The Bone House (42 page)

    'We're
closed up, Tresa, that's it. Catch the first one in the morning.'

    'I
know, but the boat's right there, please. You only have a couple cars, there's
plenty of room.
Please.''

    Larch
let out an exaggerated sigh through his rounded cheeks. He waved at the bridge,
making a downward swing with his arm. Tresa breathed with relief as the ramp
descended again, opening up a path for her car. Larch took her money and
pointed at a gap on the port side of the deck for her to park.

    'Next
time, Tresa, you're out of luck,' he told her. 'Remember that.'

    'You're
the best, Mr Larch, thank you!'

    Tresa
drove on to the ferry with a loud metal clang. She got out of the car and
tottered on the balls of her feet on the open boat deck. She hugged herself in
the cold, feeling scared, sick, and alone. Her stomach lurched. The boat rolled
and then slapped with a downward dip into the waves as it churned beyond the
breakwater into Death's Door. When she checked her cell phone, she saw that she
had already lost signal out on the water. She couldn't even call Mark to warn him.
Instead, she had to hope that she was well ahead of Troy crossing the passage.

    Tresa
felt a splash of water on her cheeks. She looked up and saw rain descending in
silver threads out of the dark sky.

    The
storm that had been threatening all day had finally begun. It would only get
worse.

    The ferry
was well into the channel as Cab arrived at the Northport pier. He watched the
boat disappearing into the milky haze. He sat in his car in the deserted port,
with the Corvette's engine idling like a caged cat, and pulled out the section
of Door County map from his pocket. It told him nothing. The page showed a
vacant stretch of northern land, populated by a handful of dead-end roads with
colorful names. Lost Lane. Juice Mill Lane. Wilderness Lane. Timberline Road.
There was nothing written on it to give him a clue about what this section of
the county had meant to Peter Hoffman.

    Cab
caught a glimpse of movement in his side-view mirror. A fat man with his
stomach bulging out of a Packers sweatshirt tapped on the door of the Corvette.
Cab lowered the window, letting in the drizzle. The man carried a clipboard and
wore an employee name tag with a Washington Island ferry logo. The badge read
Robert Larch.

    'Nice
car,' the man told him. Water dripped from the brim of his baseball cap.

    'Thanks.'

    'You
need some help here?' he asked.

    Cab
shook his head. 'No, I came by in case the ferry was late, but I missed it.'

    'Yeah,
the next one is at eight o'clock tomorrow.'

    'Thanks.'

    It
didn't really bother Cab that he'd missed the boat. He'd only wanted to see
Mark Bradley that night to study the man's face when he showed him the key he'd
taken from Peter Hoffman's pocket. To see if there was any reaction or
recognition there that Bradley couldn't hide.

    Someone
in Door County knew what that key was and what it meant.

    'You're
that cop from Florida, right?' Larch said.

    'That's
right.'

    'Yeah,
I already talked to the sheriff. Mark Bradley was here a couple hours ago. He
borrowed my phone.'

    'So I
hear. You want to get out of the rain for a minute, Mr Larch? I have a couple
questions for you.'

    'I'll
get the seat wet.'

    'It's
a rental.'

    'Well,
sure.'

    Larch
walked around to the other side of the Corvette and climbed inside. He brought
a damp, mildewed smell with him like a wet dog. He ran his hand admiringly over
the dash and the buttery leather of the seats. 'What does one of these things
cost?'

    'A
lot.'

    'I'll
bet.'

    'So
Mark Bradley used your phone this afternoon?' Cab asked. 'Yeah, sounds like
I'll have to give it to the cops. Evidence, huh? Just like
CSI.
Guess
they'll buy me a new one. That's pretty sweet.'

    'Bradley
left the ferry line and then came back?'

    'Yup.
After he used my phone, he sped off like he was in a big hurry.'

    'How
long was he gone?'

    Larch
scratched his chin. 'Ten minutes maybe? Could have been shorter, could have
been longer. But hey, Pete lived just down the road.' 'So you heard about Peter
Hoffman's murder.'

    'Oh,
sure. Word travels fast around here.'

    'Did you
know him well?' Cab asked.

    'Who,
Pete? Well enough. He's lived here forever. Tough old guy. Sucks what happened
to his family.'

    'Did
you ever see him with Mark Bradley?'

    'Pete
and Mark? Don't think so.'

    'I
just wonder why Bradley would have killed him,' Cab said.

    'Word
is that they had a fight.'

    'About
what?'

    Larch
shrugged. 'You're the cop.'

    'Do
you have any guesses?'

    'Beats
me. I mean, you think you know people, but you don't. I thought Mark was cool.
My daughter liked him as a teacher. Then all this shit with Tresa happened last
year. Like I say, people surprise you.'

    'Peter
Hoffman must have been pretty upset about the accusations involving Bradley and
Tresa. He was close to Delia Fischer, wasn't he?'

    'Oh, yeah,'
Larch agreed, bobbing his head. 'Pete was like a guardian angel to Delia and
the girls. It's going to be hard on her with him gone. I hope he left her a
little something in his will, you know?'

    'What
about Glory?' Cab asked. 'What was the buzz about her?'

    Larch's
brow furrowed into large wrinkles under his cap. 'I'm not sure what you're
getting at.'

    'I
heard she liked to walk on the wild side.'

    'Sure,
Glory could be a handful. Hard to believe her and Tresa were sisters, you know?
Tresa's a bookworm, and Glory was a party girl. That doesn't mean she was
asking for trouble.'

    'Of
course not.' Cab added, 'Were there any rumors about Glory and Mark Bradley?'

