Loyal Be Jack

by Robert Tarrant

I was left momentarily speechless. Andy broke the silence as he said, “Let us show you around the lodge. I know that you were here years ago, but we can reacquaint you to the layout and where to find anything you might need. After that, I’ll take you outside and show you how the generator works, just in case we get a fall storm. Doesn’t take much of a storm to knock the power out around here.”

  I knew from my visits years earlier that Benjamin had people who took care of the property for him, but I had never met them. I asked, “How long have you worked for Benjamin?”

  The couple looked quizzically at each other, and finally Andy replied, “Gosh, it must be sixteen, seventeen years now. I first met Benjamin shortly after he bought the property, during the years he was doing the work to develop it. When he bought it, there was nothing here but an old hunting shack. No power, no water, really nothing. The construction company he hired to build the road up here, so he could build this lodge, belonged to a friend of mine. He told me that Benjamin was trying to decide what was the best building site. One that would do the least damage to the natural forest. That’s what I do for Weyerhaeuser, I’m a forester. I help manage sustainable forests. Anyway, my buddy introduced me to Benjamin, and we sorta hit it off. He needed someone to watch over things up here as the building progressed. One thing led to another, and Sharon and I just ended up taking care of the place over the years.”

  Sharon frowned and said, “We’re really going to miss Benjamin. He was a great guy. Great to us. I felt so bad for him after his wife passed . . . and now he’s gone.” Her eyes started to mist up. “We drove down for the visitation but wanted to be back up here to have everything ready for you, so we didn’t go to the funeral. Just as well. The visitation was hard enough, I don’t know how I would have gotten through the funeral.”

  Andy took Sharon by the elbow and said, “Come on, honey, let’s show Jack around the lodge.”

  Though I had been here in the past, I still found the place impressive. Massive exposed timbers supported the high A-frame ceiling in the center of the building. On the main floor, this center area was a huge great room with several overstuffed couches and a rough sawn dining table. All of the furnishings and decorating carried a northern Michigan cottage theme. A large fireplace occupied the center of the back wall with towering windows on each side. A wing jutted out from each side of this great room with the kitchen and two guest suites occupying one wing and the oversized master suite occupying the other. Downstairs from the main floor was a fully finished walkout basement with a game room and bar as well as two additional guest rooms and baths. Windows, looking out on the ravine behind the lodge, spanned the entire back wall of the basement area giving every room a view of the surrounding nature. A mechanical room was tucked into one corner of the basement. A loft, accessed by a circular iron staircase, was suspended above a portion of the main floor great room. The loft constituted what Benjamin called his northern Michigan office. The loft area afforded a panoramic view of the forested ravine behind the lodge through the towering windows of the back wall. I recalled Benjamin joking that while in the office, he spent many more hours gazing out at the view below than he did working.

  During my guided tour of the lodge, I had initially declined Andy’s offer to show me the office. I commented there was no need to go up just to see the office. Andy replied, “I need to show you the materials that Benjamin had sent up here. You’re going to review them?”

  “That’s the plan.” Then, turning to the story I had concocted when answering Thomas Wilcox’s inquiries, I said, “I’m going to look for material that would be appropriate for Benjamin’s biography.”

  Andy rubbed his chin. “Benjamin was an interesting guy. I could see a biography of his life.”

  I followed Andy up the circular stairs. The office area was as I remembered it with one startling exception. On one side of the office stood a pile of no less than fifteen records storage boxes. I pointed and asked, “Is that the material Benjamin had sent up here?”

  Nodding, Andy replied, “Yup, sure is. Isn’t that what you expected?”

  I really didn’t know what I expected. I guess it was more like a couple of journals than a mountain of records. I muttered, “Well, I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t that.”

  Again rubbing his chin in reflection, Andy muttered, “Guess it’s a good thing Sharon stocked as much food as she did. From the looks of things, you’re going to be here quite a while.”

