Death at Gills Rock (10 page)

He needed to learn more about them.

At Sister Bay, Cubiak turned inland and hopscotched down a network of back roads to the Woodlands Sawmill.

The mill was a relic from a time when the peninsula was heavily forested. In that not-so-distant past, dozens of mills operated at full capacity, slicing tree trunks into the boards that would help build the cities and towns of the Midwest. All were silent now, except for the circular, jagged-tooth blade at the Woodlands mill. The monster saw sat under the sloped roof of an ancient lean-to in the center of a wide clearing. The structure was open on two sides to disperse the noise and dust and to accommodate the gigantic tree trunks that were once milled there. Even now the ground was covered with fresh sawdust from the trees that locals brought in to be custom cut for home remodeling jobs, a small business but enough to keep the facility going.

A half-dozen pickups stood at the rear of the clearing, alongside a wooden shack rimmed with racks of antlers. A single stream of gray smoke shimmied from the chimney and the rumble of voices could be heard from within.

“… not a fucking dime,” a gruff voice barked as Cubiak walked in.

“Shut the damn door,” another man yelled from the back as the sheriff stepped into a cloud of hot, dry air.

Cubiak pulled the door closed and a silence fell, thick as the smoke in the room.

In the dim light he made out a row of hazy silhouettes along the cluttered work counter and back wall. In the middle of the room, a hefty man bent over a woodstove.

“Sheriff.” The large man at the stove spoke.

Someone coughed. “Sorry 'bout that, Sheriff.”

Cubiak shrugged as Henry Fielding, the proprietor, grabbed a Jim Beam bottle between two fingers and poured something red out of it into a tumbler. “Here you go, Dave,” he said, shoving the glass at Cubiak. “We're just drinking to the three old gents who died,” he added.

The toast echoed from the corner and all but one of the men raised their glasses. They were a wizened bunch in overalls and flannel shirts, old enough to be nursing home escapees.

Cubiak tossed down the drink and inhaled sharply as a ribbon of sour cherry wine burned a ditch along the back of his throat. He swallowed a cough. According to Bathard, Fielding produced a fresh crop of wine every year and was as proud of it as he was of the lumber he cut on the monster saw. “It's sometimes fit to drink and sometimes fit to use for salad dressing and sometimes fit to pour down the drain, but if you want to be included in the club and privy to the gossip the members generate, it's always fit to be praised,” Bathard had told him.

Fielding eyed Cubiak expectantly.

“Your best yet,” the sheriff said.

The miller brandished the bottle again but Cubiak put up a hand. “Sorry, can't. On duty.” He set his empty glass on a windowsill and moved down the counter. He knew the men were watching him and so made a show of dropping two fives into the kitty. In keeping with local custom, he coated a saltine with a thin layer of fish spread. He didn't like fish and would have been happy to forgo the ritual. But that would be rude.

“Don't let me interrupt anything,” he said around a mouthful of cracker.

“Nothing to interrupt. We're talking about those three men, the vets, y'know. What tough luck,” said a jowly man at his elbow.

Cubiak glanced down the row at the members of the “Woodlands Social Club.” All but one clutched an empty glass. The man who had boycotted the toast scowled at the floor.

“Guess you all knew them,” the sheriff said, setting off a chorus of comment.

“Sure did.”

“Good men.”

“Yeah, a damn shame.”

Then silence again. Was it because they had nothing to say about the dead men or because they were of an age when death loomed large, not as an abstract subject but a real threat. Had they heard about the vandalism? Not a whisper.

“I was just up there checking on Ida,” Cubiak said finally.

“Heart of gold, that Ida.”

“All three of them ladies.”

Amid the chatter about the widows, Cubiak watched the abstainer weave his way toward the door. He resisted the urge to follow him.

“I guess you'll miss the poker nights.”

There was no response. Another man edged toward the exit.

