. “You’re imagining things,” he said.

  Agnes’s hands fell to her lap. Instead of the blue cotton pants and top issued by the county jail, she wore the starched dress she’d had on at the funeral.

  “What’s that all about?” Cubiak said, trying to keep the criticism from his voice.

  Rowe gestured helplessly. “I told her she had to change but she wouldn’t. Said she won’t wear pants. I ordered up a smock thing, you know, kinda like a dress, but it’ll take a couple days. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Okay, but send someone to bring something else down from her closet. The dress is evidence.”

  Through the intercom Cubiak gave Agnes five minutes’ notice and then asked Rowe to bring them coffee.

  “She drinks tea.”

  “Tea, then. And one coffee,” he added, straightening his collar.

  Cubiak took Agnes to the interview room and left her alone. While he waited for the deputy to return, he watched her through the remote ceiling camera. She exhibited none of the signs of nervousness and anxiety he would expect but sat motionless behind the speckled, vinyl table, almost catatonic in the small, windowless room. Nor did she react to the abrupt click that signaled his entrance.

  As he sat down opposite her, Cubiak recited the time and date, and his name and that of the suspect for the recorder.

  “I brought you something to drink,” he said, sliding the cup of tea toward her.

  Agnes looked up. Her eyes were a dull, flat green.

  “I was out to the house. Your husband is dead.”

  “I told you that before,” she said, tracing a circle near the cup with her finger. “I shot him.”

  “With the rifle I found lying on the floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it your husband’s rifle or is it yours?”

  “His. I don’t own a gun.”

  “Why’d you shoot him?”

  Agnes pried the lid from the cup and tented her fingers over the vapors. “I had my reasons.”

  “Would you care to share them?”

  “No.” She sipped the tea.

  “If you tell me, maybe I can help.”

  Her nostrils flared. “I don’t need your help.”

  “You’ll have to tell your lawyer.”

  “I don’t have a lawyer.”

  “The court will appoint an attorney. You need someone to represent you.”

  Agnes laid her palms flat and leaned toward Cubiak. Her skin was pallid and parchment thin. In the harsh lighting, spider webs of red veins spread across her cheeks. “I won’t talk to any la
wyer. There is no one on earth who can represent me to the true judge.” She glanced at the ceiling. “You know who I mean?”

  Cubiak had a good idea. “Then you may be facing two judges.”

  Agnes snorted.

  “Were you just trying to scare Joe?”

  She blinked. “No. I wanted to kill him.”

  “I see.” Cubiak took a swallow of coffee and then set it back down. “Was your husband kind?”

  Agnes almost smiled, as if he’d told a joke. “No. But that don’t matter.”

  “You’re a delicate woman …”

  She looked flustered. “Ain’t anyone ever called me that before …”

  Cubiak went on as if he hadn’t heard. “Joe looks like he was a pretty strong fellow. Did he abuse you? ‘Knock you around’ as people like to say?”

  “No.” She stiffened again, all hint of softness banished.

  “How’d you get that?” The sheriff indicated the bruise over her eye.

  “Feeding the dog. I was in a hurry to get away from the beast and forgot about the low branch by the porch.”

  Agnes spoke forcefully, daring him to dismiss her account, but Cubiak said nothing. Given what he’d seen of the dog, her story sounded credible. He’d check with Esther Smitz and the other neighbors about indications of other incidents, broken bones, loud arguments.

  “You ever have to call the authorities?”

  “The authorities?” She seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “Dutch Schumacher or Leo Halverson, the former sheriffs.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “If things ever got out of hand at home.”

  “I take care of things myself.”

  Cubiak nodded. “Not much in the way of conveniences in your home. That Joe’s idea or yours?”

  “We considered ourselves sensible people.”

  “No phone.”

  “No one to call.”

  “Didn’t even have a proper refrigerator.”

  She bit her lip. He’d hit a nerve.

  “You must have known how easy some of your neighbors had it. You don’t look like the kind of woman who gets jealous over nothing, but that was a pretty harsh existence you and Joe had.”

  “We lived according to our means.”

  “You worked?”

  “Some. What I could get cleaning at the school and around.”

  “And Joe?”

  “He did odd jobs here and there.”

  “He ever work for Huntsman’s Plumbing?”

  “One time or other, he would’ve. Worked for anyone who had a job and money to pay him.”

  “Including Eric Swenson and Jasper Wilkins?”

  “Probably, I don’t remember for sure.”

  “Are you from Gills Rock?”

  “Yes, born and raised.”

  “And Joe?”

  “He was born on Washington Island. His mother moved to Gills Rock with him and his brother after their father drowned. Went down on the Steinbrenner in Lake Superior.”

  “Must have been hard for her with two sons.”

  “Not for her it wasn’t. Married again in a couple months.”

  “For the boys then.”

  Agnes shrugged. “Could be. Joe didn’t like to talk about it.”

  “He wasn’t the talking kind?”

  “Not at home.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He never said much at home. What he said anywhere else I wouldn’t know because I wasn’t there.”

  Cubiak settled back and let Agnes enjoy her small victory.

  “Gets lonely up there, I imagine,” he said after a moment.

  “For some maybe.”

  “Not for you?”

  “I ain’t complaining.”

  “Are you friends with any of the other women in the area? Ida Huntsman, for example. She lives right up the road.”

  Agnes pursed her mouth. “I cleaned Ida’s toilets. I wasn’t her friend.”

  “What about Olive Swenson and Stella Wilkins?”

  “I cleaned for Olive, too, not regular, just sometimes. Not for Stella though. Stella does her own work.” Her tone let him know that she thought better of Stella for that, money notwithstanding.

