Death in Cold Water (22 page)

“You called because you want me to do a photo shoot?” she said. She sounded disappointed.

“Only if we find anything worth documenting.” He knew he was being deliberately vague, something she didn't like.

“Where?”

“Near Baileys Harbor.”

There was a noise in the background on her end. “Just a minute,” she said into the phone and then something with her face away from the receiver that he couldn't catch. Was she talking to a neighbor? Had she called a plumber to repair the dripping pipe he'd promised to fix but hadn't? Or was it the former husband dallying over morning coffee?

“Where Butch found the bones,” she said finally.

“Not exactly, but close by. I'm going out with Rowe this morning. I don't want to waste your time unless we find something. That is, if you're available.”

“Of course I'm available. What are you looking for?”

You. I'm looking for you, he wanted to say, but pride stopped him. Cate had pulled away from him; she should be the one reaching out, not him.

“I don't really know. Whatever we find, if anything,” he said, and then he hung up.

The sheriff 's third thought concerned the weather and got him up from the bed and over to the window. The weather had flip-flopped again. Skies were cloudy, temperatures were down, and there was more wind than had been predicted. He called Rowe but the deputy insisted they were still on.

Before he left, Cubiak checked for messages. Nothing from Moore. Fine then. I'm on my own, he thought.

T
he
Speedy Sister
was tied up at the marina just past the steel bridge in downtown Sturgeon Bay. The twenty-five-foot cruiser was one of the last vessels still in the water. The boat looked sleek and sassy. Cubiak had never been on board, but he'd often heard his deputy talk about the vessel's powerful engine and the top speeds he and his friends hit on the open water. Youthful braggadocio, the sheriff hoped as he made his way down the pier.

Rowe was alone on the boat.

“Where's your friend?”

“He's sick and had to cancel.”

The north wind bit through the several layers Cubiak had on. He pulled up his hood and looked down at the undulating water. “I thought you're not supposed to dive alone. Are you sure about this?” he said as he clambered aboard.

“I know that area. I'll be fine. And it's always calmer underneath. As long as you're okay up top, we're good to go.”

Lesson number one that Cubiak had learned from Bathard: on the water, the captain was always in charge. “Your call,” the sheriff said with a brisk salute to his young deputy.

Rowe swallowed a yawn, and Cubiak noticed the pouches under his eyes. “How much sleep did you get last night?” he said.

“Enough.”

Rowe tossed a pair of gloves to the sheriff. “You're going to want these, too,” he said, and then he turned the ignition switch. The motor coughed several times. When it caught they began making their way east through Sturgeon Bay toward Lake Michigan.

Water levels were at a record twenty-year high, and when they reached the bridge Cubiak ducked. Rowe laughed but then he lowered his head as well. The bridge was both the oldest and the lowest of the structures that spanned the bay. “Damn thing's always needing repairs,” Rowe said. But he spoke with pride as they slid beneath the historic structure.

They passed under two more bridges before they entered the Ship Canal, a seven-mile channel that connected the bay to the lake. The waterway was made up of two segments; the first was a dredged portion of the bay and the second was a trench that had been dug through the land itself in the late 1800s. The trench was 1.3 miles long and 125 feet wide. Rowe steered down the middle. “You should see the tankers come through. There's no room for error for the big boys,” he explained.

As the coast guard station came into view, Cubiak felt the boat fighting the current. Was it a mistake to be going out today? he wondered. He glanced at the deputy, looking for a sign of worry, but the young man at the wheel remained unperturbed.

“Fantastic, isn't it?” Rowe said as they motored past the boxy red lighthouse at the end of the north pier and entered the lake.

To Cubiak, the twenty-five-foot
Speedy Sister
was one very small vessel on a body of water that stretched some three hundred miles from end to end, a ratio that was more intimidating than fantastic.

Rowe pushed the throttle forward and pressed the bow into the waves, sending spray billowing up on either side. They seemed to be flying recklessly over the water. This had to be top speed, Cubiak thought, when incredibly they started going even faster. A few minutes later, the deputy stepped away from the wheel. “You want to take over? I need to check my gear,” he said, shouting into the wind.

