I followed her into a tiny vestibule at the top of the stairs and she started down a narrow concrete staircase.
“It’s not as creepy as it looks, I swear.”
I laughed and followed her down.
A row of metal utility cabinets stretched to the right of the stairs. I followed Iris to the left where an array of old equipment was piled up on the green and white linoleum floor.
“Sorry for the mess,” she said. “Old houses have junk drawers, old government buildings have junk rooms.”
“It’s not a problem. I’m just grateful for your help.”
She wound her way through stacks of folding chairs, two tables like the tables I’d seen upstairs, and a couple of empty bookcases.
It was too crowded to follow her, so I peered around everything, tracking her movements until she disappeared behind another bookcase.
“Ah, here we are,” she said.
A moment later she was wheeling out a projector like the one I’d seen at the meeting the night before.
“Amazing.”
She looked around. “I’m not sure we have a screen…”
“I can use the wall,” I said.
She nodded. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“I don’t think so. Thank you so much.”
“It’s my pleasure.” She smiled. “Just don’t steal the extra toilet paper in those cabinets. I rely on it when we run out of money. Small-town budgets, you know.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She headed back for the stairs and I maneuvered the projector in front of one of the concrete walls and searched for an outlet.
I plugged it in, and the machine came to life with a hum, a square of light projected onto the wall.
“Bingo.”
I removed the transparent slides from the manila envelope and put the first one on the screen.
It was a survey of the land that made up the proposed Hearthstone development. Main and State Streets were mapped out, as was the town square. Then there was Walter Finch’s duck farm, the plot of land that had been purchased by Hearthstone for the gated community, and a piece of waterfront property labeledHEARTHSTONE MARINA.
To the left, the lakeside park was colored green, the cemetery appropriately labeled.
Nothing jumped out at me as strange, so I removed the slide and tried the next one.
And this one got my attention. Because all the other stuff was there, but there was something new too: a grassy area overlaid across Finch Farm and labeledPROPOSED HEARTHSTONE LINKS.
A golf course. On Walter’s duck farm.
No wonder he’d been so upset at the meeting. I paused, wondering if Victor had pressured him to sell, wondering if Walter would even want to stay in Blackwell Hollow if his ducks lost access to the lake.
I removed the film from the projector and added the last one I’d picked up off the floor at the meeting.
This one was a more detailed view of the area around the proposed housing development: street lights, stop signs, lake access. There were even marks that looked like water-table readings.
I squinted at the chicken-scratch handwriting on the slide: initials.