“What did you play? Texas Hold 'em, Seven Card Stud, or some kind of local variation with jokers,” he said.

“Jokers! That some kind of city poker?”

Two of the men snickered and made as to leave.

“Truth is we didn't spend all that much time up there playing cards,” said the stout man in the corner.

“Stakes too high?”

“Nah, just not convenient.”

“Most guys only went once or twice. It was kind of clubby, you know what I mean? Don't get me wrong, they were good guys, the three of them. Just kind of had their own thing going.”

The last man drifted out the door, as the sheriff helped himself to a piece of cheddar. “Something I said?”

“Folks have things to do,” Fielding said. He began cleaning up. “There's been talk time to time about the poker games, nothing specific, just a word or two people'd mention about not being comfortable. Don't mean nothing really. And no one wants to think badly of the dead.” The sawmill operator dumped the leftover crackers and fish spread into the trash. “These men were veterans. Heroes. That means something to folks here. How they played cards, who they played cards with don't matter. Ain't no one's business but their own and now they're gone it ain't anyone's business.”

Cubiak let the comment slide. “Did you know them well?”

Fielding seemed to shrug inside the heavy jacket he wore despite the heat in the shed. “I knew them. Wouldn't say well,” he said lowering his gaze. “Milled a couple of black walnut trees for Big Guy when he built the addition to the house. He was very particular about how I treated the wood, and I respected him for that.”

“I hear he was pretty generous with his money.”

Fielding gazed at the cobwebbed ceiling. “He was. Could afford to be, as I understand it. Don't get me wrong. He was a good citizen, but the type who liked to run things, too, kind of a bully peacock, full of himself and all. Course, he had a lot to be proud of, can't begrudge the man what he accomplished.”

“You didn't care for him then?”

“I didn't say that. Man was a hero, after all. He just had a different way of doing things. I like to look at people eye to eye, you know, on the same level. Big Guy seemed to prefer people looking up to him.”

“Like his old friends, Swenson and Wilkins.”

“Maybe. Yeah, I guess. Few times I saw the three of them together, it was clear Big Guy called the shots. In fact, he pretty much always called the shots.”

That trait may not have sat well with others. “Who was the man who ignored the toast earlier?” Cubiak said.

Fielding snorted. “Him! Bruno Loggerstone from down near Peninsula Park. From what I know, he's still mad about something that happened thirty years ago.”

“That's a long time to hold a grudge.”

“A talent some people have.”

“I guess. They all seemed to think highly of Ida and the other two, Olive and Stella. Funny, though, no one mentioned Walter Nils or Wilkins's son.”

“Walter's okay. Guess we just take him for granted. Marty Wilkins ain't been seen around here for years. Don't even know if he's still alive!”

“That leaves just the one grandkid. Roger.”

“Looks that way. Unless Marty went out and multiplied. Might have a crop of offspring circling the globe for all anybody here knows. Suppose we'll find out eventually. There's money involved and people'll come crawling out of their hidey-holes for that.” Fielding looked at Cubiak. “I just hope Roger uses his share to go back to school. Don't know what got into that boy.”

“Any idea why he quit?”

“Not a one. Damn shame, you ask me. Smart kid. Good athlete, too, and here he's working at the coast guard station. Don't make sense.”

“He's a civilian. What's he doing over there?”

“Last I heard he got a job helping paint the place to get ready for the big celebration. Now look what's happened.” Fielding tossed a chunk of wood into the stove, sending a spray of orange sparks into the room. “Ain't life a bitch,” he said and slammed the metal door shut.

I
t was still dark when Cubiak stumbled into the kitchen. The cold tile floor pricked his bare feet, and he shifted from one to the other as he poured the usual eight cups of water into the coffee maker, an amount that filled his favorite mug exactly three and a half times. Someday, he'd do the math. In the east, a narrow streak of blazing light sliced through the black sky, heralding the dawn that would evolve into the morning of the funeral. Cubiak hated funerals. He couldn't look at a coffin without seeing his wife laid out in her teal dress and his daughter in her orange polka dots, a fuzzy pink teddy bear in her arms.

