The Pink Pony Page 4

  Burr tap, tap, tapped the brand new Number 2 yellow pencil Eve had given him.

  She thinks of everything.

  The bailiff entered. He must be at least six-five, Burr thought. Shoulders the size of a door frame, but a bit of a belly. Black eyes, copper skin, black hair in a ponytail. His nose had been broken at least once, which made him look like a hawk. Burr squinted at his name tag. It read Henry Crow.

  He’s at least half Native American.

  “All rise,” Henry Crow said.

  The judge entered from the back of the courtroom, mid-sixties, a big man with a full head of dark brown hair parted down the middle. He had on glasses with thick, black frames. The judge made a show of arranging his silky, black robe, then sat.

  “Be seated,” the bailiff said. “The court of the Honorable Takala Maki is now in session.”

  He’s got to be a Finn.

  The judge settled into his seat. “What is it this time, Mr. Karpinen?”

  Another Finn. They probably go to the same church.

  Karpinen stood. “Murder, Your Honor.”

  “Really?” The judge pointed his gavel at Murdo. “He looks more like a drunk driver than a murderer.”

  “Your Honor, on the night of July 17th, the defendant, Murdoch O. Halverson, 539 Windmill Pointe, Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, was drinking with the deceased, James P. Lyons, the deceased’s wife, and his own wife at The Pink Pony. The defendant and the deceased…”

  Judge Maki raised his hand. “Gus, stop right there. Was this the night the race finished?”

  “That was when the first boats got in.”

  “The Port Huron-Mackinac?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “On the island?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Go on.”

  “The defendant and the deceased were seen arguing. At one point the defendant’s wife sat on the deceased’s lap. The defendant wrapped a string of Christmas tree lights around the deceased’s neck.”

  “Augustus.”

  “Yes, Your Honor?” The prosecutor shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  “Who is the accused murderer?”

  “He is,” the prosecutor said, pointing at Murdo.

  The judge scowled. “I know that. What is his name?”

  “Halverson. Murdoch O. Halverson.”

  “And who is he supposed to have killed?”

  “The deceased.”

  “What would his name be?”

  “His name is, was, James P. Lyons.”

  “All right then. Enough of this defendant and deceased business. I can’t keep track of them that way.”

  “Your Honor?”

  “Use their names.”

  “Of course, Your Honor.”

  “In any event, the defendant...” Judge Maki scowled again. “Mr. Halverson wrapped a string of Christmas tree lights around Mr. Lyons’ neck.”

  “Christmas in July?” the judge said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Never mind,” the judge said.

  “The next morning, when the bartender came in to open, she found Mr. Lyons’ body. The Christmas lights were wrapped around his neck.”

  “Did anyone see him do it?”

  “Mr. Halverson’s fingerprints were on the lights.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The defendant’s nametag was on the deceased’s shirt, and we found a pair of broken glasses that belonged to Mr. Halverson near the body.”

  Brandstatter must not have told him who broke the glasses.

  “That’s hardly conclusive,” the judge said.

  Burr thought this slightly encouraging.

  “We believe Mr. Halverson was jealous of Mr. Lyons,” Karpinen said.

  “In what way?”

  “We believe Mr. Halverson thought Mr. Lyons was having an affair with Mrs. Halverson. She had taken off her bra and panties and hung them on the Christmas tree. Right in front of everyone. Then she sat on Mr. Lyons’ lap.”

  “Really?” The judge leaned toward the prosecutor. “Anything else?”

  “One more thing, Your Honor. The defendant was seen leaving The Pink Pony at four in the morning. Two hours after it closed.”

  “What’s the charge?”

  “Open murder, Your Honor,” Karpinen said. “The penalty box for good.”

  Burr stood. “Your Honor, this proceeding does not necessarily have to result in charging my client with a crime.”

  “I’ll decide the purpose of this hearing, counselor.” The judge pointed his gavel at him. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Burr Lafayette, Your Honor.”

  “Mr. Halverson, please stand,” Judge Maki said. Murdo stood, as did Burr. “Counselor, I didn’t ask you to stand.”

