The Light Keeper's Legacy (A Chloe Ellefson Mystery) (9 page)

Mrs. Saddler put the paper-wrapped parcel she’d brought on the desk. “I came to thank you and the other officer—what was his name?”

“Officer Deardorff.”

“Yes. He was so nice. I wanted to thank you and Officer Deardorff for helping us that day. Is he here?”

“No, ma’am. He called in sick today.” That was why Roelke was here, actually. Skeet had called him at home, and Roelke was glad to help out by picking up his shift. The extra money was always welcome, and he was still looking for ways to smooth things over with Skeet.

Besides, working a double shift would keep him from worrying about Chloe.

“I see.” Mrs. Saddler sat very erect. “I also wanted to talk with Officer Deardorff about a problem.”

“I’d be glad to help you, ma’am.”

“Well, it’s a problem about the rescue squad that came to the house that day. The EMTs.”

The morning went downhill fast. No cop wanted trouble with their local rescue team. If Roelke ever got shot on duty, he really,
really
wanted to be on good terms with the first responders. “The EMTs?” he echoed, hoping he’d misheard.

“Yes. The EMTs.”

Roelke began tapping his pencil against the desk again. Thanks, Skeet, he muttered silently. Roelke was pretty sure that Skeet would rather fight the flu than the fire department.

Who’d been on that night? Denise Miller, for starters—one of the best. But the other responders, too
…
both of them were good guys, experienced, caring and careful. With his best
I’m here to help you
expression in place, Roelke gave Mrs. Saddler an encouraging nod. “All right, ma’am,” he said, reaching for his notebook. “Tell me what happened.”

Fifteen

The archives on Washington
Island were extensive and superbly organized. When Chloe explained her project, the elderly volunteer on duty beamed. “You’ll find lots of relevant resources,” he assured her.

Chloe dug a pencil and notebook from her daypack. “I thought I’d start with the Betts family.” She hoped this kind gentleman wouldn’t ask why she wasn’t starting with Pottawatomie’s earliest keepers.

He did not. “We’ve got a Betts file,” he said. “They lived on Washington Island after they left Rock, you know.”

“Actually, I didn’t.”

The man pulled a gray archival file box from a shelf and extracted a file. “Here you go.”

Chloe accepted it eagerly. She wanted a portrait of Emily Betts while she lived at Pottawatomie Lighthouse. She wanted Emily Betts’ diary.

She didn’t get them. The file mostly contained genealogical records and newspaper clippings. The only image was a smudgy photocopy of a snapshot of Emily and William that must have been taken near the end of William’s life. Emily had white hair and wire-framed glasses. Chloe stared at the picture, trying to find the whisper of recognition she’d felt when she saw the photo of Emily at the lighthouse.

Zip.

With a sigh Chloe put that page aside. The next item was an obituary from 1950:

PIONEER DIES

Emily Betts, one of Door County’s oldest residents and daughter of a pioneer family herself, died of old age. Born on October 12, 1854, she came to Washington Island with her parents in 1866. Her father was the lightkeeper at Pilot Island light in Death’s Door passage and her mother was assistant lighthouse keeper.

So, Chloe thought. You knew the life well.

On Sept. 29, 1871, she married William C. Betts and the couple became caretakers of the Rock Island light. Their first children were born there, and Mrs. Betts often told stories of the hardships endured by early lightkeepers.

Chloe pinched her lips together in frustration. Stories! she thought. I want the stories! The obituary mentioned only one:

On severely bitter winter nights, Mrs. Betts had to carry pans of hot lard to the lamps, which had congealed with the cold. There were ninety steps to the lantern tower, and she made the climb many times a day and throughout the night. This continued for ten years, until the fuel was switched to kerosene.

Chloe sat back. Seriously?
Lard?
Geez Louise.

During their seventeen years at the light, Emily taught their children and some of the island children as well. After moving to Jackson Harbor, on Washington Island, Emily served as a nurse for thirty years.

“Finding what you need?” the archivist asked. “Shall I pull the files on the other lightkeepers?”

“Unfortunately, I’m running out of time,” Chloe said regretfully. “I want to make a phone call before catching the last
Karfi
run back to Rock.”

“Well, there’s a pay phone outside the library,” the gentleman said cheerfully. “Come back any time.”

The archives and public library shared a roof, so Chloe had no trouble finding the pay phone. Then she hesitated. Hadn’t she wanted to be incommunicado this week? And I still mostly do, she told herself. She just wanted to make a quick professional call. That didn’t count.

