The fish house was ten feet wide by fifteen feet long. Waist-high tables were built against the long sides. The floor was solid maple planking with a drain dead center. There was a washbasin and cupboard at one end and half a dozen built-in shelves at the other. Three days before, after he’d found the fish house broken into and his equipment destroyed, he’d installed bars over every window and put a new heavy-duty lock and hasp on the door. He’d cleaned out the useless materials from inside, so that except for a couple of empty wooden crates and a few items on the shelves, the fish house was bare. There was plenty of room for his “guests.”
“Sit on the floor,” he said.
The Fitzgerald woman tried to speak through the tape over her mouth. LePere pulled the tape off.
“Scott needs food.”
“You gave him the insulin,” LePere said.
“He needs food now.”
LePere had to admit the boy didn’t look so good. “Anything special?”
“Fruit. Or peanut butter and jelly on bread. Sweetened cereal. Almost anything.”
“All right.” He took the tape off the O’Connor woman’s mouth. “What about you and your boy?”
“Water,” she replied. She looked down at her son, whose mouth LePere had refrained from taping. “Stevie, do you want anything?”
The boy stood hard against his mother, barely as tall as her waist. He shook his head.
“Maybe some peanut butter and jelly. And some milk,” his mother suggested to LePere.
“Sit down,” he told them. When they had, he said, “I’ll be back.” He turned out the light, locked the door behind him, and headed across the yard.
He’d also cleaned his little house on Purgatory Cove after it had been trashed. The only obvious signs of the destruction were the bare places on the walls where his mother’s needlepoint had hung. LePere went to the phone and dialed Bridger’s number in Aurora. He got the answering machine.
“Fire burned down the cabin. I’ve got our friends. We’re visiting Anne Marie.” He hung up, wondering where the hell Bridger could be at that time of the morning.
From the food he kept in the kitchen, he fixed sandwiches and put them on a tray. He put a carton of milk, a jug of water, and some old Welch’s jelly jar glasses into a paper bag, and he carried it all out to the fish house. He set the things on a tabletop and turned the light back on.
“Okay,” he said. “One at a time. You first.” He cut the tape from the wrists of the diabetic boy and handed him a sandwich. The boy began to eat.
“Where are we?” the O’Connor woman asked.
He didn’t see any point in not telling her. “The north shore. A couple of miles out of Beaver Bay.”
“What kind of place is this?” the rich woman asked.
“This is a fish house. My father’s. He was a herring choker.”
“Herring choker?”
“A fisherman,” LePere explained. “He caught herring in a net. To get them out, he had to grab them around the throat and untangle them. Herring choker.” He poured water from the jug into one of the glasses and offered it to the boy, who’d finished eating. When the water was drunk, LePere took the glass. “I’m going to tape your wrists again.”
The boy put his arms behind him and leaned forward.
“Why us?” his mother asked.
LePere didn’t answer. He finished taping, then turned to the O’Connor boy. “Now you.”
When the boy’s hands were free, LePere gave him a sandwich. The boy only looked at it. “Not hungry?”
“He likes to drink his milk along with his food,” the O’Connor woman said.
LePere shrugged and poured the boy some milk. The boy began to eat, sandwich in one hand, milk glass in the other.
“Why us?” the Fitzgerald woman asked again.
LePere was tired and didn’t feel like going into it. “If you ask me again, I’ll tape your mouth shut.”
The women ate a little and drank some water, each in her turn. LePere had the duct tape in hand, ready to bind the rich woman’s hands again when she said, “How much?”
“How much what?”
“To let us go. How much? I can pay you whatever you want.”
His face burned with anger. He stared at her, a woman who’d lived her life in luxury, who’d always been able to buy her way out of trouble. He wanted her to know, to understand as profoundly and horribly as he did, that there were some circumstances money could not alter.
“What is it you want?” she pressed him.
“The dead alive again.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. But you will.” He stepped behind her and pulled her arms back roughly.
“Please,” she said. “You’re hurting me.”
“Hurting you?” Something snapped inside him. He jumped away and yanked the gun from his belt. “Be glad I’m not killing you.”
“John.” It was the O’Connor woman, speaking to him quietly. “She didn’t mean anything. She’s just scared. We all are.”
LePere stared down at his hand and saw that it was trembling. He was surprised—and frightened—to see his fingers wrapped around the gun and to know that he’d drawn it without thinking. What else might he do without thinking? He looked at the O’Connor woman. It was her voice that had grounded him, and the fact that she’d spoken his name. He put the gun back in his belt.
“Your hands,” he said to the rich woman. Then he added, “Please.”
She put her arms behind her and said not another word as he bound her wrists. He went to the door. “I’ll check back in a while.” He turned the light off and slapped the lock in place.