The sheriff had no choice but to trade places.

“Keep us about half a mile offshore and we'll be fine,” Rowe said.

Still struggling to find his sea legs, the sheriff grabbed the wheel and held on as it thrummed in his grip.

Cubiak was too cold to talk and grateful to see that his deputy had come prepared with hot coffee. After they'd each taken several swallows, Rowe starting sorting through the pile of equipment in the cockpit.

They traveled the rest of the way in silence: past the county boat launch at Lily Bay, past the pearly sands of Whitefish Dunes State Park and Cave Point, past the sleepy village of Jacksonport, nearly empty of tourists this late in the season. By the time they reached Baileys Harbor, Cubiak had become accustomed to the speed and almost regretted having to slow down. He watched Rowe suit up.

“You going to be warm enough?” the sheriff asked.

“Like a baby in its crib.” Rowe tugged at the sleeves of his dry suit. “Where exactly are we headed?”

“Over there.” Cubiak pointed to the curve of land that formed the outer barrier of the town's wide-open bay. “We'll start on the lake side.”

“The shipwrecks are pretty far out.”

“Well, there may be something closer in. Worth a look.”

“Whatever you say, Chief. It's just that it's not a likely spot.” Rowe picked up an air tank. “But always happy to poke around.”

Cubiak steered the boat in toward land. When they were about a quarter mile from shore, he dropped anchor and Rowe went over the side.

As much as the cockpit allowed, Cubiak paced. Everything involving scuba diving worried the sheriff: deep water, unknown hazards, potential equipment failure. So many things could go wrong. What if there was a leak in the air hose? Or Rowe found a wreck and got trapped inside? The longer Rowe was gone, the more Cubiak wished his deputy hadn't made the dive alone.

A cold gust came up. Cubiak started to cross his arms but the boat bobbled and he had to fling them wide to find his balance. He hoped it was true, as Rowe had said, that things were calmer beneath the surface.

Cubiak checked his watch. Ten minutes had passed since Rowe started the dive. The deputy claimed he was an accomplished diver, but was that true? the sheriff wondered. All he had to go on was the young man's eager reassurance that he knew what he was doing. Cubiak leaned over the side of the cruiser. What the hell had he been thinking?

He'd sent his deputy down and was responsible for him. Four years after his daughter's accidental death, Cubiak struggled with guilt over the circumstances. How could he bear it if something happened to Rowe, a young man he looked upon as a son?

Another five minutes slogged by before Rowe popped through the surface of the slate-colored water and pulled off his mask. He was some ten feet off the bow. “Nada,” he called out and then started swimming toward the boat.

Cubiak insisted Rowe rest and have more coffee before going down again.

The second dive was made off the point and lasted nearly twenty minutes. Again, Rowe came up empty. Cubiak started to wonder if he hadn't overreacted to the discovery of the bones on the beach. Given the geography and history of the peninsula, maybe old bones washed ashore more often than he realized.

The sheriff checked his phone again, but there were no messages from Moore. Maybe the agent was right about the kidnapping being part of a larger pattern of domestic terrorism. The FBI had wasted no time regrouping from the previous day's fiasco. Federal agents were probably already on the culprits' trail. There'd be a flurry of excitement when they nabbed the suspects. Then, after all the stories had been filed and the journalists raced away on the trail of other breaking news, life on the peninsula would return to normal.

“Sir!” The shout came from behind the boat. “Chief !”

The sheriff turned.

Rowe had swum from the lake into the bay. He was treading water with one hand and holding something aloft with the other. When he saw that he had Cubiak's attention he headed back. Rowe was a strong swimmer. Even with the current pushing against him, he covered the distance quickly and was barely out of breath when he reached the boat.

Cubiak leaned over to help him.

“Take this first,” Rowe said. He handed the sheriff a long, slender segment of bone. The piece was smooth and icy cold. Cubiak felt a quiet dread as he laid it on one of the boat cushions.

