Death at Gills Rock

by Patricia Skalka

  When Cubiak opened the back door to his house he knew he had left the dogs for too long. The kitchen stank; the floor was filthy; the puppies were soiled. It took him nearly two hours to clean up. At ten thirty, he sat down on the couch with a bottle of beer, still thinking.

  FRIDAY MORNING

  Fussing with the pups, Cubiak forgot the time. He was late getting to work, and when he arrived he was puzzled to find Lisa’s chair empty and the lobby strangely quiet. The sheriff fumbled for his keys. At home he had been preoccupied thinking about Tweet’s photo and the effect it might have had on Ida and hadn’t bothered with coffee. If his assistant didn’t bring any in, as she often did on Fridays, he’d either have to go back out or settle for the sludge that dripped out of the canteen vending machine. Maybe Lisa had coffee and was caught in traffic. That could happen, if the new bridge was up.

  Still, where was everyone? he thought as he opened the door to his office.

  The light flicked.

  “Surprise! Happy Birthday!” Amid the cheers, Lisa stepped forward with a platter of frosted cupcakes. Rowe handed him a cup of coffee. Before he could respond the small crowd began to sing.

  Cubiak faltered. He’d forgotten the day. In his former life, Lauren never forgot. His last birthday with his family, she’d baked a dozen chocolate cupcakes, and then she and Alexis had serenaded him in the kitchen behind twelve blazing candles.

  A thousand years ago.

  The serenade left Cubiak nodding his thanks and shaking hands with the staff. Lisa gave him a hug and a cupcake with a candle. He hoped it wasn’t chocolate.

  “I made carrot cake. Is that okay?” she said.

  “It’s perfect.” He blew out the flame.

  The party lasted the time it took for everyone to eat one cupcake. Rowe helped himself to a second and lingered.

  Left with the sheriff, he pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. “Not much of a birthday gift, I’m afraid,” he said, flattening the page on Cubiak’s desk. “These are the results from yesterday. I made a couple of graphs, one for each round of testing. Time passed, here”—he pointed to the baseline of the top chart and then tapped the vertical component—“and measurement of CO here.”

  The charts clearly showed that the carbon monoxide readings in the cabin were higher when the vent was filled with leaves than with insulation, but overall, the levels were surprisingly low. Even after four hours, neither produced enough dangerous gas to be deadly.

  “The pieces of Styrofoam kept falling out. A couple of times, I had to pick up the stuff from the ground and shove it back in.”

  Rowe had moved to the window, and in the natural light Cubiak noticed a faint red line running across the young officer’s brow.

  “What happened to your forehead?”

  The deputy rubbed the crease. “Still there, huh? I thought it would be gone by now. It’s from the gas mask. I put it on plenty tight. Didn’t want to take any chances.”

  Rowe retrieved his coffee from the desk. “What’s this all about anyway? I thought those two confessed? One of them must have done it.”

  “Maybe, but your results cast serious doubt on that notion.”

  Rowe bent over the charts again. “Well, if Walter or Roger didn’t kill those guys, what happened? You think maybe we need to take another look at the space heater? Hey, what if our experts weren’t really that expert—or they’re the ones who did it!”

  “Motive?”

  “Who knows? It could be anything. Gambling, like you said at the start.”

  Back to square one, Cubiak thought.

  The sheriff knew he wasn’t back to square one, not exactly, but he was still far from a definitive answer. He was sure he’d missed a vital clue, something he’d heard or seen, a small detail that by itself lacked significance but was crucial to understanding what had happened at the Rec Room. After finishing with Rowe, he headed to the nearby county park to walk and think.

  The park ran alongside the shipping canal that connected the waters of Green Bay and Sturgeon Bay to Lake Michigan. Before the late 1800s when the passage was dug, ships had to sail around the peninsula to reach the lake. The canal cut more than a hundred miles off the trip. It also severed the land connection between the peninsula and the rest of the state, technically making a large part of Door County an island, a distinction generally ignored. Cubiak liked the park. Even during the height of the tourist rush, it was largely underused and offered a quiet, easy escape from the office.

