The Gray Drake Read online

  “That’s not what I said.” Jacob started to say something, but Burr cut him off. “All I wanted for today was a little peace and quiet. I launched my boat. I motored out to this buoy. I rigged the main. I bought myself a sandwich and a bottle of wine. I took a nap. I’m trying to live a simple life. And you’re trying to ruin it.”

  “A simple life?” Jacob said. The color came back to his face. “Burr Lafayette, you have the most complicated life of anyone I know.” Jacob raised a forefinger. “You have an ex-wife to support.” He raised another finger. “You have a young son. You have a rundown office building. You have this cur of a dog. You always seem to have a rundown sailboat. You hunt ducks. Women like you. And you have no money.”

  “You’re going to run out of fingers, and it’s too cold to take off your socks and shoes,” Burr said.

  “You wouldn’t know peace and quiet if it hit you in the face.”

  Burr ran his hands through his hair, front to back.

  “You always do that thing with your hair when you’re troubled,” Jacob said.

  “I’m not troubled, and I’m not a criminal lawyer.” He finished his wine.

  “And you drink too much.”

  Jacob ran a thumb and forefinger down the crease of his slacks, a crease like the edge of a knife. Then he pulled the sleeves of his sweater down just beyond the cuffs of his jacket.

  He’s natty, Burr thought. I’ll give him that.

  “If you won’t take this on, at least help get Lizzie out on bail. I’m sure Wes will pay cash.”

  Burr looked to the east again. The clouds, now black, were rolling in. “I’ll take you to the dock, so you don’t have to row back.” He turned the key in the ignition, pulled out the choke, pushed the throttle forward and pressed the starter button. Four tries later, the engine kicked over.

  * * *

  Three days later, Burr sat in a packed courtroom waiting for the judge. He tap-tap-tapped his No. 2 yellow pencil, just as he had done for the past twenty-odd years. As far as courtrooms go, this one was like all the others, only shabbier. His table was dinged up, his chair wobbled, and there was a hole the size of a paper plate in the linoleum underneath his chair.

  Elizabeth Shepherd to his left, Jacob to her left. Elizabeth Shepherd was an almost beautiful blonde. Her face was a little too long. Her nose was a little too pointed and her lips were a little too full, but her eyes were the color of robins’ eggs and that made up for everything. She was wearing an orange jumpsuit, and she was the reason the courtroom was packed. Her father, Wesley Goodspeed, sat behind them in the front row of the gallery.

  The bailiff entered, a slight young man struggling to grow a mustache.

  “All rise. The Court of the Honorable Judge Harold F. Skinner is now in session.”

  At last, the judge entered and sat down. He was a short, square, neckless man. He looked like a cigarette machine.

  Judge Skinner put on a pair of glasses with black frames and surveyed the courtroom. Burr thought the judge was pleased to have such a full house.

  “You may be seated,” the bailiff said.

  “Counsel, you may begin,” Judge Skinner said.

  Burr stood again. “Burr Lafayette for the defense, Your Honor.” He pulled down the cuffs of his shirt, a baby blue button-down, pinpoint oxford that did not need pulling down. He straightened his tie, a red foulard with blue diamonds that did not need straightening.

  “Mr. Lafayette, when you have finished grooming, please begin.”

  Burr had been one of the best commercial litigators in the state of Michigan, but he had given up his practice and his marriage over a client almost young enough to be his daughter. Over an affair that hadn’t turned out. After the year it had taken to ruin the previous twenty, he had moved to East Lansing and started an appellate practice—complicated, esoteric litigation that had made him famous in select legal circles but didn’t always pay the bills.

  “Your Honor, we are here to request bail for my client, Elizabeth Shepherd.”

  “The answer is no. I said no at the arraignment and the answer is still no.” The judge raised his gavel and was just about to bring it down.

  “Your Honor, my client has not been charged with murder. The preliminary exam isn’t for another two weeks. If at that time—”

  “No,” the judge said.

