H.J. Gaudreau - Jim Crenshaw 02 - The Collingwood Legacy (8 page)

Chapter 19

Cole David Prestcott was, by any definition of the word, an exception. A man that, by breeding, intellect and disposition should have been a penniless leech on society was, from all appearances, doing exceptionally well, thank you very much.

Cole had barely graduated from Petoskey High School, located in the town of the same name on northern Michigan’s west coast. No one was sure which was worse, his academics or behavior. Fortunately, Cole did have one talent. He was a hockey phenom. His grace, power and skill on the ice led to several scholarship offers by the top hockey schools in the upper mid-west. Eventually he chose Ferris State College, a school which always threaten a deep run in the national championship tournament.

School would have been a disaster had it not been for hockey. Coach Guy Boucher had strict rules about study hours and curfews. Woe be it to any player that ignored those rules. Suspension from the team was never considered. Extra hours on the ice, skating endlessly from one end to the other, stick in hand, puck constantly moving was.

The formula worked. Cole completed his Bachelor’s degree at Ferris State College. Sadly, his size and a shoulder injury his senior year, kept him from the pro hockey game. Lost and adrift he attempted a Masters Degree at Michigan State University, but too much drinking, too many girls and not enough studying quickly put an end to that idea. After a year with a small parts manufacturing firm in the auto town of Dearborn he decided to move back to Petoskey.  Cole struggled.  Jobs in northern Michigan are few and far between. Life was hard and dollars scarce.  Cole was reduced to pan-handling when he couldn’t pick up some sort of day job.

An old proverb holds that “sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut” and Cole David Prestcott proved the validity of that observation. A man from down state hired Cole to paint his lake cabin. In payment, Cole was given a jet ski. This was perfect, it filled his unemployed summer days and all the girls wanted a ride. Soon family, friends and then complete strangers were asking if they could rent the machine.

Cole purchased three more and began renting the speedy watercraft to the tourists who swarmed northern Michigan’s lakeside villages from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It didn’t take long before the business was expanding, then doubling, and doubling again.

He had found a niche. He rented ski boats, then large party boats. Cole bought out the competing Mom and Pop boat rental businesses. Those that would not sell found one of Cole’s ultra modern, rental “salons” being built next door. Soon the family boat rental shops faced cut-throat prices and newer inventory. Within ten years Cole dominated the boat rental business from Houton Lake north to Mackinaw Bridge.

Life was good. Cole married the stunningly beautiful Elaine Mary Johannsen from Grand Rapids. He had it all and Cole was not afraid to show it off. The irony of the thing was not lost on him. Born to a typical middle class family Cole had been a disappointment to his domineering father and never-to-be pleased mother. His older brother’s law degree had only added to the pressure. Now, they could all go to hell. Cole was the one with the multimillion dollar house and business.

Elaine and Cole were cut from the same cloth. They met on a Wednesday night at one of the many East Lansing pubs catering to college students. She was a premed student who had been bested by the first test in her second semester of organic chemistry. She had been sitting alone at a table full of girls, contemplating a grade point average fading into the “we’re sorry, but you do not meet our academic standards” range. He was back in his favorite bar after a day looking at used boats. Elaine was drowning her sorrows in mixed drinks with words like “Fuzzy, Sunset, Pink, and Lady” in their name. She had spent the better part of that afternoon in a tear filled discussion with her less than honest roommate. By nine that evening Elaine had decided that a “Mrs.” degree was much easier to obtain than an M.D. degree. Her roommate readily agreed since she was also a pre-med student and there were only a limited number of students carried forward each year.

Cole’s timing couldn’t have been better. It had not been Elaine’s pre-med brain that attracted Cole. Which was fair since it wasn’t Cole’s brain that attracted Elaine. What attracted Cole was the fact that Elaine was a twenty-one year old gymnast and football cheerleader with a figure that had caused more than one out-of-bounds player to momentarily forget the game.

What attracted Elaine was Cole’s larger than average wallet. Time passed. Cole got his trophy wife and Elaine got her “Mrs.” degree.

Cole joined the local Chamber of Commerce, the country club, the Rod and Gun Club and was often seen skiing, boating and playing on the lake with various friends and associates from the local business community. To them, Cole was a great guy.

To his wife he was a no-good, two timing SOB, who had imprisoned her in the uncultured hinterlands of northern Michigan. But she liked the money, had no skills outside of the bedroom and at the age of thirty-four had never earned a paycheck from anyone other than her husband. Elaine was not a fan of working for a living, though she had worked full time in the business until recently. She still did some occasional work for the company, but only when it suited her. And, it suited her only when opportunity presented itself. Elaine couldn’t conceive of working for a living, so she stayed with him, or so Cole thought. But then, Cole didn’t think too hard about people.

