The Chocolate Pirate Plot (5 page)

T
wo hours later I was sitting in my folding beach chair on the sand of Beech Tree Public Access Area, a quarter mile from our house. The temperature had just hit seventy-two degrees, and puffy white clouds floated here and there in the broad blue sky. August is one of the reasons Lake Michigan is a major resort area, and that day was a perfect demonstration of its perfect weather.

At the top of the bank behind me, delightful breezes wafted through twenty-five or so elms and maples and one giant beech tree, the tree that gave the beach its name. The sun had just climbed higher than the trees, so it was now beginning to reach the beach. I had brought a big multicolored umbrella; soon we'd need it for protection from the sun.

The idyllic setting contrasted with the activities on the beach. A half dozen people in law enforcement outfits—Warner Pier Police Department and Warner County Sheriff's Department—were talking on radios or standing in concerned clumps, staring out into the lake. There more than twenty people walked slowly through the water with their arms linked.

These were volunteers, mostly from our neighborhood, and they were using their feet to search for the body of the missing swimmer. They formed a line anchored at the beach and walked through the water in a fan-shaped pattern, re-forming at the end of each sweep to cover a new area.

Although I had phoned in the first alarm, I was a minor part of the search. My job was keeping an eye on two things: first, a large cooler of bottled water for the volunteers in the lake; second, the missing man's girlfriend, the girl in the bright bikini. She was sitting beside me in a second beach chair.

Her name was Jill Campbell. I was assigned to keep any news media representatives away from her, unless she wanted to talk to them, and to make sure she didn't disappear, in case the rescuers needed to talk to her. Spectators were confined to the top of the bank behind us by yellow “do not cross” tape, of course, and the umbrella was supposed to shield her from the gaze of the merely curious as well as from the sun.

Jill seemed to be barely smart enough to fasten her bikini top. She had a sweetly pretty face, blond hair that was artfully dark at the roots, and a figure a little too slim to properly display the neon-striped swimsuit that peeked out from her white terry-cloth beach wrap. Actually, it was
my
terry-cloth beach wrap. I'd loaned it to her. I was still wearing the shorts I'd put on to go get the newspaper, but I'd replaced my sweatshirt with a tee, and I'd put on my own flip-flops.

Joe was one of the guys out in the lake, looking for Jeremy, the missing swimmer. Since he was among the tallest, he was also farthest out.

This wasn't my favorite way to spend a Saturday, the one day a week I don't have to work during the height of the summer tourist season, but someone needed to sit with Jill.

Lake Michigan is an inland sea, 118 miles across at the widest point between Michigan and Wisconsin, more than 300 miles long from the Indiana dunes to Mackinac Bridge, and 923 feet deep at its deepest spot. And it can have waves. Big waves. Luckily, that day they were only a couple of feet high, but since they were coming from the southwest, the water was cloudy.

If our summer visitors hang around beaches on the east side of Lake Michigan very long, they learn that if the wind is coming from the southwest, the water is, too. That water is warm—compared to ice water—but it's filled with sediment and waterweeds. At least we hope that's what makes it murky. It's coming straight from Chicago.

If the wind and water are coming from the northwest, the lake is clear but cold. If the wind is from the east, the beach is invaded by flies, and I don't want to go down there, so I have no idea what the water is like.

Looking for a body in Lake Michigan is not a one-man job. After Jill came to our house looking for help, I called 9-1-1, then contacted a few neighbors I knew were swimmers. They called other people. Joe put on his swim trunks and headed for the beach, taking Jill with him. Joe immediately made some dives in the area where Jill said her friend had gone down, but he hadn't found the missing Jeremy, and neither had other people who arrived on the scene within the next hour. Now the volunteers were doing their gruesome line dance, hoping one of them would stub a toe on Jeremy's body. If this didn't work, they'd go home, and in a couple of days helicopters would start patrolling the shoreline, looking for a body floating in the water or washed up on the beach.

