The Light Keeper's Legacy (A Chloe Ellefson Mystery) (4 page)

Six: June, 1871

Emily Rohn Betts sighed
happily. “Oh, William. Pottawatomie is such a
fine
lighthouse.” She walked slowly through the first floor, circling from the parlor to the keeper’s bedroom to the kitchen. She’d visited the lighthouse before, of course. William was a good friend of her father’s. And now he is my husband, she thought. And Pottawatomie is mine to help tend.

William stood back, watching her delight with quiet pleasure. Emily knew that some people questioned his choice of bride. William was twenty-two years older than she was, a veteran of the Civil War, widely respected.

Well, she thought, I shall prove the naysayers wrong. She might be only sixteen, but she was daughter of the Pilot Island Lighthouse Keeper and Assistant Keeper. She’d been helping to run a lighthouse for far longer than William had.

Emily put her hands on her hips, surveying the kitchen. I shall rearrange a bit, she thought. The official lighthouse service china should be on display, and the iron cookware tucked away in the closed cupboard. But so much room to work in! And oh, the
sink
. Rainwater collected in underground cisterns could be pumped directly up pipes into the kitchen. How wonderfully handy!

William smiled. “Soon, I know, this kitchen will be filled with delightful aromas to tempt me down from the watchroom.”

“It will indeed.” Emily joined her husband, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him lightly. She would enjoy cooking for William. He’d been a bachelor for far too long.

Her plans included more than food, however. Emily intended to apply for the vacant assistant keeper position. The money she earned would come in handy when she and William had children. Emily came from a family of seventeen, and the only fault she could find with this light station was its empty silence. Pottawatomie Lighthouse would not become a home until it rang with their children’s laughter.

Seven

Chloe woke to the
sound of a lot of birds singing a lot of songs. The shadows had paled to a pearly gray. As she sat taking in the morning, the memory of the body on the beach returned. She acknowledged it, and tried to set it aside.

Then a memory of her dream returned. It had been a dream, right? Odd, though
…
she couldn’t remember anything visual, just the sound of a small child’s happy laugh.

“Well, that beats ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night,” Chloe muttered, and got up to face the day.

She made a quick trip down to the lake to fetch water. The beach looked serene. A bald eagle, annoyed by her intrusion, launched from a snag and headed south. Two boats that had paused in the channel puttered away in different directions. Life went on.

She was sitting at the picnic table an hour later, adding almonds and dried cherries to her instant oatmeal, when a motorized rumble approached. She stood up as a white-haired man in a DNR uniform drove the park’s ancient pickup truck into the clearing and parked beside the back steps. “Brought you more drinking water,” he said. He lifted a full Igloo from the truck bed with ease.

“You must be Mel,” Chloe said. “Thanks. I’ll grab the one inside.” She hadn’t quite emptied her supply yet, but she figured she should never turn down a delivery of potable water.

The Igloo swap was quickly made. “You got everything you need?” he asked. He had a rough voice and sun-lined skin.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“There’s extra toilet paper in the oil house. Basic tools, too.” He gestured to a small brick building in the side yard. “I don’t keep supplies in the lighthouse basement. Lots of snakes down there.”

“OK.” Snakes didn’t particularly bother her, but there was no reason to impress Maintenance Mel with her cool regarding things reptilian. Niceties complete, Mel drove away.

Chloe lingered over a cup of hot chocolate. A huge flock of migrating blue jays had paused in the clearing, covering the lawn, perching in trees. Today, she told herself firmly, will be good. Once the dishes were washed, she locked the lighthouse and hit the trail.

As she came down the last hill, she could see a motorboat puttering across the channel from Washington Island. Tim and Natalie were sitting on the same picnic bench she’d waited on the evening before. “Good morning,” Chloe called.

“Hey.” Natalie indicated the bench beside her with a hand:
Want to join us?

Chloe accepted the invitation. “Listen, I didn’t have a chance to thank you last night. Did you have any trouble?”

“Nope,” Tim said. “And we came back over on one of the boats with the rescue crew.”

“I’m glad you were here.” Chloe rubbed her arms.

“Rock Island isn’t always as tranquil as visitors expect.” Natalie stared over the lake. “Tim and I have paddled around here a lot. On calm days it’s very easy to underestimate the danger. I imagine more than a few people have drowned near Rock Island over the centuries.”

Chloe tried to think of something uplifting to say. Nothing came. “I’m sorry I had to spoil your last evening on Rock,” she said finally.

“Not your fault.” Tim shrugged and rummaged in a drybag. “Want a granola bar?”

