Death Rides the Ferry Read online

  Praise for the Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery series

  DEATH STALKS DOOR COUNTY

  Finalist, Traditional Fiction Book of the Year, Chicago Writers Association

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

  Kirkus Reviews

  “A tight, lyrical first novel.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “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. . . . Impressive.”

  Mystery Scene

  “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, the first in a series involving ranger Dave Cubiak, a former Chicago homicide detective.”

  Milwaukee Shepherd Express

  “A satisfyingly complex plot . . . showcasing one of the main characters, Wisconsin’s beautiful Door County. A great match for Nevada Barr fans.”

  Library Journal

  “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

  DEATH AT GILLS ROCK

  “In her atmospheric, tightly written sequel, Skalka vividly captures the beauty of a remote Wisconsin peninsula.”

  Library Journal, starred review

  “The second installment of this first-rate series provides plenty of challenges for both the detective and the reader.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “A well-wrought, tightly plotted police procedural with a nuanced, brooding detective, set on the gorgeous lakefront of a frigid Wisconsin peninsula.”

  Hallie Ephron, author of Night Night, Sleep Tight

  “A compelling, complex whodunit saturated with long-ago sins and festering hatreds.”

  Robert Goldsborough, author of Archie in the Crosshairs

  DEATH IN COLD WATER

  Winner, Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, Council for Wisconsin Writers

  “When philanthropist and major donor to the Green Bay Packers football team Gerald Sneider is kidnapped, the FBI wants to pin it on either terrorists who have been threatening the NFL or the millionaire’s debt-ridden son. . . . Starring a tenacious cop who earns every ounce of respect he receives.”

  Booklist

  “A fast-paced story [with] a final, satisfying conclusion.”

  Mystery Scene

  “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.”

  William Kent Krueger, author of Windigo Island

  “A haunting depiction of heartbreaking crime.”

  Sara Paretsky, author of Brush Back

  DEATH RIDES THE FERRY

  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

  3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden

  London WCE 8LU, United Kingdom

  eurospanbookstore.com

  Copyright © 2018 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 rides the ferry / Patricia Skalka.

  Description: Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, [2018] | Series: A Dave Cubiak Door County mystery

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017044542 | ISBN 9780299318000 (cloth: alk. paper)

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

  Classification: LCC PS3619.K34 D426 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017044542

  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: 978-0-299-31808-6 (electronic)

  To

  Barbara . . .

  With joy and gratitude for our many years of friendship

  Music is indeed the most beautiful of all Heaven’s gifts to humanity wandering in the darkness. Alone it calms, enlightens and stills our souls.

  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

  1

  BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY

  He had never been on a movie set and shouldn’t have been on that one. Ignoring the Authorized Personnel Only signs, Dave Cubiak wandered the grounds of the Viola da Gamba Music Festival. Nobody stopped him. So much for security, he thought as he strolled past a pair of youthful guards hired to patrol the premises during the four-day event, known as Dixan V. Despite their crisp uniforms, they were just kids, more interested in their cell phones than in their jobs. He could lecture them about their responsibilities, but he didn’t—partly because it was his day off, and partly because he understood the reason for their lack of concern. They were on Washington Island, off the tip of the Door County peninsula. Given the remote location, the perfect summer weather on that Wednesday afternoon, and the genteel nature of the event, they could conceive of no threat.

  Cubiak wasn’t interested in the performances. He came to watch the documentary film crew and to spend time with Cate, who was photographing the fest for a major music magazine. So far, he had found neither. Landing the assignment was a big deal, Cate had told him, because this was the first time that Wisconsin was chosen to host the show since a prized musical instrument vanished from the island forty years ago during the first festival, Dixan I.

  A whistle blew, and a crowd of people costumed in a gaudy array of tie-dyed shirts, outlandish bell-bottoms, and pastel, polyester leisure suits paraded past. They were the extras who had been hired for the day’s filming of the Dixan I reenactment. Groovy, the sheriff thought. Then he laughed. Had people really dressed like that?

  Well, it was a different time back then, some would say a simpler time, although he would disagree.

  As the extras settled on the lawn with their white box lunches, Cubiak realized that he was hungry. He glanced at his wristwatch, a habit that amused his youthful deputies. They teased him about being old-fashioned, but he didn’t care. Whenever one of them needed to know the correct time, he would look at his wrist and respond while they fumbled for their cell phones. “If this was high noon in Dodge, you’d be dead,” he told them.