By now Jill wasn't tearful. That was all right with me. Jill seemed familiar, which meant I'd probably seen her around town, but I didn't know her, and I didn't feel equipped to console a stranger's grief.

She hadn't wanted to talk a lot, which was surprising. My experience has been that people who've gone through traumatic experiences are eager to talk about them. But Warner Pier's police chief, Hogan Jones—who just happens to be married to my aunt—had trouble getting the whole story out of her.

Jeremy Mattox was the full name of the missing man, Jill had told him. She said he wasn't a serious boyfriend, just a casual date.

“He works where I work, and he offered to show me this beach. He said it was real nice, and they don't charge to use it. So he picked me up at seven, and we came up here.”

I was curious, so I interrupted. “Why did you come so early?”

“Early?” Jill looked at me blankly.

“Yes.” I tried to look encouraging. “Beaches in our part of Michigan face west. This one has a high bank behind it, and a lot of trees on top of the bank. There's never any sun here until late in the morning. Hardly anybody comes here to swim before noon.”

“Oh. Well.” She seemed to need a moment to think the question over. “We have to work this afternoon.”

“Wasn't the beach cold when you got here?”

“Yes, but I brought a cover-up.”

Jill's cover-up was a gauzy shirt that matched her neon-striped bikini. It was designed to keep the sun off, not to keep the wearer warm when the temperature was around fifty-five in the shade, as it would have been before eight a.m. at Beech Tree Public Access Area.

She didn't have a lot more to say to Hogan or to me.

West Michigan was settled nearly two hundred years ago by the Dutch. Many of their descendants, including me, are still here, so lots of us look as if we just stepped out of the Zuider Zee. There are more people in the phone book named VanSomething-or-other than there are named Smith, and Dykstra is considered a common name.

So West Michigan is full of big, blond people. As a tall natural blond, I'd stood out in Texas. In west Michigan I rarely got a second glance.

Jill did not look like a west Michigan native. She was small, maybe five foot three, and—like Brenda—she seemed more exotic than the wholesome-looking Dutch girls of Warner Pier. She had dark eyes and a beautiful tan. Her hair was blond, true, but it was the frankly fake kind of blond.

I kept feeling that I ought to know who she was, but I hadn't managed to place her. I decided to try. “Jill, are you here just for the summer?”

“Yes.”

“You mentioned that you and Jeremy worked together. Where do you work?”

Jill shot a quick glance at me, then dropped her eyes to the sand. “It's just a summer job,” she said. “How long will these guys look for Jeremy before they give up?

“I don't know.” Had she just changed the subject? “They won't look for, well, too long. The lake currents make it hard to predict just where . . .”

I stopped. Maybe I'd said enough. “Where are you from, Jill?”

“I'm from Indianapolis. I'm a senior at Northwestern.”

“Great school! What's your major?”

I got that under-the-lashes look again. “I'm in the School of Communication.”

“Is that journalism?”

“Not exactly.” She looked at me. “You're sure there's no way to make a cell phone call from here?”

“No. There's no service on the lakeshore. But I can take you up to my house if you want to make a call.”

“It doesn't seem right to leave. But I need to talk to my . . .” She hesitated. “Our boss.”

“I'm sure he's heard what happened by now.”

“I know!” Jill turned around and stared at the people on top of the bank behind us. “I don't understand why he hasn't come.”

The line of volunteers had reached the edge of the water. They dropped their arms and began to talk to one another. Hogan, who was directing the operation, began to gesture to his left, apparently indicating where they would try the next time. Three of the women came over for bottles of water. None of them spoke to Jill, and she didn't look up at them.

Jill and I sat silently until they went back into the water, linking their elbows again and forming a line in a new area. It didn't seem to be a likely spot to me. It was south of the spot where Jill thought Jeremy had gone down. The southwest current should have washed him farther north. But what did I know? Hogan was the expert.

Jill was still drooping. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them. It was as if she couldn't stand to look at the water any longer.

