Death in Cold Water (30 page)

Cubiak said nothing. Coming up through the ranks in Chicago, he'd had plenty of dealings with men like Sneider, men who felt they were too important to be ignored and who threw their money around, thinking they could buy whatever they wanted. The system pandered to people like Sneider, but that didn't mean he had to.

“What can we offer you, Sheriff?” Sneider asked. “Fresh brewed coffee. Cigars . . .” He pointed to a box of Cubans on the nightstand. “Anything at all . . .”

“This is not a social call. I'm here on business,” Cubiak said.

Sneider's blue eyes flashed but just as quickly he regained his bonhomie. Brushing his son's hand from his shoulder, he sat up in his bed throne.

“Always happy to cooperate, Sheriff, though surely you realize that the FBI has already taken my formal statement.”

“I've already read it. It's suitable for their purposes,” Cubiak said as he moved to the foot of the bed.

Sneider frowned. “What other purpose is there than to punish those reprobates? You're from the big city, Sheriff. You should know all about scum like that, people whose very existence is a disgrace to the human race.” He looked at Cubiak. “They were prepared to kill me. Have no doubt of that.”

Or to punish you, Cubiak thought, even as he nodded for Sneider's benefit. “A terrible thing to happen here where you're so well known and have done so much good. But since all this did go down in my jurisdiction, I'm sure you won't mind answering a few questions and going over some of the details again.”

Sneider softened. “Not at all, Sheriff, but I expect a little quid pro quo.”

“Meaning?”

“Come now, don't be overly modest. Outsmarting the feds is no small feat. I want to know how you figured it out.”

“We can get to that later. For now, let's start with you and your side of things. Like how the Ross bunch got you to meet with them.”

“The Ross bunch did no such thing. Do you think I'd cross the street to accommodate them? Obviously I didn't know the three of them were in cahoots or I wouldn't have fallen for their scheme. Jon and that son of his are a couple of no-good parasites. They should be wiped off the face of the earth, far as I'm concerned.” Sneider settled back against his pillows. “At the same time, I'm not above admitting that it was my pride that got me into this mess. It was Steve, Jon's nephew, that contacted me.”

Sneider waggled a finger at the coffee pot and Andrew reemerged from the floral jungle to pour a fresh cup.

“Sheriff?” Andrew said, but Cubiak shook his head and the son slunk back to his seat as his father continued his story.

“Steve was in town for his father's funeral—another man who didn't amount to much of anything. But Steve seemed different. He was educated and ambitious, two qualities I appreciate in a young man. He sent me a note saying he was living out east and working as a journalist. For the
New York Times
, no less, and that he'd talked to his editor about doing a piece on me. He included his business card with the note. His message struck a chord with me. Here was someone trying to make something of himself, like I'd done. I like that in a man, Sheriff, and of course the thought of my rags-to-riches story in such a prestigious paper was hard to resist. If anything, I felt obligated to have it be told. After all, it's the epitome of the American Dream, and I felt it could serve as an inspiration for others.”

“You didn't find it odd that he arranged to meet you in Chicago?”

“Not really. He contacted me that morning and said he was driving down with a friend for an opening at the Art Institute. The friend was staying in the city, and since he knew I would be at the game, he suggested we meet and drive back up together.”

“And you couldn't wait until the game was over?”

“No. He said he had a deadline.”

“Where'd you meet?”

“I picked him up on Columbus at the east entrance to the museum.”

“And you gave him the keys to your car?”

Sneider made a deprecating gesture. “I'd had a few to drink, so it seemed the responsible thing to do. We started off talking about Door County and how it had changed since he'd moved away. Once we reached the toll road, he turned on his recorder and said he wanted me to talk about my life, what things were like when I was a kid and then how I went from having nothing to being a man of substantial means. I went into some detail about my early years growing up and my start in the lumber business and then later how I got involved with the Packers. He didn't say much, just let me ramble on. It wasn't until I mentioned the camp that he started asking questions. I'm sure you've heard about my camp, the Forest Home for Orphaned and Needy Boys, where I tried to help all those kids who'd been left pretty much on their own.”

