Death at Gills Rock

by Patricia Skalka

  “I know.”

  Marty snagged his beer and guzzled. “Like I said, all this happened a long time ago. I was seven, maybe eight, when I sent off a stack of cereal box tops for membership in a national adventure club. There was a form that had to be sent in; it looked real official so when I filled it out I used my real name, Jasper Martin Wilkins. In a couple weeks, a big manila envelope came in the mail, addressed to Jasper Wilkins. I thought it was for me and ripped it open.

  “There was an old photo inside. The picture was pretty grainy but I knew it was my father and the other two, Huntsman and Swenson. They were in uniform so it had to be during the war and they were standing in this boat, looking up at whoever was holding the camera. There were half a dozen soldiers behind them, too, huddled on benches. There was a note with the photo: ‘Where is he?’ it said.

  “I was in the kitchen looking at the picture when my dad walked in. ‘What’s that?’ he said, and I suddenly realized that it was his mail, not mine. When I gave it to him he went all white, like he’d seen a ghost. Scared me to see him like that. Then, like remembering I was there, he tried to act real casual. ‘Just a joke from an old service buddy. Don’t mean nothing.’ He shoved the picture and the note back into the envelope and threw it in the trash. Told me go out and do my chores. When I finished, I came back inside and looked—I was curious. But the envelope was gone.

  “My prize came a couple days later, a cheap piece of junk, not at all what I expected. I threw it away and forgot all about it and the photo until the other day. Seeing Nils’s name again triggered something in my head. Brain’s funny that way, letting things get away on you, stuff you don’t understand or want to think about.”

  The wind rose and something banged on the foredeck.

  “You see a lot moving around the world the way I do. After a while, things I didn’t understand as a kid started to make sense. The Rec Room, for one, the fact that there was often a fourth man hanging out with my father and the other two. Sometimes it was Vinter.

  “So when did this start? I wondered. What if there’d been a fourth man before the coach? And what if that man had been Christian Nils, and something went wrong between them? You know the unofficial coast guard slogan?” Marty sat up and intoned solemnly: “‘You’ve got to go out but you don’t have to come back.’ You know what that means: you answer the call no matter what, with no regard for your own safety.”

  “Like when they tried to save Nils.”

  Marty tried to cross one leg over the other but gave up and planted both feet back on the floorboards. “That was the story after the war when they came home. They were the local heroes who risked their lives trying to save their friend. And I liked that. I liked that my dad was a war hero. And Big Guy? He married Nils’s widow, making himself even more of a hero. Everyone here bought into their version of what happened. Claimed they couldn’t bring him back because there wasn’t room in the boat. But that’s just it—the boat wasn’t full. Not in that photo. What if the he in the note was Nils? What if they decided he didn’t have to come back?”

  Cold as he was, Cubiak felt a deeper chill. “You don’t know that the note was about Nils.”

  “I don’t know that it wasn’t.”

  “You don’t even know when the picture was taken.”

  Marty cracked his knuckles. “Sure I do. The army had a reporter named Charles Tweet from Stars and Stripes documenting the campaign. It was in the Herald toward the end of that story about the three of them. He was probably the one who took the picture. Who else would be out there with a camera?”

  Cubiak swore to himself. How could he have missed that?

  “That’s why I didn’t go into the church for the funeral. I couldn’t stand the phoniness of it all.”

  “If you’re right.”

  “Even if I’m wrong about Nils, they’re still phonies. My father included, God rest his soul.” Marty stood and stretched as much as a big man could in the cramped quarters. “And if I’m right, they’re a lot worse than that.”

  The wind at their back, the two men reached the marina quickly. As Marty tied up the boat, Cubiak tossed the cushions into the hold. “Anyone else know about the photo?” he said.

  “No one.”

  “You didn’t tell Walter?”

  “I never told anyone. Who knows? I was just a kid, maybe I imagined the whole thing.”

