The Light Keeper's Legacy (A Chloe Ellefson Mystery) (22 page)

Now she was running away. I’m sorry, she told Emily. I tried to figure your story out, but I failed.

_____

Chloe didn’t see a soul as she hiked to the landing. When she descended the final hill she found Garrett Smith’s office locked and dark. The Viking Hall and the contact station were as well. No boats bobbed beside the dock. As far as she could tell, she was alone on Rock Island.

She selected a couple of fist-sized stones from the beach before settling down at a picnic table to wait for the ferry. She had a pretty good pitching arm, and the cobbles gave her a whisper of security. After fishing a bag of Oreos from her pack, she pulled out one of the unread files and settled down to wait.

Reading staved away that sense of failure that had stalked her from the lighthouse. The file contained odds and ends: a dense Door County history written in 1910, a compilation of shipwrecks near Rock Island, a collection of poems about lighthouses. Chloe flipped through most of it, pausing frequently to scan the compound.

Then she found “An Informal History of Rock Island,” handwritten in the 1930s by the wife of an assistant keeper stationed at Pottawatomie. She skimmed the script, looking for “Betts.” Instead the name “Ragna” caught her eye.

Most accounts of this wind-blown island say Anton Jacobson, his sister, and his son were the last residents of the fishing village to reside here. But it appears that the true last resident was Ragna Anderson, widow of Anders Anderson, presumed drowned while fishing in 1876. The Andersons immigrated from Denmark sometime during the 1860s.

Anderson again, Chloe thought. Ragna’s husband, Anders, drowned in 1876. Was Paul Anderson, who’d drowned in 1939, related? Hard to say
…
Anderson was a common name in Scandinavian communities.

I’ve spoken to two elderly women, now residents of Washington Island, who remember the lonely widow walking the beach as if waiting for her husband to rise from his watery grave. At some point she finally moved away. I found the tale romantic and tragic. Why, I asked, is the story of Ragna Anderson excluded from the history books? My informants—one a wrinkled old Dane herself, another born of Iceland—only shrugged.

Chloe turned that tidbit over in her mind, comparing it to the tidbits she’d gleaned from Emily’s letters. There’s more to the story, she thought, remembering Emily’s fear that Ragna would do “something beyond redemption.” Was Emily afraid Ragna might take her own life? Many people viewed suicide as a mortal sin.

She took a quick look around the compound—still deserted—before turning her attention back to Ragna Anderson. Maybe there was something else. Anders was “presumed drowned.” Did Ragna believe something more sinister had happened to her husband? Was his death the second murder Emily Betts had spoken of ? And if so
…
had Ragna finally moved from Rock Island because she’d somehow managed to—to
whatever
, and was running from the law?

If so, the old village women weren’t saying. Chloe imagined them hushing the rumors, protecting one of their own.

You’re probably getting carried away here, Chloe told herself. Indulging in a bit too much melodrama. She’d likely never know. But after the past few days on Rock Island, anything seemed possible.

In the distance the
Karfi
left Jackson Harbor, headed toward Rock Island. Chloe packed the file away. Fifteen minutes later, as the ferry approached the dock, she waved at Jack Cornell. “I’m glad you came over anyway,” she called, gesturing to the empty benches—no day hikers this morning.

“I thought you might want to go to the service this morning,” Jack said. His son, Jeff, jumped to the dock and secured a line.

“The service
…
?”

“There’s going to be a memorial for Sylvie at eleven at the
Lutheran church. Some of her friends didn’t want to wait for
…
you know.”

Chloe nodded. For the coroner to release the body. “Thanks for letting me know.”

Jack grabbed her backpack and swung it aboard as if it were weightless. “You going home today? I had you down for tomorrow.”

“I’m not going home,” she said. “Just to Washington.”

He shrugged and disappeared into the pilothouse. Chloe sat in the front-most seat. As they motored south she felt a visceral ache beneath her ribs, as if her heart was trying to tug her back to Rock Island.

The
Ranger
left Jackson Harbor as the
Karfi
approached, but Chloe couldn’t see who was piloting. She wanted to tell Garrett she was leaving Pottawatomie. She also wanted to ask if he’d ever heard tales of Emily Betts hiding something at the light station. Chloe didn’t know the Whitbys well enough to ask about that, and she didn’t trust Brenda Noakes enough to raise the question with her.

Well, she’d surely see Garrett at the memorial. And if Stig were around, she’d tell him about her change in plans too. The last thing she wanted to do was panic anyone with an unexplained absence.

Once at the parking lot she tossed her backpack into the Pinto’s hatch and glanced at her watch. The archives and library would be closed on a Sunday morning, and she had some time to fill before the service. She hesitated for just a moment before striding across the parking lot.

