Bear Bones

by Charles Cutter

  The hotel operator answered and put him through to Jacob.

  “Hello, Burr,” Jacob said. “You might have just come down to my room.”

  “I’m not at the hotel.”

  “Where are you? The connection is a bit scratchy.”

  “This is my car phone.”

  “Remarkable.”

  “It’s the future,” Burr said, who didn’t have time to talk about the future right now.

  Who knows how long this thing is going work.

  “Jacob, we have important business. I need you to do something.”

  “Tomorrow is another day,” Jacob said.

  The line crackled. “Jacob, we have one day to finish this. If it goes to the jury, we’re cooked.”

  “My dear, Burr, I don’t work nights.”

  “Damn it all, Jacob. Get a piece of paper and write down the dates and weather reports as I read them to you.”

  “I most certainly will not.” Burr heard Jacob put the phone down, but he didn’t think he’d hung up on him.

  The line crackled again. “Please, please, please. Don’t disconnect me. Not now.”

  “What’s that?” Jacob was back on the line.

  “Nothing,” Burr said. “Jacob, write all this down. It’s from Helen’s logbook.” Burr rattled off the dates and forecasts.

  “I guess that wasn’t so hard. I think I’ll have a nightcap and turn in,” Jacob said.

  Burr knew that Jacob smoked his nightcaps. That would never do. Not tonight. “Jacob, there’s just one thing.”

  “No.”

  “I need you to drive to Grand Rapids tonight. Right now. Buy yourself the best room you can find. First thing in the morning, go to the National Weather Service office. Check the records for these dates I just gave you. Write down what the weather was for these dates. Then get back here as fast as you can.”

  “No.”

  “Jacob, please. Tommy’s life may depend on it.”

  “There’s no death penalty in Michigan.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “This is another of your follies.”

  “No. No, it’s not,” Burr said, who thought it might be. “Meet me at Morningside as soon as you can.”

  “No.”

  “Jacob, please.”

  The line crackled and went dead.

  “Damn it all.” Burr ripped the car phone out of the car and threw it as far as he could. The antenna pulled off the roof and hit him on the back of the head as it flew by.

  Burr decided he was in no condition to drive back to Traverse City, perhaps one of the few good decisions he had made in who knows how long. He left the Jeep where it was and stumbled next door to Spindrift, Zeke leading the way.

  Fortunately, Burr had left a sleeping bag aboard, and after negotiating the dock, he and Zeke cuddled on the starboard berth. There was barely room for one, but it was so cold he welcomed the company.

  * * *

  Burr woke at first light, dawn streaming in the portholes. He wasn’t quite frozen solid. The steak and eggs at the Little Finger mostly righted him. The aging lab wolfed down the to go order on the sidewalk beside the Jeep. “Zeke, old friend, as soon as this is over, it’s back to dogfood.” The dog looked up at him. “For you, not me.”

  Back at the Park Place, Burr showered and shaved. He nicked the mole on his cheek, the same place he always nicked himself. “Back to normal,” he said.

  Burr cut across the little finger, then north on M-22. There were still colors, but they were past their peak, the aspen bare, the birches not far behind, but the sugar maples still had their brilliant oranges and yellows. The wind blew hard off the lake. Burr watched the leaves fall off the trees and skitter in the wind as they fell.

  He passed an M-22 sign. “How can such a beautiful road have caused so much trouble?”

  At two o’clock, he turned on Port Oneida Road, then into the driveway at Morningside. He passed row after row of cherry trees. Bare, lifeless, ready for winter. A single crow sat on one of the branches.

  “Zeke, they’ll leaf out in the spring and then they’ll bloom.” Or will they? Will Sleeper’s men cut them down with chainsaws?

  He parked next to Jacob’s Peugeot. “Will wonders never cease.” Burr knocked on the farmhouse door. Tommy let him in. Consuela was nowhere in sight, but then he didn’t expect her to be there. Not now. Probably not ever again.

