The killer hesitated slightly before he flipped another toggle switch that read “navigation lights”. …Maybe I should make the trip without lights – the boat would be harder to spot. No...too risky. If the sheriff’s out patrolling tonight, and he catches me running without lights, he’ll stop me – maybe even come aboard. That’s the last thing I need tonight – a run-in with the sheriff...
The man flipped the light switch on, and took one last look around the harbor area. Assured that no one was watching him, he pulled the boat’s two red throttle handles downward to their lowest positions, and he pulled two other handles – the boat’s two black shift levers – downward to the “reverse” position. The boat moved slowly backward, out of its slip and into the waters of the harbor’s front bay.
When the bow of the boat had cleared the end of the wooden pier, the man pushed the starboard – right – shift lever to its “forward” position. The boat slowly rotated left until its bow was pointing towards the mouth of the harbor. Then the man also pushed the port – left – shift lever to its “forward” position. The boat slowly moved straight into the mouth of the harbor, towards the lake beyond.
As the boat moved out of the harbor and into the lake – Lake Winneconne – the man pushed the two red throttle handles slightly higher. The boat picked up speed and the man settled in behind the boat’s steering wheel, making slight adjustments to keep the boat on the westerly compass course that he’d plotted two weeks earlier. He had to be careful in these waters – the depth was only 4 feet, and there were submerged weed beds scattered everywhere. There was very little light, but it was enough – he could see the southern shoreline of the lake, and he could see the tops of the weeds flying by on either side of the boat.
Eight minutes later the boat passed Lone Willow Island, which marked the end of Lake Winneconne and the beginning of Lake Poygan. The killer relaxed a little as he saw the island, because it meant the water depths would increase from this point on – from 6 feet to 12 feet. The worst part is over now…
For the next 18 minutes the killer steered the boat due west, and monitored the water’s depth using the boat’s GPS and its depth sounder. 6 feet…8 feet…10 feet…
When the depth sounder registered 10 feet, the killer pulled the twin red throttle handles down to their lowest position. The boat slowed to a crawl. 11 feet…12 feet...
Then the man pulled the boat’s two black shift levers to their neutral – idle – position. He had reached his destination – 44o 08.500’ North Latitude, 88o 49.900’ West Longitude.
Horseshoe Hole. The boat was sitting in 12 feet of water, with Horseshoe Hole immediately below it. The lake was dead calm. The boat was not moving. The only sounds were the boat’s twin Chrysler engines, idling.
The killer turned off the navigation lights and stepped outside onto the bow. He looked around the lake. Everything was dark. There were no lights anywhere along the lake’s shoreline. He could see the silhouettes of several trees – but no cottages – along the lake’s southern shoreline, approximately a mile away. He could see two vague dark mounds at Old Indian Point and Norwegian Bay, two miles away on the northern shoreline. He could see absolutely nothing along the shoreline to his west and his east, over three miles away. Excellent. If I can’t see them, they can’t see me, he reasoned to himself.
He went back inside and checked the boat’s GPS one more time. Better than I’d hoped. The boat hasn’t moved enough to register a change.
He turned away from the helm and walked down the short flight of stairs, through the galley, and into the aft cabin. His victim was still asleep. He nodded confidently and walked to the foot of her bed, where he opened the sliding glass door leading out to the aft deck. A slight breeze wafted through the open door, and the sound of the idling engines became louder inside the boat.
The killer walked back to the side of the bed, pulled the covers away, and lifted his victim’s body onto his right shoulder. He carried her to the end of the bed, and out through the sliding glass door. There he knelt down, and laid the woman on the deck – as close as possible to the twin-pronged anchor he had propped against the starboard railing earlier that evening.
Then the man stood up and went over to the railing, where he began to loosen the end of the nylon anchor rope that he had secured there earlier – the end of the rope he would now use to tie the woman’s body to the anchor. I could use a little light to see this knot, but I can’t risk anyone spotting the boat…hmm…this may take a minute or two…
While the killer stood at the railing working on the knot in the anchor rope, the woman awoke from the noise and the vibration of the engines. She rose unsteadily to her feet and stepped towards the man.
“Where…where are we?” The woman asked in a slurred voice as she struggled to maintain her balance. “What…what did you put in my…my wine?”
Startled by the woman’s voice, the killer turned quickly to face her. His movement rocked the boat slightly, so the woman lost her precarious balance and fell backwards – onto the anchor.
As the twin prongs of the anchor impaled her body, the woman cried out – partly in pain, partly in surprise, and partly in fear for her life. The woman’s cry pierced the night’s silence as a bolt of lightning would have pierced the darkness, and the sound echoed and re-echoed across the lake – again and again and again.
The killer immediately pounced on his victim, clamping the woman’s mouth shut with his left hand, and pushing her further onto the anchor with his right.
“Sarah, Sarah,” he whispered gruffly, “we can’t have that…people will hear us.”
The woman groaned with pain, and struggled to free herself from the man and the anchor. The killer held his struggling victim down and watched anxiously as distant lights blinked on – one by one – dotting the shoreline in all directions.
“Now look what you’ve done, Sarah,” the man whispered, “you’ve awakened all these fine folks from their sleep. Let’s hope they don’t come out for a visit, eh? Now be a good girl and die.”
The woman whimpered, and her struggling grew feeble. As the man continued to hold his victim down and watch the shoreline, the distant lights began disappearing – one by one. Before the last light disappeared, the woman’s body had become limp.
The killer checked his victim’s pulse and nodded with satisfaction. Excellent. I’m back on plan.
Then the killer noticed that a pool of blood was forming underneath the woman’s body. He quickly went back inside the boat, pulled the top sheet from the bed and came back out to the deck. With a tremendous effort, he freed the woman from the anchor and wrapped her in the bed sheet, trying to mop up as much of the blood as he could while he worked. Then he went back to the railing and finished untying the anchor rope knot. He bound the woman’s body with the rope, and eased her and the anchor into the lake on the starboard side of the boat – just as he had rehearsed in his mind.
The killer let out enough nylon rope to set the anchor in the mud at the bottom of Horseshoe Hole – with the woman’s body bound into the rope just above the anchor, approximately 10 feet below the lake’s surface. He temporarily wrapped the free end of the anchor rope to the starboard railing, while he went inside the boat to check the GPS and the depth sounder one more time..
The GPS unit at the helm read 44o 08.625’ North Latitude, 88o 49.700’ West Longitude, and the depth sounder read 12 feet. Still in Horseshoe Hole, and still at 12 feet. Right.
On his way back through the galley, the man took a heavy toolbox from the galley closet, and an empty bucket from beneath the sink.
He returned to the aft deck, tied the toolbox