by Dave Balcom
“Stanton, you look like you had a meeting with Mercenary Justice, except that you can walk and breathe... I’m curious how you survived that.”
“Did you sic him on me?”
“No, that would be Paul’s work; if I wanted you out of the way – if I’d realized what a pain in the ass you were going to become – I’da taken you out myself. Would’ve saved all this,” he waved a hand over his bandages.
“Why would Ralph put a contract on me? I had only just met him, you, Tony; I was impressed with you people. I had no suspicion...”
“But you were digging; you were closing in on Blake, that meeting with Blake sent Paul off the deep end. He’d been fearing that moment for more than 40 years, and there he was, face to face with the boogie man and who, of all people, brought them together but Jim Stanton.
“He flipped out, that’s all.”
“But, you, Tony... how does all that work?”
“Tony? Mr. Success? Stoney’s greatest athlete? Michigan Law’s latest superstar? What a joke that is.”
I looked at him in disbelief.
“Tony Ralph is a facade that looks like a man to the rest of the world, but he’s really just a sniveling little punk ass kid who was good at games, good at taking tests, remembering things.
“I don’t think he has had an original thought since I met him in the fifth grade. Hell, even his dad knew him for the worthless shit he was behind those good looks and affable personality. Paul took one look at us side by side when we were in high school, and he knew who his real son was. I can’t say what day it was, but by the time we were seniors, I knew that he was treating me more like a son than he ever did Tony.”
“Everybody thought you were his tender; Robin to his Bat Man.”
“And that worked great for me everywhere except at the university; there, if I didn’t shine in the classroom on my own, hell, my trip would have been short.
“I had all the benefits of being the favorite son of a rich old guy without any of the attendant bullshit. It was perfect for me.” He sat silent, seemingly turned inside himself, remembering.
I butted in again, “But all the killings, the disappearances. You know they found evidence of eight bodies in that lake on your property.”
“You have to understand what brought Paul to Stoney in the first place: Fear. He was a bright, up and coming lawyer in 1968 in Detroit, working for a high flying firm specializing in criminal defense – a boom market in Murder City of the day. Then he gets his ass thrown into the fire with the fat, and reality smacks him in the forehead.
“He realizes he’s busting his ass to protect animals who kill for profit. He’s not happy, and he’s scared, but he decides he can’t go forward in that kinda deal, so he starts tipping off the prosecution team.
“They work out a plan that allows them to use material he’s giving ’em and laying it off on an undercover who has infiltrated the gang he’s representing.
“But the boss of that family isn’t fooled, and he narrows the suspected leaks to the kid lawyer or his assistant, and he tells the partner who’s representing him that everybody will rest easier if those two disappear, but first he tells the partner that they need to discharge the lawyer with a hefty severance package. They then fire the assistant, but find her another job in another field of law.
“The partner does as he’s told, and he thinks this is going to work out okay for the kid lawyer if he can smuggle him out of town. He suggests the kid move his family to Northern Michigan – you know, a safer environment to raise a family. And they give the kid a half a million to land on his feet.
“Then, the next thing he knows, the mob bombs the shit out of the assistant’s house on the same night they’re planning to rub the kid and his family, but they’re out of town and no one knows exactly where they went.
“Paul comes home from a scouting expedition looking for a new life, learns of the fire bombing, and promptly moves his family to Stoney and the life as a small town grocer.
“But he never let his guard down. He knew the mobsters never forget and never forgive; he knew in his soul that one day, something or somebody would trip over his past and he’d be hunted like an animal.
“Then Maggie Phillips spouts off at her graduation speech about Stoney being something more than a refuge for loser mobsters, and Paul started making plans.
“He had already bought the Starvation Lake property, adding a bit more every time something came on the market; he has a real feel for finance and investment – that’s no shit.”
He poured water into a glass from an insulated pitcher, then offered me some. I shook my head.
“The summer we were juniors, Tony and I spent two weeks living in that farmhouse, fixing it up a bit, and mostly just fishing and kickin’ back, waitin’ for football.
Then one day we go out to try the bluegills that they kept trying to grow there, and as Tony put an anchor down, the rope goes right through his fingers, and before he could reach into the water and grab it, it just sank. Right outta sight!
“I stripped down and dived in, figuring I could grab the rope; it was polypropylene, ya know? But it just was gone. I dove all the way to the bottom and I could see the hole in the marl, but everything was gone.
“We had to tell Paul about it; he wasn’t happy to have to buy another anchor because he’d always told Tony that the rope was to remain tied in the boat to prevent such a thing, but dopey Tony never thought about stuff like that.”
He was shaking his head at the memory. He took a sip of water, and I wondered if the story was over, but decided to just wait it out.
“I didn’t know it, but that was the last piece of a puzzle for Paul. He had made a decision that he wasn’t going to cower in a corner waiting for some hitter to come and wipe out his family.