  Tommy led him to the kitchen. Jacob was nursing a cup of tea, his hands wrapped around the cup.

  He looks cold. And cranky.

  “So good of you to join us,” Jacob said.

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Burr said no to coffee and sat next to Jacob. Tommy poured himself a cup and sat across from them. “What’s this about? Jacob won’t say a word.”

  “I would tell you if I knew. This is another of Burr’s silly ideas.”

  “I think it’s a little late for silly,” Tommy said.

  “Quite right. I’m sorry,” Jacob said.

  “Did you find the weather reports?” Burr said.

  Jacob reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheaf of paper. He unfolded the papers and set them in front of Burr.

  Burr looked at Jacob, then Tommy. “Helen had a logbook on Achilles. She wrote down the weather for her trips. But when I looked at the weather, really looked at it, it didn’t make any sense. It would all be the same four, five or six times in a row. Then the entries changed. The next batch would all be the same. Then they’d change again. Once in a while there was a little overlap before another sequence, but the pattern kept on going. Right up until she was murdered.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Tommy said.

  “I didn’t think so either. At first. But I thought it was too coincidental. So Jacob went to the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids and wrote down the weather for each of the days Helen did.”

  Tommy looked at Burr as if he was crazy, which he probably was.

  Burr took the logbook out of his pocket and opened it up. “But the actual weather doesn’t match what Helen wrote down. Maybe once in a while, but most of the time, it wasn’t even close.”

  “The weather is hardly ever what it’s supposed to be.”

  “That’s true,” Burr said, “but the sequences don’t match the real weather at all.”

  Jacob took his hands off the teacup and blew on them. “Burr, you have lost me, as usual.”

  “It’s code,” Burr said. “Code. Each forecast was one of Helen’s lovers. That’s how she kept track of her…” Burr paused.

  “Conquests,” Tommy said.

  “I’m sorry,” Burr said. “She wrote them down in her logbook. When she was about to move on, the weather changed. If she wasn’t quite done with one, but had started up with someone new, there was an overlap.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Tommy said.

  “It was all in plain sight,” Burr said.

  “I still don’t believe it.”

  “You said yourself, she had serial affairs. This is the proof.”

  “My dear, Burr,” Jacob said, “there’s no way to prove this is so, and there’s no way to find out who the…the…”

  “Lovers,” Tommy said.

  “…were.” Jacob finished the sentence. “All you’ve done is prove that the weather doesn’t match.”

  “Tommy, do you know any of them?”

  “I have a few ideas but nothing certain. Helen was careful.”

  “So, you think one of them may have killed her?” Jacob said.

  “Yes,” Burr said, who didn’t.

  “One of the jilted ones.”

  Burr nodded.

  “What do we do now?”

  “We’ve got until tomorrow at ten to find out. Then it goes to the jury.”

&
nbsp; “Maybe the jury will find me not guilty.”

  “Not after Karen’s testimony,” Jacob said.

  Tommy leaned back in his chair.

  Burr gathered up the logbook and the weather reports and left.

  * * *

  He took the long way back to Traverse City, stopping at the Happy Hour for one last cheeseburger and one, just one, Stroh’s, then on to Traverse City. He had important business. Business that would tell the tale tomorrow morning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  At ten the next morning, they were all in their places, including Burr’s pencil du jour. The courtroom was packed. It looked like Leelanau County had turned out in force, including Tommy’s neighbors, the Sisters of Outrage – one of whom had caused this debacle – their husbands, and, of course, Dale Sleeper, who might well have the most to gain from a guilty verdict.

  “All rise,” the bailiff said.

  Judge Mary Fisher entered the courtroom, probably for the last time, Burr thought. She arranged the flower in her bud vase, a rose again. Blood red.

  How appropriate.

  The bailiff called them to order.

  “We are here today for closing arguments in the matter of the State versus Lockwood. Mr. Brooks?”