He didn’t go to the house. He walked down to the small dock where the Anne Marie was tied. The hailstorm earlier had swept across the North Woods and headed east so swiftly that nothing at all could be seen of it now in the distant dark where black sky and black water met in an indistinguishable horizon. Purgatory Cove and the great lake beyond it were very still. LePere remembered summer days with Billy, challenging one another to jump from the dock into the water of the cove that, even in August, was cold enough to cramp every muscle of his body in an instant. Billy was always the first to go. Not only would he hit the water but he’d also swim out a distance, mocking his older brother, who seldom did more than jump in and climb quickly out. Billy tolerated the cold better than LePere ever could. It seemed all wrong that Billy was the one the lake had taken.
As he had so often—and so pointlessly—over the years, LePere tried to fathom the reason he’d survived the wreck of the Teasdale when, by all rights, he should have been the one dancing with the other dead at the bottom of Kitchigami. In the still of the night, a thought occurred to him, the first clear understanding he’d experienced in a very long time. He should have been dead. From the moment he climbed aboard the little pontoon raft on that angry lake, he’d felt dead. And after that, for more than a dozen years, he’d walked dead through every day.
John LePere understood that in the dangerous game he’d become part of, the hand that had rolled snake eyes that day was his own.
35
AS SOON AS THE SOUND of John LePere’s footsteps receded from the fish house, Jo slid herself against the wall and began the struggle to stand.
“What are you doing?” Grace whispered.
“My best to get us out of here. I’ll need your help. You’ve got to stand up, too.”
“What about us?” Scott asked.
“Until I tell you, just stay put,” Jo replied. “That would be the biggest help.”
Jo managed to get herself on her feet. With her ankles taped, she was forced to hop to maneuver to a window. In a moment, Grace had joined her.
“See him?” Jo asked. “There on that little dock.” She nodded toward a figure, pale in the moonlight, beside a large boat. LePere was standing very still, staring out at the cove. “Tell me if he moves this way.”
Jo left Grace to her duty and hopped toward
the shelves built into the wall at the far end of the fish house. She didn’t know what she was looking for exactly, but the bit of equipment stored there offered hope. In her hurry, she lost her balance and toppled against one of the long wooden tables that ran along the sides of the single room. Her face came near the tabletop that held a thousand scars from knife blades, and she caught the ghost of an odor, the old smell of fish that had soaked into every fiber of the wood. She righted herself and, more carefully, made her way across the floor.
“You called him by name,” Grace said very quietly. “You know him.”
“Don’t you?”
“Should I?”
“His name is John LePere. He’s your neighbor on the cove.” She bent toward the shelves, trying to see by moonlight what they held.
“I’ve never seen him up close. I always had the feeling he resented us being there.”
“It looks like he resented you a lot more than you thought.”
“Mom?”
“Yes, Scott.”
“I talked to him once.”
“When?”
“A while ago. I was down by the creek and he was there, too. He seemed nice.”
“People aren’t always what they seem, Scott.”
The items on the shelves were a diverse collection of boating equipment, diving gear, and general materials. At first glance, nothing that would help.
“I’m sorry, Jo,” Grace said.
“For what?”
“If you hadn’t come out to my house, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Not your fault there are monsters in the world, Grace.”
Jo tried to stoop without falling over. She wanted a better look at the bottom shelf.
“Do you think they’re looking for us?” Grace asked.
“I know Cork is.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know Cork.”
“You love him.” Grace sounded envious.
Stevie whispered, “I want Daddy.” His voice was on the edge of tears.
“We’ll get you back to Daddy,” Jo promised.
She saw something, like a large white feather, where the moonlight fell on the lowest shelf. She wobbled a bit as she lowered herself to her knees, but she made it down safely. Her heart seemed to give a loud, joyous thump when she saw that it was no feather but the clean steel blade of a knife. She began to work her way around so that her back was to the shelf, and she had a shot at grabbing the knife handle. Leaning back, she pushed her arms as far as her sore shoulders would let her, and she touched the knife. Her fingers scrabbled to find a hold.
“Yes!” she whispered triumphantly.
“What is it?”
“A knife. I’ve got a knife.”
She rocked back slowly and pushed herself up, trying to stand from her kneeling position. She’d almost made it when she lost her balance again and fell against the shelves. Her shoulder bumped a paint can, which fell to the floor with a clatter.
“He’s coming back,” Grace whispered sharply.
Holding desperately to the knife, Jo hopped toward the place next to Stevie where she’d been sitting when John LePere had left them. She was keenly aware that if she fell, she risked a terrible wound in her back. Grace had already resumed her position next to Scott. Jo was not quite to Stevie when she heard the crunch of LePere’s feet on the gravel outside the fish house. She hopped once more, a long, dangerous move that brought her up against the wall. The lock clicked open and the metal hasp clanked as it was unlatched. Jo dropped the knife and let her body slide down quickly, her butt covering the blade.
LePere stepped in. He turned the light on and looked carefully at Jo and the others. “I thought I heard something.”
“I was uncomfortable,” Jo said. “I was trying to get into a different position.”
He nodded but seemed distracted. He said to Jo, “I want to talk to you.” His eyes shifted to Grace. “And you.”
He took out his pocket knife and cut the tape around Jo’s ankles. He moved to Grace and did the same. Jo was thinking fast, trying to figure what to do with the knife hidden under her. Stevie bumped against her and she caught the look in his eye. As LePere helped Grace to her feet, Jo slid left and Stevie followed, hiding the knife with his own little body. Jo glanced down at her son. Good boy, her look said.
