The Light Keeper's Legacy (A Chloe Ellefson Mystery) (26 page)

Forty-five

“Hey, you awake?” Brenda
asked softly.

Struggling up from sleep, Chloe tried to make sense of the question
… right
. After the miracle of making shore, Roelke—
Roelke!—and Stig had found her. Paramedics warmed her up and monitored her vitals until they were sure she was OK. They’d also picked slivers of copper from palms burned raw from the lightning cord during her roof-slide descent, and bandaged them. She’d
given Stig a condensed version of the afternoon’s events. Then Brenda
Noakes had appeared and announced she was taking Chloe
to
her dad’s house.

Now Chloe was nestled on a couch in the living room, cocooned in blankets. “How long was I asleep?” she mumbled. Window shades were drawn against the night.

“A couple of hours. You feeling ready to talk to the boys? They’re in the kitchen, and one or another’s about to tear the door down.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said. She struggled to sit up, wincing. “I’m ready.”

Once summoned, the three men seemed to fill the room: Roelke, Stig, Garrett. Roelke’s mouth was tight, his gaze intense.

“I’m OK,” she told him. “Honestly.” He squeezed her shoulder, letting his fingers convey what he left unsaid. Then he sat down beside her.

Stig and Garrett settled into easy chairs. Brenda took a rocking chair by the fireplace. “My dad is fixing a tray,” she said. “He’ll be along in a minute.”

Chloe fixed her gaze on Stig. Her clearest memory of the rescue was the absolute sense of defeat she’d felt when she’d looked up from her crawl and seen Stig looming over her.

“We told you about Melvin Jenks, remember?” he asked, as if reading her mind. “By the time we found you, Jenks was already in custody. We found him up on the watchroom landing with a broken leg, lying in a pool of black paint.”

“I told you about the fish in the cellar, right?” Chloe asked. “And the net on the clothesline? I think he was breaking fishing laws, leaving the evidence at the lighthouse, and cruising on to Jackson Harbor for inspection.”

“We’re recovering the evidence,” Stig assured her. “Trout, which is illegal for a commercial fisherman to harvest, including some too large for consumption. I didn’t see a net, though.”

“But
…
oh!” she exclaimed. “There was a bottle of sulfuric acid in the cellar. Is it possible that—”

“It’s an old trick,” Stig said. “If you get caught with a gillnet that doesn’t conform to regulations, a few splashes of sulfuric acid can destroy the net—and the evidence. I think we’ll have enough to nail him.”

“I wonder if that’s why Jenks was rude to me one day and offered to haul water for me the next,” Chloe said. “Maybe there was something on the beach he didn’t want me to see. He definitely tried to scare me into staying away from the cellar.”

“It’s probably been going on for a long time,” Brenda muttered. “The north end of the island is so damn deserted.”

Chloe felt Roelke’s
I told you so
stare. She carefully avoided eye contact.

“That explains his rowboat, too,” Garrett mused. “He could anchor his tug off the north end of Rock, row ashore with whatever he didn’t want the wardens to see, and stash it at the lighthouse until it was time to make the next hand-off to whoever was buying from him.”

“But who was the other guy who came after me in the lighthouse?” Chloe asked. This time she saw Roelke’s hand clench convulsively. “Was it Tim? Did someone find him and Natalie?”

“The Coast Guard picked them up about the same time we found you,” Stig said. “She’s on her way to the Sturgeon Bay hospital with a bad concussion. Her brother’s in jail.”

Chloe closed her eyes with relief. She didn’t want to be responsible for anyone’s death—even someone who’d tried to kill her. Then she opened them again. “Wait. Tim is Natalie’s brother?” She looked at Garrett. “You told me they were a couple.”

“They registered for the campsite using the same last name, Brown. I made an assumption.”

And so did I, Chloe thought, even though I didn’t see a hint of anything romantic between them. Well, except for the bouquet of flowers she’d found in their campsite—but she’d made assumptions about that too.

“I talked to Tim earlier,” Stig said. “After I pointed out the splashes of black paint on his skin, he admitted that he went to Pottawatomie Lighthouse with Jenks this afternoon.”