“Instead, he started making plans. In ’82 he sells the store and moves to the mansion on Torch. It was a sound move now that we were gone, and everything worked well until along comes big-mouthed Maggie at the 10-year class reunion. She pitches into Tony about some wild ass accusation or another. Tony was real upset, and I guess he went home to Torch Lake afterwards and told Paul all about it.
“I was there, of course. I watched that story unfold. I saw Paul’s reaction, and it was deadly. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but later I ran into Angela Ritter in Traverse City when I was up on business. She told me there had been a lot of people looking for Maggie and her husband. Apparently they never arrived home in Phoenix...
“I couldn’t help it; when I heard that, I immediately remembered that look on Paul’s face...”
“Fear at first glance,” I whispered.
He was nodding, “Yes, I think that’s just what it was.”
We sat silently, and he finally said, “Have you eaten in the cafeteria here?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“It’s not Shanty Creek or Ellen’s, but it’s not bad either. I’m getting hungry, let’s go eat.”
At lunch the talk was a general Q and A about life in Oregon vs. Michigan; what kind of things that you learn in tai chi are applicable in a scuffle. His lawyer joined us, but kept quiet during the meal. Our police guard sat at the next table, his back to the wall; he didn’t eat much.
Back in the room, Decker dismissed his attorney, settled back into his chair. “I have an appointment to have some of these bandages changed at two-thirty, so I better wrap this up.”
“Take your time, we have an hour or more; they won’t start without you.”
He let a chuckle burble out a bit, then cleared his throat. “It was the fall of 2000, and I was up to prepare for the deer season. I hadn’t told anyone or anything, it didn’t seem important, but it was election night. I had voted that morning at home, and then left for the farm. That night I woke up with headlights flashing on the ceiling as a car came bouncing up the drive. I got up to look but the car kept going right past the house and the barn and down into the woods.
“I didn’t have th
e gate that locks at that time, so I figured it was poachers. I dressed and took a lantern and my rifle and went looking. It was a pretty bright night with a sliver of moon; one of those late-fall freezer nights with the stars uncountable. You know?”
I nodded, but said nothing.
“I followed the trail, but I could see that the vehicle had stopped. Its headlights were glowing on the trees ahead of me, so it wasn’t hard to find my way to the beach. When I got there, I held back and watched as Paul Ralph got the boat ready, then dragged a body out of the back of his station wagon and put it in the boat. Then he put a 5-gallon pail in there, pushed it off and rowed out into the middle of the lake. He was wearing a headlamp so I could see where he was out there, then I heard a splash, the headlamp went out and for a second I thought he’d fallen in, but then I heard the oars, and here he comes.
“He dragged the boat up on shore, pulled the drain plug, stowed the oars and headed back to his wagon. I waited until he was in the vehicle, then I turned on my lantern and stepped out of the shadows.
“He’s a tough old nut, and he didn’t let on a thing, just said ‘howdy,’ and how surprised he was to see me.
“I didn’t say a word about that, just climbed in on the passenger side and suggested we go up to the house and have a drink. When we got there, he took a minute to gather up a whole bunch of plastic drop cloth material, bundle it up and put in my burn barrel. Then he doused it from a small bottle he got from his car, and torched it.
“We walked back to the house, and I poured him a scotch, and we talked. He told me the whole story. I told him I had a suspicion about Maggie Phillips, and he nodded, “She’s out there,’ he said.
“It was his position that he’d risked everything, but the only way he was going to survive into his Golden Years was to make sure that he stopped all threats before they had a chance to grow into something serious.”
“Frank Foster,” I breathed, finally making the connection. “He knew something from his time in Wayne County, and when he lost the election, he tried to leverage that something into travel money...”
“You are good, sir. Yes, you are. That’s the whole deal in a nutshell.”
“So you just stood by and let it go?”
“Actually, no. In the spring of 2001, Paul had a small heart attack. We were all very worried about him, but the doctors assured us that he was in pretty good shape, and with rest and medication he would be fine.
“Later that summer, I had a call asking me to come up and see him, and he allowed it might be a good idea if I didn’t mention it to Tony, so I drove up that night.
“Dave Boyington and Marci Evers,” I said.
He nodded. “Boyington had been working in the anti-terror task force in Detroit and had gotten wind of the Stahl family’s demise. He and Marci had been getting it on all summer, and together they’d started asking questions about Frank Foster. I didn’t know it back in the day, but Frank and Dave had been friendly, shared a passion for fly fishing...”
He had lost his track, and was looking back into history; I thought I saw, for just an instant, a look of regret on his face just before he snapped back to the now.
“What the hell,” he muttered. “Anyway, Paul was very concerned that they were going to stumble on his past and knowing he couldn’t do it, he asked me to step in. It wasn’t that hard, really.
“I watched Marci until I found her at her parents’ old house and alone. I knocked and greeted her like a long lost pal. She was still a very good-looking woman, much better than I remembered from high school. Anyway, I suggested we have a drink together sometime, but she informed me that she was heading back downstate after the Labor Day weekend, and she’d be spending all her free time until then with Dave.
