Ingram measured Ketch back for a moment. "Okay, I guess y'all won't be makin' this easy for me. I heard about you, I should've known." Ketch mimed absently checking the watch he wasn't wearing.
"All right then, Doctor Ketchum, here's how it is, short and sweet if that's how you want it." Ingram's smile faded. "We've reached out to you several times and got no answer. Assumin' you've been readin' our communications, you know what the situation is. You're one of the last holdouts, and we need to move on with our project." He held both hands up. "Now I know we said we'd proceed with the eminent domain thing if we hadn't heard from you by last Friday. Well, the paperwork's ready, but I hadn't turned it in just yet, and I'm still willin' to give you one more chance to sell before I do that, and I'm willin' to work with you on a timetable. And I'm still willin' to give you a little more money if you sell, since I'll save on legal expenses. So I'll give you one more week - but I'll be needin' a firm commitment from you no later than this comin' Friday." He paused to allow a response; when none came, he continued, "I believe that's more'n reasonable on my part, since this has been goin' on for quite some time now. Sellin' is the best deal for you, sir, no question, and I hope you'll come to see that by Friday. Otherwise I'll submit the paperwork next Monday for sure, and we'll move forward with acquirin' your property the hard way."
Ketch's shoulders drooped and his spirit flagged like a rapidly deflating balloon, but he tried not to let it show. So it was really going to happen, then, and rather soon from the sound of it. In his conscious mind, he'd known he was going to have to face it eventually, of course, though he'd hoped it would actually take a little longer; that was why he'd gone ahead and ordered the foam block floats (which he'd better hustle to install) that now sat behind his house. But subconsciously he'd hoped otherwise, a consequence he supposed of his former lifelong habit of avoiding thinking about unpleasant things and hoping they'd go away. But he was older and he knew better now, so it was good he'd acted with at least a little foresight this time.
Why did eminent domain even exist here in The Land Of The Free, and why was it allowed to not only continue but expand beyond its original intent, which it seemed to constantly be doing? He knew some of the answers to those questions, of course, because he'd Googled the subject after he'd received Ingram's last letter. Good old Google - where would we all be without it these days? He'd entered 'EMINENT DOMAIN NORTH CAROLINA' and braced for the onslaught. 'About 852,000 results (0.18 seconds)' - very impressive, and daunting. He'd shopped around on the first page and chosen a link, as most people end up doing, and started reading.
He remembered being initially bombarded with discourses on riparian rights, due process, adverse possession, inter vivos trust, primogeniture, easement, covenants and restrictions, preferential assessment, zoning, condemnation, and so on and so forth seemingly ad nauseum. And all of them intertwined throughout with innumerable ifs, ands, buts, and howevers. No wonder he'd never been inclined to study law - what a pointless morass it all seemed, not at all like his former profession nor the ecology of this barrier island, both of those being more or less contained ecosystems and thus more appealing to his brand of intellect. How did the law get so complicated? Whatever happened to good old-fashioned common sense?
One link had led to another, and he'd eventually found some friendlier text, the first being the one about land trusts. Now there was a clever idea, one he'd been able to wrap his mind around. You solicit small monetary contributions from a large number of people and apply them toward a land purchase. Each contributor becomes a joint owner of the land, and if someone wants to condemn the land and seize it, legal proceedings have to be initiated individually against each and every owner, so the cost and court time become prohibitive. However, to attempt that kind of undertaking on his own behalf would require lawyers and other support personnel, not to mention time and money, both of which he had too little of. So he'd gone on to another link, and another...
And finally found a small treatise on eminent domain that normal human beings could read and understand. He'd read that eminent domain in general is the power a state has to seize private property without the consent of the owner. This power has traditionally (since the eighteenth century) been used for large public construction projects, like roads, bridges, railroads, fortifications, and various other public facilities. He'd already known that much.
