Death Rides the Ferry

by Patricia Skalka

  “We hold on to the past like a drowning man clings to a life raft, but sometimes the only way to reach shore is to let go and swim for it.”

  Bathard hesitated. “If I may quote the good and wise Buddha: ‘No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.’” The coroner rested a gnarled hand on Cubiak’s arm. “Perhaps this is your path, Dave.”

  They ate in silence, each man caught up in his own thoughts. Afterward, while Bathard cleared, the sheriff made coffee. When they were ready, he laid Dutch Schumacher’s notebooks on the table.

  “What do you want me to do?” Bathard said.

  “Sit back and listen, and stop me if anything jars a memory or doesn’t sound right.”

  Cubiak opened the first notebook and began to read.

  “‘August 10, 3:43 p.m. Call from Washington Island. Dixan I organizer reports rare instrument missing. Yellow viol.’ And then a question mark.” The sheriff looked at Bathard. “Dutch didn’t know what it was.”

  “No one did except the gambists and people who followed early music,” the coroner said.

  “Right. Then he wrote: ‘Viol equals 250K. Verify.’ He underlined the figure in red. ‘No insurance? Why?’ also underlined. ‘On loan to Franz Acker: German musician. Owner?’” Cubiak scanned the next two pages. “He answers his questions and then the rest is about the musicians: forty-six players, fifty-eight instruments. Twelve more instruments than players.’ Several question marks after that. His list of the players includes date of arrival, island address, and number of instruments. And again he writes: ‘Verify? Check records—police, financial—musicians and organizers.’ There are markings after each name, probably Dutch’s own code. But here”—he pointed to the bottom of the page—“again in red: ‘Nothing.’”

  A festival program was folded and stuck between two of the notebooks. Cubiak pressed it flat on the table. “Dutch compared the program to the musician list from the organizers. All the players’ names are checked off,” he said.

  The sheriff opened the second notebook. “There’s a lot here on Franz Acker. ‘Photo, verified. Passport number, checked. Vita—verify.’ That’s checked too. Much the same for his wife, Heike. Then: ‘Check backgrounds. Acker’s financial situation. Details of theft forwarded to Interpol and FBI.’”

  “What about the yellow viol?”

  “That comes next. ‘Produced: 1594 by Augusto Fiorrelli. Verify history, value, description. Need pics from three sources.’ With an exclamation point he notes that the viol is brown, not yellow. ‘Strings dyed.’ Finally, Dutch poses a series of questions: ‘First: Premeditated or crime of moment?’”

  The coroner listened with his eyes closed.

  “What do you think,” Cubiak asked.

  “Premeditated and carefully planned.”

  “Dutch thought so, too. ‘Second: Motive?’ He came up with three.”

  “Three?” The coroner opened his eyes and sat up. “I can think of two: money and revenge. If Acker had crossed someone, they might have stolen the viol to get even.”

  “Dutch’s thinking exactly, but he added a third: ‘Covetousness. Collector-slash-musician equals sickness,’ he wrote.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing came of the first two motives. Leaving the third. Which makes a lot of sense. People lust for power. They lust for sex. They lust to own things that are rare and beautiful.”

  “That leaves a wide-open field of suspects,” Bathard said.

  “The thief could have been a musician or even someone in the audience. Another gambist or a collector. Or the person hired to do the dirty work. The musicians were still on the island when the theft was discovered, but there was no way to track the movements of the audience members or tourists who were also there at the time.”

  “Hence, everyone was a suspect.”

  “Right. Third question: ‘Hide viol on WI?’ Dutch says they searched every structure, including vacant garden sheds and abandoned barns. ‘Long-term?’ he wrote. I wondered about that myself. If someone had planned this, could they have left the viol in a hidden location with the intention of coming back months later to retrieve it? Dutch conferred with experts in Madison and New York. ‘Not likely. Need controlled climate. Impossible on island without special chamber.’”

  “And constructing a climate-controlled chamber would have been a big tip-off that something was in the offing,” Bathard said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Fourth question: ‘How remove viol from WI?’”

  “What did Dutch say about that?”

  “Pretty much what we’ve gone over before: that it was carried away inside an instrument case, hidden inside another instrument, or secreted in a large suitcase or duffel. But after the theft was reported, every vehicle, boat, case, and piece of luggage was searched, so these were all dead ends.”

  “Leaving only the theory that the yellow viol was whisked away by boat before anyone knew it was missing,” Bathard said.

  “Dutch didn’t like that theory, but in the end it was all he was left with.”

  Cubiak skimmed the third notebook.

  “What’s in there?”

  “A rundown of the musicians’ accommodations during the festival. More than half were put up in cottages and houses that were provided by local residents and sponsors. ‘Nothing,’ Dutch noted. But there’s an asterisk by the address for the Knotty Pine cottage: ‘Owner returns two weeks later. Finds ashes in the fireplace. Nights on island usually cool, but record heat fest week: Why fire?’”

  “Good question.”

  Cubiak stretched and poured another beer. “If you don’t need a fire for warmth, there are two other possible explanations for making one: First, to create a romantic or sentimental mood. Second, to destroy evidence. Dutch checked with the musician who’d been assigned to the house, but he said he never used the fireplace.”