  The timepiece, a high school graduation gift from his parents and the only item of value they had ever given him, remained uncannily accurate. It was 2:12 p.m.—later than he thought, and late enough that the toast he had eaten hours earlier was mere memory. If he was lucky, the food service was sti
ll operating and he could grab a bite. But he had miscalculated and reached the food truck just as it was closing.

  Cubiak pulled a long-forgotten power bar from his pocket and tore open the worn label. The emergency snack must have been in his jacket for weeks because it had disintegrated into an unappetizing mess of nuts and seeds. He sighed. He could make do with what he had and continue searching for Cate and the film crew or drive off-site for a sandwich and then come back later. Half-heartedly, he bit down. While he ate, he studied the faux audience that lounged on the lawn. There were women and men of all ages in the group, and they all looked so happy, he thought.

  It was a short break. A second whistle blew, summoning the extras back to work. The crowd parted to reveal a shabby woman sitting alone on a boulder. She was alarmingly thin and dressed in dirty ragged jeans and a torn cotton top. Her Cinderella look contrasted sharply with the cheerful, time-warp attire of the extras. A faded patchwork bag hung across her sunken chest, and tangles of brown hair dangled to her stooped shoulders, obscuring part of her face and making it impossible to guess her age. Was she one of those youthful nomads who dotted America’s landscape searching for adventure or a place to sleep, or was she an old-fashioned hippie who stubbornly clung to the vestiges of a lost dream?

  The woman lifted a box lunch to her chin and pushed the crumbling remnants of a sandwich into her mouth. There was something pathetic and desperate about her. He didn’t think she was on the staff, but the fact that she was eating food from the catering truck implied that she had some connection to the event. Maybe he could ask her to tell him about early music and then repay her for her time with a highly caloric, supersized milkshake or a giant piece of custard pie.

  Cubiak was starting toward her when his phone vibrated.

  “Sir, sorry to intrude, I know it’s your afternoon off, but there’s been an incident at Detroit Harbor and since you’re on the island . . .” The communications deputy left the rest unsaid amid the background chatter of the 911 dispatch center some fifty miles away in Sturgeon Bay.

  The sheriff tossed the rest of the half-eaten power bar. “Sure, no problem. What is it?” he said. An announcement blared from a loudspeaker pointed in his direction, and he turned away to hear better.

  “Shoplifting at the new gift shop. The owner claims that she caught a customer with three hundred dollars’ worth of goods in her purse.” Again, he thought. There had been a rash of thefts that summer. The most outrageous episode involved a two-thousand-dollar, carved wooden bench being hoisted into the back of a van from outside a gift shop while the stunned manager watched from inside. Luckily, Cubiak had been down the road when the call came in and arrived in time to catch the perp in the act. A local, no less.

  Like many resort areas, Door County was a magnet for thieves. The professionals preferred small, pricey objects, like gold rings and jeweled bracelets, while sticky-fingered tourists favored the less expensive souvenir items: silver earrings, plaster-cast seagulls, and decorative mugs. But every snatched item hurt the bottom line of the merchants, whose profit margins were painfully narrow.

  “On my way,” Cubiak said. He hung up and looked back at the cluster of white boulders. The derelict woman was gone, as if he had only imagined her.

  The harbor gift shop occupied a restored log cabin, one of the island’s first structures. It sat a few yards back from the main road near the ferry launch. The bell over the door jangled when he went in. The owner was waiting for him. She wore a slim-fitting denim dress and had several rings on each hand.

  “Thank goodness, you’re here,” she said.

  Although she addressed the sheriff, she kept her eyes pinned on the alleged thief, who was blonde, around the same age, and equally well put together, in a black tunic and leggings.

  The store owner was strident in her accusations, while the shopper, a Meryl Gregory, was equally insistent that she was just an innocent tourist. She had put the assortment of turquoise jewelry and handwoven silk scarves into her canvas tote after they became too numerous to hold, she said, and had every intention of paying for them.

  Cubiak suggested that the visitor prove her good intentions.

  While the two women completed the sales transaction, he looked out at the marina. The temperature had climbed steadily since morning, and in the late afternoon heat, there was little activity. Two grandmotherly types fanned themselves in the shade of the park gazebo as a family of three slowly pedaled away on rented bicycles. Along the shore, a half-dozen young boys leaned over their fishing poles and baited the hooks, while a young couple launched a tomato red kayak into the bay. Out on the water, the ferry that had just departed Washington Island passed one coming from Northport. Like children’s toys being pulled in opposite directions between the island and the mainland, the ferries traveled back and forth across Death’s Door, the strait that separated the two. It was all part of summer’s relaxed rhythm in Wisconsin’s vacationland.

