The Pink Pony

by Charles Cutter

  This isn’t going to end well.

  Jacob stopped hopping, leaned over the dock and threw up into the lake. The duck swam over to investigate.

  I’m not going to kill him until my headache goes away.

  Eve boarded the carriage, followed by Jacob. Burr decided that there was no reason to pedal when he could ride, especially when it came to the hill up the East Bluff. Burr waited while a street sweeper towing a card behind his bike pedaled by, then he threw his bike on the back of the carriage and climbed up front with the cabbie, an old man who needed a shave and a bath. Burr put Zeke between the two of them. Zeke always liked riding shotgun and didn’t seem to mind sitting next to the driver.

  The driver snapped the reins. “Git up,” he said. “Git up, Gin. Git up, Tonic.”

  I just can’t seem to get away from booze today.

  The driver geed and hawed his two horses up the hill to the row of Victorian cottages, minor mansions that made up the East Bluff, the poorer neighbors of the not so minor Victorian mansions on the West Bluff, just past the Grand Hotel.

  The cottages on both bluffs had been built at the turn of the century by the knights of commerce of their day, the barons of the Midwest from Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. In the days before air-conditioning, the prosperous fled the summer heat and humidity to Mackinac Island. That and the fact that, by the early 1900s, the British no longer posed a threat to the Upper Great Lakes. The U.S. Army abandoned the fort, and Mackinac Island transformed itself into the biggest tourist attraction in Michigan.

  Burr looked down at the harbor, where the history of the island had begun.

  Before all this, Mackinac Island was sacred to the Ojibwa, who believed that the island was home to Gitche Manitou. The Great Spirit. The island rose two-hundred feet from Lake Huron, far and away the highest island in the Great Lakes. The Ojibwa had named it Mackinac – Great Turtle – which is just what the island looked like from a canoe.

  Mackinac Island had long been a Native American fishing camp and trading center. The French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first European to discover the island. Later, John Jacob Astor made it the trading center for his fur empire. Now the island swelled to ten thousand people in the summer, but by winter, only seven hundred year-round residents remain were left.

  By the time the driver whoaed Gin and Tonic in front of Windward, Jacob’s color, if not his spirits, had returned.

  “What kind of place is this?” Jacob said.

  “It’s our summer retreat,” Burr said. “For a month.”

  “A month? I can’t stay here a month. I don’t think I can make it through the day.”

  Eve climbed out of the taxi and took it all in. “This is magnificent. Look at this place. It’s huge.” Then she turned around. “And the view.”

  Burr jumped down from the taxi and landed on his broken toe.

  “Damn it all,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” Eve said.

  “I stubbed my toe.” He thought it best not to bring up the missing pink pony and certainly not the dead man.

  “How are you paying for this?” Eve said.

  “Don’t worry.”

  “It’s always time to worry when you say not to worry,” Jacob said, still in the carriage, apparently not quite sure if he was going to stay.

  “Trade,” Burr said. “We’re trading for it.”

  “Trading what?” Eve asked.

  “The owner needs some legal work done.”

  “You’re trading my work product for this?” Jacob said.

  “The boat, too,” Burr said. “I won.”

  “This might be your idea of a vacation, but it’s not mine.” Jacob gripped the rail of the taxi. “If you want to live here for a month, you should pay for it. With cash.”

  “Burr has no cash,” Eve said.

  Burr had been head of the litigation department of Fisher and Allen, one of Detroit’s best firms. He had been, perhaps, Detroit’s best commercial litigator but had given it up, as well as his marriage – but not his son – over a client, a provocative client. A striking woman almost young enough to be his daughter. Over an affair that hadn’t turned out. He’d been a fool and he knew it. After the year it had taken to ruin the prior twenty, he moved to East Lansing and started an appellate practice. Complicated esoteric litigation punctuated with the oral arguments that had made him famous in select legal circles. It had gone swimmingly except for the money part, which, of course, was the most important part.

