Death Stalks Door County (18 page)

“He's a transplant. From somewhere in Michigan. Detroit, I think. Not that that's gonna do you any good.”

“It might be just what I need,” he said.

At Jensen Station, Cubiak found Ruta in the kitchen chopping onions.

“I need your help finding Buddy Entwhistle.”

The housekeeper looked up, her knife poised above the cutting board. “Me? I don't know this person,” she said as scooped the onion into a bowl of ground beef, cracked an egg over the edge, and started mixing the ingredients by hand.

“I don't know him either. What I want you to do is to call the information operator for Detroit and get the numbers for every Entwhistle in the area. Then call each of them and see if anyone knows where Buddy is staying.”

“Bah,” Ruta protested. Her English. The cost.

“Your English is fine, and the calls are official business.” Cubiak pulled a pen and notebook from his pocket. “Here, I'll print the name out for you so you'll have the correct spelling. All you have to do is write down anything anyone tells you about him.”

The housekeeper patted the raw meat into a cast iron pan.

“Okay? Do this for me, please?”

Ruta wiped her hands in a striped towel. “Okay. Yes. I will try,” she said finally.

A
t a quarter past six, Cubiak pulled into Ruby's driveway. It had been dark the time he'd chauffeured Cate back from Beck's party, and he'd seen very little of the house and grounds. He expected that someone from a moneyed background who had a national reputation as an artist would live elaborately and was surprised by the simple, unpretentious homestead. The only building substantial enough to be Ruby's studio was a squat, weathered barn at the rear of the yard. There were two storage sheds and a grape arbor on one side and a small pen with three plump sheep on the other. A large garden plot sat nearer the house. A spreading elm shaded an old picnic table, and along the garage there was a low wall of neatly stacked firewood. The grounds were surrounded by a forest of white cedars, and both the house and garage were covered in cedar siding that blended almost seamlessly into the setting.

The back door sprang open and Cate emerged. Her hair was tinged pink and pulled back, and she wore pants and top in monochromatic gray.

As she stepped off the porch and advanced toward him, Cubiak felt increasingly self-conscious. They'd both been in their cups at Pechta's. He couldn't remember all that had been said and wasn't sure if the confidences they'd shared would embarrass either of them in the sober light of day.

Cate reached for the wine he carried. “Glad you could make it,” she said. Her tone was neither warm nor cold but she didn't pull back as her fingertips grazed his wrist and her calm neutrality put him at ease.

Cubiak followed her to the door and into a rear hallway cluttered with outdoor gear. The passage opened into a wide, colorful kitchen, scented with the jumbled bouquet of fresh-baked bread and fried onions and garlic. Green and yellow ceramic bowls lined a red-tiled counter. Copper-bottomed pots and pans hung over a blue workbench. Cookbooks spilled from a narrow bookcase. Jars of home-canned beans, peaches, and tomatoes filled two long shelves that had been hung to accommodate the reach of a tall person. A rectangle of windows opened onto the forest of fir trees.

Cate disappeared with the wine. Ruby, her face tinged from the heat, stepped away from the cast iron stove and gave him a solid handshake. Her hair was twisted into a single, jet-black braid. Her long skirt and top were rich-hued, flowing suede.

“Evelyn you know, of course, and the lovely Cornelia.” At the built-in dinette, Bathard's wife floated on a throne of pillows. Her pale pink turtleneck and stylish white trousers seemed to envelop little more than air.

“Thank you for coming. I'm sure you're terribly busy at the park these days,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice. “Evelyn was on the committee that drew up many of the hiking trails. It's such a wonderful place. A refuge from the world.”

A glance from Bathard told Cubiak that the coroner had spared his ill wife news of the recent tragedies.

“You're happy there?” Cornelia said.

Cubiak was spared answering by Cate, who reappeared with goblets of wine. Talk fell easily to local history and peninsula politics, and he relaxed into the undulating wave of conversation. From the stove, Ruby gave out the occasional directive, and in a while, a timer rang. After the bustle of plating, they moved into the dining room for a meal of roasted venison, braised root vegetables, hot rolls, and a salad of wild greens.

