The invitation arrived on a Thursday, which was the kind of detail people remembered later. A cream envelope, no return address, delivered with the specific discretion of something that understood its own sensitivity. Inside, a card in clean typewritten hand:
You are invited to Plum Creek Ranch for the weekend of August 16th. Mr. Harlan Morrow requests the pleasure of your company for dinner, drinks, and conversation. Accommodation provided. Discretion assured.
Six men received this invitation. Six men came. One of them should not have.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The Setting
Plum Creek Ranch sat eleven miles east of Bellridge on a county road that turned to gravel two miles before the gate, as if the road itself wanted a moment to reconsider. The main house was a two-story white frame structure built in the 1890s and expanded twice since, the additions visible in the way additions always were, the slight mismatch of the rooflines suggesting a building that had been caught mid-thought.
It had a wide porch front and back, six bedrooms with varying quality of mattresses which would become relevant, a library with locked cases full of books nobody had read since 1943, a parlor with a wet bar and considerable taxidermy, and a root cellar that smelled of old decisions.
Harlan Morrow had bought it in 1961 and had been hosting his particular variety of weekend ever since. He was sixty-one, silver-haired, dry, and excellent at dinner parties. He was also dead by Sunday morning, which was going to complicate the checkout.
The Guests
(As they would later be required to describe themselves to the deputy, in alphabetical order, somewhat against their will)
Colonel Richard Hartwell, fifty-four, retired Army, now farming cotton on the family land outside Bellridge. Silver-haired, broad through the chest, with the bearing of a man who had been impressive so long it had become load-bearing. He had been to Plum Creek several times before and considered himself practically a co-host, which was one of the problems.
Wesley Green, twenty-eight, proprietor of Green’s Hardware on Main Street. Dark-haired, easy in his body, and by considerable distance the most attractive person in any room he entered, a fact he was aware of and had made his peace with at approximately age sixteen. He had been to Plum Creek once before and the memory had kept him occupied for eight months. He had brought a change of clothes and optimism.
Deputy Sheriff Ray Lemon, thirty-six. Lean, sun-dark, thick brown mustache, the watchful eyes of a man whose job required reading situations before entering them. First time at Plum Creek. Had known about it for two years and had been waiting for an invitation with a patience that occasionally surprised him.
Judge Carter Moss, sixty-one, retired from the bench six years ago. Heavy in the middle, white-haired, with the courtroom manner of a man who had spent forty years being the final word and found it difficult to turn off. He and Harlan had been friends since law school. He was the only guest who had known Harlan for more than a decade, and also the one who had killed him, though this would take some time to establish.
Reverend Thomas Plum, forty-seven, First Baptist of Bellridge. Large, kind-faced, with the voice of a man accustomed to projecting warmth to the back of a large room. He had found God genuinely and kept him, and had also discovered approximately fifteen years later that God and the contents of certain other men were not mutually exclusive, which had required some private theological recalibration he was still working through.
Dr. Emmett Scarfe, forty-one, the only physician in Bellridge proper. Thin, precise, pale hands, the careful manner of a man whose profession required him to be accurate about everything. He owed Harlan four thousand dollars on a personal loan that was past due, which was not a detail he planned to volunteer.
Friday: Arrivals
They came between three and five on Friday afternoon, parking along the front of the house in the pecking order of men who were not sure of the rules but were going to follow them anyway.
The Colonel arrived first because he always arrived first. He had been arriving first to things for thirty years and saw no reason to stop.
Wesley Green arrived second and received the Colonel’s evaluation, which was comprehensive and took approximately four seconds.
“Green,” the Colonel said.
“Colonel,” Green said pleasantly.
“Hardware,” the Colonel said.
“Correct,” Green said.
They stood on the porch.
“Harlan’s inside,” the Colonel said.
“Wonderful,” Green said, and went in.
The Reverend arrived and shook everyone’s hand with the practiced warmth of a man who had been shaking hands professionally for twenty-two years. He had a quality of making people feel they had been individually selected, which was the specific skill of his profession and also, it turned out, very useful in private life.
Dr. Scarfe arrived and looked at the Colonel’s hand before shaking it, which the Colonel noted.
“Professional habit,” Scarfe said.
