Chapter 18
The late-morning heat was already in the seventies and the temperature was still rising. It was going to be another hot June day.
I stood at the bottom of my driveway where it met the county road, arms folded, sweat already darkening the collar of my t-shirt.
The little clearing was clean. Every last orange bag gone, every stray diaper, every shard of broken glass picked up and hauled away.
You wouldn't know it had been a dump site a couple of days ago.
Richard crouched beside my truck, scrolling through the photos on my phone with his thumb. His neon orange BrainJuzzy can sat on the hood of the truck. He wore a blue polo shirt tucked into khakis, his black-framed glasses sliding down his nose in the heat.
"These bags," he said, turning the phone sideways. "They look deliberately torn open."
"They were. Every single one. Somebody slashed them with a knife or box cutter before they dumped them. Spread the contents across ten yards of clearing and onto the road. You don't accidentally rip open forty garbage bags."
Richard stood and handed my phone back.
"And you traced the bags to that campground?"
"Grace recognized them. Same orange bags they use at the campground dumpster south of here. She used to sleep there so she knows the place. We drove down and the dumpster was nearly empty. Last time she'd seen it, bags were stacked three feet above the rim with more piled around the base."
"So someone loaded them from the campground dumpster and brought them here."
"In the middle of the night," I nodded. "Then called the sheriff before sunrise so a deputy could show up with a citation already in hand."
Richard pulled his BrainJuzzy off the ground and took a long swallow. His eyes were working behind those glasses.
"That would mean the sheriff's office is coordinating with whoever did this. That's not just harassment, that's institutional corruption."
"They were definitely in on it. You should have seen this one deputy's face when I got the citation. He was grinning like a kid pulling wings off flies. They weren't investigating a complaint, they were delivering a goddamn punchline."
"Okay." Richard held up a hand. "I hear you, Thomas. But I have to ask, do you have anything more direct than the matching orange bags and a deputy's bad attitude? Any security footage? Witnesses? Tire tracks you can match to a specific vehicle?"
I looked at the gravel, at the spot where Grace and I had spent a whole day in the heat, gagging through surgical masks left over from COVID, filling the bed of my truck over and over again.
"No," I admitted. "I don't have direct proof."
Richard nodded. Not dismissive. Patient.
"What did you do with all of the garbage?"
"Grace and I spent the whole day on it. Five trips to the county landfill with my truck bed loaded past the rails.
Filthy diapers. Used hypodermic needles.
Rotting food. Bags of human waste. Grace almost cut herself on a piece of tin and I stepped on a needle that broke off in the sole of my boot. Didn't touch my skin, thank God."
"Wowser. They did a number on you. What are you going to do to keep it from happening again?"
"I'm going to install a security camera at the entrance. And a gate I can lock."
"That's a smart move."
But Richard's voice carried something else underneath the agreement. He looked down at his BrainJuzzy can, turning it in his fingers.
"What's wrong?"
He sighed and grimaced, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses.
"Can we talk about it back at the cabin? I'd rather sit down for this."
"Claire's up there making iced tea."
Richard held up his neon orange can and smiled. "As always, I'm good for caffeine."
We climbed into my truck and drove up the gravel drive. Richard's Prius sat near the cabin, dusty white and absurdly small against the trees. Claire's Subaru was parked beside it. She'd set a pitcher of iced tea on the porch table, ice cubes catching the light through the amber liquid.
She sat in one of the camp chairs. I dropped into the chair beside her. Richard took the third, setting his BrainJuzzy on the arm. Claire poured tea for me and herself. The ice cracked and popped.
Richard leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and pushed his glasses up. The eagerness that usually animated his face was gone.
"I've hit a wall," he said quietly.
"What kind of wall?" Claire asked.
"I took everything to my editor at the Bremerton Times. All of it. The boundary documents Harlan falsified. The tax abatements. The well access fees he collected from your father. The electrical service termination. All of it laid out, sourced, documented."
"And?"
"She was impressed. Told me I was onto something real." He paused. "Then she told me she couldn't run it."
Claire's lips tightened. "Why not?"
"Because right now it's a documents story.
County records, property filings, utility paperwork.
My editor said readers don't engage with that.
