Death Rides the Ferry

by Patricia Skalka

  “You know how the strait got its name?”

  “I thought it was because of the ships that went down.”

  “Naw, that came later. The name originated with the Indians. There was a war between two tribes, the Winnebago on the mainland and the Potawatomi on the islands north of the peninsula. The Potawatomi were paddling down and the Winnebago were heading north when a storm capsized their canoes. Something like six hundred warriors drowned. After that the Indians called the channel the doorway to death. When the French trappers showed up, they picked up on the idea, and everyone’s called it Death’s Door ever since.”

  Kevin was quiet for a moment. Then he went on. “The strait has been killing people forever. My great granddad used to talk about island men who tried to walk across in winter when the ice seemed solid enough. Just when they were too far from shore to get back, it would crack under their weight and they’d be stranded on floes that would carry them out into the lake or break up in the waves before anyone could reach them. Not that there was anything that could be done to help them. Once they were out here, they were on their own.

  “And now this,” he said, shouting over the roar of the boat motor. “In two days, the strait has claimed two more people.”

  “They didn’t drown,” Cubiak said. Well, at least Lydia hadn’t. In truth he wasn’t sure what he was going to find this time.

  “Does it matter?” Kevin said. As they approached the entrance to Detroit Harbor, he eased up on the throttle and his voice jarred in the sudden silence. “Dead is dead. And whatever happened, happened here.”

  “The stories don’t seem to keep you from going back and forth.”

  Kevin shrugged and responded with adolescent bravado. “It’s my job.”

  Captain Norling waited at the pier, his silhouette vivid in the light. In movements that were second nature, he caught the mooring line and tied up the small boat. Norling nodded to Cubiak and gave his grandson a pat on the back that stopped short of becoming a hug. “Go wait in the truck, son,” he said.

  The captain’s shoulders were stooped, and his eyes stared out from sunken sockets: signs of a worried man. He offered the sheriff a frown and a crushing handshake, and then he turned and headed toward the dock where the ferries were docked for the night. Norling stopped alongside the Fiardakolla. It was the largest of the boats and sat directly behind the Ledstjarna, the ill-fated vessel on which Lydia Larson had died.

  “At least it’s not the same boat,” Cubiak said, thinking this small grace might mute any gossip about bad luck and keep it from morphing into a rumor of a jinx, but Norling’s scowl let him know that this fact brought little consolation to the ferry captain.

  Even in the moonlight, much of the cavernous vessel remained in shadow. They were onboard and halfway across the bottom deck before the sheriff spotted the black Lexus parked at the rear of the ferry. Tinted windows made the car seem even more foreboding.

  Norling stopped several feet from the sedan. “It was one of the last cars on and would have been one of the last off, so we didn’t notice anything wrong until the rest were offloaded. Even then, we weren’t overly concerned at first. It happens occasionally that a driver takes his sweet time coming down or stays in the car and falls asleep and then has to be rattled awake.”

  “Who found him?”

  “Tim Vultan. Poor sot. He could see the driver sitting there behind the wheel, so he yelled and pounded on the window. When he couldn’t get a response, he called me down. He said he figured maybe the man had had a heart attack. It happened once years back. One of the locals. Anyways, I knocked and yelled but still with no result. We had to break the window to open the door.”

  “He was dead when you got to him?”

  “Aye.”

  “Did anyone move him or touch anything else?”

  “No. I put my hand to his neck to check for a pulse, that’s all. Otherwise, nobody came near the body. This is just how we found him.”

  “Why’d you call me and not the coast guard?”

  Norling scrubbed his brow and turned his deep, sad eyes on the sheriff. “Because of the garlic smell. Same damn stink as with that woman.”

  The dead man was Richard Mayes.

  What the hell? First the young woman and now the festival manager—Payette’s assistant. What’s going on here? Cubiak thought.

