Sitting at my desk at The Old Bug, I usually tune out the scanners. The banal monotonous cadence of fire and police dispatchers using codes and chatter are incredibly annoying. And its small potatoes… only newbee beat reporters handle that. But today I heard something that caught my complete attention. It said “robbery at City Hall.”
Instantly I ran over to Cage, the newbee reporter monitoring the police scanner. Ever since my investigation of our crooked Mayor McKenzie began, city hall has been on my radar.
“What was that about city hall?” I asked, but the kid just smiled at me with a smarmy grin.
“Funny that a big-time city reporter would want info on a lowly smash and grab.”
Ignoring his neophyte sarcasm, I tried to get more information. As the only woman reporter in the bullpen, I could use my feminine wiles to flatter him, but that’s not me. I’m a straight shooter, so I lean in and use the best tool at my disposal… intimidation.
“Look kid, I’m not interested in your petty jealousy and high-minded opinion of your infantile abilities. If you want in on a byline, you’ll play ball. Now, what did it say?”
He obviously got my message, as he sat up straight up.
“The police dispatched officers to a reported smash and grab in the pioneer area of city hall. That’s all I know,” Cage said.
I walk back to my desk without looking back.
“Come on, kid. You earned a ride-along with me. Let’s go.”
When we arrive at city hall, I see my friend Officer Ernie taking statements from the city hall personnel. I smile at him from the corner of my mouth and move closer, but he just shakes his head.
“Ernie. Fancy meeting you here.”
“What are you doing here, May? This isn’t your beat.”
“Everything that involves McKenzie is my beat, Ernie.”
I walk past him still smiling and see the empty broken glass case.
“Looks like a smash and grab all right. What was in here, Ernie?”
Without thinking, he glanced down at his notebook.
“It was some kind of city scroll from when the city was founded…hey…why am I telling you all this?” He said, shutting his notebook in frustration.
“Because you are a good cop and want the people to know everything. And because you love me,” I smile at him again and he shakes his head.
“Why would someone take a scroll? It has no value?”
Cage and Ernie shrug at me. I wasn’t really talking to them, I was just thinking out loud, but their confirmation was helpful.
On the walk back to the old bug, my mind was spinning. Everybody in town knows that old scroll. It laid out the founding of the city, the date and who the founders were. It only had a scroll because the founder thought it was monumental enough to act like a regal decree. Self-important nonsense. We’re in the middle of the Midwest and this city was founded in the 1800s.
The kid was quiet the entire time, but when we get to my desk at the old bug, he breaks his silence.
“You know, Miss Beck I could hear your wheels turning as we walked because mine were too. Such a crazy thing to steal. In grade school we visited city hall on a school trip and they said the scroll contained the charter for the city, honored the founders, and established the city council and boundaries. Unless they plan on holding it hostage for ransom, I don’t see any point in the heist.”
He was right, but then something he said, rang out to me like a carillon bell. The scroll set the specific city boundaries. That’s it!
I’ve been accumulating evidence for a while that McKenzie has been socking away land in remote parts of the city. Or at least I thought they were part of the city. Of course there have been maps of the city, but the scroll is actually the legal determination of the boundaries. If McKenzie was able to change that somehow or keep it missing long enough for no one to care anymore, he could claim these remote parcels are already in the city.
But why? There always has to be an equivalency of either power or money behind everything he does. Few people know this, but I know that he’s still that opportunistic teen that used to run numbers for the local mob.
For the rest of the day, I sat at my desk thinking. A pack and a half later, I saw the answer amidst the billows of smoke rings I like to blow when I’m stumped. It was like a vision, three rings appeared together interlocked. The land, the election and money. He already created a rec center with one of the parcels of land to earn the goodwill of the people in the form of votes. And then he’s opening a grain mill and closing the road in front of the other green mill, running them out of business. And now this new parcel.
I grab a map of the city and draw it out. It forms a triangle around an area on the outskirts of town with nothing in the middle but farmland. What can you put there?
Just then somebody slaps the latest edition of our paper on my desk. I barely glance at it, but I see the small headline only a one column by three. State to study new highway path. That’s it! He’s trying to put a new highway in. Whoever owns the land around highways can write their check. I knew it. Rule 25… follow the money. It’s always true. He’s as crooked as the day as long and now I have the goods to catch him.
(c) Suzanne Rudd Hamilton, 2026.
SUZANNE RUDD HAMILTON 