Maggie Tuttle, former clerk:
It started with the vault door. People think it’s a metaphor, but it was a real damn door — steel, painted mint green, the color of old hospitals. I’d been town clerk for twenty seven years. I knew every key in that place. Then one morning I came in, and my key didn’t work.
No one told me I was locked out. I just found out by trying the handle.
Earl Pinney, road-crew foreman:
Word went around fast. “Maggie got herself locked out.” You could feel something brewing. Around here, the smallest thing — like who gets the snowplow contract — turns into a holy war.
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2. The First Selectman
Reporter, Ashford Ledger:
Brent Oller came in promising order. He said the town needed “professionalization.” He was clean-cut, ex-military, full of slogans. Folks liked that. But it didn’t take long before “professional” started to sound like “mine.”
Sarah M., former assessor:
At first, Brent would drop by my office just to “check in.” Then he started asking who came in to see me, what papers they filed. Always polite, always smiling — but you could feel the edge under it.
Anonymous town-hall staffer:
After Maggie was locked out, Brent called it a “security measure.” Then, later that week, the police showed up to “escort” her off the property. That’s when I knew: this wasn’t about paperwork anymore. It was about power.
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3. The Meetings
Ruth Fenimore, selectman:
The Board meetings got tense. You’d think we were debating national security, not road-salt budgets. Brent ran the gavel hard — cut people off, said we were “off-topic” if we brought up the clerk’s office.
Town resident (name withheld):
We stopped speaking at the microphone. You’d see Brent writing notes when someone complained. Next day, that person’s permit would be delayed, or they’d get a random inspection at their business. Coincidence? Maybe. But a lot of coincidences add up.
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4. The Rumors
Reporter:
We started hearing stories — documents disappearing, shredders running after hours. Nobody could prove anything. But that’s the trick of small-town corruption: it’s not about envelopes of cash. It’s about access. Who gets the keys, who gets the silence.
Maggie Tuttle:
I never shredded a thing that wasn’t approved. But once Brent started whispering that I had, I was done. Truth doesn’t travel far in a town of 3,000 — gossip gets there first.
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5. The Divide
High-school teacher:
The town split right down the middle. At the diner, you could tell which side of the room people were on by where they sat. Brent’s people near the window, Maggie’s near the counter. Families stopped talking. The church bake sale got canceled because nobody could agree on who’d handle the money.
Earl Pinney:
That’s how you know it’s gone bad — when people stop waving. Around here, waving’s automatic. But when things turned ugly, even that felt political.
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6. The Turning Point
Ruth Fenimore:
We called a special meeting to vote on making the clerk, tax collector, and treasurer appointed instead of elected. Brent said it would “streamline governance.” What he meant was he’d control the hiring.
The night of the vote, the hall was packed. Old farmers, young parents, people who hadn’t been to a meeting in twenty years. Brent stood up front, all smiles. But when people started shouting, that smile twitched.
The motion failed. Barely. And that’s when things got worse.
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7. The Aftermath
Anonymous staffer:
One morning, Maggie came back — said she just needed to get her personal files. Brent called the cops again. Watching a woman in her sixties get walked out of Town Hall like a criminal… that broke something in this place.
Reporter:
After that, employees started quitting. The assistant clerk, the tax collector, the treasurer. Brent said they were “seeking new opportunities.” Most of us knew they were escaping.
Earl Pinney:
Now Town Hall feels like a ghost building. Lights on, no voices. You go in to get a permit, and it’s like everyone’s afraid to speak above a whisper.
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8. The Reflection
Maggie Tuttle:
People ask me if I hate him. I don’t. I pity him. He thought control would bring peace. But he didn’t understand that in a small town, control is just another way of falling apart.
Ruth Fenimore:
When folks talk about corruption, they think of money. But here, it was pride. Pride’s quieter — and harder to fix.
Reporter:
You can still feel it in the air, walking past Town Hall. That smell of old paper and fresh paint, the sense that the walls remember. Nobody says “Ashford Hollow” without lowering their voice.
Earl Pinney:
Someone asked me the other day what really happened. I said: “We forgot we were neighbors.” That’s all corruption really is, in a town this small — forgetting who you are to each other.
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