Blind Conviction (Nate Shepherd Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by Michael Stagg

  I set down my tablet. “Look at you two plotting and conspiring already this morning.”

  “More like searching and discovering,” said Olivia.

  “What do you mean?”

  She waved me in. Danny jerked right, decided on left, then lurched in front of me. I smiled, put one hand on his back, and gently guided him into the room ahead of me. As I sat, Olivia teased her hair down around her glasses and said, “So remember when I said the first thing we would check were banking and land records?”

  “I do. You figured out that the property had been divided and said the Macks were drowning in debt. They’ve pretty much admitted that to me by the way.”

  Olivia nodded. “Right. We all thought that was common for farmers.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “It is, but I wanted to check to be sure. So Danny and I started looking at filings for the surrounding farms.”

  “And they had similar mortgages?”

  “A lot of them. Revolving lines of credit mostly.”

  Olivia paused again and the two of them grinned.

  I nodded, confused. “Good job?”

  “Don’t be snide, that was good work. But that’s not all we found.”

  “That was sincere, not sarcastic. Are you going to make me ask?”

  They kept grinning.

  “Geez, you two, you’re acting like you found diamond mines or oil wells or something.”

  Their smiles vanished. “You knew?” said Danny.

  “That there are diamond mines in Ash County? No, I did not.”

  “No. Oil wells.”

  “There are?”

  “So you didn’t know!”

  I sighed. “Would you two please just explain it?”

  Olivia leaned forward. “We looked in the Ash County Register of Deeds for records of the surrounding properties, hoping to get more information on what’s typical for farmers up there. We found oil wells.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A company, Hillside Oil & Gas, has been quietly filing leases for the right to drill for oil and natural gas on farms in northern Ash County and the surrounding counties for years.”

  “I haven’t heard about that before. Have you two?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Sixteen that we’ve found so far,” said Olivia. “I'm sure there are more. We’re going to keep looking and map it out. They’re not too close to Mack Farms but they’re scattered about enough to be interesting.”

  “What do you know about Hillside Oil & Gas?”

  Olivia turned to Danny. “He knows we just found out about the wells last night, right?”

  “He does.”

  “And he’s asking about the oil company?”

  “He is.”

  “Is he always like this?”

  Danny nodded his head and sighed. “It does get wearing sometimes.”

  Olivia turned her glasses back on me. “We came in early today, before certain others, to follow up on that.”

  “I'm beginning to think that having the two of you work together wasn't a very good idea.”

  “It's a perfect idea,” said Olivia. “We have to get this fine young man out in the world away from his troll of a boss. I'm betting he's going to have a gym membership by the end of this.”

  “Jenny was thinking about taking a boot camp class,” Danny said.

  I had to get in front of this burgeoning insurrection. “Danny, print out the property owners who have oil and gas leases and let's put them on a map so we can see the layout. Olivia, if you have the time, and don’t mind, and would be willing to, pretty please, do some research on Hillside Oil & Gas, I would certainly appreciate it.”

  “Maybe. If you ask nice.”

  “I’ll try. Oh, and Liv, Pops is having his Labor Day cookout Sunday. Are you and Cade in?”

  “Wouldn't miss it.”

  “How about the Reddy family, Danny?” I said, although I knew the answer.

  “Sorry, Nate. Our church is having a potluck after services.”

  “You’re always welcome if your daughter wants to swim after.”

  “I know, Nate, thanks.”

  I stood. “Alright, if that’s it, I’ll leave you to it.” I stopped. “Last night, Mrs. Mack said Abby’s improving. Heard anymore from Bonnie?”

  “Just that the doctors are encouraged and that she’s starting to have less pain getting around.”

  Danny shook his head. “It’s terrible.”

  “It is,” I said.

  Olivia nudged Danny. “Let’s get to work.”

  I considered asking who the ogre was now, thought better of it, and let the two of them get back at it.

  Olivia left at noon for the gym and I told Danny to leave early to get a jump on the holiday weekend. I spent the rest of the day doing lawyer stuff, which was no more fun to do than to write about, so let's just say that by the end of the day I was done and I left the office and I didn't learn anything more about Archibald Mack or the Mack farm until Sunday afternoon at my parents’ house.

  16

  My parents have a place on Glass Lake, just north of Carrefour. My mom loves water, my dad loves fishing, and they both love their grandkids so, now that they were retired, their place on the lake gives them easy access to all of that. Pops has a cookout every Sunday afternoon, but he pulls out the stops on the big three—Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. On Labor Day, he likes to add a fish fry to the mix and burn through, or I should say fry through, some of the inventory he relentlessly added to every day.

  Now if you’ve been to one of the Shepherd barbecues before, you know that there are all sorts of people running around and that it can be hard to keep track of who’s who. On this particular Labor Day, my older brother Tom and his wife Kate were running a little late because Tom is the varsity football coach for Carrefour North and had to finish his film study in the morning so he could be with us in the afternoon. Tom and Kate and their daughters Reed, Bonnie, and Page, along with little Charlie, would come later.