  I walked over to the stack and took the lid off one of the boxes. My fears were realized. It was jammed full of documents. Some in labeled file folders but many not. Talk about the proverbial needle in a haystack. I felt a large void open in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t have the time to go through all of this mess. I needed to get back to Florida. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. Somewhere in this mountain was information about a transgression so egregious that Benjamin couldn’t go to his grave without a promise that I would correct it. Why the hell couldn’t he have lived long enough to at least tell me what I was looking for?

  Andy interrupted my pity party when he said, “Let me take you outside and show you the generator and a couple of other things. Oh, don’t let me forget to explain the alarm system, although, you may not even want to set it while you’re here. We always set it when the place is unoccupied, but it’s really only to scare people off. Without phone lines and with the sketchy cellular service here, the alarm doesn’t go anywhere. Just a loud siren blaring. The motion detector just inside the front gate is useful, though. That’s how we knew that you had arrived.” He paused and then added, “Can’t always rely on it to indicate that someone has come through the gate, though, because sometimes the critters set it off.”

  Andy took me to each of the outbuildings, but I wasn’t very focused. I couldn’t get my mind off of the mountain of materials that constituted my task ahead. When we were in the garage building, I was surprised to see only one ATV where once were several ATVs and snowmobiles. I commented, “Looks like Benjamin had significantly reduced his fleet of toys.”

  Andy exhaled and said, “Yeah, after his wife died, he didn’t really invite many people up here anymore. Last year, he had me sell all but that one. I use it for maintenance work around here. To check the fence line or when I have to clear a downed tree somewhere.” He paused and then said, “You know . . . well, I guess you probably wouldn’t know, but Benjamin never really got over the loss of his wife. He really loved that woman. He just seemed lost without her.” I didn’t know because I’d been an ass and didn’t return his calls after Katharine and I separated.

  When Andy and I got back inside the lodge, Sharon insisted on showing me the food in the refrigerator and the pantry. Andy was right, there was enough to feed an army. Or one guy for a long time. After making certain that I programmed both of their cell phone numbers into my phone, Andy and Sharon left.

  CHAPTER SIX

  While one man pumped gas into the tank of the black sedan at the Marathon station in Vanderbilt, the second man stepped off into the shadows and placed a call. “We followed him to the location that you had speculated would be his destination.” He paused and then said, “No, there was no way he was aware. We hung way back and utilized the tracker we put on his rental. It gave us a good signal until he got deep into the tree cover, then the signal got a little spotty, but the area is just as you described it. We’re certain that’s where he went.” Another pause. “No, we don’t have any way of knowing if there is anyone else there. We made a couple of passes up and down the paved road in the area where he turned off but didn’t dare attempt to hang around any closer. Far too remote around there. We did see a Ford pickup with a man and a woman leaving the area about an hour after he arrived, but we have no way of knowing if they had been where he was.”

  After another long pause listening to instructions from the other party to the call, the man said, “We’re going to go somewhere, Gaylord or Traverse City, and get something more suitable to dri
ve in this area. A pickup or something. This car sticks out like a sore thumb. Early tomorrow morning, we’ll go back to the gate at the entrance to the property and put a reader on the keypad. Once we have the entry code, we can walk in and get a closer look. At least see if there are any additional vehicles there with him.”

  “As soon as we know more, I’ll give you a call.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I wanted to start acquainting myself with the mountain of materials Benjamin had left behind as soon as I was alone but realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Having skipped the funeral luncheon, my only fuel had been a couple of cups of McDonald’s coffee on the drive north. I stood in front of the open refrigerator unable to focus on the preparation of anything more complex than a sandwich. I assembled a sandwich, grabbed a back of potato chips from the pantry, and headed up to the office.

