Death Stalks Door County (31 page)

The call was answered on the third ring. “Hello? Who is this?” a voice demanded.

“Hello!” Then a click.

An aching hollowness ballooned in Cubiak's chest.

He knew the voice.

Outside, a cold rain fell.

U
nder a leaden, windswept sky, Cubiak headed north. The roads were empty, the resort towns unnervingly still.

“I am sick at heart at what I must do now. There is no satisfaction in solving this crime,” Dutch had written in his notebook when he'd identified the killer. The same heavy, unhappy sentiment dragged at Cubiak. Late the previous evening, he'd talked with Johnson and Martha Smithson, then Bathard and even Buddy Entwhistle, whom Ruta had finally located. Cubiak was up past midnight weaving the threads of who and why into a cohesive theory. At five that morning, he dragged Halverson out of bed and had him roust Petey from his cell. The additional details he coaxed from the reluctant prisoner seared the information into a nightmarish knot.

Burdened by the truth, the most Cubiak could do was drive slowly.

Even then he was brought up short when he reached the junction at the top of the peninsula. He had no choice, really. He understood this as he crimped the wheel to the right and turned down the narrow blacktop that led him under the by-now familiar arching green canopy toward land's end. Crawling around the last bend, he cut the engine and coasted into the circular driveway of the house Dutch had built. The yard was empty. Near the house a bed of bright red azaleas sparkled with misplaced gaiety, but beyond the clearing, the dark forest cedars stood mute and guarded.

R
uby? Cate?”

The names echoed through the stillness, then faded to silence. Cubiak tried the barn first. The door was locked. He peered through the four-paneled window. The walls had been emptied of their great loops of yarn. The looms were stripped and barren, naked in the thin light.

The ranger approached the house. The back door was ajar.

“Ruby? Cate?” he called as he stepped inside, and again, there was no answer. Only the faint sound of classical music from deep inside. Violins. Something melancholy and familiar he couldn't place.

He mounted the bare, wooden stairs. A small rear bedroom he assumed was Cate's was casually thrown together. The other two had the comfortable look of rooms lived in and carefully tended. Downstairs was the same. The living room curtains had been pulled shut. The fireplace swept. A short stack of photo albums sat neatly piled on the coffee table. He flipped through the top two. Pictures of Ruby and Dutch from long ago. A striking pair. In the kitchen, a cup and saucer rested in the drain by the sink. Cubiak ran his finger over the bottom of the cup. Still damp.

From the front hall, he stepped out onto a wide porch that seemed to open onto the very end of the earth: all trees, water, and sky. He followed a stone path through a yard landscaped with native plants and bushes. The path led to a cliff where a steep staircase plunged down to a narrow dock. A lemon yellow rowboat bobbed alongside the pier. A woman sat in the boat; she faced the water and held a slender brown pole. At first glance Cubiak thought it was an oar. He gripped the handrail and took his time descending the narrow steps.

“Ruby.”

No response. Cubiak was about to call out a second time when Ruby lifted her feet and, with the agility of someone half her age, swirled around to face him. As she turned, Cubiak glimpsed a red gas can under the seat.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

Ruby pointed the brown pole at him. The oar became a skeet gun, probably twenty-gauge.

Cubiak advanced to the middle of the dock. “Target practice?”

“Maybe.” Ruby balanced the rifle across her knees and took his measure. “Rather early for a social visit.”

“I have something important to show you.”

She waited, a mix of amusement and skepticism on her face.

Cubiak reached across his chest and into his shirt pocket. His hand came out with the fingers tightly clenched.

Ruby motioned him forward.

When he was four feet from the boat, she put up her hand. Cubiak halted and slowly opened his fist to reveal four .300 Weatherby Magnum cartridge cases.

“I found these yesterday in the woods above the golf course. On the rock ledge, to be exact.”

Ruby's face was inscrutable.

“Your father owned a Weatherby, custom-made with gold inlay. I saw it in a picture at The Wood. You were in the same photo with him. You and your sister, Rosalinde. The gun's gone. I looked.”

“I'll have to report it missing.”

“You learned to shoot with your father's gun, didn't you? He taught you everything he knew about hunting and the outdoors.”

Ruby stroked the barrel of the weapon.

“You should never have shown me the notebooks,” he continued.

“You've lost me, I'm afraid, David. My mind's not so quick anymore.” She called him by his full name, as had his mother.

“Something like this happens, there's a reason for it,” he quoted Dutch. “You did it, Ruby. You killed all those people.”

She said nothing.

Cubiak edged toward the boat. Ruby hoisted the rifle and pointed it at him, and he took two steps back. “I did what Dutch would have done, Ruby. I talked to everyone. I followed all the threads. Some went a little further than others. But they all fell short. Then you answered the phone last night and provided me with the thread that led to the motive. It took some digging but I finally figured it out.”

“Go on,” she said as if humoring a bothersome child.

“It began a long time ago, after you had Cate.” He waited for her to react but Ruby remained like stone. “You needed a birth certificate for her and went to Beck for help. He did as asked, but unbeknownst to you he had a second birth certificate forged, one that named him as Cate's father. That's the one he used to blackmail Dutch into retiring to protect your name. After that, Dutch was never the same. At the time, you may have suspected that something wasn't right but you couldn't say anything. So you decided Dutch was depressed. A plausible notion. He'd had a major life transition. His health was failing. To keep up appearances and give Dutch something to do, you hit on the idea that he should write a book about Door County, never realizing where it would lead.”

A flicker of recognition swept across Ruby's countenance.

