by Bryan Gruley
“I did,” Whistler said. “A guy downstate who helps me with Freedom of Information requests. I was going to put it on my Visa, but it was on some sort of frigging hold.”
Reporters, I thought. They could write story after story eviscerating a county board for running a budget deficit but couldn’t get their own bills paid on time.
“Goddamn, Luke,” I said. “You’ve got to be more careful. The budget hawks are circling.”
“Gotcha.”
“The scanner, too.” Media North had been on me about our utility bills. Whistler was always leaving the police scanner on overnight. “Just turn it off. Humor me.”
I felt like a mope saying it. How much electricity could a scanner use anyway?
“Sorry, boss,” he said.
I picked up the page of notes he’d left me. “Midland County? Around the thumb?”
“Somewhere over there. My archdiocese guy said to check that and the other.”
“Marquette County, in the U.P. According to his obit, Nilus was living up there when he died. What are these other numbers? Case files?”
“Yeah,” Whistler said. “Listen, I’m supposed to be at some little college in Roscommon talking about journalism careers. I’ll knock that out and be back on the case in a couple of hours, and we’ll lap those bastards at Channel Eight.”
He was sleeping with one of those “bastards,” I thought, but let it go. “What are you going to tell the kids?” I said.
He grinned. “Try blacksmithing.”
I heard his Toronado growl to life as I swiveled back to my computer and opened the second e-mail from the reporter at my old paper:
hey, sorry for being so chipper in my earlier e. just heard about what’s going on up there. holy crap—bingo nights? is your mom ok? was that your neighbor? i’m trying to get my editor to send me up there. call me!
—joanie
Mobile 313 555 6758
I sat back in my chair. Did I really want Joanie McCarthy coming back to Starvation Lake? I couldn’t stop her. In my experience, nobody could stop Joanie from doing what she wanted to do. But I didn’t have to encourage her either.
I scribbled her number on my blotter, picked up the phone, and dialed the clerk’s office in Midland County. I had no idea what I was looking for, but hoped I might learn something about Father Nilus Moreau.
Frank D’Alessio was standing in front of the Echo Township Hall where the drain commission met when I parked on the snowy shoulder across the road. He wore a white shirt and red tie beneath a dark topcoat. He was shaking hands and handing out big sheets of paper that flapped in the morning breeze.
Campaigning again, Frankie? I thought. I rolled my window down to watch, thinking of the “anonymous” tip he must have given the cops about Tatch missing hockey the night of the break-in at Mom’s house.
“It’s right there, people, right there in black and white,” I heard him shout. He’d printed out copies of the online version of Channel Eight’s scoop on Nilus. Just what I needed. “Morning, Carol, Edgar . . . hey, Channel Eight’s on the case, but what’s our sheriff doing? Probably sitting in his office stuffing crullers in his face.”
I rolled up my window, opened the door, and walked up to the hall, a converted firehouse that sat in a clearing of pines. The glassed-in bulletin board on the front of the hall read “Pine County Drain Commission,” and just beneath it “Phyllis Bontrager, We Loved You,” and beneath that, “Go River Rats! Beat Pipefitters!”
“Frankie,” I said. “Don’t you have a shift coming up?”
“Took a leave of absence as of today . . . Morning, Mrs. Jargon, here you go . . . Unpaid leave, incidentally, in case you see fit to mention. By the way, good game last night. Damn glad you weren’t in the net.”
“Smart move, Frank. Insult the local paper.”
“Like you matter . . . Hey there, Mr. Bradley, how’s by you? Take two, they’re free.”
“Come on, Frank, you work there. Why don’t you bring the burglar in?”
“Man, they’ve shut me out completely. I can’t get Dingus to tell me what he wants in his coffee . . . Morning, Mrs. Baranowski.”
“They appear to have a lead.”
