The Light Keeper's Legacy (A Chloe Ellefson Mystery) (17 page)

Thirty:
September, 1882

“Will you stay to
dinner, Anton?” Emily asked. “We’d be delighted.”

“Only if you’re sure it’s no trouble,” Anton Jacobson said. “I heard the
Dahlia
came by yesterday. I wanted to see if Captain Betts got any newspapers.”

“I’ll fetch them,” William said. “Please, sit down.”

Emily set Amy, who’d recently turned seven, to watch the two little boys, William Jr. and DeElbert. “Jane,” she added quietly, “please set the table.”

Then Emily checked the potatoes—good, already tender—and put the trout filet in the skillet. She liked Anton, and knew William enjoyed his company. She’d had very little sleep in the past two days, though. DeElbert was cutting a tooth, and she’d delivered the
twins of a young Norwegian bride who’d walked up from the
village while in labor so Emily could “do” for her.

Thank heavens we’re using kerosene in the lamp now, she thought. The supply ship had brought barrels of it. She and William didn’t like having huge quantities of flammables inside their home, but tending the light had just gotten easier. No more kettles of lard simmering on the second-story stove day and night. No more scrubbing a patina of fat from glass and brass and woodwork. No more incessant smell of pork drifting through the house.

William and Anton leafed through the pages. “Any more on those new restrictions on gillnets?” Anton asked. Although heavily accented, his English was good. “Some of our boys fish in both Wisconsin and Michigan waters, you know, and we’ve got a problem each time the rules about mesh size changes.”

“Here.” William tapped a column with one finger. “Michigan law will now allow no smaller mesh than four and three-quarter inches.”

Anton leaned close and read the fine print for himself. “Now, that’s bad. Our nets are four and one-half inch mesh.”

Nets. Mesh. I really must make an effort to see Ragna more often, Emily thought. If only—

“Mama?” Jane called. “The cisterns must be leaking again.” She stood by the sink, hand on the pump. “All I can get’s a trickle.”

“Try to at least fill the pitcher.” Emily stifled a sigh. The cisterns had only recently been replastered.

“I’ve heard men say all fishing with nets should be prohibited for two or three years,” William was saying.

And what will Ragna and her brothers do then? Emily thought. “All right, gentlemen,” she announced. “Clear the table, because the food is ready.”

Anton smiled. “Say, I heard you did real good with those twins. Born so small, their mother said, that her wedding ring slipped over their hands like a bracelet.”

“My biggest worry was keeping them warm,” Emily said. A gale wind had blown drafts through every room that night. She’d wrapped the twins warmly, nestled them into a basket, and slipped them into the warming oven above the range. They’d come through the night just fine. Unlike Ragna’s daughter. Christine Anderson was the only baby Emily hadn’t been able to save.

“Someone’s coming,” William said. “Sit, Em. I’ll get it.”

Emily threw her husband a grateful glance. As she dished peas onto her plate she heard the murmur of male voices at the west door. A few moments later William returned to the kitchen, looking perplexed.

“Who was it?” Emily asked. “Didn’t you invite them in?”

“A friend from Washington Island,” William said. “He said he had to get back—he just wanted to deliver this.” He held up an
envelope. “It’s from the lighthouse service, Emily. And it’s addressed
to you.”

Thirty-one

Stig took the lead
as he and Chloe hiked north to the lighthouse. His duty belt reminded her of Roelke, who seemed very far away. Rays of late-day sun slanted through the trees. A spider’s web sparkled with moisture. A warbler began its evening song. The beauty collided with the images in Chloe’s head.

Finally they emerged into the lighthouse clearing—so lovely, so peaceful. “Give me your key,” Stig said. “I’ll check the building before you go inside. Stay right here and shout if you see anyone.”

Chloe felt an abrupt and welcome boil of anger as he went inside the lighthouse.
Her
lighthouse. He didn’t have to order her around like a child! Would Stig and Garrett even let her return in the morning? Was her time in Pottawatomie Lighthouse over for good?

He emerged five minutes later. “OK,” he said. “Go grab your
…
” He turned his head as the noise of an approaching powerboat drifted through the evening. The engine slowed below the lighthouse, then stopped. Stig jogged to the edge of the bluff. “Can’t see it from here,” he said. “I’m going to take a look.”

“I’m coming too.”

Chloe felt a physical ache in her chest as they walked down the trail. Sylvie, irascible and supportive, brimming with life—dead! Chloe mourned the loss of such a fierce advocate for the light
house project. Someone who might have become a friend. Oh
…
and Emily! Chloe swiped at another tear. How could she discover Emily’s story, if her project was shut down so abruptly?

I need to stay in the lighthouse, Chloe thought. She needed to be
here
, in this very place where Emily had once tended the light and her family. She needed to be on Rock Island, free to visit the village site.

