The Gray Drake

by Charles Cutter

* * *

  Burr sat at his desk, Jacob and Eve in the side chairs. “Why must everyone in this state plan their life around November fifteenth?”

  “November fifteenth?” Jacob said.

  “Opening day of deer season.” Eve looked down her nose at Jacob. “You must know that by now.”

  “I don’t keep track of the days on which otherwise civilized men kill animals with the blessing of the law.” Jacob turned to Burr. “What little planning you do revolves around duck season.”

  “Eve, I need you to find us an expert, who will say this was all a terrible accident. While you do that, I am going to see our drug dealer friend in Mt. Pleasant.”

  * * *

  “Mr. Cox will see you now.”

  The offices of Cox and Lindeman, Certified Public Accountants, were on the first floor of a brick, two-story office building on the east side of Mission and two blocks from Central Michigan University. Burr wondered if Lindeman had anything to do with drugs or, for that matter, if Cox did.

  The receptionist showed Burr into Cox’s office, a corner office with a private entrance.

  The accountant stepped around his desk to shake hands with Burr. With a grip like that, he could probably throw a football seventy yards.

  “Charlie Cox,” Charlie Cox said. “Please sit down.”

  Burr started to sit in one of Cox’s side chairs.

  “Let’s sit here.” Cox motioned Burr to yet another leather chair in the corner of his office. Cox sat on a matching couch, a coffee table between them.

  “Coffee, Mr. Lafayette?”

  “With cream.”

  “Missy,” Cox said. The receptionist scurried out.

  He does look like a football player.

  “Did you ever play football?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Football.”

  “Why, yes,” Cox said. “Quarterback. How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  Missy brought the coffee and scurried away again.

  “How can I help, Mr. Lafayette?”

  “It’s a tax matter,” Burr said.

  “That’s what I do,” Cox said. “What kind?”

  “Income taxes,” Burr said.

  “Yes.”

  “Actually, unreported income.”

  “Can you tell me about it?”

  Burr sipped his coffee. This must have been brewed before Labor Day. “It’s all in cash.”

  “Cash is king. Although unreported income can be tax evasion,” Cox said.

  Burr tried his coffee again. It hadn’t improved.

  “How long has this been going on?” Cox said.

  “I’m not exactly sure. Quite a while, I think.”

  “You could go to jail for income tax evasion. That’s how they finally caught up with Al Capone.”

  “I thought he was a bootlegger.”

  “He was, but they could never pin that on him. They got him on tax evasion. It was precedent-setting.”

  “So you are an expert in income-tax evasion?”

  “I am.” Cox slurped his coffee.

  Apparently he enjoys prehistoric coffee.

  “Does anyone know about this?”

  “Elizabeth Shepherd knows about it. Do you know her?”

  “Elizabeth Shepherd. No. No, I don’t think so.” Cox might be losing a bit of his helpful attitude.

  “She said she knows you.”

  “What do I have to do with this?” Cox put his coffee down.

  “She said you demanded money for drugs you sold to her husband.”

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

  Burr took a swallow of the coffee. “This may be the worst coffee I have had in my entire life.” He put the cup down. “Income-tax evasion and drug dealing. A modern-day Al Capone.” It was Burr’s turn to be knowledgeable. “You could go to jail for one or the other. Or both.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cox said again.

  “I think you do.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cox said for the third time.

  “Mr. Cox, unless you tell me exactly what was going on with you and Quinn Shepherd, I will see to it that you lose your license and spend a very long time in a very small space with very unpleasant people.”

  Cox jumped to his feet. “This is outrageous.”

  “Mr. Cox, you forced Elizabeth Shepherd to meet with you at the Doherty.”

  “I have no idea who she is.”

  “I saw you with her there.”

  “I was never there.”

  Burr looked down at his coffee, then up at the accountant. “Mr. Cox, I think you were selling Quinn Shepherd drugs. He owed you money. I think you were at The Gray Drake on the night of the auction. You followed him out to the river. And you killed him. You probably would have gotten away with it if you’d left it there. But you got greedy. You wanted your money, didn’t you, Mr. Cox. So you threatened Lizzie. Isn’t that how it happened?”

  “Get out.”

  “Income-tax evasion and selling drugs. We can add murder. Which is it?” Burr said. “All three?”

  “Get out.”

  Burr leaned back in his chair. Cox glared at Burr. He looked around his office, then at his hands. He stormed out by his private entrance.

  Burr sat where he was. “I’ve been thrown out of courtrooms, offices, and bars, but I’ve never had anyone leave their own office with me in it. I wish Jacob were here to see this.” He stood and left the same way Cox did.

  * * *

  Burr led Eve and Jacob to Wes’s office, their headquarters until the trial was over. There was more to be answered before the trial started, but there was never enough time, and there were never enough answers.

  Burr sat at Wes’s desk, Eve and Jacob in the chairs in front of him, Zeke napping on the couch. Just like in East Lansing, he thought. “Eve, please send Mr. Cox a subpoena for the trial. I want to hear what he has to say under oath.”

  “Shouldn’t we bring in the police now?” Jacob said.

