I heard Ray said. Pete confirmed the Puit connection. He remembered what happened to Bill Delaney. Ray nodded slowly. Delaney sold that property for 60% of what it was worth because he had nothing left to sell it for.
He paused. Parts from Bill for 15 years. He was solid. I never understood what happened to him. Now you do.
Cole said. Ray drank his coffee. Tuesday. Ray said. Tuesday.
Cole said. Be there. Ray said at the county attorney's office. Cole looked at him inside. Ray clarified.
I'm not going to crowd her in there. Going to be there outside so she knows someone showed up. Cole nodded. I'll be there too, he said. The calls Haley made that afternoon produced four things she hadn't had before.
The first was a recorded statement from a woman named Donna Burch, who had been a customer of Morgan's Auto since Thomas Morgan opened the shop in 9,987 and who had stopped coming in 8 months ago because a friend had told her she was now unable to say exactly who, which was itself telling that the shop had declined since Thomas got sick. I had heard it, believed it, and never verified it. There's she was on the phone with Haley ashamed of herself in a in a way that came through clearly even through a cell connection. She agreed to put her statement in writing. The second was a name.
A former employee of Puit's development company who had quit 14 months ago and whoing to the person who gave Haley the name had been troubled enough by what he'd seen internally that he'd consulted an employment attorney before leaving. Name was Greg Salace. Haley wrote it down twice. The third was a piece of information from an old family friend who still attended the same church as two members of the town council. Also had received a formal letter from Puit's attorney 6 weeks ago.
The friend said regarding the Morgan property, a letter that suggested the property was being mismanaged and that the town might wish to consider certain zoning review processes. The friend didn't have a copy, but she remembered the conversation clearly enough to describe its content. Wrote down every word. The fourth thing was the call she almost didn't make. She sat with her phone in Cole's office for almost 5 minutes before she dialed.
Contact in her phone was listed simply as dad's attorney. Gerald Finnald Finn was 70 years old and had been Thomas Morgan's attorney for 25 years. Not a big firm, a fancy office, just a man who had done careful legal work for the working people of Milh Haven for decades and who had the particular quality of someone who had outlasted several people who had underestimated him up on the second ring. Haley, he said, his voice was the warmth of someone who had known her since she was small. I was wondering when you'd call.
She stopped. You were expecting to hear from me. I've been hearing things, Gerald said. The property, about it. I've been hearing things for about four months and I've been waiting for you to be ready.
A pause. Arto, are you ready? Haley exhaled a long slow exhale that carried something with it. Have 26 pieces of documentation, she said. More footage, accounts, written.
I have a meeting at the county attorney's office tomorrow. Silence on Gerald's end. 26 pieces. Yes. How long have you been collecting this?
Since the second time he approached me. 5 months. Another pause. Haley, Gerald said, and his voice had changed. It had the particular quality of someone who has been concerned about a situation for a long time and has just received information that shifts it significantly.
Be in that meeting tomorrow. Gerald, I have standing as your family's attorney of record. He said of documentation of the two formal approaches Puit made to your father. I was present for the second one and I took notes. I have he stopped.
What? Haley said a pause that lasted long enough to change the air in the room. I received a letter. Gerald said slowly about 3 months ago. Puit's attorney.
It was framed as a courtesy communicessional courtesy between attorneys. It suggested that given Thomas's health situation, it might be in the family's best interest to consider the property sale and that they hope to avoid any complications that a prolonged dispute might create. He paused. Their complications was not defined. Haley was very still.
That letter, she said, "I have that letter," Gerald said. "I was waiting to know what you wanted to do with it." The evidence folder on her phone had 26 entries or She had just found 27. She came out of the office at 4 in the afternoon looking like someone who had been through a weather system not destroyed. Changed by it and whatever carrying the the storm had left in her expression and her posture and the particular set of her jaw was at the workbench.
He looked up. Gerald Finn is coming to the meeting tomorrow. Haley said down what he was holding. He has a letter. She said Puit's attorney 3 months ago framed as a professional courtesy but worded in a way that she stopped.
It's a threat Cole dressed in legal language but it's a threat and it came from Puit's attorney which means it came from Puit means there's a paper trail that connects him directly to the pressure campaign. Cole said nothing watching her. 27 pieces. She said I had 26. Good.
Cole said it's good. She said. Very good. It's also She stopped again. She put her hand on the workbench for a moment, not leaning, just touching it.