Death Rides the Ferry

by Patricia Skalka

  “You’re making me nervous, standing like that. Shouldn’t you sit down?” the sheriff said.

  “I can see better from up here.”

  Cubiak tried to relax.

  “How’d you know where to find me?” he said finally.

  “The lady at nine-one-one said you were on the island. When I saw your jeep in the marina, I figured you couldn’t be far and asked around.”

  The sheriff couldn’t help but smile to himself. Small-town policing was a far cry from what he had known in his other life as a Chicago cop.

  Suddenly, the little boat roared past the breakwater that protected the ferry landing from the angry lashes of the deadly channel and entered the gentle waters of the harbor. Kevin slowed to a crawl and brought them round smartly alongside a long concrete dock not far from where the ferries were loaded.

  “Over there,” he said and pointed to one of the bigger boats moored off to the side. To Cubiak it looked like the ferry he had seen leave the island earlier that afternoon. He couldn’t be sure. To him the boats were all the same, and he found it almost impossible to distinguish their names. He was accustomed to the Eastern European alphabetic jumble of letters—the s’s and z’s and ch’s—that were liberally sprinkled through the names of his childhood neighbors and friends. The Washington Island ferries were christened with long Scandinavian names that combined consonants and vowels in ways that stumped him.

  Again, Kevin led the way. When they reached the Ledstjarna, he stopped. “My gran—the captain is waiting for you,” he said, with an awkward bow.

  Cubiak’s footfalls sounded loud and out of place on the metal loading ramp and the deserted bottom deck. He was halfway to the second level when Captain Norling appeared at the top of the stairs.

  “You’re here,” he said, staring past the lawman. “This way.”

  Norling was tall and barrel chested. He had a closely trimmed burnt-orange beard and a black watch cap smashed down tight on hair that was graying but still brushed with color. Cubiak remembered him as reserved, and he kept his own counsel as he followed the ferry captain past the rows of empty benches on the port side to the lounge entrance on the rear deck. Norling pushed the door open, and they stepped in. Lounge was too grand a word for the spartan room. The lighting was harsh, and the furnishings, although spotless, were designed for function, not comfort. It was a place to escape a too-hot sun or a too-strong wind and nothing more.

  Cubiak took in the scene. A woman sat at the middle table along the inside wall, her back toward the entrance. Her chair was pulled in tight and she was bent forward, her head resting on her arms, as if she had fallen asleep during the short crossing. He couldn’t see her face but from her slight frame and tattered clothing he recognized her as the woman he had seen earlier on the island, the misfit he had noticed sitting on the boulder outside the festival hall and again waiting at the ferry dock.

  “Is she sick?” he said, hopefully.

  Norling pursed his mouth. “Dead. I checked her pulse.”

  The sheriff did the same. The body was warm but he couldn’t detect a heartbeat. Out of habit, he slipped his hand beneath the dull hair that fanned out over the woman’s shoulders and pressed his fingers to the side of her neck. Again nothing, except the gritty feel of dirt on her skin that complemented the musty, unwashed aroma that perfumed the air. There was another strong scent in the air.

  He looked at the captain. “Did you notice that?”

  “Can hardly miss it. Smells like garlic to me,” Norling said.

  Cubiak knelt and peered at the victim’s face. In death she looked younger but sadder than she had in life.

  He had a detailed mental image of the woman and the surroundings, but, following procedure, he used the camera on his cell to take several photos.

  “Who found her?”

  “The senior deckhand. We’d finished unloading, and he was checking for lost items and stray children when he saw her.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I was in the pilothouse finishing up the usual paperwork.”

  “Did you call for an ambulance?”

  “No. I sent for you. I never had anybody die on one of my runs and figured it was best to get you here. It’s too bad, you know, not just for her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Norling scowled. “Brings back memories of the first festival. A young woman died then, too. Not up here. She’d already left, but she’d been on the island with her husband, one of the musicians. It was a bad business all around.”

