Chapter 24 of 25Not as a Citizen

Harriet Ainsworth set the manila folder on the lip of the podium and kept her hand on it. Every folding chair in the Havenwood Town Hall meeting room was taken, and the last item on the agenda was the sale of the Historical Society parcel to Deakin Commercial. If the vote carried tonight, the town green went with it. The folder held the rest.

Martha Jenkins came along the wall with the minutes binder against her chest and bent her head close.

"He moved the historical study to the top of the agenda," she whispered. "His name's on the cover sheet."

"I saw the packet."

"Vote's right after. He won't take questions in between."

"Then the record goes in before the vote does." Harriet straightened the folder's corner. "Stay at your table. I'll want the page number when I ask for it."

Martha went back down the aisle and squared the binder on the clerk's table.

Beatrice Chandler sat in the third row with her purse in her lap and both hands wrapped around the strap. She caught Harriet's eye. "Are you certain about this, dear?"

"The paper is certain. I'm only carrying it."

Two rows behind her, Samuel Holloway stood with his back against the radiator and his arms crossed, and when Harriet looked his way he gave her one slow nod. Closer to the front, Chloe Hassan had two notebooks open on her knees, a recorder running, and a pen already uncapped.

"On the record?" Chloe asked.

"All of it," Harriet said.

At the front table the selectboard settled in, David Sterling in the middle with Sarah Chen and Robert Miller flanking him. Marcus Thorne stood at the easel with a clicker in his hand and a smile already in place.

"Folks, thank you for coming out on a cold night," he said. "I'll keep this tight." He clicked. The green appeared on the wall behind him, then a page of numbers. "The Society building costs this town twenty-two thousand a year to keep standing, and it serves a handful of visitors on a good weekend. That isn't stewardship. That's a leak in the roof of our budget."

Someone in the back said something Harriet couldn't hear.

"I hear you," Marcus said, and turned his shoulder to the crowd so he could face the back rows. "Nobody's tearing down history. Deakin has committed to a sensitive reuse. The schoolhouse stays, the exterior stays, the green stays open to the public. What changes is the tax roll. What changes is that this parcel starts paying its way."

"Paying whose way?" Frank Lowell said from the fourth row. He didn't stand up.

"Paying the town's way, Frank. The same way your garage pays its way."

"My garage plows the roads."

"And the roads cost money." Marcus clicked to a photograph of the schoolhouse in better weather, its paint bright in the sun, and let the room look at it a moment. "Which brings me to the study this board asked for. My office prepared it. The conclusion is short. The parcel was deeded to the town, the town holds clear title, and the trust language that's been going around is a historical curiosity with no living party left to enforce it."

"Counsel agrees?" Sarah Chen asked.

"Counsel reviewed it line by line and signed off Friday."

Chloe wrote fast, her pen moving across the page without lifting. Sterling let two more questions run — one about traffic on Green Street, one about who would pay for the schoolhouse roof — and answered both from Marcus's slides. Near the middle of the room, Lydia Croft said, "This is curb appeal for the whole valley, hon," and got a laugh from the row behind her. Marcus smiled at that and clicked the easel dark.

"All right," Sterling said at last, and glanced at the clock on the far wall. "I think we've heard enough. Madame Clerk, call the roll."

"Point of order, Mr. Chairman."

Harriet was already standing, folder in her left hand.

Marcus set the clicker down. "Deputy Clerk Ainsworth. We're a little past procedure."

"This is procedure." She walked the aisle at an even pace, past Bea, past Chloe, and stopped at the podium rather than the speaker's table. She opened the cover and turned to the first page. "Before this board votes to convey that parcel, the record of the parcel has to be complete and entered. Under the town's own bylaw, a vote taken while a required record is outstanding is voidable. I'd rather not hand anybody grounds to undo it in a courtroom next spring."

"Which record?" Sterling asked.

"Several." She looked up. "The parcel isn't on the grand list. It never has been, going back past anyone's memory. It's drawn but unnumbered on the 1968 tax map. And in 1954 the town conveyed that land to itself by quitclaim, which is not how a town takes title to property it already owns."

Frank Lowell said, "That survey on the green came out of my culvert money. PO 3147. Eighteen thousand four hundred dollars."

"Mr. Chairman," Marcus said, standing again, "this is housekeeping. I am happy to answer every line of it after the vote, and I will."

"The vote can wait on the record," Harriet said. "The record can't wait on the vote."

Sterling looked at Chen. Chen looked at Miller. "How long do you need, Harriet?"

"Until I've read what's in my hand."

Marcus laughed once and spread his hands toward the crowd, inviting them in on the joke. "Fine. Take the floor, Deputy Clerk." He pushed the microphone toward her with his fingertips, went back to his chair, sat down, crossed his ankle over his knee, and checked his watch.

Harriet turned the folder around so the top page faced the room. "Madame Clerk, please open a new page in the minutes and enter the date."

Martha's pen came down. "Date entered."

"Now enter the first document. It's dated 1824, and it is a deed of trust, and before anyone votes, this room is going to hear what it says."