The Gray Drake Page 10

  “Who do you think might have killed Quinn?”

  “I thought it was an accident.”

  This isn’t getting me anywhere. “Did you buy your cocaine from Quinn?”

  Malone put his sunglasses back on.

  * * *

  Burr reconvened the brain trust in his office. “I’ve talked to three of the four highest bidders on Quinn’s trip. And they all have each other as an alibi.”

  “So they’re all out,” Jacob said.

  “Or they’re all lying,” Eve said.

  “Right,” Burr said.

  “So one of his customers could have killed him,” Eve said.

  “Why would they?” Jacob asked.

  “Maybe Quinn took the money and didn’t deliver the drugs,” Eve said.

  “Right again. So where does that leave us?” Burr said.

  “I think this leaves us worse off than we were.” Eve handed Burr a single sheet of paper.

  Burr read it and collapsed into his chair. “Damn it all.”

  “What is it?” Jacob said.

  Burr passed it to Jacob.

  “It’s a show cause. Cullen wants to exhume Quinn Shepherd’s body,” Jacob said.

  “When is the hearing?” Burr said.

  “July 25th,” Jacob said.

  “When is that?” Burr said.

  “That would be tomorrow,” Eve said.

  “Jacob, we have work to do.”

  “We?”

  “You.”

  “I don’t know anything about the law of exhumation,” Jacob said.

  “You are about to,” Burr said.

  “Why does Cullen want to dig up poor Quinn?” Eve said.

  “He wants to match the wound on Quinn’s skull with the canoe paddle. If they match, it’s very bad for Lizzie.”

  “That wouldn’t be conclusive,” Jacob said.

  “No, but it would be connective,” Burr said.

  “What do we do?”

  “We oppose the motion,” Burr said.

  “What if there is no match?”

  Burr ran his hands through his hair, front to back. “We can’t take the chance.”

  “Let’s ask Lizzie,” Jacob said.

  “Who knows if she’d tell the truth,” Burr said.

  “Would she lie to us?” Jacob said.

  “Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. And most especially, clients lie,” Burr said.

  “You haven’t given me one good reason why we should be against this motion.”

  “Because Cullen is for it,” Burr said.

  * * *

  The next day, Burr found himself in the Crawford County Circuit Court. After Skinner had charged Lizzie with murder, her case moved up from the district court to the circuit court. Everything about her case would be decided here in this courtroom, just down the hall from Judge Skinner’s. This one was much like the other, slightly less threadbare, but not by much. At least Burr’s chair rested squarely on all four legs.

  According to the nameplate outside the courtroom, the judge was also named Skinner. Lawrence G. Skinner. Are they brothers?

  Cullen sat across the aisle from Burr. Lizzie sat to Burr’s left, Jacob next to her. Eve sat behind him along with Wes and old Thompson. There was no one else in the gallery.

  “All rise,” said the bailiff with the wispy mustache. “The court of the Honorable Lawrence G. Skinner is in session.”

  A youngish man, no more than thirty-five, appeared from the judge’s chambers. He was tall, thin, and hunched over, as if the ceiling was too low for him to stand up straight. He sat, still hunched over.

  The bailiff cleared his throat. “The circuit court for Crawford County, the Honorable Lawrence G. Skinner presiding, is now in session. Be seated.”

  He’s just a boy.

  Judge Lawrence G. Skinner, as tall as his father was wide, looked up at Cullen, at least his eyes did. His chin disappeared into his Adam’s apple.

  “Mr. Cullen, your motion looks all right to me. So does the certification from the health department. They want you to rebury Quinn as soon as the examination has been completed.”

  “Your Honor.” Burr stood.

  Skinner the younger looked at Burr without moving his head or his neck. “And you are?”

  “Burr Lafayette, Your Honor. Counsel for the defense.” He went through his cuff pulling and tie straightening ritual.

  Judge Skinner moved his eyes without turning his head. “What are you doing with your shirtsleeves?”

  “Your Honor, the law does not favor exhumation. In fact, there is a presumption against exhuming a body.”