  “May I have a word, Your Honor?”

  The judge pointed at him with his gavel. “No, you may not.” He sighed. “I suppose you might as well.”

  “Your Honor, there’s not nearly enough evidence to charge my client with murder. It’s not even clear that my client had a grievance with Mr. Lyons, let alone murdered him.”

  “Mr. Lafayette,” the judge said, still pointing, “Are you aware of the standard for arraignment?”

  “I am, Your Honor.”

  “Then you must agree that the prosecutor has presented far more than necessary. And you must surely agree that there is probable cause. In fact, the prosecutor has presented far more than the law requires.”

  “Your Honor, this is nothing more than an alphabet soup of possibilities, not probabilities.”

  “Mr. Lafayette, approach the bench.”

  Murdo sat. Burr slipped out from behind the defense table and walked to the bench. The prosecutor followed, walking with a limp, his left leg stiff at the knee. “Not you, Gus. This is between me and Mr. Lafayette.”

  Karpinen limped back to his table.

  Burr stood squarely in front of Judge Maki, braced for his pointing gavel. “Mr. Lafayette, I note you are wearing a very expensive blue blazer. A blue blazer that might be worn to a fancy cocktail party.”

  “Your Honor?”

  Judge Maki shushed him with a finger to his lips. “And what must be a fifty-dollar tie.” Burr looked down at his favorite tie. “Now then, Mr. Lafayette, moving down, your khakis are acceptable, but turning to your feet, I see you are wearing Topsiders, which are not appropriate in my courtroom.”

  “Your Honor,” Burr said.

  “Mr. Lafayette, lift your pant legs.”

  “Your Honor?”

  “Your pant legs.” Burr lifted them. “Just as I thought. Just what I saw while you were sitting.” The judge pointed at his ankles. “Where are your socks, Mr. Lafayette?”

  “My socks?”

  “You heard what I said.”

  “I’m not wearing socks, Your Honor.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Your Honor, I was pressed into service at the last minute, and I don’t have any with me.”

  “How can that be?”

  “I don’t wear socks between April and November, except when I’m in court.”

  “You’re in court now.”

  “Yes, but I hadn’t planned on it.”

  “Why no socks?”

  Burr bent his knees in the hope that that his pants would cover his bare ankles. “They make my feet sweat.”

  The judge pointed at Burr’s ankles, then at Burr. “If I ever have the misfortune to see you in my courtroom again, you will be wearing socks, or I will jail you for contempt.”

  This has gotten way out of hand.

  Burr nodded and started back to the defense table.

  “I’d say you’re going to need your penalty killers,” Karpinen said as Burr passed h
im on his way to the defense table. Burr sat.

  Judge Maki took off his glasses and inspected them. He set them down, put them back on, then pointed at Murdo. “Stand up, Mr. Halverson,” Judge Maki said. Murdo and Burr both stood. “You two don’t have to stand there, side by each, but suit yourself. This court finds that there is probable cause to find that sometime in the early morning of July 18th murdered James Lyons. How do you plead?”

  Murdo’s lip quivered.

  “How do you plead?” The judge pointed at Murdo.

  “Not guilty, Your Honor,” Burr said.

  “Just because the two of you are standing side by each doesn’t mean you can speak for him,” the Finnish judge said. “I’d like to hear from the defendant.”

  “He’s not the defendant yet,” Burr said.

  “He’s about to be,” the judge said. “How do you plead?”

  “Not guilty,” Murdo said.

  “All right, then,” Judge Maki said. “Murdoch O. Halverson, you are charged with open murder. You are hereby remanded to the Mackinac County Jail. The preliminary exam will be two weeks from today.” The judge banged his gavel.

  “Your Honor,” Burr said.

  “We’re all done, counselor.”

  “Not quite, Your Honor.”

  “How so?”

  “Bail.”

  “Bail? For murder?” Judge Maki said.

  “Your Honor, even if there were a scintilla of evidence that my client committed a crime, which there isn’t, he is still entitled to ask for bail.”