  “Maybe the ashes were from an earlier fire.”

  “Not likely. The owner told Dutch the house was spotless when she left. No ashes, she said.”

  Cubiak went back through the notes. “Hold on, there’s more. The musician admitted that he only stayed there the first night. Seems he hooked up with one of the single female players and moved into her cottage for the rest of the festival.”

  “Leaving the house empty for several days?”

  “Correct, but there was no sign of a break-in.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Even today, a lot of island people don’t lock their doors. Back then, I’m sure hardly anyone did.”

  “Someone made a fire in that cottage. Why, we don’t know. Who, we don’t know. Dutch called all the musicians, and every one denied knowing anything about a fire. But it didn’t have to be one of the players. Anyone could have done it, even a couple of kids.”

  14

  CURTAIN CALL

  That evening Cubiak reached Washington Island in time for the final performance of Dixan V. True to his word, Payette had left two front-row tickets at the box office for the sheriff. Absent Cate, who was shooting the event, he took in the first half of the concert alone. But even from that vantage point, he found it hard to focus on the music. Instead, he imagined Franz Acker center stage, and a thief skulking in the background, plotting to get hold of the yellow viol.

  At intermission, he met up with Cate. While others in the sell-out audience discussed the performance, she brought up the fake Helen Kulas.

  “If the woman who stayed in my condo isn’t Helen Kulas, who is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And what’s she doing here?”

  “I don’t know that either. There’s an alert out about her, but whoever she is, she’s probably altered her appearance by now.”

  “She must have had some reason for the charade.”

  “Besides identifying the body of the dead woman as Lydia Larson, I don’t know, but I have my suspicions. Everything keeps coming back to the music festival.”

  Cate t
ook a sip of water. “I’d much rather have a flute of champagne, but there’ll be plenty of time for that later,” she said and smiled.

  Cubiak smiled back, but it was a false gesture of support and made him feel like a louse.

  How long before things turned bad again for her? he wondered. Cate had been on the island since noon photographing the final phases of the festival. Musicians who had avoided the camera earlier suddenly wanted souvenir photos, and she was flushed from exertion.

  He tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “You shouldn’t overdo things,” he said.

  “I won’t.” Cate’s tone was light but then it flipped to somber. “If the woman claiming to be Helen Kulas isn’t her, does that mean the dead woman on the ferry isn’t Lydia Larson?”

  “Not necessarily, but I don’t know that either. If fact, I don’t know for certain that Lydia Larson even exists. The fake Helen Kulas talked about her, but there’s no credibility in anything she said. Richard Mayes ID’d Lydia from the photo I showed him, but that’s because when he met her earlier she told him that was her name. If someone was masquerading as this Kulas woman, maybe someone else was pretending to be Lydia. Both Mayes and Payette said they had never heard anything about Annabelle Larson having a baby, which brings us back to the ersatz Helen, who claimed she babysat for Lydia when she was a child.” Cubiak frowned. “There’s too much about this situation that’s puzzling.”

  “You’ll figure it out. You always do.” Cate raised on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Sorry I couldn’t join you in there. The music is really lovely. I see why people are so enthralled with it.”

  She set her glass down. “I hope I run into this phony Helen character again. I’d like to find out what her story is.”

  “What? No.” The prospect made Cubiak uneasy. “I’d stay clear of her if I were you. She’s wasted valuable police time and may have interfered with a murder investigation. Also, she knew the real Helen Kulas, who is presumably dead.”

  “And that makes her a suspect?”

  “It could. If you see her, call me.”

  A chime sounded and white perimeter lights flickered, indicating the end of intermission.

  “Are you going in?” Cate said.

  “Yeah, but I want to keep an eye on things. How about you?”

  Cate hefted the camera and smiled. “I wish I could. Music is good for babies, but I’m not done ’til the applause ends.”

  “We’ll go straight home afterward. You need to get some rest,” he said and gave her a hug.

  Cubiak handed the ticket stubs for the front-row seats to a surprised young couple, and then he watched the crowd filter in. Was the fake Helen here in yet another disguise? he wondered. What about Fielder?

  The audience members seemed almost reverential as they settled into their seats. All eyes looked to the front; all ears strained to catch the first pure notes that would signal the start of the second half of the concert. And once the music flowed, they barely moved, so captivated were they by the sounds that rose up from the simple, traditional instruments. Payette had worried that the defection of his premier player would spark an exodus, but the ensemble seemed unaffected by the deserter’s absence. Perhaps he really did have a family emergency, Cubiak thought. Maybe despite his actions, Dixan V would emerge a grand triumph.

  The sheriff kept to the back of the house and paced from one side of the auditorium to the other as the various ensembles moved on and off the stage. Besides Cate, he wasn’t the only person working. The craggy cameraman was shooting from the wings. At the rear of the hall, the sound technician hovered over an electronic board dotted with lights and switches. Mitchell Stone watched from the wings, with his aristocratic hands clasped and long pale face aglow.