  “Mr. Lafayette, I am going to grant Mr. Cullen’s motion.”

  “Your Honor, not only is exhumation not favored, it is rarely granted against the wishes of the family.” Burr picked up a piece of paper in front of him. “Your Honor, I would like to introduce the affidavit of Elizabeth Shepherd, wife of the late Quinn Shepherd and the closest living relative of the deceased. She objects to the motion of exhumation.”

  The boy judge pressed the tips of the fingers of each hand against the other. He tapped them against each other. “My father warned me about you.”

  Burr thought it best to stick to the legal arguments. This particular Skinner didn’t seem nearly as bright as his father, and the senior Skinner wasn’t exactly law-review material, either.

  “Your Honor, the autopsy is a clear written record of the examination of Quinn Shepherd. There is no evidence that he was struck by a canoe paddle. None whatsoever.”

  “Mr. Lafayette, I am interested in what really happened. And the best way to find out what happened is to exhume the body.”

  “Your Honor, I object,” Burr said.

  The judge turned to the prosecutor. “Mr. Cullen, approach the bench.”

  Cullen handed Skinner the motion, which he signed.

  Burr looked at Lizzie. She had her head in her hands.

  She looked up at Burr. “Do you have any idea how terrible this is?”

  “I think I do.”

  “It’s bad enough to think of him in a grave, but to think of that awful Cullen having him dug up and then opening the casket…”

  “I’m so sorry,” Burr said.

  “This is so awful.”

  “What is Cullen going to find?” Burr said.

  “Nothing.” She looked away from Burr. “I don’t know.”

  “Is he going to find out that you hit him with the paddle?”

  She turned back to Burr. She wasn’t crying yet, but she was about to.

  * * *

  Cullen hadn’t wasted any time, but then again, neither had Burr. The next afternoon, he drove to Elmwood Cemetery, about five miles east of The Gray Drake, the graves under a canopy of maples and oaks, not an elm to be seen. The grass barely grew, and the only flowers were faded plastic bouquets, almost all of them blown over. He didn’t like cemeteries in the first place, and the plastic flowers made it worse.

  To his left, the gray marble headstone lay flat on the ground, the inscription facedown. There were at least five other headstones, grand by Elmwood Cemetery standards, that had Shepherd on them.

  The casket hung on a chain from the bucket of a backhoe. A hearse stood by, its rear doors open, waiting. The backhoe operator lowered the casket to the ground. Four men got out of the hearse. They picked up the casket, caked with dirt, its handles tarnished, and slid it in the back of the hearse. The workers shuffled their way over to the hearse and slid the casket in back.

  Burr bolted out of the Jeep and ran over to the hearse. He handed a piece of paper to a chubby, jowly man. The man studied the paper, handed it back to Burr and climbed into the hearse. Burr ran to the door of the hearse and knocked on the window. The man looked out at Burr.

  “Get out,�
�� said the jowly man.

  He started the engine.

  Burr pounded on the window.

  The driver started off.

  Burr ran to the Jeep, climbed in and followed the hearse through the cemetery. He couldn’t pass the hearse unless he drove over graves and knocked over headstones. When they reached the road, Burr gunned the Jeep past the hearse and slammed on the brakes, the Jeep sideways to the hearse.

  The hearse lurched to a stop. Burr let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He watched the driver pop out, spry for someone so chubby, and up until now, not interested in anything that had anything to do with Burr. The driver ran to the Jeep and pounded on the window. Burr looked out at him, but he didn’t roll down his window. The driver pounded again. Burr smiled at him, but still didn’t roll down his window.

  The driver pounded harder. If he breaks the window, it will cost me a fortune to get it fixed, not that it works that well to begin with. Burr opened the door and pushed the driver out of the way with it.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The jowly man pulled out his own piece of paper. “It’s a crime to interfere with a disinterment.”

  Burr reached back into the Jeep for his piece of paper. “Do you have a name?”

  “Jenkins,” he said. “Norman Jenkins.”

