Death in Cold Water (31 page)

Sneider erupted. “Sniveling bastard. He and his worthless brother both,” he said, batting the photos off the bed. “Yes, I put the boys in the boat. I did that any number of times to different kids—not to hurt them, but to help them. Do you understand? Why do you think those miserable kids ended up at the camp? Because they had weak parents who had failed them. I was trying to help them get strong, like me. I had to teach them to confront their fears so they wouldn't grow up weak like their parents.” By now he was shouting. “Don't you get it? I was their only hope.”

Sneider looked around for Andrew, but his dazed son remained several steps back. “It's true that I sent the boys out that night, but I didn't leave them there. I tried to save them. You must believe me,” he said. Desperate to explain himself, he reached for his son.

Andrew hesitated.

“Please,” his father said, slowly luring him closer.

When Andrew was within reach, Sneider grabbed his arm. “It's the God's honest truth. I swear I tried to save them,” he said again, clinging to his son as he proclaimed his innocence.

“I have testimony that says otherwise,” Cubiak said quietly.

Sneider bellowed. “From whom? Jon Ross? You believe what that fucker told you? You're going to take his word against mine? Don't be a fool.”

“Ross was just a kid that night and all he knew about what happened was what you told the boys afterward. He believed you; they all did. But you overplayed your hand with the postcard allegedly from one of the drowned boys claiming they'd survived and run away. According to Jon, the boy had never learned to write.”

“Rubbish! Still his word against mine. The word of a mean, spiteful brat.”

“There's more. Another eyewitness, an adult who was there the whole time and knows what really happened that night.”

Sneider's eyes narrowed to slits.

“Who?” Andrew let the word out in a whisper.

Cubiak kept his eyes on Sneider. “According to the witness, you did nothing to try and save them. You didn't even send for help. The camp wasn't far from the resort that replaced the old coast guard station. There were plenty of boats there and people who could have helped rescue those kids. But you didn't want anyone to see what you'd done to them, did you? You valued your reputation more than their lives.”

“Oh, Dad, how could you?”

Sneider's nostrils flared and the vein in his forehead pulsed. He pushed his son away. “Shut up,” he said for the second time, and then he turned to Cubiak. “You better damn well know who you're dealing with and what the fuck you're doing because this is slander and if you start spreading these stories, I'll destroy you.”

Cubiak shrugged off the threat. “I'm just doing my job.”

Sneider breathed loudly. “I've got nothing more to say. No comment. Now get the hell out of here.” He puffed himself up with importance and glared at the sheriff.

The arrogance of power, Cubiak thought, allowing himself a quick smile. “I'm not finished with you yet,” he said as he stepped around to the side of the bed.

“What?” Sneider looked ready to spit.

Cubiak kicked the soft leather slippers out of reach and then took his time picking up the photos from the floor. As he slid the pictures back in the envelope he glanced from son to father, letting his gaze settle on the man whose silk pajamas had lost their elegant sheen.

Moments like this, he knew why he had become a city cop all those years ago, and why after abandoning the job, he'd later put on the badge of a county sheriff. To serve and protect the innocent, like the helpless boys in the rowboat.

In the charged atmosphere, Cubiak spoke calmly. “Gerald Sneider, I am arresting you on the charge of murder. Four counts in the first degree.”

Sneider turned to stone.

“You have a right to remain silent but anything you say . . .” Cubiak went on as he informed the Door County hero of his rights. The sheriff 's pronouncement was largely lost in Andrew's cries of despair and the sounds of shattering glass that erupted as he hurled vases of roses and lilies against the floor and walls of his father's very special room.

C
ubiak trailed a tour bus full of senior citizens through Sturgeon Bay on his way to Hangar Number Three. The previous day, the FBI had taken charge of the human remains the sheriff had recovered from Baileys Harbor. And that morning a special team of technicians had arrived to handle the task of tagging and packing the bones for shipment to the agency's forensic laboratory in Madison. Cubiak didn't have to go there again. His work was finished. There was nothing, and yet everything, for him to do. Pay his respects. Say a final goodbye.

Agents Moore and Harrison were standing inside the door, as if they'd expected him.

“It's done?” Moore said.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

For the first time that week, the three were a match, each of them in jeans and a black turtleneck.

Moore produced a bottle of brandy from his briefcase. “It's not quite according to Hoyle,” he said as he filled the shot glasses Harrison had pulled from the leather tote bag slung over her shoulder.

“To justice,” Cubiak said, raising his drink to theirs.

The sheriff and the two federal agents downed the shots, and like a whisper, the moment passed. The bottle and glasses disappeared, and they turned toward the platform.

The skeletons remained intact. Nearby the recovery team had organized the shipping containers and the materials the technicians would use to identify and wrap each bone.

“They'll be starting soon,” Harrison said.

They'd waited for him, Cubiak realized. After thanking them, he approached the platform for one last look. Bathard had talked about Milton's concept of good and evil, but all Cubiak could think of were Dante's nine circles of hell. Those who acted violently against others were consigned to the outer ring of the seventh circle, where they were immersed in a river of boiling blood and fire for eternity. A fitting punishment for Gerald Sneider, Cubiak thought.

The sheriff bowed his head and prayed to all the gods of the universe. Before them he vowed that he would do everything he could to see that the boys would not be forgotten and that the justice he had saluted a few minutes earlier would be done in their name. Whoever they were, they were legion, and like all the world's suffering children they deserved better than what they got.

In the end, Cubiak uttered one word:
Peace
. Then he turned and walked away.