  “That was forty years ago.”

  “Yep, it was.”

  Cubiak glanced around the empty salon. He was concerned with what had happened earlier that afternoon, not four decades prior. “Do people usually come in here during the ride?”

  “Only if the weather is bad or they’re locals who don’t care about the view. Most people like to ride outside, especially the tourists.”

  “How about on this trip?”

  “I was on the bridge the whole time. The crew would know better.”

  “I’ll need to talk to them. They’re all still here?”

  Norling nodded.

  “And the passengers?”

  “Oh, they’re all gone. Scattered. Tourists mostly, I reckon.” The ferry captain paused and then, as if anticipating the next question, he went on. “In the summers it’s generally visitors who ride out for a few hours and then come back the same day. We don’t keep track of people, if that’s what you’re wondering. We never have. There’s never been a reason to.”

  “What about surveillance cameras?”

  Norling laughed. “Cameras? This ain’t the big city, Sheriff.”

  “You don’t remember seeing anyone you knew?”

  The boatman pulled at his chin. “Come to think of it, there were a couple of locals on board. Two retired schoolteachers. Nice as they come. I can give you their numbers if you want.”

  “I’d appreciate it. At least, it’s a start,” Cubiak said.

  He bent and looked under the table. “The deceased was carrying a bag, one of those big cloth things women like. She had it when she got on the ferry.”

  Norling frowned. “Now how the hell would you know that? No offense meant.”

  “I saw her standing with the other pedestrians waiting to board. The bag was slung over her shoulder then.”

  “Maybe it’s in her lap. Whenever we go out, my wife always puts her purse in her lap. Like she’s afraid someone’s gonna steal it if she puts it down.”

  They studied the still figure.

  “No, the bag’s not here,” Cubiak said. It was gone, along with everything the dead woman carried in it, he thought. Her identification, her money if she had any, and whatever it was that she was holding onto so fiercely—all vanished.

  2

  THE WOMAN IN THE LOUNGE

  The crew of the Ledstjarna stood in the shadows near the front loading ramp. From the upper deck, Cubiak took their measure. It was a four-person team: two adults and two adolescents, all male. The men had the heft and muscle that come with age and hard work. Like a matched pair, they leaned against the side wall, standing with their arms crossed and one foot resting against the metal bulwark. The teenage boys looked to be around sixteen and were probably working their first summer jobs. They were lanky and twitched with nervous energy. As he crossed the deck, the sheriff noted that all four were suntanned, blue eyed, and Scandinavian. Norling said Tim Vultan, the senior deckhand, discovered the dead woman but the others had probably seen her too. For the boys, the experience would have been especially upsetting. Better to work up to it, Cubiak thought.

  He stepped up to Vultan, the tallest of the lot. He had a stoic, tired face and wild eyebrows that seemed to be waving at the world.

  “Let’s start by having you walk me through the procedure you followed on the island,” he said.

  At the question, Vultan uncrossed his thick arms and relaxed. This was familiar territory. “It was the same
as always. We loaded the vehicles first. There were twenty-three this trip. I collected tickets while the others directed traffic and got everybody lined up. We gotta get as many on as possible in precise rows that can unload quickly.” The deckhand squinted despite the dimming light. “’Course we also gotta make sure nobody’s crammed in so tight they can’t open their doors. Worst thing is to have some idiot back into somebody else. Nobody likes that. People get real protective of their vehicles, and we respect that.”

  “What about the passengers?”

  “We take the walk-ons last. Once they cross the ramp, the boys here send them upstairs where they’re free to sit or stand wherever they please. Some of the tourists bring bikes, and if they want to stay with them we let ’em. Otherwise we secure the bikes in a corner and send the riders upstairs just like the others.”

  “And do you collect their tickets as well?”

  “It’s part of my job.”

  “What was Norling doing all this time?”

  “The captain was in the pilothouse going through his checklist. Engines, pressure gauges, weather, and such. It’s a short jaunt but he doesn’t want any surprises out there.”

