Dead Meat (17 page)

Behind the seat of the cab of Bud’s truck hung a gun rack. It held a short lever-action rifle and a battered twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun.

“That rifle’s a nice Marlin .30-.30,” Bud commented when I turned to look at his guns. “I’ve got that old Remington pump loaded with bird shot.”

“What for?”

Bud grinned sideways at me without taking his eyes from the rutted roadway.

“You keep them loaded?” I persisted.

“Hell, yes. A gun ain’t no goddamned good if she ain’t loaded.”

I shrugged. It was illegal, but that was irrelevant. All the good old boys in Maine kept loaded guns in their pickups.

Bud had brought along a big stainless-steel Stanley thermos full of strong coffee, and he and I sipped from it as well as we could in the bouncing truck. It took us nearly three hours to reach Greenville. I felt as if I had spent a week on the back of an unbroken horse.

When we pulled into town, Bud said, “Where do you want to go?”

“Do you happen to know where the lawyers Boggs and Kell have their office?”

He thought for a minute. “Same building as the hardware store, if I ain’t mistaken. Up on the second floor. I recall seein’ the sign. I can drop you off there if you want.”

I told him that would be fine, and we agreed to meet at one-thirty at the little restaurant a few doors down from the lawyers’ office.

A narrow flight of stairs led up to a tiny hallway. There were two doors. One appeared to be a closet. On the opaque glass of the other, neatly painted letters announced, “Boggs and Kell, Attorneys-at-Law.” I tested the knob and then went in.

The door opened into a tiny waiting room in which a single desk, a magazine-littered coffee table, and two straight-backed chairs managed to seem crowded. Behind the desk sat a swarthy middle-aged woman whose dark hair had been braided and wound onto the top of her head in an intricate crown. A brown cigarette smoldered in an ashtray at her elbow. It smelled like burning cowflaps. A paperback book was propped up on her desk in front of her.

“Help you?” she said. Her tone suggested that she resented my intrusion and that it would be just fine with her if she couldn’t help me at all.

“I’m looking for Mr. Boggs or Mr. Kell,” I said. “Either one would be fine.”

“Either one of ’em ain’t here,” she said, her tone almost mocking me. She picked up the evil-smelling cigarillo and puffed at it.

“When do you expect them?”

“I don’t.”

“Are they gone for the day? I don’t have an appointment, but I hoped…”

She stubbed out her butt. “They don’t work here, mister. They’re never here.”

“But the sign…?”

She sighed, as if it were terribly obvious. “The sign says Boggs and Kell. I know that.”

“Then…”

“But Mr. Boggs and Mr. Kell themselves, they’re in Bangor. Always. They don’t come here. But this is their office.” She lifted her heavy black brows at me, as if that explained it.

“Like a branch office, is that it?” If she intended to test my patience, I intended to pass her test.

“Yes. Like that.”

I glanced at a doorway behind her, which appeared to lead into an inner office. “Well, is there a lawyer in?”

“Mr. Stack’s in, sure.”

“Is he busy?”

“Doubt it.”

I took a deep breath. “Do you suppose I could see him?”

She squinted at me. She had high cheekbones and dark eyes. I realized that she must have been an Indian. Pocahontas in her middle years, wheezy, worn out, and going to flab. “Who are you?” she said.

I handed her one of my business cards. She scrutinized it carefully, then peered at me as if she were comparing the words on the card with the evidence of my appearance. Apparently what she saw satisfied her. “I’ll have to tell him what it’s about,” she said almost apologetically.

“Tell him it’s about Woodrow Wilson Pauley.”

She arched her eyebrows. “You from the DA’s office or something?”

“No. I’m on his side.”

She shrugged, sighed, and pushed herself back from the desk. She waddled to the door and went in without knocking, closing it behind her. A minute later she emerged. “You can go in if you want,” she said as she wedged herself into the chair behind her desk and picked up her book.

I went in. The man seated at the desk looked as if he might have posed for the old Indian-head nickel. All he needed was a feather in his hair. High cheekbones, aristocratic nose, finely etched mouth, and thick black hair tied at the nape of his neck in a short ponytail. He wore a dark green chamois shirt and well-worn blue jeans with a thick leather belt. He stood when I entered. He was about my height. He had the physique of a basketball player, slim hipped and wide shouldered. He looked quick and dangerous.