  A cursory inventory of the boxes showed that each had a range of dates written on one end. Presumably, the dates related to the contents. I found the earliest dates, over forty years ago, and set that box on the floor next to the desk. I sat down in the desk chair. My attention was drawn to the windows across the rear wall and toward the heavily forested ravine outside. Even in the twilight I certainly could understand why Benjamin was distracted by the view. I probably would have been myself if I hadn’t been so focused on figuring out an expeditious approach to attack the problem of fulfilling my promise.

  My sandwich was long gone, as was most of the bag of potato chips, when I realized that it had fallen dark outside. I had only slogged twenty percent of the way through the first box. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock. At this pace, it would take me weeks to get through the materials. If only I knew what I was looking for. The materials I had looked at so far were a mixture of research notes, legal briefs, court orders, transcripts of both depositions and hearings, and Benjamin’s handwritten notes. My guess was that the handwritten notes would be the key to identifying the terrible transgression that Benjamin was so repentant about. Unfortunately, the handwritten notes lacked context without looking closely at the legal documents and transcripts. I felt like I was a cat chasing its tail. I was making some progress, but mostly I was going around in circles.

  I stood and stretched. I’d been seated for hours. The only light in the now dark lodge was the desk lamp. I had been so focused that I didn’t even remember turning it on. I left it on and cautiously made my way down the circular stairs to the main floor. I noted how black it seemed outside. No moon or stars were visible in the sky above the black forest. I found a light switch and turned on lights in the great room. The light switches were located in logical locations, so I was quickly able to drive the darkness out of the lodge. At the door, I flipped on an outside light and went out to get my suitcase.

  Once outside, I realized why it seemed so dark. The sky was black with cloud cover. Heavy rain-laden clouds. The wind had picked up, and the temperature had dropped. I’m no meteorologist, but I realized a storm front was moving in. I decided to park the rental car in the nearly empty garage building. My recent hurricane experience had left me intending to err on the side of excess caution. I returned to the lodge with my suitcase and a growing sense of loneliness. Maybe it was the remoteness, maybe it was the darkness. Whatever it was, it didn’t make me feel any better about the task ahead.

  Once inside, I did what I often do when feeling down, I went looking for something to drink. Benjamin had a well-stocked liquor cabinet in the great room. I knew from my earlier survey of the refrigerator that beer was not in my provisions. I opted for a single malt scotch and another sandwich.

  I moved from the kitchen counter, where I had eaten my sandwich, to one of the couches to pursue my second scotch. I noticed that rain had started to pelt the large windows. Given the force the raindrops were hitting the glass, I presumed that the wind had picked up. Among the benefits of this structure of oversized logs was the fact that you didn’t hear anything going on outside. After the terror I experienced from the sounds during the hurricane at Cap’s Place, it was fine with me if I didn’t have any idea what was going on outdoors.

  I intended to have the second scotch and then take a shower and go to bed. Fatigue was setting in. I couldn’t get the specter of the looming mountain of materials in the loft office area out of my mind. Finally, I picked up my drink and the bottle of scotch and trudged up the circular stairs. I slumped into the desk chair and stared at the pile of boxes. I needed to come up with a systematic approach to this task. I rose, went to the stack, and opened a couple more boxes. The contents were the same jumble of documents as the box I had been working on. The only element of organization that I could recognize was the fact that everything was in chronological order.

  I returned to the desk and my scotch. I rifled through the desk drawers until I found a legal pad. I started to jot random thoughts on the paper. A sort of free association. One word leading to another. I crossed out words and drew connecting lines and arrows. Finally, I distilled an approach to the task. I would continue my chronological review of the materials. I would skip over any copies of actual legal documents and focus only on Benjamin’s personal notes. If I found something in the personal notes that would seem to acknowledge some transgression on Benjamin’s part, I would look at the associated legal documents. Focusing on the personal notes, as if they were independent journals, would reduce the paper I was reviewing by at least eighty percent. Still a huge task, but at least something I could actually contemplate completing within two or three days.

