Death at Gills Rock (22 page)

“I can't…”

“Sure you can,” Marty said and began walking away. When he reached the end of the pier, he gave a backward wave. “Whatever you find out, you'll let me know?”

In the waning light, Cubiak nodded, but Marty was gone.

D
eath was rarely simple. The fatal carbon monoxide poisoning of three old friends who died playing poker on a chilly Friday night should have been an open and shut case. It should not have been a case at all. When the unfortunate and presumably accidental deaths were quickly followed by the brutal murder of one of their associates, Cubiak was sucked into a miasma of secrets that hinted at illegal gambling, possible blackmail, and sexual behavior long considered not just scandalous but sinful. Then Marty Wilkins, the son of one of the first three victims, alluded to an old photo that complicated the situation further. How to factor in Christian Nils, a soldier dead more than half a century? What to make of Charles Tweet, a contemporary of the Three of a Kind, perhaps the man who shot the potentially damning photo, and, according to the
Herald
, a successful player in the booming marketplace of World War II memorabilia?

Driving to headquarters, Cubiak mulled over the circumstances. He was still distracted when he walked in. Lisa coughed twice before she had his attention.

“Someone to see you,” she said, handing him a message and nodding toward a lanky man curled in a chair along the far wall. The visitor looked familiar but his head was lowered to his chest and his face hidden by the brim of a faded black cowboy hat.

Cubiak mouthed the word
who
.

“Walter Nils.”

Now what? Cubiak thought. “Give me a few minutes to take care of this”—he held up the note she'd given him—“then send him in.”

The message was from Natalie. He called her, hoping she wouldn't mention the wedding and was relieved when she asked about the puppies and reminded him to start them on gruel the next day. “I left the instructions on the counter, remember?”

“I remember.” There was a knock on the door. “Sorry, have to go,” he said and hung up, then, louder, “Come on in.”

Walter Nils pushed the door in a few inches and slipped through the narrow opening like he was trying to fold into himself. His jean jacket was stained. Thick stubble covered his jaw. “Sheriff,” he said, blinking hard and clutching the worn Stetson in both hands.

Less than twenty-four hours earlier the sheriff had spent several hours in close quarters with Walter's childhood friend Marty Wilkins. Despite their common backgrounds, they seemed marked more by differences than by similarities. Marty had blown into his office with a swagger that conveyed self-confidence and bravado, even if it was contrived. Walter was unsteady and tentative.

As a show of courtesy, Cubiak stood. “Here, have a seat. I understand you wanted to see me about something?”

Walter elbowed the door shut, crossed to the desk, and sat down heavily in the chair that Marty had eschewed.

“Coffee?”

“No. No, thanks.” Walter rubbed a rough hand over his mouth.

“Something wrong?”

Walter made a sharp sound, like a bark. After more fidgeting, he squared his shoulders and looked at Cubiak. “I did it,” he said.

“Did what?”

“Killed Big Guy and the other two.” Walter dropped the hat between his feet and held out his hands.

Cubiak didn't move.

“Well, ain't you gonna arrest me?”

The sheriff leaned back. He didn't believe Walter. “You put the leaves in the vent?” he said, stalling.

“Yeah. You saw it yourself. I know I said it was squirrels but it was me.”

“Why?”

“I got my reasons.”

The same answer Agnes had given when Cubiak asked her why she'd blasted a hole in her husband's chest.

“You're going to have to tell me, you know that? Sooner or later.”

“No, I don't. All's I gotta do is confess.”

“You need a motive.”

“I got one.”

Cubiak tapped the intercom button on the phone console. “Lisa, when you get a minute, would you mind bringing us a couple of coffees?”
When you get a minute
—their agreed upon code for ASAP. The sheriff remembered Walter at Ida's kitchen table. “Sugar. Extra cream. And cookies, if there are any.” To Walter, he added, “The ladies bake but they're always dieting, too. Mostly they bring the stuff to work and I eat more than I should.” Walter said nothing and while they waited, the sheriff scanned a stack of traffic reports. The silence held until Lisa set down the tray.

“Go on, the coffee'll do you good,” Cubiak said, reaching for an oatmeal cookie as well. He knew he should march Walter to an interrogation room, read him his rights, and record their conversation but he figured that was step two if things went that far. This was step one. An informal chat.

“I've learned a few things the last week or so,” Cubiak said as Walter ripped open a sugar packet and dumped the crystals into his cup.

“To begin, Huntsman wasn't the model father you said he was. Your old buddy Marty put me straight on that.”

Walter stopped stirring his coffee. “You talked to Marty?”

“I did.”

Walter frowned and worked his mouth as if he were trying to figure out just what Marty had told the sheriff. Letting him stew over the possibilities, Cubiak picked up a pen and drew a small circle on a sheet of paper, then another interlocking with the first. When the row of circles stretched across the page, he looked at Walter. “So, the question remains: if you murdered Big Guy and the other two, why did you do it?”

“I told you.” Walter had grown increasingly pale. Against his alabaster complexion, his ebony eyes looked like bottomless pits.

“I know, ‘You got your reason.'” Cubiak started the circles down the right margin. As he doodled the sheriff rehashed the mangled chain of recent events, searching for a pattern amid the confusion. There was something missing, something that linked the past with the present and connected one person with another. Something that propelled an innocent man to confess to murder.

