Walter walked out of that station a few minutes later to something close to a hero’s welcome, though his own reaction to it was predictably mild embarrassment. “All this fuss,” he muttered, shaking hands with men who wouldn’t stop thanking him for a conversation on a man’s front porch. “Wasn’t about the porch, Colonel,” Earl said. “Never really was.” Clare found him near the edge of the crowd, and for a moment, neither of them said anything at all. She simply hugged him. Quick and fierce. The way you hug someone you were genuinely afraid you might not see again that day.
“They suspended me,” she said quietly once she’d let go. “The board this morning.” Walter’s expression hardened slightly. “Then we have very little time,” he said. “And a great deal to prepare before tonight.” “Milton Shaw,” Clare said. “Is he still willing?” “More willing than ever, I suspect, once he hears what Doyle’s done to you and me both today.” They drove back to the plant together, the whole convoy of well-wishers trailing behind them like an unofficial parade, and spent the next several hours in the small maintenance office preparing for the fight that was coming that evening.
Norman Katz arrived within the hour, a fresh pot of coffee in one hand and a legal pad already half filled with notes in the other. “I’ve compared the trust document against the original county filing system,” he said, spreading papers across the desk. “It’s airtight. Doyle’s people would need a court order just to challenge its authenticity and even that would take weeks he clearly doesn’t have.” “And the fraud documents against me?” Clare asked. “I’ve spent the last two hours on the phone with the bank’s fraud department,” Norman said. “The account numbers in those transfer records don’t correspond to any real Whitfield Precision account. Given a little more time, I believe we can trace the shell account directly back to Doyle’s own corporate network.”
“How much time?” “By tonight, with luck,” Norman said, “which happens to be exactly when we’ll need it most.” Walter, meanwhile, made one final phone call, quiet and private, to Milton Shaw’s small house on the edge of town. “Tonight,” Walter said simply once Milton picked up. “The community hall, seven o’clock. Only if you’re certain.” “I’ve been certain for twenty-five years,” Milton said. “Just needed someone to finally ask.”
By late afternoon, the small office held a folder of legal documents, an old recorder with a single crucial tape, and three tired but determined people who finally believed they had enough to fight back properly. Clare went home just long enough to change and steady her nerves, but for the first time in days, not entirely afraid.
The Colton Falls community hall had never looked quite so grand. White tablecloths, strings of small lights along the ceiling beams, a banner reading “50 Years of Whitfield Precision” stretched proudly above the small stage at the front of the room. Nearly three hundred people filled the folding chairs and standing space along the walls, current employees and retired ones, town officials, and half of Colton Falls besides, all gathered to celebrate a company that had shaped this town for half a century.