The Gray Drake Page 12

  “That’s much better,” he said. “Let’s start with the oil men.”

  * * *

  Burr and Zeke followed Maggie’s Explorer down the two-track du jour. He parked behind her, and stepped into the mud, followed by Zeke, who didn’t care about mud. Burr started down a path to the South Branch.

  It was a clear, crisp September morning with a deep, blue sky, but it had rained last night, and the two-track was muddy. Sunlight filtered through the trees and lit up the pale green of the aspen, quaking in the breeze. It was fifty degrees, and Burr was glad to have on his Barbour coat. He loved the old-fashioned smell of the waxed cotton.

  Burr spotted Maggie and Finn up ahead. Zeke saw them at the same time and ran ahead, spry for an aging lab, but then the dog did have an interest in Finn.

  After meeting with the enterprising ornithologist in the jack pines, Burr had called her. “I know you don’t like me, but this isn’t about me. It’s about Lizzie,” he’d said. “The canoe paddle started all this. What if there’s something more to this?” He had pleaded, cajoled and finally begged. She had given in, but her goodwill didn’t extend to riding in the same car.

  He caught up with her at the edge of the river.

  “Is this where you were looking for the woodcock?”

  “Back up the trail, where the aspen start to peter out.”

  “Is this where Finn brought you the paddle?”

  “I think this is where she came out of the river.”

  “Which way did she come? Upriver or down?”

  “She brought the paddle to me back up there.” She pointed up the path.

  “So you don’t know.”

  “Upstream, I think. But I’m not sure.”

  Burr kicked a stick into the river. “Zeke, stay.”

  The stick spun in the current, then started downstream. Zeke studied the stick. Finn waded in after it. She grabbed it and brought it back to Burr. The dog sat in front of Margaret with the stick in her mouth.

  “I haven’t seen too many setters who like to retrieve.”

  “She was raised around a lab. My ex had one.”

  She took the stick from Finn.

  “He was a jerk. Not the dog, my husband.”

  “Of course,” Burr said. “Any idea how far she went to fetch the paddle?”

  “No, but I don’t think she’d have gone too far. Upstream or downstream.”

  They walked back up the path and drove out of the woods. Burr wasn’t sure that any of this had helped very much, but he had spent a little time with Margaret, and he didn’t think she hated him anymore.

  * * *

  “Ex-par-tay. Did I say it correctly, Mr. Lafayette?” Skinner waved a piece of paper at Burr. “That’s what this is.”

  Burr didn’t say a word. He wished he was somewhere else, actually anywhere else. Anywhere but here in the chambers of Skinner the Younger.

  “You were the one who wanted to meet,” Skinner said.

  Burr had a death grip on the arms of the chair, his hands red, his knuckles white. He relaxed them ever so slowly. Perhaps he could speak without cursing. Cullen had clearly outsmarted him with his own ex parte order, and Skinner had been only too happy to sign. “Your Honor, had I known when the exhumation was going to occur, I would have been there, and I would have had my own expert with me.”

  Skinner waved the paper at him one more time, then he set it down in front of him.

  “Mr. Lafayette, you didn’t appeal the Court of Appeals decision. It was sent back to me. You didn’t ask for a trial on the merits. Mr. Cullen presented me with the required affidavit for disinterment, which I granted. I’m sure he served you.”

  Burr squeezed the arms of his chair. “Your Honor, by the time I was served with the order, Cullen had already dug up the remains and conducted another autopsy.”

  “Sometimes the process servers are a bit slow,” Skinner said.

  “As long as Mr. Shepherd has been dug up, I’d like my own expert to examine the body.”

  Skinner twiddled his thumbs. “No can do.” Skinner looked at Burr, raising his bent head ever so slightly.

  “Your Honor—”

  Skinner waved him off. “As you know, Michigan law requires that an order of disinterment be accompanied by an order of re-interment. We don’t want poor Quinn’s remains out of the ground any longer than necessary.”

  “Your Honor—”

  Skinner waved him off again. “Mr. Shepherd has already been reburied.”

  Burr reached inside the pocket of his suit jacket and took a sheet of paper folded like a letter. “Your Honor, I have here my own affidavit for disinterment.”

  “No can do,” Skinner said again. “The law does not favor exhumation.”

  * * *

  Burr sat at his favorite table at his favorite restaurant. Like all his favorite tables, this one gave him a view of the door. Sitting with his back to the door always made him nervous. Beggar’s Banquet, a dark, smoky and fairly beat-up bar and restaurant in the heart of East Lansing, served up their famous Sympathy for the Devil, a bowl of chili and a draft, for a dollar, every day. It was a rare day, though, when they cooked up their five-alarm chili.

  Jacob burst into the bar.

  “This can’t be good,” Burr said.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Never mind.” Burr ate a spoonful of the chili. “It’s five-alarm. Can I order you a bowl?”

  “That will destroy your insides. If the beer doesn’t first,” Jacob said.

  Jacob unfolded a paper napkin, set it neatly on a chair and sat down. “The worst has happened,” he said.

  As far as Burr was concerned, the worst had already happened at least a dozen times. “Jacob, we are warm and dry. We have a little money for food and drink.”