“What time did you cross the state line?”

Sneider seemed annoyed by the interruption. “Oh, I don't remember,” he replied impatiently.

He took a sip of water and went on. “I suppose I was so caught up in relating my story that I didn't notice when the tone of the conversation started to change. Steve had been very personable initially but then gradually he became strident and started asking very pointed and harsh questions. That's when I realized he'd heard a lot of lies about me and the program—probably from his father and uncle. They lived at the camp for a number of years, you know. You never saw such ungrateful kids. They were never shy about taking advantage of my charity, those two. Steve's line of discussion was starting to get annoying and I told him as much. We passed a sign for Oostburg and he said he needed to take a piss. He turned off the highway and drove to a park-and-drive lot, where he stopped and got out of the car. I figured I may as well relieve myself as well and had just unbuckled my seat belt when Steve opened the door and yanked a hood down over my head.”

Sneider stopped. “Honestly, Sheriff, I've already told all this to that FBI agent. Do I have to go through it again?”

“Yes, please . . .”

Sneider sighed. “All right, if you insist. At the same time that Steve pulled the hood over me, another man came up from behind and tied my hands. And that's when I realized I'd been set up. These two were kidnapping me, and I didn't know who they were. The second man was big and rough and smelled like stale beer. And the one who claimed to be Steve Ross? Until that day, I'd never met the man—it could have been anyone pretending to be him. The two of them dragged me out of my car and shoved me into the back seat of a different car. From there on, the second man, the one I hadn't seen yet, drove. He kept taunting me about being rich and saying that they were tired of being poor and how they were going to remedy the situation by making my son pay for my release. He called it a new age business negotiation and said there'd be no harm done.”

“You believed him?”

“What choice did I have?”

“Is that why you gave him the alarm code to the house?”

“I turned it off myself.”

“And you told them the combination to the safe.”

“I did. There was some money in there and I wanted them to have it, hoping it might appease them some. I still didn't know for sure who they were but didn't think they really meant to hurt me, not at the beginning, so I cooperated, thinking the quicker things got underway, the sooner it would be over.”

Sneider took another drink of water. “It wasn't until later that night that they took the hood off and I saw that no good bastard Jon Ross and his son, Leeland, just standing there in front of me, laughing.”

“The other man, the one who said he was Steve, was he with them?”

“Yeah, he was there, too.”

“How'd you know it was Jon Ross? Did you recognize him?”

“Not at first, but he talked about the camp and from the things he said, I knew it was him.”

“Is that when you began to realize that the whole kidnapping scheme might be about more than the money?”

The room fell silent. Sneider folded his arms across his chest and scowled but his son jumped to his feet.

“What do you mean? They didn't ask for anything except money,” Andrew said, moving to his father's side.

There was silence again until finally Sneider spoke up. “No good deed goes unpunished, is that it? Certainly they wanted the money, miserable failures that they were, living like—well, I can only imagine. But maybe even more, they wanted to humiliate me. Jon Ross is a spiteful bastard. That business with the spiders should be proof enough of his twisted thinking. He resented having to live at the camp. He was a natural-born troublemaker who didn't like following the rules. I should have thrown him out, along with his brother, but I didn't. I kept trying to show him a better path.”

“A better path.” Cubiak let the phrase hang in the heavily scented air, and then he looked at Andrew. “Your father believed that the poor boys at the camp were mentally, emotionally, and spiritually warped and in need of salvation. He felt that it was his responsibility to whip the charity cases into shape,” the sheriff explained, handing the heir a copy of one of the pamphlets from Pickler's shed.

Sneider bolted upright. “Where'd you get that?” he said, snatching the booklet from Andrew. “I was strict, that's all. I was always strict, with everyone. My own son included. Wasn't I?”

Andrew nodded.