A
fter he stopped in town for two coffees, Cubiak drove to the justice center for a meeting with Justin St. James. He found the young reporter pacing the lobby and led him to his office.

“You're familiar with Gerald Sneider's legacy on the peninsula, his philanthropic work, the camp for orphaned and needy boys,” the sheriff said, dispensing with the usual introductory small talk favored by locals.

“Sure, who isn't, especially after this week. I knew some of the story before, of course, but now.” St. James popped the lid on his coffee and dumped in two packets of sugar. “Gerald Sneider's a very famous man.”

“Who's about to become infamous.”

The journalist looked up. “What's going on? What's happened?” He put a small recorder on the table. “May I?”

“Sure.” When the green light appeared, Cubiak went on. “This morning I arrested Sneider on four counts of murder.”

St. James let out a low whistle. “I don't understand,” he said. The reporter was pale with excitement.

“You will.”

Cubiak started by laying down a picture of the bone Butch had discovered on the Baileys Harbor beach. From there he took St. James through the events of the previous week. He told him about the young Ross boys and Verne Pickler and about the boat filled with bones that had been recovered from the bay.

St. James blanched. “I grew up around there. I used to swim in that water,” he said.

Finally, the sheriff told the journalist what he'd learned about the role that Sneider had played in the tragedy.

“You're getting all this?”

St. James shook his recorder. His hands trembled and he seemed to have trouble speaking. “I think so. But I just can't believe it. Four boys left to drown?”

Cubiak wasn't surprised by the young man's reaction. This was not the kind of news St. James was accustomed to reporting.

The sheriff laid out the series of photos that documented the story.

“Oh my God,” St. James said. He studied the pictures, too overwhelmed to say anything further.

For several minutes, the room was quiet. Then Cubiak spoke.

“Later today the FBI will take the remains to a lab in Madison for DNA analysis. Most of the kids were orphans, but it's possible that there are relatives around who heard family stories of nephews or cousins who lived at the camp. If there are DNA matches, then there's a chance at least some of the victims can be identified.”

St. James nodded but it took him a moment to pick up the train of discussion. “How come no one asked about these kids before?”

“Maybe somebody did, but who was there to tell them anything? There weren't any official records. The kids were gone; maybe they'd run away, like Sneider claimed. Then again, a lot of families had it tough back then and weren't looking for an extra mouth to feed. They figured that if the kid grew up and went off on his own, everyone involved was better off.”

“You want me to write about all this?” St. James said.

“That's right, and I'm giving you the exclusive.”

“But the others . . . there are reporters here with more experience . . .”

“This happened in your backyard. It's your story.”

“It'll get picked up . . .”

Yes, thought Cubiak. The national media will pick up the story. TV stations and newspapers in towns and cities across the country will retell the sad saga, which would help widen the search for people who could put names and faces to the dead boys.

“That's the whole point,” the sheriff said.

St. James picked up the photo that showed the camp's name on the side of the rowboat.

“Do you think the murder charge will hold after all this time?” he asked.

For a reporter about to break the biggest story of his career, perhaps the biggest story he would ever byline, St. James remained calm and focused. Cubiak liked that.

“Officially, yes, and it should. There's no statute of limitations on murder in Wisconsin, but off the record, no. Sneider will hire a squad of silver-tongued lawyers that will probably get the charge reduced to involuntary manslaughter. They might even get it thrown out entirely. If the case goes to trial, it'll come down to whom the jury believes: Gerald Sneider or Verne Pickler.

“But whatever happens, the deaths of those four boys will not go unnoted, and Gerald Sneider will be held accountable, at least in the eyes of the public, for what he did. I hope he serves time but even if he doesn't, he'll end up a prisoner in his own house, unable to show himself anywhere. Your story will tarnish his name and destroy his reputation. Gerald Sneider will no longer be known as a philanthropist and the savior of the Packers. He'll be known as a sadistic tyrant who sentenced four boys to a cruel death. Sneider's glass castle will crumble at his feet and he'll be powerless to rebuild it.”

The sheriff looked at St. James. “Eventually, the truth comes to light. People like to think they can outmaneuver or outrun the past, but life generally doesn't work that way. The past doesn't stay behind lost in time. Sooner or later, it catches up.”

C
ubiak was a mile from home when the clouds started to lift. As he drove into the yard, a patch of blue sky widened over the lake and a swath of bright autumn light spilled onto the water. It was probably one of the last really nice days they'd have that fall.

Cate was at the kitchen table filling in the crossword when Cubiak popped open the back door. “If we hurry we can take the
Parlando
out and get in a couple of hours. Bathard's pulling the boat next week so it's our final chance this year,” he said.

To avoid the tourist traffic, they came up the back way to the Egg Harbor marina. There was a concert in the park that overlooked the harbor, and strains of a familiar folk song drifted down to the docks. They'd stopped for groceries on the way up, and while Cate stowed their food and gear below Cubiak motored away from the dock. When they cleared the harbor, he cut the engine and they raised the mainsail.

The wind was light but strong enough to fill the sail. Minutes later, they reached the open waters of Green Bay. Cubiak pointed them south, and they sailed along the palisades that lined the shore.

The first time Cubiak went out on the boat with Bathard, he'd moved about clumsily and come close to getting sick. Within minutes of leaving land, he'd been overwhelmed. Everything he'd worked so hard to learn about sailing had blurred together and left him helpless, a true novice. But Bathard was patient, and gradually Cubiak came to feel more comfortable and competent on the water. After two summers of tutoring, Bathard had finally let him take the boat out himself.