  But here they were, Burr fresh off a victory in the Port Huron-Mackinac race and a month’s worth of a five-bedroom cottage with a turret.

  “There’s no way we can afford to give up cash. Even for this.” Eve started back to the taxi.

  “Just look at those hollyhocks.” Burr pointed to the garden in front of the porch.

  “Don’t hollyhock me, Burr Lafayette,” Eve said, but she walked over to the four-foot-tall spires that had flowers like medallions. “They’re so old-fashioned. They’re beautiful … but they could use some help.”

  One down. One to go.

  “Jacob, the Carp River is just over the bridge.”

  “I’m not going anywhere if I have to ride on a boat. And I don’t fish for carp.”

  “The brookies are as fat as a loaf of bread.”

  “They are?”

  “They’re always hungry, and you don’t have to fish from a boat.”

  Jacob climbed down from the taxi.

  Burr settled Eve in the Huron, the room right around the corner from his. Burr had taken the Nicolet, the master bedroom, complete with a turret. Burr loved turrets. The Huron looked south to the mainland and east to Lake Huron; the Nicolet, also south to the mainland but west to the bridge. The morning sun rose right into the paned windows of the Huron, lighting the room at 6 a.m. this time of year, which was exactly why Burr had taken the Nicolet instead. That, and the turret. Burr had deposited Jacob at the northwest corner in the Astor, with a view of hemlocks and not much else, which was just fine with Jacob, who didn’t like a water view any more than he liked water.

  * * *

  Burr dozed on the porch swing in the late afternoon sun, Zeke napping at his feet. Eve, armed with garden clippers she had found in the shed, had started on the garden on the east side of the cottage. Jacob was sulking in his room. Burr swung in a lazy back-and-forth arc, careful of his ever-blackening toenail.

  This will do nicely.

  Zeke-the-boy was to arrive tomorrow with the beautiful Grace, the former Mrs. Lafayette. As soon as his headache passed, all would be right in his world.

  He heard the clop of horseshoes coming along the bluff. Then it stopped.

  Alarmed but only slightly, he opened his left eye just as a woman climbed down from one of the Grand Hotel’s finest covered carriages, black with a hint of red wine polished to a high gloss. It gleamed in the sunlight and hurt Burr’s eyes.

  “Stay right here, young man,” the woman said to the driver. He wore the livery of the hotel, he wore white pants, red jacket and a black top hat. “I shan’t be long.”

  The woman marched up the walk, then stopped at the bottom of the porch. “Burr Lafayette,” she said, not asking.

  Who is this?

  She looked like she was about seventy, but she had the hair of a younger woman, cut short, brown with blond highlights.

  “Cat got your tongue?” She climbed the steps and walked over to him. “I knew your grandfather, Aaron.”

  She was a small woman, maybe five-two. Petite. She wore a top with a floral print that went with her Papagallo, wraparound skirt and her navy espadrilles. Skin that had been out in the sun too long. A small mouth with thin lips. But her most striking feature was her eyes. Steely eyes that knew exactly what they wanted. One hundred percent Grosse Pointe, with an altogether commanding pre
sence.

  “He was the first one to figure out how to cut a square hole in metal.”

  Burr stood.

  “Inventing the broach was something. In its day, that was really something.” She looked over the water. “It was something in any day.” She looked back at Burr. “Colonial Broach. A shame your father couldn’t keep it going.” She stuck a bony hand out. “Martha Halverson, Detroit Screw Machine Company.” Martha Halverson took a seat on a green Adirondack chair next to the porch swing. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Somehow I didn’t think so.” He had no idea why Martha Halverson, clearly the matriarch of Detroit Screw Machine, had planted herself on his porch. But he was fairly certain he wasn’t going to like it.

  “Sit down. I need your help.”

  Burr sat down on the porch swing. “I don’t know how I could possibly help you.”

  “Shush and I’ll tell you.” She smoothed out an invisible wrinkle in her skirt. “My son has just been arrested for murder.”