  That birthday morning, the bright sun infused the day with spring-like warmth. As he strode east toward the lake, he started to replay the conversation with Rowe but found himself overrun by the sentiment that had welled up earlier. For a few precious moments, Cubiak opened the part of his heart where memories were stored and stepped back into the life he’d known with his wife and daughter in Chicago. Love. Pain. Loss. The emotions overwhelmed him, and then slowly they settled into a peaceful calm that he tucked away once again.

  A loud whistle blew. A man hailed from the deck of an approaching barge. Cubiak returned the greeting and watched the vessel recede down the waterway. Alone again, he gazed into the cloudless sky and then to the narrow blue waterway and gravel path that ran side by side, cutting parallel lines through the nascent green landscape.

  Something about the colors and shapes held Cubiak’s attention. Without meaning to, he began to recall various objects and people he’d encountered during the previous two weeks. As the impressions came to him they formed a mental pastiche, and he gradually realized that everything he was remembering was connected to the deaths at Gills Rock. He closed his eyes and let the collage expand, drawing in details from the deep recesses of memory. What had he missed earlier? What had he seen but failed to comprehend? If he conjured up something significant now, would he grasp the importance of it?

  Cubiak ran through events, from beginning to end. Still nothing. He opened his eyes. Once before, standing at the base of the wide bay outside Huntsman’s home, he had looked to the water for answers and come up empty. This time, standing alongside the ribbon of water in the canal, he felt himself being pulled toward a resolution. What he was looking at reminded him of something he’d noted earlier that day at the office, something he’d seen before.

  He went back to the first morning: the phone call from Rowe, the ride up the peninsula, the people he’d met and talked with. And there he came to the missing link, the clue for which he’d been searching. The key to the deaths of the Three of a Kind, the seemingly negligible detail, had been evident the day the men had been found dead inside the old cabin. He’d noticed it shortly after he reached the Huntsmans’ homestead, but until this morning, he hadn’t realized its relevance.

  There was no doubt that Huntsman, Swenson, and Wilkins had been murdered; that Agnes was not the culprit, though she was guilty of her husband’s vengeful shooting; and that gambling had not played a role in the tragedy.

  Finally, he understood the MO, the motive behind the crime, and the identity of the killer.

  With a heart full of regret, Cubiak turned his back on the splendor of Door County and retraced his way to the jeep.

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON

  Cubiak waited for the warmest part of the day before heading north to Gills Rock. He was in no rush, and when he got to Ephraim, he stopped at Smithson’s Bakery for pecan rolls. The village was saturated with sunlight and nestled into the hillside like a cat on a warm radiator. Signs of spring suffused the quaint little town and followed him up the peninsula, but they did nothing to lighten his mood.

  At the Huntsmans’ place, Ida was digging in a patch of black dirt near the house. Ramrod straight and dressed in a red plaid shirt and baggy brown work pants, she leaned into a pitchfork and broke the dense earth into loose clumps.

  She must have heard the jeep because as he approached she looked up, her face flushed with exertion beneath the brim of a floppy straw hat.

  “Sheriff, what a pleasant surprise.” Her words belied the
strain in her voice. “Getting ready to put in the radishes. Too early yet for the tomatoes. So much to be done now that the weather’s finally turned,” she went on, ignoring the bakery box in his hands.

  “I brought something for coffee, if you’d like to take a break.”

  Ida tossed aside her canvas gloves. “Of course.”

  “We could sit in the gazebo, if it’s not too cold for you.”

  “Not at all. I washed the table and chairs yesterday, so they’re clean. And the coffee’s on. It’ll just take a minute for me to freshen up.”

  They were being polite, circumspect.

