Death in Cold Water

by Patricia Skalka

  Cubiak turned back to the monitor. Threatening figures of men dressed in black were becoming all too commonplace. How difficult would it be to set up a camera and mimic that kind of antagonistic behavior?

  “You think it could be two guys pretending to be terrorists to throw you off their trail?”

  “Anything’s possible, but it’s really pretty unlikely. We’re going on the assumption that these are the real deal. What we don’t know is whether they’re linked to an international organization or some kind of homegrown variety.” Moore pointed to a tall stack of computer printouts. “These are the phone records of suspicious calls made in the U.S. during the past week. Most can be traced to foreign sites but there are all kinds of people with wacko agendas walking around. Wisconsin, unfortunately, is not immune to nutcases.

  “We’ve got one team of computer nerds analyzing the phone data and another working on the video. The crime lab passed along the ransom note as well. And our tech team is on that. Plus we’re continuing to comb through Andrew’s bank records.”

  “And you think somewhere in that haystack of data, you’re going to find the compass needle that points you to Sneider.”

  “It’s how we do things, Sheriff. Data analysis and good police work following down the leads. Science puts us ahead of the game. We’ve got technology working for us and that’s where I put my faith.”

  Cubiak started to protest. Then he recovered. He had heard that kind of testimonial before, when he worked for the Chicago police, from officers who insisted that hard facts alone solved crimes: everything was black and white.

  The sheriff considered telling Moore about the two bones that Rowe had found on the beach earlier that day but decided not to say anything yet. The bones belonged to the sphere of gray that he valued. And there was no room for gray in Moore’s world.

  Later, Cubiak called Cate. Listening to the phone ring, he grew increasingly impatient. Wouldn’t she get in touch with him if she wanted to talk? Was calling a sign of strength or of weakness? When she didn’t answer, he felt relieved. Then just as he was about to disconnect, he blurted out a message: “Can we talk?” Ball in your court, he thought, and was immediately appalled by his juvenile smugness.

  A few minutes later, the sheriff ’s phone buzzed. After five rings, he picked up. He expected the call was from Cate but it was Bathard on the other end of the line.

  “I’ve managed, rather unofficially, to borrow several files from the library’s historical collection. Plus I’ve done some of my own research. I was hoping you could come by,” the doctor said.

  Bathard had coffee ready and he listened intently as Cubiak told him about the spiders.

  “It does seem oddly personal, doesn’t it?” the doctor said.

  “The feds don’t seem to think so.”

  Bathard shrugged. “Eventually you’ll find out, of course.”

  He led the sheriff to the study, where he’d organized several stacks of material and opened a well-worn map of the county on the table.

  “If I were to ask you to guess how many ships have been lost in these waters, what would you say?” Bathard pointed to the vast stretches of Green Bay and Lake Michigan that surrounded the peninsula.

  “Fifty? Maybe seventy-five?” Cubiak replied, though he thought that was too high.

  “Two hundred and nineteen, according to one source. Another puts it at two hundred and forty.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Here’s a list.” The coroner handed Cubiak a printout that was several pages long. Most of the boats documented on the list had been recovered and most hadn’t involved loss of life. But there were still boats that had disappeared without a trace.

  “There’s no question that people drowned in these waters,” Bathard said. “Many of the wrecks were in Death’s Door. In fact, in a couple of articles, experts are quoted as saying that the strait had more shipwrecks than any body of fresh water in the world. But there were vessels lost here.” His finger moved down the bay side of the peninsula, pausing along the rocky shoals near Peninsula State Park and then nearer the entrance to Sturgeon Bay. “And plenty on the lake side as well. Four near Baileys Harbor.”

  “But all these ships have been identified. Somewhere there’d be a record of survivors or a list of those who drowned,” the sheriff said.

