Free Death at Gills Rock by Patricia Skalka Page B

getting back to you with the official test results on the three gentlemen at Gills Rock. No question, carbon monoxide. Blood levels for each came in around seventy-two hundred ppm. You’ll have the paperwork later this morning.”
    â€œHow long …?”
    â€œNo way of knowing. If the concentration of CO in the room was low, up to half an hour. If the concentration was high, they would have died within two or three minutes.”
    â€œThere was nothing obviously wrong with the space heater.”
    â€œWell, something caused the buildup of carbon monoxide.”
    Squirrels, thought Cubiak.
    Pardy went on. “I’ve got a call in to the DA as well. Bathard says Blackwell will want an inquest if only to make the cause of death official and rule it an accident.” She hesitated. “Do you want me to call the families or shall you?”
    Cubiak heard chatter in the background. Someone trying to get her attention. “I’ll do it. Thanks.”
    â€œAny time.”
    Pardy hung up. Cubiak gave a half smile. The coroner was not from Door County and like him lacked the penchant for filling time with niceties. The sheriff held the receiver and fished Ida Huntsman’s contact information from his wallet. He was punching in the number when the intercom button flashed red again.
    â€œUrgent call for you, sir. Line two.” Lisa was uncharacteristically terse.
    Cubiak jumped to the incoming call.
    â€œSheriff, Walter Nils …”
    â€œI was just phoning your …”
    Walter cut him off. “You gotta get up here, Sheriff.”
    â€œWhere are you?”
    â€œGills Rock. At my mother’s place.”
    â€œWhat’s going on?”
    â€œCome see for yourself. It’s just hateful. How could anyone do this?” Walter’s voice was thick, as if he’d been crying. “Hurry, please.”
    F or the second time in three days, Cubiak made the drive north. Nature had not wasted time extending spring’s verdant hue up the peninsula. Grass and trees were kissed with a rich halo of green. In Ephraim, golden forsythia bloomed alongside the crocuses and daffodils. Even the landscape past Sister Bay had shed its gloomy mantle. Only the farthest tip of the land retained winter’s somber tones.
    The last mile to Huntsman’s home was almost a repeat of Saturday: the statue-like gulls perched on the rocks, the barking dog still tethered to the willow. The only difference was the clothesline behind the Smitz house. Before, empty; now, laden with laundry: yellow checked sheets and pillowcases, two faded pink towels, several blouses, and a pair of men’s long underwear, dingy from overuse and stiff with frost.
    Cubiak started the turn into Huntsman’s driveway when he braked and stopped. Something was different. On the other side of the road, three of the plumbing vans had been moved from the lot and parked bumper-to-bumper along the front of the building, obscuring the company logo. That’s odd, Cubiak thought. As he walked over for a closer look, a woodpecker started hammering into the trunk of a nearby tree. Although the sheriff couldn’t see the bird through the foliage, he sensed that his every move was being telegraphed through the forest. Leaning around the hood of the first van he discovered what was hidden behind the lineup of vehicles—a white wall defaced with angry strokes of red paint that spelled out a nasty farewell: Good Riddance.
    Cubiak whistled quietly. The bird’s staccato concert paused but began again when he picked up a stick and poked at the crimson streak that underlined the message. The paint was fresh. He looked around but the hard ground yielded no footprints.
    The vandals hadn’t stopped with defacing the shed. At the Rec Room, they’d dislodged the cardboard from the broken window, smashed several other panes of glass, and made deep scratches in the picture window. The woodpecker transmitted a flurry