Thirty-nine

Roelke was breaking eggs
into a bowl in his tiny kitchen—his cousin and her kids were coming over for brunch—when the phone rang on Sunday morning. He grabbed a towel and wiped his fingers as he jogged to the living room. That better not be Skeet calling in sick again, he thought.

Roelke managed to snatch the phone on its sixth ring. “Mc-Kenna here.” He dropped onto his sofa.

Silence.

He frowned. “This is Roelke McKenna.”

“Um, Roelke?”

“Chloe?” He sat up straight. “Where are you? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong!” she protested. “I
…
I’m going to attend a church service on Washington Island this morning, and I got over here early, and I
…
I thought I’d call, and
…
you know. Just say hi. So, hi! How are you doing?”

“Fine,” he said cautiously, as every antenna in his psyche crackled. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” she said. “Rock Island is beautiful, and the lighthouse is spectacular. I’m really glad I came.”

“OK,” Roelke said, even more cautiously. “So—”

“Look, I’m at a pay phone, and I’m out of change. I’ll call you when I get home tomorrow, all right? Bye!”

Roelke replaced the receiver to its cradle. He sat for a few moments, thinking, right knee jiggling up and down.

Then he grabbed the phone again and dialed a familiar number. “Hey, Libby?” he said, when his cousin answered. “I’m really sorry, but I gotta bail on brunch today.”

“Did you get called in to work again?”

“Yeah,” he said, because he didn’t have time to explain. “Tell the kids I’m sorry.”

After hanging up he reached for the phone book he kept in an end table drawer and began flipping pages. A voice in his head said
Hold on, buddy. Don’t be too hasty. You may be screwing the pooch here.

Yeah, well, maybe, Roelke thought. He’d take that chance.

When he found the first number he wanted, he underlined it in ink. Sunday morning or not, he had a few calls to make.

_____

Chloe hung up the phone with an inward wince. A quick call to
Roelke, just to say hey, hadn’t seemed out of order. Bad idea, though. What had she been thinking? With a sigh, she headed back to her car
.

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church was just a short drive away. As Chloe settled into a back pew, wishing she’d worn something
nicer than jeans, she realized she’d misinterpreted Jack Cornell’s
information. Regular Sunday service was starting, with the memorial to take place afterwards.

Chloe hadn’t attended church lately, but she found the familiar cadences comforting. As she listened to Pastor Reiff her gaze fixed on a graceful model ship suspended from the ceiling. She’d seen them in churches before, placed so by generations of Scandi-
navians asking that grace be granted to those daring souls who
ventured out in fragile vessels. Like Anders Anderson and Paul
Anderson. Like Zana. Like Sylvie.

The memorial for Sylvie Torgrimsson was brief, but lovely. After the final prayer everyone in attendance moved to the fellowship hall. Women wearing aprons bustled about as they did at every church—pouring coffee, counting forks, setting out vases filled with flowers. Others arranged plates of Danish apple cake and
aebleskivers
, Norwegian
krumkakke
and
rosettes
, on long tables covered with plastic cloths.

Chloe filled a plate, accepted a cup of punch, and retreated to a corner. She said hello to a few people she recognized—the archivist, the docent she’d met at the Jackson Harbor Maritime Museum, two of the potential donors she’d visited. Melvin Jenks was there as well, looking uncomfortable in a time-worn navy suit. Chloe gave him a polite nod. He could be a jerk, but she was glad he’d come to honor Sylvie. Stig was not present—no doubt he was doing investigative stuff. Garrett Smith was absent too. Well, his situation was awkward. Maybe he’d decided to grieve in private.

Someone had put together tribute posters featuring snapshots
taped in place above typewritten captions. One poster showed
Sylvie over the years with a man who must have been her second husband; a few had been taken aboard their tug. Another poster featured pictures of Sylvie helping at various museums on Washington Island.

A third showcased Sylvie’s work for Rock Island State Park. A faded newspaper article included a shot of Sylvie at a podium. The
text read, “Mrs. Sylvie Torgrimsson was one of the Washington
Island residents who spoke in favor of ignoring the state’s fifty million dollar Outdoor Resource Priority List, and acting immediately to make Rock Island a state park. ‘It would be a disgrace to let nine hundred acres of almost untouched wilderness fall into the hands of commercial developers,’ Mrs. Torgrimsson said, adding, ‘shame on you money-mongers who think otherwise’.”

Sylvie, Chloe thought, you were amazing.

The photograph had captured a scowling, dark-haired woman sitting in the front row of the audience. Chloe leaned closer. That wasn’t all that long ago, she thought. Nineteen sixty-five. Had someone nursed a grudge for seventeen years? The woman in the photograph looked vaguely familiar. Might Ms. Sourpuss actually be in attendance today? Chloe tried surreptitiously to study the crowd, but couldn’t find the scowler in the face of any of the kindly looking older women in the hall.

