Death Stalks Door County by Patricia Skalka Page B

cans. Alice was slumped forward. Her hands were clasped over her stomach, the long nails, one of them broken, were painted the same bright red as her shorts. Her face was hidden by her hair, and her neck obscured by the jacket’s crumpled blood-soaked hood. Alice’s skull had been neatly dissected, both the frontal and parietal bones split down the middle from front to back.
    A battery of klieg lights ringed the crime scene, illuminating the individual pebbles and blades of grass and keeping the spooky shadows at bay. Bathed in the unnatural glow, Bathard went about his methodical work. In the surrounding darkness, three deputies searched the underbrush for the murder weapon. Cubiak listened to them call out to each other as they thrashed through the undergrowth. He and Halverson stood on opposite sides of the clearing, each man half in light and half in darkness, each lost in thought. Had Barry murdered the girl? The sheriff had dared whisper the question earlier. “Oh, Jesus, God, I hope not,” he’d said, paling at the prospect. Cubiak couldn’t see it. The boy wanted to fuck Alice, not kill her. Why was she attacked here? Why the park again? Cubiak scrubbed his scalp, trying to blur the images of the dead girl. He needed a drink.
    L ate in the morning, Beck phoned Jensen Station. Three hours’ sleep didn’t go far, and Cubiak struggled to follow the man’s compulsive patter. “Why are you telling me this?” he said. Beck didn’t reply, just kept on with the story of how Halverson had questioned Barry for an hour, with the family lawyer present, until a fuller picture emerged of the previous evening’s events. The victim was Alice Jones, sixteen going on seventeen that month, a local girl who’d just finished her junior year at Door County High and was known largely for being a regular at Kingo’s Resort.
    â€œKingo’s,” Beck said, spitting out the word.
    â€œNever heard of it.”
    â€œCount yourself lucky. Kingo’s is a goddamn genuine biker bar on Kangaroo Lake.”
    Cubiak had heard of the lake, the peninsula’s largest inland body of water. Kingo’s, according to Beck, was a colossal thorn in his side and an affront to all that Door County represented. Unfortunately for the Tourism Board, the resort was a legitimate business, handed down by a drunken father to a druggie son.
    â€œTourists don’t generally frequent the joint but Petey Kingovich, the owner, is pretty lax about checking IDs, a policy that cultivates a certain clientele among the younger locals,” Beck said.
    â€œThat why your son goes there?”
    Beck swore. “Barry claims he’d only been to the bar the one time, the night he met Alice Jones. It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Beck went on, “if Alice wasn’t one of Petey’s girls. He’s known to like his ladies on the young side.”
    In fact, Beck allowed, he and Halverson figured that Barry had probably frequented the bar often enough to goad Petey into a jealous attack on Alice. The murder weapon had not been found in the woods. The sheriff was laying odds it might show up at Kingo’s.
    â€œHalverson’s going there later to check things out. I want you with him,” Beck said.
    â€œWhy? There’s no reason I should go.”
    â€œShe was killed in the park. That’s reason enough,” Beck said and slammed the receiver down. “Son of a bitch,” he growled.
    On the wall behind Beck’s desk, four generations of family history were documented in an array of photos, certificates, and news clips. Beck knew each one by heart. Understood their progression, their testimony to the one-upmanship of the generations. “Son of a bitch,” he said again.
    T he sheriff ’s entourage picked up Cubiak at dusk. From the park the caravan sped east across the peninsula. The ranger rode in the rear of Halverson’s jeep, which was