Death Rides the Ferry

by Patricia Skalka

  Bathard sighed. “Another Dixan tragedy? History repeating itself? I surely hope not.”

  The three were at the door when Bathard asked Cubiak about Cate.

  “She’s fine. Working hard, as usual. In fact, she’s been up on the island shooting the festival.”

  “We need to have the two of you over. We’re due for dinner soon. I’ll give her a call,” Sonja said.

  “Sounds good. I’ll tell her,” Cubiak said.

  As he crossed the yard, the sheriff thought of the brief exchange he had just had with Bathard and Sonja. The mention of a dinner invitation was both incredibly commonplace and extraordinary, like the ring he wore on his left hand. In the two years since he and Cate had been married he had never removed the silver band, yet there were times when its presence seemed surreal. Times when even while looking at the ring he could not fully imagine that the two of them were together as a couple. For years he thought he would never marry again, never know happiness again. Bathard said he had felt the same way after Cornelia died, and yet here he was with Sonja, who had been widowed as well.

  The currents of life were as unfathomable as the stars that studded the sky, he thought. When he lost Lauren and Alexis, he had lost everything, and yet somehow the universe had led him to renewed purpose, and given him, if not joy, then moments of fulfillment and a reason to embrace life again.

  Without his even being aware, the current of life had swept him up and carried him to this new time and place, to an existence that was both familiar and strange, to a reality where a simple dinner invitation—unimaginable in the harrowing grief that followed the deaths of his wife and daughter—had become just that again.

  7

  A SOD HOUSE VISITOR

  Later, if Cubiak was asked why he had used the back door when he arrived at work that Friday morning instead of walking through the front lobby as he usually did, he wouldn’t have an answer. Perhaps he took the short cut because he was tired or because it was raining. But by doing so he missed the audience waiting for him in the front lobby.

  “You’re awfully popular today. Any more and I’d have to give out numbers,” Lisa said.

  “Meaning?”

  “When I got in, there were already four people in line to see you. Three locals and a rather odd woman who appears to be from another century.”

  “Who was here first?”

  “The visitor from elsewhere, but she says she can wait. The locals all own gift shops and are anxious to get going.”

  “Let’s start with them then.”

  Cubiak had a feeling he knew the problem, and he was right. Each owner reported the recent theft of high-end merchandise from their shops in Ephraim and Fish Creek.

  The three hadn’t seen anyone suspicious, and their security cameras hadn’t picked up anything unusual either.

  “There are several festivals going on. Tourists love them, but they can make life hell for us,” the Fish Creek merchant said.

  “Aren’t events good for business?” Cubiak asked.

  “You’d think so, but they tend to attract crowds, which sometimes means that there are a lot of people in the shop at the same time, and that makes it hard to keep an eye on things. You can’t stop every tourist who’s carrying a canvas tote bag and ask to see what they’ve got in there. And for professional thieves, crowds provide good cover. Most people are honest, Sheriff, but if I trust everyone who comes in, I have a good chance of being fleeced. If I’m overly suspicious, I end up insulting innocent people,” he said.

  “There was an incident on Washington Island the other day. I wonder if they could be connected.”

  “Did you make an arrest?”

  “The owner wouldn’t press charges.”

  The merchants exchanged looks. “Figures,” said one.

  As they left, the spokesman turned to Cubiak. “Next time you catch someone stealing from any of us, throw the book at them.”

  The sheriff was mulling over the comment when Lisa reappeared, carrying two departmental mugs. “Black coffee for you and tea for the mystery visitor,” she said as she set the cups on his desk.

  “Any luck finding out her name?”

  “Afraid not. I told her you’d be tied up for a while and tried to get her to talk to a deputy but she refused. She said she had to see to you.” Lisa leaned in. “Like I said, she’s a bit odd.”

  Cubiak expected to see a woman in outlandish futuristic dress, but the visitor who trailed Lisa into his office was from the other end of the time-warp spectrum. She looked like she had walked out of a sod house on the old plains. Her drab brown skirt hung to her ankles. Her muslin blouse was buttoned up tight around her neck, and the sleeves fell past her wrists. Her dark hair was pulled back, and when she finally looked up, he saw that her face was deeply tanned and scrubbed clean. The bulky cheap watch on her left wrist was her only modern adornment.

  “Please, sit down,” the sheriff said, indicating the chair opposite his desk.

  The woman perched on the edge of the seat. She kept her back rigid and clasped her hands in her lap.

  “You asked to see me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are?”

  The visitor pinned her amber-gold eyes on him. “Helen Kulas.”

  “You’re Lithuanian.”

  “My grandparents.”

  Cubiak reached for his coffee and waited for her to elaborate. Instead she dropped her gaze and went silent. “The tea is for you,” he said finally. She moistened her lips but kept her hands buried in the folds of her skirt.

  “Are you from around here?’

  She moved her head to say no. “Illinois.”

  “It’s a big state.”

  Helen Kulas almost smiled. “Chicago.”

  “That’s a long way to come to talk to me.”

  “It’s important. It’s about the woman they said was found on the ferry.”