  “That didn’t take long,” Burr said.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Halverson, but I’m not a criminal lawyer.”

  “I know that, but you’re a damn fine litigator. And you’re here.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Halverson. My practice is limited to appellate work.”

  She smoothed her skirt again. “Listen to me, young man. My son has just been arrested for murder. He’s in that poor excuse for a jail downtown.”

  “What’s your son’s name?”

  “Murdoch,” she said. “Murdoch Halverson, but everyone calls him Murdo.”

  “I guess he’s not the one who’s dead.”

  “I beg your pardon,” she said again.

  “I’m sorry Mrs. Halverson, but I can’t help you.”

  “Of course, you can.”

  “Is it possible that he did it?”

  Martha Halverson gave him a murderous look. “My son might be a fool, but he’s not a murderer.” She jumped to her feet. “I can’t stay here a moment longer. I have to get to the jail before this gets any worse.” She dashed off the porch and jumped into the carriage. She leaned out the window of the carriage. “To the jail. Meet me there, Mr. Lafayette.” The driver flicked the reins and off they went.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Burr stumbled down the stairs at ten the next morning. He tripped over Jacob’s luggage on his way to the kitchen, a white, airy room full of windows at the back of the cottage. Eve handed him a cup of coffee, sandy colored with too much cream, just the way he liked it. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen. A clear, crisp Mackinac Island morning. What was left of it.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better” he said. Burr felt as good as new, except for his toe.

  “Seventeen hours of sleep will do that.” Eve took in a deep breath. “He’s at it again.”

  “It’s recreational.”

  Eve opened the refrigerator, an ancient white machine with spindly legs and a black compressor on top.

  “Poached?”

  “On toast.”

  The swinging doors from the dining room swung open and in came Jacob, in pleated khaki shorts, a lemon-yellow Lacoste and sandals. A cloud of sweet smoke blew in with him.

  “Nothing for me.”

  He stopped in the path of the doors, which swung back and hit him squarely in the back. “Damn this place. I’m getting off this blasted island this very moment.” He sucked on the joint and held his breath.

  “You just got here.” Eve filled a frying pan with water and lit the stove.

  “The stench of horse manure is overpowering.”

  “There’s no smog,” Burr said.

  Eve cracked two eggs into the now steaming water.

  “There’s plenty to do here. Zeke is coming today. I thought we could all ride bikes around the island.”

  “Why you named your son after a dog is beyond me.”

  “There’s no greater honor than to be named after Zeke-the-dog. He’s the best retriever I’ve ever had.”

  “It could be tough going through life as Zeke-the-boy,” Eve said.

  “Bicycles?” Jacob said. “Are you kidding?”

  “There’s the fort,” Burr said, who knew immediately that he had said the wrong thing.

  Jacob pushed open the swinging doors and ran into a tall, white-haired woman.

  “Watch where you’re going, young man,” she said.

  “Aunt Kitty,” Burr said.

  “Come with me, Burr. Straight away.”

  “I’m just about to eat breakfast.” Burr sat down at the table in the breakfast room that looked out on the east garden.

  “Aaron Burr Lafayette, I can’t believe you treated Martha that way. Your grandfather and her father were fast friends.” Except for Zeke-the-boy, Aunt Kitty was Burr’s only living relative. She was his grandfather’s sister. A tall, thin, striking woman with a snow-white ponytail and fierce blue eyes just like Burr’s. An aging beauty, she had become a lawyer when it was nearly impossible for women to go to law school.

  Burr tried another tack. “I’m picking up Zeke in Mackinaw City this morning.”

  “Not today you’re not. Put on a coat and tie and come with me.”

  “Grace will be waiting for me.”

  “I’ve already called her.” Aunt Kitty turned on her heel. “Get dressed and get your bike.” She turned to Jacob. “Unless I’m mistaken, that’s a controlled substance.”

  Jacob disappeared through the swinging doors. Eve handed Burr his eggs.

