Loyal Be Jack

by Robert Tarrant

  In years past, on the few previous occasions I’d met Kennedy, I’d always been with Benjamin. He’d never taken an interest in conversing with me beyond the obligatory hellos and associated small talk. Surprised that he even knew who I was on sight and keenly aware that he was not a man who made casual conversation, I was immediately on alert. “Hello, Turner. Very nice eulogy.” I paused, but he didn’t immediately fill the void. He was waiting for more, and I wasn’t offering.

  Finally, he said, “Thank you, Jack. I especially appreciate those words coming from you. Benjamin thought the world of you. He spoke of you often when you and Katharine were married. Even after . . .” He trailed off awkwardly, especially for a man who was renowned in legal circles for his silver-tongued closing arguments. After a pregnant pause, he added, “I was hoping to have a quick chat with you. I understand that you’re going to be reviewing Benjamin’s personal records. I’m told that he had them removed from the firm in order to facilitate your review. What exactly is the purpose of your review?”

  Obviously, Benjamin didn’t share his regrets with Turner. What is the purpose of my review? Damn good question, Turner. Yet if Benjamin didn’t choose to share the answer with you, I’m certainly not anxious to. Of course, I didn’t have the guts to say that to his face, so I scrambled to concoct a plausible answer. Finally, realizing I couldn’t come up with a plausible lie fast enough and lacking the guts to just deny a reasonable question from Benjamin’s lifelong friend and partner, I replied, “Oh, Benjamin had toyed with the idea of writing an autobiography for years. He always said that his life practicing law had been a great journey, and he thought it might be interesting, even informative, for young lawyers. I don’t think his humility would allow him to mention the idea to many people, maybe no one except me. He asked me if I would go through his personal journals and records and assemble materials I thought would tell his life story in an interesting manner.”

  Turner cocked his head to one side as he evaluated my story. He asked, “Are you going to write the biography?”

  I forced a chuckle and said, “Heavens no, I’m no writer. Once I have the materials assembled, I’ll look for someone to actually write Benjamin’s biography.”

  Wearing a look of skepticism, Turner said, “I’m surprised he didn’t ask Katharine to do it. No offense, it’s just that she seems much closer to him than you are. Especially considering the last few years.”

  I nodded in agreement. “I asked Benjamin the same question. His response was that he felt that Katharine was too close to him, that she would hide his flaws, his blemishes. He felt any biography would lack credibility if it didn’t include some of his shortcomings.”

  Turner nodded. “That does sound like Benjamin. Honest to a fault.” His facial expression turned serious, almost dark. “The problem I have is that we did not have an opportunity to review the materials that were removed from Benjamin’s office at the firm. He sent a courier, and his secretary released the materials Benjamin requested. I wasn’t even aware of their removal until days later. I realize that Benjamin classified the materials as personal, but without seeing them, I can’t be certain of that. I owe a duty of confidentiality to all clients of the firm, including Benjamin’s clients. Consequently, I am requesting that you afford me access to the files to determine if there are privileged materials contained within them.”

  I attempted to project a face of serious reflection. “Turner, there is no way that I would violate any of Benjamin’s client’s rights to attorney-client privilege. Doing that would taint Benjamin’s reputation. I’d never do anything to harm his good name.” I paused as I scrambled for an out to his request. If those materials contained a wrong so onerous that Benjamin couldn’t leave this earth without garnering a promise from me that I would correct it, I certainly wasn’t going to share it with Turner, or anyone else. “Let’s do this. I won’t disclose any material to anyone else until you’ve had the opportunity to review it to ascertain that you are comfortable it does not violate attorney-client privilege. I’ll assemble the materials I believe could be the basis for Benjamin’s biography, and you can review them before I even begin looking for a writer.”

  His eyes narrowed as he said, “I would prefer that I review the materials in their totality. That is my request.” His tone was nothing short of commanding. “I would prefer that we settled this between us without needing to involve the court.”

  Time to stand up to the big dog, Jack. “Benjamin directed his personal materials be removed from his office. They are now in my possession.” Well, sorta. They will be later this afternoon. “If you want to have unfettered access to them you’ll need to get a court order. Of course, even if you are able to convince a judge that exigent circumstances warrant an ex parte order, I will certainly feel compelled to make it public knowledge.” I paused, before adding casually, “Not certain how that will look to your clients. It might just make them feel that there are problems inside your firm of which they were not aware.” I turned and said over my shoulder, “Good day, Turner.”

  Resorting to a style very much not Turner, he called out to me, “This isn’t over, Nolan. This is not the last you will hear from me on this. You will surrender those materials to me.”

  It took me longer to start my journey north than I had anticipated. Packing my few clothes only took a few minutes. What took time was the trip down memory lane as I wandered from room to room at the Whitt house. Lily and Thomas had stayed for the luncheon, so I was alone. The journey started innocently enough with me glancing in the open door of the study. The study had miraculously returned to the way it had been before Benjamin got sick. The medical equipment and all the trappings of its use for hospice care had been removed and the original furnishings returned, just as I remembered them. I sat down in the well-worn desk chair Benjamin was occupying the first time Katharine brought me home to introduce me to her parents. The chair he occupied during many of our spirited legal debates. Memories came flooding back. Memories I had somehow locked away. Memories previously obscured by the jolt to my psyche I had received the night I walked in on my wife sharing sexual pleasures with Judge Callaghan.