  Brooks stood. So did Burr.

  “Sit down, Lafayette. It’s not your turn,” Brooks said.

  Burr ignored him. “Your Honor, the defense would like to call one more witness.”

  “Your Honor, the defense concluded its case. Mr. Lafayette said so himself.”

  Burr walked up to Judge Fisher, who pulled the bud vase toward her. “Your Honor, the prosecutor introduced new witnesses after he had concluded.” Burr held up two fingers. “Twice.”

  “You may question one more witness.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” He walked back to his table. “Maybe two,” he said, under his breath. His back to both the judge and the prosecutor, Burr reached into his jacket pocket and took out the logbook. He handed it to Jacob and said under his breath, “When I ask to introduce this into evidence, hand it to Tommy. I’ll take it from him.”

  “You’ll never get this introduced. You took it from Achilles and that’s off limits.”

  Burr ignored him. “The defense calls Lauren Littlefield.” He looked her squarely in the eye. She was shocked but met his gaze. She stood. Burr held the gate open that separated the gallery from the litigants.

  She sat in the witness stand, smoothed her dress, also black but shapeless, concealing her figure.

  The bailiff swore her in. Burr identified her as the youngest of Helen’s sisters. She lived with her husband and children in Northport, worked as a nurse at Munson, and did not, under any circumstances, want to sell the orchards.

  Here goes. All or nothing.

  “Mrs. Littlefield, you heard your sister Karen testify about your late sister and her affairs. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you agree with her testimony?”

  “Well, I’m not sure.” She rubbed her nose. “I never saw her with anyone.”

  Such a kind sister.

  “But you heard the rumors?”

  “I suppose I did.”

  “Your Honor, the defense would like to introduce the logbook of the deceased, Helen Lockwood, as Defense Exhibit Three.” Burr turned around, making sure Jacob was handing it to Tommy.

  Brooks jumped to his feet. “I object, Your Honor. That logbook is sequestered evidence. Counsel has no right to have it in his possession. I ask you to hold him in contempt for tampering with State’s evidence.”

  “Those are serious charges, Mr. Lafayette,” the judge said.

  “Your Honor, the logbook is not in my possession,” Burr said, although it had been in his possession until about five minutes ago. “The logbook is in the possession of my client. There is no police tape around the boat. It is not a secure site. The property of Mrs. Lockwood is, by law, under the custody and control of Mrs. Lockwood’s heir, Mr. Lockwood.”

  “He won’t be her heir once he’s convicted of murder,” Brooks said.

  Burr smiled at Brooks. “That will be for another day.”

  “Stop it, both of you,” Judge Fisher said. “You may introduce the logbook into evidence.”

  Burr did so, along with Jacob’s weather reports. Brooks fumed, but there was nothing he could do.

  Burr held the logbook in one hand and the weather reports in the other. “Mrs. Littlefield, I don’t expect you to comment on this, but it turns out that the only thing written in your sister’s logbook are weather reports, which, of course, isn’t unusual for a logbook on a boat. What’s unusual is that the weather in the logbook doesn’t match any of the weather reports for the days in question. Perhaps not unusual. It is, after all, Michigan.” The gallery snickered.

  Burr turned to the gallery and waved the logbook at it. He turned back to Lauren. “What this really is, though, is Helen Lockwood’s own code. These weather entries in the logbook aren’t weather at all. They’re a chronicle of Mrs. Lockwood’s lovers, one after the other.”

  Brooks stood. “Your Honor, this is irrelevant. It’s nothing more than a parlor game.”

  “Your Honor, I’m about to show the relevance.”

  The curious judge leaned toward Burr. “Please do.”

  “This is a list of Helen’s lovers,” Burr said. “In code. We don’t know who they are. Any of the jilted lovers could have killed Helen. As far as that goes, so could Tommy, the cuckolded husband.” Burr looked at the jury then turned back to Lauren. “But that’s not what happened, is it,” Burr said, not asking.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She’s awfully calm.