And she got lucky. After dialing Old World Wisconsin’s number and getting transferred, her intern picked up the phone.

“Nika? It’s me.”

“What’s up? I thought you were immersed in lighthouse stuff.”

“I am. The lighthouse is very cool. Two of the assistant keepers were women.”

“Excellent.”

“But there was a fishing village on the island as well. My time is tight, and I was wondering if—”

“You want me to do some research?” Nika asked. She was a cut-to-the-chase kind of woman.

“Yeah,” Chloe admitted. She watched a middle-aged woman negotiate the library door with an armful of romance novels. “I talked with an archaeologist who’s surveying the village site, Brenda Noakes. She knows a lot about Rock Island history, but she got a little
…
intense when I mentioned a lit-up barge I saw north of the island last night. Her interest seems professional, so I’m wondering if there’s something going on I don’t know about.”

“You think it’s relevant to your lighthouse project?”

“I don’t know, and Brenda wouldn’t say.” Chloe nodded politely to an elderly couple as they passed. “But the lighthouse families were members of the island community. I’d like to know as much as I can before I identify interpretive themes for the building.”

Chloe could picture her intern on the other end, scribbling notes, eyes narrowed like a cat catching scent of a prey. Nika was a tenacious researcher. Normally Chloe would never ask a colleague to spend time on an extraneous project, but she knew Nika would welcome the challenge.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Nika said. “How can I reach you?”

“You can’t,” Chloe said. “I’ll try to catch you. Thanks. Oh, and Nika? Has the auditors’ report come in?” Earlier that summer Old World Wisconsin had been audited, likely prompted by certain politicians’ attempts to privatize the state’s historic sites.

“Nope.”

“Good.” When quizzed on curatorial procedures Chloe had done her best, but she wasn’t sure how auditors would portray collections care. “Thanks, Nika. Talk to you soon.”

As Chloe hung up she smiled automatically at another passing library patron. He walked two more steps before turning around. “Miss Ellefson?”

“Oh—hi!” Chloe blinked at Deputy Stig Fjelstul, standing with an armload of hardcovers.
The Color Purple
, Isabel Allende’s
The House of the Spirits
,
Of Time and Place
by Sigurd Olson
…
no won
der Fjelstul popped words like “convivial” and “ascertain” into
casual conversation.

“I thought you were working at the lighthouse,” he said.

“I came over to check out the archives. I was also hoping to run into you, actually. Has the girl who drowned been identified yet?”

He shifted his books from one arm to the other. “No.”

“I found a little cairn on the beach where the body was. Somebody made a letter
N
out of pebbles. I told Garrett, and he took pictures.”

“Hunh.” Fjelstul rubbed his chin.

His expression so reminded Chloe of Roelke that she felt a visceral twinge inside. She hoped Roelke wasn’t worrying about her. Maybe I should try to call him tomorrow, she thought. Just to say hi. But
…
no. Not a good idea. A quick call would seem superficial, and she didn’t have time or energy for anything more involved—

“Miss Ellefson?”

Chloe blinked, realizing the deputy had spoken her name more than once. “Sorry.”

“Can I offer you dinner?”

Dinner?
Chloe felt her eyebrows rise. Was this a friendly offer? A chance to undertake a more detailed interview? A date? “I, um, don’t have time,” she stammered. “I’ve got to catch the last
Karfi
.”

“I’ve got a boat,” Fjelstul said. “I’ll run you back to Rock later.”

Chloe couldn’t think of any gracious way to decline. “Well
…
OK, Deputy. Thanks. I accept.”

“Call me Stig,” he said. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

The drive from library to restaurant took Chloe and Stig about ninety seconds. “We’re headed for Nelsen’s Hall,” he said, gesturing as they passed a yellow building with green roof. “I leave the close parking spots to the drunks.” He drove for another half mile before parking his pickup in the shade of an old oak.

“Good food?” Chloe asked, as they walked back to the hall.

“Yes, but I thought you’d appreciate the ambiance even more,” he said. An actual smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “An immigrant named Tom Nelsen built the tavern in the nineteenth century.”

“My kind of place.”

Noise drifted from the building as they approached—raised voices, laughter. Stig held the door, following Chloe inside. Three young women were lounging at the bar, chattering with the bartender who stood beneath a sign which read
Absolutely No Alcoholic Beverages In This Building
.