  * * *

  Burr rummaged through his suitcase for the one tie he thought he might have packed. As far as ties were concerned, he had three rules. He always wore a tie when he went to court, when he went to a funeral and when he borrowed money. The corollary, never wear a tie on any other occasion, meant that he hadn’t packed one for Mackinac Island. When he’d climbed aboard Scaramouche four days ago, he never thought he’d be borrowing money, that anyone would die on him or, most of all, that he’d be going to court.

  Eve popped in. “Looking for this?” She handed him his favorite tie, a silk foulard with blue diamonds on a red background. The tie he always wore on the first day of a trial.

  “Where did that come from?”

  “My suitcase.”

  “I can’t believe you brought a tie.”

  “I thought you might need to borrow some money.” She put her hands on her hips. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”

  “A favor for a friend of Aunt Kitty’s.” He tied a half Windsor and cinched it up around his neck. Like a noose.

  * * *

  Burr, Eve, and Aunt Kitty boarded the ferry to St. Ignace. Jacob refused to have anything to do with Burr’s latest folly, as he called it. The three of them sat on the top deck, Burr’s tie blowing in the wind.

  “Just bail. That’s all you have to do,” Aunt Kitty said.

  “I’m not a criminal lawyer.”

  “Tuck your tie into your shirt or you’ll strangle yourself,” Aunt Kitty said.

  “This is my time with Zeke.”

  “We’ll get to that. Just get Murdo out on bail.”

  The Pontiac, another Arnold Line sixty-foot catamaran, slowed and came off plane as it rounded the point and entered the harbor at St. Ignace. The first port of call in the Upper Peninsula after crossing the bridge, St. Ignace sat at the edge of an almost perfect harbor, sheltered from all points of the compass except the east. St. Ignace had been a lumber and fishing port in times past but was barely bigger than a village. The county seat of Mackinac County, which included Mackinac Island, it serviced the island and what commerce remained in the south end of the U.P.

  They walked the four blocks uphill to the courthouse, a three-story, orange-brick bui
lding left over from the turn of the century. Martha Halverson met them on the steps. “You’re late,” she said.

  Burr pulled his tie out of his shirt, pulled the sleeves down on his custom-tailored navy-blue blazer, hardly appropriate, but he’d been planning on cocktail parties, not court.

  He opened the door for the three women. The floor had six-sided white tiles, each the size of a half dollar, laid in with black grout. A sheriff’s deputy in brown shirt and tan slacks, and the biggest sidearm Burr had ever seen, led them to the courtroom toward the back of the building.

  “You could hunt deer with that thing.” Burr said,

  “I have,” the deputy said. “Stops ’em cold.”

  The deputy led them to the courtroom. “Five more minutes and you’d have had the public defender.”

  Murdoch Halverson sat at the defense table. A good-looking woman with raven hair sat in the gallery just behind him. Martha Halverson sat down next to her, then leaned over the railing.

  “Murdo, this is Burr Lafayette. He’s your lawyer.”

  He looked up at Burr, shook his head and flipped his jet-black hair out of his eyes. He was in handcuffs, which didn’t really go with his lime-green Lacoste and his madras Bermuda shorts, which looked like they’d been slept in.

  “This is the most horrible thing that could possibly happen,” the good-looking woman said. She had the greenest eyes Burr had ever seen. She offered her hand. “Anne Halverson,” she said. “With an e”

  Burr smiled and shook her hand. She had the look of the self-starved, well off, thin but not quite emaciated. She had black hair, the same color as her husband’s. Burr thought that Anne and Murdo looked alike, not enough for brother and sister, but certainly a resemblance.

  “Anne with an e,” Burr said.

  Eve and Aunt Kitty slid in next to Martha. Burr sat down to the right of Murdoch Halverson, who smelled of sweat and mildew. Across the aisle to Burr’s right, the prosecutor. He had short brown hair and a nose that looked like it had been punched too many times. He was short and stocky and looked like he was in his mid-forties.

  He’s not fat. He’s thick. Like a tree trunk.