  Or maybe not, Cubiak thought. If the photo did exist and it proved that the three friends had left Nils to die, then the Stars and Stripes reporter who took it had a powerful hold over them. Bank records showed that for years Huntsman had been paying fifty-five hundred dollars a month to Great Lakes Office Support and Pepper Ridge Associates. Earlier Cubiak thought these could be fronts for laundering money but maybe they were covers for blackmail payments to the army journalist.

  On the dock, Marty handed the key to Cubiak. “I ain’t gonna be around for a long time. No use it just sitting here. You can share it with Walter.”

  “I can’t…”

  “Sure you can,” Marty said and began walking away. When he reached the end of the pier, he gave a backward wave. “Whatever you find out, you’ll let me know?”

  In the waning light, Cubiak nodded, but Marty was gone.

  TUESDAY

  Death was rarely simple. The fatal carbon monoxide poisoning of three old friends who died playing poker on a chilly Friday night should have been an open and shut case. It should not have been a case at all. When the unfortunate and presumably accidental deaths were quickly followed by the brutal murder of one of their associates, Cubiak was sucked into a miasma of secrets that hinted at illegal gambling, possible blackmail, and sexual behavior long considered not just scandalous but sinful. Then Marty Wilkins, the son of one of the first three victims, alluded to an old photo that complicated the situation further. How to factor in Christian Nils, a soldier dead more than half a century? What to make of Charles Tweet, a contemporary of the Three of a Kind, perhaps the man who shot the potentially damning photo, and, according to the Herald, a successful player in the booming marketplace of World War II memorabilia?

  Driving to headquarters, Cubiak mulled over the circumstances. He was still distracted when he walked in. Lisa coughed twice before she had his attention.

  “Someone to see you,” she said, handing him a message and nodding toward a lanky man curled in a chair along the far wall. The visitor looked familiar but his head was lowered to his chest and his face hidden by the brim of a faded black cowboy hat.

  Cubiak mouthed the word who.

  “Walter Nils.”

  Now what? Cubiak thought. “Give me a few minutes to take care of this”—he held up the note she’d given him—“then send him in.”

  The message was from Natalie. He called her, hoping she wouldn’t mention the wedding and was relieved when she asked about the puppies and reminded him to start them on gruel the next day. “I left the instructions on the counter, remember?”

  “I remember.” There was a knock on the door. “Sorry, have to go,” he said and hung up, then, louder, “Come on in.”

  Walter Nils pushed the door in a few inches and slipped through the narrow opening like he was trying to fold into himself. His jean jacket was stained. Thick stubble covered his jaw. “Sheriff,” he said, blinking hard and clutching the worn Stetson in both hands.

  Less than twenty-four hours earlier the sheriff had spent several hours in close quarters with Walter’s childhood friend Marty Wilkins. Despite their common backgrounds, they seemed marked more by differences than by similarities. Marty had blown into his office with a swagger that conveyed self-confidence and bravado, even if it was contrived. Walter was unsteady and tentative.

  As a show of courtesy, Cubiak stood. “Here, have a seat. I understand you wanted to see me about something?”

  Walter elbowed the door shut, crossed to the desk, and sat down heavily in the chair that Marty had eschewed.

  “Coffee?”

  “No. No,
thanks.” Walter rubbed a rough hand over his mouth.

  “Something wrong?”

  Walter made a sharp sound, like a bark. After more fidgeting, he squared his shoulders and looked at Cubiak. “I did it,” he said.

  “Did what?”

  “Killed Big Guy and the other two.” Walter dropped the hat between his feet and held out his hands.

  Cubiak didn’t move.

  “Well, ain’t you gonna arrest me?”

  The sheriff leaned back. He didn’t believe Walter. “You put the leaves in the vent?” he said, stalling.

  “Yeah. You saw it yourself. I know I said it was squirrels but it was me.”

  “Why?”

  “I got my reasons.”

  The same answer Agnes had given when Cubiak asked her why she’d blasted a hole in her husband’s chest.

  “You’re going to have to tell me, you know that? Sooner or later.”

  “No, I don’t. All’s I gotta do is confess.”

  “You need a motive.”

  “I got one.”