  “No. The trial is right around the corner, and I don’t want it delayed by an investigation.”

  “Aren’t Lizzie and Josh in danger?” Eve said.

  “I don’t think so. Especially not after Cox gets a subpoena. If he tried anything he’d be pointing the finger at himself.”

  Jacob stood up and shivered. “This room is beastly cold.”

  “I’ll light a fire.” Eve stood and walked to the fireplace. She got down on her hands and knees, and laid a fire.

  “I’ve seen screens that do a better job of keeping out the wind than these windows,” Jacob said.

  Eve opened the flue. She reached for a crumpled piece of paper on top of Burr’s yellow legal pad. Burr snatched it away from her.

  “I need more paper to get this going.”

  “Not this piece,” Burr said.

  “It’s crumpled,” Eve said.

  Burr tossed it up in the air and caught it. “This is Cullen’s witness list. I was mad at it.”

  Eve grabbed Burr’s yellow pad and ripped out six or seven sheets. She crumpled up the papers, stuck them under the grate and lit them.

  Flames from the legal-pad papers licked up against the kindling. The logs might actually catch fire.

  Eve pulled her side chair up to the fire.

  “I suppose there’s a reason you were mad at the witness list,” she said.

  “If I get any colder, I will have frostbite,” Jacob said.

  “You should have been here last night. The wind was really howling,” Burr said.

  “The witness list,” Eve said.

  “It’s just what you’d expect. Everyone who testified at the preliminary exam.”

  Burr
felt the heat on his back and turned toward the fire. The logs burned merrily.

  “Cullen added two more of the oil men. Hawken and Osterman.”

  “Why would he do that?” Eve said.

  “They are all each other’s alibis,” Jacob said.

  “Anyone else?” Eve said.

  “Two more,” Burr said. “Heidi Grettenberger and Virginia Walker.”

  “Who are they?” Eve said.

  “I don’t know, and it’s too late to find out. We’ll have to take our chances at the trial.”

  “This is the most god-awful place I’ve ever been in.” Jacob clutched his coat around him.

  “The only reason we’re here is because of you. You’re the one who loves the Au Sable and The Gray Drake,” Burr said.

  “It’s not cold during the summer.”

  Eve went back to her chair and reached into her purse. She handed Burr a piece of paper.

  “What’s this?” Burr said.

  “Your expert,” Eve said. “And his resume.”

  Burr read the paper. “This is who you found?”

  “Doctors don’t like to testify against doctors,” Eve said. “And that goes double for doctors who are coroners. He’s the only one I could find.”

  * * *

  “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the trial?” Victor Haymarsh said. He took a cigarette from the pack Burr had given him and lit it. He was one of Burr’s oldest friends, half Ojibwe, half Pottawatomie, and a chief. Custom required that guests present a chief with a gift of tobacco.

  “This is on my way to see our expert.”

  “Walpole Island isn’t on the way to anywhere.”

  Burr had crossed the St. Clair River by ferry into Canada and had met Victor at five this morning. The two of them, plus Zeke, sat in a stake blind and looked out on Half Moon Pond, waiting for the ducks to fly.

  “Have you got it figured out yet?” Victor said.

  “No.”

  “Love or money?” Victor said.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Everything in life is about love or money.”

  * * *

  Burr drove off the ferry at 2:30 that afternoon. He and Zeke, along with three mallards and three wood ducks, cleared customs. They drove to 941 Vine, a brick Cape Cod in Dearborn with peeling white trim and a sidewalk full of cracks.

  A goliath of a man in a Red Wings baseball cap answered the door. He ducked and came out. Burr backed off the porch onto the sidewalk. There clearly wasn’t room for both of them on the porch.

  “Dr. Traker?”

  The giant nodded.

  He’s at least six-eight. Burr offered his hand. “Burr Lafayette. I think my assistant spoke with you about being an expert witness.”

  The giant shook Burr’s hand. Burr was sure his hand would be crushed, but he’d had more forceful encounters with a hand towel.

  “Robert Traker,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. He had glasses with black frames that covered most of his face, ivory skin and a nose two sizes too small for the rest of him.

  “I’d invite you in, but it’s a little messy.” He took off his hat and swatted at a fly. He was bald as a cue ball. He put his hat back on and took off his glasses. What happened to his eyebrows? Not a hair on his head. No eyebrows, and as far as Burr could tell, no trace of any whiskers.

  Eve, what have you done?

  “I need an expert witness who can cast some doubt on the second autopsy.”

  Traker arched what would have been his eyebrows.

  “I’d like you to testify that Quinn Shepherd wasn’t struck by a canoe paddle.”

  The good doctor put his glasses back on. That’s better. I’ll have to tell him not to take off his glasses when he’s testifying.

  “Could you testify to that?”

  “I might be able to,” Tracker said, just above a whisper.

  “You’ll have to speak up in court, Dr. Traker.” Burr wasn’t sure how a bald giant who spoke in a whisper would come across to the jury, but Traker was all he had. He kicked at a piece of loose concrete on the sidewalk.

