Swimmer

Off shore of the Door County peninsula in Wisconsin, on Chambers Island, a man long forgotten lives in an underground chamber, isolated from all other humans.  His food supply disappears when the last deer on Chambers Island dies.  To feed his hunger and to satisfy the malignant evil that controls him, he swims at night in search of prey. A young lawyer disappears while mooring his new boat in Fish Creek Harbor.  A local college student, Melissa Thorpe is murdered while night swimming.  Her mutilated body washes up on the shore of Sunset Beach and is found by a tourist couple. Lloyd Jornt, a washed up and usually intoxicated former detective, who has been kicked off both the Chicago Police Department and the Door County Sheriff's Department, is reluctantly recruited to assist in the investigation.  Lloyd is the only one in the county with any homicide experience.  Hesitant, he isn't sure he can quit the drink, Lloyd accepts the position. Todd Grafton, a twelve-year-old deaf boy, lives on Cottage Row, a well-to-do lane that follows the bay’s shoreline.  Todd broke through the ice when he was only four.  His mother drown when she too fell through the ice rescuing Todd.  Todd lost both his mother and his hearing in the tragic accident.  Todd's father is most often away on business.  Todd has no siblings.  He has no companions other than the nanny his father has hired and she is awful.  Todd refers to her, in his mind only, as the Nanny Nazi.  He has no idea that her role is more than a nanny.  She has become a servant of the same evil that controls the man on Chambers Island.  In order to pass time, Todd revels in studying the night sky with his telescope.  The stars are silent like Todd's life.  While studying the night, Todd spies a man far out in the bay, swimming.  Despite being forbidden from going anywhere near the water because of his near drowning and his mother's death, Todd decides that he will become a swimmer too.  The swimming man is his new hero. Clay Wallace is an amateur naturalist, obsessed with collecting insects.  Chambers Island has a unique ecology that harbors some strange insects, insects that Clay Wallace wants to capture, kill, and stick onto his bug display.  While on the island searching for a reclusive beetle species, Clay Wallace meets the swimming man and becomes the hunted rather than the hunter.  He loses the battle.  The only sign that he was even on the island is his red Lund dragged up on the beach and the empty seat across from his wife at the dinner table. Jeff Winslow is a local slob who arrived during the sixties.  He spends his time doing odd jobs, smoking weed, and drinking.  There are a lot of Jeff Winslows in the county.  In search of beer and weed money, he hooks up with a local commercial fisherman to do some illegal night fishing for walleyes, a restricted species.  While out on the bay in the night, the catch is more than Walleyes.  Jeff and the commercial fisherman become the prey of the swimming man.  Jeff does one thing right before his death, he calls in a May Day on the marine radio. Out on Chambers Island, a retired couple, Milly and Smitty Anderson are the last ones, except for the swimming man, residing on the island.  The season is drawing to a close and the island is pretty much off limits between the time the ice starts forming and the time it is formed.  When the ice is thick enough, an ice highway to the island will be staked out but that won't be until late December.  Lately, a peculiar thing has been happening at the Anderson place.  More than just birds are hanging out around the back yard bird feeder.  A menagerie of animals has taken up residence in the back yard.  They seem afraid.  Of what? Smitty isn't sure; something though.  Sadly, Milly and Smitty find out just what the animals fear when they meet the swimming man. As Lloyd Jornt struggles to keep focus on the escalating killing and off the relentless nagging desire to drink, he meets Todd Grafton.  Todd has stumbled into an abandoned well while fleeing the Nanny Nazi who has now shown her true colors, her true intent.  It is all bad, all evil. Lloyd is searching Cottage Row on the hunch that whoever is doing the killing, just might be residing on Cottage Row, a place with quick access to the bay.  When Lloyd responds to Todd's calls for help, Lloyd ends up in the same predicament as Todd, trapped in the abandoned well.  Together they are able to escape, but not before Todd reveals his discovery, the swimming man; a hero to Todd, likely the killer to Lloyd. As a furious storm pummels the county, Lloyd, the sheriff, an array of deputies and volunteers, and the Coast Guard, head for the island in search of the swimming man, Jeff Winslow, the Andersons, and Clay Wallace.  Todd, ignoring instructions to stay with the sheriff's family, stows away on the Coast Guard boat.  He is being beckoned by the ancient evil. Lloyd is anxious.  His gut tells him that they are on the right course.  The swimming man is the best lead so far and the killing needs to be end. It doesn't end though, more die.  Not until Lloyd confronts his sordid past in the bowels of Chambers Island and faces the evil that has infected the Door County Peninsula is there any chance the killing will cease.