“I just thought you’d be farther.”
I watched an act of supreme will happen before my eyes. “That’s as far as I’ve gotten, Nate.”
“Fortunately, we still have some time before trial. I’ll help.”
Danny brightened. “Reviewing the video? Good, that’ll cut the time in half.”
“No, I mean I’ll help investigate that side of it. I’m going to arrange another meeting with Abby and her lawyer.”
“That’s cruel.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“We also need to focus on Hillside Oil & Gas.”
“What’s its role?”
“That’s just it, I’m not sure. But we know it’s been buying up leases in Ash County, it offered one to the Macks, and it owns the gas station Abby’s attacker mentioned.”
“So what does that mean?”
“I don’t know. But there has to be a connection.”
“So what’s next? Other than me sitting in a sunless room ruining my eyes.”
“I think I’m going to see the Macks again.”
“That sounds like you’re going to go drive around and talk.”
“I am. It’s very difficult.”
Danny stood. “Well, I’m not going to go nearsighted just sitting here. I’ll be in my office.”
“Thanks. I’ll give your regards to the great outdoors.”
“Talk to you.”
I made a call and then, just after lunchtime, I was on my way to see Mrs. Mack.
Mrs. Mack opened the screen door of the Mack home before I could knock.
“Mr. Shepherd,” she said. “Come in, come in. Now I hope you like coffee because I just put some on.” She kept talking as she guided me in. “People always ask, Susanna how can you drink coffee in the afternoon, doesn't it keep you awake? But I think that just means one of two things; either you’re not waking up early enough or you're not working hard enough. How about you, Mr. Shepherd?”
“I'm pretty much a coffee all day kinda guy.”
“I knew I liked you,” she said. “And how are you with cookies?”
“No. Thank you, though.”
She tsk’d. “That’s probably because you buy them in a plastic box at the grocery store. What about real cookies?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mack, I’m just not much of a cookie eater.”
She led me into what I’d think of as a traditional farmhouse—original wood floors, authentic plaster work—but bright, with plenty of light from windows that allowed a view of the fields. I saw a combine running not fifty yards away, which I assumed was Mr. Mack. “Now you have a seat and I’ll be right back.”
I sat.
Mrs. Mack walked out with a cup of coffee for me (hers was already on the table) and a plate of the thickest, most fragrant chocolate chip cookies I’d ever been around. The chips looked like they were still melting.
I smiled at Mrs. Mack. “It appears that I am just prejudiced against store-bought cookies,” and took one.
Mrs. Mack beamed. “That's better.” Her face turned serious. “I’m glad you called, Mr. Shepherd. Before we start, I have to say I’m very concerned.”
“About Archie? That’s totally normal in this situation.”
“Of course, about Archie, yes. No, I meant I’m concerned about what’s happened with his case.”
I searched my mind. “Nothing’s happened with his case, Mrs. Mack.”
“That’s my point, Mr. Shepherd. That’s what concerns me.”
Mrs. Mack wasn’t my client. But my client’s family needed a little assurance. “I know it doesn’t seem like it Mrs. Mack, but there is. When I say nothing’s happened, I mean there haven’t been any court filings. This is the stage when we’re investigating. It may not seem like a lot, but we are running down every angle on this thing.”
“Are you?”
There’s no way Mrs. Mack would know so, as frustrating as it was for me to hear, it was a fair question. “Yes.”
“I don’t know that the farm will survive without him, Mr. Shepherd.”
“I understand.”
“And I don’t know that he will survive without the farm.”
“I understand, Mrs. Mack.”
Mrs. Mack held her coffee cup in two hands and took a sip. When she lowered it, her face was back to that of a cheerful friend serving cookies. “So what can I do for you?”
“I have some questions about the farm.”
“Okay.”
“You mentioned that Hillside Oil & Gas approached you at one point about putting an oil well on the farm?”
“Right.”
“Do you know exactly when that was?”
Mrs. Mack frowned a little. “Oh, I want to say it was about three years ago.”
I did the math. “So the same year that someone sprayed the fertilizer on your land?”
“I guess it would have been, yes.”
“Was the offer before or after your crops were sprayed?”
Mrs. Mack thought. “Well, the wedding was in June, Wisconsin is so beautiful in June, and I want to say that Hillside approached us right as we were going into the harvest. So it would have to been after. Why?”
I ignored her question. “Who did the oil company talk to?”
Mrs. Mack straightened. “I handle the business side of the farms.”
“Did you ever think seriously about accepting it?”
“The drilling lease? Not really. Not by harvest time anyway.”
“And Will Wellington was the man you dealt with?”
“He was,” Mrs. Mack chuckled. “Once I saw the card I remembered. A man looking to lease drilling rights for oil wells named Wellington. It tickled me at the time. Still does.”
I smiled. “Why didn’t you think about accepting it? Weren’t you in trouble with the organic problem?”
