The Light Keeper's Legacy (A Chloe Ellefson Mystery) (3 page)

Four: September, 1869

When the rye bread
was set to cooling, Ragna knotted her shawl around her shoulders and stepped outside. Anders might be home any time now, with fish and nets to unload and clean.

We did right to come here, she thought, although she hadn’t always been sure. She’d pushed Anders to leave Denmark, and his doubts had followed him onto the ship. He was not a handsome man until he smiled—and oh, how she had missed that smile during their long voyage! She’d longed to see his ready grin, so broad and infectious that people who saw it laughed without even knowing why, just for the joy of it.

But since settling on Rock Island, his smile had returned. When the Andersons had arrived in the little fishing village last spring they picked a roofless cottage (any structure with no roof, they were told, was considered abandoned) to make their own. In the space of a single summer they’d added neat rows of cedar shakes overhead, and a border of daisies planted with seed carried across the Atlantic. It was becoming a
hygge
home—warm and welcoming.

Their homesite was on the far northern edge of the village, and that pleased them both. The Danes and Norwegians on the island had welcomed them; the Yankees and Irish too, mostly. Still, sometimes Ragna liked hearing birdsongs through the window instead of a babble of foreign voices.

Now Denmark seemed as far away as the moon. She’d written to her brothers, urging them to come. Carl and Jens had no more opportunities in the old country than Anders did. They will like it here, Ragna thought as she strolled south, passing cabins and cottages. Several children darted past, shrieking with laughter, and the rhythmic thumps of mallet and froe rang from one of the cooperages. The air smelled of whitefish and smoke.

A path led down to the beach, lined with Mackinaw boats pulled onto the cobbles. Fishermen were emptying their boats and women taking nets to dry. A boy was stacking cordwood on the dock for the next steamer. The lake rippled gently beneath a soft pink sky. Ragna smiled, well pleased.

Then an angry voice knifed through the evening. The boy was being berated by a stocky man. One of the Irishmen
…
Carrick Dugan, wasn’t it?

Carrick Dugan whipped the hat from his head and slapped the boy with it. The boy cowered, hands raised. Dugan smacked the child with his hat again.

Ragna snatched up her skirt and pounded down the dock. “Here, now!” she said, in Danish because she had little English yet. “There is no cause to beat the boy.”

Dugan glared at Ragna, pushing his chest out like a riled rooster. His red hair reminded her of a rooster, too.

Two men stacking kegs of salt on the beach paused in their work. “Let it go, Dugan,” one of them called.

Dugan kicked the child.

“
Stop!
” Ragna grabbed Dugan’s arm. She meant only to pull him away, but Dugan stumbled against the firewood. Windmilling his arms, he fell backward from the dock, landing in waist-deep water with a splash that dampened Ragna’s skirt. The men on the beach whooped with laughter.

The sputtering Irishman scrambled to his feet. Water streamed from his clothes, his hat. Dugan looked at Ragna with such rage that something beneath her sternum went cold. Then he floundered ashore and stalked away.

Mette Friis, one of the other Danish fishwives, paused to scold the laughing men before hurrying down the dock. She spoke softly to the boy. Then Mette put an arm over Ragna’s shoulders and led her to shore. “You must stay clear of Dugan,” she advised in a low voice. “You shouldn’t have intervened.”

“He was hitting a child!”

“Dugan is a bad one,” Mette said, her tone hushed. “He has always been quick to anger, but after his wife ran away—”

“His wife ran away?”

“She did. I helped her hide away on a passing sloop.” Mette lifted her chin. “You must
never
repeat that. I hope she is far away, living a happier life.”

Ragna didn’t know what to say. What kind of life could a runaway wife hope to find?

“She was
Danish
,” Mette added. “She humiliated Dugan by running away. You must stay away from the man.”

That night, when the fish had been gutted and cleaned and packed, Ragna told Anders what had happened. “I think I made an enemy.”

“It will blow over.” Anders pulled his pipe from his jacket pocket. “Dugan started the trouble.”

“But Dugan was the one who ended up in the water!”

“We’ve come to a good new place.” Anders began tamping tobacco into the pipe. “I will always thank you for insisting that we come here.”

“But—”

“Don’t dwell on one sorry incident. The man is a bully, and got no more than he deserved.”

The man
is
a bully, Ragna thought. And whether in a schoolyard or on a village dock, bullies didn’t like being shamed.

Five

Chloe’s breath was ragged
by the time she climbed back to the top of the cliff. She walked a few paces, trying to catch her wind, but the urge to run was too strong. Heart hammering, she jogged past the lighthouse and back toward the boat landing.

She was gasping long before she reached the main compound. She stared at the channel. What the hell should she do now? She’d watched the last employee of the day leave on the
Karfi.
Then she remembered: two kayakers were on the island. The passage back to Washington Island might still be too rough to paddle, but she wouldn’t know until she asked.

