The Light Keeper's Legacy (A Chloe Ellefson Mystery) (28 page)

Forty-seven:
March, 1906

That dawn, Emily’s greatest
wish had been to get through her daughter’s funeral without weeping uncontrollably, even collapsing. Her daughter Lillian was dead of diphtheria at age eighteen. Emily didn’t know how to compose herself in the face of that loss.

But instead of hysteria, a foggy numbness had seized her. When her friends offered condolences inside the church, she had a hard time parsing the words. During the graveside prayers she slipped further away, as if she were watching through the wrong end of a telescope.

Although Emily had spent decades nursing the sick—first on Rock Island, later on Washington—she hadn’t been able to save her own child. She had eight other children. Jane, her oldest, was thirty-three; Eugenie, her youngest, was eleven. She knew William
and the older children were worried about her, and that the
younger ones needed her to be strong. But for the first time in her life, she didn’t feel capable of staring trouble in the eye.

Now, the services complete, people stood in quiet clumps in the church graveyard. Emily walked away from the crowd.
Oh Ragna,
she thought,
I know now how it feels to bury a daughter.
But when you heard that first dirt clod hit Christine’s coffin I stood beside you, holding you up.

Emily closed her eyes for a moment, confused. Where had
that
thought come from? Had she expected Ragna to appear now? Tragedies had darkened Ragna’s heart. And when Carrick Dugan had been found shot to death on Rock Island four years earlier, Emily had not been surprised to learn that Ragna was nowhere to be found. She’d done a horrible thing and fled, just as she had said she would. And she’d never had the grace to send her old friend so much as a letter.

“Emily?” Her friend Jeannette approached, eyes damp and concerned. “Your friends will help you through these dark days.”

“I wish Ragna were here,” Emily said.

“Ragna Anderson?” Jeannette looked startled. “Gracious, dear, don’t dwell on
her
. No one wants to say so out loud, but
…
well, you weren’t surprised that she finally left Rock Island after that Irishman was killed. She’s probably back in Denmark.”

“I suppose so.”

Jeannette kissed her cheek. “I must get back to the lighthouse. Please come for a long visit soon, all right? The change would do you good.”

Emily blinked. “Yes, I will,” she murmured. “A visit.”

After Jeannette walked away another woman approached. Mette Friis, Emily thought. One of Ragna’s friends.

“Mrs. Betts? I’m ever so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Emily hesitated. “Mette
…
have you ever heard from Ragna?”

“Heard from Ragna?” Mette glanced over her shoulder.

Emily drew her farther away from the clumps of people. “Didn’t you help Ragna get away? Just as you once helped Carrick Dugan’s wife get away from him?”

Mette’s eyes widened. “You knew about that?”

“Of course.” Emily waved a hand; she had no energy for polite niceties. “I doubt if there was a man on either island who knew, or a woman who didn’t.”

Mette adjusted her hat. “I just came to say how sorry I was to hear about your girl.”

Emily caught Mette by the arm. “I don’t need to know where Ragna’s hiding. I just hope she’s happier. That’s all.” Emily wasn’t sure why it mattered now, but today, it did.

“Mrs. Betts, I didn’t help Ragna get away.” Mette hesitated before squaring her shoulders and leaning close. “I didn’t help her because I didn’t get there in time.”

“You didn’t get there in time
…
?”

“One day, fifteen years ago, Berglind Fridleifsdottir and I sailed over to Rock Island with our husbands. We docked on the west side because our men wanted to go to the lighthouse while we visited Ragna. Berglind and I were walking the path through the woods to the village when we heard a shot.” Mette began twisting a lacey handkerchief in her fingers. “We went on real quiet, scared of what we’d find.”

“What did you find?” Emily whispered.

“Carrick Dugan, shoveling earth into a new-made grave beside his cabin. There was a pistol sitting on the doorstep.”

Emily shook her head slightly, trying to clear it, trying to understand.

“Berglind screamed, ‘Did you kill Ragna? Did you kill Ragna too?’ Dugan started after her. Berglind snatched a dead tree branch and swung it at him. It wouldn’t have done more than slow the man down.” Mette stopped twisting the handkerchief, and her blue eyes now held Emily’s gaze. “I got to the pistol first. And I killed Carrick Dugan, Mrs. Betts. I shot him dead.”

Emily pressed one hand over her chest. “Dear
God …
”

“Berglind and I dragged him down to the beach and left him. Then we washed our hands and walked back to the dock to wait for our husbands.”