  Somehow, sitting in the chair that this man I admired so much had occupied, I began to remember the positive experiences during that period of my life. How this house had glowed during the holiday season with Benjamin, the unlikely spirit behind the good cheer. The intense laser-focused persona of the esteemed lawyer given way to the cheer and laughter of a Christmas elf pounding out off-key carols on the piano. Katharine, her mother, and me, adding our equally off-key voices to the din. The Whitts’ parties, and there were several each holiday season, were things of legend. Not fodder for gossip, like office parties run amok, but memories created by being in the midst of people enjoying the company of each other in a festive environment. I remembered one night when the leaders from both sides of the aisle in the Michigan legislature were arm in arm as they swayed rhythmically, belting out Christmas carols. Unfortunately, even the magic of Benjamin probably couldn’t recreate that scene in today’s political climate.

  The holiday memories led to many others. The long talks Benjamin and I had sitting in this very room. Many about the law but equally as many about life itself. He often related stories about his relationship with Katharine’s mother. The mistakes he had made and the lessons he had learned. I remember reflecting back on those stories often as Katharine and I worked our way through life’s challenges. I had always presumed that Benjamin was sharing the wisdom of his experience to assist me in making his daughter happy. Somehow now, wrapped in his world, I felt that he was equally as focused on my happiness. I found myself smiling. As I left the Whitt home for the last time, I knew that my commitment to fulfilling Benjamin’s wishes was absolute. He deserved that. I owed him, and I would not fail him. Little did I know to what I was committing myself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I pulled out of the Whitt driveway at just after 1:00 p.m. The mapping app on my phone
told me that the drive to Vanderbilt in the northern portion of the lower peninsula would take three and one-half hours. After adding a little time for a couple of stops, I figured I’d be in Vanderbilt in four hours. Still some daylight, even in the shorter days of autumn. That was good, because the trip from Vanderbilt to the lodge was another thirty minutes, much of which was on obscure trail-roads. I anticipated having enough difficulty finding the lodge in the daylight. I would never find it in the dark. Katharine and I had been there several times, but she was always directing me. She had been going to the lodge several times a year since Benjamin first bought the property.

  The route up I-75 took me past Flint, a former hotbed of auto production but now the city best known for the infamous public water supply debacle. Just north of Flint, I passed Saginaw, another city whose fortunes took a nosedive with the reduction of auto production in Michigan. My entire life, analysts had warned that many Michigan cities, and the state itself, were too dependent on the auto industry for their long-term economic viability. Unfortunately, those predictions came true. While it would take a knowing eye to observe the magnitude of the decay at seventy m.p.h. from the ribbon of concrete that flows past, I knew that a short detour would put me in areas where crime had replaced the automaker as the number one employer.

  Once I reached the Grayling area, I felt that I was truly up north. The trees are thicker and the traffic lighter. I stopped at a rest area to stretch my legs. There were only a couple of other vehicles there. Having become accustomed to the dense population of South Florida, it felt strange not to have people around. Wait until you get to the lodge, Jack, there won’t be six people within ten miles. Benjamin once told me that the remoteness was half of the attraction of the lodge for him. He said it helped him stay sensible to spend time in the world as it was created rather than as man had altered it.

  I finally exited I-75 at Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is one of those rural towns that was born but never really grew. My guess is that the population of the village is around five to six hundred residents. Vanderbilt bills itself as the Gateway to the Pigeon River Country State Forest, so that probably contributes a trickle of campers and hunters to the customer base of the few simple businesses. At the blinker light in the center of town, I turned eastbound toward the Pigeon River Valley. Thirty seconds later, I was leaving the village limits behind me. I was following a set of printed directions that Benjamin had developed years ago to give to friends who were coming to his lodge. Lily had given me a copy when she was making arrangements for my visit. I followed the two-lane blacktop road for the noted eight miles until I found the gravel road running north. As the directions noted, the road was distinguished by a faded red navigational buoy perched precariously on a mound of dirt near the junctions of the roadways. A couple of miles north, the directions had me bear to the right at a fork in the road. This maneuver took me onto a narrow two-track roadway that was badly in need of grading. I recalled making this trek with Benjamin once and asking how he got contractors to the property to do the work of building the lodge and all of the improvements he had incorporated to the property. His reply was, “I endured constant complaining and exorbitant costs.”

  The eight-foot chain link fence alerted me to the fact that I was passing the frontage of the property. The entire 750 acres is enclosed by an eight-foot fence giving it the appearance of a wild game preserve. At the entrance, I turned off the road onto the wide hard-packed gravel driveway leading into the property. The driveway was much more hospitable to vehicle traffic than the road that got me there. I halted at the gate that sits twenty feet from the roadway in an oversized niche in the fence line. It was constructed in this manner to allow a vehicle to exit the roadway before being stopped by the gate. Seemed like an unnecessary precaution to me. How much traffic could there be on this two-track road? You could probably park there for days without impeding a single vehicle.