“I acted the part well, looking embarrassed and all, and then suggested the three of us have dinner. In fact, I told her that I thought it would be perfect if they came up to the farm the next night, and let me cook them a great barbecue. I had her call Dave that minute, and she did, and we set the date. Dave knew the area, and we agreed on six p.m.
“They showed up right on time. I cooked ribs and had potato salad; all the fixings of a festive barbecue, you know?. They were sweet on each other, and I had to admit I was having a great time right up to the minute that the drug I’d put in their beers knocked them out. Then it was all work. I drove ’em back to the lake in their own vehicle, walked back, and got the materials from the barn and went back and fixed ’em up one at a time.
I then cleaned up the farmhouse, hauled all the stuff from the dinner into the burn barrel and then drove Marci’s vehicle to Paul’s house; he followed me in his car and we drove all the way to Flint, and I left the vehicle with the keys in it on a street there. I drove Paul to my farm and he drove home. He was in bed by 4 a.m.”
“But nobody knew Dave was missing until 2002.”
“That’s the damnedest thing. I never thought to stop the mail, and I kept waiting – and I had Paul watching and listening – for some word around about their being gone, but nada.
“So, when I was up for deer season, I went over there one night just as the snow was starting to come down, and ransacked his place... I had the keys from his pocket. But I broke the door and left it open. Hell, it was still after the first of the year before somebody alerted the police.”
“What about his vehicle?”
“That was too good to be true, too. He sold it that afternoon. He was going home with Marci; she was going to teach one last year, and he was going to live with her until they could move back permanently.”
I was stunned. “You just murdered for Paul?”
“I was, and am, a loyal son; the best son he’s ever had.”
“And Tony knew nothing?”
He was shaking his head; “That coward? He would have probably ratted us out if he’d known. I’m not sure what Paul was thinking Monday, but my thought was that Tony needed to go with those two cops. He was worthless; just went tharn in the face of a crisis...”
I couldn’t help but appreciate the Watership Down reference, but kept pressing. “Would Paul have let you clean Tony up?”
He went dreamy again, and I let him think about it. He finally focused on me, “I don’t know; but thinking about it now, I probably would have just gone ahead and done it – you know, ask for forgiveness rather than permission.”
I studied him, thinking how different the reality of these people was from the facade they’d shown the world.
“So, it would be Paul who put the contract out on me?”
He nodded. “I didn’t do it, like I said, I’d be more likely to just address it myself...”
“How do I make it go away?”
“I don’t know; you probably can’t. I know that over the past 40 years, Paul changed from a guy who was terrified of and disgusted by the mobsters into a guy who emulated their mindset in many ways.
“I studied with their people at Michigan; I knew them to be from families that did what they do in total reaction mode. They’re corrupt beyond anything you can imagine where society is concerned, and pride themselves at their loyalty to their family and their code.
“They’ve tried twice to dispatch you as a warning – that’s amateur bullshit; the real bad asses would use the same approach Paul, and then I guess I, perfected up here. They’d make you disappear.”
“Thank you for your time and taking it to share with me. I don’t think you’re going to have a comfortable life from here on out, but I’m not going back on my ethic, either.”
“Never had this discussion with you that I can recall,” he said, shaking my hand.
I turned and left the room, looking for a bathroom where I could wash my hands.
CHAPTER 53
I went looking for Miles and found him at Rick’s desk, filling out paperwork. He looked up with a smile as I knocked and walked in.
“That was a long interview.”
“He had some pent up need to express himself.”
“He thinks he’s a better son to Paul than Tony is. Tony had no prior knowledge, and may well have been an innocent in all this.”
“He’s in the state hospital for observation in Traverse City, and they’re transferring him to Grand Rapids tonight. That man’s a mess.”
“How many bodies did you say they think they found in that marl?”
“Ten, but only four of them are likely to be from this case. The others look like they might have been hundreds of years old, it’s difficult to determine. They were Native Americans, however.”
“A death trap even then?”
He nodded, “Apparently. What line did you create on your attackers?”
“Mark claims it must have come from Paul, and he has no idea how to make it go away or if a person could. He made a good case that it was not the way the mobs would do it; they would emulate Paul’s process – a clean disappearance.”
“Sanitized is the term, old buddy. So what’s your next step?”
“I’d like to talk with Paul.”
“He’s having no part of it. He’s morose; we have him on suicide watch. His attorney, a guy from an outfit down in Detroit – KJS and Associates – or some such alphabet soup group, is floating the possibility that he’d give state’s evidence against Mark in exchange for a slap on the wrist for ‘aiding and abetting.’”
I started laughing. “Really? He testifies against Mark; Mark testifies against him on the Margie Phillips and Frank Foster murders... they both end up serving life without parole?”
“The state prosecutor who’s really going to run this shit storm isn’t even considering a deal other than both plead guilty and save everyone a bucket of time and money. Here’s your statement from the other day, sign one, keep the other.”
I signed, folded the copy in half.
“What’s next for you, Jim?”
“I’m thinking we can make Ludington tonight, catch the ferry west tomorrow and be back in the Blues by the weekend.”