Chapter 13 - The Deal He Thought I'd Take
I looked through the glass at Roland telling a teenager about the years he'd spent driving irrigation supplies across the valley. Behind him, visitors admired the truck as if it belonged in a museum. Mercer waited for me to agree.
"I won't make a promise to stay quiet," I said.
"You'd rather lose fifteen hundred dollars?"
"I'd rather have a fair hearing."
"You're making a personal matter out of a simple rule."
"You told my kid her father should be ashamed of his truck. That was personal."
His expression tightened. "A man with a young family should know when to stop picking fights with people who can help him."
I could have threatened to tell the showroom what he'd said. That would have felt good for ten seconds and put Dani in an impossible position. Instead I said, "If you want to discuss the association charges, put your offer in writing through Laurel. We're at work."
Mercer walked away without answering.
Dani was furious when I told her. Not at my refusal, exactly, but at how close the whole thing had come to detonating in front of a client. She sent me to clean an ordinary fleet sedan in the back bay, where the quiet gave me too much time to think.
On Monday morning, Laurel emailed the association's written response to my certified letter. It identified Mercer as the observer on two photographs, a landscape committee volunteer on another, and "automated carry-forward" as the basis of the remaining ledger entries. The response also said the management office could not locate minutes adopting a daily dust penalty. The board would consider the matter at a continued hearing in two weeks.
She included an apology for the delay and a note that the charges were being held as disputed, not currently due for collection.
Leah read the email out loud and stopped at the last paragraph. "There's something else."
Attached was the association's agreement with Mercer Motor Group. The dealership had supplied discount coupons and paid for the banner. The document showed no money going from the HOA to Mercer, and no resident was required to use the dealership. I'd been wrong to imagine a hidden payment just because I'd seen a gold logo.
But the agreement bore one additional signature: Charles Mercer, signing once as dealership owner and again as association president.
"He may not have stolen a dime," Leah said. "He still should've told the other directors exactly what he was signing."
May you like
I put the papers in a new folder. For the first time, I wasn't looking for one spectacular secret. I was looking for a fair account of several ordinary decisions.
Then Eileen called. "Miles, Charles just came to my door. He wants to know whether I've been talking to you."