Cubiak began reading from a copy he'd made of the second brochure. “‘Use corporal punishment to correct deviant behaviors. Act as the authority in all matters. Demand obedience at all times.' Just a few of your father's recommendations,” the sheriff said as he gave Andrew the material.

Sneider slammed his fist against the bed table. “Yes, I had a firm hand and took a firm approach. And I'm damn proud of what I did. I had no choice. Those boys were wild, undisciplined, all heading to the devil. That Jon Ross was among the worst, a born liar. He resisted everything I did. He didn't understand that I was only trying to help him. All those years later, he stood in front of me and had the nerve to say that what I'd done was wrong and that he meant to settle the score.”

“What did he mean ‘what you did was wrong?' What did you do?” Andrew said. The pamphlet quivered in his hand.

“Nothing! Everything he said was lies. All of it was lies.”

“What kind of lies?” The panic of recent sex abuse headlines fluttered across Andrew's face.

Sneider went beet red. “Not that. I wasn't like that. Other lies.”

Andrew turned to the sheriff. “I don't understand.”

“You told me yourself about your father's unique way of dealing with fear. He used his methods at the camp and was unstinting in his belief that he was right. But one night things went terribly wrong.”

Cubiak took a manila envelope from inside his jacket and undid the clasp. As father and son watched, he pulled out one of Cate's photos and laid it on the bed in front of them. “This was taken from a salvage boat moored outside the marina in Baileys Harbor, looking east toward the spit of land that curves out from the beach north of town, where the Forest Home was located.”

Sneider glanced at the picture and then fixed his gaze on the far wall. “Could be. I really can't tell for sure. Plenty of shorelines here look pretty much the same,” he said, waving dismissively.

Cubiak placed a second photo on the blanket. It was a picture of the bone-filled rowboat being raised from the water. Sneider continued to stare past the sheriff.

“What is it? What's that in the boat?” Andrew said.

“Shut up,” Sneider said, swatting at his son.

“Those are human bones. Earlier this week, three bones were found washed up on the beach outside of Baileys Harbor. I thought they were from an old shipwreck, but these weren't adult bones and something about the situation didn't sit right so I asked one of my men to take his diving equipment and investigate. This is what he found.”

Sneider still refused to look, so Cubiak held the photo in front of him. Sneider pinched his mouth as his jaw clenched and the color drained from his face.

“Who would do such a thing?” Cubiak said to Andrew as he laid the picture back down and then next to it the black-and-white of the boat with the name of the camp clearly legible.

“Oh, God.” Andrew collapsed against the wall.

“It's a close-up of the boat, but you know what it says without looking, don't you?” Cubiak said, addressing Sneider.

The philanthropist's face tightened.

“Did you even know their names?” Cubiak said as he held up the last photo. The picture was taken at the shipyard after Pardy and Bathard had completed their work with the bones. It showed the four skeletons laid out on the platform with the rowboat in the background.

Cubiak placed the picture alongside the others and turned to Andrew. “These photographs document the recovery of the remains of the four young boys your father ordered bound and gagged and tied to a boat that was anchored off shore and left for the night. The experience was meant to teach the boys to overcome their fear of the water but a storm came up. There was no way the boys could free themselves and escape. These were young kids and they were left to drown.”

“No, that can't be,” Andrew said, shriveling under the impact. “These aren't real. They've been photoshopped. . . . Dad, tell him. Father, please . . .”

Sneider ignored his son. “Who put you up to this?” he asked Cubiak. “That scum Jon Ross? It was him, wasn't it?”

Again, Cubiak addressed Andrew. “Jon and Fred were eleven, twins and just kids themselves, when this happened. Your father forced them to rope the boys in and to tie leather strips around their hands and ankles. The two brothers went through life trying to escape the memory of that night. Jon drank to forget and nearly succeeded, but his brother was tortured by guilt to the end, and it was his dying wish that your father be made to pay for what he'd done. He made Jon promise.”