Death by the Bay Read online

  Praise for DEATH STALKS DOOR COUNTY,

  the first Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery

  “Can a big-city cop solve a series of murders whose only witnesses may be the hemlocks? An atmospheric debut.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “Murder seems unseemly in Door County, a peninsula covered in forests, lined by beaches, and filled with summer cabins and tourist resorts. That’s the hook for murder-thriller Death Stalks Door County.”

  Milwaukee Shepherd Express

  “Skalka’s descriptions of the atmosphere of the villages and spectacular scenery will resonate with readers who have spent time on the Door Peninsula. . . . [She] plans to continue disturbing the peace in Door County for quite a while, which should be a good thing for readers.”

  Chicago Book Review

  “The characters are well drawn, the dialogue realistic, and the puzzle is a difficult one to solve, with suspicion continually shifting as more evidence is uncovered.”

  Mystery Scene Magazine

  Praise for DEATH AT GILLS ROCK,

  the second Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery

  “In her atmospheric, tightly written sequel, Skalka vividly captures the beauty of a remote Wisconsin peninsula that will attract readers of regional mysteries. Also recommended for fans of William Kent Krueger, Nevada Barr, and Mary Logue.”

  Library Journal (Starred Review)

  “Will give mystery lovers food for thought along with the pleasure of reading a well-crafted book.”

  Chicago Book Review, 2015 Best Books of the Year

  “Skalka writes with unusually rich detail about her story’s setting and with unflinching empathy for her characters.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “A new hero to enjoy. . . . Skalka has a hit with both this story and her featured character, Sheriff Dave Cubiak.”

  Mystery Suspense Reviews

  Praise for DEATH IN COLD WATER,

  the third Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery

  “Starring a tenacious cop who earns every ounce of respect he receives.”

  Booklist

  “A fast-paced story highlighted by the differences in temperament and style between the local law enforcement officer and the federal agents, [with] a final, satisfying conclusion.”

  Mystery Scene

  “A haunting depiction of heartbreaking crime. Skalka does a wonderful job of showing how people can both torment and help each other.”

  Sara Paretsky, author of Fallout

  “Patricia Skalka has pulled off the near impossible—a tale of grisly murder filled with moments of breathtaking beauty. Sheriff Dave Cubiak is the kind of decent protagonist too seldom seen in modern mystery novels, a hero well worth rooting for. And the icing on the cake is the stunning backdrop of Door County, Wisconsin. Another fine novel in a series that is sure to satisfy even the most demanding reader.”

  William Kent Krueger, author of Desolation Mountain

  Praise for DEATH RIDES THE FERRY,

  the fourth Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery

  “A smooth yet page-turning read. . . . [Skalka] brings the region alive for readers with a you-are-there verisimilitude.”

  New York Journal of Books

  “Another deftly crafted gem of a mystery novel by Patricia Skalka. . . . A simply riveting read from cover to cover.”

  Midwest Book Review

  “An intricate, intriguing plot in which Door County Sheriff Dave Cubiak can stop a ruthless killer only by finding the link between a spate of murders and a forty-year-old mystery.”

  Michael Stanley, author of the Detective Kubu series

  “Skalka is equally skilled at evoking the beloved Door County landscape and revealing the complexities of the human heart, as Sheriff Cubiak’s latest case evokes personal demons. This thought-provoking mystery, set in a beautiful but treacherous environment, is sure to please.”

  Kathleen Ernst, author of The Light Keeper’s Legacy

  DEATH BY THE BAY

  A DAVE CUBIAK DOOR COUNTY MYSTERY

  PATRICIA SKALKA

  THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS

  The University of Wisconsin Press

  1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor

  Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059

  uwpress.wisc.edu

  Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road

  London EC1R 5DB, United Kingdom

  eurospanbookstore.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Patricia Skalka

  All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any format or by any means—digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. Rights inquiries should be directed to [email protected].

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book may be available in a digital edition.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Skalka, Patricia, author. | Skalka, Patricia. Dave Cubiak Door County mystery.

  Title: Death by the bay / Patricia Skalka.

  Description: Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, [2019] | Series: A Dave Cubiak Door County mystery

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018049609 | ISBN 9780299323103 (cloth: alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Door County (Wis.)—Fiction. | LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3619.K34 D38 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049609

  Map by Julia Padvoiskis

  Door County is real. While I used the peninsula as the framework for the book, I also altered some details and added others to fit the story. The spirit of this majestic place remains unchanged.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-299-32318-9 (electronic)

  For

  Aunt Rose,

  who was denied so much in life

  The greater the power,

  the more dangerous the abuse.

  Edmund Burke

  1

  A DISRUPTED LUNCH

  The doctor was late. In the ten or so years that Door County Sheriff Dave Cubiak and Evelyn Bathard had met for their weekly lunch, the retired coroner had been unerringly punctual. They had a one o’clock reservation at the Green Arbor Lodge, and it was already half past. Cubiak was concerned. Not worried yet. But concerned. Trying to ignore the slow sweep of the second hand on his watch, he studied the whitecaps that were forming on the gray surface of Green Bay. He had requested a window table for Bathard’s benefit. Although his elderly friend had sailed only once during the previous season, he remained a mariner at heart, and Cubiak knew he would enjoy the cliff-side view from the restaurant. So where was he?