  Cubiak tapped the intercom button on the phone console. “Lisa, when you get a minute, would you mind bringing us a couple of coffees?” When you get a minute—their agreed upon code for ASAP. The sheriff remembered Walter at Ida’s kitchen table. “Sugar. Extra cream. And cookies, if there are any.” To Walter, he added, “The ladies bake but they’re always dieting, too. Mostly they bring the stuff to work and I eat more than I should.” Walter said nothing and while they waited, the sheriff scanned a stack of traffic reports. The silence held until Lisa set down the tray.

  “Go on, the coffee’ll do you good,” Cubiak said, reaching for an oatmeal cookie as well. He knew he should march Walter to an interrogation room, read him his rights, and record their conversation but he figured that was step two if things went that far. This was step one. An informal chat.

  “I’ve learned a few things the last week or so,” Cubiak said as Walter ripped open a sugar packet and dumped the crystals into his cup.

  “To begin, Huntsman wasn’t the model father you said he was. Your old buddy Marty put me straight on that.”

  Walter stopped stirring his coffee. “You talked to Marty?”

  “I did.”

  Walter frowned and worked his mouth as if he were trying to figure out just what Marty had told the sheriff. Letting him stew over the possibilities, Cubiak picked up a pen and drew a small circle on a sheet of paper, then another interlocking with the first. When the row of circles stretched across the page, he looked at Walter. “So, the question remains: if you murdered Big Guy and the other two, why did you do it?”

  “I told you.” Walter had grown increasingly pale. Against his alabaster complexion, his ebony eyes looked like bottomless pits.

  “I know, ‘You got your reason.’” Cubiak started the circles down the right margin. As he doodled the sheriff rehashed the mangled chain of recent events, searching for a pattern amid the confusion. There was something missing, something that linked the past with the present and connected one person with another. Something that propelled an innocent man to confess to murder.

  Suddenly, he put the pen down. Looking at his visitor, he realized that the sorry, sad answer had started taking shape the day before when he’d been listening to Marty. “It has to do with Roger, doesn’t it? This is all about him,” he said quietly.

  Walter blanched. Tears rimmed his eyes. “Yeah. It’s about Roger,” he said after a minute. “Marty claimed he left Door County because of Coach Vinter, ’cause of what he said the coach did. Once when he was back, he told me what happened, but I didn’t believe him. I’d never heard anything like that, not even a hint of it and I’d been on the team for years, knew all the other guys. The coach seemed like a stand-up guy. Hell, he was married and had a couple of kids. I’d worshipped Vinter when I was young. We all did!

  “And Marty? He was a bum that time when he came to see me. Bloodshot eyes, drunk all hours. He was always a big guy, wrestled at one-seventy junior year, and here he was skinny as a post and jittery, like he was shooting up dope or something. Hell, half the stuff he said made no sense. I figured he was making it up, about the coach and all that shit about his father and the others. I punched him out, told him he was off his rocker.”

  Walter rearranged his feet on the floor. “I knew about the parties with the women and had these men pegged for studs. You know that’s how they finagled their great success as businessmen, right?”

  “I do.”

  “You do?” Walter’s face brightened. Then he snorted. “Well, I believe you do. Funny nobody else figured it out.”

  “No one had reason to question it.”

  “That’s just what they wanted, wasn’t it? To fool everyone.” Walter scrubbed his face with his hands. “They were smart. Had everything figured out. And here I am, the biggest fool. I didn’t see Marty for years after that. After a while, he started coming back regular-like every few years. Even bought a boat to have handy when he wanted to go out on the water. Eventually we got to talking again, but not about that. That was never mentioned again. All the more reason I thought it was just some crazy story he’d concocted when he was drunk or drugged up or something. After my wife left—the second one, Roger’s mother—I had my hands full raising the boy and running my business. Didn’t do a very good job with either. But I tried. Sent him to scouts and to church. Made sure he did his schoolwork. Every sport he wanted to try, I was okay with it. And when he made the wrestling team freshman year, I was proud. I didn’t think twice about Vinter.” Walter rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Look at me, Sheriff. Compared to Huntsman, I’m a bust-out. A lousy husband. A half-bad mechanic. Bit of a boozer. A man with no ambition, nothing much up here.” He tapped his head. “Big Guy always used to tell me I was an embarrassment. But I felt proud of what I’d done for Roger. And when he got that scholarship and won that medal, I felt like I could stand up next to anyone. Then it all started falling apart. Roger changed. I saw what happened to him over the summer and at first wrote it off to nerves. Figured once he got to that school, things would settle into place. But everything got worse. After he dropped out, I remembered Marty’s story, and started wondering if maybe Marty had been telling the truth. It made me sick to think that my son had been through the same. I finally made Roger tell me what happened. It was the same fucking story as with Marty. The same goddamn thing,” Walter said, flushed with rage.

