Death Stalks Door County (5 page)

Cubiak drained his glass and studied the drawing of Door County tacked to the facing wall. Were the deaths linked? Larry Wisby had died on the north edge of Peninsula Park, Macklin little more than a day later and some three miles away near the park's southern boundary. To get from Ephraim to Chambers Island where he had lived, Macklin would have to travel through the harbor beneath the ridge where the tower stood. What if the old fisherman had been on the water the morning Wisby died, motoring from home to town or vice versa? Would he have seen anything other than trees if he'd looked up toward the tower?

From the service side of the bar, Amelia Pechta ran a tattered rag around Cubiak's empty glass and followed his gaze to the map. “Lots of water out there and Benny knew it all. He could get around these parts with his eyelids taped shut,” she said.

“You know where he usually went?”

“Benny? Benny went wherever there was fish, women, or whiskey!” Amelia poured two shots and slid one across the bar, the wood worn smooth from use, toward her solitary customer, indicating that while Cubiak might still be considered a newcomer on most of the peninsula, at the bar he qualified as a regular. “Or maybe it was fish, whiskey, or women.” She raised her glass. “Skoal,” she said, and they tossed the drinks down together.

“He deserved better.” Amelia slipped her glass under the bar and took up the rag again. Shuffling away, she continued talking over her shoulder. “The place'll fill soon. People'll come for Benny.” She made a sound like a whimper. “They used to come for fun. On Sundays, there was fried chicken and potato salad, sometimes a game of bingo. We had dancing, too, once a month. My cousin played waltzes and polkas on an accordion. Ancient history.”

Amelia floated back toward Cubiak. She was bent and wrinkled, her skin sallow in the pale yellow-green light from the fluorescent ceiling fixtures. Whether from habit or the need for more conversation, she drew his attention to the massive gray-black fish that hung on the wall behind her. “A muskie,” she said by way of explanation. “My father caught it. Ugly son of a bitch.”

“Your father? Or the fish?”

Amelia chortled and then she turned and pointed to a torn, black-and-white snapshot stuck along the bottom edge of the cracked mirror. “There's Benny's boat, the
Betsy Ross
.” Cubiak guessed that the picture was another bit of ancient history. A young Benny wasn't in the photo, but the
Ross
was as sleek and lovely as a fishing trawler could be. Taped alongside the picture were bedraggled snapshots of other boats and of fishermen brandishing strings of bass and perch, their happy faces out of context in the dreary pub.

As the proprietress limped away again, the front door banged open. Evelyn Bathard walked in, followed closely by a tall, elegant woman whom Cubiak recognized as the lone person he'd seen that morning by the hardware store and again at the bay following the explosion.

“Dave Cubiak, new assistant park superintendent. Ruby Schumacher, a longtime friend,” Bathard said, introducing them. Shaking hands, Cubiak sensed an air of that intangible otherness that comes from money and breeding.

In short order, Pechta's was packed, just as Amelia had predicted. Otto Johnson joined Bathard and Ruby at a back table, and Cubiak recognized a few of the others as well. Les Caruthers. Martha Smithson, owner of the Ephraim Bakery. Floyd Touhy. Evangeline Davis. One of the chess players from the diner. As if by some unseen accord, the more genteel folks occupied the tables or stood in awkward clusters along the windows and billiard area. Around the bar, a different sort had gathered, somber men with leathery faces and thick, rough hands, all of them in heavy work clothes. Fishermen, Cubiak assumed.

“I don't see Beck,” he said.

“And you won't neither. Bastard's too good for the likes of Benny.”

“I didn't know Macklin,” Cubiak said and started to stand.

“Don't matter. Here, help me with these.”

She handed him a fresh bottle of cognac and two of cold cherry wine. While he opened the bottles, she loaded a tray with shot glasses. Then the bottles and tray were circulated around the room. Cubiak watched the ritual unfold. One by one, every person in the room poured a drink and passed the rest on. While this was happening, Amelia pulled an old wooden stool from behind the bar.