For coffee and dessert they drifted into the living room. While Cate tended the fire and Bathard settled Cornelia into a low, stuffed chair, Ruby handed Cubiak servings of homemade cherry strudel to pass. The room was comfortable and informal, with three long skylights on a vaulted ceiling and a span of windows that looked out over the eastern approach to Death's Door. Shelves piled with art books and Navajo pots flanked the stone fireplace. A handful of small weavings and three large abstract paintings hung on one white stucco wall. The other, facing the sofa, was filled with stark black-and-white photos of elderly women with infants.

“Grandmothers and grandchildren,” Ruby said, noticing Cubiak studying the pictures. She set a fresh bottle of wine on the coffee table and then sat on the sofa with him. “Some of Cate's work. She's quite a good photographer, you know.
National Geographic. Smithsonian
magazine.”

“Well,” he said, surprised. He'd assumed Cate's job was more a rich woman's way of keeping busy than a profession.

Cate reached for another log, her back to him. “Yes, well,” she said and dropped the wood onto the fire. Cubiak started to make room for her on the sofa but shifted back when Cate sat on an upholstered hassock near the hearth.

“Talented family,” Bathard interjected. He was perched on the arm of Cornelia's chair, one foot on the floor, the other casually twined around his ankle. “There's Cate, of course, following in the footsteps of her famous aunt. Ruby's latest weaving, ‘Tree of Life,' will be unveiled tomorrow evening, isn't that right, Rube?”

“Yes, and you're welcome to come. Six thirty at the Birchwood.”

Cubiak wasn't sure if the invitation was sincere. Ruby had barely glanced his way when she spoke. And Cate had remained silent.

“And then there's Dutch,” Bathard went on. “A man with his own special skills. Built most of the house himself, for one.”

“Dutch?” Ruby's voice softened as she looked at Cubiak, the glow of a happy memory playing across her face. “My late husband. A former cop, like you. They called him the ‘Legendary Dutch.'” She looked around the room, as if expecting to catch a glimpse of his shadow. What had Cate said at Pechta's when Amelia showed him the Survivalist Club photo? That Ruby had taken it real hard when Dutch died. Cubiak recognized the longing in her eyes.

“How's the book going?”

Ruby scowled at the coroner's question and then gave a quick laugh. “Slowly. Very slowly.”

“About three years after he retired, Dutch started compiling a natural history of the county. I believe he was working on it right up until the time he died,” Bathard explained. “I was after Ruby for some time to finish it. Finally convinced her last winter. You are working on it?”

“Yes, I am, but it's hard. Hard to pick up where he left off.” Her tone had a sudden, sharp edge but she squared her shoulders and assumed a light, breezy air. “A wonderful man, Dutch. Unflappable. Never afraid—not of anyone or anything.”

“Certainly not bear,” Cornelia said.

The others laughed. Cubiak looked up from refilling his wine glass—his third drink of the evening, already one past the limit he'd set for himself. “Bear?”

“It's an infamous story, part of local folklore,” Bathard explained. “Dutch and Ruby were mushrooming one day when a young black bear popped out of the woods, rambled up to Dutch, and for no apparent reason clamped its mouth around his forearm. I wouldn't have believed this tall tale myself, except that Ruby called the next day and insisted I come by and take a look at Dutch's arm. By then the tooth marks had faded and become distorted but they were still clearly discernible.”

Ruby patted Cubiak's knee. “Dutch wore that bear like a bracelet,” she said with a certain smugness.

“I love hearing the old stories,” Cornelia said wistfully, resting against her husband. “Tell us, Ruby. Tell us again about Dutch.”

“It's getting late . . .” Ruby started to protest, but Bathard signaled his assent, and Cubiak realized that for the dying, some things were more important than rest.

R
uby walked to the window. Hands clasped, she stared into the fading light for a beat and then turned toward them. Her face was serene as she started speaking.

“Beck introduced us. I was twenty and Dutch a year older. He'd just finished his junior year at the UW campus in Green Bay and wasn't sure if he would be able to return to school. His father was seriously ill, and if he didn't recover from surgery by fall, Dutch would have to drop out and work full time in the family grocery store in Sturgeon Bay.