She cursed whoever was behind Sylvie’s death—or whoever had, at the very least, arranged her body so carefully before leaving her on the beach. Stig better find you, she told the guilty party grimly. And find you quick so—

Dire thoughts flew from Chloe’s head as they reached the staircase leading to the beach. A small motorboat revved again, and zoomed north. But a man wearing denim cut-offs and a shapeless T-shirt was wading in the lake. Chloe’s heart skittered into overtime before she reminded herself that someone knee-deep 150 feet below her could not constitute an immediate threat.

“Who the hell is that?” Stig asked.

Chloe had no idea. No one was camping on Rock. The last ferry had come and gone. Why was someone wading on her beach? She felt Stig tense, poised to shout or to run down the steps. She caught his eye, shook her head, and put a finger over her mouth. After several seconds he nodded.

Chloe squinted. The guy stood still as a heron waiting for fish. She wished she had her binoculars. Something about him seemed familiar. His back was toward her, but she could see longish dark hair, a slim build
…
Was it Camera Guy? It sure looked like Camera Guy—the young man who wanted to become a professional photographer. Perhaps he’d walked into Lake Michigan for his art, needing to study the play of fading light on the water.

The wader turned, looking back toward the beach. It
was
Camera Guy. Except
…
there was no dark shape against his light shirt. Camera Guy’s camera was conspicuously missing.

Well, he’d probably left it on the beach, not wanting to risk ru
ining it if he stumbled. Or
…
? Another possibility wiggled into Chloe’s beleaguered brain. She pressed one hand over her mouth, examining stray bits of information that flickered from her memory. Stories Stig had told her about fervent environmentalists, blessedly full of convictions and foolishly naïve about the natural world’s indifference. A single small light in the Rock Island channel at night. A missing camera and shards of glass on the beach. An N made of pebbles, the lines crisp and sharp as Zorro’s mark
…

Shit.
Chloe bit her lip, realizing she’d made a stupid assumption. Garrett and Stig had as well. Still.

Camera Guy pivoted again, once more facing north. Chloe cocked her head at Stig:
Come away.
They crept slowly back until she was sure they couldn’t be seen from the water.

Stig glared. “Who is that?” he hissed. “I need to question him—”

“Just listen for a minute.”

Stig tapped his thumb on his thigh, just the way Roelke did, while she told him what she was thinking. “So I want to talk to him,” Chloe whispered. “To Camera Guy.”

“
I
will talk to him.”

“He’d be more likely to open up to me.” She didn’t know why she thought that, but she did.

“But—”

Chloe forced down her impatience. “Please. Just let me try. You can watch from the top of the steps.”

For a long moment Stig didn’t speak. A chickadee darted past. Finally the deputy said, “All right. You can give it a try.”

Chloe didn’t try to muffle her footsteps as she descended the stairs. The young man turned his head, looked at her, looked back to the lake. Once on the beach she saw his kayak, hauled dry and left against the limestone wall. It was a tandem.

He can’t stay out there forever, Chloe thought. His feet must be numb. She made her way to Emily’s Rock and sat down.

Camera Guy ignored her for a long time. Chloe expected an impatient Stig Fjelstul to pound down the steps any moment, but he stayed hidden. And finally, the young man turned and waded back to shore. He seemed to know that Chloe was waiting for him, for he came to stand before her, hands in pockets, head hung low.

Chloe drew in a careful breath. After talking Stig into this plan, she needed to handle things right. “What’s your name?”

“Spencer Brant,” he told the cobbles. He sounded weary.

“You don’t have your camera today.”

“I will
never
take another picture.” He lifted his head and looked east, toward the cairn. His eyes filled with tears.

Chloe spoke gently. “Who was the young woman who drowned,
Spencer? Did her name start with an N, or with a Z?” Z, like Zorro.

He didn’t speak, didn’t move.

Chloe circled her hand in a
You know
gesture. “I saw the initial made by the cairn. It’s a lovely tribute, by the way. You made it, right?”

Finally he nodded. “It—I made it for Zana.” He began to cry. “Oh,
God
.”

Chloe refrained from smacking herself in the forehead. If we hadn’t assumed that pebble zigzag formed an N, she thought, the poor girl might have been identified sooner.

Spencer Brant began weeping. “Why don’t you sit down,” she said, patting the stone beside her. When he didn’t move she took his hand and tugged gently. “Please, Spencer. Sit down.” She waited until he’d settled before saying, “You need to tell me what happened.”

He hiccupped and sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Zana and I c-came up here to—to protest fishing.
All
fishing. Fishermen are raping the Great Lakes, you know.”

Chloe didn’t respond. She needed to listen now, not educate.

“Zana had this great idea. She wanted me to photograph her in the water, wrapped in an old fishing net. We planned to use the photos to help people understand that for over a century, helpless creatures have been trapped like that.”