  Jacob reached into his jacket pocket, a corduroy jacket, harvest gold, in keeping with the season and the weather. He handed Burr a piece of paper.

  At least it isn’t the letter from the mortgage company.

  Burr put it next to the chili crackers.

  “Aren’t you going to look at it?”

  “After lunch.”

  “Well then, I’ll tell you. The wound on Quinn Shepherd’s skull matches the canoe paddle.”

  Burr, ever trying to live in the moment, finished his beer, and ordered a second.

  * * *

  Burr and Zeke stopped for the red flashing lights in front of the lodge. They watched Josh climb out of the school bus. He ran up to his mother and hugged her around one leg. The two of them walked into the lodge like they were in a three-legged race.

  “Zeke, this is going to be even more unpleasant than I thought,” Burr said.

  Burr found Lizzie and Josh in the kitchen, Josh up to his elbows dunking a cookie in a glass of milk. “Gingersnaps. Want one?” Josh said.

  “I do.”

  The dark brown cookie, perfectly round, had cracks on the top where it had expanded while baking. Rolled in sugar, it sparkled in the afternoon sun.

  “Want to dunk?”

  Burr loved gingersnaps, and he loved dunking. He dipped the cookie into Josh’s glass.

  “How bad is it?” Lizzie said. She folded her arms across each other and covered her chest.

  “Pretty bad,” Burr said.

  “We’ll be right back, honey.” Lizzie left Josh with the gingersnaps. Burr followed her into the dining room. Josh didn’t look up from his dunking.

  “The wound matched the paddle,” he said.

  Lizzie sat down and held onto the edge of table.

  Burr sat cross from her. She’s holding on for dear life.

  “The exhumation report says the wound on Quinn’s skull matched the blade on the paddle.”

  “I didn’t kill Quinn. I swear I didn’t.”

  “I know
you didn’t.” Burr wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t see any reason to argue about it right now.

  “And the report could be wrong.”

  “It could,” Burr said.

  “Someone else could have hit him,” she said.

  “That’s what we have to prove.”

  “This can’t be happening.” Lizzie kept her grip on the table and started to rock back and forth, ever so slightly.

  Burr looked out the window. He watched one of the orange leaves fall from the maple tree. It landed in the river and drifted downstream.

  “When did you notice the paddle was missing?”

  “I don’t remember.” She looked down at her hands.

  “Lizzie, this is not helpful.”

  “I don’t know. I told you I never thought about it.” She looked at Burr. “A man called,” she said. “He wants money.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “He said he wants money.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. He said Quinn owed him money.”

  “For what?”

  “He said he’d call back with a place to meet.” Lizzie stopped rocking. “What do we do?” she said.

  “We have to wait.”

  * * *

  Burr tracked down Jacob at the Small Planet, a vegetarian restaurant across the street from his building. Jacob was eating steamed vegetables drowned in tamari sauce, and sipping carrot juice through a straw.

  “How did you find me?” Jacob said.

  “It’s the only place within fifty miles that serves carrot juice.”

  As if on cue, Jacob took a drink of the gooey orange liquid.

  “Is that good for you?”

  “Quite.”

  “What did you find out about our friends in the oil business?” Burr said.

  “Nothing on Hawken or Osterman,” Jacob said.

  Jacob swabbed a piece of broccoli in the last of the tamari and chewed it slowly. Finally he said, “It seems that Mr. Gleason ran afoul of the authorities, but I don’t see how that helps us.”

  “What did he do?”

  “According to the State of Michigan securities agency, he sold one hundred twenty-five percent of an oil well in Manistee County.”

  “What happened?”

  “They found oil,” Jacob said.

  “What was Gleason’s defense?”

  “He said he thought it would be a dry hole, so it wouldn’t matter if he sold more than a hundred percent. He pled to one count of securities fraud. But that was ten years ago.”

  “The land man? Malone.”

  “He pled to one count of selling securities without a license.” Jacob waved for the check.

  “Allow me,” Burr said.

  “Thank you, Burr.”

  “There’s just one more thing,” Burr said.

  “There is always just one more thing.”

  “We need the same information on Quinn and Lizzie. And you might as well check on Wes while you’re at it. Thompson, too.”

  Burr paid the bill and left.

  * * *

  “That is a beautiful shotgun,” Margaret Winston said.

  “It was my grandfather’s.” Burr held a Parker twenty-eight-gauge side-by-side in the crook of his arm. It was part of a matched set, which also included a twenty-gauge and a twelve-gauge. He had inherited them from his father, all that was left after Colonial Broach failed, and his father drove his Cadillac into a bridge abutment on the Lodge freeway in Detroit.

  Burr had spent the evening at The Gray Drake’s annual grouse opener party. Black tie, champagne, wine and a five-course meal. Four young women in black dresses had played The Four Seasons. Wes held court, and Lizzie cooked, but Burr didn’t think either of them had their hearts in it.

  Now, at eight the next morning, he and Margaret Winston were standing somewhere east of Hartwick Pines, about fifteen miles north of the lodge. She bent and clipped a bell on Finn’s collar. “Follow the bell. When it stops ringing, she’s on point. Then walk to the last place you heard the bell.”