“It was worse than you imagined, wasn't it, Ruby? Having Beck reveal your secret was bad enough, but then for him to claim he was Cate's father was unconscionable. For six years, your husband was forced to believe the worst—that while he was trapped in some stink hole in Vietnam you were carrying on with his best friend. When he talked to Kingovich, he learned the truth about Cate but maybe more importantly, he learned that you hadn't been unfaithful to him with Beck. Knowing this should give you some comfort, Ruby. Dutch was driving to Sturgeon Bay when he went off the road. It's not hard to imagine he was on his way to confront Beck.”

“How'd you ever come up with such a fanciful tale?”

“Dutch recorded his conversation with old man Kingovich just like he had all the interviews for the book. This morning, I got Petey to admit he'd listened to the tape. He told me the whole story.”

“Pure conjecture. You think Kingovich ever told the truth about anything? Hah! He was a thief and a liar.”

“After Dutch died, Bathard encouraged you to continue your husband's work on the book. You refused at first, but he persisted. Last winter you finally agreed and started looking for Dutch's notes. You must have thought it strange that you couldn't locate the material he'd accumulated. You knew some of the people he'd interviewed and eventually, you followed his trail to Kangaroo Lake. The old man was in a coma by then, but you knew about the papers and documents the family kept in the shed. That's where you found Dutch's box, and discovered Beck's treachery.

“Eloise told me how Beck toasted you and Dutch at their wedding: ‘May our lives always mirror one another's.' You held him to it, didn't you? Beck destroyed your husband, so you decided to destroy his son, not because Beck loved Barry like you loved Dutch but because it was important to him to have an heir. You tailed Barry and knew when and why he'd be at the tower. But that fateful Sunday morning, Wisby was in the park instead. Same height and build and wearing the same kind of jacket. You killed the wrong person, Ruby. When you realized Benny had seen you that morning, you killed him, too. Two nights later, in the park, you got Alice, who was wearing Barry's jacket.”

“Is this how big city cops solve crimes? Fiction 101?” Ruby said.

“Then Jocko phoned, ranting about Paradise Harbor. You realized the project meant more to Beck than anything, even his son, and your tactics shifted.”

Ruby said nothing.

“The attacks began again but instead of targeting Barry, you killed tourists to try and scare away Beck's investors. Yesterday at the golf course, you could have shot Beck, but you murdered one of his guests instead, knowing such a blatant act of violence at the culmination of the festival would panic the entire county and finally, once and for all, destroy the Paradise Harbor scheme.”

“My, that's quite an elaborate plan you credit me with. You have proof, I presume?”

“The research material that Dutch had accumulated would prove everything, but, of course, you took that. There's also Petey's version of what was on the tape, which you've no doubt destroyed. So it's your word against his.”

Ruby rolled her eyes.

“That leaves the weaving.”

“The imaginative musings of an old lady. That's what they said about my last show. That I was losing my touch.”

“At the unveiling, Martha Smithson seemed upset that the hanging was displayed with only the front visible. I didn't think much of it at first, but then I got curious and wondered if there was something on the back that you didn't want anyone to see. This morning, I went to the Birchwood and looked.”

Ruby shrugged. “It's an unconventional piece.”

“More than that. A true double weaving would have a reverse of the Tree of Life on the other side. You wove a different picture entirely, a Tree of Death.”

“Artistic license.”

“It's not unheard of for a killer to maintain an elaborate diary that details the crimes committed. You told your story through the image you created on the back.”

Ruby shifted her weight on the narrow seat. “Still with you,” she chirped.

“There aren't many books left in the library at Jensen Station. But I did find several on the Lakota Sioux. A fierce bunch, they were. When they went on the warpath, they brought back souvenir scalps and hung them from their lodge poles. A little wartime contest they held to see who could kill the most. There were seven scalps on your death tree, each one of them with a clue. A piece of fabric from Wisby's jacket. A fragment of rope from the
Betsy Ross
. Alice's broken nail. The tassel from the cap of the man you killed at the lighthouse. A tooth from the male cyclist, and an earring from his companion. Then, finally, this.”

Cubiak pulled another bullet casing from his other pocket. “It matches. I checked,” he said.

“And there's only your word it came from the weaving. That wasn't very smart. No,” Ruby said, wagging a finger at him, “it won't wash. Do you think anyone would believe that I—that a woman—could do such things?”

“Why not? You were raised to be a skilled hunter and outdoors expert.”

“You flatter me.”

“You knew Sioux traditions from your summers on the reservation. The men did the fighting, but the torture and death of prisoners were left to the women.”

“You've shared this theory with other people. Bathard, perhaps? Halverson?”

“No.”

“So just the two of us are privy to this fantasy of yours.”

“For now.”

Ruby's look was dreamy and distant, her voice quiet. “You do the Lakota a disservice with your narrow focus. They are one of few cultures to recognize women's strength and to honor them for it.” Ruby bent forward and came up with the shotgun aimed at the prow. Snapping the butt to her shoulder, she pointed the nozzle at the terrain beyond the dock and then slowly guided the weapon toward Cubiak until she held him directly in her sights.

“Funny thing about this place. So beautiful and yet so isolated, so treacherous. There's no accurate count of the number of people who've drowned in the entrance to the Door. Few of those who've gone down have ever floated back to the surface. The bottom currents are too swift, that's one theory. People drown and their bodies are carried out to the deeper depths where they snag on the boulders that cover the lake bed and eventually get picked clean by the bigger fish.”

“You won't get away with it, Ruby.”

“You left a note. You told Otto—someone—you were coming to see me.”