Chloe imagined a passionate young woman—sure of herself, comfortable with her body, hopelessly naïve.

“So, we paddled out to the channel one evening. We got some good shots, but—but some wind did kick up. I wanted to go back, but Zana wasn’t ready to leave.”

“Why not?”

“The sun was setting, and the sky was really dramatic, you know? And Zana kept wanting to try one more shot, just one more shot. She’d hold onto the kayak, and tell me what she wanted, and then position herself in the net.”

“What went wrong?”

“I don’t know!” Spencer cried. “She had rolled herself in the net and was floating nearby. I had to turn the kayak so I could get her with the twilight sky as backdrop. Twilight, get it?”

Chloe’s heart hurt. “I get it.” Twilight for the fish populations. Twilight for the fishing industry.

“I didn’t know Zana was in trouble. She didn’t call for help or anything! I took a few last shots—the clouds really were awesome—and then
…
” His voice cracked. “She said, ‘I need to get out.’ I waited for her to unwind herself from the net, but she didn’t. I—I put the camera down, and held out the paddle—she could have grabbed it even through the net—but she didn’t! Why didn’t she grab it?”

“Zana was probably getting hypothermia,” Chloe said. “Water in the Great Lakes is
cold
, Spencer. Even at this time of year, people can get in trouble very quickly. Zana probably couldn’t make her hands reach out and grab the paddle.” She tried to keep her voice calm, even though the picture painted in her mind made her want to weep right along with him.

“I—I put the camera in a dry-bag before I tried to get her.” Spencer’s hands clawed convulsively at his thighs. “I put the damn camera away! My father gave it to me, and it was really expensive, and—and
…
”

“I doubt that extra moment made any difference.” Chloe prayed that was true. “That’s why you smashed the camera later, right? I cleaned up the glass this morning.”

“I tried to smash it, but all I did was break the lens. So I pitched the camera into the lake.” Spencer turned to her. “I tried to get Zana back in the kayak! I
really
tried.”

“Were you wearing a life jacket?”

“No. I always wear a life jacket when I’m running a river. You know, in whitewater. But we didn’t even bring them along. I mean, it’s just a lake!”

Just a lake, Chloe thought. You foolish,
foolish
kid.

“Zana just
…
she just got away from me.” Spencer stared over the water. “I freaked out and went in after her. But I couldn’t find her in the water, and it was getting dark, and—and I did get really,
really
cold, and I—I just panicked. I was afraid I’d get lost myself if I didn’t get back in the kayak and head to shore.”

Chloe closed her eyes for a moment. “Why didn’t you report what happened?”

“I just—just couldn’t even think straight. My father—God, when my father hears about this, he’ll
…
” He spread his hands, evidently unable to articulate that eventuality. “And Zana’s parents! How can I tell them?”

“It was an accident, Spencer. A tragic accident. Zana played her own role in what happened.”

“I guess I hoped that I’d find her. That maybe she somehow ended up on shore or something. That she was OK. I put on dry clothes and got a lantern from my car and went back out, searching for her. But I couldn’t find her.”

Chloe refrained from pointing out that kayaking alone, in the dark, when no one knew where he was, was just as dangerous as Zana’s photo shoot.

“All I could do was imagine
…
” He shuddered so violently that Chloe put an arm around his thin shoulders. “Two days later I heard people talking in the general store, saying that her body had washed up on shore beneath the lighthouse.”

Chloe nodded. “So you took the
Karfi
over and built the memorial cairn on the beach.”

“Yeah.” He stared at a black spider scuttling over the stones. “I needed to come here, to the beach. But I keep going back out on the water, too. Sometimes I go late at night and just sit out there in the kayak. I still can’t believe she’s really gone.”

“Was Zana her real name?”

Brant shook his head. “Zana’s real name is—was—Mary Pat. Everyone in our group chose a warrior name. Zana means ‘God’s Gift’ in Hebrew.” He planted his elbows on his knees, and his face in his palms.

“It’s a lovely name,” Chloe agreed. She sat for a moment, watching
a herring gull bobbing offshore. Shadows were stretching long, now; the peaceful pink glow fading. Time to go.

“One more thing,” she said. “Another body was found on Rock Island today, over a mile from here. An older woman, draped in a fishnet. Do you know anything about that?”

“What?” He stared at her, clearly bewildered. “No!”

“OK.” Chloe believed him. She hoped Stig would as well.

The young man lifted his face, staring over the passage. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Zana needs to go home. Her body needs to be officially identified. She needs to be laid to rest with dignity.”

“I don’t even know who to talk to,” Spencer mumbled. “They said there aren’t any cops on Washington Island.”

“No, but there’s a sheriff’s deputy.” Chloe stood up. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”