  I pulled up to the pedestal-mounted keypad and entered the code Lily had given me. The wide iron gates parted and swung open. After I drove in and cleared the light beam that signaled them to stay open, the gates began to close. Looking in the mirror, I confirmed that they did in fact close. The driveway ahead disappeared into the thick forest of eastern white pines, sugar maples, and the occasional towering oak. Fifty feet from the gate, the drive took a slight turn, and I was immediately engulfed by the forest. Even in the failing late afternoon light, the autumn colors were on display all around me. The yellow-orange of the maples in full color and the dusty russet-red of oaks just starting to emerge. No wonder Benjamin loved this place as he did. The rotation of the earth seemed to slow as you made your way deeper into the forest.

  I slowly wound my way the one-half mile leading to the lodge. The roadbed was better than the one I had turned off of, but the frequent curves and switchbacks kept my speed to a crawl. Benjamin once told me that the driveway took a more direct route when he bought the property, but that it had to be rerouted to accommodate the large equipment necessary to create the enclave he built. The original driveway had several steep grades through the rolling terrain that the equipment couldn’t climb on the soft roadbed. With the rapid spread of the undergrowth, you could no longer tell where the original route had been.

  I cleared a small rise and drove into the crushed stone parking area in front of the lodge building. The lodge is a long log structure with a towering A-frame roofline. From the front it appears to be one story, but it’s built on the side of a ravine, so the full basement below is living space looking out on the vista behind. On one side of the parking area is a small wood-sided building that I recalled houses the generator often needed to provide electricity. Benjamin paid a small fortune to have electricity run to the property, but it seems to fail frequently. On the other side of the parking area is a large garage building used to house the numerous seasonal toys Benjamin always stocked. Snowmobiles for winter and four-wheelers for summer.

  A narrow two-track drive on one side of the garage led from the parking area farther into the forest. I recalled that this led about one quarter of a mile to a small two-bedroom cottage perched on the side of another ravine and overlooking a small trout pond. Katharine and I had stayed in the cottage a couple of times when we visited. The image of the romantic setting of the cottage brought back memories of our stays. Memories that momentarily awakened long suppressed feelings about Katharine. I shook my head as if the motion would realign my thoughts to coincide with today’s reality and everything that had transpired since those memories were created.

  I parked next to a four-wheeled drive Ford pickup and climbed the flagstone steps to the wide front porch. Before I could reach the front door, it swung open and a tall thin man with a thick handlebar mustache emerged. He immediately reminded me of the actor, Sam Elliott. He thrust out his rough working man’s hand and said, “Hello there, I’m Andrew Bradley, but everybody calls me Andy, you must be Jack Nolan?” His deep voice further enhanced the Elliott persona.

  We shook hands as I replied, “Yup, that’s me. Thanks for meeting me here.”

  “No problem. Come on in. My wife, Sharon, is in the kitchen. She shopped for you this morning. Hope you’re planning to stay awhile. She sure bought enough groceries.”

  “Oh, well, I really don’t expect to be here more than a couple of days. I hope she didn’t go to too much trouble.”

  “No trouble. Actually, we were both happy to hear that someone was coming up. Since Benjamin got sick, he hasn’t been up here. No one used the place at all this summer. It was a good excuse for us to get out here and attend to a few things. I usually stop in once a week just to check on things, but I hadn’t run the generator, or really picked up outside, for a while. You know downed branches, stuff like that. Sharon uncovered the furniture and cleaned yesterday. Not that the place needed cleaning, but she worries more about this place than our own home.”

  I asked, “You live nearby?”

  “Not far. About halfway between here and Gaylord. I work for
Weyerhaeuser out of Gaylord, but mostly I travel around northern Michigan. Sharon works summers for a produce farm outside of Gaylord. Her season is just about over for the year.”

  We entered the kitchen and found a small woman with the ruddy complexion of a person who spends a lot of time outdoors. She had long black hair with streaks of gray. Turning toward us, she smiled widely, and said, “Hello, Mr. Nolan. I’m Sharon. I’ve stocked the kitchen for you. Should be everything you need for a few days.”

  Andy scoffed. “Few days. More like a month.”

  She chided. “Now, Andy, you know as well as I do that Benjamin wouldn’t want Mr. Nolan to run out of food while he’s here.”

  The mustache twitched. “He sure won’t. Unless he stays the winter.”

  I said, “Please, call me, Jack. And, Sharon, thank you for preparing the lodge for me. I really appreciate it.”

  “Oh, goodness. It wasn’t any trouble. Benjamin called us a couple of weeks ago and said he was sending some papers up here and that you would be coming up sometime to go through them for him. He said you were his son-in-law and that we should make you comfortable.”

  “Ex-son-in-law.” I came across a little sharper than I intended.

  My sharpness didn’t seem to bother Sharon. She continued, “Oh, he said that. He said you and Katharine divorced several years ago.” A warm smile crossed her face as she tipped her head and said in a conspiratorial tone, “He also said that as far as he was concerned, you would always be his son. He didn’t say son-in-law, he said son. And you know Benjamin, he didn’t misspeak. He meant exactly what he said.”