“Yeah, sure, maybe this priest came back from the dead and did it. That’s what they’re doing, chasing ghosts. Look, Carpie, you’re just sucking up to Dingus because you’re afraid if he gets booted, the love of your life will be out of here, too.”
“Mr. D’Alessio?”
Breck had come up from behind without a sound. He carried a brown satchel under his right arm.
D’Alessio stuck out his hand and Breck took it. “Yes sir, Frank D’Alessio, running for Pine County sheriff, nice to meet you.”
“Mr. Breck. May I?”
D’Alessio gave him a printout. Breck held it in front of his face. I watched his tiny eyes dart back and forth behind his wire-rims. He turned and offered me the sheet.
“Good morning, Mr. Carpenter. Have you seen this? Do you believe it to be true?”
I looked at Breck for some sign of what he thought about the Nilus story, whether it was familiar to him, but saw nothing. “I’m still reporting,” I said.
“I didn’t see it in your paper.”
“Nope.” I reached into the back pocket of my jeans for the notebook I had dug out from under my truck passenger seat. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
“Excuse me,” he said. “I have to prepare for the meeting.”
He walked to the hall, stopped, opened one of the double doors, stepped to one side, and, with a wave of his satchel, ushered two women inside.
“Who’s he?” D’Alessio said.
“The new guy at Tatch’s camp.”
“One of those Jesus people, huh? Why do you want to interview him?”
“You going inside?” I started walking. “Or you got another rally at the IGA?”
“Keep sucking up, pal.”
Pine County Drain Commission chairman Les Cronholm looked around the Echo Township Hall and reluctantly rapped his gavel.
“Do we have any public comment?” he said.
Breck set his satchel on the floor. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”
He had waited for nearly an hour, sitting on a wooden folding chair in the front row, satchel on the floor between his knees, while the commission passed a unanimous resolution commemorating Phyllis Bontrager as a model citizen who had given generously of her time to many a community cause. Chairman Cronholm, who owned a plumbing company now doing most of its business in Traverse City, told of the time he was sick for a week with the flu, and Mrs. B came to his house with a pot of his favorite meatball soup. As other commissioners offered their own fond tales, I thought they could as well have been talking about my mother.
The five commissioners sat at a long table behind pieces of white cardboard bearing their names. On the wall behind them hung a banner reading “Pine County Drain Commission: Fresh Ideas, Fresh Water.” Each of them wore a black armband over some form of River Rats apparel—a golf shirt, a sweatshirt, a button-down—and they passed a resolution commending the Rats for their “courageous” victory the night before. I thought “lucky” might have been a better word. They also debated, without deciding, whether to lower the water level in Walleye Lake, how to assess property owners for a new drainage district near the Hungry River, and, for the hundredth time, who should clean up the runoff mess left when Norbert Plastics vacated its plant in Starvation. Breck sat through it all without a trace of expression on his face.
Now he rose from his chair.
“Yes sir,” Cronholm said. “Can you identify yourself, please?”
“Mr. Breck, sir. I represent the taxpaying citizens who live on the Edwards parcels on the northeastern corner of the lake.”
Each of the thirty-odd citizens sitting in the neatly arranged rows of chairs turned to see Breck. They usually came less for commission business than for free coffee and a slice of pie baked by Chairman Cronholm’s wife, Cara.
Today, they had a man they’d never seen before to go with their huckleberry pie. There was nothing like a stranger to get the attention of the people in Starvation.
“Maybe I heard wrong,” Cronholm said. “But I thought you just wanted to be citizens, without the taxpaying part.”
“We respectfully object to the recent increase in the assessment of the Edwards parcels, which we consider to be extortionate,” Breck said. “And we also believe, separately, that as a nonprofit faith organization we are quite possibly exempt from taxes altogether.”
“What did you say your name was, sir?”
“Mr. Breck.”
Cronholm fingered his gavel, irritated. “Your full name, please.”
“Breck, sir. Wayland Ezra Breck.”