“Naturally,” the Colonel said.
Judge Moss arrived in a Lincoln Continental that was too large for the gravel road and parked at an angle that suggested the road had made the error. He stepped out with the gravity of a man who expected the world to arrange itself around him and was rarely disappointed.
Deputy Lemon arrived last, having driven past the gate twice before committing to the turn. He parked behind the Lincoln, which was the correct choice given the available options, and sat in his truck for a moment.
He had put his badge in the glove compartment before he left town.
He got out.
Friday Evening: The House Does Its Work
Harlan Morrow was an excellent host in the way of men who had spent years perfecting a specific skill. He moved through his guests at dinner with the ease of a man on home ground, filling glasses, deploying conversation, making introductions with the specific skill of someone who understood that the right word at the right moment was its own kind of gift.
The dinner was long and excellent and served by Harlan himself, the cook having been sent to her sister’s for the weekend, which everyone understood.
“The asparagus is remarkable,” the Reverend said.
“I grew it,” Harlan said. “The asparagus bed was my project last spring. It requires more patience than cattle and considerably less noise.”
“A man of many talents,” the Reverend said.
“You have no idea,” the Colonel said, which made Harlan smile and the Reverend look at his asparagus with an expression that suggested he had ideas.
“What is the soup,” Moss asked.
“Vichyssoise,” Harlan said.
Moss set down his bread. “Cold soup.”
“It’s August, Carter.”
“It is August,” Moss confirmed. “Soup is still soup.”
“You served gazpacho at your retirement dinner,” Harlan said.
“Gazpacho,” Moss said, “is a beverage served in a bowl.”
Green leaned to Lemon. “The cold soup argument has been running since 1958,” he said quietly.
“How do you know that,” Lemon said.
“Harlan told me when I was here before,” Green said. “He said it was the most consistent thing in his friendship with Moss. The politics changed, the cases changed, Carter changed. The cold soup argument endured.”
“That’s either heartwarming or alarming,” Lemon said.
“Harlan found it heartwarming,” Green said.
“What is the soup,” Moss asked.
“Vichyssoise,” Harlan said.
“Cold soup,” Moss said.
“Yes,” Harlan said.
“I see,” Moss said, in the tone of a man noting a mild transgression.
“It’s August, Carter,” Harlan said.
“It’s August,” Moss agreed. “Soup is still soup.”
“You served cold soup at your retirement dinner,” Harlan said.
“I did not serve cold soup at my retirement dinner,” Moss said.
“Gazpacho,” Harlan said.
The table was quiet.
“Gazpacho,” Moss said, “is a beverage.”
“Carter,” Harlan said.
“It is consumed from a bowl with a spoon because we are civilized,” Moss said, “but it is a beverage.”
Green leaned toward Lemon. “This is apparently a recurring argument,” he said quietly.
“How often,” Lemon said.
“Since 1958,” Green said, “based on what Harlan has told me.”
“The gazpacho argument has been running since 1958,” Lemon said.
“The cold soup argument,” Green said. “The gazpacho was just the most recent entry.”
Lemon sat between Green and Scarfe and tried to work out the room without appearing to work out the room, which was his professional habit and increasingly annoying to him personally on occasions such as this.
“You’re very watchful,” Green said quietly.
“Sorry,” Lemon said.
“Don’t be. It’s interesting.” Green tilted his head. “You’re trying to figure out what kind of weekend this is.”
“I think I know what kind of weekend this is,” Lemon said.
“Knowing and being comfortable with it are different things,” Green said pleasantly. “You’ll get there.”
“I’m perfectly comfortable,” Lemon said.
“You’ve repositioned your fork three times,” Green said.
Lemon looked at his fork. It was at a slight angle.
“The table is uneven,” Lemon said.
“The table is perfectly level,” Scarfe said, from his other side, without looking up from his food.
“Everyone is ganging up on the deputy,” Lemon said.
“We’re providing useful information,” Green said. “There’s a difference.”
After dinner the brandy came out and the conversation shifted, the way it did when the company was right and the room was private and there was no particular reason to keep pretending. The Colonel and the Reverend moved to the library. Scarfe and Moss found themselves at the bar in the parlor, close enough that their elbows occasionally touched, which neither of them moved away from.
