The Real MacAw (18 page)

I’d have expected the crowd to erupt at hearing that, but after a few moments of low murmuring—and more than a few angry or reproachful glances at the county board members who’d been brave enough to attend—the crowd settled down. Evidently most of them had already heard the news. Or perhaps they were cynical enough about their local government that it came as no surprise.

“Doubtless the mayor had a plan for repaying the borrowing.” This generated a few sardonic laughs. “But even if his plan was a good one, it apparently failed, no doubt due to the present adverse economic conditions. We’ve now learned that the lender has been demanding payment for months—and is preparing to foreclose on the collateral.”

A slightly angrier buzz greeted that statement, and died down when Caroline raised her hand to indicate that she had more to say.

Suddenly the tortoiseshell cat, which had been lying languidly on her shoulder the whole time, launched itself toward the audience with a howl, and began scrabbling around the base of the stage. Several people in the front rows leaped back and a few startled shrieks rang out.

The cat then leaped nimbly back onto the stage and marched back over to Caroline.

“Mrowr!” it said, its voice a little muffled by the field mouse in its mouth.

“What a good mouser you are!” Caroline exclaimed. She picked up the cat, mouse and all, and held him out as if displaying a trophy. The audience—many of them farm people who understand the value of a good mouser—broke into applause.

“And he’s available for adoption, if anyone’s interested,” Caroline said. She gestured to Clarence, who relieved her of the cat and took him off to enjoy his prey in one of the cat carriers in the adoption area.

“As I was saying,” Caroline said. “The lender plans to seize our county government buildings. And now Meg Langslow has discovered that the mayor apparently intends to solve the debt crisis he created by asking the county to seize the property of several local landowners and turn it over to an outside developer!”

All hell broke loose at that hated word, “developer”—and “outside developer” at that. Not that there was anyone living in the county who would publicly own up to being a developer, given the local mind-set on the issue. The county might be divided in many ways over many topics, but nothing would bring the residents together better than the threat of unwanted development.

Caroline let the shouting go on for a few minutes before tapping the microphone for silence.

“Before we discuss what to do about this threat, I’d like to hear a few very brief words from the people most affected by the developer’s plans—the people whose land is in danger of being stolen!”

Deacon Washington stepped to the podium and led off with a short but emotional statement about how much it meant to his family that they now owned the very farm on which their ancestors had labored as slaves before the Civil War—and how shocked he was to hear that the county where he’d spent all his life was plotting to deprive him of this important legacy. The New Life Baptist contingent punctuated his statement liberally with shouts of “You tell ’em!” and “Amen, brother!”

Randall Shiffley stood up and, after apologizing for not being much of a public speaker, proceeded to prove himself a liar by making a plainspoken yet eloquent plea for his cousins and their old friend Seth Early to continue farming the land their families had occupied since colonial times. Orville, Renfrew, and Seth stood in a semicircle behind him, looking the very picture of noble, careworn tillers of the earth. The addition of Seth’s newly adopted border collie was a nice touch. Someone—probably Cousin Festus—had clearly had a hand in the staging. Except for one scowling reference to “outsiders with no love for the land,” Randall completely refrained from Pruitt bashing. Orville didn’t spit tobacco once during the entire performance, and the crowd, having been warmed up by Deacon Washington, peppered Randall’s words with enthusiastic amens and encouragement.

“And finally,” Caroline said, after the border collie had herded the three farmers off the stage, “Meg Langslow, who discovered this dangerous plot this afternoon when she confronted the surveyors trespassing on the land she and her husband own. Meg!”

She might have warned me that she was planning to ask me to speak. Fortunately the thunderous cheers and applause that greeted my name gave me time to pull my thoughts together. I grabbed the closest twin, balanced him on my shoulder, and strode to the microphone. Not that Josh couldn’t have remained in the carriage under Michael’s watchful eye, but I figured Cousin Festus would never forgive me if I passed up the chance to show off, on camera, at least one of the adorable infants whose home the developers were threatening. As I stood in front of the microphone, I could see Festus beaming approval at me.

“Michael and I plan for our kids to grow up on this land,” I said.

A few amens rang out, and various people shouted “You tell ’em,” and “Go, sister!”

“So we have no intention of letting the stupidity, dishonesty, and greed of a few politicians take it away from us. That’s why as soon as I heard about the mayor’s plan, I called my cousin, Festus Hollingsworth, who has spent his entire legal career fighting similar injustices. Take it away, Festus.”

With that I sat down, followed by another thunderous ovation. Festus and Caroline beamed at me. I tucked Josh back into the carriage. Jamie didn’t seem jealous that he hadn’t had his own moment on camera.

Festus stepped to the podium.

“I would like to thank all of you for putting your confidence in me,” he began. “I can’t promise to win this for you—no one can—but I can promise I will do everything within my power to do so.”

“And bill us for all the time it takes,” someone called out from the back. But the heckler didn’t sound angry, and the crowd reacted with amused titters.

“True,” Festus said. “And I won’t lie to you—this is a complicated matter that will require a lot of my time. Unfortunately for me, since it was my cousin who originally called me in, I guess I’m going to have to do this all at the family discount rate.”

More laughter.

“The first thing I’ll be looking into is whether the town had the legal authority to borrow that money in the first place, and whether the county board had the power to let them use public property as collateral without the voters’ approval. I’ll also look into whether any of the public officials involved in this scheme committed any indictable or impeachable offenses in connection with this loan. And as far as seizing people’s property—we’re a long way from that.”

A volley of cheers and amens greeted this statement.

“Some of you may have heard about a case where the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a northern town’s right to condemn a bunch of modest homes to build a fancy new development. You’ll be relieved to know that Virginia was one of the many states to have passed laws making it harder for rogue governments to get away with this kind of outrageous behavior. I’ll be looking into whether what these developers are trying to pull has any chance of standing up in court under these new laws. I can already assure you that they won’t find approval in the court of public opinion. It won’t be easy, but I’m optimistic that we’ll prevail.”