  “Why not take your revenge on Coach Vinter?”

  “He wasn’t here anymore. Moved away to Florida or Arizona. And anyway, it didn’t start with him; it started with them, Big Guy and his pals. They were behind the wrestling program. They brought Bill Vinter here and then gave him a supply of young men to prey on.”

  “From what I know, Vinter never touched any of them when they were still boys.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe that’s something to the law but what he did to Marty and Roger was bad enough.” Walter looked at Cubiak. “I couldn’t protect one of my own. What kind of man is that?”

  Cubiak flinched. The same kind of man who couldn’t save his own wife and daughter from a drunk driver, a man like him who must learn to live with things he cannot change. “You didn’t know,” he said.

  “I didn’t want to know. Marty tried to tell me but I wouldn’t listen. Went around with my head in the sand and my gut full of booze. What could I have done anyways? Marty was gone. There was no proof of anything. Big Guy would have run me off the peninsula if I started shooting my mouth off.

  “I was up there Friday afternoon when that St. James fellow brought copies of the Herald to the house. Said he was thinking of writing a book about the coast guard in the war and they’d be in it. Said he’d heard the governor was coming to the ceremony honoring them. Even the senator would be there. You should have seen Big Guy all puffed up. Him and the other two bragging and joshing around. I couldn’t stand it. And then after Roger told me what happened, I swear to god, if I’d had a gun, I wo
uld have gone back up there and shot them all. But I was never any good with a gun, so I had to come up with a different way of dealing with them.”

  “The leaves in the vent.”

  Walter nodded. “Once that article came out, they’d be praised all up and down the peninsula. Then the ceremony! Christ! I grew up on stories about what a fantastic guy Huntsman was. All of them. But they were hypocrites. Phony husbands and phony fathers. Phony war heroes, too!” He kicked the desk. “They didn’t fight any Japs up there in the Aleutians. They ferried the boys like my father who did. Christian Nils faced the enemy. He died protecting this country. He was one of the genuine heroes. He should be the one honored at the ceremony.”

  “I’m sure he will be mentioned,” Cubiak said.

  “Maybe. But he won’t be there to hear his name called, will he?”

  “Neither will they.”

  “That’s right. I made sure of that, didn’t I?” Walter said with smug satisfaction. “Unless they’re listening from down there.” He made a face and pointed toward the floor.

  WEDNESDAY

  As he prepared a batch of gruel for the puppies, Cubiak went over the previous day’s conversation with Walter. If what he’d said about his son was true, then everything Roger had done made sense. Poor kid, Cubiak thought. Violated by someone he admired and trusted: the worse type of abuse. And it may have been felony criminal behavior. He’d have to confront Roger and get him to tell his side of the story.

  Cubiak stirred the baby food beef, oatmeal, and milk that he’d spooned into a small bowl. Nasty stuff. He felt a pressure on his right foot and looked down. Kipper had climbed onto his instep and was trying to scale his ankle. “Now what?” he said as she slid off his boot and made a soft landing with her bottom. Scout was right behind, eager for his turn. The other two pups chewed the laces on his other boot. Across the room, Butch lay with her head on her paws and watched the circus. Normally, she’d be on her haunches begging for her share of the food, but even she seemed put off by the puppy pudding. Cubiak glanced at Natalie’s handwritten recipe to make sure he’d followed her instructions.