“Sure,” Chloe said instinctively. She wasn’t hungry, but she was in backpacker mode: never turn down food. “So, are you guys set to head out?”

Natalie made a visible effort to shake off the willies. “Yeah. We’ve been out for three weeks, but we took the semester off. We want to visit a few more of the islands around here.”

“Three weeks?” Chloe echoed wistfully. Now that she had a real job, three-week excursions were out of the question.

By the time she’d crunched through the granola bar, Garrett Smith had the
Ranger
tied beside the dock. Chloe waved. “Good morning,” Garrett said as he approached. “I hope you all managed to get a good night’s sleep, with no nightmares.”

“No nightmares,” Chloe said. “I dreamed about a child laughing, instead. I’m not sure where that came from, but it surely beats the alternative.”

“We slept OK too,” Natalie reported. “We’re about to leave. There’s no reason we’d have to hang around, right?”

“I can’t imagine why,” Garrett said.

“Has the body been identified?” Tim asked.

Garrett shook his head. “Not yet.”

Chloe felt a little twitch beneath her ribs. Drowning was horrible enough. The fact that this young woman had somehow ended up naked and tangled in a fishnet, to be found by strangers, was even worse.

After Natalie and Tim said their farewells, Garrett gestured toward the
Karfi
heading out from Jackson Harbor. “You’ll have guests while you’re here, Chloe. People have always hiked up to see the lighthouse, even though it’s been locked up tight. The furnishings plan is your first priority, but if you happen to be at the lighthouse when guests arrive, and if you’re willing, feel free to show them around and explain the restoration project. Encourage folks to join RISC.”

“Glad to, on both counts.”

“If you need anything, I’ll be in my office for most of the day.” He pointed to a small stone building with a spectacular view of the channel. If Ralph Petty does find a way to get rid of me, Chloe thought, perhaps I could work for the DNR.

“Oh—one more thing,” Garrett said. “If you wander down the east side of the island, you may run into an archaeologist working at the site of an old fishing village. Brenda Noakes is from Escanaba College, in Michigan’s upper peninsula. She’s got her own boat, so she comes and goes.”

“I’ll look for her.”

Garrett rubbed the back of his neck. He seemed distracted by
the
Karfi
, now arriving at the dock. A few day-hikers disembarked—
a young dark-haired guy shouldering a huge camera bag, an overweight man and his overweight wife, two blonde women who looked like sisters. Garret put on a professional smile as he went to greet them. “Welcome! Anyone need a trail map?” The couple and the blondes accepted maps and headed toward the lighthouse.

Garrett rejoined Chloe. “Back to the body,” he said. “The story will be in today’s papers, but I didn’t give your name. With luck, you won’t have any ghoul-minded sightseers wandering around.”

“Sightseers?” Chloe twisted her mouth with distaste.

“Most of our visitors come because they treasure the island experience—birders or photographers or lighthouse buffs who spend every vacation touring lighthouses—hey there!” Garrett flicked his public smile back on and approached the photographer, who’d ended up standing on the main trail looking bewildered. “Did you decide you need a map?” The visitor accepted a map and wandered off.

Garrett rejoined Chloe again. “Anyway, Door County’s got ten lighthouses, so it’s a bit of a mecca.”

“Ah.”

“And I, of course, consider Pottawatomie the crown jewel. Lighthouse people may quiz you on every detail, but they’re usually fun to talk with.” He sighed. “Anyway, though, every once in awhile we see someone I’d rather stayed home. A salvage diver passing through, or a protester.”

Chloe frowned. “Protesting about what?”

“It changes day to day. The park was established just seventeen years ago, in 1965. The purchase was controversial.”

“Really? People didn’t support the idea?” It seemed incomprehensible. Rock Island was a jewel! Once lost, such places couldn’t be reclaimed.

Garrett snorted without amusement. “Stop by my office some time and I’ll show you the map of proposed development. It’s an artifact now, but I keep it as a reminder that different people had different visions for the island. Even now, some people don’t want their taxes supporting the DNR.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. The park is vulnerable to the whims of urban politicians who don’t understand this place. We only use our old truck for emergencies, and for maintenance along the trails. People complain to their legislators that if rangers can drive on Rock Island, they should be able to as well.”

The very idea of cars on Rock Island instilled in Chloe a sense of panic.

Garrett worked his jaw. “And a handful of fish tugs still work out of Jackson Harbor. That’s bringing us unwanted attention, too. Some fringe environmentalists want the state to outlaw gillnet fishing. Or commercial fishing altogether.”