    'What,
you think he was doing them both? That's news to me. Anything's possible, but I
never heard about it.'

    'What
about Peter Hoffman? Could he have known whether something was going on between
those two?'

    Larch
shook his head, if Pete knew that, he would have taken Bradley's head off. He
would have told Delia and the sheriff, too. It would have been all over the
county.'

    Cab
nodded. Larch was right. 'I appreciate your talking with me.'

    'No
problem.' Larch opened the door of the Corvette, and the rain was loud outside.
He climbed out and then bent down to shove his head in the car again. 'Hey, you
really need to get over to the island tonight?'

    'Why,
can you take me?'

    'Sure,
I do private fishing charters all the time. It'll cost you, though.'

    'How
much?'

    'Two
hundred bucks. I'll take you round trip, or I can drop you and you can spend
the night.' He added, 'Or you could let me take the Vette out for a spin, and
then it's no charge.'

    Cab
grinned. 'I don't really need to go over there tonight. It can wait.'

    Larch
pulled a ferry brochure from his pocket and slid a pen from the top of his
clipboard. He scribbled something on the brochure and handed it to Cab. 'That's
my phone number. If you change your mind, give me a call. I live over in Gills
Rock. I can have you there in less than an hour.'

    Cab
glanced at the sky. 'It'll be dark soon.'

    'Night
doesn't bother me. That's when you get the biggest walleyes.' Larch winked.
'Mark Bradley would be pretty surprised to see you at his house tonight.'

    'What's
that mean?'

    'Hey,
she's over eighteen now, so it's not like there's anything you guys can do
about it. Even so, it tells you what a piece of shit he is.'

    Cab's
eyes narrowed. 'I'm still not following you.'

    'Let's
just say Mark probably has some company in his bed tonight,' Larch told him.
'His wife came over on the four o'clock. She's gone for the night. So who races
up to the dock like she's a NASCAR driver to get on the last ferry? Tresa
Fischer.'

    'You're
telling me that
Tresa
went over to the island tonight?'

    Larch
nodded. 'That's right. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?'

    Water
pummeled Troy. Water was everywhere.

    The
twenty-footer clawed into the waves, but beyond the top of the peninsula, the
boat rocked like a toy in the ocean. The headwind bit at his exposed skin, and
the sky gushed rain down as heavy as a waterfall. He stayed west beyond the
worst currents of the passage, but even in the calm of Green Bay, swells rose
up and slammed the boat down so hard that his jaw hurt as the bow landed. His
progress was excruciatingly slow. After ten minutes, he thought he'd spent an
hour on the bay.

    He
was cold to his bones. He wore long underwear under his jeans and a heavy wool
sweater over his jersey, and he was covered head to toe in oilskin camouflage
gear he'd borrowed from his father's closet. None of it kept him warm. His toes
were numb inside his boots, and he clutched the wheel so hard he couldn't feel
his fingers. Beads of rain squeezed inside through the gaps at his collar and
trailed down his back like icy fingers.

    The
black sky felt as opaque as night. He had to keep wiping his eyes to see the
land looming on the horizon ahead of him, seemingly as far away as when he'd
started. To his northeast, the Plum Island lighthouse blinked out of the gloom.
With every minute, he thought about turning back, but if he did that, he would
prove what his father had always said about him. He was a failure. A coward. If
Glory was looking down at him in the middle of the water, he didn't want her
thinking he'd abandoned her.

    Troy
churned through the passage. He fought to keep the nose pointed toward the bulk
of the island as the current swept him nearly in circles. The up-and-down
hammering made a relentless thump, vibrating through his body. Even his
breathing felt strained as rain flooded his nose and mouth. He had to cover his
face and swallow air open-mouthed to keep from choking. As bad as it was, he
barely noticed when the water finally grew steadier around him. The boat picked
up speed. When he glanced eastward, he realized that Plum Island was behind him
now. The land mass of Detroit Island, which stretched like a finger below
Washington Island, acted like a reef to cut the chop from the lake.

    His
adrenaline soared. He'd survived the worst of the crossing. The island grew
large less than two miles ahead of him.

    As he
neared land, Troy stayed west of the main harbor where the ferries came and
went. He didn't want to be spotted there. He hugged the shore and turned north
along the island's jutting index finger, where he could make out individual
trees, the white paint of houses built on the water, and deserted beaches.
Ahead of him, near the rounded end of the finger, the green trees stopped at
the water's edge, and the vast bay took over, reaching twenty-five miles to
Michigan's upper peninsula coast.

    He
followed the land as it turned back south into the deep inlet in the island's
coast known as Washington Harbor. A long white beach tracked the water. The
base of the inlet was known as Schoolhouse Beach, made not of sand but of
millions of ivory rocks polished smooth by the currents. He'd gone there with
Glory many times in the summers. If he looked hard enough, he could picture her
there, in her bikini on a red beach towel, or skinny-dipping in the cool water
on a late weekday afternoon. None of that mattered now. What mattered was that
Mark Bradley lived on the east side of the beach, in a house hidden inside the
trees.

    Troy
aimed for a forested stretch of shore, out of view of any of the beachfront
houses. Most were unoccupied now anyway. Looking down, he saw the water growing
shallow. He raised the motor and drifted. As he neared the beach, he climbed
over the side and dropped into the knee-deep water, which knifed him with cold.
He splashed on to the rocks, dragging the boat with him, until it was far
enough out of the water to be too heavy to move. He left it there. He wasn't
sure if he'd go back for it or if he'd slip on to the ferry in the morning with
Keith's help.