Yes, I thought. He had to be Joseph Wayland’s grandson, named with his grandfather’s surname and a derivation of his grandmother’s given name.
“Thank you, Mr. Wayland Ezra Breck,” the chairman said. “‘Extortionate’ is a two-dollar word if I’ve ever heard one. You’re a lawyer then?”
“Yes sir.”
“Registered or whatever with the state bar?”
“Yes sir.”
“How can we help you?”
Breck wasted no time explaining. Soil samples taken from the ground beneath Tatch’s family’s land had shown evidence of contamination by sewage runoff. He reached into his satchel and produced an old plat map. He unfolded it and held it up with one hand while indicating certain parts of it with the other hand.
Here, he said, etching an imaginary circle, is land the county purchased years ago. And here, he said, waggling his finger in a portion of the circle, is where an old septic field lies underground. A septic field, unused for years, but now leaking into an area where twenty-some people, including five children, were living.
The commissioners mulled. Then Don Champagne took his River Rats cap off of his liver-spotted head and waved it dismissively in Breck’s direction.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wayland, but I can’t get my head around this,” Champagne said.
“Mr. Breck, Commissioner. Get your head around what, please?”
“This so-called septic field. First of all, how the heck are you digging out there with the ground frozen up like rock?”
“The insulation of early snow. Elbow grease. Persistence. Teamwork. We’ve also been able to secure the use of a backhoe.”
“Impressive,” Champagne said. “So you can afford a backhoe to dig around looking for ways to sue somebody, but you can’t afford to pay your taxes?”
“This is about our fair share of taxes.”
“Maybe you can tell me why anyone in his right mind would allow a septic field to be installed on a ridge that slopes down toward the lake?” Champagne chuckled as he fitted his hat back on his head. “Just doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know, Commissioner. Who in their right mind would let a man fond of young boys coach a boys’ hockey team?”
Silence fell over the room. Breck had spoken of something from the town’s past, something no one spoke of anymore. He knew more about us than we did about him.
Champagne glared. Cronholm rapped his gavel once. “All right, Mr. Breck, the commission would appreciate it if you would come directly to the point.”
“The point, Mr. Chairman, is this,” Breck said. “Your septic field is leaching poison into our property, contaminating our wells, and potentially compromising the health of our children. Yet you are trying to make us pay more to live on polluted soil that is obviously worth less now, not more. I would submit that that just doesn’t make sense.”
Commissioner June Jones leaned forward on her arms. “We are the drain commission,” she said. “We don’t do taxes. You should be talking to the tax assessment appeal board. I believe they meet on the third Thursday of each month.”
“Thank you, Commissioner. We have pursued that and been, to put it lightly, ignored.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Jones told Breck. “But I don’t know what you expect us to do.”
“We expect to be treated as God-fearing Christians who have done our fair share for this community, despite our increasing skepticism that your countless boards and commissions and councils and committees and subcommittees serve any purpose other than to give you all something to do besides shovel snow.”
“That’ll be quite enough,” Cronholm said.
“Lord, deliver us,” Champagne said. He turned to Cronholm. “Lester? We have bigger fish to fry.”
“Furthermore,” Breck continued, “while this board may be technically powerless to act on our tax predicament, each of you is related by blood or marriage or both to one or more members of the appeal board and/or the Pine County Commission, so I’ll appreciate your sparing me the pretense that you are helpless.”
Cronholm looked down one end of the table, then the other, staring the board into silence. Then he said, “Thank you, Mr. Breck. We will take your suggestions under advisement. Do we have any other public comment?”
I saw Verna Clark rise from her seat in the front row opposite Breck. She walked to one end of the commissioners’ table and handed a scrap of paper to Commissioner Jones. Jones nodded thanks and looked at the paper. She smiled before she passed it toward Cronholm.
Breck remained standing. “Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, but what do you plan to do and when can we expect to hear back from you?”
“You’ve had your say, Mr. Breck. Please sit down.”