  While he waited for her to return, Cubiak angled two chairs toward the sun and pulled the table close. A soft breeze rustled the surface water, and overhead gulls floated like plump, luminescent pillows. In the tranquil setting, Cubiak readied himself for what he was about to do.

  Ida reappeared without the hat, her hair neatly combed, and a dash of pale pink on her cheeks and mouth. She set down the tray and handed him a platter for the rolls. For several minutes they busied themselves with the small chores brought on with the presence of food. Cubiak took his time arranging the pastry on the dish; he was stalling and felt that Ida was doing the same as she fussed, pouring the coffee into yellow mugs.

  Finally he set down his cup and turned toward her. “I have come to you with news that will be hard for you to hear,” he began.

  Following his example, Ida lowered her coffee to the table.

  “Both your son and your grandson have claimed responsibility for the lethal level of carbon monoxide in the cabin that killed your husband and his two friends,” he said with all the gentleness he could muster.

  She made a sound like a seal’s bark. “That’s absurd! They both loved Big Guy. Everyone did.”

  “We both know that’s not true, Ida. Far from it, I’m afraid,” he said after a moment. “Perhaps it’s time for the charade to end.”

  Ida started to protest.

  “Allow me to tell you a story,” Cubiak said, interrupting her. He rested his arms on the table and looked out toward the sun-glazed water. “It begins many years ago when you were still living at the other end of the county and struggling with your own harsh circumstances. It’s a story—a true story, I’m afraid—about three boys who grew up together in an isolated fishing village.” He couldn’t help but glance back in the direction of Gills Rock. Ida did the same. “As youngsters,” he went on, his eyes still on the tiny village, “the three were close in ways that boys are, but as they grew older the friendship developed in ways they didn’t understand and that made them feel increasingly out of step with their peers. They knew what their families expected of them and realized that what they wanted conflicted with the strict morals and narrow viewpoints imposed by their community and, in fact, by the larger society as well.”

  Cubiak turned his attention toward Ida. She was pale and rigid and unable to meet his glance.

  “They were still kids when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Within months they enlisted in the coast guard, all three on the same day, all three lying about their ages. There’s a lot of fervor when war starts. Nobody knows what to expect. It seems glamorous and exciting—a chance to get out of your small town and see the world and do something for your country. I’m sure, like everyone, they thought the fighting would be over in a couple of months. And if they thought of danger, it was probably as something distant and romantic, like dying together when their ship was sunk by enemy torpedoes. They were good men but young and naïve. Living on the base they could get away with certain things, but after they shipped out circumstances changed. Suddenly they were confined in close quarters day and night, and the situation became perilous. They probably took risks. Let’s assume they did, because we know that they were found out. The first man who stumbled on their secret became complicit and posed no threat. There was at least one other, maybe more, but this other man, the one who posed the greatest threat, didn’t survive the conflict. The three friends made it through the war and came back as heroes with their secret intact. Once home, they slipped into the roles needed to blend in. It wasn’t hard, at least from the outside. They knew what was expected and as long as they played along they could live in the two different worlds they’d created. They married but lied to their wives about war injuries that prevented sexual intimacy.”

  “Please, Sheriff, get to the point.”

  “Once they established their ruse, they had to maintain it. They assumed leadership roles in the community and their church, even as they pursued occupations that allowed them to work alone and in isolated circumstances. This made them answerable to no one much of the time and allowed them to do as they pleased and involve others as they wished.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because there’s a part of the story I don’t think you know. One of the men who eventually came into the circle was an athletic coach. By then the three childhood friends were successful businessmen. As part of their largesse, they established a program for young boys, a wrestling program.”

  Ida gripped the arms of the chair. “Oh my god, they didn’t…”

  “No, they did not. Pedophilia is something quite different. The program itself was a good thing for the community but there were ripple effects that they couldn’t control.”

  “Go on,” Ida said, barely above a whisper.

  “Marty Wilkins came to see me last week.”