  Why hadn’t one of the three widows mentioned this to him? Did they consider it irrelevant or didn’t they think of it?

  “You didn’t socialize with the ladies?”

  “No. I said as much already.” She tugged at the loose hairs on her neck, more dismayed about her relationship with the other women than with the killing of her husband.

  “You’re not a member of the book club, then?”

  Agnes harrumphed. “I ain’t never been asked. And wouldn’t join if I was,” she added.

  “Why not? It’s something to do.”

  She lifted her chin, defiantly. “I got plenty to do. I don’t need that trash.”

  “Books are trash?”

  Agnes ran her hands along the edge of the table as if searching for crumbs to brush off. “The kind those women read are. Romance novels.” Disapproval in her voice. Agnes shifted her weight, and for a moment Cubiak thought she might stand and start pacing. Instead, she reached for the tea and drained the cup. “Bunch of nonsense, makes people want what they can’t have.”

  Cubiak pictured the covers of the one or two romance novels he’d ever seen. He couldn’t argue with her assessment. “How long were you and Joe married?”

  “Thirty-nine years.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “No.”

  “May I ask you a personal question?”

  Agnes made a harsh sound like a laugh. “Seems they’re all personal.”

  “Did you love your husband?”

  For the first time, the prisoner faltered. “I tried,” she said finally, collapsing a little into herself.

  “Why did you marry him?”

  “Why? He asked me.”

  “Do you think he loved you?”

  She mashed her lips into a thin line. “No. I know he didn’t.”

  “Was he unfaithful?”

  She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply.

  “Why are you so certain your husband didn’t love you?”

  Agnes crossed herself and drew her folded hands to her flat bosom. “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …”

  “What did you mean when you said Joe and the three men who were buried this morning were ‘four of a kind’?”

  The prisoner lowered her head, leaving Cubiak to stare at the cap of white hair and the even whiter ribbon of scalp that ran through the middle. “Thy will be done on earth as …”

  “Is that what you were doing, Agnes, the will of God? Is that what you believe?”

  “Give us this day …”

  Cubiak got to his feet. “This interview is over,” he said.

  Rowe was waiting in the sheriff ’s office. “Doctor Pardy called, sir. Asked you to call her back.”

  “Sir?” Cubiak raised an eyebrow.

  Rowe shrugged. “Something about funerals makes me mind my manners. Sir.”

  Cubiak waved the deputy out the door and phoned the medical examiner. The way Agnes had linked her husband to the other three men made him wonder if Millard hadn’t been a frequent visitor to the Rec Room. Perhaps he’d even been at the cabin the night the others died.

  “Dave, nothing you didn’t already know. Joe Millard was killed at close range. Died instantly. I’ll do the autopsy tomorrow but I don’t expect to find anything of interest.”

  “You might.”

  “Really! Such as?”

  “An unusually high level of carbon monoxide in the blood.”

  “You don’t think …”

  “I don’t know what to think yet. Earlier at the church, his wife called Joe and the other three deceased men ‘four of a kind.’ I’m wondering what she meant.”

  WEDNESDAY

  A two-masted schooner with a bottle-green hull sliced through the bay outside Cubiak’
s kitchen. Serene. Silent. Driven by the wind.

  “Sir?”

  Cubiak sighed. The sight of the large vessel so close to shore had distracted him from his conversation with his deputy. “Don’t sir me,” he said, pulling the phone cord along the wall.

  “Yes, sir … Sheriff.”

  The day was magnificent, and the sloop’s fore and aft sails billowed like artful clouds piled against the slate blue of the sky. Blue was the color of hope, Cubiak thought, and he hoped that his intuition was wrong.

  “What are we supposed to be looking for?” Rowe said.

  “Whatever there is to find. I went over the space heater with Walter but I’m no expert and as far as I can tell, neither is he. Maybe we missed something.”

  Cubiak reached for his coffee.

  “That’s why I want it checked out by people who know what they’re doing. Get two men from the oldest heating companies in town and take them up to Huntsman’s cabin. Not some junior flunkies. The head guys, the ones who’ve been around for a few years. Have them try and figure out how the cabin filled up with enough carbon monoxide to kill three men. Maybe it was squirrels, but if it was something else we need to know and soon.” Cubiak gestured as he talked, dribbling coffee on his boots. “Dammit.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” The sheriff put the cup down and checked his shirt for stains. “And not a word to anyone. They report back to me.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything you say, boss.”

  Cubiak hung up and glanced out the window again. The boat was gone, leaving only sky and water. Either he’d imagined the sloop or it had moved on to the next dip in the scalloped shoreline. How easy it would be to maneuver up and down the coastline unseen. If he hadn’t been home or the captain had kept to deeper water, the boat could have sailed past unnoticed.

  Refilling his mug, he thought about the roll call of victims in Gills Rock. Huntsman. Wilkins. Swenson. And now Millard.

  Four deaths. Three presumably accidental. The most recent deliberate, with the killer confessed. It could be unhappy coincidence that Joe Millard was shot dead three days after the others breathed the poisoned air, but Cubiak considered coincidence facile and likely to provide a simplistic solution to what was usually a complex situation. Even if the autopsy revealed traces of carbon monoxide in Millard’s blood, what would that prove? That Joe had been in the cabin Friday night and had asphyxiated the others, or that he’d been lucky and left before he, too, succumbed to the toxic gas? Only to be shot by his wife the day of the funeral for reasons she wouldn’t reveal. By itself, a measurable level of carbon monoxide in Millard’s body wasn’t enough to place him in the cabin the fateful night. It might just be an indication of a leaky exhaust system on his truck.