Death Stalks Door County (19 page)

“About a year after Dutch was elected sheriff, a woman was beaten to death and set on fire in her living room. The house was ransacked and some money and jewelry stolen.

“There'd been a series of burglaries near Green Bay that spring, and everyone thought this was another random act of violence, probably committed by the same person. Dutch was sure the killer was someone who knew the victim. He had no proof, just a hunch. Local officials tried to discourage him. Said he was keeping things stirred up, painting the county in a bad light and all that kind of nonsense, but Dutch persisted. He made up charts with the names of everyone who knew the dead woman or had been seen near the house. He checked every detail of their relationships with the victim, tracked down every bit of information he could. Something like this happens, there's a reason for it, he said. Eventually, he figured it out. It was the victim's twin sister. About a year before she'd had a fleeting acquaintance with the man who later became engaged to the deceased.

“Dutch showed me pictures of them as kids. Two beautiful little girls on an old tire swing. Then to end up like that. How sad the underpinnings of people's lives.”

A
s Ruby stood transfixed against the black backdrop of the windows, the wind came up and began butting against the glass, a signal like a curtain falling. Cubiak picked up the wine bottle and then put it down again.

“You should look at them,” the coroner said to him.

“What?”

“Dutch's notebooks. From the murder case. Quite impressive in their own right.” Bathard spoke over his shoulder. “Could he, Rube?”

“Well, if he wanted to, of course.” The tempo of the evening had slowed and no one noticed Ruby's slight hesitation, least of all Cubiak. He wasn't interested in the musings of a deceased small-town sheriff but felt awkward refusing.

Ruby left the room and returned with a stack of pocket-sized notebooks. “Leo's the one who should read these,” she said, handing them to Cubiak.

“Now, Ruby, he's had a tough life,” Bathard said.

“No excuse for incompetence,” she retorted.

Cate and Bathard helped Ruby clear the room, leaving Cubiak with Cornelia, who seemed to grow increasingly pale in the fire's fading light.

“We were all honored to know Dutch. He was a man of principle, the best,” she said. Cornelia's voice was reduced to a whisper, and Cubiak had to lean forward to hear her.

“When he recovered that first time, he went back, after they were married. To Vietnam. To be with his men. He asked to be sent back. Can you believe it?”

“I can. I'd seen it happen, many times.”

“Later, there was a rumor he'd been killed in action but it turned out he'd been badly wounded and taken prisoner. Ruby doesn't like to talk about it. I always wondered if his war experience didn't affect his health and contribute to his early retirement,” Cornelia said, every word an effort.

“Halverson couldn't begin to fill Dutch's shoes. Not that anyone expected him to. It was common knowledge that he'd gotten the sheriff 's job as payback for his father's accident at Beck Industries.”

“Frank Halverson worked for Beck's family?”

Bathard reappeared. “Indeed. Most people did. Still do,” he said as he fussed with the pillow at his wife's back. “What do you think?” He nodded toward Dutch's journals.

Cubiak hadn't bothered with the notebooks yet. To be polite, he picked up the top one and flipped through several pages. He was about to put it down when something stopped him. Dutch had drawn an elaborate chart similar to the simple one he'd sketched out the previous morning. “Interesting,” he mumbled.

“I should think so,” Bathard said. “Dutch threw out a wide net, considered everyone a potential suspect until they were proven innocent. Played out his instincts. Always needed to know
why
.”

C
ubiak straddled a chair and watched Bathard stack boxes of bandages and gauze in the temporary first aid station at the Ephraim Village Hall. It was midmorning. The muffled noise of the waterfront crowd mixed with the smell of hot dogs and popcorn that drifted in through an open window.

“Any luck with Entwhistle?” Bathard said.

“Not yet. Thorenson hasn't seen him lately. Amelia said he had family in Detroit so I've got Ruta calling every Entwhistle in the metro area, on the chance he's holed up with a relative. I'm sure she'd rather be baking pies but she'll be thorough.” Cubiak yawned. “Sorry.”

“You getting any sleep?”

“Enough.” He flexed his shoulders. “What time do things get going, officially?”

“Ten.” Bathard glanced up at the wall clock in the small back room. “Fifteen minutes to bedlam,” he said as he continued organizing supplies.

“I've been thinking,” Cubiak said eventually, “that maybe the deaths don't have anything to do with the park. Could be the purpose is to sabotage the festival.”

Bathard paused. “An interesting reason
why
, but who would want to do something like that?”

“Some crazy who hates the tourist hoopla or someone with a heavy grudge against people like Beck who benefit from the festival's success. In terms of prestige, it seems Beck has the most to lose if the thing flops. If I were to follow Dutch Schumacher's line of reasoning, I'd have to suspect everyone who knows the man either personally or through business dealings.”

The coroner looked up. “Including me?” he said, his tone light and mocking.

“Correct.”

“No one above suspicion.”

Cubiak laughed. “I guess. Actually, the only person I wouldn't suspect is Cornelia.”

The physician said nothing and went back to his task, working steadily until he finished. Then he opened a folding chair and sat facing Cubiak. Taking his time, Bathard crossed one leg over the other and pulled his pipe from his pocket. “No smoking in here, but . . .” He stuck the stem into his mouth. “I've been giving this a lot of thought. It seems that whoever's behind it—if it is one person—is deliberately generating an aura of confusion. There's no question that Alice Jones was murdered. In the case of Wisby and Macklin, on the other hand, it can be argued that accidents happen. Same with Delacroix: arrows do go astray. Not that I agree with Beck,” the coroner added. “The business at Ricochet Hill is more difficult to discern. Those two deaths weren't necessarily as simple as they looked. Piano wire stretches taut easily, but when it's hit forcefully it sags. Anders weighed over one hundred seventy-five pounds. He hit the wire with his neck, not torso, but that's still a tremendous impact, considering the road incline and speed he had to have been traveling even if he weren't pedaling strenuously. After he hit, the wire would have sagged considerably.”

