Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3), Brett Battles [best books to read in your 20s TXT] 📗

as the crimes he’d committed—and thought no one would ever know about—spilled across the screen.

For instance, we all know Chuckie was looking for work because the dealership was struggling. Instead of a job, though, what he found was an opportunity to invest in Nicholas Huston’s side project. See, Huston knew his client Gage-Trent Farming was trying to acquire as many properties as possible in eastern Colorado. It’s already the dominant farming corporation in Mercy County. Hayden Valley, on the other hand, has only fifteen properties in the area. Most of the new places they were buying weren’t even in Colorado. Huston was sure they’d be interested in divesting from the area. He also knew they’d never sell to Gage-Trent. The companies had a bit of history between them that kept cooperation to a minimum. Huston’s plan was simple: convince Hayden Valley to sell to one of his shell companies, then turn around and resell the properties to Gage-Trent at a nice markup. (We had some wonderful graphics that explained all of that. Such a waste.)

We’re not sure exactly when the plan of burning down farmhouses was hatched, but that doesn’t really matter. Probably it was sometime after Chuckie met Huston. Chuckie didn’t have a ton of money but he did have five hundred grand, and Huston has been living by that old investor rule: whenever possible, use other people’s money. Chuckie also came with two other assets: a built-in hatred of Hayden Valley Agriculture, and the willingness to do anything to screw them, no matter if it was legal or not.

What stumped us at first was why they burned homes belonging to both companies. Turns out Hayden Valley has its roots as a family business. In fact, a member of the Hayden family has held the position of CEO since the company’s inception sixty-eight years ago. The company prides itself on respecting the histories of the farms it purchases, and in several states rents the farmhouses out to family members of the previous owners. Gage-Trent has no such allegiance to the past. In fact, in a majority of its holdings, it has torn down the structures to create additional farmland.

The arson plan worked off the premise that though Gage-Trent might be annoyed by the fires, the destruction of the buildings would ultimately serve the company’s purpose, whereas Hayden Valley would be disturbed enough by the fires to pull out of the area.

The idea would have worked, if not for my phone call to Isaac Davis yesterday. What I learned from him was that Hayden was close to agreeing to sales terms with Huston’s company. A few points still needed to be ironed out, but Davis had been confident a deal would be worked out. The reason Huston felt the need to accelerate things was that Hayden Valley had received inquiries about the properties from another company.

Davis told me the other company wasn’t anywhere close to making an offer, but it hadn’t kept him from dangling in front of Huston’s representatives the fact that someone else was showing interest. Since Huston didn’t know how legitimate the other potential suitor was, he decided to ramp up the fires to put on the pressure, focusing the latest acts of arson on Hayden properties.

Until I talked to Davis, Hayden Valley had no idea Huston was behind the offer. The company was well aware of his ties to Gage-Trent, and would have never considered selling to him if it had been aware of his involvement.

Davis was pissed.

I performed some fancy footwork to get him to promise to not do anything for a few days. I went as far as telling him I would consult with Ag Department investigators and other appropriate federal agencies to see how they want to handle it.

One thing we were never able to pin down was the identity of the mysterious Cheryl, the woman who’d outed Chuckie as a fraud to Hayden Valley. We do know the disconnected number belonged to a pay-as-you-go phone, purchased at a mini-market in Mercy, but that was as far as we got. I have a feeling the caller was Kate. Either she didn’t want him to get a job that would keep him away from home for long stretches, or—and I’d rather believe this—she just wanted to screw his opportunity for no other reason than spite.

Who knows? Maybe the police will figure that one out.

News of Chuckie’s arrest leads the special edition of Friday’s Mercy Sentinel. Our old friend Curtis Mygatt has written the story himself, which, in essence, is a rough outline of the information from Jar’s and my email. There’s even a picture of Chuckie in a hospital bed, his unburned hand cuffed to a rail.

It makes me smile. I think I might keep this copy. Perhaps I should even frame it.

The attention has done exactly what we wanted it to: keep Chuckie’s friend—and Mercy chief of police—Richard Hughes from sweeping everything under the rug. Furthermore, I get the strong impression from statements made by the governor’s office—also printed in the Sentinel—that the state will soon take over the investigation. The tidbit we included in our packet about Chuckie and Richard being buddies might’ve influenced this. But I’m not one to brag.

We stay until Monday to make sure nothing goes sideways. If anything, interest in the case has only increased over the weekend. A few news vans from TV stations in Denver and another from Prime Cable News are camped out downtown.

This story is not going away.

Before we leave town, I load my motorcycle into the back of the pickup and drive to Mercy Cares. When I tell the director I’m donating the truck to her organization, she’s surprised but doesn’t say no. It feels a bit like righting a karmic wrong done to the charity by Chuckie’s and Bergen’s use of its donation cards. Sure, the charity doesn’t know anything about that, but I do.

When I return to the duplex to pick up Jar, I find Evan walking up to