Like Moses parting the Red Sea, she pushed through the crowd, dragging the stool behind. At her approach, people fell back on either side. Someone turned off the jukebox and the crowd slowly quieted. When Amelia reached the far wall, she tipped the stool forward against a large patch of chipped paint and then stepped away.

A man at the end of the bar slid off his perch. “To Benny,” he called out gruffly and raised his drink toward the forlorn chair. The others lifted their glasses. “To Benny,” they chimed in tribute to the dead man.

In the ensuing silence, Les Caruthers cleared his throat. “I hear there'll be no official investigation,” he announced to no one in particular. “Benny was drunk at the time. It was an accident.”

Nearby, Martha Smithson gestured carelessly with her right hand. “These things come in threes,” she shrilled ominously, splashing wine on the floor.

At their table, Evelyn Bathard, Ruby Schumacher, and Otto Johnson refilled their glasses from their own bottle of cognac, Macklin's favorite brand. Ruby looked from one man to the other. “To Benny,” she said firmly.

They nodded and drank.

“To life,” Bathard whispered. Then, white faced, he turned to Ruby. “There wasn't enough left for a post mortem.”

In the back room, Buddy Entwhistle sprawled on a narrow, worn cot. He was unshaven and slovenly. Entwhistle had started drinking heavily two days prior, and by the time he had hooked up with Macklin late that morning, he was barely cogent. Listening to Benny go on about what he'd seen Sunday morning at Falcon Tower, he took in a staggering amount of beer and then passed out. Unaware of his friend's tragic demise, Entwhistle slept soundly, a crooked grin etched on his dissipated face.

I
n the multi-ethnic European neighborhood where Cubiak grew up, death was a powerful magnet. When someone reached the end, both close friends and casual acquaintances endured the wake as a show of respect. From the receiving line, mourners moved to the lounge for a roast beef sandwich or a slice of homemade cake and then to a private back room for a shot and a beer if they were so inclined, and most were. But generally only family, intimates, and the usual cadre of professional mourners—people in need of either the company or the free lunch—participated in the funeral.

By coincidence, Cubiak had witnessed Ben Macklin's death and been a party to the unofficial wake. He had no intention of attending the funeral, but Ruta had baked a chocolate pound cake for the post-service coffee and asked him to drop it off at the Holy Light Moravian Church in Ephraim. Cubiak reluctantly agreed, intending to arrive after the ceremony was underway. It was his bad luck that a quartet of disapproving parishioners had detained the pastor, the Reverend Waldo Thorenson, in the small yard between the parsonage and the church, thus delaying the start of the service.

As Cubiak approached, the women aired their grievances. “Benjamin Macklin was not a man of God. He doesn't deserve church burial,” they insisted all of a voice.

“What will people think?” trumpeted one, the obvious ringleader, whom he would later learn was Anne Cooper.

“They will think we are good Christians,” Thorenson replied evenly.

The women fell into a shocked silence, though Miss Cooper was quick to recover. “You're an avowed abstainer. How can you eulogize a confirmed drunk?” she said, tossing down the gauntlet.

“Why don't you come in and see?” Thorenson said.

The invitation sent the women off in a collective huff but piqued Cubiak's curiosity. After depositing the cake on a table brimming with baked goods in the basement hall, he slipped upstairs to the rear vestibule.

The little church was full. The fishing communities from the peninsula and surrounding areas filled the fifteen pews on one side. Ruby Schumacher, Evelyn Bathard, Martha Smithson, Otto Johnson, and Leo Halverson sat opposite with the townies, old friends, and neighbors, people whose lives had been touched by this one man.

Thorenson was brief. He spoke about goodness and beauty and Door County. “Natural beauty is a reflection of God. It is our duty to respect and preserve the world that we inhabit. Doing so, we honor our Creator and come close to continuing his work upon earth. Our world is a small peninsula and we, each of us, must act as its caretaker. For all his faults, Ben Macklin knew this.”