  There was nothing unusual about Mayes’s appearance. His hair was neatly combed. His twisted, manicured hands lay quietly in his lap. He wore a light-blue button-down shirt and khaki pants. A navy-blue blazer lay neatly folded on the passenger seat. Mayes’s eyes were closed, as if he were napping. Cubiak verified what the captain had told him about the tell-tale aroma. Then he searched the body and the car.

  Mayes wasn’t carrying a wallet, but his driver’s license and insurance cards were in the glove box. The two credit cards and eighty dollars in cash the sheriff found in the inside breast pocket of his blazer and the expensive cell phone perched on the dash ruled out robbery as a motive. Unless the killer or thief was after something else, he thought. The key fob was in the ignition but there were no house keys to be found. Had they been taken or did Mayes not have any on him?

  But more curious: Why was Richard Mayes on the ferry when he had access to a private boat that would transport him back and forth anytime he wanted? Whose car was it? Was he driving because he had planned to meet someone on the mainland when he returned the next day? Or because he needed it for a rendezvous on the island? The sheriff slipped the phone into an evidence bag. He didn’t dare try to open it. He would give it to Rowe tomorrow. The deputy was good with technology. Maybe he could get into it and check the calendar and voice messages.

  That done, Cubiak called the medical examiner and told her the latest. Pardy’s husband was out of town and both kids were sick. It was already past ten, and she sounded exhausted.

  “Do you need me now?”

  “There’s nothing you can do here tonight. I’ll take pictures and then we’ll lay the body out for you.”

  “OK, thanks. The sitter’s coming at eight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Call Rowe.”

  Pardy managed a small laugh. “Deputy Speedy,” she said.

  Norling waited stoically for Cubiak to finish. “I heard what you said about the body. I can get a tarp, if that would help.”

  While the captain was gone, the sheriff photographed the scene. Then the two men eased the body from the car. “There’s no place down here to keep it overnight. We’ll have to put it in the lounge,” Norling said.

  Mayes weighed in at probably less than 150, but it was still tough going up the stairs. “I don’t want to ask Kevin to help,” Norling said.

  “Of course not. We’re fine,” Cubiak said, ignoring the sweat trickling down his back.

  When they were finished, the captain locked the door and took him up to the pilothouse.

  “This was the last run for the night?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many passengers onboard?”

  “Twenty-five. More than usual but I figure that was because of the festival.”

  “But no names?”

  Norling sighed, the fatigue etched deep in the lines that crisscrossed his forehead. “I told you, we don’t track passengers. Although I recognized three of them. They’re musicians here for the festival. They were all pretty loaded.”

  “How do you know they’re with the festival?”

  “I heard them play at a concert on the first night.”

  “You’re a fan of early music?” Cubiak tried to keep the surprise from his voice.

  Norling made a face. “Until now I didn’t even know what that meant. My wife talked me into it. She said that since the festival was going on in our backyard we might as well take advantage. Besides, the preview was free to island residents.”

  “Do you know the musicians’ names?”

  “No, but they played the eight o’clock concert on the first day.”

  “
Did you like it?”

  The ferry captain considered the question. “It was a little subdued for my taste. I prefer horns, but still, it was OK. Nice to get out, too. We don’t have much time for fun in the summer with all the work to be done.”

  Norling opened a thermos. He poured something hot into a cup and passed it to the sheriff. “Herbal tea,” he said, embarrassment lacing his voice. “Can’t handle the caffeine anymore after the middle of the day.” He filled a second cup for himself and blew on it. “If you want to go back tonight, I can have Kevin run you over.”

  Through the window, Cubiak saw the boy waiting in the truck.

  “It doesn’t worry you to have your grandson out there in the dark?”

  Norling shook his head. “It’s practically like day out there now, and the boy knows how to handle himself in a boat. I made sure of that.” He hesitated. “But truth be told, I’d rather not have him out on the water this late.”

  “If I stay, he’ll spend the night with you?”

  “Yep.”