They need a human face, a narrative. More importantly, she said the paper's legal exposure is too high if all we've got is documents that Harlan's lawyers can reframe as clerical errors or legitimate disputes.
" Richard spread his hands. "She needs more direct evidence of Harlan's involvement.
His motives. Something that connects the paper trail to the man. "
"I told Richard everything about Harlan and my father," Claire said, looking at me. "How Harlan was Dad's best friend for thirty years. How he ate at our table while he was falsifying boundary documents behind Dad's back."
Richard's voice grew gentle. "That's significant details and your perspective is valuable, Claire. But your father is the one who could speak directly to the relationship and the betrayal, and he's not here to provide that testimony."
Claire stared at the iced tea in her glass. A muscle twitched in her cheek.
"Your interview does help," Richard continued.
"And what Bessie Anne told me about Mark's final years, the financial pressure, the confusion about the boundary lines.
That helps too. But neither one gives my editor what she needs to go to print.
It's secondhand. It's family perspective, not firsthand evidence of how the corruption operated from the inside. "
"What kind of source do you need?" I asked.
"Someone with inside information. Someone who worked in the system, who saw how Harlan's influence translated into official action. How complaints got buried, how records got altered, how a decorated veteran's electricity got cut off and nobody in the county government blinked."
"The Deep Throat of Port Chasten?" Claire grimaced and set her glass on the table. "You won't find many people in this county willing to speak against Harlan Foster."
"Yeah. I'm beginning to understand that."
Richard pulled his BrainJuzzy can off the chair arm and rolled it between his palms.
"There is one person," he said thoughtfully.
"A man who worked at the Office of the County Commissioner.
Retired this year after forty years. If anyone knows how Harlan's influence operated through the county government, it's him.
He'd have been there for all of it. The easement filings, the utility decisions, the inspections that never happened. "
"And?"
"I contacted him. He flatly refused to speak with me. Wouldn't even let me finish explaining what I was working on."
Claire leaned forward. "What's his name?"
"Isaac Greene," Richard said.
Claire's eyes narrowed. The recognition was instant and filled with dark amusement.
"You know this man?" I asked Claire. "Because I've never heard of him."
"You haven't heard of Isaac Greene," Claire said, turning to look at me with that narrowed gaze. "But you know his niece."
"I do?"
"You were actually quite friendly with her, from what I hear."
I stared at her. She smirked back. Claire was enjoying herself.
Then it hit me and I understood the amusement in Claire's gaze.
Aimee's living room was cool and comfortable. The AC unit in the window hummed, pushing air that smelled faintly of the lavender arrangement on the coffee table.
Aimee sat across from me on a loveseat with her feet tucked underneath her, holding a can of Dr. Pepper against her knee. I had a Coke, the can already warm in my hands despite the air conditioning.
"Thanks for seeing me," I said. "And for calling your Uncle Isaac."
Aimee tilted her head and smiled, that same smile she'd given me across the table at Charley's diner, which felt like a lifetime ago.
"I wouldn't have bothered Uncle Isaac for just anyone. He's a grumpy old bear when people interrupt his golf schedule. But you're special, Thomas. So I made an exception."
"I appreciate it."
"You'd better."
She took a sip of her Dr. Pepper, watching me over the rim.
"So how have you been?" I asked. "How's the old boyfriend? I heard you two are quite an item."
Her whole face changed. The flirtatious glint softened into something warmer, something unguarded that I hadn't seen from Aimee before.
"Danny Marsh." She said the name like she was tasting it.
"We're taking things slow. Which is a first for both of us, because when we were eighteen we were about as slow as a house fire.
But that's what's different this time. We're not kids trying to burn through each other.
We've both been through enough to know that the good stuff doesn't have to happen at full speed to count.
He's quieter than he used to be. I'm less frenzied than I used to be. Turns out those are improvements."
"Sounds like something special for you two."
She ran her thumb along the edge of the can. A soft smile lingered on her lips.
"I don't want to jinx it by making some big declaration. But I'll say this much. When he leaves my house in the morning, I'm already thinking about when he's coming back. And that hasn't happened to me in a long time. Maybe ever. No offense to you, Thomas."
"None taken," I grinned.
"So yeah. I think Danny and I might actually have something real this time."