Harlan moved through his house and felt the satisfaction of arrangements working. He had been doing this for twenty-three years and the satisfaction had not diminished, which told him something about himself he found largely agreeable.
Lemon was at the bar, alone for a moment, nursing a bourbon and watching the room in the way of a man whose professional habits had not stopped running just because he had put his badge in the glove compartment.
“You look like you’re working,” Harlan said.
“Old habit,” Lemon said.
“Turn it off,” Harlan said. “Just for the weekend.”
“People keep saying that,” Lemon said.
“Because it’s good advice,” Harlan said. He poured himself a bourbon and stood beside Lemon and they looked at the room together, the Colonel and the Reverend retreating toward the library, Scarfe and Moss at the bar finding reasons to refill glasses they had just refilled. “You built something in your head about what this weekend was going to be like.”
“I had a picture, yes,” Lemon said.
“And the picture was incomplete,” Harlan said.
“The picture,” Lemon said carefully, “was more abstract than this.”
Harlan smiled. He had a good smile, dry and unhurried. “The first time I hosted a weekend like this,” he said, “I was thirty-eight years old and I had been building to it for fifteen years. I thought I knew what it would be.” He looked at his bourbon. “What it actually was, was much simpler. Just men being exactly what they were in a room where they had permission.” He paused. “Nothing complicated. Nothing requiring analysis.”
“You’ve been doing this for twenty-three years,” Lemon said.
“Twenty-three years,” Harlan said. “And I still find it remarkable. That it’s possible. That six men from a county in East Texas can be in one room and be exactly themselves for a weekend.” He looked at Lemon. “That’s not nothing.”
“No,” Lemon said. “That’s not nothing.”
They stood at the bar.
“The young man from the hardware store has been looking at you since you arrived,” Harlan said.
“I know,” Lemon said.
“And you’ve been looking back,” Harlan said.
“When I think he isn’t looking,” Lemon said.
“He’s always looking when you think he isn’t,” Harlan said, with the authority of a man who had spent twenty-three years watching people not look at each other. “He is spectacularly obvious.”
“He seems quite direct to me,” Lemon said.
“That’s the beauty of him,” Harlan said. “He’s obvious about it and direct about it and entirely comfortable with both.” He patted Lemon’s arm. “Discretion assured. Go have a drink with him.”
“I have a drink,” Lemon said.
“Go have it with him,” Harlan said.
He went to check on his other guests, leaving Lemon at the bar with his bourbon and the room and the specific warm ambient permission of Plum Creek Ranch on a Friday night in August.
The hardware man was on the porch.
Lemon finished his bourbon and went to the porch.
The Library: The Colonel and The Reverend
The Colonel and the Reverend had eleven years of history, which is enough time to develop a vocabulary.
The Colonel sat on the leather sofa with his brandy and the Reverend settled beside him and they talked for a while about the cotton market and the water table and the particular quality of the summer heat, which were not the things they were talking about.
“You look well,” the Colonel said.
“You look the same,” the Reverend said. “Which is a compliment.”
“I’m aware it’s a compliment,” the Colonel said. “I’ve been told before.”
“I imagine you have,” the Reverend said.
The Colonel looked at him. “You’ve been thinking about something since you arrived.”
“I’ve been thinking about several things,” the Reverend said.
“Tell me the one that’s making you look at me like that,” the Colonel said.
“Like what,” the Reverend said.
“Like you’re deciding something,” the Colonel said.
“I’ve decided,” the Reverend said, and put down his glass.
The Colonel had been many things in his life and he had been careful about most of them, but he had not been careful about this, not with the Reverend, not in eleven years of private rooms. He pulled him in and kissed him and felt the Reverend’s hands at his collar, large and deliberate, and felt the ease of them, the specific ease of a person who knew exactly where everything was and was in no hurry.
“You’ve missed me,” the Colonel said.
“I have not missed you,” the Reverend said. “I have been adequately occupied.”
“You’ve thought about me,” the Colonel said.
“Occasionally,” the Reverend said.
“How occasionally.”
“With some regularity,” the Reverend said, which from a man of his verbal precision was essentially a confession.