Forty secluded campsites were sprinkled across the southern end of the 900-acre island. The young couple was in one of the remote sites, but where were
those
? She set off in what she hoped was the right direction.

Chloe searched for what seemed forever before hearing voices.
A tent was pitched in a small clearing at the edge of the trees. The campers were on the beach just beyond. A blonde guy was sharpening a long stick with an army knife while a dark-haired young woman laid out the makings for s’mores: marshmallows, graham crackers, Hershey Bars.

Both of them scrambled to their feet as Chloe burst from the trees. “Um, what’s up?” the guy said.

Chloe leaned over, hands on knees, feeling lightheaded. She took a deep breath before straightening and introducing herself. “I came to spend a week at the lighthouse, doing research.”

“I’m Tim Brown,” the guy said. “That’s Natalie.”

They were
…
what, twenty? Maybe twenty-two? Tim was a good-looking kid in a low-key kind of way, short but powerfully built through the upper body. Natalie seemed a less-likely paddle rat, with hair that probably—when clean—fluffed in floppy layers.

“I was down at the beach below the lighthouse a little while ago,” Chloe began, “and I found a
…
a body.”

“A
body?
” Tim took a step backward.

Natalie’s eyes went wide. “Oh my God! Who is it?”

“I have no idea. A woman’s body is sort of tangled up in a fish net.”

Tim’s mouth twisted. “Grody.”

“Yeah,” Chloe agreed, “but here’s the thing. There aren’t any park employees on the island tonight, and the phone isn’t working. So I’m really not sure what—”

Natalie gestured toward the kayaks pulled up on the beach nearby. “We can go for help.”

“Really?” Chloe asked. “Garrett told me conditions weren’t good for paddling the channel.”

“That was this morning,” Natalie scoffed. “The wind’s been dropping all day.”

“Are you sure?” Chloe asked, thinking, Please be sure. Please be sure.

“No problem,” Natalie said.

Tim shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

Natalie and Tim packed away the food and fetched paddles, a compass, and flashlights from their tent. They donned dry suits and life preservers, and shoved the two kayaks into the shallows. Chloe splashed in, the water biting like ice at her ankles, and helped push them off. “Be safe,” she called.

Natalie took the lead, angling her kayak to loop around Rock Island’s east shore before cutting south and west toward Washington Island’s Jackson Harbor. Soon they had disappeared from sight.

Chloe returned to the trail, hiked back across the island, and down to the dock. She could see the kayaks in the distance. Natalie’s was green and easy to miss, but Tim’s bright yellow boat shone like a beacon. The two paddlers appeared to be crossing without difficulty. Chloe found a picnic table where she could see the channel, and settled down to wait.

_____

Sometime later Chloe watched as a rescue squad wrestled the body up the last of the steps from the beach. The men lowered the stretcher to the ground, no doubt relieved to have managed the climb. The sun hadn’t set, but it was gloomy beneath the cedar trees. As Chloe tugged her jacket’s zipper closer to her chin, she recognized one of the two men bringing up the tail of the procession. “Garrett!” she called softly.

The park manager was now dressed in civvies. “Sorry business,” he muttered.

The second man looked at Garrett expectantly, waited a beat, then introduced himself. “Stig Fjelstul, Door County Deputy Sheriff.” He pronounced his name the Scandinavian way:
Steeg Fyellstewl
. Fjelstul was solid and square-shouldered, at least six-four, with a piercing gaze behind horn-rimmed glasses.

“Chloe Ellefson. I’m here doing research.”

“I’m sorry your stay on Rock Island began with
…
with this,” he said.

“Do you know who the woman is?”

Garrett answered. “No.”

“No,” the deputy echoed, as if Garrett hadn’t spoken. “She’s definitely not a local.”

The park manager blew out a long sigh. “So, Chloe, do you still want to stay?”

It hadn’t occurred to her to consider anything else. “Well, yeah. Of course.”

The deputy frowned. “Perhaps you should—”

“I believe Miss Ellefson has made a decision,” Garrett said pointedly.

Chloe looked from one man to the other. What was up with these two? “Don’t worry,” she told the deputy. “I do want to stay.”

The stretcher-bearers picked up their load again. When they reached the clearing Garrett cocked his head toward the DNR truck parked nearby. “I need to drive the body and the crew down to the landing. I’ll see you tomorrow, Chloe. If Mel can get the
Ranger
running I’ll be here by nine.”

Mel
…
right, the maintenance guy. And the
Ranger
must be the park boat. “Sounds good. Oh—just one more thing.” Chloe hunched her shoulders. “When you talk to reporters, could you leave my name out? I don’t want my family to worry.” And—geez Louise, Roelke. Roelke would
not
be happy to know she’d found a body on the beach.

“I’ll try.”

