Death in Cold Water (10 page)

“The press must have gotten wind that we were here and figured that meant news. That's what they're all after, the big lead, the byline that will make their reputation. Now, how'd they find out the FBI was in Sturgeon Bay?” he said.

Cubiak wasn't smiling either. “No idea.”

Moore inhaled sharply and pinched the bridge of his nose. Bags were starting to form under his eyes. There were jobs that aged a person, and Cubiak suspected that working for the FBI came with its own set of pressures. How quickly was Moore expected to produce results? the sheriff wondered. When they'd first met, Cubiak had assumed that the agent was in the hinterland working his way up, but maybe it was the other way around. Maybe Moore had messed up in one of the larger arenas and was on his way down. Botch this assignment and he'd find himself even lower on the food chain.

After a moment Moore held up a hand in apology. “Sorry, but it's always frustrating when this happens. Doesn't bode well for the investigation when you don't know whom to trust. But who else is there? The son doesn't have anything to gain by attracting the press.”

“No, but the Packers do. Plenty of free publicity for the team, if nothing else. If I had to guess, I'd say the story was leaked by someone in their office and not here.”

Uninvited, the agent took a seat. “Maybe. Sneider's going missing is a big enough story on its own to garner attention but toss us in and . . .” Moore threw up his hands. “At this point it doesn't matter, but if it happens again, we may have a real problem. For now, the media's not going anywhere soon, you can bet on that. They'll camp out and wait for something to happen.”

Moore swallowed a yawn and came back all business. “So what have you got? Anything?”

“Our preliminary investigations haven't uncovered any ongoing problems or anything illegal or unusual in Sneider's past.”

“Agent Harrison hasn't finished combing through his papers but she hasn't found anything remarkable yet either. So, so far a dead end. But of course she's still looking, and she's checking into Andrew as well. Looking for possible bad debts, questionable business associates, a rift in the family fabric. All the usual.”

Moore stared past Cubiak to the window and the pasture across the road. When Cubiak arrived that morning, there'd been a herd of Holsteins grazing on the grass. He wondered if they were still there.

“My family raised beef cattle, a bit different from dairy,” Moore said.

“You, on a farm?” Cubiak said, unable to imagine Moore slinging a hay bale or mucking out a barn.

“Actually it was a ranch. I grew up in northern Wyoming and couldn't wait to get away. I thought life in the big city was the answer to every question I had. Now, I'm not so sure. What about you? This is a pretty tranquil environment you find yourself in. You like it?” Moore asked with a rueful smile.

“I do, though it's not always as tranquil as you think.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember hearing about a string of murders. When was that, three or four years ago?”

“Four.” The start of my career here, Cubiak thought.

“And you're the guy who nailed it.”

Cubiak glanced out the window. The cows had moved on. Moore was waiting for him to say something about the investigation that had led to his election as sheriff. But it wasn't a case he wanted to think about.

“There's a pattern to life here that pretty much repeats day after day. But there are surprises as well. The unexpected is really as much a part of the norm as the usual. There's just not as much of it as in the city,” he explained.

To illustrate his point Cubiak mentioned the bone Butch found on the beach. “Now that's not something I'd expect to come across, not here. It's probably human so I gave it to the medical examiner to see what she can come up with.”

Moore got to his feet, suddenly impatient again. “I'm sure there's a sad story there, but it's nothing to do with us,” he said. “You want something useful to do, follow up on this call that came in this morning.” He held out a slip of paper. “Maybe it'll lead to something.”

A
n hour later, Cubiak followed a rutted lane through a meadow of tall, dried grasses. The sun was warm on his shoulders as he walked toward the string of low buildings silhouetted against the cloudless sky. He was at the Hopewell Resort, following up on the anonymous phone tip Moore had given him from a caller who claimed he had seen Sneider wandering around the grounds.

“You know this place?” Cubiak had asked earlier, showing the note to Rowe.

“The old hopes-gone-sour resort? Sure, it's been deserted for years. Door County's version of a ghost town. I used to hang out there in high school and drink beer with my friends. You want me to go?”

“That's okay. I'm heading that way to see Sneider's cook and housekeeper. Easy enough for me to check it out,” the sheriff said.

Halfway up the peninsula, Cubiak left highway 42 for the county road that ran along the bay shoreline. He passed a half-dozen houses and several plowed fields but little else. Cubiak was about to turn back and retrace his path when he saw a weather-beaten sign half hidden in the brush. The sign had been carefully painted by hand, but its luster was deeply faded and it stood forlorn and forgotten, a piece of the past that time had left to the insects that buzzed in the grass and the hawk that circled overhead.

Cubiak counted ten buildings in all. They were lined up as if in formation. From a distance they looked well tended, but as he got closer he saw that they were in various states of collapse. Doors hung off hinges. Windows were shattered. A roof caved in. The resort was in ruins, the victim of neglect, weather, mice, and drunk teenagers.

Everywhere he looked, Cubiak found evidence of former glory. Gigantic fireplaces, beamed ceilings, masonry walls of gleaming white fieldstone, and remnants of the kind of heavy oak table he associated with old European monasteries left to rot and decay or sit amid growing mounds of trash and beer cans.

There's no one here, he thought, and then he saw the man standing on the flagstone patio that overlooked Green Bay. The man wore corduroy pants and a forest green canvas jacket. He was stooped and gray and seemed consumed in his own world. Could Andrew have been wrong about his father? Was this Gerald Sneider, wandering around in some vestige of his past?

“Mr. Sneider?” Cubiak called out.

He had to repeat himself twice.

Finally the man turned around. “Excuse me?” he said, suddenly alarmed.