“You were right,” Rowe said. He'd climbed aboard unaided and was shrugging off the harness and air tank. “There was nothing in the lake, but on the bay side, the bottom is covered with rocks. I found that wedged between two good-size boulders. And that's not all,” he continued as he toweled off his face.

“I went all up and down from the point to the curve, too. For the most part, the water's pretty shallow, but in a couple spots where it's deeper, there are some good-size rocky ledges jutting out. The overhang closest to the bay entrance has something wedged under it. I couldn't really make it out but whatever is down there, it's made of wood.”

“Maybe it's part of a barge,” Cubiak said. On several occasions, Bathard had told him about the wooden barges that had been used for hauling lumber a century earlier. Many of them had run aground on rocks and sandbars, and while most of the wrecks had been salvaged, many were left to slowly disintegrate underwater.

“I don't think so. It looked small, more like a rowboat. I marked the spot. There. See it?”

Rowe pointed toward the inlet. The waves had picked up and formed a rolling surf that rose and broke against the rocky shore. At first, Cubiak saw only water, but then, in the shallow trough that formed between two long waves, he spotted a red plastic flag. As the water moved beneath it, the marker lifted up and then dropped down, a singular and sinister splash of color in the dark water.

“You're right, you know. Something's down there,” Rowe said.

Cubiak remained still. Not for the first time in his life, and certainly not for the first time as sheriff of Door County, he wished he was wrong.

“My uncle runs a small salvage and hauling business. He's got an old barge that he uses. It's nothing fancy but I'm pretty sure it can handle the job.”

Rowe shook off water like a wet dog. He was animated, excited by the discovery. “We can't just let it stay there.”

Cubiak hadn't expected anything like this but he realized his deputy was right.

“You want me to call him?” Rowe asked.

“Tell him we need him today.”

I
t was nearly noon when Cubiak dropped off Rowe at home for a hot shower. The deputy looked done in.

“Try and get some rest, too, if you can,” Cubiak said.

The sheriff regretted pushing Rowe, but he had no choice. Leaving his deputy, he drove to Emma Pardy's office. He waited while she finished a call to her daughter's school and then gave her the bone Rowe had recovered that morning. To the sheriff it was the latest specimen of what he was now viewing as evidence. But evidence of what, he wasn't sure.

“I can't do anything without a DNA analysis,” she said.

“I know that, but I think we're going to be finding more. Maybe enough to allow for an educated guess.”

“When?”

“Hopefully this afternoon. Tomorrow for certain. I'm not really sure, but soon.” He glanced out the window, where storm clouds were gathering in the west. “It depends on the weather.”

“As it often does around here,” Pardy added.

Cubiak was on the bridge, heading to the east side of Sturgeon Bay, when Rowe phoned. “I just talked to my uncle, George Waslow. He said he can be there by two, if that works for you,” he said.

“Good, thanks,” Cubiak said. He called Cate. While the phone rang, he wondered what he'd do if she'd changed her mind.

“I'm set to go,” she said when she finally answered.

“We'll be on the water so you'd better bundle up,” he said.

The sheriff had another stop to make. Cruising up and down the town's main streets, he searched for the red car with the New York plates. On his second pass, he came across it outside the Rusty Scupper. Steve Ross was inside. He was unshaven and sullen and wearing an old flannel shirt that made him look more like a lumberjack than a New York reporter. Steve was hunched over the bar, the signature popcorn basket at one elbow and a tumbler with a slosh of amber liquid on the bottom at the other. He was drinking early and taking it neat. Not a good sign.

“Lunch?” Cubiak asked, indicating the half-empty popcorn basket.

The former Door County resident grunted and then caught Cubiak's reflection in the mirror and sat up. “Sheriff.”

A trio of loudmouths filled the space next to them and Cubiak moved closer, not wanting to share the conversation with the rest of the clientele. “There's something I'd like you to see, if you're free this afternoon.”

“What?”

“I don't know yet.”

Ross tossed down the rest of the drink. “Then why do you think I'd be interested?”

“Let's say I have a gut feeling. Something like instinct. You'd probably call it a nose for news.”