  “As far as any of you recall, was there anything unusual about this crossing?”

  “Nothing at all, Sheriff, and I’ve been doing this for nearly thirty years.” The other man spoke up. He had a gray Santa mustache and he took his time with his words. “There’s usually not. Mostly it’s tourists going back and forth. They’re not here to talk to us. If it’s regulars, we might say hello but even then most people keep to themselves. They’ve got business to take care of and aren’t looking to chat.”

  “Do you remember seeing the woman board the ferry?”

  “No, sorry.”

  The two teens shook their heads.

  Vultan grimaced. “I do, but only because I caught a whiff of her when she gave me her ticket. She smelled like she could have used a bath and some good mouthwash.”

  “What about during the crossing? Did any of you notice her, see what she was doing?”

  Again they shook their heads.

  “So you don’t know if she talked to anyone or where she was before she sat down in the lounge?”

  The teens shuffled their feet and shrugged. “Sorry,” they said in unison.

  “We were all here on the main deck, like always. It’s a short trip and we’ve got plenty to do both before and after. Those few minutes on the water is our little bit of downtime. When we dock at Northport, it’s another rush, except that everything is in reverse,” Vultan said.

  “Normally, once the ferry is empty you’d start loading up again, right?”

  “After a few minutes, yes. First we check the boat. I go around making sure all the passengers are off. My helper here”—he indicated the other man—“looks for stuff they might have left behind and the boys go around too, picking up papers and trash.”

  “And that’s when you found her.”

  He pulled at his lip. “Yes.”

  “It didn’t strike you as odd to see the woman at the table like that?”

  “Odd, yes, but not unheard of. People are out in the sun all day and then, on the trip back, the sound of the engines and the rocking on the water can lull them to sleep. I let her be until I finished my rounds and then I came back. I said, ‘Miss, you gotta get up,’ real loud a couple of times. When she didn’t respond, I shook her shoulder and when that didn’t do nothing, I got this queer feeling that something bad had happened and I right away went and got the captain.”

  “Who was on the ferry at the time?”

  “Just the four of us and the captain.”

  Cubiak felt a sharp pain over his right eye and rubbed his forehead to ease the pressure. “The passenger had a bag with her. A tote or a big shoulder purse. Did you see that?”

  The senior deckhand shook his head. “If she was carrying it when she came aboard, I didn’t notice. And I didn’t see it when I found her in the lounge, but I wasn’t looking either.”

  “What about the rest of you?” the sheriff said.

  None of the other three remembered seeing the missing bag either.

  “Do you work the same shifts all summer?”

  “No. It varies, depending on the day of the week and what’s going on up on the island,” Vultan said.

  “So you’ve been on different boats the past week or so.”

  “Yeah, mostly.”

  “Do any of you remember seeing this woman make the trip to the island?”

  The boys and the old man shrugged.

  “We’re going back and forth all day during the summer. In July and August alone, we’ll handle twenty thousand or more folks. Unless it was the queen of England, I don’t think we’d remember any one person,” Vultan said.

  His small joke evoked a laugh from the rest of the crew.

  “Besides, our ferry’s not the only way to get there,” he went on. “She could have taken the passenger ferry from Gills Rock or hitched a ride with someone who had a boat. Hell, I’ve even seen people kayak across the strait. Crazy as all get out, but if you live long enough you see people do some pretty strange stuff.”

  It was nearly seven, but still light out. The ambulance idled near a stand of dark green pines. Dr. Emma Pardy waited nearby in her car. When Cubiak dismissed the crew, she approached the ferry. The medical examiner wore striped leggings and a loose flowing top. With a cup of coffee in one hand, she looked like another tourist. It was the black bag she carried that gave her away.

  “Sorry to have to end your day this way,” the sheriff said as he offered her a hand and helped her aboard. Pardy was a triathlete and in better shape than he, but she never refused his small gestures of courtesy.

  “What have you got?” she said.