Cole’s ego matched the size of the Great Lakes. In a few years he sold his home in Petosky and moved several miles south to the shores of Lake Charlevoix. Here Cole let his imagination and wallet run wild. Cole intended that everyone cruising those bright blue waters knew that Cole Prestcott had hit the big time.

He purchased seven acres of land jutting into the western end of the lake near the little puddle known as Round Lake and the canal which led to Lake Michigan. He tore down the nine hundred square foot cabin that had occupied the lot for seventy years and replaced it with a modest home. Modest only in the sense that it wasn’t as big as Oprah Winfrey’s Chicago home.

Built to impress, using the most eco-friendly technology available, it was a six thousand square foot Northern Michigan white cedar log cabin with gray slate roofing. It held six bedrooms, three massive stone fireplaces, one each in the living room, master bedroom and in front of the full length bar in the “man cave” basement plus a game room, family room and formal living room. The home was, of course, professionally decorated in a dual logging and maritime motif that captured the heritage of the area perfectly. The fact that Elaine could stay at home, yet go days without having to see Cole had a certain appeal to her.

The “cabin” was truly beautiful. Elaine hosted several dinner parties each year; parties meant more to cement their role in society’s elite than to fraternize with friends or each other. And, while Cole loved the status conferred by the most elegant house on the lake, he was less impressed with “his cabin” than he was with his boathouse.

The boathouse was massive. Constructed of white cedar logs to match the “cabin” it was two stories high, its east and west sides lined with tinted glass allowing the morning and afternoon sun to filter in and illuminate the space for the entire day. The building, actually two buildings, one on each side of a waterway covered by a roof, had been built on concrete pillars sunk into the lakebed. The walls were festooned with oars, paddles and fishing poles of various types. On the south, or land side, of the structure the left and right corners contained an office and machine shop respectively. Protruding some forty feet into the lake, the northern end contained storage and machinery rooms. A deck, with four docks forming berths stretched around the building in the shape of the letter U. Boats entered through the chain driven overhead doors at the open end of the U and rested comfortably in the eight cozy berths. Cole had dredged the lake bottom and designed the structure to allow his deep draft sailboat to be housed between the berths, lengthwise in the U. The mast extended neatly through an opening in the ceiling like a straw in an ice cream float. The docks were where Cole kept his current favorite watercraft ready to exit through the “port” as Cole called the north opening; “door” as his wife called it.

While the floor plan and dock system were impressive, what Cole really counted on to impress his visitors was the hoist system. Cole’s people could lift a boat out of the water at four berths and suspend it over the water underneath. This allowed another boat to slip into the now vacant dock space. Cole employed two “deck hands” in the boathouse to complete the maintenance on the various boats, most of which were wood and required a considerable amount of care. The deckhands also maintained the boathouse and moved the boats here and there on the hoist. At present, Cole’s boathouse held six different boats, not counting of course the numerous kayaks, canoes and wave runners which were suspended from the ceiling or placed on racks along the shore side wall. Cole had everything from a thirty-foot sailboat to an eight-foot canoe under one roof.

His pride and joy however was a perfectly restored 1922 Standard twenty-six foot Chris-Craft speedboat which he used to visit friends, lovers and the grandiosely named small town of Boyne City at the opposite end of the lake. Cole loved everything about the boat and was a fanatic Chris-Craft boat owner.

That Cole was an expert on the Chris-Craft line of boats came as no surprise to the few childhood friends he had, emphasis on the past tense. Cole had always viewed a Chris-Craft boat as the definition of luxury. Movie stars, captains of industry and the rich and famous of all brands had once made Chris-Craft the definitive mark of success.

As a young man Cole had decided he would someday own one and it would be perfect. As Cole’s fortunes had improved he’d never forgotten that dream. He had often taken the Standard to owner’s conventions and shows around the country. Cole even had an enclosed trailer specially made to transport the boat from his home to boat shows across the country. Should someone question a part, finish or color on the Standard, Cole immediately accessed his large library of original drawings, parts lists, brochures and manuals. Cole’s boat was perfect and he made certain that everyone knew it.

Chapter 20

Cole had certainly found the proverbial nut. Unfortunately, he had never heard of another proverb which held that “pride goes before a fall.” The Horton Bay Boat Company was a small, family owned firm located on the opposite side of the lake. The Schultz family began building wooden canoes during the post war boom years of the 1950’s. The company was perfectly positioned as the auto industry created a huge middle class anxious to play on the hundreds of lakes scattered across the state. Soon easily operated, family friendly ski boats from the Schultz factory could be found on every lake in the State.

