CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The drive to Nolan Brody’s house took the better part of an hour.

Jesse filled the silences with conversation about Cricket’s work on the film production, and though I was grateful for her attempt at distraction, my mind kept returning to the Emory situation, gnawing at it like a feral dog. A lone cirrus cloud was suspended along the distant peaks of the Cascades, shot through with the colors of a ripened peach and illuminated from behind by the descending sun. I mentioned that I thought it looked like an airburst explosive, but Jesse said it resembled an angel.

A few minutes later, we turned off the highway and up the long, manicured driveway to Brody’s home. It was a stately three-story affair that looked as if it had been transplanted from the banks of the Seine. I pulled in beside a late model AMC Hornet that was parked at an odd angle adjacent to one of the three garage doors. Jesse cradled a gift bottle of pinot noir in her arms. I judged that Brody’s estate was not far from Postpile Falls, as the sweet scent of fast-moving water and newly mown grass laced the air. A soft breeze drifted in from the east and pressed the fabric of Jesse’s dress against her thighs. I pushed the doorbell and she brushed something invisible from the lapel of my sport coat.

We were ushered inside by a middle-aged man dressed in the black suit, white shirt, and tie of a butler, who acknowledged us with only the slightest of nods. We followed him through the foyer and into a sitting room furnished in Chippendale and decorated in ornate rococo. Molly Meadows stood alone at the far end of the room with a flute of champagne in her hand, admiring a collection of paintings that resembled the style of Fragonard or Boucher or Antoine Watteau. The dour-faced doorman returned a few moments later carrying a serving tray and offered two crystal glasses to Jesse and me, and I introduced Jesse to the teacher.

“I’m pleased to see you again,” I said to Molly. “I wasn’t aware you would be here.”

“Mr. Brody is the head of the school board,” she said. “I can’t very easily decline a command performance. What’s your story?”

“I was under the impression he had some thoughts on improving my department’s budgetary resources.”

“So we’ve both been coerced,” she said, and touched the rim of her glass to mine.

There was no sign of Nolan Brody as yet, so the ladies made small talk while I studied the artwork and tried to reconcile the appearance of this home with the Brody I had come to know. The overall effect was designed to intimidate, its component elements arranged to a point of fastidiousness that hinted at compulsion, yet was oddly bereft of personal touches, curios, or family photos. It was as if the decor and possessions displayed inside his home informed him of who he was; that his greatest personal fear was insignificance.

I found myself drawn to an oil painting depicting a well-muscled stallion rearing on its hind legs in a lush field of grass. The artist had infused the canvas with rich golden light, and a background that put me in mind of the Acropolis.

“Stunning, isn’t it?” Molly said as she stepped up beside me.

I glanced at the brass plaque that had been fixed to the frame, then back into the wild eyes of the animal.

“This is a painting of Arion, from the Greek myth,” I said.

I sipped from my glass and found that I could not look away.

“Poseidon, the god of the sea,” I continued, “created the horse as a gift for Demeter, a woman of great beauty for whom he lusted. Legend has it that all of the world’s horses are descended from Arion.”

“You seem to know your mythology, Dawson,” a male voice interjected from behind us.

Nolan Brody had somehow glided into the room unheard and unnoticed by any of us. He was dressed in gray slacks and bit loafers with a wide-collared shirt, its top button left unfastened, and a paisley foulard painstakingly knotted around his neck. His face had been recently shaved, vitric and glossy from a fresh application of scented lotion.

“I’m afraid I treated my early schoolwork as temporary knowledge,” Brody said. “Retained it just long enough to pass the exams. Regrettably, most of whatever I might have learned about ancient myths has long since slipped away, replaced by subjects that I found to be of greater substance.”

“You managed to make that sound like an insult, Mr. Brody,” I said.

He stepped in close and smiled at Jesse. His eyes gleamed like black marbles, and his breath smelled of some sort of sweet aperitif.

“Is your husband always this thin-skinned, Mrs. Dawson?” he asked, and touched his lips to the back of her hand.

Dinner was served in a dining room that matched the formal solemnity of the rest of the house, overcrowded with Queen Anne antiques, walls papered in damask and festooned with oils on canvas, and a long oval table surrounded by ribbonback chairs.

I had never claimed to know Nolan Brody, but nothing could have prepared me for the conspicuous excesses of his home. His manner and dress were far more foppish and effete when he was outside the view of the public, but his tone and deportment were as pugnacious and petulant as always. He was a man who was clearly at odds with himself, his east coast trust fund upbringing inconsonant with the image of self-made man-of-the-western-frontier that he endeavored to cultivate in his civic life.

Wine glasses had been refilled, and the second course served by Brody’s manservant, when the conversation finally devolved into the inevitable. I had promised Jesse that I would endure this occasion as politely as was possible, but Brody had revealed himself as the chameleon and poseur I had always believed him to be. The evening had begun with his passive-aggressive civility, but after enduring one Brody homily too many, Molly Meadows was the first to give up on the game.

“Rainbow Ranch is a commune, not a cult,” Molly replied to one of his pointed remarks.

“A distinction without a difference, Miss Meadows.”

“I beg to differ. I found Deva Ravi to be a very polite and charming man.”

“With due respect,” I said. “A man can be polite and evil too.”

Miss Meadows looked at me with surprise, though I couldn’t tell whether the reason was my lack of support for her point, or the content of my statement.

“He seemed quite well educated. His responses to my students’ questions were cogent and articulate.”

“Ask a question, you’ll get an answer,” I said. “It doesn’t mean it’ll be the truth.”

Nolan Brody appeared somehow titillated by the change in the chemistry of the discussion.