Walter told him they were anticipating as many as six hundred people. Whoever had vandalized Huntsman's property and sent the cruel note to his widow would likely be among the mourners. But who could it be? Who would have done anything so ugly and mean so soon after the three men died? Was it just a prank, as Ida insisted? Or an act of vengeance? Judging from what Fielding had said the day before, it seemed Big Guy was the kind of man who could make enemies as easily as friends. Did old grudges diminish or fester with time? Would someone dare try to disrupt the funeral?

While the coffee brewed, Cubiak fed Butch and weighed the puppies. Kipper had gained one ounce. “Good job,” he said, rubbing his thumb on her lumpy head. He brought her into the kitchen for her bottle and then tucked her back into the basket with the others and covered the squirming heap with an old towel.

Outside, his breath formed a vaporous cloud. It was colder than he expected and he wasn't properly dressed, but he had no time to change. Hood up, he loped down the driveway. He ran to forget and to ready himself for the onslaught of emotion he knew would come. At the halfway mark, he stopped to catch his breath. A trickle of sweat ran past his ear onto his cheek. He swiped it away and then pulled off his hood and started back.

The puppies were comatose when Cubiak slipped into the house. He put out extra rations for Butch, filled his mug, and spread peanut butter over two pieces of wheat toast. He ate standing up, taking in the full bloom of the sun over the water. When he finished, he whisked the crumbs into the sink and rinsed up. Time to shower and dress.

Attending Catholic schools, he'd worn uniforms—life simplified. As sheriff he put on his uniform only for official functions. But showing up at the funeral in full dress might make people wonder about the nature of the deaths, something he wanted to avoid. Instead he shrugged into his one good shirt, looped a dark burgundy tie under the collar, and pulled on a pair of black wool trousers. With his charcoal herring-bone jacket, it was the closest he came to a suit.

Like Cubiak, the deceased veterans were Catholic. Unlike him, Huntsman, Wilkins, and Swenson had been practicing Catholics. As active members of Our Lady of the Lake parish in Ellison Bay, they attended Sunday Mass, made it to services on the Holy Days of Obligation, confessed their sins to the priest, and wrote generous checks to the annual building fund.

The parish church was surprisingly grand, given the town's small year-round population. Brilliant white and set on a low rise south of the village, the building sounded a clarion call to believe in something more than pure humanity. That sad morning, against the bright blue sky, the steeple acted like a magnet, drawing traffic up the peninsula. At the intersection of Spruce and Highway 42, a traffic deputy directed vehicles off the highway. By the time Cubiak found a parking spot, the processional had begun and the giant wooden doors were swinging shut, muffling the dirge of the organ and choir.

He followed a narrow sidewalk into the courtyard between the rectory and the church and entered through the side door. The sheriff had stationed Rowe in the rear of the church so between the two of them, they could keep watch over both entrances. Cubiak was nearer the service itself. From his vantage point, he had a clear view over the mound of flower arrangements and through the decorative plumes of the Knights of Columbus to the altar, the two celebrants, and the three caskets. The priests wore ceremonial purple vestments. The coffins were draped in white palls and arranged in the shape of a truncated cross: one lengthwise in the main aisle and the other two placed perpendicular to it along the altar railings.

The parish of Our Lady of the Lake served the Catholic community of northern Door, and the church had been constructed when membership had been at its zenith. Although Sunday attendance had fallen off steadily, that morning the sanctuary was full. This was no ordinary funeral and the packed pews reflected the fact. The mourners were mostly middle-aged and older, but a notable number of younger men and women, entire families even, were squeezed in among them. The congregants rustled and whispered and by their demeanor generated both a sense of solemnity and an air of excitement. An event of this magnitude assumed a historic significance and would not be repeated.