Otto Schultz had run the company since his father died in 1977.  Otto had two children, both boys. Sadly, the oldest was one of the few Americans killed during the first Gulf war. Otto’s younger son eventually married and had two children of his own. A plane crash took the family several years ago. Now, Otto and his wife planned to move to the Florida Keys and never shovel snow again.

In time he approached Cole about purchasing the business. The price was steep, but the business was sound and the idea of building boats began to consume Cole. Unfortunately, Cole was already saddled with a large debt from the construction of his home and boathouse. He had mortgaged his business and carried a heavy debt on the property. It all added up to a bad risk. Cole was turned down by several banks; he could not swing the deal.

There are no secrets. It’s a law of nature. People who truly knew Cole for what he was knew the state of Cole’s finances. But bankers are as greedy as any scavenger and Cole soon found the perfect partner.

Alan Wisecup’s career had stalled. He had begun working for the bank as a teller while he completed a two-year degree in accounting at the local community college. Upon graduation he had been promoted, the first of several. But now Alan had reached the top of the ladder, the top for a community college graduate in any case. As deputy chief loan officer of the Traverse Savings and Investment Bank Alan’s only hope of moving up was to earn tremendous returns on his portfolio…or for the old bastard he worked for to drop over dead. Alan was a lot of things but he wasn’t a killer. The boat building business was the perfect deal. The company looked sound and Cole Precott seemed to know his stuff. Returns from this deal were a sure thing.

Alan began making ‘adjustments’ to the Horton Bay Boat Company books. The debt load wasn’t so much, the property suddenly became ‘prime waterfront’ and the tooling was new and could be depreciated…again. The asking price was a steal.

Cole’s assets also underwent a transformation. Miraculously his debt load was gone and stores were expected to continue growing at a double digit rate. Cole’s house doubled in value and his boathouse became a company asset. Only a fool would turn down this loan.

Cole sold his boat rental business, bought the Horton Bay Boat Company and began building boats. Cole’s luck held. While he carried an unusually large interest rate on his loan and his payments were extraordinary, his boat sales were able to generate the income to service the debt and keep Cole and Elaine living the lifestyle they had only dreamed of. Cole’s mistresses were happy, Cole was happy and his wife, he thought, was kept out of the loop.

For the next three years the business thrived. The day to day operations and main source of income for the company was a line of sport fishing and ski boats sold to auto workers and lower level executives from the southern part of the state, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The fishing boats were strong, powerful affairs intended for lake trout miles off shore in the Big Lakes. Sales were steady and profits good. The occasional luxury yacht order spiced things up a bit and the boat yard and repairs filled any gap in orders for boats. It was a good business.

Best of all Cole was able to dabble in Chris-Craft restorations. The work was slow, tedious and didn’t make the company a lot of money, but Cole loved it. His restorations were gaining a national reputation as being as close to perfect as could be achieved.

Unfortunately, when a group of junior geniuses at the world’s largest banks decided to sell each other bundles of worthless mortgages, the global economy shuttered and nearly collapsed. Michigan’s auto industry did collapse, taking with it hundreds of small business owners and executives from the Big Three. Brokerage firms issued margin calls in numbers not seen since 1929. Millionaires across the country found they weren’t millionaires anymore.

The first thing to go were the orders for sport fishing and ski boats as the middle class saw their homes collapse in value and their jobs disappear. The highly paid skilled tradesmen of the auto industry were laid off. Tool and die makers, electricians, machine operators of all types lost their middle class life style in a matter of weeks. Not far behind were the once powerful executives. The yacht construction and Chris-Craft restoration business collapsed.

The boat repair and storage business disappeared as people abandoned the boats and invited banks to foreclose on the loans. Within six months Cole’s business was on the ropes.

He was forced to lay off nearly all of his employees, except of course his secretary. She of the 36C cups, meager ability to use a word processor and skills in the bedroom that were truly amazing. Soon Cole found himself with no staff, nothing to sell and debt threatening to swamp his otherwise perfect life.

He considered selling several of his prize boats. Then realized the money received from the boats would not approach their worth. Besides, if he could sell those boats he should be able to sell new boats. He couldn’t; so that was that. The cabin and boathouse approached his debt, but he loathed the idea of losing his most prized possessions. And, with the economy as it was, there was little hope of getting full value from the property anyway.

Cole David Prestcott was, in his own words, screwed.