  “That’s true, but what about the ships that went unnoticed for one reason or another? A small boat could have gone down without anyone knowing about it. During Prohibition, barrels of whiskey were routinely smuggled across the border from Canada. Some of the stuff came overland across the UP, but there were plenty of vessels of all sizes hauling kegs of Canadian booze and locally brewed beer over the water heading toward Milwaukee and Chicago. If a fishing boat filled with contraband sank, who was going to sound the alarm? Any losses, whether of human life or goods, would be considered part of the cost of doing business.” He paused. “All told, more than enough work for the men at the three coast guard stations.”

  “Three? I thought there were just the two.”

  “Now, yes, there’s the Sturgeon Bay station and, in summer, the one on Washington Island. But back then there was a station at Baileys Harbor as well.” Bathard handed Cubiak a faded photograph. “It closed in 1948 and the land was eventually sold to the Baileys Harbor Yacht Club. Here it is.” He pointed to the location on the map. “Not far from where Sneider had his camp.”

  “I thought the Forest Home was in Ellison Bay, near the estate,” the sheriff said. As soon as he spoke, he realized his mistake. When he’d asked Andrew about the camp’s location, they’d been interrupted before Andrew had a chance to reply.

  “No, it was on the lake side. Actually, there were a couple of camps right in that area. But Sneider’s was different from all of them,” Bathard said. He picked up a brochure from the table. “Another treasure from the archives. Have a look.”

  The brochure opened with a collage of photos that showed young men of means at play on the water and in the woods. The inside panels were filled with pictures of the cabins, dining room, and campfire scenes. On the back panel, in smaller print, a brief paragraph praised Sneider’s altruistic generosity in providing a respite for underprivileged boys by offering them food, shelter, and purpose “in tandem with the others.”

  “The Forest Home was Sneider’s first big philanthropic enterprise on the peninsula. A refuge for needy boys set up under the umbrella of a camp for the well-to-do,” Bathard said.

  “Andrew told me about it. But if you ask me, it sounds more like a camp for rich kids run largely on the backs of the poor,” Cubiak said.

  “Perhaps to the benefit of both.”

  The sheriff looked doubtful. “If you believe that, you have more faith in humanity than I do.”

  Bathard emptied an envelope of photos onto the table. “One thing is sure, Sneider wasn’t shy about documenting his work. I found these at the bottom of a box that was sitting on a back shelf.”

  Most were pictures of the summer kids, the sons and nephews of midwestern gentry: hearty lads in white cotton shirts and khaki shorts being molded into the leaders of the next generation, easy smiles and casual arrogance evident as they took on the archery range and ball field, sailed the fleet of small skiffs, hoisted bolt-action .22 rifles to their shoulders for target practice, and rode tall in the saddle on sleek black steeds. Cubiak felt a twinge of envy. These were the kinds of summer activities he’d never even dreamed of while growing up.

  From the jumble, one picture caught the sheriff ’s attention. It was snapshot size and had ragged edges, but it was the same picture he’d seen in Sneider’s office.

  “Sneider had this same photo enlarged and framed. Andrew showed it to me. It’s on his father’s desk.” There they were, frozen in time, the proud rich Gerald Sneider and his wards. These were the skinny boys with chipped teeth and forced smiles, the kids with averted eyes, the ones whose hold on the world was tentative and who knew that the future was far from rosy.

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p; Cubiak peered more closely. “What’s that on their shirts?” he asked.

  Bathard handed the sheriff a magnifying glass.

  “Name tags. He must have had them air-brushed out of the picture that he keeps at the house,” Cubiak said.

  He ran the lens over the photo again. Almost hidden in the shadows were two grim adolescents with shorn heads. One was tall and gangly; the other, short and thin as a twig. “Ross and Ross,” Cubiak said.

  “Must be Jon and Fred.”

  “Jon Ross, Leeland’s father?” Cubiak asked.

  “Indeed, it would have to be. And Fred, his uncle. Didn’t he die recently?” Bathard shook his head. “How about that for a small world? Either I’d forgotten or I’d never known that they’d lived at the camp. But it makes sense. They were from here originally, fraternal twins. Their parents perished in a fire, trying to save the barn on the little farm they owned. I treated Fred once and remember that he had a nasty scar on his back. He said he got it when he was a kid. When I asked him how, he said he couldn’t remember.”