To kill me, Chloe thought. She tugged the blanket up to her chin with her fingertips and made a mental note to send champagne to Herb’s most wonderful painter. Between the paint cans and the ladder, she had a lot to feel grateful about.

“After you escaped the lighthouse, Tim chased you down to the landing, saw you struggling with Natalie on the reef, and jumped in his own kayak. When you brained Natalie, he let you go in favor of helping her. They’d hidden both kayaks in the boathouse.”

Of
course
. It would have been easy for Natalie and Tim to paddle unseen into the watery cavern beneath the Viking Hall. Maybe Natalie had been waiting there to rendezvous with Tim after his trip to Pottawatomie. Or maybe, Chloe thought, she’d been waiting to make sure that I didn’t do something stupid like try to escape on the reef.

“It’s a relief to see you looking better,” Garrett said hoarsely. “Hypothermia can
…
well, I’m just glad they found you in time. But to learn that Melvin Jenks—my own employee—”

“Actually,” Chloe said, “we should have guessed that Melvin was making trouble.”

Stig’s eyebrows rose. “And why is that?”

“From everything I’ve heard, fishermen are pretty darn handy,” she said. “Jenks was maintenance man for the park, but all kinds of things have gone wrong lately. The phone cable was cut, circuits blew in the Viking Hall, the park service boat had engine trouble—and that’s just since I’ve been here! There’ve been problems at the lighthouse, too. A missing repair log, the wrong paint showing up, crumbling plaster. See? The common denominator was Jenks. He had access to everything. Maybe Herb’s consultants did everything right, and Jenks tampered with their stuff.”

Stig rubbed his chin, looking from Roelke to Garrett. “She may be on to something.”

“I try not to underestimate her,” Roelke said.

Chloe smiled, grateful that he’d managed a mild tone. Then she hesitated, trying to decide how much to say. “There’s something else, too. The first night I was at the lighthouse I dreamed of hearing children’s laughter. The next morning I mentioned that to you, Garrett. Well, one night I heard laughter again—but it was repetitive. I found a mark beneath my window, like the corner of a box or something had been put down. I think it was a cassette player. I think somebody was trying to scare me.” She felt another of Roelke’s accusatory stares. “I was going to tell someone about the recording,” she added defensively. “I never got the chance.”

Garrett looked appalled. “Did you think
I
left it?”

Her cheeks grew warm. “Well, it did cross my mind after I realized that one of the men in the lighthouse this afternoon was wearing a DNR uniform. Tim and Natalie were with us that morning, though. They must have told Jenks.” She struggled to sit up a little straighter, a difficult task with two bandaged hands. “But please—can someone start at the beginning? I’m still confused.”

“We don’t know everything yet,” Stig admitted, “but here goes. This morning Brenda called and asked me to go over to Rock with her to—”

“Hot chocolate, anyone?” an elderly man asked as he entered the room. He set a laden tray on a coffee table and smiled at Chloe. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m—”

“The archivist!”

“That’s right. I volunteer there.” He put a steaming mug on an end table beside her, thoughtfully armed with a bendy straw.

Chloe sipped some of the hot chocolate and nearly swooned. Definitely homemade, with rich chocolate, whole milk, and a hint of cinnamon. “This is heavenly, Mr. Noakes.”

He beamed. “I’ll be back with sandwiches.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Brenda called after him. Then she picked up the story. “I’d been planning to call Stig because I’d been finding evidence of fresh digging all over the island. Including up by the lighthouse.”

Ah, Chloe thought. That explained why Brenda had been wandering through the north woods. “I saw signs of digging below the lighthouse, too. And in the little cave. Was that Jenks?”

“If so, we don’t know why,” Brenda said. “When Sylvie died, I figured I should give Stig time to work on that before bugging him about some holes. But this morning, just after dawn, I saw Jenks’ fishing tug and a motorboat anchored below the lighthouse. Several big coolers got passed from the tug to the second boat, which then took off toward Michigan. There have been reports of bad fish reaching Escanaba markets lately, so I thought someone official should know about the exchange.” She looked at Garrett. “I didn’t want to call you on the day of Sylvie’s memorial.”

