Former Greensboro City Councilman, Attorney Mike Barber and retired publisher Ogi Overman were waiting to tee up at Bryan Park Golf Course. "Did you hear about Nancy Hoffman?" Mike asked.
"What about her?" Ogi said.
"She had to sign the deed to her home over to the State to afford to get into a nursing home," Mike answered.
"Happens to a lot of people," Ogi said.
"Yeah," Barber replied, "but it just doesn't seem right."
"Well a lot of people tried to warn her that her partners, Jim Budd and Nick Piornack had run off with lots of investors money before," Ogi said.
"Yeah," Mike agreed, "but since when do we start listening to a bunch of bloggers?"
"Well just because you don't like what someone is saying," Ogi cautioned, "doesn't mean they're wrong. Some of those bloggers worked for you and I when we owned the Observer, they did a good job then."
"That's probably the same thing that's going to end up happening to Missy," Mike moaned. "I've really let her down. And the kids are going to get stuck with huge student loans to pay back."
"Is your business that bad?" Ogi asked.
"Since they bombed Grandover and Wyndham pulled out there's been no funding for First Tee," Mike answered. "We're closing the doors next week. And every attorney in town is already fighting tooth and nail to get assigned public defender cases that pay almost nothing. There's no work here for a lawyer."
"What about Justin?" Ogi asked, is he doing anything.
"Outling told me he and Jamal are going to resign from Council and go to work for some DC non profit," Mike answered. "At least Sharon Hightower still gets to keep her disability."
"Yeah," Ogi smiled, "until the bloggers figure out how she scammed it and go public with documents."
"Maybe then I can get her to hire me to represent her on her third fraud charge," Mike laughed.
"Make sure she signs over her house to you first," Ogi smiled.
"Oh, without a doubt," Mike said, "after all the grief that woman has give me over minority contractors you think I won't get my money up front."
*******
Meanwhile investigators and the Water Services Department continued to search for how and where the City's water supply was being poisoned and still confounded by the fact that only a select few neighborhoods had been targeted. Several residents of Irving Park had died and dozens more in New Irving Park, Sedgefield, Lake Daniel, Starmount Forest, Sunset Hills and Fisher Park had been rushed to area hospitals.
Hundreds of thousands of bottles of water were still being distributed every day but as the problems had spread first to Durham and them to other North Carolina cities the National Guard presence was much thinner than before. With police cruisers so packed with bottled water they looked like moonshine haulers from a previous time in North Carolina's history the officers didn't dare try to chase down anyone who simply sped away.
What had begun in Greensboro was becoming nationwide, but for the time being the bombings had stopped.
Please continue reading Chapter XIX, A National Threat