The Colonel smiled for the second time that evening, which was twice his daily average.
They went to the sofa more fully and the library held them with the discretion of old wood and closed doors. The Reverend’s large hands moved across the Colonel’s chest and his sides with the unhurried thoroughness of someone who had been thinking, with some regularity, about doing exactly this. The Colonel directed with the economy of a man who knew what he wanted and had no embarrassment about naming it, and the Reverend received direction well, which was not the case in any other area of his life.
The Colonel stripped the Reverend’s shirt off and put his mouth at his throat and felt the sounds this produced and noted with satisfaction that eleven years had not changed the register of them. He worked down his chest and his stomach and got his hands on him and worked him to a specific pitch of wanting and then redirected to his own satisfaction while the Reverend held on.
“The sofa,” the Reverend said.
“The sofa has survived worse,” the Colonel said.
“I’m not thinking about the sofa,” the Reverend said.
“I know,” the Colonel said, and demonstrated this knowledge practically.
What followed was, on the Colonel’s part, directed with military precision and, on the Reverend’s part, executed with the patient thoroughness of a man who had found his calling in two distinct professional capacities.
The Colonel was not a gentle man as a general proposition, but he was a man who understood that certain things rewarded patience, and the Reverend on his knees between the Colonel’s legs was one of them. He worked the Colonel with his large deliberate hands and then his mouth, taking the full length of him, and the Colonel’s sounds, usually so controlled, became something considerably less so. He held the Reverend’s head with one hand and the armrest with the other and felt eleven years of history in the specific warmth of this arrangement.
“God,” the Colonel said.
“Available for comment,” the Reverend said, from where he was.
“That was not an invocation,” the Colonel said.
“I know,” the Reverend said.
When the Colonel had been sufficiently addressed he turned the Reverend facedown over the arm of the leather sofa, which the sofa bore with the dignity of old furniture that had seen things, and attended to him with the same precision he brought to everything. He took his time and the Reverend made sounds into the cushion that would have surprised his congregation.
“The sofa,” the Reverend said.
“Surviving admirably,” the Colonel said, from behind him.
“I’m not thinking about the sofa,” the Reverend said.
“I know,” the Colonel said. “That was rather the point.”
He fucked the Reverend with the economy of a man who knew exactly what he was doing and had no interest in hurrying it, each thrust measured and deliberate, one hand on the Reverend’s hip and the other flat on his back, and the Reverend held onto the cushion and made his sounds and felt eleven years of careful meetings in private rooms accumulate into the specific warm present of this one.
He came with a sound that was not quiet. The Colonel followed with considerably more restraint and somewhat more volume than expected, which balanced out.
They lay together afterward in the specific comfortable way of eleven years.
After, the Reverend lay with his collar undone and his dignity intact and looked at the ceiling. The Colonel sat upright with his brandy because the Colonel sat upright with his brandy in all circumstances.
“Harlan seemed distracted,” the Reverend said.
“He did,” the Colonel said.
“The will change.”
“Presumably,” the Colonel said. “He told me last month he was changing it. Leaving the money to a preservation society.”
“How much money,” the Reverend said.
“Enough to matter,” the Colonel said.
“Does it bother you.”
The Colonel looked at his brandy. “The money or the principle.”
“Either.”
“The principle,” the Colonel said. “The money is Harlan’s to do with as he likes. The principle is that he did not discuss it with me before deciding.” He paused. “I had expectations.”
“Men with expectations,” the Reverend said, “are a particular kind of dangerous.”
“I’m not dangerous,” the Colonel said.
“Everyone is dangerous about something,” the Reverend said. “That’s my professional assessment.”
“Your professional assessment is about sin,” the Colonel said. “This is finance.”
“The categories overlap more than you’d think,” the Reverend said.
The Parlor: The Judge and The Doctor
Moss and Scarfe had been circling each other since January, when they ended up at a dinner party in Carterville at the same end of the table and discovered they had more to say than the room permitted.
They had conducted seven months of what could technically be described as correspondence, if you were willing to define correspondence as hand-delivered notes through a mutual acquaintance and one phone call that lasted forty minutes and resulted in both of them sitting in silence for a while after they hung up.