He came around from behind his desk and extended his hand. “Will Stack, sir.”

“I’m Brady Coyne,” I said. “I appreciate your seeing me.”

He flapped his hand toward a chair. “Have a seat. Tell me what I can do for you.” His voice was higher pitched than I expected, but years of education had worn all the rough edges off his syntax.

I sat, and he retreated to his desk chair. “This isn’t official business or anything like that,” I said.

“Yes. Dolores said you were on our side.”

“I’m a friend of Woody Pauley. I was told that your firm is handling his case.”

Will Stack struck me as a man who would consider a smile a sign of weakness and who would consider weakness the worst of all traits. He was young, no older than thirty, and very solemn. “Boggs and Kell are handling it, yes. Not me personally.”

“I was there when the murder took place,” I said. “I’ve talked with the sheriff and the assistant district attorney. They are trying to put together a case against Woody. Fabricate, I should say. I don’t think he committed any crime. I’m convinced this whole thing is trumped up. I don’t know why. Anyhow, I wanted to offer my help.”

Stack picked up a pencil from his desk and rubbed his forehead with the eraser end absent mindedly. He stared at the ceiling for a moment. Suddenly his gaze focused on me. “Why?” he said.

“Why do I want to help? Because I think he’s innocent. And because he’s my friend.”

“What makes you think we need help?”

I shrugged. “Everyone can use a little help.”

“Especially Indian lawyers.”

“I didn’t mean that at all,” I said. “I—”

“Let me tell you a story, Mr. Coyne,” said Stack. “Several years ago, when I was in law school, some members of my race went to Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Thanksgiving Day. They have ceremonies there, you know. Descendants of the
Mayflower.
Daughters of the American Revolution. They dress up as they imagine people dressed in 1620. Some people dress up like Indians. So we went there to make a peaceful demonstration. Symbolic. Pretty obvious. Trying to make some points about Indian rights. Many were Mashpees, who, as you may know, have made some substantial land claims in Massachusetts.” He paused and stared at me.

I nodded. “I’m familiar with the cases,” I said.

“There were some women dressed like Pilgrims, or whatever they were. White women. One of them came up to me. She was very angry. Clearly we were spoiling her Thanksgiving celebration. Know what she yelled at me?”

I shook my head.

“She said, ‘Why don’t all of you go back to where you belong.’ That’s what she said.”

I shrugged. “All races have their share of ignorant people.”

“Mr. Coyne,” said Will Stack, “we are competent to handle Mr. Pauley’s case. Indian lawyers can practice the law. We have to pass the same bar exam as white lawyers. So I hope you won’t be too offended if I suggest to you that you should go back to where you belong.”

I stood up. “Okay,” I said. “Fair enough.” I put my hands on the top of his desk and leaned toward him. “But,” I said, “you better not fuck up Woody’s defense out of some misguided sense of ethnic pride. Where I come from, we take all the help we can get, and we don’t much care if the people who give it to us are green, pink, or purple.”

Stack stared at me expressionlessly. “Where I come from,” he said calmly, “we have a pretty good idea of who really wants to help. But thanks, anyway.”

I took a deep breath, decided not to say the next thing that came to my mind, and walked out of Will Stack’s office. Dolores didn’t look up from her paperback as I slammed out of the place.

The two-minute walk down the street to the restaurant where Bud and I had agreed to meet calmed me down. It was about noon, and the tables and booths were filling up with patrons. It was an interesting mix of guys in work boots, blue jeans, and colored T-shirts, and men and women wearing business suits and lugging briefcases. I stood inside the doorway for a few moments. A skinny woman of indeterminate age wearing a stained white uniform muttered, “Help yourself to a table,” on her way by. I spotted one against the wall and took it.

I opened the menu that was propped up between the salt and pepper shakers. Standard fare—a variety of hot lunches and sandwiches. The special for the day was “home-style meat loaf.” I wondered what other styles of meat loaf there might be.

The same skinny waitress appeared at my table. Her name, according to the pin stuck onto her uniform over her left breast, was Vera. She had a pencil poised over her pad and a grimace of concentration on her face. “He’p ya?”

“How’s the meat loaf today?”

She shrugged. “Same as most days. Your basic meat loaf. Ain’t fancy.”