  It was possible that Bathard had forgotten the date. Or the time. But Cubiak didn’t think either was likely. He wondered if his watch was wrong, but that seemed doubtful as well. The timepiece was a high-school graduation gift from his parents, the only thing of value they had ever given him, and despite being treated with great abandon through the years, it had always proved accurate. To be sure, he checked it against the clock on the wall. It was one forty-five.

  The sheriff picked up his phone and started to call Bathard, but then he stopped. He needed to give his friend a little more time. Cubiak had assumed that on a Monday in late May the dining room wouldn’t be busy, but he had been wrong. There were more people in the restaurant than he had expected—more men in suits and women in dresses, more wing tips and heels than he had seen in a long time.

  “What’s going on?” he asked the waitress.

  “A medical meeting in the
conference center. Bunch of docs all over the place,” she said.

  Cubiak relaxed. That explained things. Bathard was probably circling the lot, looking for a parking space.

  “More water?” the waitress said and held up a lemon-laced pitcher for him to consider.

  “Sure, thanks.” What he really wanted was a beer, but he didn’t drink on duty. He had been down that road before, when he was a Chicago cop, and he had no intention of making a return trip.

  Cubiak looked down at the water again. The bay buffeted the western shore of the Door County peninsula, which, like Lake Michigan to the east, had remained stubbornly cold through the spring. Six weeks earlier, the sheriff had seen small ice floes riding the crests of the waves outside his house. The ice disappeared overnight with little fanfare but with great relief to the tourist board. It was time for the first summer visitors to arrive. In the distance, a gray tanker slipped effortlessly through the water, following the shipping lane that kept it a safe distance from the rocky shore of the peninsula. The boat rode low in the water, probably carrying a load of steel or electronics to one of the shipyards in Sturgeon Bay.

  Another fifteen minutes passed, and the sheriff started to worry. For more than a decade, he and Bathard had met weekly at Pechta’s in Fish Creek. The old-style bar and grill was convenient, the food was good, and they both enjoyed the brash banter with Amelia Pechta, the witty and sharp-tongued proprietor. But she had retired in the fall, and the new owners had transformed the restaurant from a comfortable old shoe of an eatery, with distressed wooden booths and dim lighting, into a pinched-toe stiletto. High-tech tractor seats replaced the worn but comfortable chairs, and fishing nets were draped on the walls in an unseemly combination of surf-and-turf décor. For the two friends, the changes were a bad fit. There were plenty of restaurants in Door County, and as each week rolled around, they tried a different one. This was their first lunch at the one-hundred-year-old Green Arbor Lodge.

  Cubiak checked the time. Two twenty. Phone in hand, he turned toward the lobby. From his seat, he had a clear view to the mullioned windows behind the registration desk and to the landscaped entrance outside. Between two rows of clipped hedges, an elderly gentleman made his way up the path to the lodge door. The man was stooped, as if weighted down by the heavy overcoat he wore despite the relatively warm weather. With each uncertain step, he propelled a wooden cane forward along the stone surface. If you live long enough, old age catches up, Cubiak thought. Suddenly he realized that the man on the walkway was Bathard. The image tugged at the sheriff’s heart. They were all on a steadfast journey through life, but when had his friend grown old? When had he started using a cane? Cubiak pocketed his phone and pushed away from the table.

  On his way to the door, he passed his waitress.

  “Back in a sec,” he said.

  Cubiak elbowed through the crowded lobby. He reached the heavy wooden door just in time to push it open for Bathard.

  “Sorry I’m late,” the coroner said as the sheriff clasped his shoulder.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, certainly. Oh, this?” Bathard brandished the cane. “I sprained my ankle. Nothing to fuss over. I meant to call but—”

  A woman screamed, interrupting him.

  In the refined setting of the old lodge, the disruption was unseemly. Startled, Bathard lurched into Cubiak. Around them, conversations stalled. Then everyone started talking at once.

  “Quiet!” the sheriff shouted over the bedlam, as he steadied his friend.

  “I’m fine. Go,” Bathard said.

  When the inn started, it boasted a dozen simple guest rooms, a small private dining room, and a patch of lawn groomed for bocce and croquet. Over time the residential wing was enlarged and a second added. Eventually the dining room was opened to the public, and the lawn was torn up to make room for a recreation wing with an indoor pool, separate saunas for men and women, and a fully equipped workout room. The latest addition was the wing that housed a state-of-the art conference center.

  The cry had come from one of the four wings.

  On instinct, Cubiak started toward the nearest guest rooms. A shout from the opposite direction made him spin around and head toward the conference center corridor.

  The passage was packed with people from the conference who had been drawn by the scream. Some milled about and glanced one way and then the other, holding their phones high as they snapped photos, trying to capture anything of interest. Others pushed forward, as if eager to help.

