The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

murder?”
    “We tried to raise a red flag when that project went through,” Randall said. “Me and some of my cousins. But no one wanted to believe us. Mayor Pruitt made it look like sour grapes because they brought in an outside firm for the construction work instead of hiring us. Nothing came of it. No one believed us. Then Parker started poking around.”
    “Why?” I asked. “Is he a Shiffley relative?”
    Randall shook his head.
    “Parker’s people are all gone now,” he said. “They came here and opened that furniture store right after the war.”
    “The Civil War?” I asked.
    “World War II,” Randall said, giving me an odd look.
    “You never know around here,” I said. “So if he’s not a Shiffley, what was his interest in the beautification project?”
    Randall smiled and leaned back against the shed.
    “He started out wanting one of those beautified buildings,” he said. “He figured the only way to keep his store going was to go upscale. No way he could do that a couple blocks from the bus station. So he made a list of the buildings that would do for his fancy new store, and then he started digging into who owned them. And the more he dug, the less he liked what he found. Nearly every one of those buildings in the beautified section of town is owned by a Pruitt or someone who’s thick as thieves with the Pruitts.”
    “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