“What about your education? I asked, but he just shrugged and said it wasn't a birthright.

“I thought it was.

“That summer the five of us—Dutch, Beck, Eloise, Claire, and I—practically lived on Beck's boat, a thirty-eight-foot yawl. Sometimes Otto came along too.”

Cubiak stirred, amused by the notion of a young, carefree Johnson out on the water.

“One afternoon in late August, we followed a famous racing route from the Coast Guard Station up around the tip and into the bay, trying to beat the best time.

“I rode the prow and watched for landmarks. Eloise plotted the course. Dutch worked the mainsail. Claire, the jib. Beck was captain. He was always captain. We passed the old Ridges lighthouse in record time and were through the Door and into Green Bay well ahead of schedule.

“We were passing above the skeletal remains of hundreds of lost ships, laughing where others had suffered frightful and violent deaths, dancing over the graves of ghosts.

“At the finish, we celebrated with champagne toasts, all of us saying the usual silly things, until it was Beck's turn.

“‘To honor among friends,' he proclaimed, all very solemn and serious-like. He raised his glass, emptied it, and flung it as far as he could into the bay. Dutch repeated the toast and the two of them shook hands, almost as if sealing a pact.

“On shore, the trees were turning. Dutch pointed to the splotches of red and gold and said we must always be aware of the sure and quick passage of time. Then he started to sing:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind
. . .”

Ruby looked around as if surprised that the room was filled with guests. “‘You know the song,' he said, and we all joined in:
We'll drink a cup of kindness now for auld lang syne
. Oh, we were so young, so drunk on ourselves. Youth is joy, sentimental in ways age cannot fathom. Naive in ways that later seem almost absurd.

“A few weeks later, I went home to Milwaukee and Dutch went to work in his father's store. But the war in Vietnam was escalating, and he was drafted. He could have asked for a deferment, because of the situation in his family, but he didn't. He was inducted in 1968, a year after the bombing of Haiphong and Hanoi had started.

“The next summer, I went out west to a Lakota Sioux reservation where I taught the mechanics of art to kids who didn't have enough food to eat, while I learned the spirit of art from a woman who . . . who understood life.

“In the fall I went back to school, and in October, Eloise wrote saying that Dutch had been injured and was in the veterans hospital outside Milwaukee.

“Dutch's ward was at the end of a long, pale green hall. It was a narrow room with seven beds. The patients were all young, all heavily bandaged. Arms and legs in slings. Ropes, pulleys. None of them looked brave or soldierly. They all looked like lonely little boys.

“Dutch had been hit by shrapnel; his right shoulder and leg had been shattered and then put back together. He was bandaged and bedridden. Yet he was cheerful. He held out his good arm and set his deep blue eyes on me.

“By April, he was able to get around. I took him away from the hospital as much as possible. We went to the zoo and the little German cafés downtown. Mostly we walked along the lakefront and talked. He never asked me to marry him. One day we just started planning our life together.”

A log on the fire dislodged and sparked onto the grate. Ruby waited for Cate to rearrange the wood and then she continued.

“Dutch was still home when Claire was killed in that awful car crash. I came up for the funeral with my family and introduced him to my parents. We told them we planned to marry the following summer. They wouldn't hear of it.

“In the end, I packed my things and returned to Door County, alone. We were married in a nondenominational chapel outside Ephraim. My sister came. My parents didn't. A month later, Beck married Eloise. They had five hundred guests, a lawn covered with tents, and strolling violinists. Dutch was the best man. I was the matron of honor.

“He was a fine man, Dutch, and the people here admired him. He'd been decorated for bravery in Vietnam, and later when he ran for sheriff he was elected handily. After he rescued a little boy trapped in an abandoned well, he became a local celebrity. Dutch always said anybody could have saved the child, but the point is, no one else even tried. The brick walls of the pit were weak and had started to collapse, and there was a nest of pine snakes on the bottom. Dutch couldn't take a chance on shooting them with the boy in there. The poor kid was crying for his mother, who was getting drunk at some bar. It broke my heart. We could never have kids, Dutch and I. Well, he got the boy out. The child was unharmed but Dutch had seventeen snake bites on his legs.