That clipping was surrounded by snapshots of happier times: Sylvie washing windows in the Viking Hall, scraping paint at Pottawatomie Lighthouse, grinning from the newly replaced lantern room just a few months earlier. Chloe felt a lump rise in her throat. Pottawatomie Lighthouse had lost a true friend.

“She was a busy lady.”

Chloe jumped, almost spilling her punch. Lorna Whitby stood beside her. “Obviously,” Chloe agreed. “Lorna, I’m so sorry about Sylvie. I expect you’ve known her for a long time.”

“I have, yes.” Lorna looked at the memorial posters.

“Is Herb here today?”

“He wasn’t feeling well.”

Yeah, maybe, Chloe thought. Or maybe after squabbling with Sylvie he’s too uncomfortable to show up. “I hope he feels better soon.”

Lorna gave a tired smile. “I’m sure Sylvie would be glad to know
you’re here, though.”

“I liked her,” Chloe said. “And
…
Lorna? Sylvie asked me to prepare a nomination so we can try to get Pottawatomie Lighthouse placed on the National Register of Historic Places. I’d like to talk to the RISC board about that.”

Someone jostled Lorna, and she made a valiant and successful effort to keep a sugar-dusted
rosette
on her plate. “I’m sure everyone will be delighted by that idea.”

“Good.”

Lorna nibbled daintily. “So,” she said, wiping the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin, “your time with us is almost over. How is the research coming along?”

“Quite well,” Chloe assured her. “I’ve even found some new primary source materials—a couple of letters written by Emily Betts.”

“An interesting family,” Lorna said mildly. “William Betts seemed to take such pride in the lighthouse
…
it’s a shame that the family was forced out of the service.”

Chloe’s eyebrows rose. Forced out? That was news to her. “What happened? I’ve read most of William’s log entries, and I got the impression that he was considered an exemplary keeper.” She had no doubt that Emily would have been hailed as an exemplary keeper too—if the reports hadn’t ignored her service altogether.

“Well, Emily lost her job, you know,” Lorna said. “Local people believed the lighthouse service abolished her position just to save money at the family’s expense. Check the logbook when you get back to Pottawatomie. William wasn’t a happy camper by the end.”

“But—”

“Lorna!” A woman Chloe didn’t recognize struck a determined course through the crowd. “Milly is insisting that it doesn’t matter what dish towels she uses to dry the punch cups. We’re going to have lint all over everything if someone doesn’t
…
” The woman towed Lorna out of earshot.

Alone again, Chloe remembered Emily’s comments in the letter to her friend Jeannette:
The sad day has come. William feels only relief, but it is not so easy for me. I have been happy here, despite the hardships. However, one must confront the changes life inevitably bestows upon us. I believe we will be happier still on Washington Island.

Chloe tried to remember the year the Betts family had left Rock Island. Eighteen eighty-six, wasn’t it? That was nine years after William’s log entries had changed from newsy accounts to terse recitations of the weather, a change evidently dictated by the visiting inspector. Chloe gave herself a mental scolding. She should have steamed through to the end of the journal. What kind of a researcher was she, anyway? A piss-poor one. She’d formed an intense interest in Emily Betts, and yet she’d stopped reading William’s log entries just because they got boring.

Even worse, she’d left that particular file back at the lighthouse.

Chloe checked her watch. If she left now she could catch the one o’clock
Karfi
run back to Rock. She’d fetch the file and have ample time to get back to the landing before catching the four o’clock ferry back to Washington. She’d be back off Rock hours before twilight set in. No problem. She could call that last donor tonight, or tomorrow before heading home.

Fifteen minutes later Chloe parked the Pinto back at the ferry lot. She got halfway to the dock before turning around, jogging back to the car, and grabbing her backpack. The photo of Emily was inside, and she wanted that with her when she returned to the lighthouse. Besides, she had a few Oreos left in there.

“Back so soon?” Jack asked, when she boarded again.

She gave him her best
Everything is cool
smile. “Yep. No day visitors? The rain’s stopped.”

“A few sprinkles in the morning is all it takes to keep most
people away.” He shrugged, clearly used to tourists’ whims and foibles.

“Quick question,” Chloe said. “I’m trying to get a handle on a local family. Do you happen to know if the Paul Anderson who drowned in 1939 was related to Anders Anderson who died back in the 1870s?”

“Sure,” he said. “Paul was Anders’ son. My grandfather always said those two had a reputation for being able to sweet-talk fish into their nets.”

Good Lord, Chloe thought. After her husband drowned, Ragna Anderson had to watch her son take to the lake. No wonder Emily had worried about her friend.