Death at Gills Rock (5 page)

T
he kitchen was empty when Cubiak returned from talking to Stella. He filled a glass at the sink and drank it down. Pulling on his jacket, he stepped back out into the overcast day. The wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped. After the heat of the house, the cool air felt good and he left his jacket open as he crossed the yard. The ambulances were gone. The trampled patch of grass where the bodies had lain was given a wide berth by the neighbors who continued to mill around. Word must have gotten out. There were more onlookers than before, women as well as men and a few kids turning cartwheels in the tall grass near the shore. The adults gathered in small knots, talking and periodically squinting out at the bay as if answers to their questions could be found among the waves. Cubiak followed their lead and looked to the water. If only life were that simple, he thought.

Suddenly he felt cold. He zipped his jacket and continued on toward Walter, who remained at the picnic table, cocooned in the EMT's blanket.

The sheriff took the other end of the bench and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head turned toward Walter. “I just talked to your mother. She seems to be taking things pretty well, considering.”

Walter burrowed further into the wrap. “She's strong, not like she looks.”

“Still, she'll need you to watch out for her. Must get pretty lonely up here.”

“It does.”

Walter shrugged off the blanket and looked up as if the expanse of empty sky confirmed this assessment of life on the outskirts of the small village.

“I'll take good care of her. And she has lots of friends. The other two especially. God, I can't believe it, all three of them in the same boat at the same time.” He straightened his shoulders and pivoted toward Cubiak. “Big Guy wasn't my birth father, you know.”

Cubiak nodded. He knew there was no predicting how people would react to the shock of death but still, it seemed an odd distinction for Walter to make under the circumstances. “Your mother told me,” the sheriff said.

“Did she? Doesn't matter, really. He was the same as. Only father I ever knew.” Walter stood and began folding the blanket. “Absolutely, the best, too. Scouts. Little League. Wrestling coach. The whole bit.”

“You're lucky,” Cubiak said, as a bitter childhood memory engulfed him. “Dad! Dad, get up.” He was eleven and Davey to everyone who knew him. He saw himself in front of the meager building where he lived with his parents, three of them in three rooms. He was leaning over the prostrate figure on the parkway, trying not to inhale the stink of vomit and beer from his father's shirt. “Dad!” he begged, and while his two best friends watched from across the street, he wrapped his thin arms around his father and pulled him to a sitting position. “Dad! Get up, please. I have a game. I'm pitching. I'm gonna be late.”

Walter tossed the wool throw on the table and dropped back onto the bench. He seemed exhausted.

“None of this seems real.”

“It never does,” Cubiak said. After a moment, he went on. “I hate to ask this: but do you know any reason anyone would have wanted to harm Big Guy—or either of the other two men?”

Walter jolted upright. “No! They were the guys everyone loved. Maybe there was a little envy, but to do something like this?” He jerked his head in the direction of the log cabin. “No way. You aren't thinking …”

“I'm not thinking anything, just following procedure. The questions don't always make sense… You checked out the space heater?”

“Not really. It was already shut off when I got here. Then someone said you were on your way, and I figured I shouldn't touch anything anyway, that maybe you'd want to look at it first.”

“I gave it a quick once over but wouldn't mind looking at it again.”

Walter hesitated and then got up with the sheriff.

They remained quiet walking to the cabin. At the door, Walter stopped and let Cubiak pass.

“The window was broken,” Cubiak said, indicating the cardboard, as he stepped inside.

“Yes,” Walter said. His voice sounded hollow, as if he were speaking from a different part of the universe. Still outside, he peeked in and glanced around. “I don't know what we're going to do with this place now. Maybe tear it down.”

“It's a nice cabin. Give it time,” Cubiak said.

As the sheriff bent over the space heater, he realized that when Walter arrived that morning the bodies of the three men had already been carried outside. This was his first time seeing the scene of the deaths. No wonder he was reluctant to cross the threshold.

“Looks solid. Venting pipe seems fairly new. I don't see any cracks or holes,” Cubiak said, as he heard Walter approach from behind. “Where's the tank?”

“In the woods,” Walter said. He was ashen in the dim interior.

“And the vent?”

“Out back.”

Cubiak led the way outside to the rear of the cabin.

“That's it.” Walter stopped and pointed down. The small metal hood was low to the ground and painted black, making it nearly invisible against the dark exterior.

Cubiak knelt and ran his hand along the underside of the cover. “Not much room is there?” he said, squeezing his thumb and index finger into the narrow opening. “What should I be feeling?”

“Steel mesh. There's a piece covering the exhaust hole.”

Cubiak felt a soft lump inside the metal hood. “That's not it. There's something else here,” he said as he scratched at the obstruction.

A small clump of dried leaves and grass fell into his hand.

Walter leapt forward. “What the hell, those fucking squirrels,” he said, tearing at his hair.

“Squirrels?”

“What else? Chipmunks maybe, but I'd lay odds it was squirrels. The little bastards build nests and hide shit all over the place.”

Cubiak stood and brushed off his knees.

“Your father seems to have run a very successful business. Which would imply that he was conscientious and thorough. Wouldn't he be on top of something like that?”

“You'd think, but you know what they say about the cobbler's kids.” Walter chuckled nervously, then abruptly turned somber again. “A handful of fucking leaves and three men die. And this weather, too. If it hadn't been so cold last night, they probably wouldn't have turned the damn thing on.”

They stared at the vent and the pile of debris.

“You're mechanical, good with your hands,” Cubiak said finally.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“But you didn't go into business with your dad?”