  Burr walked around the defense table and took two steps toward the judge. He thought that if he pulled one of Skinner’s arms down, a pack of Marlboros might pop out of his mouth. He looked back at his client. Lizzie looked down at her hands, just as he had coached her to do.

  Burr took another step closer toward the judge. “Your Honor, as you know, there are two questions for determining bail, one.” Burr raised his index finger. “Is the accused dangerous to the community? And two.” He raised another finger. “Is the accused a risk to flee the jurisdiction?”

  “Counsel, I ruled on this at Mrs. Shepherd’s arraignment.”

  “May I finish, Your Honor?”

  “Mr. Lafayette, I do not find your thousand-dollar suit persuasive,” the judge said. “There are at least one hundred fifty people in here, and the air conditioning doesn’t work very well. It’s going to get ripe in about five minutes. Please get on with it.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. My client has no criminal record. None whatsoever. She has never been charged with a crime.” Burr paused. “She’s never even had a parking ticket.”

  “Mr. Lafayette, Crawford County is ninety percent woods. There are no parking meters in Grayling.”

  There was a snicker from the gallery.

  “Your Honor, Mrs. Shepherd is not a hardened criminal. She’s not a criminal at all. And she is not a danger to the community.”

  “Objection, Your Honor.” The prosecutor popped up. “John Cullen for the State. Mrs. Shepherd murdered her husband and then tried to make it look like an accident. She is most certainly dangerous.”

  “Thank you, Jack,” Judge Skinner said. “Sit down.”

  Burr watched the prosecutor sit. He had a full head of curly blond hair and pockmarked cheeks, the remnants of an acne-filled puberty. What struck him most, though, was Cullen’s smile. A big, wide smile that showed off straight white teeth. Why does he smile when he objects?

  “Your Honor, my client is not going to commit a crime, and she is absolutely not a threat to flee the jurisdiction. She has a job and a six-year-old son. Since her husband drowned, she is the only parent and the sole breadwinner.”

  “Objection, Your Honor.” Cullen stood up again, still smiling. “The sheriff stopped her headed south on I-75, fleeing the jurisdiction.”

  “Nonsense. She was on her way to Clare to see a friend,” Burr said.

  “She was running away.”

  Burr turned to Cullen. “Must you smile all the time?”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Lafayette. He can’t help it,” Skinner said.

  “Your Honor,” Burr said, “it is tragedy enough that Mrs. Shepherd lost her husband, and her son has lost his father. Please don’t make it worse by keeping her in jail. You are making an orphan out of her son.”

  “That’s because she killed his father,” Cullen said.

  “He drowned.” Burr considered turning around, but he wasn’t ready to deal with Cullen’s smile. “We will post a bond, Your Honor.”

  Judge Skinner pressed his glasses back on his face.

  “Your Honor, Elizabeth Shepherd ambushed her husband on the South Branch and murdered him with a canoe paddle. She is a murderess, and she is dangerous.”

  “You have no proof,” Burr said.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Stop it. Both of you,” Skinner said. “Mr. Lafayette, I take you at your word. Bail is set at one million dollars.”

  Burr didn’t miss a beat. “Considering the circumstances, I think the
bail is too high.”

  “Your client only needs to post ten percent,” the judge said.

  Burr felt Cullen’s smile burning into the back of his head, but he turned around and looked at Wes. Wes shook his head no. Burr turned back to the judge. “Your Honor.”

  “If you’re not going to post bail, I am going to adjourn.” Skinner picked up his gavel. “The defendant will be returned to the county jail to await the preliminary exam.” He cracked down the gavel. “We are adjourned.”

  “I’ll pay the bond,” said a voice from the back of the courtroom.

  Burr turned around. A tall, thin man with silver hair stood. Other than the lawyers, he was the only one in the courtroom wearing a suit.

  “Thompson, are you sure you want to do this?” Skinner said.

  Thompson, whoever he was, smiled at the judge. A grim smile, Burr thought. “Who should I make out the check to, Hal?”

  “Mr. Lafayette, please approach the bench.”

