Dillon indicated the piles of receipts and scrawled notes. “Everything related to your fire stations is pretty clear. You’ve kept a running tally of all your daily operating expenses. What I haven’t seen are summaries of your larger costs. I found a note saying you leased equipment from other sources, but I can’t locate the charge sheets.” Dillon picked up the yellow slips with nothing save a series of handwritten numbers. “You’ll have to help me with these.”
The chief took his time responding. “Maud told me you’re the miracle worker we’ve been hoping for.”
“I said no such thing.” Maud rose from her desk. “Coffee?”
“Can’t hurt.” He told Dillon, “To answer your question, I’ve got an office full of charge sheets and receipts, and my copies of those things you write when you hope to pay off the kindness of strangers one day.”
“Promissory notes?”
“Sounds right. My crews got saddled with a lot of the road work, basically because they volunteered and there wasn’t anybody else. I keep trying to tell them you don’t volunteer for nothing. But they’ve spent years learning to ignore me.”
Dillon indicated the mostly handwritten pile. “So what I don’t have here are things like . . .”
“Plows and dozers we rented from as far away as San Luis Obispo before the southern route got washed away.” He squinted at the side wall, thinking. “Land we leased so we had somewhere to dump the rubble. Extra hands we hired. ’Bout a dozen other things I can’t be bothered to recollect.”
“What about hard-use amortization, damage to your own equipment, items that need replacing?”
“Yeah, I’ve done my best to keep up with that too. The main crews working the power lines are out of Santa Cruz. But we had some fellows down from Frisco, and two of their trucks broke down. They’ve been using my ladder trucks. They aren’t gentle.”
“Okay, so there’s no time to input all that,” Dillon decided. “We’ll make the split right here. What you’ve already supplied, we request payback from the state. Everything else we bundle into the FEMA application. That sound okay to you?”
Charlie Hurst accepted the mug from Maud without taking his eyes off Dillon. “You sure you understand what’s required here?”
“Yes.”
Maud took up station beside the fire chief. “He’s been like that all day.”
Charlie asked Dillon, “You really think the state auditors are going to accept a mess of notes in my bad writing, and pay us what we need?”
“They won’t see any of this.” Dillon swung his laptop around. “I’m inputting the figures into their form. Breaking down the costs by week.”
“I didn’t date the things. Didn’t know I needed to.”
“It doesn’t matter. We have a series of bona fide expenses tied to an emergency situation. One so severe both the state and federal government have declared this a disaster area. The state auditor should take my forms and be grateful.”
“You’re certain of that, are you?”
“Absolutely.”
Charlie took a noisy slurp. “What about this nonsense about submitting in the run-up to Christmas?”
“Makes perfect sense.”
“Does it.”
“Sure. Having the central coast declared a state and federal disaster area means two sets of financial floodgates are officially being opened. The state’s set this supertight timeline so there’s no overlap with the feds.” Dillon fiddled with his trackpoint, brought up the second set of documents. “See here, the feds start their own giveaway program that very same day.”
“Is that so.”
“Right. FEMA will insist on inspecting the state request forms along with whatever we want to get from the feds, so they can make sure there’s no double-billing. Which is where I’ll need access to the receipts in your office.”
Charlie glanced at Maud, took in her crossed arms and her frown, but all he said was, “What else can we ask the feds to pay for?”
“The coastal walk. That’s top of my list.” As Dillon drew up the relevant clause, Maud closed in tight beside the chief. “The walk, the road, the parking lot, the retainer wall, all this is covered by what they say here. If we can get some decent estimates in time, I want to include the motel entryways.” Dillon hesitated, then added, “Maybe, if we do this right, we can get some money for the motels as well. Their gardens, the damage from hillside runoffs, treat it as infrastructure that plays a role in the town’s enjoyment of the beachfront.”
“You don’t say.”
“I can’t promise that last bit. But yeah, that’s what I’m hoping. And it’s going to be submitted on time. Thanks to the great job Maud’s done getting me started.”