Walter looked up. “No, I didn't. Guess I was always more interested in cars. And he didn't pressure me none, the way some might. Like I said, he was a good father, the best.”

A
s they walked back to the yard, Cubiak nearly tripped over Walter's heels. Walter's pace had slackened through the course of the morning, whether weighted down by grief or slowed by age it was impossible to know. The low clouds had started to spit droplets of cold rain, and both men hunched their shoulders against the drizzle. It was just a few minutes past noon but the light had dimmed, as if time were trying to accelerate and push the day along.

At the gazebo, Walter halted.

Cubiak cupped his elbow. “Maybe go in, see how your mother is doing,” he said.

“Good idea.” But Walter didn't move. He seemed confused. Suddenly, he took a step back and extended a hand. “Thank you, you've been very kind.” His face was sallow, his grip clammy.

Cubiak watched as Walter moved across the lawn, his head bowed and one foot dragging behind the other. The weather had driven away many of the onlookers. The remainder separated into two groups: those who deliberately drifted out of Walter's path, as if not wishing to intrude on his grief or fearful of it, and those who stepped forward to greet him. Walter had grown up among these folks, and with words and gestures they let him know that he was among friends.

When Walter disappeared into the house, Cubiak returned to the cabin.

Bathard and Pardy huddled under the eaves.

“We were just discussing the postmortem,” Pardy said, making room for the sheriff. “There's no need to autopsy the bodies since there's no sign of foul play. Blood tests will determine if the men died from carbon monoxide poisoning as we suspect. Evelyn and I will secure the samples this afternoon. I don't expect any surprises and should be able to confirm cause of death on Monday. Unless you have something?”

“Not really,” Cubiak said, drying his glasses.

Bathard raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

Cubiak glanced toward the door and then told them about the broken window and the dead bolt.

Pardy frowned and brushed a tangle of damp ringlets off her forehead. She did not share the sheriff 's concerns. “Three elderly men excited about the story in the paper, maybe half in the bag before they even meet up for the evening. They're all talking at once and the last one in absentmindedly locks the door. I don't see that there's anything to it.”

Bathard nodded. “Precisely. Here are these three senior gents. They've got the paper and a bottle. They're reminiscing about the good old days and one of them happens to throw the lock.” A shadow clouded Bathard's face. “My god, listen to me. I'm talking about them like they were frat boys reliving their glory days. They were young men fighting under god-awful conditions. Nothing but cold and fog and muck so slick a man could barely keep upright on his feet. They've got planes dropping bombs on them and a freezing ocean trying to suck them in. Most people don't realize, do they, what it was like?”

Pardy and Cubiak were both silent. Then the sheriff spoke. “Yeah. Most people have no idea.” He looked at Bathard. “You were in the service?”

The physician's shoulders stiffened slightly, accentuating his ramrod posture. “Navy medical corps. Vietnam. Different—if one war can be different from another.” Bathard cleared his throat. “As to the door, it's also possible that given the dampness and the proximity to the bay, the door was stuck and in the panic of trying to get in, Ida and Clyde assumed it was locked and smashed the window.”

“Maybe.”

“You're not convinced.”

“I'm just wondering, that's all.”

The locked door was just one issue puzzling the sheriff. Cubiak had grown up blue collar, with friends whose fathers were in the trades: plumbers, electricians, carpenters. Though they did well, none approached the level of prosperity that Huntsman appeared to have attained. He could have inherited the land and the business as well. But if he'd had to start from scratch, how'd he make enough to accumulate the sprawling waterfront property, the boats and cabin, and the huge house?

Cubiak finished with the doctors and continued around the cabin. Earlier, he'd noticed a faint path through the woods. Alone, he followed it. The trail cut through a grove of lush pines and ended at a small cove lined with smooth black rocks. The shallow inlet opened onto the bay but a curved slip of heavy forest blocked the view to the house and village, leaving the area completely isolated.

Three of a Kind, as Cubiak had already come to think of the men. They could have been doing anything here and no one would have known. Smuggling drugs or money. Or operating an illegal poker ring. He was the nearest law, and he was forty-some miles away in Sturgeon Bay.

“Jesus.” Cubiak scooped up an ebony stone and skimmed it along the surface of the water. After nearly two years on the peninsula, he was still thinking like a big city cop. Life's different here, he told himself.

I
t was after one when Cubiak left Huntsman's place. Walter had remained inside with his mother, giving the sheriff a chance to question Clyde Smitz privately. The neighbor more or less corroborated Ida's story about the door and sequence of events. Smitz got the call, ran over to the cabin, and was ramming the door with his shoulder when Ida arrived and smashed the window with a rock. Then he'd reached in and flipped the latch.

“So the door was locked?” Cubiak said.

“I guess. Yeah, sure, it had to be.” Smitz massaged his left shoulder. “It was all so fast, you know. I didn't really know what the hell was going on. I could see them sitting there and I knew something wasn't right.”

Did Smitz wonder why the door was locked? No. All he wondered was why three men he knew had to endure such a tragic, senseless death.

Cubiak left the neighbor to join the others on the lawn and quietly slipped away. There was no one else to talk with and no reason to linger. At Highway 42, he turned toward the heart of Gills Rock, hoping he hadn't missed lunch at the Sunset Café. The village's lone restaurant looked out over the small harbor and deserted ferry landing. From the lot, he climbed a flight of wooden stairs to the entrance. A bell jingled as he opened the door. A bald man at a corner table and the waitress talking to him looked up at the noise. The waitress said something to the patron and walked toward Cubiak.