  She put two shells in her over/under. Then she looked at Burr. “I’m sorry I’ve been rude. It’s just that you were so hard on me at the preliminary exam. I felt like you were trying to trick me.”

  Burr wasn’t used to apologies from witnesses. “I’m sorry, but I have a client to defend.”

  “I know you do. I hope this hunt makes up for it.”

  She closed the breech of her shotgun and headed off into the woods. “Find a bird, Finn.”

  * * *

  Burr sat by himself in a corner of the dining room at the Doherty Hotel, his back to the wall. Lizzie sat by herself five tables away from his and faced the door to the lobby. The mystery man had called back.

  The Doherty Hotel, circa 1924, was a dark brown, brick four-story building, and the tallest building in Clare. The murals on the walls told the story of leprechauns brewing ale. Legend had it that a guest, who couldn’t pay his bill, painted them for his room and board. Something like me and that damned Sage, he thought.

  Burr couldn’t understand why this of all places was packed at lunchtime on a weekday. Looking at the salad bar, Burr didn’t think it could be the food, but then Burr hated salad bars. If he was going to eat at a restaurant, he wasn’t going to make his own salad.

  They waited. And waited.

  Finally, a blond man with movie-star good looks stood in the doorway. He was lean and moved with the grace of an athlete. He could have been a quarterback twenty years ago. He surveyed the room, then walked over to Lizzie and sat down.

  Lizzie sat very still and didn’t say much. She did her best not to show any emotion, but it looked as if it was all she could do to sit across the table from him. After about twenty minutes, the man who looked like a quarterback got up. He looked around the room, then left.

  * * *

  Burr found Lizzie right where he expected to find her, in the kitchen of The Gray Drake. She was kneading bread dough.

  “What did he want?” Burr said.

  She looked up at him. There weren’t tears in her eyes, but there could have been.

  She kept working the bread dough. “He wants twenty-five thousand dollars that I don’t have.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I know I’m always in the kitchen, but I have to do this, and I don’t know what else to do.”

  “It’s all right, Lizzie.”

  “He said he wanted twenty-five thousand dollars,” she said again.

  “For what?”

  “He said that was what was owed.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said I didn’t have it. He said get it from Wes or Thompson.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ben. He said it was Ben.”

  “Really. I followed him. He went back to Mt. Pleasant. To his office, I think. As far as I can tell, his name isn’t Ben. It’s Cox. Charles Cox. He’s a CPA.”

  “This keeps getting worse and worse. I don’t know who to believe.”

  Burr didn’t know who to believe either. Lizzie flipped the dough over and started kneading again. “Wes doesn’t have that kind of money, and I don’t see how I could ask Thompson. This whole thing is just too terrible.”

  “Did you have any idea that Quinn might be dealing drugs?”

  “None.” Lizzie kneaded the dough, then pounded it with her fist. “I have to do something.”

  “What if we ignore him?”

  “He said if he didn’t get the money, something bad would happen to Josh.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Margaret Winston, now Maggie, had asked Burr to dinner.

  He turned off a gravel road, onto yet another unmarked two-track, to yet another cabin, on yet another river.


  This one was the Chevrolet version of Thompson Shepherd’s Cadillac log cabin. It was on the Manistee River, about ten miles west of Grayling.

  Maggie opened the door. She had on a hunter-green A-line dress, tucked at the waist, a small black jacket and a pearl necklace. She had her hair in a French braid, her bare legs still tan late in September. Burr thought she was dangerously good-looking.

  She slipped a little on the driveway. Burr grabbed her by the elbow.

  “Heels and gravel are a tough combination,” she said.

  He opened the passenger door. “Zeke, back seat,” he said. Maggie slid in.

  “Would you mind if Finn came?”

  “Not if she doesn’t mind riding with Zeke.”

  Maggie went back for Finn. The dog jumped on Maggie’s lap. She pushed her into the back seat, which delighted Zeke.

  Burr climbed in. How can this beautiful woman be living in what, by any stretch of the imagination, was a rundown cabin, that, at the very least, needed a coat of paint.

  He reached for the ignition, but she put her hand on his.

  “Listen, you can hear the river. I know the cabin needs some work, but I like it the way it is. My grandfather built it in the twenties. The Manistee fishes every bit as well as the Au Sable. And there’s no pressure. It’s one of the best kept secrets up here.”

  Along with what happened to Quinn Shepherd.

  When they got back to the paved road, Burr stopped. “Which way?” he said.

  “Have you ever been to Tapawingo?”

  Forty-five minutes later, Burr parked in front of a small gray house, facing a lake and surrounded by flower gardens in bloom, with the colors of fall – burnt orange, crimson, purple and yellow.

  The maître d’ sat them at a table facing the lake.

  “This is my favorite restaurant,” she said.

  Burr nodded. He had been here many times, all paid for by Fisher and Allen. Tapawingo was the best restaurant Burr had ever been to in the middle of nowhere, and quite possibly the best restaurant he had ever been to. Not to mention the priciest. He had just enough room on the Lafayette and Wertheim credit card to pay for dinner.