“I gather from your attire that you all are fans of the local hockey team. Let me ask: do you think your team can win tomorrow night without the services of its best player?”
Tex? I thought. Was Breck saying Tex would not play?
“Lester,” Champagne said, “can you shut this guy’s mouth?”
“Excuse me,” Cronholm said. He took reading glasses from a breast pocket and peered through them at the note Verna had passed along. He looked over the top of his glasses at Verna and furrowed his brows. She nodded. Cronholm turned to Breck.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Breck, but your beef—and understand I’m not saying whether it’s legitimate or not—is not with the county.”
“You represent the county, sir, and—”
“Quiet, please.” Cronholm held the piece of paper up. “According to our very conscientious county clerk, as of last week, the county does not own that land anymore. It’s been purchased, along with several other parcels in the area. You’ll need to speak with the new owner about your septic problem.”
For a moment, Breck seemed unable to speak. Finally, he said, “Mr. Chairman, would you mind telling me who the buyer is?”
“Not at all. Looks like a legal firm: Eagan, MacDonald and Browne. Detroit.”
I had tangled with that firm during my time in Detroit. Eagan, MacDonald & Browne couldn’t have been buying the land for its own purposes; it had to be representing someone or something wishing to remain anonymous. I recalled, too, that Soupy had said a downstate law firm was interested in buying his parents’ house.
“Want me to spell it?” Cronholm said.
Breck pulled his wool cap onto the back of his head and picked up his satchel.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said, turning to leave. Cronholm asked if there was any more public comment. Breck stopped in the center aisle and turned again to face the commissioners.
“You brood of vipers,” he said.
“Pardon me?” Champagne said. Mrs. Jones snarled, “How dare you?” Cronholm banged his gavel as a murmur moved through the room. Someone behind me muttered, “Goddamn Holy Rollers.”
“We’ll thank you to leave quietly,” Cronholm said.
“Good luck Thursday night,” Breck said.
I followed him out. “Breck,” I called after him. He kept walking toward the street. I came up behind him. “Breck. Your grandfather?”
He stopped without turning to face me. I came around and stood in front of him. “Joseph Wayland,” I said. “He was killed i
n the Pine County Jail after they arrested him for killing a nun. A long time ago.”
Breck gave me a long look. “I am truly sorry for your loss,” he said. “But what business could that possibly be of yours?”
“It might have something to do with what happened to Mrs.—Phyllis Bontrager.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Ah, your inscrutable reasons. But you expect me to tell you all about mine, is that it? Does the public have some inalienable right to know?”
He wasn’t going to answer my question. Not yet. Sometimes you had to ask a question more than once, in different contexts, to get an honest answer. Sometimes you never got an honest answer. But I was sure now that Breck was Joseph Wayland’s grandson, and that he had some purpose to being in Starvation Lake other than locating a septic field. “You aren’t really going to hold Tex hostage, are you?”
“His name is Matthew.”
“He’s just a kid.”
“We are all children in God’s eyes. You and the rest would do well to remember that.”
“Come on. Does Tatch—?”
“Matthew is no more to you than I am, or Mr. Edwards, or anyone up on that hill. Young Matthew is but a means to an end, isn’t he?”
“You’re angry, Breck. Are you angry about your grandfather?”
“Are you even remotely aware, Mr. Carpenter, of how you are being led astray?”
“Huh?”
“Of course not. None of you are. Good day.”
He started to walk away. My phone rang in my pocket.
“How about Nilus, Breck?” I called out. “Father Nilus Moreau? You know that name?”
He slowed his gait for a step but did not stop until he climbed into a mud-stained Jeep on the road shoulder. I pulled my ringing phone out, watched Breck make a U-turn. A yellow frame around his rear license plate bore the name Strait Dodge. I knew it. Bob Strait Dodge sponsored the Strait Arrows, a men’s hockey team in Livonia, near Detroit.