  “Sheriff’s department. Let me through. Get back,” Cubiak said as he pushed through the human logjam. The well-dressed crowd looked at him askance. Who was this man with the shaggy hair, plaid shirt, and blue jeans to give them orders? Most of them stayed their ground, but a few grudgingly gave way.

  Six meeting rooms opened off the hallway. There were three on each side, and they had picturesque names like Pinestead and Tree Top. Each room had planked maple floors and was painted a calming, soft green and furnished with upholstered chairs of dark wood. Through the open doorways, Cubiak glimpsed signs of hasty exit—overturned chairs, papers and binders scattered on the floor, briefcases left standing alongside empty seats. In one room he saw an open purse and tablet on a chair and a red scarf hanging over the back of another.

  The commotion had come from the room at the end of the hall where a rotund, middle-aged woman blocked the entrance. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back into a bun, and with a manner as severe as her hairstyle, she stood with arms akimbo under a sign that read Woodlawn Theater.

  “No one comes in,” she said sternly when Cubiak tried to get past.

  He flashed his badge. “Sheriff’s department.”

  “Oh,” she said. Flummoxed, she glanced into the room as if hoping for further instructions. Cubiak had one foot in the door when she meekly stepped aside.

  Eight people were in the theater, an inflated name for what was essentially a large presentation room that sloped gently toward the raised platform that filled the front like a low stage.

  Pale and rigid with alarm, the three women at the rear gave Cubiak a fleeting glance as he entered. Then they turned their attention back to the five people on the dais.

  Three of them were lined up behind a long conference table: a young man with a pale mustache, an even younger woman with half of her brown hair dyed neon blue, and an elegant, mature woman in a fitted gray suit. Two men in suits were on the other side of a podium, which stood near the table. One knelt on the floor; the other lay on the floor and was not moving.

  As Cubiak approached, he studied the tableau at the front of the room. Out of habit, he committed the details to memory, as he would if he were viewing a crime scene.

  The woman in the gray suit leaned against the wall of windows. Her short silver hair hugged her head like a helmet. Her eyes were shut, and both hands were pressed to her mouth. The young couple stood shoulder to shoulder. He had his arm around her in a partial, awkward embrace. They were a mismatched pair: he unusually tall and dressed formally in suit and tie, she petite and outfitted in a short red dress, denim jacket, black leggings, and heavy combat boots. The man looked at her with great concern, but she stared past him toward the podium, clasping her laptop to her chest and seemingly oblivious to his presence.

  The man on the floor still had not moved. He had white hair and the frail physique of the very old. He wore a charcoal suit and new shoes whose soles gleamed in the light. His arms and legs were flung casually to the side, as if he were relaxing at the end of a yoga session. But his striped green tie was loosened and tossed to the side, and his shirt was opened to the waist, exposing his sunken chest.

  The kneeling man looked up momentarily. His face glistened with sweat. His arms were taut, and his hands were pressed against the bare chest of the figure on the floor.

  When he reached the platform, the sheriff paused. As he did, the woman in gray opened her eyes. The woman in red elbowed the gangly man. He flushed with embarrass
ment and stepped away as she set her computer on the table and laid her jacket on top of it.

  On the other side of the lectern, the kneeling man fell back on his heels. “I’m afraid he’s gone. Looks like a heart attack,” he said.

  Close up, Cubiak saw that the man on the floor had a narrow, chiseled face. His complexion was ashen. His eyes stared at the ceiling, their blueness faded and the luster dimmed.

  The sheriff identified himself but got no response from the other man. When Cubiak reached for the victim’s wrist, the kneeling man suddenly righted himself and pushed at the sheriff’s arm.

  “Who are you? What are you doing?” he said. He had a strong voice, and, despite thick hair that was more salt than pepper, he was probably at least thirty years younger than the man he had been trying to resuscitate.

  Cubiak glanced into a pair of murky brown eyes and repeated himself. “I’m the sheriff.” Then he added, “I’m checking for a pulse.”

  “I’m a physician, and I’ve done that already. This gentleman is dead.”

  Cubiak nodded and gently released his hold. The man’s wrist was limp, and its warmth, the only sign of life remaining in the body, would fade soon.

  “Did anyone call nine-one-one?”

  “There’s no need for that,” said the man with the dark eyes.

  Cubiak ignored him and turned to the trio on the other side of the podium.

  They stared at him, looking to the kneeling man and then back to the sheriff. Finally, the tall man reached into his pocket just as the woman who had rebuffed him dug into her purse. She dropped a large ring filled with keys on the table and then extracted her phone as well.

  “One call is enough,” Cubiak said. He was on the line with his deputy Mike Rowe.

  “Get to the Green Arbor. Now,” he said.

  The kneeling man joined the group.

  “We don’t need outside help.” His voice was as hard as his stare was cold.

  “And you are?”

  “Doctor Harlan Sage, the director of the institute. The Institute for Progressive Medicine. We’re here for our annual conference.”