Chapter 4 - Shadows Along the Waterfront
The first car appeared on the gravel road on Tuesday afternoon.
It was a black Chevrolet Impala with tinted windows, parked about three hundred yards down from Arthur’s driveway, near the edge of the public turnout where fishermen usually left their trailers. It didn't belong to any of the locals. In a town like Grand Haven, where every truck had a rusted tailgate or a commercial fishing sticker, an unmarked sedan with Cook County plates stood out like an oil slick on clean water.
Arthur noticed it before breakfast.
He stood by the kitchen window, holding a mug of chicory coffee, his eyes fixed on the distant glint of chrome through the bare pine branches.
"Private investigator," Arthur said calmly. "Julian’s lawyer hired him. They're looking for proof of 'unfitness.' They want photos of you looking distressed. They want to see if you leave the child alone. They want anything they can use in court tomorrow to claim you're neglectful."
"I haven't stepped outside," I said. My ribs were still tightly wrapped, the dull ache settling into a persistent, throbbing reminder of Julian's boots.
"And you won't," Arthur said. "Not yet."
Leo sat on the living room rug, building an elaborate fortress out of wooden blocks Arthur had cut from cedar scrap in the workshop. He had barely spoken in three days. Every time a car engine rumbled in the distance, his little shoulders would tense, his head would snap toward the window, and his fingers would tighten around his wooden blocks until his knuckles turned bloodless.
"Grandpa," Leo asked quietly without looking up. "Is Daddy in that car?"
Arthur set his coffee mug down on the counter. He walked into the living room, knelt beside Leo, and picked up a cedar block.
"No, buddy," Arthur said. "Daddy isn't in that car. Daddy is in Chicago, talking to lawyers who are very nervous right now."
"Does Daddy want to hurt my blocks?"
Arthur looked at me, a deep, unbearable ache passing through his weathered face before he masked it. He set the block gently on top of Leo’s fortress.
"Nobody is touching your blocks, Leo. And nobody is coming down this drive."
Arthur stood up, walked into the hall closet, and pulled on his heavy wool mackinaw coat. He reached above the doorframe, took down a heavy set of brass keys, and walked toward the front door.
"Dad," I called out, rising from the sofa with a hand pressed against my side. "What are you doing?"
"Taking out the trash," Arthur said.
"Dad, please don't do anything that violates the law. If Julian gets a restraining order against you—"
"Evie," Arthur said, turning back with his hand on the doorknob. "I've dealt with teamsters, crooked harbor commissioners, and lake pirates for forty years. I know exactly how to speak to a Chicago PI."
I watched from the second-story window as Arthur walked down the long gravel drive.
He didn't hurry. He walked with the heavy, unhurried, terrifying stride of a man who owned the ground beneath his feet. The cold wind whipped off the lake, tearing pine needles from the boughs and hurling them across the drive, but Arthur didn't even hunch his shoulders against the gale.
He reached the end of the driveway. He crossed the two-lane county road and stopped five feet from the driver's side window of the black Impala.
Arthur didn't knock on the glass. He simply stood there, his hands deep in his coat pockets, staring down through the tinted window into the driver's face.
Two minutes passed. Arthur didn't move an inch.
Finally, the electric window hummed down two inches. A plume of cigarette smoke drifted out.
Through the narrow gap, I could see the silhouette of a heavy-set man in a windbreaker. I couldn't hear the words, but I saw Arthur lean down, his face six inches from the opening.
Arthur spoke for less than thirty seconds.
He didn't shout. He didn't point a finger. He simply spoke, his mouth moving with cold, measured precision. Then, Arthur reached out with one massive, leather-gloved hand, took hold of the car’s side mirror, and tilted it violently upward until the glass cracked against its housing.
The Impala’s engine roared to life.
Tires spun violently in the loose gravel, kicking up a shower of stones as the car threw itself into reverse, swung around in the narrow road, and sped back toward the highway, its exhaust trailing black smoke into the gray Michigan sky.
Arthur turned around and walked back up the drive.
When he stepped inside the front door, shaking the cold from his coat, Eleanor Shaw was standing in the hallway holding a thick legal brief.
"Did you threaten him, Arthur?" Eleanor asked with arched eyebrows.
"I informed him that this road is private property under the 1924 Lake Township easement act," Arthur said mildly. "And that if his vehicle suffered an axle failure three miles out in the woods, cell reception is notoriously unreliable, and the tow truck from Muskegon takes four hours to arrive."
Eleanor gave a dry, humorless chuckle. "Remind me never to audit your dry-dock logs."
She turned to me.
"The Cook County preliminary hearing is tomorrow morning at nine-thirty. Marcus Crane filed a motion requesting your mandatory personal appearance, claiming that your failure to attend demonstrates abandonment and contumacy."
"Can I travel?" I asked, my voice trembling. Just the thought of being in the same room as Julian made my lungs seize.
"You don't have to," Eleanor said, holding up a medical affidavit signed by the chief of surgery at West Suburban. "I have a certified medical certificate of trauma-induced incapacitation. You will appear via encrypted teleconference from the Ottawa County courthouse in Grand Haven. But Evelyn..."
Eleanor stepped closer, her eyes boring into mine.
"Julian will be on that screen. He will have his tailored suit on. He will have his mother and father sitting behind him in the gallery. He will look like the picture of civilized, grieving fatherhood. He will try to catch your eye. He will try to make you look down."
Eleanor tapped the manila folder against her thigh.
May you like
"If you look down, the judge sees guilt. If you look down, the judge sees a broken woman who can't stand without her abuser. When that camera turns on tomorrow, Evelyn, you look directly into his eyes, and you remember: you are Arthur Vance’s daughter, and Julian Montgomery is a thief in an expensive suit."
***