  “Mr. Jenkins, it is a bigger crime to interfere with an order from the Michigan Court of Appeals.” Burr, not at all sure how literate Jenkins was, unfolded the court order. “This, my jowly friend, is a stay of Judge Skinner’s exhumation order.”

  “I got my orders from Mr. Cullen.”

  “This trumps yours,” Burr said. “If you violate it, I will see to it that you are put in jail. Your friend Mr. Cullen will prosecute you for contempt.”

  Jenkins glared at Burr. The driver got back in the hearse and said something to his helpers. Burr got out and knocked on the driver’s window. It slid right down. “After you rebury Mr. Shepherd, fill in the hole, and put the headstone back where it belongs.” The window went up. The hearse turned around and rolled back to the cemetery.

  * * *

  Burr had had quite enough of the law and judges, not to mention clients. He and Zeke-the-dog pulled up at his former house at Sunningdale-and-Wedgewood in Grosse Pointe Woods. Grace met them in the driveway, Zeke-the-boy holding her hand. Burr was not allowed in the house since the divorce, and he didn’t blame her. He had ruined their marriage with his foolish affair, and she had never forgiven him.

  It hadn’t been a perfect marriage. Grace had had occasional run-ins with depression. Burr worked more than he should have and hadn’t always been there. They both wanted a large family, but Zeke-the-boy was all she could manage. Burr knew full well that was no reason to end a marriage.

  Too much work, too much ego, and too much Suzanne had done him in. She had worked for an ad agency client of Fisher and Allen, and had gotten the agency in trouble over some over-the-top copy. Burr had called it “permissible puffery” and won the case. In the process, he had fallen in love with Suzanne, ruined his marriage, and made a fool of himself at the firm.

  Looking back on it, he knew that Suzanne had been a colossal mistake. His ego wouldn’t let him say he was sorry, and now here he was. He had an esoteric law practice that sometimes paid the bills. He drank too much, and he was a part-time father. He couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but he was determined to do his best as a father.

  Grace did give him a hint of a smile. She had a long narrow face and shoulder-length dark brown hair with auburn highlights. She was pretty when he married her, and she was pretty now.

  “I’ll take the other Zeke.” Grace refused to call either of the Zekes, Zeke-the-boy or Zeke-the-dog, but Burr was sure Grace liked Zeke-the-dog better than she liked him, which wasn’t surprising.

  They exchanged Zekes, and Burr watched her walk back to the house. She looks good in those jeans.

  By Sunday evening, Burr was sure he’d be ill if he ever saw another cheese pizza, his son’s favorite food and perfectly suitable for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, at least according to his sole heir.

  * * *

  At 10:30 Monday morning, Burr left an annoyed Zeke-the-dog in the care of a more annoyed Eve. He got into the Jeep yet again and took I-96 to Grand Rapids. At noon, Burr parked in a no-parking spot on Ottawa Street in downtown Grand Rapids. It was a perfectly good place to park, and for the life of him, he couldn’t see why he shouldn’t park there.

  Burr walked into the Pen Club and took the stairs to the third floor. The Peninsular Club was Grand Rapids’ oldest downtown club. It had a grill, dining room, hotel, locker room, gym, handball courts, you name it, yours to use as long as you were from the Grand Rapids upper crust and paid your dues on time. It helped if your last name started with Van, Ver, or otherwise had a Dutch ring to it. And most importantly, you needed to be well-heeled. He opened the fortress-like, mahogany door to the Men’s Grill.

  The maître d’, a young man whose collar was much too big for his not-so-big neck, took Burr into the dining room and found Gleason, his face still tan and lined.

  Burr didn’t think Joe Gleason was truly well-heeled. He suspected the oil and gas promoter frequented the Pen Club to solicit checks from the unwary.

  Gleason pumped Burr’s hand as if they were old friends or, more likely, Burr thought, as if he were just about to write him a check. The grilling at the preliminary exam forgotten.

  A career waiter, sixty, with a puffy face, a puffy mustache, and a belly to match, immediately appeared at Burr’s side. “Something to drink, sir?”

  Burr, for once nonplussed, said, “I’ll have what he’s having.”

