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11. Monday Evening
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
109 11 Mon day Eve ning Fish Creek was thick with tour ists, and, in the hub bub, Cu biak nearly missed see ing the cor o ner near the side en trance of Babe and Ray’s, one of the town’s most pop u lar sup per clubs. Bath ard had his arm around the shoul der of one woman and was talk ing to an other. The ranger ditched the jeep be hind Evan ge line Davis’s diner and caught up with the three as they slowly pro gressed to ward Sarah Humble’s. Cu biak had never met Cor ne lia. A photo in the coroner’s of fice showed her pe tite and waiflike even in good health. Can cer had di min ished her to a wisp of flesh and bone. She was a sliver, hung on the arms of her com pan ions, both of them hard pressed to mask their alarm. “So pleased to meet you,” she said. Her hand was a feather in Cubiak’s cal loused palm. The other woman looked like Cornelia’s ro bust twin. “My sister-inlaw , Helen,” Bath ard said, intro duc ing her to Cu biak. “I’m on a roll,” Cor ne lia chirped as the two shook hands. Cu biak low ered his glance, barely able to look at her. “I need to talk to you,” he told the phy si cian. The two men set tled Cor ne lia in the car with Helen and then fol lowed the bike path to Pechta’s. This far from the town cen ter, the 110 only sounds were the buzz of mos qui toes and the hard crunch of gravel under foot. The wind off the bay smelled faintly of fish. The duo was quiet, each man caught up in his own thoughts. In side the bar, they took a rear booth. The cor o ner or dered a whis key, neat. Cu biak asked for tonic with lime. At that, Bath ard al lowed a slight rise of the eye brows. “Things change,” Cu biak said as Ame lia went to pour their drinks. “In deed. Cer tainly did for me.” Bath ard con cen trated on fill ing his pipe. “I’m not just a coun try rube, you know. I worked in the big city, too. Until the day I got a park ing ci ta tion for ex ceed ing the time at the meter.” “You give up eas ily.” “The rea son I over stayed my al lot ted time in volved a med i cal emer gency. I was in the li brary ref er ence cen ter when a middle-aged pa tron went into car diac ar rest. For tu nately, I was able to re sus ci tate the man be fore the par a med ics ar rived. Af ter ward, as a mat ter of prin ci ple, I ac com pa nied him to the ER and waited for au thor ities to lo cate a fam ily mem ber. As you might as sume, this took quite a while and I re turned to the li brary to find not one but sev eral ci ta tions slapped on the wind shield. The pa tient re cov ered and called me sev eral weeks later. It turns out he’d been tick eted as well. We con sid ered going to court to gether and ex plain ing the circum stance, but we never did. For some rea son, I re mained fix ated on the trav esty of the tick ets and fi nally de cided that this in ci dent was prob ably the first in a long list of in dig nities and in jus tices I’d be forced to en dure sim ply be cause of the na ture of the city. Too big. Too im per sonal. Six months later, I re turned to Door County and I’ve been here since.” “Do you ever re gret it?” Bath ard fur rowed his brow and tamped the bowl. “Some times. But mostly not. Life was very good for many years, be fore Cor ne lia be came ill.” The cor o ner looked past Cu biak. “Tues days are the worst. That’s when the obit u ar ies ap pear. She reads them all and re cites the de tails to me...