More ovations. Josh was awake and beaming as if he thought the ovations were all for him. But Jamie woke up and began the soft fussing noises that meant he was about a minute from drowning out the entire meeting unless fed. I grabbed him and a bottle and slipped behind the stage and into my office. I left the door ajar so I could keep track of what was being said without the danger that I’d nod off. Probably not the thing to do in front of a crowd who thought you were a fearless and tireless crusader for justice.

And being out of sight also let me dodge volunteering for all the committees that Festus and Caroline and the rest of the attendees set up over the next hour. A committee to find and set up office and living spaces for the paralegals and clerks Festus would be bringing to town to help. A committee to look through the minutes of the town council and the county board to determine exactly what they were told about the beautification project. A committee, headed by one of Randall’s cousins, to analyze the costs of the beautification project, to see if the construction costs were exorbitant. A committee to gather data on the developer that seemed to be interested in our land, particularly any information on their relationship with the lender and with the Pruitts and their financial allies. A committee, including the editor of the
Caerphilly Clarion
and Ms. Ellie Draper, the town librarian, to pull together as accurate a picture as possible of the Pruitts’ tangled financial situation. A committee to approach the college administration and talk them into coming out in support of the county’s new position, once the county figured out what that was.

Randall Shiffley suggested forming a committee to study the feasibility of doing away with the mayor and the town council entirely on the grounds that they didn’t do a lick of useful work and only caused problems for the county board and confused the hell out of people. Festus intervened, suggesting that however appealing this project might be, the citizens needed to focus first on the immediate crisis.

Randall withdrew his motion, but I had the sneaking feeling that he’d be hearing from a whole bunch of people eager to serve on his committee whenever he formed it.

Most important of all was the blue ribbon committee that was staying on after the main meeting adjourned to make a decision on the most urgent question facing Caerphilly—whether to sit tight in the county offices and prepare for a siege or evacuate and form a government in exile. The Fight or Flight Committee, as everyone had already started calling it.

The one option no one even brought up was the mayor’s order that everyone go home and behave themselves.

The meeting broke up at around nine thirty, but by half past ten the barn was still far from empty. The Fight or Flight Committee members were still waiting for things to become quiet enough for them to begin their deliberations. Michael and Rob had taken Timmy and the twins up to bed, and I was about to delegate shutting up the barn for the night to Rose Noire, if I could find her. People were straggling out slowly, some still talking in animated clusters, some exchanging phone numbers and e-mail addresses with their fellow committee members.

And many carrying dogs and cats. I was particularly pleased to see the reverend Wilson’s wife, a stately steel-haired matron in a formidable church hat, cooing happily to the white kitten with the black patch over his eye. I made a mental note to thank the chief for helping Pirate the second find his home.

I found him talking to Clarence and Grandfather by Spike’s pen.

“So I assume you’ve decided it’s okay to release the four-legged evidence?” I asked.

“We convinced the chief that it would be heartless not to take advantage of people being here, and in a generous, volunteering mood,” Clarence said.

“I asked that they put every new pet owner on notice that they were responsible for producing the animals if they were needed as evidence,” the chief put in. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

“Over half of them out of our hair,” Grandfather said, with satisfaction. Although he was committed in theory to the welfare of animals of every kind, he tended to be bored rather quickly with individual animals unless they were either dangerous or endangered—preferably both.

“We had a lot of them spoken for already, yesterday or earlier today,” Clarence said. “Some of those people took them home tonight, after the chief gave his okay, and a lot more people just adopted on the spot. All of them people I’m well acquainted with, naturally—anyone I can’t vouch for has to go through the usual investigation. And when you add in the people from that file you gave me—the people Parker was going to meet to hand over the animals—we’ve got about three-quarters of them placed.”

“Of course, the ones left over are going to be the hardest,” Grandfather said. “But we’ll manage somehow. We’d better—looks as if we’ll have plenty of other work to do.” He gestured toward the stage, where the Fight or Flight Committee was starting to assemble.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Grandfather was frowning suspiciously. I had the feeling he didn’t like irony very much unless he was the one wielding it.

“If the committee does decide in favor of evacuation, there’s one county agency that won’t have a very big moving job, thanks to CORSICA,” I said. “You won’t see the animal shelter staff scrounging for a new location.”

“That’s because the mayor fired all the staff,” Grandfather said.

“No, they quit,” I said. “So isn’t it lucky for the mayor you took all the animals away? Otherwise they’d have to figure out what to do with all those animals cluttering up one of the buildings they’re seizing.”

“Hmph.” Grandfather glowered at me and stormed out.

“I plan to take care of moving the shelter equipment,” Clarence said.

“I plan to get some sleep,” I said.

I decided to check my office to see if Rose Noire was there so I could ask her to lock up the barn after everyone left.

I opened the door and found Caroline and Rose Noire standing on either side of a sobbing Corsican. I recognized her. The weepier of Parker’s two known girlfriends. Louise; that was her name.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, and backed toward the door.

Chapter 15

“No, come in, please,” Caroline said. “You might be able to help.”

And I might not want to help, I found myself thinking. But Caroline appeared uncharacteristically agitated, and even Rose Noire looked at me pleadingly—Rose Noire who normally basked at the chance of comforting someone else and was always urging us not to hold in our grief.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, closing the door behind me.

As if in answer, Louise held out a damp, crumpled wad of paper. After blinking at it for a few moments I realized it was office paper, not tissue, so I reached out to take it from her.

It was a copy of the first page of the infamous contract. Third- or fourth-generation photocopy, by the looks of it. The thing was really making the rounds.