  “I’ve got plenty of scars from when I was a kid and I know the story of how I got each one.”

  “Most of us do,” Bathard said.

  Cubiak looked at the picture again. Fred Ross was dead, but Jon was very much alive and the only link, other than Andrew, that the sheriff had to the camp and to Sneider. “Can you make me a couple copies of this?” Cubiak said, handing the snapshot back to Bathard.

  The two men were drinking sherry in front of the fire when Sonja came in from her knitting circle.

  “Join us,” Bathard said, but she declined, saying she felt a cold coming on.

  “Maybe next time,” she said and blew them both kisses from the doorway.

  “You’re a lucky man.” Cubiak made the comment when they were alone again.

  “Indeed, I am.” Bathard looked at him and then put down his glass and got up to stoke the fire. “I’m a man with more blessings than I deserve,” he said as he prodded the burning logs. “In truth, I don’t understand how any of this came about. How is it possible to be profoundly happy in one life and then be happy again in another? Cornelia and I were young together and we grew old together. When she died, there was nothing left but pain and emptiness. The pain is still there but now the emptiness is gone. I will always love Cornelia but I love Sonja, too, and it makes no sense how this can be unless the heart is capable of far more love than ever imagined. Maybe that’s something we simply have to accept.”

  Cubiak said nothing.

  Bathard poked the fire again and then retook his chair. After a moment, he brought up Cate. “I haven’t seen her around recently,” he said.

  “Neither have I. She’s busy with her ex-husband.” The response was harsher than Cubiak wanted.

  “He’s here, on the peninsula?”

  “He’s a reporter with one of the national papers, chasing the Sneider story.”

  “Ah, I see. And she’s spending time with him, is that it? You can’t blame her, you know. Cate’s past is part and parcel of who she is. She can’t walk away from what’s happened to her any more than you can.” Bathard paused and let the crackle of the burning logs fill the silence as he freshened their drinks.

  “None of us are getting any younger, Dave. Sometimes the best we can do is make peace with the past. I wouldn’t worry, if I were you. Cate’s a smart woman; she’ll do the right thing.”

  A VISIT TO THE YELLOW HOUSE

  In the deepening twilight, Cubiak drove the back roads of Door County and sorted through his thoughts. The visit with Bathard had left him unsettled on more than one count.

  Cubiak knew why the coroner had asked about Cate. Several times already Bathard had made it clear he hoped they’d find a way forward, as he and Sonja had. It was a tempting idea but Cubiak had resisted. The situation between him and Cate was complicated. There was the long shadow of Ruby hanging over them, and his own fear that, unlike Bathard, he didn’t deserve to be happy. How could he expect Cate to commit to a relationship when he felt so tentative? Would she even bother with him now that Garth Nickels was around?

  The situation with Cate wasn’t the only issue troubling Cubiak. The archival photos that Bathard had found gave him the uneasy feeling that the distant past was linked to the current situation involving the missing man. There was no room for error or misjudgment in the case, yet he’d allowed himself to make an assumption about the location of Sneider’s camp. And he’d been wrong.

  Alongside an abandoned orchard, the sheriff pulled onto the shoulder and cut the engine. In the calming silence, he stared at the long rows of wizened trees. The trunks had thickened with age, and the bare twisted limbs had gone wild with neglect. In several spots the branches had bridged the gaps between the rows and ensnared one tree with another in their predatory grasps. Cubiak pulled out the photo that showed a young Gerald Sneider gripping the shoulders of his wards. In the picture Sneider was smiling, but there was something ominous in the way he held on to the boys and something fearful in their faces. Cubiak studied the picture. Although the name tags were illegible, two remained clear in his memory: Ross and Ross.

  The sheriff was sure he’d overlooked something important. But what?

  Sitting on the quiet roadside, Cubiak went back to square one, replaying his first encounter with Andrew Sneider, the drive to Ellison Bay, the walk through the house. Once again, he saw the gaudy rooms, the kitchen, the breakfast nook.