  When I arrived, my other brother Mark and his wife Izzy were already there. Their three boys, Justin, James, and Joe, were down by the water’s edge, wrestling a kayak and two paddle boards from the shed to the thin strip of beach. Justin and Joe were each taking an end of a board and walking it down while James carried two paddles. James was limping, but didn't seem to be in any pain. My mom and Izzy were down by the water, supervising. I saw my mom start to help James but Izzy reached out, touched her arm, and shook her head. My mom stopped but she didn't look happy about it.

  I joined Mark and my dad next to the smoker. “James is looking good,” I said to Mark. James had had a terrible break of his leg a few months before.

  Mark nodded. “It doesn't hurt as much. It's mostly the stiffness that's causing the limp.”

  “Still in therapy?”

  “Some. A lot of it's at home now. Tom lets us into the high school weight room sometimes too.”

  “Any word yet on the growth plate?”

  Mark shook his head. “We just have to wait until he starts really growing. We'll find out in the next year or so.”

  I shifted focus to the smoker. “Do you want some help with that, Dad?”

  My dad was always a weathered hickory plank of a man but here, at the end of summer, he was exceptionally tan with a shock of white hair and a smile that gleamed most often when he was on the water. This was a close second, though, and I could see his enjoyment as he tapped the black smoker lid with the bottom of a beer can. “No need, Son.”

  The wafting smell of hickory smoke and spices convinced me that was true. “Ribs?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you going to wrap them?”

  “It depends on when Tom gets here.” He flashed a smile. “You can't rush these things, you know.”

  The three of us watched Justin and Joe get the boards into the water while James climbed into the kayak. After a se
ries of hollers and tilts, they all started paddling. As they headed for a small group of ducks minding their own business, I said, “A bunch of the guys at the plant live north of Dellville, don't they?”

  My father was a retired tool and die maker from one of the big three automakers. My brother Mark had followed in his footsteps and now worked at the same Dellville plant.

  “Sure,” said Mark.

  “Have you ever heard anything about a company coming in and trying to buy oil and gas leases up that way?”

  “Not me,” said Mark. He reached into the cooler and pulled out two more beers and shook the ice water off before handing me one. “Why?”

  “I just heard about it, about the drilling. I didn't even know we did that around here.”

  My dad took a beer from Mark, cracked it, and said, “Now that you mention it, I did hear that Ben Newton's boy got lucky a few years back on a piece of vacant property he had up-county. Something about getting a cell phone tower and a well on the same piece of crappy land. Want me to check?”

  “No. I just hadn't heard anything about it. Wondered if you guys had.”

  “Is it related to a case?” said Mark.

  “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  My dad stared out at the lake. “How is the Ackerman girl?”

  “Improving.”

  “Pretty awful if her own brother-in-law did it,” said Mark.

  “She’s not married into the family yet.” That sounded bad as soon as I said it. “And I don’t think he did it.”

  “You have to say that.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Is Olivia helping you with that case?” said my dad.

  “Quite a bit. She found the oil leases.”

  He nodded. “You having her do a lot of computer research?”

  I stared. “That’s what she does. Why?”

  My dad shrugged. “Just curious.”

  I don’t think my dad had asked me a question to satisfy his own idle curiosity since my junior year in high school when he’d asked just how I thought I was going to get to Zach Stevenson’s house without a car or a bike or any other mode of transportation for the next two weeks. I was distracted from any other questions, though, by the slam of a car door, and then another. A moment later, Cade and Olivia rounded the corner of the house; Olivia dragging a raft, Cade with a full cooler on his shoulder, and both wearing sunglasses.

  Olivia went down to the water and gave my mom and Izzy a hug before yelling at Justin that he needed to dig deeper with the paddle if he wanted to catch that duck. Cade sauntered over to us and set the cooler down with a heavy slosh indicating that it was already filled with ice and sundries.

  “You look good, Cade,” said my dad. “Losing weight?”

  Cade looked down at his bulging arm before he could help himself.

  Mark nodded. “About time you tried to slim down. Carrying all that weight can’t be healthy.” He raised his beer in salute. “Good for you.”

  “Work does make it hard to get to the gym, doesn’t it?” I said.

  Cade’s mouth twitched. “Hi, Mr. Shepherd.” He nodded at me and my brother. “Turds.”

  The party, as they say, had started.

  At the end of the day, Olivia and I were sitting on plastic chairs at the edge of the water. The air was warm and the sand on the beach was cool as we soaked in the last rays of the sun, which was still above the woods on the far shore of the lake.

  “Why’d Tom and Kate have to leave so early?” Olivia said.

  “He got a call from his quarterback,” I said. “Something happened with his father.”

  “That can’t be good.”

  Speaking of fathers reminded me of mine, and what he’d asked about. “We’re going to be chin deep in this Mack case for a while. You don’t have to do the research all in one day.”

  “Work doesn’t bother me, Shep. Stupid questions and wasted light bother me.”

  “I just mean you seem pretty focused on it.”

  She turned toward me. “How is that a problem?”

  “It’s not.”

  “Then why are we wasting this sunset?”