  A mint green convertible headed the line of cars and SUVs that had queued up for the next ferry. The string of vehicles wound past the gift shop. There were more than the sheriff imagined could fit on the ferry, although he knew from experience that most would squeeze on and those that didn’t would take the next boat over. A cluster of bicyclists and pedestrians gathered as well. Among them was the downtrodden woman Cubiak had seen near the performance center. As before, she was alone and kept off to the side. She had pulled a wide-brimmed hat over her head and leaned against a fence post, clutching the faded bag that still hung from her coat-wire shoulders. How had she gotten here? he wondered. Then: What was in the bag?

  He hoped it wasn’t a stash of stolen goods.

  The thought that the disheveled woman might be a common thief pained him, although he couldn’t say why.

  “That’s the kind you watch like a hawk,” the shopkeeper said. She had the alleged shoplifter by the elbow and had come up behind him, where she paused and followed his gaze out the window.

  Oddly, the cruel remark gave Cubiak some relief. The pathetic vagabond waiting for the ferry wouldn’t have half a chance to steal anything, not like the well-heeled and scowling woman in the grip of the shopkeeper.

  “She seems harmless,” he said, hoping without reason that the bulk in the bag was a ration of food for later.

  The store owner harrumphed. “For a sheriff, you’re an awfully trusting soul,” she said. She gave him a warning smile and then turned a stony but polite face to the woman she had caught stealing. “Good day,” she said.

  Cubiak followed Ms. Gregory to her car.

  “It would be best if you didn’t come back,” he said as she settled into the driver’s seat.

  He waited until she pulled into the line, and then he watched until her luxury sedan rolled onto the ferry and both sailed toward the peninsula.

  As long as he was at the marina, he decided to get something to eat before returning to the festival grounds to look for Cate and the movie people. It was late in the day and there were only a few people in the harbor restaurant. “Anywhere’s fine,” said the waitress behind the counter.

  He folded his six-foot frame into a checkered vinyl booth in the rear and greeted the two elderly gentlemen in the adjoining booth and the couple with the two toddlers sitting across from him. He had learned that’s what folks did in Door County, Wisconsin. While he waited for his food, he listened to the retrospective of Beatles music that played in the background. He had few quiet moments on the job and enjoyed the rare opportunities he had to sit and relax. He had finished eating and was on a second cup of coffee when a lanky teenager in long, baggy shorts and a neon blue T-shirt slammed through the door. The boy had the look of someone who spent the summer outdoors. His face and arms were deeply tanned, and his hair and eyebrows had been bleached nearly white by the sun. All eyes turned to the teen, and the waitress smiled and said hi. The boy was too busy scanning the clientele to notice. When he spotted Cubiak, he hurried over.

  “Sheriff?” The young man
leaned in and lowered his voice. “Captain Norling radioed and told me to find you and ask you to come with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Something’s happened. He wouldn’t tell me what, just that I had to get you. Please,” he added, biting his lower lip.

  “Oskar Norling, the ferryboat captain?” Cubiak had met the captain twice before and pegged him as a serious man, not the kind to send anyone on a fool’s errand.

  “Yes.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Kevin, his grandson.”

  Once out the door, Kevin set off at a brisk pace for the water. Nearly running, he led the way past the loading area to a small, blue motorboat that was tied up farther down the dock.

  “Please.” Kevin indicated the boat. “I need to take you across.”

  “We’re going to Northport in that?”

  Kevin was already onboard starting the engine. His reply was lost in the roar.

  Cubiak hesitated. Kevin looked all of fifteen, and the boat more like a soap dish than something able to safely cross the infamously treacherous waters of Porte des Morts. Reluctantly, he climbed in and took a seat.

  “You do this often?” He had to yell to be heard.

  “All the time.”

  It was cold on the water, and the motorboat offered little protection from the waves that smacked the prow. Cubiak gripped the narrow gunwale and pinned his gaze to the dark shadow of mainland on the far side of the passage, willing the dense forest to pull them forward out of the clutch of the whitecaps that churned the surface. Every year, a half-dozen locals swam across the four-and-a-half-mile strait to prove it could be done, but he couldn’t imagine such an undertaking. He was a mediocre swimmer who liked knowing he could touch bottom whenever he needed to.

  “There’s a life vest under the seat,” Kevin said, as if sensing his passenger’s unease.

  “Thanks,” he said and glanced at the boy.

  A bounty of human bones and sunken ships lay scattered across the lake bed beneath them, but Kevin seemed oblivious to the proximity of death.