At the bar in Harlan’s parlor, with the taxidermy watching and the brandy opened, they stood close enough that their sleeves touched.
“The decanter,” Moss said.
“Yes,” Scarfe said.
“The Armagnac or the cognac.”
“The Armagnac,” Scarfe said. “Though the cognac is probably better.”
“Why the Armagnac then.”
“Because,” Scarfe said, “it seemed like the kind of weekend for a considered choice rather than the obvious one.”
Moss poured two glasses of Armagnac and handed one to Scarfe and they both drank and considered what they had just said.
“That was more revealing than I intended,” Scarfe said.
“It was perfectly clear,” Moss said. “Which is what I’ve found about you. You say exactly what you mean and then look surprised that you said it.”
“It’s a professional liability,” Scarfe said. “Doctors can’t hedge. You say the wrong thing and someone makes a terrible decision about their health.”
“Judges can’t hedge either,” Moss said. “You say the wrong thing and someone goes to prison who shouldn’t.”
“Do you regret any of them,” Scarfe said. “Your verdicts.”
Moss was quiet for a moment. He was looking at the taxidermy, a mounted bass above the bar that had been caught in 1958 according to the small plaque and had been staring at everyone who poured a drink since then.
“One,” he said. “I regret one.” He did not elaborate. Scarfe did not push. Some information presented itself in its own time and the good doctor knew when to let it.
“Come upstairs,” Moss said. He said it the way he said everything, with the authority of a man who had been the last word for forty years, but underneath it Scarfe heard what forty years of that authority had cost, which was a voice that did not know how to ask.
“Yes,” Scarfe said.
Upstairs in the room with the better mattress, Scarfe discovered that the Judge, who had spent forty years in authority, was in private a man who found relief in its temporary absence.
He lay back against the pillow and let Scarfe’s precise hands do what they did, which was read a situation with the accuracy of a medical professional. Scarfe worked him slowly, thoroughly, with the diagnostic patience of a man who understood that the body said things the person didn’t know how to say yet, and the Judge made sounds that had never appeared in forty years of courtroom record.
“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” Moss said, when Scarfe’s mouth had been busy for a while.
“By what,” Scarfe said, from where he was.
“That you’re good at this,” Moss said.
“I have excellent fine motor skills,” Scarfe said.
“That’s not what I meant,” Moss said.
“I know what you meant,” Scarfe said. “Hold still.”
He worked the Judge with his precise careful hands, read his responses with the accuracy of a medical professional, and found that the body of a man who had been holding authority for forty years was, in private, extraordinarily responsive.
He went down on him with the same attention to detail he brought to a diagnosis. The Judge made sounds that forty years of courtrooms had never produced. Scarfe worked him slowly and thoroughly, applying his fine motor skills in ways that his medical school professors had not specifically intended, and when the Judge’s hands came into his hair they gripped with the tentative authority of a man who was used to being obeyed and was not sure of the etiquette here.
“Is this,” the Judge said.
“Yes,” Scarfe said.
“How do you,” the Judge said.
“Practice,” Scarfe said, without stopping.
He worked the Judge to the precise edge of completion and held him there with the clinical accuracy of a man who understood physiology and had decided to use it.
“Scarfe,” the Judge said.
“Mm,” Scarfe said.
“If you do not,” the Judge said.
“In a moment,” Scarfe said.
“I was a federal judge for twenty-two years,” the Judge said.
“You are currently a man on a bed who should breathe,” Scarfe said. “The federal judgeship is noted and set aside for now.”
“Noted and set aside,” the Judge said. “That’s.”
“Breathe,” Scarfe said.
He addressed the situation thoroughly. The Judge’s sounds filled the room with the specific quality of a man who had been in authority for forty years and was finding what it felt like to not be in authority, and finding it more interesting than expected.
When he came he said something that Scarfe was fairly sure was Latin, which was unexpected and which Scarfe filed as a professional curiosity.
After, they lay together and Moss looked at the ceiling with the expression of a man who had been somewhere and returned.
“Your turn,” he said.
Scarfe looked at him.
“I have,” Moss said, carefully, “been on the bench for twenty-two years and I have been paying attention.” He paused. “I have been paying attention to more than the law.”
“What are you saying,” Scarfe said.