  “Lydia Larson.”

  The visitor stiffened. “On the radio, the announcer said she was unidentified . . .”

  “That was accurate when the announcement was made. But that was two days ago and since then, we’ve learned more,” he said.

  Helen crumpled into the chair as if suddenly deflated. “I see.” The words came out like a whisper.

  “How do you know Lydia Larson?”

  “I used to babysit for her, when she was little.”

  “You hardly seem much older than her.”

  Helen dipped her head. “Lydia lived hard,” she said.

  “Then you knew Annabelle Mary Larson as well.”

  “Yes.” Helen seemed surprised to hear the name. “We were friends. But that was a long time ago.”

  “How did you hear about the business on the ferry? News from up here generally doesn’t travel all the way to Chicago.”

  “It was on the radio. The local classical station was doing a special segment on early music and as part of the report, they talked about the festival on Washington Island. They interviewed a musician who’d been at the original festival, Dixan I, and he started reminiscing about what happened there. You know the story about the yellow viol and the woman who died in childbirth the night it went missing? I’m not interested in viola da gamba, but I kept listening because I knew that Annabelle Larson—Lydia’s mother—was at Dixan I, and it made me think of her. Then the announcer said that a young woman had just died during Dixan V, and the musician who was being interviewed said it seemed like history was repeating itself.”

  “And on the basis of what you heard on the radio, you assumed that the dead woman was Lydia?”

  Helen took a sip of tea. “I was afraid it might be her, that’s all. Lydia was aware of the festival. We’d talked about it, and after everything that had happened—everything I’d told her—I knew that she had good reason to come here.”

  Cubiak waited for the rest of the story.

  “It all began with Annabelle.” Helen paused and shifted her weight forward again. “I was teaching piano at the Cr
awford Avenue music school on the north side of Chicago when Annabelle started giving violin lessons there. Lydia was maybe eight at the time. They’d been through rough times, living in a car for a while, homeless for an entire summer, if you could believe the stories Annabelle told. She had lots of stories. About how she grew up with nannies and servants and how she’d been a star in the music world. I never paid much attention to what she said. Annabelle seemed like the kind of person who needed to feel important, so I thought she was making up all that stuff to impress me. The thing is, she didn’t need to do that. Annabelle was good at her job. Once when she thought she was alone in the school, I heard her playing. She was good at that, too. Amazing, really.”

  Helen hummed a few bars and drummed her fingers on the edge of the desk. Then she caught herself and tucked her hands back into her lap. “I still didn’t believe what she’d told me. If she was that famous, then what was she doing giving cut-rate lessons to a bunch of dopey kids and living in that moldy studio apartment?”

  After a moment, Helen answered her own question.

  “I finally figured out that she was sick. Mentally unstable, I mean. About five years after I met her, she disappeared with Lydia. God only knows where they went; she never said. Then a few years later, she showed up hoping to get her old job back. There was an opening and the owner of the school hired her immediately. Lydia wasn’t with her and Annabelle said she was living with her sister. Annabelle had never mentioned a sister, but who knew. Everything was fine again for a while until she got sick. This time it was the other type of disease, the kind you can see. Skin cancer, the bad one.”

  Helen curled her fingers and tucked her hands back into her long sleeves.

  “She was getting free, experimental treatment at Cook County, and when I went to see her, she said she needed me to do her a favor. She told me that she’d hidden a box in the back of her bedroom closet. And that it was full of stuff that she wanted me to destroy. When I asked her why, she said she didn’t want Lydia to find it and learn what a mess she’d made of her life. She made me promise.”

  “Did you?”

  “Promise? Of course I did. She was my friend. I found the box right where she said it would be. It was bigger and heavier than I expected, and it was hard for me to carry but I took it home like I said I would.” She inhaled sharply.

  “And then what?”

  Helen colored. “I had every intention of keeping my word. I mean it, I really did.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “After all I’d been through with her, I felt that I had a right to know what she’d squirreled away. Maybe I needed to know. What if the box was full of money? Or expensive jewelry? I told you that she was mentally unstable. Maybe she didn’t even remember what was in it. What if there were things in there that she could use? I figured I had an obligation to look, for her sake.” She hesitated. “I admit that after listening to all those stories she told, I was curious, too.”

  “Did you find anything valuable?”

  “No. It was crammed with junk—tattered notebooks and journals, an old diary, and memorabilia, the kind of sentimental stuff people put in scrapbooks. Pictures. Concert programs. Old newspaper articles. Even a magazine story. It turns out that Annabelle hadn’t lied. Everything she’d told me about her life was true. The rich parents and big house in Winnetka. Private schools. Juilliard, even. I’d never believed her. I always thought we had so much in common, and suddenly I was faced with the proof that it wasn’t even close to being true. Annabelle had lived in a different universe. I couldn’t imagine growing up the way she had and then having all that talent and opportunity on top of it. I sat on the floor in my living room with all this stuff scattered around me and felt like a fool. What must the poor little rich girl have thought of me, I wondered?”