  I smiled and tipped my can to her but I didn’t look away.

  She did instead, straightening her glasses and facing the sun.

  I looked from her to the setting sun and back.

  “I’m just saying we have plenty of time—”

  She faced me again. “Margarita me.”

  As I opened the cooler and filled Olivia’s glass from an icy pitcher, she said, “Speaking of work though, Danny and I mapped out the leases we’ve been able to find so far.”

  “You’re not seriously going to ruin a sunset with work, are you?”

  “No, you did. There's actually a bit of a pattern to them. They fall in a line from the northwest to southeast, kind of a diagonal running right through three counties. It's not completely straight and they’re scattered about, but it definitely seems like a pattern.”

  “All the same company?”

  She nodded. “Hillside Oil & Gas. I'm not sure if it matters though.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The Mack place seems outside the line by quite a ways so I don't know that it's relevant.”

  “Can you guys send it to me tomorrow?”

  “Danny saved it into your system already under ‘Research.’”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  “Don’t shut that lid, Shepherd!” Izzy slid into the chair next to Olivia and held out her own glass. “Fill me up and explain why you couldn’t find the time to go with Mark and me on our casino trip two weeks ago.”

  “Sounds like you had plenty of people go.”

  “We did but it wound up being an odd number. Shayne was certainly disappointed.”

  “I’m sure you all had a good time.”

  Olivia smiled. “Is our boy ducking out on fun again, Izzy?”

  “Only if you consider a charter trip with a group of friends that involves going to a casino for a diamond hunt, dinner, and gambling fun, Olivia.”

  “It certainly sounds fun.”

  “And if you wouldn’t do it for fun, it seems like you might do it to raise money for your nephew’s baseball team.”

  “It certainly does.”

  Izzy shook her head. “I’m wondering if he even remembers the half-assed excuse he gave me or if he’s going to make up a new one now.”

  I smiled. “There are no diamonds in Dowagiac, I’d only lose money gambling, and I still donated to Justin’s team.”

  Izzy fluttered her eyes. “There are diamonds in Dowagiac. But even if there weren’t, you’d get to spend the day with your loving family and new friends.”

  “My new friends? Or a particular friend?”

  Izzy shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “Seems like we won’t,” said Olivia.

  “It’s a damn shame.”

  “Shouldn’t you be checking on your kids?”

  “Cade and Mark are playing with them,” said Izzy.

  “That seems like deflection,” said Olivia.

  I spent about another orb's worth of sunset deflecting my sister-in-law from my dating decisions before kids’ laughter saved me. Cade was walking down to the beach, Justin hanging from one arm, James from the other, with Joe wrapped around one leg laughing his little blond head off every time Cade took a step. Mark hustled past them and flipped a blanket onto the grass. Once it was open, Cade stopped, said something about how the mosquitos on this lake were getting out of control, and tossed Justin and then James and then little Joe to Mark, who caught each one and deposited them into a laughing heap on the blanket. Proclaiming himself free at long last of annoying insects, Cade pulled up a chair next to me and maxed its capacity when he sat. I added twelve ounces to it for him. The chair held.

  My mom came down a moment later. I pulled a chair over for her and she sat down with a sigh. “Cade, Liv, I put two containers of ribs and potato salad on the counter. Make sure you get it on the way
out.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Shepherd,” they both said.

  She patted Olivia’s knee then sat back and turned to me. “Now where is your father?”

  A few minutes later, just as the sun touched the treetops, my dad joined us. He brought a lemonade-based cocktail to my mom and stood next to her, one hand on her shoulder. While normally in motion, he was now perfectly still.

  We didn't say anything then. We sat there together, and we soaked in the last of the summer sun, and watched it set behind the Grove on the far side of Glass Lake.

  17

  I trudged into the office on the Tuesday morning after Labor Day because, honestly, how else are you going to go in. True to her word though, I found the illustration Olivia had mentioned in the e-file and my morning picked up steam. I opened it and, sure enough, it showed a scattershot of oil and gas leases running in a diagonal line across several counties. They had cross-referenced it so that I could click on any individual well and a graphic would pop up so that I could see the name of the property owner, the name of the company getting the drilling rights, and the date of the lease. None of them listed the price the company paid for the lease, though; they just stated that it was for a confidential amount for a certain number of years so I didn’t know what kind of money we were talking about. It seemed to me that the oldest lease had been filed eight years ago while the newest had been about eighteen months.

  Liv was right about another thing—this didn't really seem relevant to the Mack farm, which was a little south and a lot west of the scattershot pattern. Still, for completeness, I clicked on each graphic and checked out each lease.

  All of them were with Hillside Oil & Gas.

  I followed the line of wells up to the far northwest corner, to what appeared to be the oldest of the leases. The language was the same as the others—it granted an unlimited drilling right in a designated area on the land with no permanent ownership of land itself—but there was an exhibit attached to this one that wasn't part of any of the others. I blew it up and saw that it looked like some sort of geographical map, showing types of rock and strata and land formations for all of southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio. It made no sense to me.