Sunday, May 21
It was cold and the waves were running high with white caps, but I decided to stay on deck. I hadn’t taken my car, and there was a chain smoker nervously puffing away inside the enclosed deck area. I only wished I’d worn a sweater under my down jacket. I sat huddled against the steel mesh fencing, watching the light glitter the green water. But the sunlight did little to warm me. Cold was beginning to be a condition with me.
By the time we docked, my throat had started to ache even when I didn’t swallow. I pressed the glands on the sides of my neck; they felt swollen and hot. When I got home, I’d take some aspirin, the universal cure for most everything.
Andy Weathers wasn’t at the dock, nor was he on a ferry run. The woman at the ticket booth told me he had the day off. So I walked up Green Bay Road, a cold wind in my face.
Though his place wasn’t visible from the road, it wasn’t hard to find. Just as Roz had described, there was a Weathers Boat Repair sign at the entrance to the grassy driveway. Below it was a black metal mailbox. The name Weathers was painted in white letters across it. There were no numbers.
As I walked down the narrow tree-edged drive, strains of classical music wafted through the air. I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like the dense tones of Bach.
The red-shuttered cottage was set in a sunny clearing like a gingerbread house. I stood on the stone steps and rang the bell several times before the music dimmed and I heard someone moving around inside.
A tall, thin man with a cleft chin and black-rimmed glasses opened the door. If he was Roz’s boyfriend, they were the most unlikely couple I’d ever seen. As full-figured and obvious as she was, he was fine-boned and subtle—almost delicate. His light brown hair waved gently back from his high forehead. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and khaki trousers. A pipe was firmly planted between his teeth. Just the thought of them having sex was so incongruent, I almost laughed out loud.
“Yes,” he said, taking the pipe out of his mouth.
“Hi,” I began. I took off one glove and offered him my hand. “I’m Leigh Girard from the Door County Gazette.”
He looked at me as if I were trying to sell him magazine subscriptions.
“Roz gave me directions to your place,” I added.
As if I’d said the magic words, he shook my hand, then swung the door wide inviting me in. I followed him into a low-ceilinged, beamed room where a fire was crackling in the grate. Paneled in dark wood, the room was cozy and warm, like a nest. Two burgundy wing-backed chairs flanked the stone fireplace, each with a matching side table. There was a large bookcase against one wall, and between the front windows was a roll top desk. The only thing that seemed out of order was an open book on one of the chairs.
“You’ve come about the girl,” he said, turning to face me. Light from a front window illuminated a white scar that interrupted his one eyebrow.
“Chet Jorgensen told me you found her,” I said.
“You want some coffee? You look near froze.”
“Sure.” I was jittery with caffeine, but I was so cold I would have drunk motor oil if it was hot.
“Have a seat.” He gestured toward the wing chairs. “Fire’ll warm you up.”
He placed his pipe in an ashtray on one of the side tables and disappeared into the kitchen.
I sat down and slipped off my other glove. The fire felt warm on the side of my face. As I took out my notebook, I leaned forward to read the book’s title: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Mechanic maintaining self.
He returned with two mugs of coffee. He handed me one, then sat down in the adjacent wing chair, placing the book on the table.
“You know Roz then?” he asked, crossing his legs. He was wearing black leather slippers and argyle socks. His clothes seemed at odds with his profession.
“Sort of,” I hedged. “She says tonight’s okay. And something about getting yourself back tonight for a… a lubrication.” I felt myself blush.
He smiled. “If I know Roz, it was my butt she wanted back. Am I right?”
“That’s what she said. Now about Janell Margaris.” I took a sip of coffee. It had a nutty taste, probably some special blend. I put the mug on the table and opened my notebook.
“What do you want to know?” He put down his mug and picked up the pipe.
“Where exactly did you find her?”
“She scared the hell out of me.” He tapped the ashes from his pipe into the ashtray. “She was in the engine room. I didn’t see her at first. Then I heard this noise, like an animal crying. It was coming from under one of the tarps we keep in there. When I lifted the tarp, there she was all huddled up and shivering. I couldn’t get anything out of her. I couldn’t even get her out from under the tarp. So I called the police.”
“Did she say anything at all?” I took a sip of coffee. He was a reporter’s dream—forthcoming and descriptive.
“She wouldn’t even tell me her name.”
“Was she hurt?”
“Not that I could see. But her shirt was ripped. From here to here.” He ran his finger from his collarbone to his mid chest. There was smudged grease under his nail. “And her hair was matted and dirty-looking, like she’d been out in the rain.”
“What time was this that you found her?”
“Nine-thirty or so.”
“What were you doing on the ferry at that time?”