But then he'd been educated on Kelo v. City of New London, a U.S. Supreme Court decision from a few years back that had opened the floodgates to allowing eminent domain to expand from 'public use' to 'public benefit' by setting a precedent for a state to transfer property to a private individual or company for economic development. This had originally been intended to expedite redevelopment of blighted urban areas, but not surprisingly it had also enabled other kinds of development, especially in states that didn't further restrict it or set clear limits on it, which many did not.
So that was probably why Ingram thought he could get away with taking his house - development of the Kinnakeet Boatyard locale could be interpreted as being for the benefit of the public; and perhaps the boatyard area could also be legally viewed as blighted, everything being relative and the boatyard being the closest thing to a slum in Avon.
He'd also read that the North Carolina General Assembly, to which the North Carolina Supreme Court tends to defer eminent domain authorizations, doesn't generally authorize it for Kelo-type economic development - but although some states had passed constitutional amendments to protect property owners against Kelo-related abuses, North Carolina was not one of them; and in fact, North Carolina was the only state whose constitution didn't expressly address eminent domain at all. He learned that such abuses had in fact occurred since that court ruling, and not just here in North Carolina but nationally as well, often based on intentional misuse of the legal term 'blight', to the extent that the terms 'blight' and 'public use' were now being so broadly interpreted that they'd lost their originally intended meanings.
Ketch was no longer as naive as he'd been at times in his younger days. Regardless of the legal logic (an oxymoron if he'd ever seen one) behind it, he was certain Ingram must have friends in the Assembly, or he wouldn't be so sure of himself. Or was he? Sure of himself, that is. Why would he still be practically begging Ketch to sell, when he'd said he could and would seize the property? Why not just do it? Could he be afraid of his application being rejected? Or were there other complications that Ketch wouldn't be aware of, such as a need for bribes or other deals that would make seizure more costly for Ingram? Maybe there were simply added legal expenses, as Ingram had said. He wondered whether Ingram had actually gone through this process with any of the other properties he needed to acquire, or if they'd all just agreed to sell under duress.
"Mister Ketchum? Storm?"
Ketch took a deep breath and tried to stand up straighter. "What you're doing should be against the law," he said. "You shouldn't be allowed to threaten people with eminent domain. The government is supposed to use it for the public good, for building highways and such. You're perverting it for personal gain. You're not the government, and what you want to do is for your own good, not the public good."
"Well, as it turns out, the law does allow what I'm doin'," Ingram quickly replied, "and like it or not, I'm doin' it. You're just gonna have to face up to that, sir."
Ketch supposed he could maybe make himself feel better by circulating petitions and trying to organize public protests, activities that some people he'd known had occupied their spare time with back in the Sixties and Seventies - but he knew others had already taken those routes here with about the same degree of success those people had experienced in stopping the war back then...
"And what I'm doin' is for the good of this town, and there's enough folks agree with me on that," Ingram added.
...But heritage be damned, and the environment as well - after all, progress is growth, right? Resources are infinite. It's man's destiny to subdue nature, and the loss of speci
es is simply an inevitable byproduct of progress, just the way of the world...
"Mister Ketchum?"
...Too many people still believed these things. That was the heart of the problem, there were too many people now, and more than ever before with too much discretionary income...
"Storm?"
...Like those fruit flies in their little vials back in the lab, they'd shortsightedly gorge themselves on as much as they could get and wantonly multiply until all the food was gone, until the planet was drained, and then they'd all die. But all that would happen later, not in our lifetime, so screw it, let's just make as much money as we can right now...
"Doctor Ketchum? Storm? Hey Storm! You okay?" Ingram glanced toward a nearby bench. "Maybe you should set for a minute? Here, let me help you."
When Ingram reached for Ketch's arm, the dog leapt up to intercept, snarling and snapping menacingly. Ketch woke from his reverie and yanked back on the fortunately locked leash. "Jack! No! Down!" The dog desisted and sat, but continued to complain in a lower tone and continued to stare directly at the developer with trembling lips. Ketch tightened his grip on the leash. He noted that the dog's teeth didn't appear to have made any contact so far - which was good, as this dog was a power chewer and he surely didn't need that kind of trouble on top of everything else.
