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both silent. Then the sheriff spoke. “Yeah. Most people have no idea.” He looked at Bathard. “You were in the service?”
    The physician’s shoulders stiffened slightly, accentuating his ramrod posture. “Navy medical corps. Vietnam. Different—if one war can be different from another.” Bathard cleared his throat. “As to the door, it’s also possible that given the dampness and the proximity to the bay, the door was stuck and in the panic of trying to get in, Ida and Clyde assumed it was locked and smashed the window.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œYou’re not convinced.”
    â€œI’m just wondering, that’s all.”
    The locked door was just one issue puzzling the sheriff. Cubiak had grown up blue collar, with friends whose fathers were in the trades: plumbers, electricians, carpenters. Though they did well, none approached the level of prosperity that Huntsman appeared to have attained. He could have inherited the land and the business as well. But if he’d had to start from scratch, how’d he make enough to accumulate the sprawling waterfront property, the boats and cabin, and the huge house?
    Cubiak finished with the doctors and continued around the cabin. Earlier, he’d noticed a faint path through the woods. Alone, he followed it. The trail cut through a grove of lush pines and ended at a small cove lined with smooth black rocks. The shallow inlet opened onto the bay but a curved slip of heavy forest blocked the view to the house and village, leaving the area completely isolated.
    Three of a Kind, as Cubiak had already come to think of the men. They could have been doing anything here and no one would have known. Smuggling drugs or money. Or operating an illegal poker ring. He was the nearest law, and he was forty-some miles away in Sturgeon Bay.
    â€œJesus.” Cubiak scooped up an ebony stone and skimmed it along the surface of the water. After nearly two years on the peninsula, he was still thinking like a big city cop. Life’s different here, he told himself.
    I t was after one when Cubiak left Huntsman’s place. Walter had remained inside with his mother, giving the sheriff a chance to question Clyde Smitz privately. The neighbor more or less corroborated Ida’s story about the door and sequence of events. Smitz got the call, ran over to the cabin, and was ramming the door with his shoulder when Ida arrived and smashed the window with a rock. Then he’d reached in and flipped the latch.
    â€œSo the door was locked?” Cubiak said.
    â€œI guess. Yeah, sure, it had to be.” Smitz massaged his left shoulder. “It was all so fast, you know. I didn’t really know what the hell was going on. I could see them sitting there and I knew something wasn’t right.”
    Did Smitz wonder why the door was locked? No. All he wondered was why three men he knew had to endure such a tragic, senseless death.
    Cubiak left the neighbor to join the others on the lawn and quietly slipped away. There was no one else to talk with and no reason to linger. At Highway 42, he turned toward the heart of Gills Rock, hoping he hadn’t missed lunch at the Sunset Café. The village’s lone restaurant looked out over the small harbor and deserted ferry landing. From the lot, he climbed a flight of wooden stairs to the entrance. A bell jingled as he opened the door. A bald man at a corner table and the waitress talking to him looked up at the noise. The waitress said something to the patron and walked toward Cubiak.
    â€œAnywhere you like,” she said, gesturing toward the empty tables. She was square and stout with short wavy hair that was dyed fiercely black. The name tag on her ample chest read Mabel.
    The sheriff took a stool at the end of the counter.
    â€œWe’re out of the pork chops,” Mabel said as she handed him the menu with a hand-printed list of specials paper-clipped inside.
    He scanned the list,