Garrett blew out a long breath. “Sylvie and I argued yesterday morning. I didn’t think she should take the tug out alone anymore. She told me to go stuff myself.” He tried to smile, without success. “So anyway, I went out on the lake at dawn today myself.
That’s
where I wanted to memorialize Sylvie.”

The pain in his voice nipped at Chloe’s heart. “I’m sorry, Garrett.”

Stig cleared his throat. “So Brenda and I went over to Rock. After trekking around we ended up by the lighthouse. Then
this
guy comes out of the woods with Jack Cornell.” Stig jerked his head toward Roelke.

Chloe looked expectantly at Roelke. He shrugged. “Your phone call made me nervous.”

“How’d you get up here so fast?”

“Oh. I rented a plane.”

He rented a
plane
? Yikes. He rented a plane.

“When Roelke said he was worried about you,” Stig said, “we all went inside the lighthouse. We found your backpack, and Jenks. We just didn’t find you. It was clear that you’d left the lighthouse in a hurry, so we split up to search.”

“Roelke was sure you’d tried to get across the reef,” Brenda said, “even though I’d
told
you it was too dangerous.”

“I didn’t have a whole lot of options,” Chloe protested.

“What I don’t know is how you survived,” Brenda said flatly. “You said you got swept away
…
?”

Chloe tried to remember. “I tried to swim back to the reef, but
…
I was too tired and cold. I gave up and let the current take me.”

Roelke’s knee began to bounce. Brenda said, “giving up was good, actually. You’d never have reached the reef again.”

“After awhile I saw Natalie’s paddle. The current was easing up and I managed to grab it. It gave me something to lean on. I pointed myself toward shore and tried to kick.” Everything beyond that was pretty fuzzy. Chloe stared at her bandaged hands. She knew she’d been very lucky. Unlike Zana
…
and Sylvie. “Stig,” she said quietly, “Did Melvin and the Browns murder Sylvie?”

“Yes.” Stig pulled off his glasses, rubbed his nose, put them on again. “Tim claims he and Natalie didn’t know what Jenks was planning for Sylvie, that Jenks just said he wanted to teach her a lesson—

“A lesson about
what
?” Brenda demanded.

“Sylvie was on to Jenks,” Stig explained. “She saw him coming ashore below Pottawatomie with a cooler. She confronted him about it—”

“She would,” Garrett muttered.

“—and told Jenks that if he didn’t quit, she’d turn him in.”

Brenda folded her arms. “No. I’m sorry, but some dispute about fish is
not
cause for murder.”

Chloe struggled to adjust the blanket, and Roelke tucked it back over her knees. She was wearing an old sweat suit of Brenda’s, but the extra warmth was still comforting. “It’s happened before,” she said. “A century ago. I’ve been picking up bits of evidence in my research.” She paused. Should she explain the contents of Ragna’s tin box? No. This was not the time, and telling these lawmen was not the action needed.

“I didn’t want to believe it either,” Stig said. “But it’s pretty clear. Sylvie tried to give Jenks a break, knowing he’d had it tough lately, but that just enraged him. He put water in the fuel tank of Sylvie’s tug, knowing that in time it would mix with the fuel and work its way to the engine. I imagine she was well out in the lake before the engine started running rough, and then quit altogether.”

Chloe felt a twist of nausea. “Sylvie knew him, which would explain why there was no sign of struggle. Jenks has his own boat, and access to the
Ranger.
He easily could have gone after her tug in the fog.”

Stig nodded. “Right. Then he showed up to offer assistance, and
…
” For the first time he hesitated.

“Go ahead,” Chloe said quietly. “We all need to know.”

“Jenks went aboard Sylvie’s tug, knocked her senseless, and smothered her.”

Chloe clenched her teeth, trying to stave away unwanted mental pictures. “But why all the ritual? Why bring her body back to Rock?”