“I believe you’re both underestimating the situation,” he said. “I was in hopes you would recognize that when you visited that place.”

“There is no ‘situation,’ Mr. Brody,” I said. “I saw nothing out there that would require any further law enforcement involvement.”

He threw his napkin on the table and glared at me.

“Did I hear you correctly, Sheriff Dawson? Harper Emory is the victim of a violent crime, and you still insist on doing nothing?”

I felt the heat climb up my neck, and Jesse must have seen the signs too. She squeezed my knee under the table. I ignored it.

“Doing nothing can be a valid form of action, Mr. Brody. You’d know that if you’d been paying attention back in Officer Candidate School.”

“Sanctimoniousness is a very unattractive trait. It’s not a good look on you, Sheriff.”

I tipped my head toward the ceiling, scanned the frescoes of cherubs frolicking among the clouds.

“The difference between you and me is that I do not expect God’s grace,” I said. “I do, however, spend a great deal of time praying I’ll be worthy of it.”

Brody slid his eyes from my face and locked them on Molly Meadows.

“I’m shocked by the two of you,” he said. “I think you have both been duped by those freaks and drug pushers.”

“I’m no show pony, Brody,” I said. “I don’t think Emory or those kids have been forthcoming with me. Nevertheless there’s no crime to prosecute. This subject is closed.”

“Am I speaking Esperanto? Those hippies lied to you. They don’t belong here.”

“Why is it that cheaters always think they’re being cheated, and liars always think they’re being lied to?”

“Excuse me?” Brody said.

“You are way out of your weight class,” I said. “If you keep stirring this pot, you’ll have half this county mobilizing with pitchforks and torches. I told you before: the law applies to everyone. Not just you, or the people you approve of.”

Jesse whispered something to me, but I couldn’t hear it through a noise inside my head that rumbled like the collision of tectonic plates.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But this is like arguing over who saw the biggest pile of shit.”

“Ty—” Jesse said.

“How colloquial.” Brody smiled. “I think perhaps everyone involved has veered off script.”

“Off script? I didn’t know that there was one.”

“Oh, come on, Dawson. You know what I mean. Harper Emory has been aggrieved.”

He paused for a sip of his wine, then smiled, but his eyes reflected cold rage.

“Sheriff, you need to get this situation in hand. Encourage those young people to skedaddle off to San Francisco or wherever they came from, and leave us all in peace.”

“You can’t do that!” Molly Meadows said.

“I have no intention of doing anything of the sort,” I assured her.

“There’s no reward for being wrong first, Brody.”

“That is a faulty line of thinking, Sheriff. You had better act swiftly and decisively, and move that commune out of our county before something goes seriously wrong.”

“Do you know something I don’t?”

“They say you never hear the shot that kills you.”

“Who in the hell says that?”

“It’s a saying.”

“It’s a damn stupid one. Care to explain how anyone could experience a kill shot, then go on and tell anybody about it?”

He sighed, as if I were a slow child.

“As I said, it’s a saying.”

“Or is it some sort of veiled threat? Are you making a reference to Harper Emory’s new employee?”

Jesse kicked me under the table this time.

“I’ve met him,” Brody said. “He seems like an old-fashioned, no-nonsense sort to me.”

I thought about Carl Spinell and those eyes the color of dull metal, void of expression or complexity.

“Carl Spinell is a dangerous man,” I said. “If not to himself, to everyone around him.”

“From what I understand, Mr. Spinell advocates the same use of force that I do in order to recover control of this situation,” Brody said.

“I’d advocate being mindful of where you get your advice. Don’t ask a barber if you need a haircut.”

The blood had drained from Molly Meadows’s face, and she had begun to look faint.

“The sheriff is right,” Molly said softly. “Everyone needs to de-escalate.”

Nolan Brody pinned her with his stare.

“Perhaps you’ve had a little too much sensitivity training, young lady,” he said. “My god, ‘madness’ is now called ‘mental illness’; ‘laziness’ is called ‘unemployment.’ Crime is being downgraded to ‘delinquency’ right here in my very own county. I swear, the shrinks that are redefining our language are going to get all of us killed.”

“You have a tendency toward recklessness with other people’s lives, Mr. Brody,” I said.

“I haven’t convinced you, have I? You’re still planning to do nothing.”

I nodded.

“T. E. Lawrence wrote about the ‘Irrational Tenth.’ Have you heard of it?” I asked.

“I have not.”

“Lawrence said that nine-tenths of tactics could be taught in a classroom. But that final piece, the ‘Irrational Tenth,’ could only be accessed by intuition. I’ve learned to trust mine.”

I stood up from the table, carefully refolded my linen napkin, and placed it on the seat of my chair.

“Good night, Miss Meadows,” I said. “Thank you for dinner, Mr. Brody. It was very interesting.”

Jesse’s cheeks were flushed pink with embarrassment or anger, I couldn’t tell which. Probably both. I offered my hand to help her get up from her seat. We were halfway to the door when I turned back around.

“One more thing, Nolan,” I said. “Don’t ever second-guess me, or insult me with bribery again. You can take your enhanced budget and new patrol cars and park them up your ass.”

There was a wrinkle between Jesse’s eyes as she stared unblinkingly through the windshield and straight out at the road.

In the end, it is our choices that define us.

There are lines of demarcation in our lives: events that define the boundary that separates the way that we felt before from everything that follows. It constructs the prism through which our perceptions will be filtered for the remainder of our lives, a mist that can never be entirely cleared away. We had no way of knowing that night, as Jesse and I made that long, silent drive home, that at that very moment, a line was being drawn that would forever scar Meriwether County and reshape the way that the people who lived there would thereafter view their own lives, and the way that we viewed one another.