  The judge leaned over to Burr and spoke softly. “Counsel, the Main Branch is barely a hundred yards from my courtroom. There may be a blue-wing olive hatch this afternoon. I don’t want to miss it. You have your bail. Are you satisfied?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Burr couldn’t imagine how Skinner could possibly fit into waders, much less wade a trout stream.

  Judge Skinner looked at the thin man. “Make the check payable to Crawford County.”

  * * *

  Burr sat at his desk in his office, a cherry desk the size of a ‘64 Buick 225. To his left, a walk-in cedar closet held his most treasured possessions: waders, decoys, shotguns. Zeke napped on a leather couch against the far wall. Burr looked at an envelope on his desk and drummed his fingers.

  There were two knocks on the door, followed by Eve McGinty, Burr’s longtime, long-suffering legal assistant.

  “That letter won’t open itself,” she said.

  “I know what’s inside.”

  “How many payments are you behind this time?”

  Eve had been Burr’s longtime, long-suffering legal assistant at Fisher and Allen. He had begged her not to follow him to East Lansing, but she had divorced well and said she wanted a house close to work that had a yard with full sun, so she could have a perennial garden. Burr said there must be a full sun garden somewhere near the Renaissance Center, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

  “I’m only three months behind.”

  “Let me.” She grabbed the envelope.

  Eve was a year older than Burr, which she didn’t like, and which he didn’t let her forget. She had a hint of crow’s feet, which she also didn’t like.

  She ripped open the envelope and read the letter. Then she tugged at her earring. “This one is nasty.”

  “There is nothing to worry about until we get one by certified mail.”

  “Why you ever bought this building is beyond me.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Burr had bought the rundown Masonic Temple, circa 1937, when he moved to East Lansing. It was six stories, narrow, right in the middle of downtown East Lansing and had no parking. Replacing the elevator had almost bankrupted him. There was a restaurant on the first floor, his office and living quarters on the top floor and unoccupied in between.

  “The elevator is broken again,” Eve said.

  “I don’t take the elevator.”

  “How are you ever going to pay for all of this?”

  “We have a new client. A rich client with a big problem. My favorite kind. Let me take you to dinner this evening, and we’ll figure it all out.”

  “No, thank you.”

  He had been asking her out as long as they had known each other, and she had refused him every time.

  Eve turned to leave just as Jacob burst through the door carrying a four-foot cardboard tube. He was dressed to the nines even though he spent all day doing research and writing in the bowels of the Lafayette and Wertheim Law Library.

  “This is for you.” Jacob handed the tube to Burr.

  “Thank you, Jacob.” He set it on his desk.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  Always suspicious of gifts, Burr looked at the tube. “I don’t think so.” He ran both hands through his hair, front to back.

  “It’s a gift. What could possibly be wrong with a gift?” Eve said.

  “I have a bad feeling.”

  “Nonsense.” Eve walked around Burr’s desk, opened the top right-hand drawer and took out a pair of scissors.

  “I was wondering where those were,” Burr said.

  She cut the tape off one end of the tube.

  “I’ll take it from here.” Burr took hold of the tube and pulled out a crumpled newspaper. “The Crawford County Avalanche,” he said. He took out more newspaper, then slid out a fishing rod.

  “My goodness, it’s magnificent,” Jacob said.

  “It looks like a fishing rod to me,” Eve said.

  “Eve, this is not just a fishing rod. It’s a Sage. A six weight,” Jacob said.

  “Really,” Eve said.

  “This is the finest fly-fishing rod there is,” Jacob said.

  Burr had a sinking feeling.

  “It’s from our new client, Wes Goodspeed, the owner of The Gray Drake,” Jacob said.

  “This is from our new, rich client? Our new, rich client with a big problem is paying his bill with a fishing rod?” Eve said. She tugged at her earring. “Burr, why don’t you go ahead and catch up on your mortgage with this fly rod?”

  “I thought we could help Wes and Lizzie this one time,” Jacob said.

  “Jacob, what on Earth do I possibly need this for?” Burr picked up the rod and was about to break it over his knee.