  “All right, then,” Judge Maki scratched his chin. “Bail is set at two million dollars.”

  “That’s far too much.”

  “Don’t tell me how much is too much,” the judge said.

  Martha Halverson jumped to her feet. “We’ll take it.”

  “You’ll what?” Judge Maki said.

  “Apparently, we accept,” Burr said.

  “I object, Your Honor.” Karpinen stood and limped to the bench. “This man is a murderer.”

  “Overruled,” Judge Maki pointed his gavel at the bailiff. “Get the money, Henry,” the judge said on his way out.

  * * *

  Aunt Kitty had arranged for a car. Burr took charge of lunch and took them all to Lehto’s US-2 Pasties, a square little one-story white frame building with green trim. They sat around a Formica table with faded blue and not so faded yellow boomerangs. Burr thought Lehto’s was the very definition of modest.

  The waitress seated them next to the window with a grand view of US-2, a two-lane highway that began in St. Ignace and ended at the Pacific Ocean.

  Lehto’s US-2 Pasties served one thing and one thing only. Burr ordered them all pasties, which arrived in short order.

  “This is the most vile thing I have ever seen,” Anne said.” She pushed her plate as far away from her as she could.

  Burr cut into his pasty and a marble-size rutabaga slid out of the crust. He stabbed it with his fork and held it up in triumph. “Genuine pasties always have rutabaga.”

  “I can’t imagine why you would you bring us to a place that only serves these awful things,” Anne said.

  “This is an Upper Peninsula delicacy.” Burr chewed the rutabaga slowly.

  “Why is it named after a G-string of all things,” Anne said.

  “This is a pasty with a short A, not a pasty with a long A.” No one at the table blushed, but then Anne, at least, was no stranger to provocative lingerie.

  “This area, north of here actually, was settled by Cornish miners. Their wives took meat, onions and root vegetables – potatoes, carrots, rutabaga, and once in a while the odd turnip – vegetables that would keep all winter, mixed them all up and baked them in a flour crust. They wrapped them in oiled paper, and their husbands took them down in the copper mines for lunch.”

  Burr cringed when Murdo put gravy on his pasty, but he didn’t have the heart to tell him that only Trolls – Michiganders who lived in the Lower Peninsula – put gravy on their pasties.

  “Until this awfulness happened, I had never been on this side of the bridge. I wish I’d never come,” Anne said.

  “This is precisely why we’re here. The Yoopers have their own way of doing things. It’s like a sandlot baseball game.” Burr chewed a turnip. Rutabagas and turnips in the same pasty were really something. “And the rules favor the neighborhood kids.”

  “Thank you for representing my son. I’m so grateful that he’s out of jail,” Martha Halverson said.

  “The bail didn’t have to have been that much. I’m sure Burr could have gotten it reduced,” Aunt Kitty said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Lafayette,” Murdo said. He still looked like he’d slept in his clothes, but at least the handcuffs were off.

  “I thought you’d get the charges dismissed.” Anne looked at her pasty but made no effort to retrieve her plate.

  “The standard for an arraignment is low. It’s only probable cause, and the judge has great latitude. Murdo could have been charged on much less.”

  “What do we do now?” Anne said.

  “Now we finish lunch,” Burr said.

  “What about Murdo?” Anne said.

  “The preliminary exam is in two weeks. The standard is the same as it was at the arraignment, so I expect Murdo will be bound over for trial.”

  “Can you get the charges dismissed?” Martha said.

  “Mrs. Halverson, I’m not a criminal lawyer. You have plenty of time and apparently plenty of money to hire very best criminal lawyer you can find.”

  “We want you.”

  Burr considered mentioning the missing pink pony, Chief Brandstatter, the Christmas tree and his introduction to Jimmy Lyons, but since this was his last hurrah, he decided against it.

  “Murdo was with me the entire night,” Anne said.

  “I doubt that will help at the preliminary exam,” Burr said.

  “Why not?” Anne said.

  It was Aunt Kitty’s turn. “Because the evidentiary standard is so low. The standard is not ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ like it is for a conviction.”

