As Hattie started down the hall she noticed that both the people who’d been standing in the lobby were following her. One was a powerfully built man, late-thirties, she guessed, with blond, slicked-back hair and a thick mustache. He wore jeans and a light blue, rumpled oxford-cloth dress shirt, and he walked with a slight limp. The other man was much older, dressed in the same kind of work clothes Hattie wore on the job, a faded T-shirt, tan Carhartts, and steel-toed work boots.
Today, though, Hattie was dressed in black capris, and a black-and-white-striped blouse. She was even wearing lipstick. She wanted to make a good impression, as if to show city officials that she would be a good caretaker of that crumbling house a few blocks away.
The younger guy hurried past her, reached the door to the conference room, and went inside. Hattie pushed through the door and the older man followed suit.
A woman in her fifties sat in a padded swivel chair, with a pile of envelopes and a clipboard on the conference table in front of her. Were all of those bids on the Creedmore house? Hattie’s heart sank.
“Sit anywhere,” the woman said, without looking up from a file folder she was leafing through. Hattie chose a chair at the end of the right side of the table. The blond man was seated directly across from her, and the other stranger sat closer to the clerk.
“Okay,” the woman said, glancing down at her phone. “I’m Carol Branch. It’s noon, and I’m going to go ahead and unseal these bids.” She nodded at the three people in the room. “I’m assuming all of you are here because you’ve placed bids?”
“That’s right,” the blond said.
“Yeah,” the older man responded.
The clerk took a letter opener and slowly slit a manila mailing envelope, removed a piece of paper, nodded, wrote something on her clipboard, and reached for the next bid.
By the time the clerk was done, Hattie counted eight bids. The clerk’s expression never changed. When she’d opened the last envelope, she took her pencil and ran it down the list on her clipboard.
The waiting was agony. The blond man drummed his fingertips on the tabletop until Hattie thought she’d lose her mind. The older man stared up at the ceiling, seemingly fascinated with the beauty and symmetry of acoustic tile.
Hattie’s phone buzzed with an incoming text from Cass.
Any news?
Hattie quickly silenced the phone, just as another text from Mo Lopez arrived.
Did you get the house? Call me ASAP
Finally, the clerk nodded and looked up, acknowledging the three strangers in the room with a curt nod.
“Is one of you Harriet Kavanaugh?”
Hattie’s heart thudded. “That’s me.”
“Congratulations. You’re the high bidder and the owner of the property at lot twelve, subdivision thirty-six, otherwise known as four-twelve Chatham Avenue.”
“Shit!” The blond man pounded the tabletop with the flat of his hand. “How much was the winning bid?”
The clerk pursed her lips and looked down at her clipboard.
“Come on, man! It’s a matter of public record.”
“Twenty-nine thousand, seven hundred twenty-eight dollars,” the clerk said. “All the pertinent information will be posted on the city’s website.”
She stood up. “Miss Kavanaugh? If you’ll come to my office, we’ll start the paperwork on your closing documents.” She gave the two men a curt, dismissive nod.
“Something ain’t right here,” the blond exclaimed loudly, shoving his chair away from the table. “This thing was rigged. She can’t buy my family’s house out from under me like that.”
“Sir?”
“Holland Creedmore,” the man said. He took a menacing step toward the clerk, who stood her ground. “The city has no business selling off my family’s property like this. It’s not right, and you know it.”
Hattie had been trying to figure out why this man looked so familiar. Now she had her answer. Back in the day, Holland Creedmore Jr. had been the pride of Cardinal Mooney. He was Mr. Everything, Mr. All-State football this, baseball that. His handsome, square-jawed face was splashed across the sports page of the Savannah newspaper on a weekly basis.
He was jowlier now, the blond hair receding from his wide forehead, and the muscled physique of his youth seemed to have softened.
The clerk’s voice was calm. “Mr. Creedmore? All legal procedures were strictly followed. The property owners were notified when the condemnation action was initiated, and given the required amount of time to mitigate the deteriorating condition of that property, which had become a public nuisance.”