Chapter 13 - Forty-Eight Hours Before the Flight
Calvin Price never boarded the plane.
State investigators questioned him before his scheduled departure after obtaining additional evidence and coordinating with the appropriate authorities.
His attorney appeared almost immediately.
Calvin declined to answer substantive questions.
He was not arrested that morning.
But investigators obtained information that significantly changed the financial inquiry.
The documents from Dad's notebooks had led them to a consulting account connected to Redstone Advisory.
That account had received large payments from contractors associated with Harrow's redevelopment projects.
Some payments were poorly documented.
Others appeared to involve work that couldn't be verified.
And one transfer stood out.
A payment of $120,000 made shortly after the state had originally closed its Black Creek review.
The payment had been described as a project-retention bonus.
There was no corresponding employment agreement in the records investigators had examined.
I sat with Rebecca while she explained the development.
“Is that a bribe?”
“Possibly.”
“But not necessarily?”
“Correct.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“How much more evidence do they need?”
“Enough to prove the legal elements of whatever offenses they decide to charge.”
I looked at her.
“Sometimes I feel like the truth is obvious.”
Rebecca nodded.
“That's often when people make mistakes.”
She pointed toward the records.
“We need to show who approved the payments, what they were for, and what the recipients understood.”
I sighed.
“My father already knew something was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“And he kept following it.”
“Yes.”
I stared down at his handwriting.
For the first time, I understood why he had written so much in those notebooks.
He wasn't simply collecting suspicious numbers.
He was building a map.
One payment connected to another.
One company connected to a contract.
One contract connected to a county decision.
And behind the county decisions stood people who had spent decades presenting themselves as respectable public servants.
Two days later, investigators found the courier boxes from Lawrence Bell's office.
The boxes had been delivered to Harrow's estate.
Their contents were preserved under legal process.
Inside were county correspondence files, contracting records, old meeting notes, and a folder labeled HAGEN.
My father's name appeared on the cover.
But the contents surprised even Mercer.
The file contained copies of Dad's written questions about county contracts.
Dates.
Requests for invoice support.
Lists of equipment that appeared on more than one billing statement.
There were also notes from a meeting in 2019.
One page recorded Dad refusing to withdraw his request.
Beside it, someone had written:
Persistent.
Another note read:
Determine what copies he has retained.
And at the bottom of the final page was a sentence that made me feel sick.
Shirley may know where the backups are.
I looked at the documents for a long time.
Then I asked Rebecca a question.
“Did they keep watching him?”
“We don't know.”
“Did they watch Mom?”
“Possibly.”
“Did they watch me?”
She didn't answer immediately.
“We're still examining that.”
I felt a surge of anger.
Not because I had personally suffered.
But because my parents had spent their retirement years under the shadow of something they should never have been forced to carry alone.
That night, Mom asked me to take her to Dad's grave.
The cemetery stood behind a small white church on a hill overlooking the valley.
We arrived just before sunset.
Grass moved gently in the evening breeze.
I carried a small bouquet of daisies.
Mom brought Dad's favorite peppermint candies.
She always left one on the headstone.
I used to think it was strange.
Now I understood.
It was her way of continuing a conversation.
We stood together beside the granite marker.
HAROLD JAMES HAGEN.
BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER.
Mom brushed a leaf from the stone.
“Well, Harold,” she whispered.
“We found the notebooks.”
I looked away.
Her voice trembled.
“You always did keep things organized.”
She laughed softly.
Then the laughter became tears.
I put my arm around her.
“I wish he'd told me.”
She nodded.
“So do I.”
We stood silently.
After a while, Mom spoke.
“Jeffrey, I need to tell you something.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Your father wanted to stop.”
I stared.
“What do you mean?”
“About a month before he died, he told me he was tired.”
“He said we'd spent too many years carrying Black Creek.”
I swallowed.
“And?”
“I told him I understood.”
She looked down.
“But the next morning, he was back in the garage working on those numbers.”
“Why?”
Mom looked toward the headstone.
“Because he found another payment.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“What payment?”
“He said it didn't belong.”
“Where?”
She closed her eyes.
“I don't remember the account.”
“Did he write it down?”
“I think so.”
I pulled out my phone.
“Mom, we can ask the investigators.”
She touched my wrist.
“There's something else.”
I looked at her.
“Harold said the payment wasn't made to Calvin Price.”
“Then who?”
She swallowed.
“He said it was connected to someone inside the sheriff's department.”
I went still.
The cemetery seemed suddenly colder.
“Was it Sheriff Mercer?”
She shook her head.
“Daniel had only recently returned to county service.”
“Who, then?”
“I don't know.”
I looked toward the valley.
A sheriff's department official.
A hidden payment.
An investigation that had been blocked for years.
I thought of the deputies who had worked at Black Creek.
The administrators.
The men in the control room.
Then something clicked.
“Mom.”
She looked at me.
“Thomas Mercer.”
Her face changed.
I immediately wished I hadn't said it.
The man who had rescued Anna.
The man who had signed Mom's memo.
The man who had sent the warning letter.
Was it possible even he had been compromised?
Mom's voice was barely audible.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“We have to check.”
She shook her head.
“Thomas was a good man.”
“I know.”
But suddenly, I wasn't certain what I knew anymore.
And the next morning, when investigators searched Dad's notebooks for the unexplained payment, they discovered something none of us expected.
The money had been sent to a medical trust.
A trust created for a child injured during the Black Creek flood.
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The trust was administered by Thomas Mercer.
And its beneficiary was Anna Whitcomb.