“Did
…
did you tell them what happened?”

“No ma’am,” Mette said. “We figured the wolves could have Dugan and none would be the wiser. But Anton Jacobson took some friends over for a picnic at the old homeplace the next day, and found the body. They didn’t send for the authorities because everyone disliked or feared Dugan. Anton didn’t want Ragna to be accused of murder, so he buried Dugan quick and quiet. But of course word trickled out.”

One of Mette’s daughters approached. “Mama? Papa says we need to leave soon so he can get home in time to milk.”

“Tell him that I’ll be there in a moment.” Mette waited until the young woman was out of earshot. “Mrs. Betts, I’m not sorry for what I did. And I didn’t break my silence to burden you. You and Ragna were close once. I hope it helps you to know that Ragna wasn’t the one who killed him.”

Emily watched Mette walk away. “No one wants to say so out loud
…
” Jeannette had said, speaking of the whispers that had followed Ragna’s disappearance. Heaven help me, Emily thought. Had she started the whispers by confiding her fears? One thing was clear: she could never—
would
never—betray Mette’s confidence. That would only cause more pain, ruin more lives.

Pressing her fingers against her forehead, Emily tried to send Ragna a silent message:
Oh, my dear old friend, I’ve done you an injustice. And I see no earthly way to make things right.

Forty-eight

“Oh, my.” Chloe groaned
as she slowly maneuvered herself out of the park’s ancient pickup. Brenda had driven to the village site as slowly as possible, but it was impossible to avoid ruts and tree roots.

“Want to go back?” Brenda clearly considered this excursion a fool’s errand.

“No.” Chloe forced herself to present an impression of something at least a smidge better than death warmed on toast. “This is important.” She led the way to the south end of the meadow.

When the grasses gave way to shrubby growth she paused, steeling herself. Then she walked into the grove. Something tingled along her backbone. That same malevolent energy she’d felt before quivered like a live thing, waiting to pounce. Keep going, she told herself. Find the center.

“Are you OK?” Brenda asked. “You don’t look so good.”

One more step. Another. And—Chloe couldn’t move. She coul
d hardly breathe. “Here,” she managed. “Right here.”

Brenda gave her a skeptical look. “What is it you expect me to find? And I can’t just hack away, you know. There are proper procedures to follow. I have to—”

“Get your tools and do whatever you need to do,” Chloe said through gritted teeth. “I don’t think it will take long. I’ll wait out in the sunshine.”

She retreated to the meadow and sat on the rise above the beach, letting the evil leak away like water. A sense of peace flowed into its place. It was impossible to look at the beach below without thinking of Sylvie
…
but at least her killers would be brought to justice. And I helped with that too, Chloe thought. That felt good.

And soon, the black energy trapped in the grove would be gone. Soon, the sound of an archaeologist’s tools would replace the lingering shovel-scrape of a killer digging a grave. Chloe was pretty sure she knew who’d been dumped in that obscure grave. And—like Zana, and Sylvie—she deserved to be buried with dignity and respect.

This is what I can do, Chloe thought. She sometimes wished she could reject her heightened sense of perception
…
but since she could not, it was comforting to know that every once in awhile she could use it to accomplish something good. She sat, mesmerized by the gentle waves. It was pleasant to be here again, peaceful. She felt herself drowsing
…

Then Brenda crashed from the trees. “You were right!” she gasped. “I don’t know how you knew, but oh my God, Chloe, you were
right
.”

_____

If Brenda hadn’t made arrangements to meet Stig and Roelke at the Viking Hall, Chloe might never have dragged her away from the meadow. “But it’s just as well,” Brenda told Garrett, when she and Chloe went to his office to return the truck keys. “I’m going to call the UW archaeology department and see if they want to send somebody up. I mean—my God—a skeleton! A skeleton with what sure looks to me like a bullet hole in the skull. I’ve only uncovered the face, but …”

Chloe leaned against the wall, watching Garrett and Brenda make plans. After a week of tragedies, it was wonderful to see them excited. Wonderful to hear Garrett vow that after a century of obscurity, the bones of the poor soul who’d received only rough burial would be recovered and ultimately interred in one of the island cemeteries.

Finally Brenda glanced out the window. “There’s the
Karfi
,” she told Garrett. “Looks like you’ve got some visitors. I’ll fill you in later.”