“Didn’t Roz tell you?” He smiled. “I’m the mechanic. I have a contract with both ferry lines. Sometimes I even crew for them. They called me after their last run yesterday. They wanted me to take a look at the engine. It wasn’t running right.”
“Why so late?”
“When else was I going to do it? The line runs all day. If there was something I couldn’t fix, they needed to know ASAP. Especially with the weekend tourist trade.”
“Have you any idea how long she’d been hiding on the boat?”
He opened the table drawer and pulled out a long, white fuzzy pipe cleaner and inserted it into the pipe’s stem. “Can’t say. Though if she’d been on their last run at six, they’d a found her. They always do a check before docking the ferry for the night.”
“Would it be hard for her to sneak on the boat without anyone knowing?”
“It’s kept in the harbor. All she’d have to do is climb a fence.” He pushed and pulled the pipe cleaner back and forth in the pipe’s stem. Then threw the pipe cleaner into the fire. I watched it curl black.
“Did she say anything at all about where’d she’d been?”
“Like I said, she didn’t say anything. She just kept crying and acting scared.”
“Acting? What do you mean?”
“There was something about the way she kept pulling on her hair and twisting her hands. It seemed put on. Then there were her eyes. When she looked at me, I could tell she was gauging my reaction. ‘Am I convincing him? Does he buy it?’ I could see she didn’t believe what she was saying. You know the best liars are the ones who’ve convinced themselves that the lie is the truth.” He took a deep breath and let it out through his mouth. “Wherever she was, she probably doesn’t want her parents knowing. Hence the act.”
“Something could have happened to her,” I said, even though I suspected he was right. “You said her shirt was torn and her hair dirty.”
“That coulda been all part of the act. You didn’t see her.”
The image of Stephanie Everson’s dead body flashed across my brain: the twisted arm, the hair across her face, that one arm under her head, her soiled clothes.
“Ms. Girard? Are you all right?” Weathers’s voice broke through the image. “Ms. Girard?”
I looked at Weathers, then down at my notes. Then back at him. I read my last notation. It said, “Part of an act.”
“The police,” I began, “what happened when they arrived?”
“A policewoman talked her out and they took her away. You know, that one from Brown County, the African-American cop. What’s her name, Hallaway? Whatever she told that kid, it got her out of there pretty quick.”
I hadn’t met Deputy Chief Celeste Hallaway, but I’d heard of her. She was both tough and ambitious.
“I made a statement,” continued Weathers. “And that was it.” He unscrewed the stem of his pipe and blew several times into it, making a whistling sound, then screwed the pipe back together. “Do you think this girl’s disappearance has anything to do with that murdered girl?”
“How do you know about that?” My question came out a little too sharp.
He pinched some tobacco from a black, leather pouch, filled the bowl of his pipe, and lit it, puffing slowly as clouds of smoke rose. “I overheard the police saying something about the girls being friends.”
I didn’t answer. Was he pumping me for information? He wouldn’t be the first person to try that.
“They also said something about the murdered girl being the last person to see that girl I found. Before she disappeared.”
“Stephanie Everson,” I said. “Her name was Stephanie Everson.” The room suddenly felt claustrophobic, choked with the cloying smells of burning wood, furniture polish and coffee.
Again the image of Stephanie Everson flashed across my brain. This time sitting in her living room stroking her cat, Baby. I blinked to make it go away.
“Did you know her?” He stared at me, searching my face. I held his gaze. Then something registered in his eyes.
“You’re the one the police were talking about, aren’t you? The reporter who found the body.” He almost seemed gleeful about his discovery. “Chet mentioned it was a reporter. He didn’t say the name.”
Anger was coursing through my body along with his designer coffee. I didn’t know whom I was angrier at: Chet for being such an idiot or Weathers for prying.
“Unless you have something to add, I’ll be on my way. And thank you for your time.”
I shoved the notebook in my purse and closed the flap.
“I’m right, aren’t I? I can see it in your eyes. That must have been horrific finding her body that way.”
“What you see in my eyes is lack of sleep.” His pity felt voyeuristic.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to upset you. It’s just… you look like you need to talk to someone.” He was like a dog with a bone.
“You don’t have a clue what I need.” As I zipped up my jacket, my hands were shaking again.
He drew on his pipe and exhaled a perfect ring that wavered between us. “Maybe not. But I do know one thing. Keeping something like this bottled up only makes it worse. It’ll eat you up. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? This need to do something, anything. Just to keep ahead of the pain. But the sad fact is no matter what you do, it won’t take it away. And it won’t change things. The girl will still be dead. And you won’t feel any better.”
“I’m writing a story,” I told him, getting up from my chair. “Not trying to feel better.”
“Sometimes,” he said, blowing another circle, “it’s the same thing.”