“I’ll have it. What goes with it?”

“Mashed potato. Green beans. Salad. Coffee. Dessert. The usual.”

“Sounds fine.”

“You want a beer or something?”

“No. Bring me some coffee. And tell me. Is there a pay phone here?”

She jerked her head backward. “There. Outside of the rest rooms.”

I spotted it, an old-fashioned booth, complete with folding door. Just what I wanted.

The service was almost instantaneous. The meat loaf was delicious. Vera brought me a wedge of apple pie with a big slab of cheddar cheese on top for dessert, and I lingered over my third cup of good coffee and a couple of Winstons while the restaurant gradually cleared out. Then I went to the phone booth, gave the operator my credit-card numbers, and rang Seelye Smith in Portland.

His receptionist or clerk or whatever he was—the handsome kid named Kirk—told me that Mr. Smith was unable to come to the phone just then. I told him to say it was Brady Coyne calling long distance and that I’d wait. He hemmed and hawed. I told him I guaranteed Seelye would have his ass if he didn’t put me through right away. He told me to hang on. He called me “sir.”

“You’ve gotta excuse Kirk, Mr. Coyne,” said Smith when he came on the line. “He takes his responsibilities seriously.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said.

“Glad you called,” he said. “Been wanting to talk to you. I’ve done some snooping. Interesting. You know the Indian lawyers who’re trying to buy Raven Lake?”

“Yes?”

“Looks like they’re fronting for somebody.”

“You mean the Indians don’t want the place for themselves?”

“Right. From there it gets murky. But I can tell you this. It’s out-of-state interests. Private.”

“And probably not all that legitimate,” I said.

“Probably not.”

“And,” I said, “these private, out-of-state, not-that-legitimate interests, they don’t want anybody to know who they are and what they’re up to. That’s why they’ve got the Indians fronting for them.”

“Exactly.” Smith sighed. “Which so far they’ve been successful at.”

“So far.”

“Yeah. But I’m still trying.”

“Who are the lawyers?”

“Firm out of Bangor. On the up-and-up, so far as I know. Boggs and Kell.”

“No shit.”

“Huh?”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” I said, and I told him about the murder at Raven Lake and Woody’s arrest and my unproductive visit with Will Stack. Smith interrupted me several times, asking for clarification and details. I could tell that he was a good lawyer.

When I finished my recitation, Smith said, “Well, of course, it could be coincidence. Matter of fact, if I were a betting man, that’s where I’d put most of my money. Boggs and Kell are one of the big firms. Probably the biggest in Bangor. Still, getting stonewalled like you did by this Stack this morning, maybe there is a connection. What do you make of it, Mr. Coyne?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Only thing is, if the murder is somehow related to this group trying to buy the lodge—and Boggs and Kell handling the real estate offer and then defending old Woody certainly seems to suggest a relationship—”

“That,” said Smith, “would be significant.”

“What do you know about the district attorney who’s prosecuting the case, this Asa Danforth?”

“Very ambitious young man,” replied Smith promptly. “I knew him when I was working for the state on the original Indian litigation. He was one of those who wanted to fight it down to the wire. Big defeat for him when the state lost. He’s been trying to recoup ever since.”

“By prosecuting Indians,” I said.

“Sure. That’s how he saves face. He’s had some success at it, actually. Made something of a name for himself—not to mention some points with the Republicans—by promoting the idea that the Indians are irresponsible, greedy, and lawless and that the state—and, by extension, Asa Danforth himself—was right all along not to cave in to their demands and that the feds blew it. It’s a very popular position hereabouts. Anti-Indian, antifed, is Danforth’s platform, dressed up just a little.”

“Makes it easy to see why he might want to build a case against Woody.”

“Yes. Not that it’s good law enforcement, although he hasn’t got that bad of a case, from what you say. At any rate, it sure as hell is good politics.”

I paused for a moment. “It would be very interesting to find out exactly who wants to buy Raven Lake,” I said.

“I’m still trying, Mr. Coyne.” He hesitated. “Listen. Don’t feel too bad about the lawyer. Your Mr. Stack, there. He’s just a flunky. Doing what he’s told. I expect that he got the word from Bangor to refuse all comment on the murder case, that’s all. Which isn’t that bad of an idea. The rest was just rude manners. Nothing you could have done.”