When Garrett and the rescue team disappeared down the trail, Deputy Fjelstul stayed where he was. Chloe gave the man a sideways glance and noticed the emblem on his jacket. “You’re DNR? I thought you said—”

“Used to be a game warden. Now I’m with the county sheriff’s office, out of Sturgeon Bay down the peninsula. I took the call because I live on Washington Island.”

Which was fortunate, Chloe thought. Otherwise it would have taken much longer to get a deputy to Rock. “Have any boats been lost lately?”

“Not that we’re aware of. I’ll see what I can ascertain.”

Ascertain? Who said “ascertain”? Chloe rubbed her arms, trying to banish gooseflesh. “It’s horrible.”

“Lake Michigan often doesn’t forgive mistakes, especially when squalls blow up.” Fjelstul removed his Brewers cap, ran a hand over his hair, and slapped the hat back in place.

“Um
…
it seemed to me that the woman was not wearing clothes.”

“She was not. She appeared to be college-age, nineteen or twenty. Probably a couple out for a romantic sail went skinny-dipping and something went wrong. Even at this time of year, hypothermia’s a real risk. Especially if alcohol is involved.”

“But
…
how would she end up tangled in the fishing net?”

The deputy waved a dismissive hand. “There are probably thousands of lost gillnets moldering away in Lake Michigan.”

“Really?” Chloe knew little about commercial fishing—OK, nothing at all—but it had never occurred to her that all the nets taken out to open water didn’t return. “Don’t they pose a threat to fish?”

“They can.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s a problem, especially with fishermen and the DNR clashing over quotas and regulations. Did anyone take a statement from you?”

“No,” Chloe said. “I just pointed the rescue team down the beach when they got here.” A handful of men had zipped over the channel in motorboats. Chloe, a confirmed silent sports enthusiast, had never been so glad to hear the roar of engines. She couldn’t remember if Stig Fjelstul had been with that first contingent or not.

“Washington Island doesn’t have its own police force,” he explained. “Anyway, just tell me what happened. I don’t see any reason to suspect foul play, but our office routinely investigates any accidental death.”

Foul play. Two little words, melodramatic and chilling at the same time. “There’s not much to tell,” Chloe said. “I came over on the
Karfi
this afternoon, talked with Garrett for a few minutes down at the landing, then walked up to the lighthouse.” She described going down to the beach and spotting the body.

“Did you touch anything?”

Chloe shuddered. “It—the body—was face-down in the water, so I was pretty sure the person was dead, but I
…
you know. Figured I had to check. I rolled the body over. The net was dirty but I could see it was a young woman tangled up in all the layers. I saw long black hair clinging to her skin. Once I got a good look through the netting, I was absolutely certain she was beyond help.”

“Yeah.” To Chloe’s immense relief, Deputy Fjelstul let it go at that. “Well, I hope the rest of your stay is more convivial.”

Who said “convivial”? “Thanks.”

Two minutes later, Chloe was alone again. Twilight’s shadows stretched long. The clearing, so tranquil in daylight, now felt a bit spooky.

Defying the impulse to hide indoors, Chloe set up her backpacking stove on a picnic table outside. After a cup of hot tea, some peanut butter on crackers, and a handful of trail mix, she felt a bit more settled. Confronted with dirty dishes, though, she realized that she’d left both buckets on the beach below. Well, washing could wait until tomorrow. No way was she going back to the beach in the dark. Exploring the lighthouse would have to wait for tomorrow, too. She wasn’t in the mood to traipse through shadowed rooms with a lantern.

She hit the outhouse, took her dishes inside, and locked the door behind her. Then she unstrapped her sleeping bag and carried it into the keeper’s bedroom on the first floor, which held the promised bed. It was an antique, but the RISC folks had thoughtfully provided a modern mattress. Chloe felt a little better once she’d slid into the sleeping bag, which held memories of many wonderful camping trips.

I want to be here, she thought. No
…
I
need
to be here. She’d made a commitment, and she intended to honor it. She owed the lightkeepers that, and the RISC people and park visitors too.

Besides, she needed time to sort out her feelings about Roelke McKenna. She had a bad track record with men, and she was terrified of making another mistake, but she owed Roelke an answer.

For a while Chloe read
A Is For Alibi
by flashlight, trying to stave off dreams of vacant eyes and fish-nibbled skin. Then she settled down, promising herself that dawn would bring a fresh start.

But long before dawn an unexpected sound penetrated her sleep. She opened her eyes groggily and found only the velvet black of deep night. The sound came again. Nothing ominous, nothing scary
…
just a child’s happy laugh.

Chloe blinked. Was she actually awake? Her eyes felt sandy, the lids too heavy to hold open. There was nothing to see, anyway. The
room was cloaked in darkness. And although she listened hard
…
well, she tried to
…
there was nothing to hear.