  Burr was a bit worried.

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  He put his hands in his pockets. “I’ll tell you exactly what happened.”

  He stood where the jury could see both Lauren and him.

  “It was one thing for your sister to carry on with other men. That was between her and Tommy. But when she started in with your husband…” Burr pointed to her fair-haired, boy-next-door husband sitting in the gallery next to Karen and her husband. “That was too much.”

  Not a trace of emotion.

  “Somehow you found out your husband was going to meet Helen on South Manitou. You made sure he didn’t go, did you?”

  Nothing.

  “You snuck aboard Achilles before Helen got there and hid on the boat all the way to South Manitou. You stayed hidden when Tommy had it out with her. Then you had it out with her. You shot her in the forehead. Maybe you didn’t plan that part. Maybe you lost your temper. Then you buried her, sent Achilles off toward Milwaukee and came home. No one saw you.” Burr looked at his scuffed-up shoes. “Why? Because you took the dinghy back to Leland. It was nervy but it was calm that night.” Burr looked at his shoes again. “Where’s the dinghy, Lauren? Where did you sink it?”

  “You’re making all this up. I was at work that night. I was signed in.”

  Burr put his hands in his pockets. “You showed up for work. You were signed in. But you weren’t there. Not that night.”

  “I was.”

  Burr looked out in the gallery. She was there. Thank heavens. His important business yesterday had been at Munson. He’d talked to all of the OB-GYN nurses until he found the right one.

  “Mrs. Littlefield, as you told me, there isn’t much predictability to the arrival of babies. You got yourself scheduled on what you thought would be a slow night. And it was. Your friend Nurse Seamands is here in the gallery.” Burr pointed at a worried looking middle-aged woman sitting in the back of the courtroom. “She is about to testify that she covered for you that night. Not that there was much to cover for. It was a slow night. You all did that for each other. Didn’t you? And you said y
ou’d come back if you were needed. But you weren’t. So, you stowed away on Achilles and killed your sister. And you had a perfect alibi.”

  “It’s not true,” an edge to Lauren’s voice.

  Perhaps a chink in her armor.

  “It would have worked if you’d left well enough alone. But I asked one too many questions about the dinghy. You got worried.”

  “No. No, I didn’t.”

  The chink is getting bigger.

  “You’d have been in the clear if you hadn’t planted Helen’s ring in the flour. Tommy never would have put it there. And only Tommy, Karen, Consuela, and you – yes, you – had unfettered access to the house. You planted it where you were sure Consuela would find it.”

  “It wasn’t me.” She rubbed her nose again.

  “Oh, but it was. I’m about to call your colleague. She’s going to tell us exactly where you weren’t that night. And then your husband is going to tell us that you caught him and Helen. And he certainly doesn’t want to be convicted of murder.” Burr pointed at Curt. He had his head in his hands.

  “It almost worked, Lauren. Almost.”

  “I hated her,” she said. “I hated her.

  “She was the prettiest and the smartest. She got everything she wanted. She didn’t love Curt. She just wanted to prove she could have him. But she wasn’t going to get him.” Lauren gripped the railing just like the rest of them, but she didn’t cry.

  * * *

  At two o’clock that afternoon, the entire staff of Lafayette and Wertheim sat in a booth at the bar at the Park Place. Grand Traverse Bay positively shimmered in the late afternoon sun. Zeke, with the special dispensation that a fifty-dollar bill could bring, lounged under the booth. Eve was on her first Bloody Mary, Burr his second martini. Jacob sipped his Perrier through a straw, sans lime.

  It had taken the jury all of twenty minutes to acquit Tommy. He had written Burr a big check right on the spot and disappeared, keeping well clear of the coatroom. Eve had immediately taken possession of the check and put it in her purse. Karen and Lauren had gone their separate ways.