Garrett locked the office so he could walk down to the dock with them. “Say, there was a bit of a hullabaloo this morning,” he said. “Remember that tourist from Massachusetts, Chloe? You gave him a tour.”

“Mr. Dix? Sure. He came back one more time because his photos didn’t turn out.”

“Well, photos were not his prime concern,” Garrett said dryly. “Mr. Dix has been trying to discover where lighthouse families dumped their garbage. After two visits he was afraid of attracting notice, so he’s been paddling out to the island on his own.”

“That jerk!” Chloe remembered how unbothered Dix had been when she told him he couldn’t go back inside the lighthouse—
despite the fact that he’d taken dozens of interior photographs during his first visit. “He is a lighthouse fanatic, so he’d certainly know how valuable even a rusty old oil can would be to a collector. Was he digging?”

“Yep,” Garrett confirmed. “He dug a bunch of test holes without uncovering anything. So this morning he decided to climb one of the limestone walls right below the lighthouse, trying to reach a ledge where something tossed over the precipice might have landed. He fell, of course. Broke his arm.” He shook his head. “The idiot is lucky he’s still here to tell the tale.”

“Good grief,” Brenda said with disgust. “Can you imagine being
so stupid as to try climbing a rock wall without gear?”

“Dumb,” Chloe agreed, avoiding eye contact. “Pretty darn dumb.”

They reached the dock below the Viking Hall as Stig and Roelke stepped from the
Karfi
. Roelke wore jeans and hiking boots and a red wool shirt. Seeing him here in this special place made something beneath Chloe’s ribs hitch tight.

“Anything new?” Garrett asked Stig.

The deputy nodded grimly. “Sylvie’s tug was recovered this morning. Jenks tampered with the engine in my boat, too. Explosives. Evidence guys are crawling over both boats. I need to take some photos in the lighthouse, and to look for whatever remnants of Jenks’ net might have survived an acid bath. I want this case to be rock-solid.”

“I’ll go with you,” Garrett said, “and run you back to Washington whenever you’re ready.”

Stig and Garrett drove to the lighthouse; Chloe insisted on walking.
“With any luck they’ll be done by the time we get there,” she told Roelke as they headed north. “Those two seemed downright amiable today, but they’ve been sniping at each other all week. I have no idea why.”

“I do,” he said. “It came up last night while we were waiting for you to wake up. A couple of years ago Stig found Garrett fishing outside of some zone or other. Garrett claimed he didn’t realize he was in the wrong place, and thought he deserved a warning, but Stig gave him a citation.” He held a branch aside so it wouldn’t slap Chloe in the face. “I think they both realize that a citation was a silly thing to hold a grudge about. A murder—and attempted murders—tend to help people put things in perspective.”

“What strikes me is that everybody wants the same thing,” Chloe said sadly. “The commercial fishermen, the sport fishermen, the DNR wardens, the environmentalists … everyone wants to protect the lake. They just have different ideas sometimes about how to do that.”

“
Most
everybody,” Roelke growled. “Jenks and his young friends …”

“Yeah.” Chloe blew out a long breath. “It’s so weird. Natalie really helped me out that first night by going to get help. The next day, Tim gave me a granola bar. Melvin Jenks brought me drinking water. And then they killed Sylvie, and tried to kill me.”

“And Stig,” Roelke added. “If he’d taken his boat out yesterday morning, he’d probably be dead as well.”

Chloe shuddered. “I’d like to take a little break from talking about the bad stuff.”

They walked in silence for a while. Then Roelke said, “You know, I don’t really get your job. I mean, I think studying history is a good thing. But—how much can you ever really know? Don’t you worry about getting stuff wrong?”

“I do,” Chloe admitted. “We can never really have more than just the barest hint of what some long-dead person’s life was like …but it’s important to make the attempt.”

“Hunh,” he said thoughtfully. “I can see that.”

“There are legislators trying to turn Old World Wisconsin into a theme park,” she added. “And some people fought hard to keep Rock Island from becoming a state park. Working as a curator, trying to dig out stories and protect the places and artifacts left behind … I guess I feel as if I’m doing something important.”

“Yeah,” Roelke said. “I feel like that about my job, too.”

As they approached the lighthouse Chloe found her steps slowing. Her feet stopped altogether as they approached the final rise before reaching the clearing.

“You don’t have to do this,” Roelke said.