Half a dozen men in work clothes, beers in hand, were playing pool in the back corner. They were razzing a middle-aged guy’s lousy shot as Chloe and Stig approached, but that cheerful din died. The pool players fell silent one by one, treating the newcomers with flat stares or hostile glares.

What the hell? I’ve only been here for two days, Chloe thought. I can’t have pissed anyone off already. Then she flashed on Maintenance Mel spitting on the ground when she mentioned Stig Fjelstul.

Stig muttered, “shall we leave?”

Chloe lifted her chin. “No.” These yahoos weren’t going to cheat her out of a good meal.

“The dining room’s this way.” Stig led her past the men and on to a corner table in a spacious dining room, out of sight of the pool table.

A cheerful waitress, her short black hair streaked with light blue, put menus on the table. “Something to drink?” She looked at Stig. “Bitters?”

“Iced tea for me tonight,” he said. “But Miss Ellefson may want to join the club.”

Chloe wasn’t sure she wanted to join any club that had Deputy Stig Fjelstul on the roster. “Well
…
”

“It’s a tradition,” he told her. “Old Tom Nelsen lived to be ninety,
and he drank a pint of Angostura Bitters every day. The stuff is
about ninety proof. During Prohibition, he got a pharmacist’s
license and sold bitters as a stomach tonic.”

“Nelsen’s Hall is the longest-running legally operating tavern in Wisconsin,” the waitress added. “And we sell more bitters than anyone else in the world.”

“Well then, sure,” Chloe said with reckless abandon. She wasn’t driving, and this was historical tradition, after all. Besides, she
had
found a body two days ago. That was surely worth a shot of something. She opted for supper from the salad bar, and her companion ordered the grilled whitefish special.

“I’ll be right back with your drinks,” the waitress promised.

Chloe leaned back in her chair, surveying the dining room. A huge cobblestone fireplace filled one corner. The wait station was decorated with smaller kitchen implements, a hutch of antique tobacco tins, and century-old portraits in gorgeous wooden frames displayed below the ceiling. Antique tools hung on walls made from mortar and the butt-ends of logs. “Stovewood construction,” she murmured. “Very cool.”

“Glad you like it.”

“So.” Chloe cocked her head in the direction of the pool players. “What was that about?”

“I shouldn’t have brought you in through the bar.” Stig studied his thumbnail. “Don’t worry. Those men won’t tar you with my brush.”

“And they want to tar you
…
why, exactly?”

He leaned back in his chair, his face settling into hard lines. “I’ll try to make a long story short. I grew up on Washington Island. My ancestors arrived on Rock Island in the 1840s. Those first white settlers learned how to fish from the local Pottawatomie people. They’d been subsistence-fishing for centuries, but our people wanted to fish commercially and make some money.”

“And so it ever goes,” Chloe sighed.

“My own people have fished these waters commercially for a hundred and thirty years. Protecting the fisheries today presents complex challenges. Fish populations have their own natural cycles. Invasive species have wreaked havoc with the natives. Pollution has been creeping north from Green Bay, changing the lake ecology. And lately, wealthy weekend warriors have pressured the DNR to make regulations that favor sport fishing over commercial fishing.”

Chloe was silent. She wasn’t eager to plunge into local politics and law enforcement issues, even vicariously.

“In the 1950s, over forty fish tugs worked out of Washington Island,” Stig was saying. “Whitefish and herring were still doing pretty good, but trout were almost gone. By the mid-sixties, we were down to about half a dozen fisheries, and the herring had disappeared.”

“Sounds like hard times.”

“I told you I used to be a game warden.” He began making tiny tears along one edge of the white paper placemat positioned over the maroon tablecloth. “All of a sudden I was policing guys I’d known all my life. Friends of my dad’s. Guys I grew up playing baseball with. It didn’t sit well with some folks.”

“Surely people understand that you just had a job to do
…
?”

“Ain’t that simple,” he began, stopping when the waitress appeared with a round tray. She put a shot glass of bitters, dark with a reddish tint, in front of Chloe.

Stig gave her a tired smile. “Toss ’er down.”

Chloe did. Just as she thought
Not so bad
, she felt a mild burn inside her nose. “It’s very
…
bitter,” she said.

The waitress used the bitters dregs to make a thumbprint in the corner of a membership card. “Sign this, and you’re officially a member of the Bitters Club,” she instructed. That done, she handed Chloe a leather-bound notebook to sign as well. Chloe dutifully added her name to the roster. “Truly wretched stuff,” someone had scribbled. The next scrawl said, “I’ll party to the bitter end.”