  “If I were your lawyer, I wouldn’t bring it up,” Burr said.

  Murdo looked up from his pasty. He had gravy on his chin, which Anne wiped off with her napkin.

  “The defense strategy is almost always to see what evidence the prosecutor has, without giving away your own arguments.”

  “You mean there will be a trial?” Murdo said.

  “I’m afraid so. Unless there’s evidence to the contrary,” Burr said.

  “There is,” Anne said. “Murdo was with me the entire evening.”

  “You’re his wife. A wife will say anything,” Burr said.

  “But it’s true.”

  “It may be true, but I doubt it will be enough for Judge Maki. At the trial, the jury has to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They may well believe you.”

  “I said it was true.”

  “Then you and Murdo have nothing to worry about.”

  * * *

  After lunch, Burr drove them all back to the ferry. Eve and the Halversons sat in the cabin. Aunt Kitty motioned to Burr, who led him to the upper deck.

  Once the ferry cleared the harbor, the captain opened up the diesels. Burr felt them pulse under him, in time with his throbbing toe. An east wind had blown up a chop on Lake Huron and slapped against the hull. The wind blew spray into Burr’s face.

  “How about if we get out of the wind?” Burr said.

  “We’ll be in the lee of the island any minute now.”

  “We’ll both be soaked by then.”

  “There it is,” she said.

  “There is what?”

  “The Grand.”

  Burr had no idea why the Grand Hotel had anything to do with anything. He’d seen
the hotel from the water, stayed there, eaten there, drank too much there. A four-story hotel with a porch that stretched six-hundred feet. The longest outdoor porch in the world. One of the finest views in Michigan, perhaps the world. Built in 1887 by the Illinois-Michigan Railroad to give its passengers a destination. Esther Williams made a movie in the Grand’s outdoor pool. Christopher Reeve had starred in Somewhere in Time.

  “Count seven down from the Grand.” A row of Victorian cottages, mansions really, ran along the West Bluff north of the hotel. The ritziest of the old money.

  “That’s Aerie, the Halversons’ cottage,” Aunt Kitty said.

  Aerie was four stories and had three turrets, white with royal blue trim and a royal blue roof.

  “I’m not a criminal lawyer.” Burr wiped the spray from his face.

  “You might consider Martha’s checkbook.” Aunt Kitty handed him her handkerchief.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Burr insisted that Aunt Kitty stay the night. The next morning the two of them biked to the harbor, Zeke leading the way. Aunt Kitty boarded the Huron and left for Mackinaw City, then on to Cottage Number 59 on Harbor Point. Burr and Zeke-the-dog waited for Grace and Zeke-the-boy. Two ferries later, Grace and Zeke-the-boy walked onto the dock.

  Grace had shoulder-length black hair, soft gray eyes and a sad smile. An altogether beautiful, if melancholy, woman.

  She had never forgiven him for their breakup or for leaving Fisher and Allen. He knew he’d been a fool to leave Grace, but he was fairly certain that Humpty Dumpty couldn’t be put back together again.

  “Be careful with him,” she said.

  “I will, Mom,” Zeke-the-boy said, a tow-headed boy of nine whose eyes matched his father’s.

  “Yes, Grace,” Burr said. He tried to kiss her goodbye, but she turned aside.

  “Don’t let him out of your sight.” Grace boarded the ferry.

  Later that afternoon, Burr and the two Zekes stopped at the Dwight Good Springs, a trickle of a spring, unsafe to drink, and the umpteenth time they’d stopped to rest on their bike ride around the island. Zeke-the-boy had insisted on riding his own bike around the island for the first time ever. Burr hoped they’d make it back to Windward by dark.

  The narrow blacktop that circles the island, M-185 is the only state road in Michigan that prohibitscars, trucks, and everything else with an engine. It runs eight miles along the shore, at the base of hundred-foot limestone bluffs with cedars and spruce growing out of the rock. Every summer, Burr had pedaled Zeke around the island, first in a basket, then on the back of a bicycle built for two. Now for the first time, Zeke rode his own bike.on his own bike.