T
he inquests for Lawrence Wisby and Benjamin Macklin were held later that afternoon. Coroner Bathard had wanted to set a separate date for reviewing the circumstances surrounding Macklin's death, but Halverson and Beck had prevailed. “No use draggin' this stuff out, 'specially with the festival coming 'n all. Just puts everyone in a bad way,” the sheriff said.

The Falcon Tower incident was first on the docket. Bathard reported that Wisby had expired at least one hour before his body was discovered. He also read a statement from the victim's doctor stating that the young man suffered from vertigo. Given the diagnosis and lacking any witnesses to the event, the coroner ruled the death accidental.

From a corner spot near the rear of the small assemblage, Cubiak watched the deceased's parents, who were seated at the far end of the second row. The Wisbys were a diminutive pair, matched pillars of sorrow bundled in drab, charcoal-gray trench coats. They looked sickly, with their sallow complexions and their rheumy eyes that flickered behind the thick lenses of gold, wire-rimmed glasses each time they turned to confer with or console each other. As the coroner described their son's injuries they clutched each other's hands and looked down. Mrs. Wisby's thin shoulders quivered in time with her soft sobs. The room grew even more still until the only sounds were the gentle cadence of Bathard's voice and the weeping of the mournful mother. Cubiak sensed the rising tide of compassion among those in attendance but he felt no sympathy for the two. If anything, he was heartened by their emotional torment. Now they know what it's like, what it will always be like, he thought.

When the proceedings ended, he left the hearing room and took up a position near the exterior exit. He didn't intend to confront the Wisbys but he wanted them to see him. They were among the final few to leave and approached with hands clutched and eyes averted. At the last moment, the husband glanced up and saw Cubiak. The man's momentary confusion turned to shock. As the jolt of anguished recognition flowed from him to his wife, she looked up. All color drained from her face and then unexpectedly she opened her mouth as if to speak. Cubiak spun away and went out into the rising wind. He would not give her the satisfaction.

Thirty minutes later, the parties reassembled for the second hearing. Fortified with vodka, Cubiak returned. Through a haze of alcohol and shame, he heard Halverson report that on the day Macklin died, he had arrived in Fish Creek directly from Sturgeon Bay. His movements on the previous day were not mentioned, and Cubiak assumed that they had been traced and dismissed as irrelevant. As Les Caruthers had predicted, Macklin's death was attributed to an accident, an undetected leak in one of the boat's two gas tanks. Case closed.

B
y early evening, with the unpleasant events of the day wrapped up, the county once again turned its attention to the important business of summer tourism. In the first floor foyer of Jensen Station, Cubiak stood inspection under the bright glow of a small but freshly polished chandelier as Ruta plucked a piece of lint from the sleeve of his charcoal corduroy sports coat.

“You look good,” she said, giving a final tug to his lapel. “You have good time.”

Cubiak glimpsed himself in the hall mirror. He didn't look good. His skin was pallid. He needed a haircut. His jacket pulled across the shoulders. His twill pants had long since lost their crease; his black turtleneck was pilled and limp from numerous launderings. But he didn't care; he intended to keep drinking for the next several hours but not to enjoy himself.

That morning Johnson had tossed an invitation on his desk and appointed him the park's official representative to the evening's festivities at Beck's house. “Command performance. Someone has to go. You have the honors,” the superintendent said. The announcement was not subtle. The party was Beck's annual fete for local merchants and county officials. A rah-rah, get-the-juices-flowing party before the big Fourth of July celebration that kicked off the official summer season on the “Cape Cod of the Midwest.”

Like its East Coast big sister, Door County courted tourists. In case anyone forgot, Beck spelled it out: Some two million visitors a year. More than 60 percent of the peninsula's economy dependent on the summer trade. A bad season, a bad year all around. More people on welfare during the winter. Fewer taxes and user fees for state and local agencies.