I tried to think of something comforting to say. Even though she had denied several times that she had any deep emotional attachment to Jeremy, witnessing something like this had to be upsetting. I was upset, and I'd never met Jeremy. I knew the morning had been a nightmare to Jill.

What could I say to her? My mind was a blank.

Then I heard a woman's voice behind me. “Jill! Lee!”

I pulled myself out of my own four-inch-high chair—an awkward job—and crawled out from under the umbrella. Jill stayed where she was, but she lifted her head.

I looked toward the bank behind us. A woman was standing at the top, behind the yellow no-admittance tape. She was waving a big straw hat. “Lee! Jill! It's me! Maggie.”

I walked toward her, and she waved again. “They won't let me through unless you vouch for me!”

It was Maggie McNutt, who had been aboard Joe's Shepherd Sedan the night we were boarded by the pirates.

Before I could do anything to indicate that Maggie should be allowed on the beach, a streak of white terry cloth went by me.

“Maggie! Maggie!” Jill was running up the stairs toward the top of the bank. “I am so glad you're here!”

As Jill ran by, I realized where I'd seen her before, why she had seemed so familiar to me.

Jill was an actress in the Warner Pier Summer Showboat Players. Joe and I had gone to see their production of
Arsenic and Old Lace
. She'd played the romantic lead. According to the posters around town, she was about to open as Mabel in
The Pirates of Penzance
, wearing a cute Victorian bonnet and side curls.

Maggie, of course, was part of the Summer Showboat Players, too, and was in
The Pirates of Penzance
.

As soon as Jill got to the top of the bank, she and Maggie grabbed each other in a big hug. Jill even cried a few tears on Maggie's shoulder.

“Oh, Maggie!” Jill said. “Where is Max?”

“He's gone to Chicago for the day.”

“Chicago!” Jill stepped back, her face a picture of incredulity. “He can't have left town!”

“Why not?”

Jill stamped her foot as hard as a flip-flop can be stamped in sand. “The rat! I'll kill him for this!”

Maggie looked confused. She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, I heard a shout behind us.

“They've found something!”

I lifted the yellow tape and let Maggie through before I bothered to turn around. We'd already had several such announcements. So far the beach patrol had found a log, a sand-filled foam cooler, and a pair of tennis shoes with the laces tied together.

But when I turned around this time, the situation looked different. The searchers in the water were gathered in a tight knot, a knot that was hiding whatever they had found. It was something large.

I had an urge to protect the younger woman, and I guess Maggie did, too, because we both stepped closer to Jill. Maggie put her arm around Jill's waist. We all stared at the scene.

A leg flashed into and out of view. It was horizontal, so I knew it didn't belong to one of the searchers. I gasped, and I think Jill and Maggie did, too. The line of searchers had apparently found Jeremy.

It took the rescue crew only a few minutes to lift the body onto the beach. Hogan stood by with a yellow plastic sheet, which I knew was standard equipment he kept in his car. The searchers closed in, forming a wall that blocked the onlookers' view of the drowned man. Hogan knelt, staying on his knees for at least two full minutes. I wondered why. Then I saw the sheet flap around, and one of the county deputies catch the end. He and Hogan had apparently covered the man.

Hogan stood up and walked up to Maggie, Jill, and me. Silence had fallen over the assembled rescue workers. Hogan stopped about six feet away from us.

“Jill,” he said. “I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to identify him.”

“This can't be happening,” Jill said. Tears were trickling down her cheeks.

“Hogan, I know him, too,” Maggie said. “Can I do it?”

“No!” Jill spoke sharply. “I'm not just an ingénue. I've got to act like a grown woman.”

She took a deep breath and stepped forward.

“Good girl,” Hogan said. He took her arm. They walked toward the water, with Maggie and me following.

The clump of rescuers parted as we approached, and I saw a strange thing. Something was holding the sheet up on the right side of the drowning victim. It looked as if his arm was bent at the elbow and was holding the sheet up like a tent pole. Even as upset as I was, it struck me as odd.