Bear Bones

by Charles Cutter

  They tied up in Leland about 10:30. Burr was tired, hungry and in need of a shower, but he had two stops first. He unwrapped the last Pop Tart and gave half of it to Zeke.

  They drove past Port Oneida Road and into Glen Arbor, population two thousand, more than doubling in the summer. It swelled in the summer with the cottagers. Glen Arbor was a stone’s throw from Glen Lake, one of the bluest and deepest inland lakes in Michigan and not much farther from Lake Michigan and Sleeping Bear Dunes. Burr passed the grocery store, the gas station, a diner and two bars before parking in front of a small white house. He cracked the windows for Zeke and walked into a waiting room. There were five empty chairs and a receptionist, a heavy-set woman with bright red lips and reading glasses on a chain. She looked up at him.

  “I’d like to see Dr. Murray.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “Let me make you one.” She put her glasses on the end of her nose and opened up an appointment book.

  “It’s about Helen Lockwood.”

  “Oh.” She stood and lumbered through a door behind her.

  A few minutes later, she came back in. “Dr. Murray will see you now.” She pointed him to a door. “He’s at the end of the hall.”

  Burr opened the door and walked past two examining rooms. He was sure they had been bedrooms in their former lives. He walked into the room at the end of the hall.

  A thin man with white hair sat behind a small desk. He had his back to Burr and was looking out a sliding glass door.

  “Goldfinches,” said the man with the white hair. “Do you like goldfinches?”

  “Yes,” Burr said. “Yes, I do.”

  “They like thistle seed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you even know what a goldfinch is?”

  “My aunt is a bird watcher.” And then there’s Maggie.

  The older man turned around. He had bloodshot eyes magnified by a pair of glasses with black frames that took up most of his face.

  They look like goggles.

  “And who might you be?”

  Burr offered his hand. “Burr Lafayette.” The older man reached out a long, bony arm. His hand was clenched with arthritis but he had a strong grip.

  “Claude Murray. So you’re here about poor Helen?”

  “I’m the family attorney.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m here about the death certificate.”

  “The death certificate.” Dr. Murray leaned back in his chair. “It’s too soon for that.”

  “Well, Mrs. Lockwood is dead.”

  “She is that.” Murray set his hands on his desk, fingers bent at the knuckles.

  “I…the family wants to make arrangements for the funeral.”

  “Young man, she was just found yesterday. The EMTs and the sheriff are going back today. We don’t have a cause of death yet.”

  “I thought she’d been shot.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just got back from South Manitou.”

  “Did you spend the night out there?”

  “I did.”

  Dr. Murray sniffed. “You do seem a little ripe. Why don’t you go take a shower and come back in about two weeks?”

  “Dr. Murray, Mrs. Lockwood is dead.”

  The doctor took off his glasses. His eyes sunk back in his head.

  “We can’t have a funeral without a death certificate,” Burr said.

  “And you can’t get a death certificate from me until there’s a cause of death. And that’s not going to happen until Helen is on the table in the room next door and I do an autopsy.” He fumbled with his glasses, tried to put them back on but his fingers didn’t seem to work quite right.

  It’s probably safe enough for him to cut open dead people, but I wouldn’t want him to take out my tonsils.

  “She should have sold out a long time ago. Now somebody has gone and shot her.”

  “Could it have been suicide?”

  The good doctor got his glasses back on, but they were crooked. “The sheriff told me there’s a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead. You don’t commit suicide by putting a gun to the middle of your forehead.” He made his crooked forefinger into a gun and tried to point it at his forehead. “See. It’s awkward. You can hardly do it. If you want to shoot yourself, you put the gun in your mouth. Like this.” He put his finger in his mouth. “Or like this.” He put his finger up to his temple. “Nobody shoots themselves the way Helen was killed.”

  “It’s all the more reason to give the family some closure.”

  “She’s been missing for a year. Another two weeks, maybe a month, won’t make any difference.”

  “Doctor…”

  “I know what you want, young man. You want that death certificate for your precious lawsuit down in Grand Rapids.”