Bathard set the pipe back on the table. “I spent an hour in my backyard early this morning, pitching a concrete block against a strand of piano wire tied between two trees. Every time I hit the mark, the wire loosened and drooped. Based on my rough calculations, the wire should have cut Pithy across the chest, but she got it in the neck as well.”

“Meaning?”

“Someone was in the woods, watching. After the first rider came through, this person reset the wire ensuring that it was in place when the second rider came along.”

“There wouldn't have been much time.”

“No, but it could have been done.”

“You tried?”

“Of course. At first it seemed an implausible theory. If the wire is properly tightened around the tree, there's precious little time to make any readjustments, but I devised two ways someone could have made this work. In the first method, the killer—we'll use that term rather than Beck's ‘joker'—ties the wire around two trees, one on either side of the road. After the first rider slams into the wire, the murderer doesn't have time to untie and retie it, or to loosen and retighten it, before the second bicyclist appears. Instead, the killer slides a slender solid object—a small crowbar would suffice—between the wire and one of the trees and rotates it approximately one hundred and eighty degrees. The maneuver pulls the wire taut again. With practice that can be done in seconds.”

“No chance the bar would fall out?”

“Not really. The wire secures it in place. Of course, afterward, the killer has to remove the bar. Unless there was something found at the scene of which I am unaware.”

“There wasn't anything. And there was always the chance the person could be seen that close to the road. What's the other method?”

“It's a little more complicated but for some people, an accomplished sailor, for example, it would be the obvious choice. This time the killer ties the wire around one tree—let's call it tree A for the sake of discussion—and then strings it across the road, winds it once around the trunk of tree B. Instead of tying a knot, the perpetrator wraps the wire around the horns of a cleat, the same way you or I would secure a sail or one of those bamboo roll-up blinds. The wire stretches after the first hit, and the killer resecures it to the cleat.”

“How quickly could that be done?”

“I can do a rope in a couple of seconds. A wire wouldn't take much longer.”

“We didn't find a cleat on the second tree or evidence of one either.”

Bathard picked up the pipe again and punched the air with the stem. “It wasn't necessarily on tree B. In fact, it would have been easier to work if it were on a different one, tree C as it were. In any case, after the second victim hit, the killer pried the cleat off and positioned the wire just the way you found it.”

“Could you have done it? I mean, could someone of your stature have tightened that wire using one of these techniques?”

Bathard regarded his arms critically. Even with the long-sleeved shirt it was obvious they were thin and unmuscled. “Hardly seems likely, but, yes, I think so, if I remember my physics correctly. It certainly wouldn't take some kind of muscle man, if that's what you're getting at. In either situation, the killer is using what's called a simple machine, a device that functions without a motorized element, to make a job easier. You're looking for intelligence or experience rather than brute strength.”

“For these two.”

“Yes, and for the others as well. Wisby, surprise. Height would help. Macklin, access to the
Betsy Ross
and a sharp instrument, a screwdriver would do, assuming the cause was a puncture to the tank. Jones, surprise again and familiarity with human anatomy. Delacroix, hunting or competitive archery.”

“A professional bow is nearly impossible to string.”

“Only if you're inexperienced. There are thirteen-year-old girls out here who could beat either one of us at the task.”

“And the bikers,” Cubiak said, thinking out loud. “Basic mechanics or sailing, depending on how it was done.”

The coroner rubbed his shoulder. “That's how I see it.”

“There's something else, though. The killings themselves became increasingly gruesome. There was a callousness to them that seems out of place here.”

“The city dweller's romantic notion of the country,” Bathard countered. “You forget that the man who killed his neighbors and then made lamp shades from their skin lived in a small town not too far from here.”

“I remember hearing about that. The guy was certified crazy.”

“Maybe this one is, also. Normal on the outside. Coming apart inside.”

“Whoever it is, whatever the motive, there's something we're missing. A message we're not getting.”

Bathard started to speak when a horn blared and shouting erupted outside. He looked at his watch. “Ten o'clock. Right on schedule,” he said. The coroner took his time getting up again. “We may as well go and watch,” he said.

Cubiak followed him down a short hallway and through the narrow lobby to the front doorway.

“Look over there. The helicopter.” Blinking into the bright light, Bathard pointed to a black dot over the harbor.

The crowd spied the chopper as well, and with a loud whoop, a riptide of humanity surged toward the water.

“This is it then, the official start of the fest?” Cubiak said. He had to shout to be heard over the tumult.

“Indeed. One thousand ping-pong balls get dropped. Two hundred marked for prizes. Gimcrackery mostly. But there's one worth five hundred dollars.” Bathard raised a hand against the glare. “When the drop first started, it was actually a reasonable activity. Self-contained, controlled. Now it's a wonder someone doesn't get seriously hurt.”

“Can't you put a stop to it?”

“Not to something Beck's etched in stone.”

The helicopter circled over the water, teasing the crowd. Once. Twice. Three times it made false passes toward Ephraim and then veered away. Suddenly, without warning, the chopper roared inland toward the town. The thwacking blades swirled dust and bits of sand above the sea of uplifted faces and waving arms. Several children screamed but their cries were drowned out by the cheering throng.