  The waiter returned with a highball glass full of ice and bubbles, garnished with a lime squeeze.

  Gleason raised his glass. “May we find oil at the bottom of the hole.”

  Burr raised his glass, hoping that this was a gin and tonic and not a vodka and tonic. He took a sip. It was Perrier. Perrier with a lime squeeze. He set it down immediately. It was worse than vodka.

  “Anything wrong?” Gleason said.

  “No. Everything is fine.”

  “I find Perrier refreshing.”

  “I do, too,” Burr said, who didn’t. In fact, the only time Burr could drink Perrier was when he had a hangover, which he didn’t have at the moment.

  The waiter reappeared, and Gleason ordered the liver and onions. Burr ordered the special of the day, sockeye salmon with rice pilaf.

  “How can I help?”

  “I’m trying to figure out who was where the night Quinn died,” Burr said.

  Gleason lost his salesman’s smile. “And you think I might have killed him?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I was the one who saw Lizzie come in. There wasn’t time for me to have a drink, go to the river, and get back in time to see Lizzie.”

  How convenient. “I suppose not.”

  “Do you know anything about Quinn selling drugs?”

  Gleason took a swallow of his Perrier. “There were rumors about drugs, but I never saw any.”

  “So you didn’t buy any.”

  “Drugs aren’t my poison. I like vodka. That’s why I’m drinking Perrier today. Can’t stand it otherwise.”

  “Did Quinn have any enemies?”

  The waiter arrived with their lunches along with a striking, peroxide blonde, who had spent too much time in the sun. “I am so sorry, Mr. Gleason. I told her that women were not allowed in the men’s grill.”

  Gleason’s face turned a malarial shade of tan. “Don’t even think of putting those plates down,” said the too-tan blonde. The waiter cowered, plates in hand. She produced a checkbook from her saddlebag-sized purse.

  It looks like my checkbook. He shuddered.

  “Meet my wife, Suzy,” Gleason said.

  She sla
mmed the checkbook down in front of Gleason and opened it. She had long red fingernails, leathery hands to match her face, but striking features. She was at least fifteen years younger than Gleason, except for her skin. She handed Gleason a pen and pointed at a blank check with what Burr thought looked more like talons than fingernails. “Sign here.”

  Joe Gleason signed the check. Suzy Gleason ripped it out of the checkbook and stuffed it in her purse, along with the checkbook. “How do you do,” she said to Burr. She left before Burr could say anything.

  “I have no idea how she found my checkbook.” Gleason looked at Burr. “Three wives, five kids. Are you married?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “I should have stopped after one. That little tornado was strike three. I think we’re ready for lunch now,” Gleason said to the still-quaking waiter.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Jeep crawled through the woods.

  “Zeke, we’ve spent the entire summer lost on these damned two-tracks.” But in another quarter of a mile, he’d know where he was. Actually, he had no idea where he was, but he knew he was in the right place. There were two forest-green DNR pickups pulled off to the side. And a black Explorer.

  There wasn’t a soul in the trucks, but he heard voices off to his right and a humming sound underneath the voices. Burr and Zeke followed a trail through the woods. Jack pines, five-to-ten-feet tall, grew out of the sandy soil—row upon row of trees, grass and weeds in the understory.

  A hundred yards in, Burr and Zeke came upon four young men wrestling a net filled with birds, directed by Burr’s favorite ornithologist, Margaret Winston.

  “Get that one out of the net. That’s a brown thrasher, not a cowbird,” she said.

  Burr watched while a young man untangled what Burr could only suppose was the brown thrasher.

  “Dr. Winston.”

  “I’m busy,” she said.

  Burr shifted his weight from his right foot to his left. “I was hoping we might talk a little. Just for a moment.” He kicked at the sand with the toe of his left boot.

  “Not only am I busy, I don’t ever want to speak with you. Unless you have a subpoena.”

  “I was hoping that wouldn’t be necessary.”

  She had tucked her hair into a Detroit Tigers baseball cap, her only makeup, a smudge of dirt on her nose. And she was still a vision of beauty.