  Burr started to run his hands through his hair. He thought better of it and put them in his lap.

  “We get the papers here. That lawsuit is holding up a lot of important things around here. All you care about is the money.” He swiveled back to the window. “The female goldfinches are the same color all year. See that bright yellow one. That’s a male.” He pointed out the window. “They change colors. Yellow in the summer, drab in the winter, like the females.” He turned back to Burr. “Shame on you.”

  * * *

  Burr and Zeke headed back the way they had come. Burr turned at Port Oneida Road, then up the driveway, passing two men running a shaker. The tree shook, the branches whipped, the leaves blew back and forth, and the cherries fell off the tree onto a canvas apron spread under the poor tree.

  It’s like a monster trying to shake the tree to death.

  “Zeke, that can’t possibly be good for the tree.”

  Burr knocked on the farmhouse door. Consuela told him Tommy had been inside but now he wasn’t, which Burr didn’t think was particularly helpful.

  Burr and Zeke checked the outbuildings, then started into the orchard. “Zeke,” he said, “if there really are four hundred acres of cherry trees, this could take awhile.” They walked through trees that had been picked, trees no more than fifteen feet tall. It looked like half of their leaves had been shaken off with the cherries. Then into unpicked tarts, the branches drooping with the lipstick red cherries. They walked up and down the rows, ankle high weeds at their feet, then through a field where older trees had been pulled out of the ground but hadn’t yet been hauled away. “Zeke, my guess is these didn’t produce enough fruit.” Burr bit his lip. “It’s tough being a cherry tree.”

  Then they were in the sweet cherries, black with a hint of crimson, the branches sagging with fruit. They found Tommy about two rows in. Zeke licked his hand. Tommy bent down and scratched behind Zeke’s left ear. The dog groaned.

  “That’s his favorite spot,” Burr said.

  Tommy picked a cherry off the tree and popped it in his mouth. He had on a blue checked shirt, khakis and work boots. “The sheriff told me you were out at South Manitou.”

  Burr nodded.

  “It must have been her. It was her coat.” Tommy spit out the pit. “It was awful. Looking at her like that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Claude called before I came out here,” Tommy said.

  Burr nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “He said you were just there.”

  Burr nodded again.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little too soon to ask for a death certificate? Can’t we just take a little time to get used to this?”

  “I thought it would be a help.”

  “A help?”

  “One less thing you’d have to do.”

  Tommy picked another cherry. He studied it then threw it away. He picked another, studied it, then ate it. He spi
t out the pit, then kicked at the trunk of the tree. “These trunks are too big for the shakers. We have to pick them by hand. And we have to get them off at just the right time.”

  Burr nodded again, relieved that they were talking about cherry trees and not the death certificate.

  “I don’t see why you couldn’t wait for the death certificate.”

  Burr ran his hands through his hair. “Tommy, I’m sorry. It seemed like the right thing to do. To help you get some closure.”

  Tommy looked down at his boots, then up at Burr. “This isn’t about money. Helen’s gone. I knew she was probably dead. I knew it. But I guess I hoped she wasn’t. No. I knew she was, but it really got to me. Seeing her like that. That was terrible. And now it is final. And for you it’s just the money. I don’t care if they do get the farm. And I don’t like what you did.” Tommy stared at Burr, anger in his soft brown eyes. “You’re fired.” Tommy spit out the cherry pit and walked away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “What do you mean, fired?” Jacob wrung his hands.

  “Is there more than one meaning?” Eve said. She was sitting at her desk in the reception area with the door closed.

  She has an uncanny ability to hear everything I say, especially what I don’t want her to hear.

  “What do you mean, fired?” Jacob said again, still wringing his hands.

  “Would you please stop wringing your hands,” Burr said.

  “He does that when he’s upset,” Eve said from beyond the door.

