Bryan Gruley: Starvation lake

I propped a boot against my desk. “Well,” I said, “I doubt we’re going to change our view.”

“We’d welcome that, of course,” Boynton said, “but that’s actually not why we’re here. Arthur?”

Fleming jumped up and his glasses slid down his nose. He pushed them up with the heel of his left hand, set his briefcase on my desk, and pulled out a thick document sheathed in clear plastic. “We have some research we think might be enlightening, Mr. Carpenter, to the citizens of Starvation Lake,” he said. “We’d like to show this to you on an off-the-record basis.”

I hadn’t heard that phrase since Detroit. Fleming must have fantasized that he was a big-city lawyer rather than a glorified notary public with a mercenary streak. “Sorry,” I said. “No off the record.”

“Gus,” Boynton said. “All he means is, if you use this stuff, we’d prefer you didn’t say where you got it.”

“Mr. Carpenter,” Fleming said.

“Call me Gus.”

“Gus, then. We’ve simply compiled publicly available information that paints a broader picture of the implications of the zoning board’s responsibilities-and, in fact, the Pilot ’s responsibilities-to the community.”

I looked up at the clock over Joanie’s desk. There had been a time, not so long ago, when I’d believed that things were either true or they weren’t, no matter where they came from. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll look at it off the record. But if we think it’s worth a story, we’ll have to say who put us onto it.”

Fleming looked at Boynton, who shrugged. The document thudded on my desk. Beneath the plastic, the cover page was blank but for an identifying label, “Campbell/7364opp,” typed in tiny black letters. On the next page was a table of contents divided into four categories: (I) Recent Litigation, (II) Formal Complaints, (III) Affidavits, and (IV) Tax Liens and Related Matters. Beneath each were a variety of references to Starvation Lake Marina, Alden C. Campbell, and Angus F. Campbell. Alden Campbell was Soupy. Angus was his father, who had been the marina’s proprietor until Soupy found him lying faceup on a dock on the morning of July fourth, dead of a heart attack. I flipped through the document. There were excerpts of lawsuits, sworn statements by people who had business with the marina, copies of overdue tax bills, complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau. I’d known Soupy was having trouble running his father’s business, but not this much.

“Looks like Soup’s got his work cut out,” I said.

“The real question,” Fleming said, “is whether the young Mr. Campbell is cut out for the work. His record seems to demonstrate-”

“He’s only been doing it for, what, not even a year.”

“Come on, Gus,” Boynton said. “He grew up in the damn place.”

Fleming quieted his client with a raised palm. “It’s true Mr. Campbell has been managing the property for slightly in excess of seven months. But it’s also true that in that short span he has managed to exacerbate the relatively dire financial straits the business was experiencing at the time of his father’s death. It’s debatable as to whether his father would’ve been able to right this sinking ship. Perhaps. But he is not with us. Under his son, this ship has done nothing but take on more water.”

Enough with the nautical metaphors, I thought. “It’s not the Pilot ’s job to make judgments about who is or isn’t a good businessman.”

“Arguable,” Fleming said. “I would argue it is certainly your job to alert the public if a business’s lack of viability has the potential to impact the public interest. In the case of the Starvation Lake Marina, we fear that its next public filing will be for bankruptcy. That could have catastrophic consequences for this community-the loss of its sole marina, the very heart of its economy.”

“What do you care?” I said. “Then the zoning board would have to let you guys go ahead.”

“Too late,” Boynton said. “By the time all the shoes dropped, I’d lose an entire season. The lenders won’t go for it. I’ve put a lot of time and money into this. If Starvation Lake doesn’t want it, somebody else might.”

That explained the presence of the Sandy Cove lawyer. “Clever,” I said.

“It’s no sin to play hard.”

“No,” I said, scratching my stitches.

Fleming cleared his throat. “Incidentally, you should know that we’re contemplating showing this same material to Channel Eight.”

He was goading me. Although the Pilot ’s owners, NLP Newspapers, didn’t especially like controversial stories and the legal inconveniences they could sometimes bring, they hated it when Channel Eight had a story before any of its newspapers. If we got beat to an important story about the marina, I was certain to catch hell from corporate, and Fleming probably knew it.

“Jeez, Ted,” I said, “why didn’t you just tell me all this when you had your stick down my throat last night?”

Boynton hitched his chair up closer. The metal wheels squeaked on the linoleum. “Look, Gus,” he said. “Your buddy Soupy-our buddy Soupy-is a fuckup. Great guy, great hockey player. But a fuckup. You know it and I know it. Should the whole town suffer for that?”

“Who’s a screwup?”

We all turned to see Joanie standing there in her orange parka, clutching a notebook in her left hand. Over her shoulder hung a backpack that was half the size of her. Her hair, a wild, flaming bush that matched the color of her coat, billowed around her head and spilled over her shoulders. As always, she seemed out of breath.

“Where’s the fire?” I said.

“Just got back from the sheriff’s. Who’s a screwup?” She couldn’t bring herself to say “fuckup.” She didn’t like profanity, didn’t use it, didn’t like when anybody else used it. She gave me a little speech once about how senseless it was to use “fucking” as an adjective. “It’s not a pencil,” she’d said, “it’s a fucking pencil. It’s not a lamp, it’s a fucking lamp. Barbarians and fools talk like that.” I’d grinned and said, “ Fucking barbarians, you mean?”

Boynton stood and offered his hand. “Ted Boynton,” he said. “And it’s not me who’s the fuckup.”

Joanie frowned. “So who then?”

Boynton laughed. “I’m sure your boss will fill you in.”

Joanie’s eyes fell on the document. Then she looked at me. “What happened to your chin?” she said.

“Fell out of bed,” I said.

“I got some stuff on the snowmobile,” she said.

“OK,” I said. “Just give us five more minutes.”

“Going across the street,” she said, meaning Audrey’s Diner. “Looks like the thing was registered to someone, John Blackberg or Blackston or something.”

Teddy Boynton sat up and turned toward Joanie.

“What was that?” I said.

“I thought you needed five.”

“What was the name?”

She pulled out a notebook and flipped through it. “Blackburn,” she said, shooting me an irritated glance before she turned to leave.

Teddy turned back to me. “Holy shit,” he said.

My computer screen displayed a list of five news stories, two features, and a few briefs that had to be edited and sent to the presses in about six hours. I had to hustle. Our staff wasn’t much of a staff since NLP stopped letting us replace the young reporters who inevitably came to the Pilot for just a year or two before leaving for a bigger paper. Essentially, there was Joanie, Tillie, and me to write stories, and a photographer. My boss, executive editor Henry Bridgman, had been spending a lot of his time huddling with the suits at the corporate offices in Traverse City. We had a few blue-haired ladies who freelanced now and then. It was next to impossible to put out a six-day-a-week paper with such a tiny staff. I filled a lot of the paper with wire-service copy and barely rewritten press releases.