  “Marty.” Ida tensed. “Someone did something to Marty?”

  “The coach.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, that poor boy. That’s why he went away?” she said after a moment.

  “Yes. Vinter threatened to blame him if he told anyone and to expose his father and the other two. Marty figured no one would believe him. He’d only end up being run out of town and ruining his father’s reputation. Rather than take that chance, he left home.”

  The breeze had stiffened, and Cubiak saw that Ida was shivering. “Perhaps we should go inside,” he said.

  She didn’t protest and walked meekly at his side, his hand at her elbow. In the yellow kitchen he helped her to a chair and brought her a glass of water. At the stove, he put on the kettle for tea. Ida seemed suddenly worn down and fragile; if she was aware of him scouting through the cabinets, she did not protest. He found the pink cup and saucer on a low shelf, and when he set the tea on the table, she reached for it eagerly.

  “You added sugar,” she said with a quick uptick to her mouth. “I like sugar in my tea.” She held the cup with two hands and drank until it was half empty. “There’s more to this story, isn’t there? More I need to know.”

  Cubiak had settled in across the table. At her signal, he continued. “Sadly, yes.”

  “Coach Vinter?” Ida tightened her brow in concentration and then slumped into the chair. “Roger!” she said and looked to Cubiak for confirmation.

  He nodded and she began to cry.

  Cubiak slid the napkin holder closer. To give her a private moment, he busied himself fixing more tea. When he sat down again, her eyes were dabbed dry and her ramrod posture had returned. “I knew something was wrong. He was such a good boy.” Ida moistened her lips. “So it was just like with Marty. The same thing all over.”

  “Essentially, yes. Vinter told him he thought it ran in the family and drew the line all the way back to Big Guy. Roger knew Terrence and his friends had recruited the coach and he figured they knew what he was doing, so he blamed them.”

  “Did they?” She choked on the question.

  “I don’t think so. There’s nothing to indicate that they did. But Roger wanted to punish them. Last fall when he traveled with the team, he sent anonymous notes to the Sturgeon Bay coast guard chief hoping to discredit them and force the cancellation of the ceremony. After he dropped out, he got a job painting the station and stole some of the archive material. He realized he couldn’t stop the event but figured he could make it harder for the coast guard to honor Big Guy and the
others. The Herald article put him over the edge.”

  “But you said Roger tried to kill Big Guy. How? What did he do?”

  Cubiak told her about the pellets, Roger’s change of heart, and Walter’s part in the events of the fateful evening. “To understand the whole story, we have to go back to the beginning. To the war. To Charles Tweet. And to Christian Nils. You know Tweet’s version, of course.”

  Ida turned a ghostly white.

  “I went out to Chambers Island yesterday.”

  “Of course.” She pulled a napkin from the holder and neatly folded it in half. “Nils knew about them, too.”

  “That’s what Tweet says.”

  “And he didn’t approve.” She folded the napkin again.

  “No. Very much so, no.”

  “They knew him. And they left him to die.” Ida tossed the napkin aside and stared out the window at the water. “Why? He was harmless, as innocent of the world’s ways as they.”

  “War strips away a man’s innocence.”

  Ida reeled on him. “You sympathize with them?”

  “I’m just trying to understand what they did and why. War makes men desperate to survive. They were practically still kids themselves. They panicked and probably in that moment saw Nils as the enemy.”

  “They didn’t know what he would do!”

  “They made assumptions.”

  “They killed my husband to protect their own skins.”

  “They failed to save him. It’s not the same.”

  “It is to me.”

  “Christian might have died anyway.”

  “We’ll never know though, will we?” Ida got up and paced the tidy kitchen. “They made themselves out to be heroes. I believed them! Everyone did. I married Terrence partly because I had no options but also because I felt I owed him something for trying to save Christian. All those years.” She made a barking, braying sound. “Then Tweet showed me that horrible photo. I felt as if I had been shat upon.”