  Burr ignored her. After the disastrous meeting with Tommy, Burr had driven straight back to East Lansing and gone right to bed. After breakfast, he had walked out of his apartment, down the hall and into his office. Now he was at his desk, Jacob in front of him in a side chair. Zeke asleep on the couch. Just like always. Burr hadn’t expected breaking the news to Jacob and Eve to go well, and so far he was right.

  “We’ll soldier on like we always do,” Burr said.

  “Soldiers need to eat,” Eve said.

  “Eve, would you mind gracing us with your presence?” Burr didn’t hear any movement from Eve’s headquarters.

  “We have no other money coming in,” Jacob said.

  “We have other cases,” Burr said.

  “They don’t pay like this one did,” Eve said.

  “Eve, please come in here.” Burr reached into the top drawer of his desk and took out the sharpest Number 2 yellow pencil he could find.

  “Don’t tap that pencil,” Eve said from the reception area.

  How can she possibly know?

  “It was the height of insensitivity to try and get a death certificate so soon,” Jacob said.

  “Helen Lockwood has been missing for a year,” Burr said.

  Eve came in and sat down across from Jacob, facing Burr. She had a letter in her hand.

  “Thank you, Eve. Your offstage was a little unnerving. I felt like I was in a Greek tragedy.”

  “You are starring in it,” Eve said.

  “Stop it. Both of you,” Jacob said. “We have no money coming in.”

  “It was a stupid thing to do,” Eve said.

  Burr, about to tap his pencil, thought better of it. “I was trying to make it easier for Tommy.”

  “You were trying not to get defaulted by the judge,” Jacob said.

  “That, too.”

  “Would another day or two have hurt anything?” Eve said.

  “Who knows how long it would have taken,” Burr said.

  Eve reached over and grabbed Jacob by the wrist. “Would you please stop wringing your hands?”

  This isn’t going well.

  Zeke woke up from his nap and looked at Burr. Burr nodded at him. The yellow lab jumped off the couch, went over to Jacob and licked his hand. Jacob jumped to his feet. He grabbed Burr’s pencil and broke it in half. Then he stormed out.

  “You did that on purpose,” Eve said.

  “We’ve said everything twice,” Burr said.

  “What are you going to do?” Eve said.

  “I have a couple of possibilities.”

  “Here’s another possibility for you.” Eve handed Burr the letter.

  “It’s just another letter from Grace’s lawyer. Maury is harmless.”

  “He’s so harmless that Grace wants full custody of Zeke-the-Boy.”

  Burr read the letter.

  “Grace doesn’t like you seeing Maggie.”

  “Maggie has nothing to do with this. I didn’t even know her when Grace and I split up.”

  “Hell hath no fury…”

  Like a woman scorned.

  * * *

  Burr, with Zeke-the-dog in tow, took the stairs down to Michelangelo’s, Burr’s tenant on the first floor.

  He was about halfway through a very nice bottle of Chianti when he considered actually looking at Maury’s letter. He gave Zeke another noodle from his clams with red sauce on angel hair pasta. Zeke slurped the noodle.

  “Zeke, I’ve never missed a payment to Grace. Never.” He poured himself another glass of wine and took the letter out of the envelope.

  Burr read how awful he was. Drinking, guns, boats, womanizing. Chronically late in child support and alimony. “Zeke, I have never been late on child support. Alimony maybe.”

  Burr thought he had been a fairly good husband until Suzanne. He may have worked too much, duck hunted more than he should have, and drank too many martinis, but it was Suzanne that had ended it all. He was defending his rich ad agency client because of the misleading copy Suzanne had written. She was tall with dark hair and pouty lips. She wasn’t beautiful, hardly pretty, but she was striking. He was a fool over her. She didn’t encourage him, but that encouraged him even more. She never said she loved him. He loved her, at least he thought he did. It cost him his partnership at Fisher and Allen. And his marriage.

  And now here he was with Maury’s letter. She wants me to keep paying, and she wants to take Zeke-the-Boy.

  It never had been the best of marriages, but it certainly hadn’t been the worst. Grace tended toward melancholy, but that was no reason to ruin his marriage over a woman almost young enough to be his daughter.