Whoever the man was, he was not Gerald Sneider. Cubiak held up his badge and identified himself.

The stranger relaxed. He was from Omaha, he told the sheriff. He'd stayed at the resort several years running when it first opened. Now he came back for nostalgia's sake whenever he was in Door County.

Cubiak showed him Sneider's photo and asked if he'd seen him.

“I don't really go anywhere except to walk around here, and there's never anyone else that I see. No one has any reason to come here anymore. Except the kids. It seems to have turned into a gathering spot for them,” the man said sadly.

Cubiak took in the crumbling ruins. “What happened?”

“Eric Hopewell ran out of money. Anyway that's the story. He died without a will and his descendants have been fighting over the land ever since.”

“I see. Same old story.” There was a sadness to the air and a heaviness to the silence that made the sheriff feel like an interloper in the remnants of another's broken dreams. There was nothing for him here.

“I'll leave you then,” he said to the man from Nebraska.

A
fter stopping for gas in Ellison Bay, Cubiak turned right at the village's lone intersection and headed inland. Sneider lived on the water; his staff did not.

Eva Carlson, the cook, was the closest to town. Cubiak followed a zigzag path down several county roads to her brick ranch. The well-kept house was small and set back in a grove of trees that shimmered in a patchwork quilt of autumn colors. He rang the bell and waited several minutes before he heard noise from inside. Eva opened the wooden inside door leaning on a cane and clutching a heavy, moth-eaten, green sweater tight around a cotton housedress.

“Sheriff Cubiak?” she said, squinting into the bright morning from behind the glass storm door.

He held up his ID and was happy to see her inspect the badge before she undid the lock. Inside, he explained that he was checking into the whereabouts of Gerald Sneider, who'd not been seen since leaving the Sunday afternoon football game in Chicago.

“Well, he sure enough ain't here,” Eva said, making a pretense of looking about her austere living room. Then she frowned. “Figured something was up when Andrew called and said not to come in for a few days. Thought maybe the old geezer croaked.”

“I need to ask a few questions,” Cubiak said.

“And I need to sit a spell.” Dragging one foot behind the other, the pace painfully slow, Eva led the sheriff to the kitchen.

“I know what you're thinking: some cook. Right?” she said as she gingerly lowered herself into a chair and hooked the cane on the table.

Cubiak sat facing her. “It does look hard to get around.”

Eva chortled. She had a long face and loose teeth that clicked when she talked. “Old man never ate much. Oh, he did once, when the wife was alive. Exotic food from around the world, I'm told.” Her nostrils flared at the word
exotic
, and she pronounced it as if it represented something sinful. Perhaps to her it was, Cubiak thought, taking in the Early American samplers on the wall and the tchotchkes that lined the two windowsills.

“He had a real chef then,” she went on. “Now it's just me and gruel.”

“Gruel?”

“Chicken soup, too, once in a while. But mostly mush that he likes sprinkled with coconut flakes, almonds, and dried cherries. All organic.” Again, a hint of disapproval in her voice.

“Was he ill?”

“Naw. He had some crazy idea that he'd live longer eating like this. His wife had been, how shall I say this, very plump. From what I hear, she'd order up fancy meals three times a day from the cook, and they'd eat in that big dining room with lit candles and all. After she died, Gerald fired the chef and hired me. Said he wanted simple food. There was fish, at first, and a lot of brown rice. Once in a while he'd ask for eggs for breakfast.” Eva lifted her chin and flashed a pair of bright blue eyes at Cubiak. “Of course, I got around better then, too. Lucky for me I guess that by the time I had my stroke, he was down to gruel.”

Cubiak gave a sympathetic nod. “What about when Andrew visited?” he said after a moment.

Eva huffed. “Andy never visited but when he needed money, and he never ate my cooking. Said he'd rather starve than eat that . . . well, you can imagine what he called it. When it came to food, he'd go out or maybe toss something in the microwave over at the guest house.”

“He didn't stay in the main house?”

Eva reached for her cane. “Not that I ever seen. Cup of coffee, Sheriff?”

That was his cue to act: the coffee maker was on the counter by the stove, the green light on. Cubiak didn't want to think for how long the coffee had been steeping but knew it would be rude to refuse. “Thank you, I'll get it,” he said, pushing to his feet.

Eva smiled. “Two sugars, please. And milk for me.”

Cubiak took two cups from the drainer. They were stained but otherwise clean. The milk was just a day or so from curdling, and he was glad he took his black.

“There's cookies, too, up there.” Eva pointed to the cabinet above the sink.

The sheriff took his time getting the snack to the table. She's stalling, he thought, wondering how much more to tell me.

“Did you cook for Gerald's guests?” he said when he sat back down.

Eva dunked a cookie. “Oh, there weren't any guests. He was in his office on the phone often enough talking business, but no one except Andrew ever came to the house. Gerald mostly just sat in that fancy media room, watching TV and videos of old games and talking about how important he was. That man was always telling me and Babbs, she's the housekeeper, all the grand things he'd done.”

“Sounds pretty sad.”

Eva tightened her mouth. “Would be if he wasn't so pompous. Lots of people in this world do good things, Sheriff, not just Gerald Sneider. But to hear him go on, he was God's gift to the Packers, to his poor wife and son, and to all the charities he ran.”

Cubiak sat up. This was new. “What do you know about those, the charities?”

“Nothing, really. Before my time on the peninsula.” Eva bit into another cookie. “Gerald was generous with his money when he wanted to be, I'll give him that, but I just got sick and tired of listening to him boasting about it all the time and didn't really pay much attention.”

“Was he generous with his son?”