  That was reason enough for Cubiak to book a room on the island. In fact, he was relieved to have an excuse not to go back and face Cate.

  He waited until he was at the hotel to call her and explain the situation. “I’m sorry but I’m stranded here for the night,” he said.

  “Of course. I understand.”

  “You’re OK?”

  “I’m fine.” The disappointment in her voice made him feel guilty, but the fact that she believed him made him feel even worse.

  Cubiak couldn’t sleep, and after thirty minutes he got up and checked his email. There were no updates from the deputies, but a note from the film producer said neither the cameraman nor sound guy remembered seeing Lydia Larson at the reenactment. “Hope you find something here,” she wrote and gave him the password to the raw footage the crew had shot. He spent several hours scanning the material. He was convinced that Lydia was on the island because of the festival, and he was disappointed that she wasn’t in any of the footage.

  Instead, someone he didn’t expect to see—the woman who had been caught shoplifting at the harbor store—popped up in the audience at three different concerts. Two of the performances were prior to the incident at the gift shop, but the third took place several hours after her near arrest for stealing. The sheriff had watched her drive onto the ferry. Damn it anyway, he thought. She must have ridden over to the mainland and then turned around and taken another boat back. So where was she now and what was she up to? Cubiak wondered.

  10

  OFF THE RADAR

  On Saturday morning, Cubiak was first in line at the harbor restaurant getting coffee and doughnuts for the crew of the Fiardakolla. Along with the senior deckhand, Tim Vultan, it was same team that had been on duty when Lydia Larson’s body was discovered. A run of bad luck, especially for the teens, he thought.

  The boys were clad in thin T-shirts and shorts, and they shivered in the brisk air. Vultan and the mustachioed assistant were similarly dressed but used plaid shirts as jackets. All four seemed grateful for the hot coffee. The sheriff didn’t expect to learn much and wasn’t surprised. Just as with Lydia, none of them had noticed anything unusual on the short trip from the mainland to Washington Island.

  “Still got this?” Cubiak held up one of his cards. The first time he had questioned them he had passed them out with instructions to call him if they remembered anything.

  Embarrassed, the crew members shook their heads. So he gave out the cards again. “Even the smallest thing could be important,” he said, but he didn’t hold out hope for much. The fateful crossing had been the last passage of the day, a sorry end to a twelve-hour shift.

  As he left, Vultan pulled him aside. “The boys are getting a bit spooked,” he said, indicating the two teens. “I’m gonna ask Norling to put them to work on the dock for a while.”

  “Good idea,” Cubiak said, touched by the man’s concern. “How are you doing?”

  The deckhand shrugged. “I seen plenty in my life. I’m OK. But thanks.”

  When Vultan walked away, his shoulders were erect but his head was down. This business was getting to people. They expected results and Cubiak had nothing to offer. Not yet.

  A text from Pardy popped up. The medical examiner was on her way. As she put it, she was “flying north” with Rowe. Hang on, the sheriff replied. Whatever she could give him would be another important piece to the puzzle.

  As he passed the bike rental shop, the owner gave a nod of recognition, and the sheriff returned the gesture. He was starting to feel like a regular on the island. The previous night he had called the three musicians Norling had seen on the last crossing and asked them to meet him at the café. He found them in a rear booth looking pale and subdued.

  “Hard night?” he said as he pulled up a chair to the end of the table.

  They grunted in unison. Cubiak waved to the waitress. “Four cups and a pot of coffee, please.”

  The men gave their names. They were all from the greater Midwest: Milwaukee, Fargo, and Saint Louis.

  “You guys just meet each other up here at Dixan V?”

  “Not at all. We’ve known each other for eight, ten years now. We’re ‘festival friends.’ We play a lot of the same gigs so our paths probably cross two or three times a season. When we’re all together in the same place, we take advantage of it,” the man from Milwaukee said.

  “You party a lot.”

