“And that surprises you?” I asked.
“No, but it surprised Parker, and he was going to blow the whistle on the low-down scam Mayor Pruitt pulled—putting the county up to its eyeballs in debt for a bunch of expensive civic improvements that never benefited anyone except for a few dozen property owners that he happens to share a family tree with.”
“Wait a minute—up to its eyeballs in debt? I thought the beautification project was done with federal funds and private donations. That’s what he said in that newspaper article last year.”
“And he wasn’t completely lying. He did get a small federal grant or two, and a few rich locals kicked in a few hundred dollars here and there. With federal funds and private donations, yes—but not entirely with. Not by a long shot. Most of the money came from borrowing. And they lied to the county board about it, or they wouldn’t have gotten approval. That’s what Parker figured out.”
A lot of what had been happening in recent weeks was all starting to make more sense. Caerphilly wasn’t an impoverished area. In addition to the college, the town had a small but thriving high-tech industry, with Mutant Wizards, my brother’s computer gaming company, as its centerpiece. The county was full of farmers who had adapted very successfully to the world of modern agriculture, mainly by providing organic or boutique meat and produce to the high-end restaurants and markets in the nearby cities. Like everyone, I’d assumed that a little belt-tightening would get the town and the county through the current financial hard times. The news of Terence Mann’s draconian service cuts had taken everyone by surprise, and most of us were still alternating between wondering if he was overreacting and fretting over how it could possibly have gotten so bad so fast.
“So that’s why the county financial situation suddenly got so dire?” I asked aloud.
“Yeah, we probably could have trimmed our sails a bit and weathered the recession,” Randall said. “It’s Pruitt stupidity and Pruitt greed that’s bringing us down. And maybe a little old-fashioned Pruitt profiteering. I know construction costs, and in my opinion we should have gotten a hell of a lot more for our money than we did.”
“So what happens now?” I asked.
“What usually happens when someone doesn’t pay a debt?” Randall said. “Swarms of lawyers should start showing up soon. And if the county can’t pay, the lenders are going to want their collateral.”
“Collateral? What collateral?” I asked. “You think they’re going to repossess all those overpriced cobblestones and wrought-iron streetlamps?”
“The collateral’s all the government buildings in town,” Randall said. “The courthouse. The library. Even the police station and the jail.”
I was stunned.
“It’s okay,” Randall said. “Odds are they won’t actually take over the property. After all, what’s a New York bank going to do with a Reconstruction-era courthouse, a beat-up Carnegie library, and a small-town jailhouse? Parker said they’d probably just rent them back to us.”
“They might,” I said. “Or they might try to cut a deal with the mayor. What if they offered to trade all the town buildings back if he got the county to seize some property that the bank really wants—some waterfront property and a few hundred acres of prime farmland. A tract of land one of their other customers might find useful—say a real-estate developer who’s been hankering to build fancy condominiums and a golf course in Caerphilly County and has been beating its head for years against the county’s antidevelopment stance.”
Randall frowned and pondered for a few moments.
“Can they do that?” he asked finally. “Seize private property to give it to a developer. Seems … un … un…”
“Unconstitutional?”
“I was thinking just plain un-American. Can they really do it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It has worked in some places. And even if it doesn’t work, you can bet fighting it will cost the moon and take forever.”
“And the whole time that sneaky bastard of a mayor will be doing everything he can to help out his developer buddies. Okay, the first thing we have to do is figure out what land they’re targeting and make sure the owners are ready to fight.”
“I already know that,” I said. “I found the surveyors working on Michael’s and my land and Mother and Dad’s farm.”
“I reckon you aren’t interested in selling, as much money as you’ve put into the place.”