Chloe’s heart was skittering in her chest. She swallowed, trying to hide sudden panic. “I think I do,” she managed finally. “I love this place, Roelke. If I don’t go back now, I’m afraid I never will. I will not let Jenks and the Brown-Andersons ruin this experience for me.”

“OK, then,” he said. “Take your time.”

She did, trying to focus on this moment and let yesterday fade. The air was cool against her cheeks. A solomon’s seal plant beside the trail had produced a cluster of purple berries, lovely against their still-green leaves. A warbler sang from a beech tree.

Roelke leaned over to pick up a single scarlet maple leaf from the trail. “Here,” he said, and handed it to her.

“Oh, Roelke.” Her voice trembled. “Thank you. I’ll press it. And—and keep it as a reminder of all the
good
things that happened during my time on Rock Island.”

_____

“Isn’t this amazing?” Chloe asked. She and Roelke were sitting on the front steps of the lighthouse, looking over the lake as the late-afternoon sun eased into the western sky. Stig and Garrett were gone, taking their cameras and evidence bags. She’d sent Ragna’s box back with them, too. Like Emily, she wanted to banish the reminder of evil.

“It’s pretty special,” Roelke agreed. “Still, when I think about you isolated here …”

“Don’t. Please. I’m fine.”

“I told you it was not a good idea for you to be here by yourself.”

She looked at the red maple leaf, now resting on her knee. “I needed to be alone. I do need that sometimes, Roelke.”

“You live alone in a ten-room farmhouse.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

He sighed, keeping his gaze on the lake. “I know. But sometimes you do stuff that … I just think you’re too trusting sometimes. I worry, that’s all.”

“And you’re a cop,” Chloe reminded him. “If I let myself, I’d worry about you every time you went to work. I could try to talk you into doing something else, but that wouldn’t be fair. Being a cop is who you are.”

For a while neither spoke. Finally Roelke said, “I gotta admit, it’s beautiful here.”

It’s magical, Chloe thought, but she was willing to accept “beautiful.”
She needed this clearing’s magic to soak into all the scraped-raw places in her heart. “It was important for me to actually be here while working on the lighthouse project,” she told him. “The stories I found … well, it’s like I was saying before. I just try to gather all the scraps I can, and then stitch them into some kind of whole cloth. And sometimes …” She let her voice trail away. Sometimes extra bits reverberated through time, and gave her more to work with.

She thought about all the people who’d come to Rock and gone again over the centuries, people who lived through joy and grief
and then disappeared without a trace. She’d heard just a few
stories—James McNeil and his Yellow Boys, Viking travelers overpowered by native people, the ill-fated
Griffon
. Most of the strange things she’d encountered that week had been explained, but she still didn’t know who was anchoring in the channel after dark. Maybe the legends were true, and the
Griffon
still sailed on foggy nights. Maybe Brenda’s ex had found a Viking ship. Maybe they’d never know. And you know what? Chloe thought. That’s OK.

A cardinal landed in a honeysuckle bush and started to sing. Then the sound of childish laughter drifted over the grass. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

“The engine, you mean?” Roelke shaded his eyes, scanning the channel. “It’s just a powerboat. Pretty far away.”

Chloe felt her throat thicken, and tears sting her eyes. She was more sure than ever that this was what she was meant to do—work as a curator, dig out lost stories, sometimes hone in on old vibes as she’d done in the lighthouse and at the fishing village site. Roelke wanted to be with her, but he had no idea what he was getting into.

So tell him, she ordered herself. This man has saved you from harm, saved you from despair, waited for months while you dither. He deserves to know. She slid a sideways glance Roelke’s way. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.

The laughter came again. Chloe shut her eyes, trying to open herself to whatever or whomever might be waiting. Emily, she thought, I didn’t find your story.

What she perceived was a growing sense of contentment.
I was happy here. Not because of the beauty, although I treasured every sunrise. Not because I once was assistant keeper, although that gave me great satisfaction and pride. I was happy here because of time shared with my family, and with my friends.

Chloe opened her eyes. She waited to hear the laughter again. It didn’t come.

“Roelke,” she said. “I … I wanted to have some time alone because I’ve been wrestling with a lot of stuff. I spent years in a screwed-up relationship, and I almost made the same mistake last month.”

“Yeah. You did.”

“Sometimes I think I do better with historical people than present-day ones. I don’t know if I’m meant to be in a serious relationship.” She hesitated, keeping her gaze north.