  I was so pleased with myself that I poured another drink. I looked beyond the railing of the loft and into the blackness outside the towering windows of the back wall. The lights in the great room provided a warm glow inside but outside was inky black. I couldn’t even see if it was still raining. Glancing at the clock on the desk, I decided to call PJ. She would still be awake at 10:15 p.m. That idea lasted the fifteen seconds it took me to look at my cell phone and see that I had no service. I knew that cell service was sketchy up here when Katharine and I came years ago but had hoped that coverage had improved. Obviously that was not the case. Of course, I also knew that Benjamin consciously made no effort to enhance the potential to receive the limited signal available. Considering the amount of money he invested in developing the place over the years, he could have taken any number of steps to improve communications. He once told me that he truly enjoyed the fact that he could travel a mere four hours from Detroit and be isolated from the outside world. He said that even in periods when the signal was strong, he sometimes ignored calls and blamed it on the coverage.

  Having no one to talk to, I wandered downstairs, took my shower, and went to bed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I awoke at 6:30 a.m. It took me a minute to figure out the coffee maker, but I prevailed. With a heavy earthenware mug of coffee in hand, I wandered out onto the wide porch that ran the length of the lodge. There was no furniture, Andy had offered to get it out of storage, but I had declined. He said he hadn’t gotten it out since last winter because Benjamin hadn’t come up from Detroit all summer. I sat on the steps and sipped my coffee. It was a crisp, overcast morning. The rainfall the night before had taken down some of the autumn leaves and they were dancing in the light breeze. I rapidly realized that I wasn’t in South Florida. The temperature was probably somewhere in the low forties. I hadn’t experienced the forties since I moved to Hollywood. I quickly retreated to the warmth of the lodge.

  My sojourn outside made me realize that I didn’t have many clothes with me suitable for fall in northern Michigan. With my mug in hand, I looked into the closet near the front entry door. Sure enough, there were several jackets and a couple of coats in the closet. At least I wouldn’t be confined to the inside. I recalled that several walking trails crisscrossed the property. Katharine and I had enjoyed leisurely strolls on these trails every time we visited. On a couple of occasions, we had taken a blanket with us and enjoyed each other in a more physical manner under the ca
nopy of nature. I found myself smiling at those memories. Those were good times. There had been lots of good times. Too bad things had to change so dramatically.

  After toasting a bagel and slathering it in cream cheese, I went upstairs to the office to continue my search. My new process had its positives and its negatives. The positives were that progress, as measured by the volume of documents moved from the waiting pile to the finished file, was somewhat enhanced. The negatives involved the fact that most of Benjamin’s personal notes were handwritten, and the combination of his handwriting — if you didn’t know he was a lawyer, you would have sworn he was a doctor — and the fading ink created significant eye strain. By mid-morning I had completed the first box. A quick estimate told me that I could complete the entire task in a mere five days. Yuk! The realization unleashed a wave of disdain. Why had I ever made this commitment to Benjamin? Then a wave of guilt caught me. What the hell was the difference between two or three days and five days? I’d either made a commitment, or I hadn’t. I had. And it wasn’t qualified by the number of days it would take to accomplish it. Immediately following my mini-bout of self-loathing came the realization that I was only considering the number of days it would take to identify what Benjamin was asking me to correct. Who knows how long it would take to actually take the action necessary? Whatever the hell that means.

  I went downstairs, grabbed a jacket, and walked outside. I hoped the fresh air would clear my head and reinvigorate me. I walked down the driveway back to the gate. Looking through the gate to the outside, I noticed vehicle tracks in the gravel of the driveway approach. I decided the tracks had been made sometime after the rain stopped since there had been no tracks inside the gate the entire route from the lodge. The rain had totally obliterated mine and Andy’s tracks from the day before. It looked like a vehicle had pulled up to the gate and then backed up out onto the two-track road, returning the direction it had come from. Probably lots of people wandering around the two-tracks in the area turn in before realizing it is a gated driveway and not another road. By the time I got back to the lodge, I felt sufficiently recharged to dive into the second box.