  The sheriff scrambled from the jeep. Of course, it was what he’d found there, hanging above the table. If he was right, he’d been driving around since Sunday with what might prove to be an important clue to Gerald Sneider’s disappearance.

  Cubiak rummaged through the jeep’s cargo area. Shoving aside the recycling box, he found the strand of rope he’d pulled off the pillowcase after rescuing the kittens from the bay. The rope was dirty white, with a blue streak running down the middle, and it looked just like the piece of rope that had dangled from the Tiffany lamp in Sneider’s breakfast nook the night he went missing.

  Cubiak was convinced that it was Leeland Ross who’d thrown the kittens into the water. Could he be involved in the disappearance of Sneider as well?

  The sheriff took a deep breath. Ropes or lines like the one he was holding could be found throughout Door County. They hung on the docks and boats and in barns and warehouses, probably loops of them in attics and garages. There was a possibility that forensic testing could determine if the rope from the pillowcase and the one in Sneider’s breakfast room were from the same source, but he knew that more than likely the results would be inconclusive.

  Four men named Ross were associated with the peninsula. Three of them were still alive: Jon, who’d spent part of his youth as one of Sneider’s needy boys; Leeland, his unruly son; and Steve, the New York Times reporter who’d come back home for the funeral of his father, Fred.

  With the rope in hand, Cubiak decided that it was time to talk to the Rosses. He’d begin with a visit to Fred, because as the sheriff knew, sometimes even the dead can tell stories.

  Fred Ross and his wife had made their home in the southern part of the county, close to the city of Sturgeon Bay but far from the glamour that was generally associated with the county. This was the nontourist part of the peninsula, an area dotted with small farms and unpretentious single-family homes. Real estate development was creeping along the rugged rim of Green Bay where small frame houses were being razed and replaced by showplaces. Several farms had been sold to builders who divided the land into one-acre parcels, hoping to attract people from the city of Green Bay who were willing to trade a forty-minute commute for a country home with a Door County address. But most of the land remained largely unchanged and was handed down from one generation to the next with only modest improvements to chart the passage of time.

  In the deepening twilight, Cubiak followed a worn stretch of black-top that crisscrossed a meandering creek and finally brought him to a tan mailbox marked Ross. Slowing,
he turned up the driveway to the house where the recently widowed Marilyn Ross lived. Cubiak hadn’t known Fred’s wife’s given name and had called Rowe. “What’s this about?” his deputy had said. Cubiak heard the curiosity in his voice but knew he wouldn’t ask for more than the sheriff was willing to give. Which amounted to pretty much nothing because even Cubiak was not quite sure why he wanted to talk to her, other than it was a place to start.

  Marilyn Ross lived in a yellow frame ranch house that was set back in a thick grove of cedars. The trees were tall and full and added a stately air to what, drawing closer, he realized was a modest but tidy homestead. Beside the house, which was remarkably small, there were two other buildings: a matching yellow garage and a garden shed. The narrow lawn was neatly trimmed, fence posts aligned and straight, flower bed weeded, walkway swept clean. Cubiak followed the white-rock-lined driveway to a small turnoff that faced a kitchen garden littered with plant stubble, the only visible sign of disorder on the property. Closing the jeep door, Cubiak caught a hint of movement at one of the curtains. Was Fred Ross’s widow home? Was she watching from behind one of the green-shuttered windows? he wondered.

  A shroud of silence encompassed the house and yard. There was no wind through the surrounding ring of gnarled oaks, no birds tweeting or insects chirping. In the heavy, funereal quiet, his boots crunched on the gravel path that ran past a flower bed of red and gold mums and then up to the front door.

  The bell was unyielding, so he knocked. After a few moments, he heard the slow shuffle of feet approaching the door, a sound that reminded him of Eva Carlson.

  A short, heavy-set woman blinked into the glare from the entryway light. She emitted a stale odor of unwashed clothes and talcum powder. A tuft of unruly white hair stuck up on the right side of her head, a match for the red imprint on her cheek.