  Jacob ran over. “Good God, man. What are you doing?” He wrenched the endangered fly rod out of Burr’s hands. “This is a treasure.”

  Burr stood. “You said we would be paid in cash.” He took a step toward Jacob, who took a step back.

  “We simply must help Lizzie.”

  “I said I would. If we got paid. Stay right where you are, and hand me that rod,” Burr said.

  “You’re going to break it.”

  “That’s right, Jacob. In about two hundred little pieces. And then you’re going to eat them.”

  The color drained from Jacob’s face. “I can’t possibly eat a fishing rod.”

  “That’s right, Jacob. You can’t eat a fly rod. I can’t pay the mortgage with a fly rod. I said I would take on a criminal case if we got paid. In cash.”

  * * *

  The next day, Burr sat at a corner table downstairs at Michelangelo’s, facing the door. He wasn’t in fear for his life. He didn’t think anyone in particular was out to get him, but he didn’t like having his back to the door. Any door. Zeke lay at his feet, on watch for what might find its way to the floor. The food at Michelangelo’s was quite good, especially considering that Scooter, the proprietor, had blond hair, a pasty complexion and not a drop of Italian blood.

  Burr sipped on Scooter’s best Chianti. “It’s quite good, Zeke.” He picked up the glass, studied it, then drank the rest of it. He raised his glass and the waitress, a student no doubt, came over and set down a basket of breadsticks and refilled his glass.

  “Are you ready to order, Mr. Lafayette?”

  “No, but stand by with the Chianti.”

  She nodded and left.

  Burr scratched Zeke behind his left ear, his favorite spot, but the dog had bigger plans. “I get it.” Burr passed him a breadstick.

  He took one more swallow, sighed and set down his glass. “This is silly.” He reached over to the chair next to him and picked up the black three-ring binder that was none other than the Lafayette and Wertheim checkbook. Eve kept it hidden from Burr, but today Eve was mulching her garden and Burr had finally found wher
e she had hidden it: in the law library behind the Unites States Bankruptcy Code. He stared at the checkbook. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said out loud. Burr took another swallow and opened the checkbook, stubs on the left, long, light blue checks on the right, three to a page. He flipped to the last check that had been written. “Damn it all.” He took one of the breadsticks, bit into it, then passed the rest to Zeke. “Damn it all,” he said again, then slammed the checkbook shut.

  At that moment, Scooter himself showed up. “Is something wrong, Mr. Lafayette?” The restaurateur had brought the bottle of Chianti with him.

  “I’m upside down.”

  “I beg your pardon.” Scooter looked a little nervous.

  “About ten large. When the chickens come home to roost.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Scooter said again.

  “It’s about money,” Burr said. He finished off his wine.

  Scooter looked a little more nervous. He refilled Burr’s glass and changed the subject. “Mr. Lafayette, you know there are no dogs allowed in Michelangelo’s.”

  “Scooter,” Burr said.

  Scooter raised a flabby, white hand and wagged his finger at Burr. “Mr. Lafayette, we have been through this many times.” Scooter looked down at Zeke. “I know he is very talented, but he is not a seeing-eye dog. And you’re not blind.”

  Burr turned the checkbook so that it faced Scooter and opened it. “Scooter, what we have here is the upside-down balance in the Lafayette and Wertheim checkbook.”

  Scooter looked very nervous.

  “And the reason it’s upside down, Scooter, is that you’re six months late on the rent. And you owe me for the new oven I paid for. Which comes to about ten thousand dollars.”

  “I can’t be the only reason.”

  “How are you going to pay me?”

  “We can trade for the rent.”

  “I can’t possibly eat that much pasta.” Burr drank more of the Chianti. “Scooter, if you don’t pay me, I’m going to get my padlock.”

  Scooter shuddered. “Not the padlock. How will I pay you if you lock me out?” He scurried away.

  “Zeke, buying this building seemed like such a good idea at the time.” Burr slammed the checkbook shut a second time.