  The musician smirked. “Not really. We spend most of our time in rehearsals. Plus Bob’s wife keeps pretty close tabs on him, so we usually get away only when she’s shopping.”

  The Saint Louis player laughed. “But lucky for us, she likes to shop a lot.”

  Bob looked down sheepishly. His last name was Sandusky, which at first confused Cubiak because he was from North Dakota and not from Ohio, where there was a city by that name. He was also older and more reserved than the other two. “Does your wife usually travel with you when you’re on the circuit?”

  “Most of the time, yes. Why not? A lot of spouses do. Their wives are here, too.” He pointed at his colleagues. “It’s a free vacation.”

  The sheriff showed the trio a photo of Richard Mayes. “Do you recognize him?”

  “Yeah, sure. He’s with the festival. We see him around all the time,” Bob said.

  “Anyone have problems with him that you know of?”

  “No, nada,” they said, one after the other.

  “Did you see him on the ferry last night?”

  The two from Saint Louis and Milwaukee shook their heads. “As soon as we got on, we went to the top deck to get some air. He wasn’t up there.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Sheriff, in that moonlight, I could have read the paper. If this guy was sitting anywhere around us, we’d have seen him,” the Milwaukee player said.

  “What about you?” Cubiak asked Bob.

  “I stayed in the car.”

  “You were on the vehicle deck the entire time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you see anyone there?”

  “Someone on the crew might have walked by, but I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Where were you parked?”

  “We were among the first on, so we were right up front,” Bob said.

  Which was as far from Mayes’s car as it was possible to be.

  “What’s this all about anyway?” Bob asked.

  “Richard Mayes died during the passage last night.”

  The three gawked at him and spoke nearly in unison. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know yet.” Not completely.

  By the time Cubiak finished with the musicians, Pardy and Rowe had reached the harbor. The sheriff found the medical examiner bent over the body and the deputy standing nearby.

  “Nice car, this Mayes had,” he said.

  “Second one this week,” Cubiak said. He told Rowe about the shoplifter he had escorted to the ferry on Wednesday.

  “Two Lexuses?
Or is it Lexi?”

  “Who knows?” Cubiak laughed. “Every spring when I was a kid our landlady watched for the first sprouts so she could announce the arrival of the ‘croci.’ Drove my mother crazy. ‘It’s crocuses,’ she’d insist, and they’d have a running argument until the flowers finally died. Neither of these women spoke English as a first language, so it was pretty funny listening to them debate this obscure point of grammar.”

  “Who was right?

  “Both of them, actually.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I think you were correct the first time,” Cubiak said.

  He gave Mayes’s cell phone to the deputy. “You know what I need from it.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Are you taking Emma back?”

  “If she’ll ride with me again.” Rowe spoke loud enough for Pardy to hear.

  The medical examiner looked up and mouthed an exaggerated Ha at the two men.

  Cubiak waited another couple of minutes. “Anything?” he asked her.

  “I’ll know more this afternoon.”

  “Similarities between this one and . . .”

  Pardy cut him off. “This afternoon, Dave,” she said.

  It was midmorning when Cubiak got back to the peninsula. He should have driven straight to work but guilt pulled him home first. He still wasn’t sure how he would explain his feelings to Cate. No matter how he lined up the words, they came out sounding harsh and selfish.

  From the dune, the house looked very still, and he was relieved to find that she had left already. There was a note on the kitchen table: “Thinking of you. Much love.”

  He made coffee and walked the dog. Kipper’s droopy ears and shaggy coat reminded the sheriff of Butch, the mongrel that had limped out of the dark and into his life not long after he was first elected sheriff. Technically, Kipper was Cate’s pet. She had chosen the pup from Butch’s first litter, but his resemblance to his mother endeared him to the sheriff as well, especially now that Butch was gone. Playing fetch with Kipper, Cubiak tried not to think about Cate’s message and the reason for it. He was being a coward and he knew it.