  The waitress came over and refilled his glass. “Mr. Lafayette, Scooter says there are no dogs allowed.”

  “Please ask Scooter to come see me.”

  She smiled and left. Burr knew full well that Scooter would never come over. Scooter would rather have Zeke sit at the table with a napkin around his neck eating linguini with red clam sauce than pay the back rent. Burr offered Zeke another long, thin noodle. Zeke sucked it in.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, at eleven on a Saturday morning, Burr sat in the back pew of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Glen Harbor. The church had white wood siding and a square steeple above the doors to the sanctuary. It made Burr nervous to sit with his back to a door, any door. It made him even more nervous to sit in the front with people and doors behind him. So here he sat in the back of the church. On the aisle. At least he could turn his head and see the doors.

  He had driven in early this morning and parked underneath a fifty-foot sugar maple. He cracked the window for Zeke, straightened his tie and walked into the little church. It was packed to the gills with flowers and mourners. A matron played dreadfully morose music on a groaning organ. Burr didn’t think the music was particularly memorable but he wasn’t particularly Lutheran. The Erickson family took up the first two rows. Tommy sat next to Lauren and her husband, Curt, late thirties, lean and fair haired. Burr thought he looked like the boy next door. Their three children sat next to him. Burr liked Curt well enough but couldn’t really say that he knew him. Then Karen and her husband, Glenn, broad shouldered and thick waisted. He looked like he could lift Karen over his head with one hand tied behind his back. Their four children sat between them. Consuela sat
one row back. An older man in uniform, who Burr thought must be the sheriff, sat near the back of the church with Deputy Holcomb and another equally adolescent-looking deputy. Burr assumed the rest of the sanctuary was filled with friends and neighbors. The men looked decidedly uncomfortable in their coats and ties.

  Burr hadn’t been invited to the funeral, but he thought it was the least he could do. He thought there must be a death certificate if they were having a funeral. He might even get rehired.

  The windows were open, but it was August and the air was still. The sanctuary was getting stuffy, a hint of sweat over the scent of flowers.

  The pastor entered, sufficiently funereal. He was about sixty-five, tall and spare, thinning gray hair with a pinched face. Burr thought he looked like the archetypical Swedish clergyman.

  “We are here today to celebrate the life of Helen Lockwood. She left us much too soon, but she will always be with us.”

  The funeral dragged on. Helen’s sisters spoke, as did various nieces, nephews, and friends. There was no mention of how Helen had died. Shot in the forehead and buried in a shallow grave on South Manitou. When they all finished, Burr didn’t think he knew her any better than he did before they spoke.

  He had found her to be one of the fiercest, most beautiful women he had ever met. She knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it. She was damned if she was going to lose Port Oneida Orchards to the Park Service. He hadn’t spent much time with her other than professionally. He knew she favored Tanqueray on the rocks, and he thought she might be a little wild. She put her hand on his knee once, and he wondered if it was a little more than friendly.

  If he did manage to get rehired, Burr hadn’t seen anyone who had the fight that Helen had. Certainly not Tommy

  At last the funeral was over. The organist started in again with more unfamiliar but equally lugubrious church music. Tommy and the family left first, then the rest of the mourners. Tommy nodded at Burr on the way out.

  Burr was the last to leave. He stood just outside the church in the heat of the day. He couldn’t leave Zeke in the car much longer, shade or not.

  He saw the family talking amongst themselves on the grass. Some of the mourners came up to the family and paid their condolences. Burr watched the unhappy scene play out. When the last of the mourners left, the sheriff walked over to Tommy. The two state policemen stood about ten feet behind him. The sheriff said something to Tommy. Deputy Holcomb got out of the sheriff’s patrol car and walked over to Tommy and the sheriff. The sheriff nodded at his deputy, who took the handcuffs off his equipment belt. Deputy Holcomb handcuffed Tommy, led him to the patrol car, opened the rear door of the car, pushed Tommy’s head down and got him into the backseat.