"Whoa, that was close!" Ingram exclaimed. He'd staggered backward during the near-attack and almost lost his balance, and was now steadying himself. "You're lucky you had that stupid mutt on a leash!" His eyes flashed while he fished a handkerchief from a pocket of his sport coat and mopped his brow.
Stupid mutt? He probably thinks I'm stupid, too, Ketch thought. "I'm not lucky," he replied in a surprisingly (to him) strong voice. "You're the lucky one. You're lucky you found two wealthy women you could exploit, you're lucky they're out of your way now, you're lucky they couldn't prove anything, and you're lucky you're not in jail. That's what I call lucky." He snapped the leash. "Let's go, Jack."
"What?" Ingram spluttered in indignation. "What did you say to me?"
"Stop bothering me and do whatever you have to do, if you really can. We're done here," Ketch said. He got the dog turned around and they started walking back down to the dock.
"Well, I'll be goddamned - you got some nerve mister, I'll tell you that! Y'all better watch your mouth, sir!" Ingram called after him. Ketch didn't respond. "Y'all ever hear of slander? God damn it!" Ketch kept his back to the developer and kept walking.
When they turned the corner at the dock Ketch steered the dog toward a wooden bin resting along the outside wall of the building and sat down hard on it. The dog sat facing Ketch and pressed his muzzle into Ketch's abdomen, which was his way of hugging. The dog moaned, and Ketch put his arms around him and massaged his flanks. "It's okay, buddy, all done now. You're a good boy," he said. When the dog had been sufficiently consoled, Ketch pulled back and slumped against the wall.
The 'insolence of power', indeed - old Shakespeare had nailed that one right on the head. People like Ingram truly believed they were powerful enough to get away with just about anything, didn't they? And they didn't usually care who knew it, and they often enjoyed flaunting it. Like that rich heir who got himself killed a while back by skiing into a tree while playing a forbidden game of football on a slope that was only off-limits to commoners, like that ex-presidential hopeful preaching family values who challenged reporters to try to catch him cheating on his wife and then got caught doing just that... Rules were irrelevant - they were just for the rabble, they didn't apply to the golden ones.
But maybe they were right more often than not, come to think of it. Ketch of course didn't definitively know what had happened to Ingram's wives, any more than the police did, but something certainly smelled fishy in both cases - and yet here was Ingram, prancing around free and clear and carrying on with business as usual.
Nonetheless, it was true that Ingram hadn't been convicted of anything. Ketch wondered if Ingram was in fact innocent, and he'd just been inexcusably rude and insensitive to the man - but he seriously doubted it. As he had in his former profession, Ketch usually tended to draw his conclusions from empirical evidence, not from what some media talking heads conjectured and the sheeple in their audiences subsequently believed; innocent until proven guilty, it was the basis of the legal system, and he agreed that to do it any other way would be wrong. But in this case, knowing what he did about the man, there were just too many convenient coincidences and too many bells that didn't ring quite right.
A grand jury had decided the evidence didn't warrant prosecuting in the drowning of the first wife. The second wife's disappearance had led to a locally sensationalized murder trial, due mostly to investigators finding some minute traces of her blood around the couple's in-ground pool. There'd been evidence of some public rancor between the two that the prosecution had claimed established intent; the wife had supposedly spoken with a friend about the possibility of divorce, which was claimed to provide motive; and everyone knew Ingram wasn't the model husband his defense tried to portray him as.
But there was no record of a divorce motion nor a consultation with any divorce attorney, the physical evidence was scanty and circumstantial, and there was no murder weapon, no timeline, no witnesses - and most importantly, no body. They couldn't even prove she was dead, and the evidence hadn't been sufficient to obtain a conviction. To the general dismay of most Dare County residents, a hung jury had resulted in a mistrial, and the district attorney had declined to retry the case.