“At the beginning of the season, we thought so. It wasn't clear then how we were going to make it. And honestly if Archie and Hamish hadn’t put in so much extra time for us, I don't know if we would have. But because of the weather, and because of their work, we had our best crop in years and really didn't have to think about taking the oil money by the time harvest rolled around.”
“Was Hillside offering a lot? You don't have to tell me the amount, just relatively speaking.”
“Certainly enough that we wouldn’t have had to worry about our harvest that year.”
“So why not take it?”
“When you farm for generations, Mr. Shepherd, you don't just dump it because of an offer from an oil salesman.”
“But the money…”
“Can't buy organic food unless someone grows it.”
I smiled. “I suppose that's true. Did you meet with Mr. Wellington often?”
“I want to say three or four times over the course of a couple of weeks? He was insistent, but once he saw we weren’t really interested, he let up. Probably didn’t contact us more than once a month or so after that.”
“He still kept in contact though?”
She nodded. “For the better part of a year. And then it sort of trickled away and I didn’t hear from him again.”
“Do you know if any of your neighbors signed a lease with Hillside?”
Mrs. Mack shook her head. “Not that I know of. But it only takes up five or ten acres of space, so we might not notice it.”
“Do you have any documents that show when he was contacting you?”
“Well, we never saw an agreement or anything like that.”
“How about emails or letters? That show the discussions were happening.”
She thought. “I do believe I received a couple of emails confirming times for calls. And maybe one appointment over coffee.”
“Would you mind printing copies for me?”
“Not at all. Mr. Shepherd, does this have something to do with my son’s case?”
The look Mrs. Mack gave me wasn’t just a concerned mother asking after her son; it was a shrewd busin
esswoman who managed a multi-million dollar concern assessing a contractor.
I decided to be blunt. “I’m not sure. But I think it might.”
“Then I’ll get what I have. It won’t take but a minute. More than enough time for another cookie. Come on.”
She led me into the kitchen where there was a small nook with a table and cubby holes built into the wall like the teachers’ mail slots at a school office. It was neat and it was organized and looked to be filled with papers. She sat down, went into her email and within moments a printer started.
“Looks like I had three,” she said. Moments later, she was handing them to me. “Here you go.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Mack.”
“I hope it helps.” There was a deep concern in her eyes, but that was all she said.
I held up my empty cup. “And thanks for the coffee.” I started to rinse my cup in the sink.
Mrs. Mack smiled. “I'll wash that, Mr. Shepherd. But my compliments to your mother. Now,”—she pulled out a covered plate of cookies—“I’ve packed these up for you and I don’t want to hear any objections.”
I heard a screen door clatter shut and just then Hamish Mack walked into the kitchen. A good-natured smile turned into a scowl and a puffed chest as he saw me, stopped, and said, “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t be rude, Hamish,” Mrs. Mack said.
“What’s he doing here, Mom?”
“Talking to me.”
Hamish looked at the papers I was holding. “Wait, you’re helping him?”
“What do you want, Hamish?”
“You need to go,” he said to me.
Mrs. Mack practically slammed the plate of cookies into my gut. “Last time I checked, this is my house.”
“You shouldn’t be helping this lawyer help Archie.”
“The land I gave you for your house is a quarter mile up the road. Go back to it.”
Hamish adjusted his No Weed Seed hat and clenched his jaw and looked ready to throw a punch all at once. “Why can’t you see it?!”
“I’m not the one with the vision problem, Son. Go.”
“You don’t understand. If you’d heard…” He bit off the last words, adjusted his hat, and said, “I need Dad’s pump.”
“It’s not in this kitchen.”
Hamish turned and left.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Shepherd.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“He’s so angry.”
“I would be too.”
“He really believes Archie did it.”
“I can see that.”
“They fought that very first day at the hospital when Archie came to visit. Security had to take Archie away, it was terrible.”
I’d heard about the fight but made a connection I hadn’t before. “Wait, the first day at the hospital?”
“Yes. She was still in surgery, I think.”
“Why did they fight?”
“Because Hamish thought Archie had done it.”
“Right, but why? How could Hamish know to be mad? Archie hadn’t been arrested yet.”
Mrs. Mack shook her head. “I don’t know. It must have been something the police said.”
I nodded, but it didn’t sound right. I held up the cookies. “Thanks, Mrs. Mack.”
“You can keep the plate.”
I said goodbye and left. I took the scenic route home.
I didn’t notice any oil wells on other farms around the Mack property.
21
I called to check in with Danny on my way back.
“We got some news today,” he said.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not. The DNA came back on the blood.”
“And?”
“It matches Archie.”
“That’s the blood from the railing?”
“Right at the top of the stairs.”
“That's pretty damning.”
“It is.”
I thought. “In some ways though, it doesn’t change anything. We already have the video showing him coming and going.”
“Except the blood proves he went right where Abby went down.”
“As opposed to?”
“As opposed to just walking by and not noticing the stairs at all.”
“You are one optimistic guy.”
“I learned from the best.”
“You’re also right.”