Suddenly, he put the pen down. Looking at his visitor, he realized that the sorry, sad answer had started taking shape the day before when he'd been listening to Marty. “It has to do with Roger, doesn't it? This is all about him,” he said quietly.

Walter blanched. Tears rimmed his eyes. “Yeah. It's about Roger,” he said after a minute. “Marty claimed he left Door County because of Coach Vinter, 'cause of what he said the coach did. Once when he was back, he told me what happened, but I didn't believe him. I'd never heard anything like that, not even a hint of it and I'd been on the team for years, knew all the other guys. The coach seemed like a stand-up guy. Hell, he was married and had a couple of kids. I'd worshipped Vinter when I was young. We all did!

“And Marty? He was a bum that time when he came to see me. Bloodshot eyes, drunk all hours. He was always a big guy, wrestled at one-seventy junior year, and here he was skinny as a post and jittery, like he was shooting up dope or something. Hell, half the stuff he said made no sense. I figured he was making it up, about the coach and all that shit about his father and the others. I punched him out, told him he was off his rocker.”

Walter rearranged his feet on the floor. “I knew about the parties with the women and had these men pegged for studs. You know that's how they finagled their great success as businessmen, right?”

“I do.”

“You do?” Walter's face brightened. Then he snorted. “Well, I believe you do. Funny nobody else figured it out.”

“No one had reason to question it.”

“That's just what they wanted, wasn't it? To fool everyone.” Walter scrubbed his face with his hands. “They were smart. Had everything figured out. And here I am, the biggest fool. I didn't see Marty for years after that. After a while, he started coming back regular-like every few years. Even bought a boat to have handy when he wanted to go out on the water. Eventually we got to talking again, but not about that.
That
was never mentioned again. All the more reason I thought it was just some crazy story he'd concocted when he was drunk or drugged up or something. After my wife left—the second one, Roger's mother—I had my hands full raising the boy and running my business. Didn't do a very good job with either. But I tried. Sent him to scouts and to church. Made sure he did his schoolwork. Every sport he wanted to try, I was okay with it. And when he made the wrestling team freshman year, I was proud. I didn't think twice about Vinter.” Walter rubbed the back of his neck.

“Look at me, Sheriff. Compared to Huntsman, I'm a bust-out. A lousy husband. A half-bad mechanic. Bit of a boozer. A man with no ambition, nothing much up here.” He tapped his head. “Big Guy always used to tell me I was an embarrassment. But I felt proud of what I'd done for Roger. And when he got that scholarship and won that medal, I felt like I could stand up next to anyone. Then it all started falling apart. Roger changed. I saw what happened to him over the summer and at first wrote it off to nerves. Figured once he got to that school, things would settle into place. But everything got worse. After he dropped out, I remembered Marty's story, and started wondering if maybe Marty had been telling the truth. It made me sick to think that my son had been through the same. I finally made Roger tell me what happened. It was the same fucking story as with Marty. The same goddamn thing,” Walter said, flushed with rage.

“Why not take your revenge on Coach Vinter?”

“He wasn't here anymore. Moved away to Florida or Arizona. And anyway, it didn't start with him; it started with
them
, Big Guy and his pals. They were behind the wrestling program. They brought Bill Vinter here and then gave him a supply of young men to prey on.”

“From what I know, Vinter never touched any of them when they were still boys.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that's something to the law but what he did to Marty and Roger was bad enough.” Walter looked at Cubiak. “I couldn't protect one of my own. What kind of man is that?”

Cubiak flinched. The same kind of man who couldn't save his own wife and daughter from a drunk driver, a man like him who must learn to live with things he cannot change. “You didn't know,” he said.

“I didn't want to know. Marty tried to tell me but I wouldn't listen. Went around with my head in the sand and my gut full of booze. What could I have done anyways? Marty was gone. There was no proof of anything. Big Guy would have run me off the peninsula if I started shooting my mouth off.

“I was up there Friday afternoon when that St. James fellow brought copies of the
Herald
to the house. Said he was thinking of writing a book about the coast guard in the war and they'd be in it. Said he'd heard the governor was coming to the ceremony honoring them. Even the senator would be there. You should have seen Big Guy all puffed up. Him and the other two bragging and joshing around. I couldn't stand it. And then after Roger told me what happened, I swear to god, if I'd had a gun, I would have gone back up there and shot them all. But I was never any good with a gun, so I had to come up with a different way of dealing with them.”

“The leaves in the vent.”

Walter nodded. “Once that article came out, they'd be praised all up and down the peninsula. Then the ceremony! Christ! I grew up on stories about what a fantastic guy Huntsman was. All of them. But they were hypocrites. Phony husbands and phony fathers. Phony war heroes, too!” He kicked the desk. “They didn't fight any Japs up there in the Aleutians. They ferried the boys like my father who did. Christian Nils faced the enemy. He died protecting this country. He was one of the genuine heroes. He should be the one honored at the ceremony.”

“I'm sure he will be mentioned,” Cubiak said.

“Maybe. But he won't be there to hear his name called, will he?”

“Neither will they.”

“That's right. I made sure of that, didn't I?” Walter said with smug satisfaction. “Unless they're listening from down there.” He made a face and pointed toward the floor.