Michael Malone - Weebly

for all those traders who were to invade Dingley Falls
and make Hawk's fortune. Inside the house the Haigs
sat like an illustration in their family room—he with the
newspaper in his vinyl recliner, she with her knitting in
her green plaid armchair, each with a coffee mug
inscribed with their first names (gifts Haig liked to use
because his sister had given them), both cooled by the
air-conditioning and lulled by the tick of the imitation
antique clock. The evening so far had passed with less
disjunction than Judith had expected. John was
unusually talkative. He was disgusted by the possibility
that Dingley Falls might lose its post office, and he was
thrilled by his discoveries about the abandoned
highway.
Earlier in the evening he had been eager to lead her
step by step through the maze where he had wound his
way in Hartford, until, finally, when he was tangled in
red tapes of confusion, a tip completely by chance had
led him straight to the cache of hidden facts.
Somebody had been paid off to stop that highway
connector.
Somebody had been paid off to falsify that