“I learned that on my own.”
“Good thing you’re a self-starter, it’ll come in handy with that video you’re watching.”
There was a mutter at the other end before we hung up. I’m sure it was just our connection.
I decided it was time to compare notes with Olivia.
I stopped by Olivia’s office at the gym on the way back. I told her about what Mrs. Mack had said about the offer from Hillside Oil coming in just a couple of months after the crop sabotage.
“That can't be a coincidence,” Olivia said.
“It does seem a little too fortunate. My guess is that Hillside knew the Macks were struggling and knew they might resist putting a well in. So they have someone sneak in, knock the Macks’ plans off by a couple of years, maybe even force them under. Now they're willing to deal on the oil lease, maybe even for a lower price.”
Olivia nodded. “Except that it doesn't work out that way.”
“Right. The oilman doesn't know that the Macks are having a perfect growing season and that the chemicals just put them over the top. And he doesn't know that Hamish and Archie will work their asses off to make sure their parents don't go under.”
She was right with me. “So, Hillside makes the offer, but now instead of a position of weakness, Mr. and Mrs. Mack are in a position of strength and can tell him no.”
“And it doesn't get the well.”
The two of us sat there, thinking.
“It would have to be a pretty big find for the oil company to risk all that, wouldn’t it?” Olivia said after a while.
I shrugged. “I suppose you have to drill where the oil is.”
“That’s just it.” Olivia turned toward her monitors. “It doesn’t seem like there’s any there.”
“What do you mean?”
She clicked away and pulled something up. “I’ve been checking that end of it too, so I looked for a map of oil wells in southern Michigan, just to see.”
“Didn’t you already do that?”
She shook her head. “I looked up leases. This time I looked up the wells themselves.”
“Did you find something?”
“I’m not sure.” She clicked, then pointed. “Here.”
I came around the desk and Olivia scooted her chair to the side and tilted her monitor toward me. It was a map of Michigan with oil and natural gas wells marked on it, a green dot for an oil well and a red dot for gas. The first thing that jumped out was a huge slash of red across the upper part of the state. There were so many red dots that it looked like a broad redline stretching from Traverse City to Alpena.
I pointed. “So that’s natural gas?”
“Yes.”
“I had no idea we had so many.”
“Me either,” said Olivia. “But look at this.”
She pointed at a thin green line of oil wells with red dots of natural gas scattered about it. It ran diagonally through three counties in the middle of southern lower Michigan.
I oriented myself. “That's north and east of the Mack place,” I said.
“By some miles. So it doesn't seem like the Macks are part of whatever that is. And see all this white space around it? I think it’s empty.”
“So looking at this, it doesn’t seem like the Mack place would be a candidate for an oil lease at all.”
“Right.”
We stared.
“So what does it mean?” Olivia said.
“I'm not sure,” I said. “But I know someone we could ask.”
I pulled out my phone and scrolled to a number that I'd only used once, b
ut which the man had insisted I take. Surprisingly, he picked up right away and said certainly he had time to see me, how about this afternoon? I said that would be just fine, hung up, and said to Olivia, “Professor of Geology Elias Timmons would be happy to see me today.”
“I’m going too.”
“I’ll drive.”
“Let's go,” she said, and we left.
When we arrived at the office of Elias Timmons, his secretary led us straight back and, as we walked through the door, he was already standing, hand extended.
“Mr. Shepherd, it's a pleasure to see—”
Professor Timmons stopped dead. I’m around Olivia so much that sometimes I forget the effect that a fitness fanatic with spiked, bleached-white hair, half-mirrored glasses, and a tattooed sleeve running down the length of her left forearm has on people.
I chuckled. “Professor Timmons, I hope you don't mind, I brought an associate of mine, Olivia Brickson. She's been helping me with some of my research.”
Professor Timmons smiled and extended his hand. He was dressed once again in a fine wool blazer and slacks, this time a checked blue, that still seemed more like someone out of the corporate world than the collegiate one. “It's my pleasure, Ms. Brickson. Please, please, come in. Did Sheila offer you anything?”
“I'm fine, Professor Timmons, thanks,” I said.
“Me too,” said Olivia. “Thanks though.”
“Certainly,” he said. “And it's Eli, please.”
I noticed that he hadn't told me to call him Eli the last time I was there.
“Thank you, Eli,” said Olivia with a smile.
“So, Mr. Shepherd.” Professor Timmons leaned forward, his eyes bright. “Did a case come up?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “We’ve been looking at a map and we’re not sure what it means. I told Olivia that you might be able to help explain it to us.”
He smiled at her. “I certainly hope so. What does it involve?”
“Not moraines, I'm afraid.”
“You can’t have everything, I suppose.”
“Oil and gas. We need help with a map.”
He frowned. “That’s not really my area.”
“Mine either, but it seemed close enough to the illustration in your textbook that I thought you could help.”
Blind Conviction (Nate Shepherd Legal Thriller Series Book 3) Page 11