  Payette had talked about the hold that music had over people. It was certainly true that evening. In the hushed auditorium, the audience paid no mind to anyone but the players on the stage and to anything but the music.

  In the first half of the evening, the music had exuded a light, almost whimsical touch, but after the intermission the pieces started bittersweet and melancholy and grew increasingly somber, as if the composers and the musicians had conspired to turn their listeners’ thoughts to the serious aspects of life. This was music to move and inspire, not merely to entertain.

  The concert had opened with a solo performance by Payette. For the final piece, he joined three other gambists in playing Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary. The selection had been transcribed for strings and was presented in memory of Richard Mayes. As the ensemble played, the audience sank into a heavy silence. When the final strains of the mournful melody faded, a beat passed. Then the crowd rose as one. Shouts of Bravi and More rang out with the applause. Flowers were tossed to the stage, and the quartet basked in long minutes of adulation before Payette called out the rest of the musicians. Onstage the players joined in an encore, and then another. By the time the last pristine notes faded between the rafters, everyone in the room—the audience, players, and organizers—thrilled with the grand success of Dixan V.

  The audience members carried their elation back to the ferry landing and to the island hotels and cottages they had booked for the event. The organizers took their delight to the box office, where the receipts were being tallied. George Payette nourished his personal triumph through a series of interviews with local media and music critics from Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. The musicians responsible for the joyous celebration bore their cheers off the stage and down to the lower level warmup room, where their enthusiasm instantly halted. The players’ tote bags, briefcases, and purses had been ransacked and the contents strewn across the floor and tables. Cameras, phones, and wallets filled with credit cards and cash were gone.

  Cubiak was out front waiting for Cate when his phone buzzed with word of the theft.

  “How’d the thieves get in?” he said, then incredulously added, “The room was left unlocked?”

  He found his wife downstairs with her camera. “Looks like I’ll be stuck here overnight again. There’s probably not much I can do, but I have to stay and sort this out.”

  At least there was no chance of another scandal equal to the loss of the yellow viol, he thought. The gambas were the most valuable items in the hall that night, and they had been on stage with the musicians when the thieves struck.

  The sheriff walked in on the players just as Veronica Winslow was assuring them that the festival would reimburse the losses to the extent possible. “We are properly insured,” she told the anxious crowd, but the wobble in her voice conveyed her concerns more than her downcast appearance.

  Stone was up next. He was as stiff and polished as the Roman numerals behind his name, and he made it clear that his primary concern was protecting the festival’s reputation. “What happened tonight is an act of cowardly vandalism. This kind of unfortunate incident could have happened anywhere. For all our sakes, the less said about it, the better. Certainly, it is not to be laid at the feet of a Dixan curse,” he said.

  The musicians responded with skeptical silence. No doubt the news had already been released on social media, where the line between truth and rumor was growing increasingly thin, Cubiak thought.

  Even he was starting to wonder. Although he didn’t believe in curses and such, he knew that charms and spells had a long and lively history. People wanted life to make sense, and they looked for ways to connect seemingly unrelated events. It wouldn’t take much imagination to link the Dixan V robbery to the infamous thievery that had marred the first Dixan festival. Or to connect the deaths of Lydia Larson and Richard Mayes to the unfortunate death of Heike Acker forty years ago.

  Cubiak hadn’t exaggerated when he told Cate earlier that he was puzzled by the odd parallels in the two events. Were the similarities real or was someone using the notoriety of Dixan I as a cover for current misdeeds? In four days, three very public crimes had been committed: the two murders on the ferries and the daring theft during the final pe
rformance. He still didn’t know who was responsible for the deaths, and he was right when he told Cate there was little he could do about the situation that night. There were no security cameras or witnesses. He, along with everyone else, had been upstairs at the concert. The thieves had been free to take what they wanted and then to melt into the departing crowd.

  The sheriff doubted that any of the disheartened musicians could provide useful information. Nonetheless, he felt they were entitled to air their grievances, and so he met with them individually and took down their statements.

  It was nearly midnight when he finished at the festival and checked in with Cate.

  “You got home all right?”

  “Traffic was a little heavier than usual, but it was fine.”

  “Remember to lock the doors,” he said. He had never urged such caution before and wasn’t sure why he had that night.

  “I will. I’m fine. Besides, I’ve got Kipper to protect me.”

  At the sound of her name, the dog barked.

  “I love you,” Cubiak said. But he didn’t mention the baby.

  15

  AMERICAN BORN

  The sheriff spent a restless night. Phantom figures from the past zigzagged through his dreams. Relatives he barely knew in life loomed up and jeered at him. Soldiers he had loved like brothers cried out for help. Strangers grabbed at his arms and legs. In the midst of the muddled chaos he found himself on the muddy bank of a wide, raging river. Laura and Alexis were on the other side. They were walking away from the water, toward a field of yellow daisies. He called to them but they didn’t hear. He shouted repeatedly, but they kept on. As they approached the flowery meadow, Lydia Larson and her mother appeared alongside the river and began to follow them. Then suddenly Cate was on the same path, running to catch up.

  “No!” Cubiak yelled and jolted awake.