  “Take it easy on my sidewalk.”

  “Can you testify to that?” Burr said.

  “How much do you pay your experts?”

  * * *

  It was the eve of the trial. Jacob came into Wes’s office and dropped three files in front of Burr. “Clean as a whistle,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  Jacob started pacing in front of Burr’s desk. “Lizzie has excellent credit. Quinn has, or had, good credit, too. Selling drugs without getting caught does help get the bills paid.” He started pacing again. “Nothing on Thompson, either.”

  “Please,” Burr said.

  “Please what?”

  “Please stop pacing and sit down.”

  Jacob stopped in front of Burr and threw down a fourth file. “But, Wes,” he said. “Wes, on the other hand, is a disaster. He has terrible credit. The Gray Drake has terrible credit. And he hasn’t paid the property taxes here in two years.”

  “What do you suppose it means?” Eve said.

  “It probably means the fishing hasn’t been too good,” Burr said.

  “Burr, please,” Eve said.

  “I don’t know,” Burr said. “Maybe he just isn’t good with money, or maybe he has more to do with this than I thought. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”

  Jacob started pacing again. “The trial starts tomorrow, and we still don’t have any suspects.”

  “I am painfully aware of that,” Burr said.

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

  Burr opened one of the files. He made a show of studying it, but he wasn’t studying anything. What am I going to do?

  “Burr, looking at a file is not the solution,” Eve said.

  Burr closed the file and picked up one of his No. 2 yellow pencils. “As of now, our defense is that Quinn Shepherd drowned.”

  “Do you think that’s what happened?” she said.

  “No.”

  Jacob started pacing again. “My God, man. There is more.”

  “I know there is, but I don’t know what it is.”

  Jacob kept pacing.

  “Jacob, please stop pacing,” Eve said. She turned to Burr. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to start with an accidental drowning and see what happens.” He kept tapping his pencil.

  “Would you please stop that tapping?” Eve said.

  Burr broke his No. 2 yellow pencil in half.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The courtroom smelled of Spic and Span, Pledge and Windex. The gallery was full. Skinner can’t possibly have summoned this many people for a jury pool. The rest of them must want to get a firsthand look at the biggest news in Crawford County since the extinction of the grayling.

  The bailiff entered. “All rise.”

  Shoes scuffed the floor. There goes all the hard work.

  Judge Lawrence G. Skinner entered the courtroom and sat.

  “Be seated,” the bailiff said.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Skinner said, “we are here today to select the jury in the matter of the State versus Shepherd.” He opened a file in front of him and handed it to the bailiff. “Call the first potential juror.”

  “John Kuchinski,” the bailiff said.

  Burr watched a beefy man walk up the aisle.

  The bailiff swore him in and Cullen approached the witness box. “Mr. Kuchinski, where do you live?”

  “Frederick,” he said.

  “Your address?”

  “216 Maple.”

  “And what do you do for a living?”

  Kuchinski put his hands on the railing. “I’m a plumber,” he said.

  “I have no objecti
on to this juror.” Cullen smiled at Burr and sat down.

  Burr stood. “I’d like to ask Mr. Kuchinski a few questions, Your Honor.”

  “He lives in Crawford County and he’s a plumber. What more do you possibly need to know?” Skinner said.

  “Your Honor, it’s customary for both prosecutor and defense to voir dire.”

  “What?”

  “The court rules give the attorneys the right to question potential jurors.”

  “You mean voir DIRE, with a long I, like dire circumstances.”

  Burr bit his cheek. “That’s right, Your Honor.”

  “All right, but let’s get our jury.” Skinner shooed Burr with his right hand.

  Burr walked up to Kuchinski.

  “Mr. Kuchinski,” Burr said, “are you familiar with The Gray Drake?”

  “Yes.”

  “How, may I ask.”

  “I did some work there.”

  “What kind of work?”

  Kuchinski tapped his fingers on the railing. “I put in a new hot water line to the kitchen.”

  “Mr. Lafayette, this doesn’t seem relevant,” Skinner said.

  “Just a few more questions, Your Honor.” He turned to Kuchinski. “And how did it go?”

  “The work went fine, but it took forever to get paid.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kuchinski.” Burr turned to Skinner. “Your Honor, I move to disqualify this witness because he may be prejudiced against my client.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Your Honor, Mr. Kuchinski may be prejudiced because he was paid late.”

  Skinner peered down at Kuchinski. “How long did it take to get paid?”

  Kuchinski sat back in his chair. He started counting on the fingers of his left hand. “One, two, three, four, five.” His ring finger was missing from the knuckle up. Then he shifted to his right hand. “Six, seven, eight. No, seven.” Kuchinski looked up at Skinner. “It took seven months.”

  “Your Honor, I move that the witness be disqualified.”

  “Counselor, that is not grounds for excusing a juror.”

  “Then I use one of my peremptory challenges.”

  “Mr. Lafayette, you’re not going to run this trial,” Skinner said.

  “Of course not, Your Honor.”

  Skinner nodded at Burr, then looked down at the would-be juror. “You may be excused, Mr. Kuchinski.”