“Outlaw?” Chloe felt her eyebrows rise. “That seems extreme.”

“Most of the ruckus comes from people who mean well, but don’t understand a damn thing about it.” Garrett rubbed his knuckles. “But one of the reasons the zealots cite for wanting to ban gillnets is that they can snare other species, so it’s
…
unfortunate that the woman who drowned got tangled in a gillnet.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said slowly, finally understanding.

“Nobody wants to see the whitefish thrive more than the commercial fishermen. They’re more responsible than the trophy fishermen who—” Garrett stopped abruptly. “Sorry.”

“It’s OK.” Chloe had never understood the lure of killing critters just to hang them on the wall, and she’d stopped eating them too. She considered herself an environmentalist, but bottom line: she didn’t know enough about this to take sides.

What she did know was that Garrett didn’t need any more headaches. “I’m off,” she said. “Here’s wishing you an uneventful day.”

_____

Roelke poured himself a cup of coffee. The chief was at a meeting and the clerk was running an errand, so he was alone in the Eagle Police Department office. He’d come in on his day off to tackle a mountain of paperwork regarding a complicated domestic disturbance call. Instead, he was thinking about Chloe.

He wished he had a clue where he stood with her. They’d gotten off to a rocky start. Just when things were looking good last summer, her stupid Swiss ex had shown up. Alpine Boy had almost won Chloe back.

Roelke tapped his pencil against the desk. In the past few weeks, since Alpine Boy had disappeared again, Chloe had kept things with
him
low-key. “After everything that’s happened, I just need some time,” Chloe had told him. “Some space.”

Roelke had no idea what that meant. What he did know was that he’d met Chloe three months ago and she still couldn’t decide if she wanted to go out with him or not. And that, he thought, probably tells you what you need to know.

So maybe he should just face facts and move on. Besides, he really
needed to buckle down at work. When the full-time patrolman job had opened up a month ago, Roelke and Skeet Deardorff both applied. Roelke had won the job, with the bump in salary and benefits that came with it. But his promotion had been messy. He needed to prove himself to the chief, to the village board, to Skeet. Getting all hung up on a woman who didn’t know her own mind could well be professional suicide.

Roelke set his jaw. All right, that was it. When Chloe got back from this island thing, she needed to fish or cut bait. In the meantime, he wasn’t going to brood. He put Ms. Ellefson out of his mind, rolled a piece of paper into the typewriter, and began to peck the keys: September 8, 1982.

So
…
what was Chloe doing right now? Was she filling a notebook with scrawls about antiques and—and other old stuff ? He tried to picture her busy, happy, completing her project more quickly than anticipated, coming home early to surprise him. Instead his mind conjured an image of her alone on a remote island, wandering around some rickety old lighthouse, totally oblivious to all dangers—

“Whatcha doing?”

Roelke jumped. “Jesus!” He hadn’t even heard Skeet come in. Not good. Not good at all.

“Sorry.” Skeet put a sack lunch in the tiny fridge. His shift was starting.

“No problem,” Roelke said. “I was just
…
um
…
” The phone rang,
for which he was truly grateful.

Skeet grabbed it, scribbled something, said “I’ll meet you there,” and hung up.

“Trouble?” Roelke asked.

Skeet reached for the car keys. “Sounds like some guy’s having a heart attack. One of the new houses on Sunset Way.”

The cops routinely accompanied the EMTs on emergency calls. “Want some company?” Roelke asked.

“Suit yourself.”

Roelke followed Skeet out the door. He wasn’t surprised by the lukewarm response. Since the job got settled, things between the two men were strained. Roelke had tried, really tried, to be supportive. Going out on this call, lending a hand even though he was off the clock, was just one example.

Besides, if he went home, all he’d do was stew about Chloe.

As it turned out, Roelke’s presence was pretty much overkill. The victim’s wife, Mrs. Saddler, was white-faced but calm as she ushered everyone inside. The bedroom was way too small for the patient, his wife, three EMTs, and two cops. Roelke retreated outside and busied himself by assuring worried neighbors that Mr. Saddler was getting the best possible care.

Ten minutes later the EMTs emerged from the house with their patient. Mrs. Saddler watched bleakly as her husband disappeared into the ambulance. “Thank you,” she told Roelke and Skeet. “Thank you very much.”

A woman hurried across the lawn and put her arm around Mrs. Saddler’s shoulders. “I’m going to drive you to the hospital,” the neighbor said. “I don’t want you to wait alone.”