  Helen turned a tearful face toward the sheriff. “Annabelle had everything I’d ever dreamed of, and I hated her for it. I never wanted to see her again. After a while, though, I started to feel sorry for her.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Because something must have gone terribly wrong for her to end up like she did, living where she did and working at this sorry excuse for a music school. That’s not a life you choose if you have the other.”

  “I assume you checked out the diary and looked through the other stuff.”

  Helen bowed her head. Her cheeks were pink. “A little, yes, and that’s when I started to think that maybe it was wrong to get rid of everything, that maybe Lydia deserved to know the truth about her mother. They’d had such a struggle together, and I wanted her to be proud of her mom. I thought she deserved to have this legacy to hold on to and that maybe it would help her see her own life in a better light.

  “The funny thing is, Annabelle got well again and lived another couple of years. She died five months ago, but in all that time she never asked me what I’d done with the box. She must have assumed I’d kept my word and thrown it away. And I didn’t say anything because I was embarrassed about breaking my promise. I didn’t see Lydia again until the funeral and by then I’d had plenty of time to read the diary all the way through.”

  Helen Kulas looked at him. “That’s how I discovered the secret Annabelle had kept all those years.” The visitor grew wide eyed. “The identity of the father. Annabelle never told Lydia who he was, but it was in her diary.”

  “And you told Lydia?”

  Helen lowered her gaze. “I felt she deserved to know the truth. Lydia Larson was the daughter of two highly talented musicians: her mother and the famous gambist George Peter Payette. She had a right to know that, didn’t she?”

  When Cubiak failed to respond, Helen went on. “That had to be the reason Lydia came to Door County. She knew that Payette helped organize the festival and that she’d finally have the chance to meet her father.”

  “What did Annabelle say about Payette?”

  “Oh, she went on for pages about what a talented musician he was, but the rest was the gibberish of a love-sick girl. Can’t live without him, would do anything for him, love at first sight. All that kind of nonsense.” Helen snorted. “And look where it got her.”

  “How about Richard Mayes? Did she mention him?”

  “Yeah, he was in there, too. She went on and on about him and the trio they were in together. It had an odd name.”

  “The GAR group.”

  “That’s it, and Mayes was part of it. Other than that, she seemed amused by the amount of attention he paid to her. Annabelle claimed he was crazy about her and kept telling her they were destined to be together forever.”

  “Mayes wanted to marry her?”

  “That’s what Annabelle said. According to her, he proposed three times, but she refused. She was stuck on George.”

  Helen smiled and reached for the cup of tea. It had to be cold by then but she didn’t seem to mind. How much of what this strange woman had confided was true? Cubiak was sure the newspaper clippings she mentioned were authentic. But what proof was there that the Annabelle Larson featured in the articles was the same woman Helen knew? Perhaps the story of the real Annabelle had been appropriated by this other woman or had been inflated by Helen’s fantasies of a glamorous existence. Someone as pitiful as her could be seeking fame by association.

  “Did you give Annabelle’s diary and journals to Lydia?” he asked.

  “Not right away. I started just by telling her things—a hint here and there about her mother’s life, to see how she’d react. She seemed so thankful and so eager to know more that eventually, I turned them all over to her. I even told her it was her mother’s wish. Oh, God, I didn’t mean any harm. But look what’s happened! She came here because of what I did and now I’m answerable for what’s befallen her. It’s all my fault. Maybe if I’d kept my promise to Annabelle all those years ago, her daughter would still be alive.”

  Helen began to weep quietly.

  Cubiak slid a box of tissues across the desk. “Whatever happened, you are not responsib
le.”

  Helen sniffled and then, still looking down, she said, “How did Lydia die?”

  He was intentionally vague. “We’re still waiting for test results. And we still need to corroborate the identification of the woman on the boat.”

  Helen sat up, alarmed. “But you said it was Lydia!”

  “I said we had a tentative identification. We need to be certain.” He paused. “Do you think you’re up to doing that?”

  Helen Kulas glanced around in panic. “I’ve never . . .” She took a quick breath. “I owe her that much. I owe both of them that much. Yes, I’ll do it.”

  Neither of them spoke on the way to the morgue.

  “You’re sure you’re OK?” Cubiak said as they stood in the hospital basement outside the double doors of the morgue.

  Helen nodded.

  Once inside, she closed her eyes, and she didn’t open them until the body was presented. “It’s Lydia,” she said almost instantly.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” she said and started to cry again.

  When they were out in the hall, Helen crumpled. The sheriff caught her arm and kept her from sliding to the floor. She was ashen and barely able to stand on her own. He had hoped to question her further, but seeing her distress he knew that would have to wait.

  “You’re here alone?” he said.

  Her head bobbled.

  “Where are you staying? I’ll take you there.”

  “No place. I have no place. I came straight to your office. I have to find something now.” Helen Kulas looked around, confused, as if she didn’t know where she was.

  But there wouldn’t be anything available. It was the weekend of the Tall Ships visit to Sturgeon Bay and the annual lighthouse tours, two highly popular Door County events. The hotels and guest houses around the city and up the peninsula probably had been booked for months.