LePere stepped to Jo, helped her up, and said to the boys, “They’ll be back.” He indicated Jo and Grace should precede him. When they were all outside, he turned and locked the fish house. “Follow me.” He led them to his tiny house, opened the door, and said, “Inside.”
When John LePere switched on a lamp, Jo was surprised by what she found. It was a cozy place, well kept. There was a good feel to it, to the way everything seemed to have a proper place to be. She’d always thought of men alone as a little barbaric in the way many of them lived comfortably with disorder and dirt.
“Sit down.”
He indicated a small sofa with a floral design. When they were seated, he left them, went into another room, and came back in a few moments with a stack of newspapers in his hands.
“I want you to understand why I’m doing this.”
He put the newspapers on the clean surface of the coffee table, moved behind Grace, and cut free her hands.
“Read,” he said, and he pointed to the newspapers.
Jo, too, read what LePere had offered them. They were old newspapers, old by a dozen years. The date on the first was November 19, 1986. The headline read ORE BOAT SINKS IN SUPERIOR; CREW FEARED DEAD. The story reported that the ore carrier Alfred M. Teasdale, bound for Duluth harbor, had foundered in a terrible gale on Lake Superior and had apparently sunk with all hands aboard. Winds of ninety miles per hour had been recorded at the weather station on Devil’s Island and radio reports from other vessels on Lake Superior indicated the gale had produced thirty-foot waves. The last communication with the Teasdale had been at eleven-thirty-seven P.M., nearly a day and a half earlier, when the captain reported to the Coast Guard station at Duluth that he was altering the ship’s course to seek shelter in the lee of the Apostle Islands. Because no other communication occurred, it was assumed the ore carrier had made it safely and was waiting out the storm. Official report of the ship as missing wasn’t made until nearly thirty-six hours later. The search was being carried out in a large area centered on the ship’s last known location north of the Apostle Islands. The Coast Guard held out little hope that anyone had survived.
“Now this one,” LePere said, and he handed them a second paper.
It was dated the next day, November 20, 1986. The headline read SOLE SURVIVOR OF SHIPWRECK FOUND. The article reported that the Coast Guard had located a single pontoon raft from the lost ore carrier Alfred M. Teasdale. Three men had made it onto the raft before the ship went down, but only one man had survived the long ordeal of the wait to be rescued. John Sailor LePere had been found, barely alive, as the raft floated in open water nearly twenty miles from the area believed to be the site of the sinking. LePere had been flown by Coast Guard helicopter to Ashland, Wisconsin, where his condition was reported as serious.
“Here.” LePere handed the women another paper.
It was dated November 22, 1986. SOLE SURVIVOR TELLS TERRIFYING TALE was the headline.
Grace Fitzgerald let the paper lie unread in her lap. She looked up at LePere. “What does any of this have to do with us?”
“With you,” LePere replied brusquely. “The Teasdale was owned and operated by the Fitzgerald Shipping Company. She was an old carrier, too old. She should have been scrapped long before that last passage.”
“The article says the storm was one of the worst ever on Superior.”
“No other ships were lost.” LePere slapped the remaining newspapers down on the coffee table and leaned toward Grace. “The Teasdale had help in its sinking.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Explosives,” LePere said. He grabbed a newspaper and tore away part of a pag
e. He took out his pocket knife and unfolded the blade. “Small charges set in a line across the hull.” He poked a line of holes with the tip of his knife across the piece of newsprint. “Then you wait for a storm, the kind of storm that happens all the time on the Great Lakes in November. And when it comes, you detonate the charges all at the same time.” With the blade, he cut dashes where he’d poked holes. “The waves twist the hull up and down, and eventually, the ship breaks up.” He tore the paper in half along the line he’d made. “And it looks like a terrible accident.”
“That sounds awfully far-fetched,” Grace said.
“Believe me, it’s been done before.”
“But why?”
“Insurance.”
Grace Fitzgerald’s face grew hard. “You’re saying my father or his agents would have conspired to cause a tragedy like this for the insurance money? Obviously, you didn’t know my father, Mr. LePere.”
“I have proof. Hard proof.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I located the wreck. I’ve been diving it, filming the damage to the hull. The proof is there. But someone’s been watching me. A few days ago they tried to kill me. They destroyed all my equipment.”
“And you think it was someone from Fitzgerald Shipping.”
“No one else would have cared.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Believe it.” LePere stormed from the room and came back with a framed photograph. He nearly threw it at Grace Fitzgerald. She glanced at it, then at LePere. “My brother Billy,” he said. “The last picture I ever took of him. He went down on the Teasdale. He was only eighteen years old.”
Grace took a longer, more careful look at the photo. The boy—for he was a boy, long and angular in his face and limbs, with a body that was held awkwardly, as if he hadn’t yet grown into it completely—was smiling. He stood on a small dock, with a cove at his back, and a high, dark wall of rock rising beyond that. “I’m sorry,” she said.