  “Victim is female. Age uncertain but looks to be fairly young. No visible signs of trauma. I saw her waiting to board the ferry, and the senior deckhand remembers collecting her ticket, so she was alive when they left Washington Island and then was found dead about ten minutes after they unloaded at this end,” Cubiak said on the way up the stairs.

  “And the trip is how long, thirty minutes?”

  “Just about, from the time the boat leaves one harbor and ties up at the other.”

  “That’s a pretty narrow window. Anything else?”

  “Nothing. None of the crew remember seeing her onboard, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to any other passengers. I know she had a tote bag with her but that’s missing, so no ID.”

  “A Jane Doe then,” Pardy said with a touch of sadness.

  At the lounge door, she pulled on her gloves. “You’ve taken all the photos you need?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right then. Give me a few minutes.”

  Cubiak waited for Pardy to inspect the scene. Then he helped her lay the body on the floor.

  “I’ll give you what I can,” the medical examiner said.

  Temporarily dismissed, he retraced his steps to the pilothouse where Norling was waiting. The room was square and lined with windows on all four sides. The radio was mounted in one corner and an alarm panel in another. A radar screen and a series of gauges filled the instrument panel.

  “How much longer is this going to take?” the captain asked, his hand resting on the silver wheel that steered the boat.

  “As long as Doctor Pardy needs. She’s generally pretty quick with the preliminaries.”

  “Good. Then I can have my vessel back.”

  “I’m afraid not. Until we know how the victim died, I have to treat the death as suspicious and keep the ferry out of commission.”

  “Here?”

  “Yeah, here.”

  Norling looked up from his paperwork. “You can’t do that. The boats get docked on the island overnight. It’s a safer harbor.” He pointed toward the Northport landing. “If a strong south wind comes up, that breakwater doesn’t offer much protection.”

  “I have no choice.”

  “Look,
Sheriff, I’m sorry the woman is dead, but I have a business to run. It’s obvious she had a heart attack. I’ve seen it before.”

  “You could be right, but Doctor Pardy has to determine cause of death. Until we can rule out anything suspicious, the ferry is a potential crime scene and it stays put.”

  Norling scowled. “This is going to make my life difficult and maybe scare people away.”

  Actually, it might be a draw, Cubiak thought, but he kept the notion to himself. “We’ll be as quick as we can.”

  Several shouts came from shore, and both men turned to see a trio of noisy tourists piling into a car.

  Cubiak waited for them to drive off.

  “Did another boat go back after you docked?”

  “Sure. That’s how we run them.”

  “Was it full?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention, but it seemed like there were a half-dozen cars and a couple of walk-ons.”

  “Did you notice if anyone made the round trip?”

  “You mean take one ferry here and then go back on the next trip? Now why would somebody want to do that?” Norling stared out the window again and was quiet a moment. “I have seen it happen. Once because some idiot left his car here and a couple times with young lovers who couldn’t stand to be parted for longer than necessary, you know what I mean. But today, no, I don’t think so.”

  The sheriff laid his card next to the logbook. “That’s my direct number. Call me if you think of anything.”

  Pardy was still bent over the victim when he returned. “Twenty minutes,” she said at the sound of his footsteps.

  Cubiak backed away from the door and continued down the stairs. Seven years prior, when he made his first crossing, he had been as anxious as a kid strapped in a rocket ship. Despite growing up in Chicago not twenty minutes from Lake Michigan, he was skittish around water and leery of boats. He remembered standing on the upper deck and getting more nervous each time a car thudded over the ramp and the boat trembled. He was convinced they would sink in the deepest part of the strait. Over time, he learned to sail and to pilot a powerboat and made several dozen trips on the ferry back and forth to Washington Island. Experience and knowledge tamped down his fears and gave him a deep respect for those who made their living from the water. Still, in a storm, he would stay onshore if given the option. Not even the lumbering comfort of the sturdy ferry would entice him to test his luck when marine warnings were issued.