Purgatory Ridge

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 page. 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.

“Sorry doesn’t bring back the dead.”

She glared up at him. “But money does? I assume that note you left for my husband was a ransom note.”

He snatched the photo from her hand. “I needed the money to continue investigating the wreck, to prove Billy was murdered. That all those men were murdered.”

Grace studied him for a minute, her brown eyes hard, her long nose lifted. “How much are you asking?”

“Two million.”

“My husband will have trouble getting it.”

“Hell, you’re a lot richer than that.”

“I am. But he’s not. And he can’t touch my money. We signed agreements before we married.”

“He’s no pauper.”

“All of his assets are tied up in the mill. On his own, he can’t come up with more than a few hundred thousand.”

“You’re lying.”

“My life is at stake here, Mr. LePere. And my son’s. Why would I lie?”

“Nobody’s going to die.”

“But we know who you are.”

“Yeah.” The anger seemed to wash from him. His shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes a moment. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He stepped to a chair, a bentwood rocker, and sat down. He stared at his brother’s photograph, held delicately in his hands.

“When I was on that raft, something strange happened to me, something I’ve never told anybody about.”

He told them the story of his ordeal on the raft. The huge waves, the freezing water, the fierce bitter wind. The men dying one by one until he alone was left. Then he told them what he’d never told anyone else. “My father came to me. My dead father. He sat on the edge of the raft and told me it wasn’t my time to die. He said he and my mother and Billy were all waiting for me, but it wasn’t my time.” LePere was up now, pacing, the muscles of his face taut with emotion. “I tried to drink that memory away, along with all the other memories about the sinking, but it wouldn’t go. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t my time, why out of all the good men on that ore boat, I was the only one spared. I spent nearly a dozen years lost in figuring that one out. But I finally did.” He stopped pacing and faced Grace. “I’m supposed to find the truth.”

Jo held up her taped hands. “Was this a part of it?”

He seemed genuinely sorry. “No, things just went… wrong. Look, I want to make a deal.”

“We’re listening,” Jo said.

“Your lives in return for a promise that the wreck of the Teasdale will be fully investigated and that nothing that’s found will be covered up.”

Grace Fitzgerald said, “I promise.”

He ignored her, but he looked steadily at Jo. “I know you. I’ve heard your word is good.”

“I give you my word, John. But you understand, you will be prosecuted. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

He sat again in the rocker. “How does that saying go? Know the truth and the truth will set you free. For a long, long time, I’ve felt like a man in prison. You find the truth and it won’t matter what they do to me. I’ll still be free.”

Grace asked cautiously, “Will you let us go now?”

“I can’t. But soon.”

“Why?” Jo asked. “The other man?”

“He’s not a good man,” Grace said.

LePere nodded his agreement. “But I owe him.”

“And how do you intend to repay him?” Jo asked.

“We go through with the ransom. He takes the money-all of it-and disappears. After he’s gone, I set you free, and I take the rap.”

“I told you, my husband may not be able to raise the ransom.”

“Then we’ll take whatever he can give and that will have to do. For me, it was never about money.”

“What about your partner?”

“I’ll take care of him.”

“Never trust a man who’d hurt a child or a woman.”

“He hurt you?”

“Not me. Grace.”

He gave Grace Fitzgerald a questioning look and she nodded.

“It won’t happen again, I give you my word.”

“Let us go,” Grace tried again. “I promise we-”

LePere didn’t let her finish. He stood up and cut her off, saying, “Your sons will be worried.”

Jo and Grace pushed themselves up from the sofa. LePere opened a kitchen drawer and took out a roll of gray duct tape. “Turn around,” he said to Grace.

“Is that still necessary?” she asked.

He just stared at her. His dark eyes were tired but firm. Grace turned around. He taped her hands and led the two women outside.

The moon pushed their shadows ahead of them across the yard to the fish house. LePere stepped in front and took a moment to fumble the key into the lock. As the door swung wide, Jo thought how like a gaping mouth was the darkened opening, waiting to swallow her again. The moment the thought occurred to her, she was startled to see a small silver tongue flick out from that black mouth and lick at John LePere’s belly. LePere grunted and stepped back. The tongue darted again. This time Jo realized that it was the knife blade, glinting in the light of the moon. She didn’t have a chance to cry out, to move at all before LePere snatched the boy and lifted him off the ground. Boy and man struggled briefly, the knife thrust high above them, the sharp, clean steel fired by moonlight. The blade fell and lay on the ground, still glowing as if white-hot. The boy became a dark, empty sack in the powerful grip of John LePere.

“Let him go,” Grace Fitzgerald cried, for it was Scott whom LePere held.

Then another form shot from the fish house and hit LePere low. The man stumbled but did not go down. The small dark figure attached itself to LePere’s legs and little grunts escaped as he tried to topple a man nearly two times his height and several times his weight. The boy in LePere’s grasp resumed his own struggle, flailing his arms and legs wildly.

“Stevie,” Jo called out. “It’s all right. Let the man go.”

And Grace ordered, “Scott, stop. He’s not going to hurt us.”

All the parts of John LePere, who seemed to have become many-headed and many-limbed, grew still. He put Scott down and the boy ran to his mother. Stevie let go his hold and he, too, joined his mother. LePere bent forward-slowly, it seemed-and picked up the knife. The blade threw a reflection of moonlight across his eyes. He looked at the boys.

“That was a brave thing to do.”

His left hand went to his stomach. Jo could see a dark staining on his shirt.

“You’re cut,” she said.

He tugged his shirt tail loose from his pants and took a look beneath. “It’s only a nick.” He stepped into the fish house and turned on the light. “Everybody back inside.”

They filed past him. He taped the boys’ hands again, but he didn’t bother to tape their ankles or their mouths. He looked at the shelves of equipment from which Jo had taken the knife.

“There may be something else in there that tempts you. Please don’t. It will be over soon,” he promised. “And you’ll be with your families again.”

“One thing,” Grace said.

“Yes?”

“The other man. Don’t leave us alone with him.”

“I give you my word.”

He put them in the dark and locked the door. Jo listened to his slow step as he crossed the yard to his house, to that place that once had held family for him but never would again.