From what he'd read and heard, though, Ketch believed Ingram hadn't mourned much after either of his alleged losses, and all of Ketch's acquaintances thought Ingram was probably guilty of something. He'd heard the stories about Ingram's volatile temper, and about him hooking up with the second wife before the first one drowned; the trial hadn't slowed him down much once he'd made bail, from what he'd seen in the papers; and he remembered hearing about there being other women during the trial, though he'd never seen them named. And finally, his business ethics were suspect, at least from Ketch's perspective. About the only good thing he could think of to say about the man was that he wasn't a bad father - there were no kids from either marriage.
Granted Ingram had seemed genuinely upset just now, but that was most likely just a reaction to being crossed, something men like him didn't take kindly to. Ketch concluded he didn't need to worry about it. In the extremely unlikely event he had in fact made a mistake, if it someday somehow turned out he owed the man an apology, he'd give him one. Maybe. If.
Meanwhile, he had a bag of dog poop to dispose of, and they should be getting back to the boat. Ketch patted the dog's rump and stood up. "All right boy, come on, time to go."
They walked past a row of vending boxes in front of the ship's store, the kind that dispensed newspapers and such. There was one for the daily paper, then one for a free tourist magazine, then one for free real estate guides from HatterasMann Realty... Ketch opened the door of that last one, dropped the bag in, and proceeded on to the boat.
"Hey, what took you two so long?" the Captain inquired as they boarded. Ketch shrugged, all he had energy left to do at the moment. "Well, the boy said to thank you again," the Captain continued, "and a couple of the guys are over there at the table gettin' their catch squared away. The rest of 'em already took off." He patted a cooler. "They gave us some cobia, and some pretty fair tips. Here's yours."
"Thanks," Ketch said. He took the bills and stuffed them into a zippered pocket of his cargo shorts. He'd tally them up later. The Captain didn't pay him for serving as mate, he worked for tips, and that was fine with him. Though the Social Security wouldn't kick in for a while yet and he did have to pay for flood insurance, he had his pension and a halfway respectable investment account that provided him with another income stream, and his house was paid off. His house! Anyway, he didn't really need the money and was happy to just go along for the ride, but it did feel good to be appreciated once in a while. And of course having s
ome extra cash handy was never a bad thing - just ask Ingram.
"Y'all are lookin' kinda beat," the Captain observed. "You okay?" Ketch nodded. "Well, let's don't worry 'bout cleanin' up just now, I can hose 'er down back at the boatyard. I'll just top 'er off at the pump on the way out is all."
"Okay," Ketch said. "Thanks, I am a little tired."
When they took the boat back out into the sound and he had a stiff salt breeze in his face once again, Ketch started to feel a little better. This day had certainly had its share of up and downs so far and it was nowhere near over yet, but it was still a beautiful day nonetheless.
On impulse he invited the Captain to bring the cobia to the house later for an evening cookout. He had two cases of beer and some wine, and he could pick up some sides at the market. What the heck, he'd invite Mario too if he was around, and maybe whoever else he happened to run into between now and then. He could use some company tonight.
~ ~ ~
4. Everyone takes a beating now and then, one way or another.
Ketch was still physically fatigued when he and the dog arrived back at the house, but he was too restless to sleep. He also hadn't had lunch, but he didn't feel like taking time for that either. Aftereffects of the adrenalin overdose, he guessed.
He supposed some would agree that a few beers might be justifiable considering his situation, but he disliked drinking alone and this town lacked the kind of dive bar that would be apropos of the situation, and besides he was no longer inclined these days to waste time sitting in a bar doing nothing constructive. He'd have a couple tonight at the cookout; for now he'd just run some errands. He nudged the air conditioning up a notch, filled the dog's water dish, and scanned the mail he'd brought in from the mailbox.
Port Starbird (Storm Ketchum Adventures) Page 4
