The Gray Drake by Charles Cutter

Author:Charles Cutter [Cutter, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781950659142
Published: 2019-07-28T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Margaret Winston, now Maggie, had asked Burr to dinner.

He turned off a gravel road, onto yet another unmarked two-track, to yet another cabin, on yet another river.

This one was the Chevrolet version of Thompson Shepherd’s Cadillac log cabin. It was on the Manistee River, about ten miles west of Grayling.

Maggie opened the door. She had on a hunter-green A-line dress, tucked at the waist, a small black jacket and a pearl necklace. She had her hair in a French braid, her bare legs still tan late in September. Burr thought she was dangerously good-looking.

She slipped a little on the driveway. Burr grabbed her by the elbow.

“Heels and gravel are a tough combination,” she said.

He opened the passenger door. “Zeke, back seat,” he said. Maggie slid in.

“Would you mind if Finn came?”

“Not if she doesn’t mind riding with Zeke.”

Maggie went back for Finn. The dog jumped on Maggie’s lap. She pushed her into the back seat, which delighted Zeke.

Burr climbed in. How can this beautiful woman be living in what, by any stretch of the imagination, was a rundown cabin, that, at the very least, needed a coat of paint.

He reached for the ignition, but she put her hand on his.

“Listen, you can hear the river. I know the cabin needs some work, but I like it the way it is. My grandfather built it in the twenties. The Manistee fishes every bit as well as the Au Sable. And there’s no pressure. It’s one of the best kept secrets up here.”

Along with what happened to Quinn Shepherd.

When they got back to the paved road, Burr stopped. “Which way?” he said.

“Have you ever been to Tapawingo?”

Forty-five minutes later, Burr parked in front of a small gray house, facing a lake and surrounded by flower gardens in bloom, with the colors of fall – burnt orange, crimson, purple and yellow.

The maître d’ sat them at a table facing the lake.

“This is my favorite restaurant,” she said.

Burr nodded. He had been here many times, all paid for by Fisher and Allen. Tapawingo was the best restaurant Burr had ever been to in the middle of nowhere, and quite possibly the best restaurant he had ever been to. Not to mention the priciest. He had just enough room on the Lafayette and Wertheim credit card to pay for dinner.

Maggie ordered them a bottle of champagne. The waiter uncorked the bottle, poured them each a glass and left the bottle in an ice bucket.

Maggie raised her glass. “To rising fish.”

“And tight lines,” Burr said, the only fly-fishing toast he knew.

Maggie finished her champagne. Burr poured her another glass.

“Veuve Clicquot is my favorite,” she said.

“Mine, too,” Burr said, fibbing. He liked champagne well enough, but he had no real taste for it.

She finished her second glass. Burr split what was left in the bottle between them and stuck the dead soldier upside down in the ice bucket. Maggie flagged the waiter down and ordered another bottle.

As much as he liked this somewhat eccentric, altogether beautiful woman, there was something he had to say before things went any further.

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