“I am saying,” Moss said, “that I would like to demonstrate what I have been paying attention to.”
He rolled over and proved that forty years of careful observation had not been limited to courtroom testimony. His large hands moved with the deliberate thoroughness of a man who had never done anything carelessly in his life and was not about to start, and Scarfe, who had expected nothing of the sort, made sounds into the pillow that he had not planned on making.
Moss was slow and methodical. He found the responses and returned to them. He worked Scarfe with his hands and then his mouth, which required him to apply the same concentration he had applied to legal briefs to a considerably different subject, and found that the concentration transferred.
“You’ve been,” Scarfe said.
“I told you,” Moss said. “I’ve been paying attention.”
“To what specifically,” Scarfe said.
“To,” Moss said, from where he was, “the general principles. Which appear to be applicable.”
Scarfe came with considerably more enthusiasm than he had expected to, given the source, and Moss came back up with the expression of a man who had taken a position and had it upheld.
“The general principles,” Scarfe said.
“Correct,” Moss said.
They lay in the lamplight together with the August heat on the windows and the Armagnac on the bedside table.
“The money,” Moss said. “I owe Harlan money. But that’s not the thing.”
“Tell me the thing,” Scarfe said.
“He has a document,” Moss said. “About a case from 1961. He wants me to reopen it. Testify against my own ruling.”
“Were you wrong,” Scarfe said.
Moss was quiet for a long time.
“Yes,” he said.
They lay with that.
“He’ll tell me what he wants in the morning,” Moss said. “He saves the hard things for morning.”
“What will you say,” Scarfe said.
Moss did not answer. He knew what he would do. He had known since the cream envelope arrived. The digitalis had been in his coat pocket since he packed for the weekend.
“Come here,” he said instead.
Scarfe came here. And the rest of the two and a half hours was something genuine in a life that had been running short on it, and Moss lay in the lamplight afterward and felt the weight of a thin man beside him and felt something he had not felt in a long time, which was simply not being alone with himself.
He would feel terrible about the next twelve hours later.
At the time, he slept.
The Porch: The Deputy and The Hardware
They ended up on the porch at nine-thirty with their drinks, the August night warm and the swing moving slowly and the stars beginning their unreasonable performance above the pine line.
“You’ve been watching the room all evening,” Green said.
“Habit,” Lemon said.
“You can turn it off.”
“Can I,” Lemon said.
“Nobody here is doing anything that requires a deputy,” Green said. “Possibly a minister, but the Reverend seems to have that covered.”
Lemon looked at him. “That’s a joke.”
“Everything I say is a joke until it isn’t,” Green said pleasantly. “I find it keeps the pressure manageable.”
They sat in the swing.
“How long have you known about this place,” Green said.
“Two years,” Lemon said. “I arrested a man who mentioned it while trying to make a deal. I didn’t use the information. But I kept it.”
“Why.”
Lemon looked at the dark pasture. He had three answers to that question, and the honest one was the third one, and he said: “I don’t know.”
“That’s the honest answer,” Green said.
“Is it obvious.”
“The honest answers usually are,” Green said. “To everyone except the person saying them.” He tilted his glass. “You’ve been in this county your whole life.”
“Born here,” Lemon said.
“That’s a long time to be careful,” Green said.
“Is it obvious,” Lemon said again.
“The careful ones,” Green said, “walk into rooms like this like they’re expecting to find something wrong. Not because they think there’s something wrong. Because they’ve spent so long making sure everything looks right from the outside that they don’t know how to stop.” He looked at Lemon. “You’ve been watching the room all evening but you’ve also been watching yourself watching the room.”
Lemon set down his glass.
“The wanting won,” Green said. “You’re here. That’s the whole argument.”
“What wanting,” Lemon said.
Green looked at him with the patience of a man who had given this particular answer before and was prepared to give it however many more times it needed giving.
“You drove past this gate twice before you came in,” Green said.
Lemon stared at him. “How do you know that.”
“Because I did the same thing my first time,” Green said. “Everyone does. And then you drove in and sat in the truck for a minute.”
“I was,” Lemon said. “I was thinking.”
“About what.”
“About whether this was a good idea,” Lemon said.
“And you decided it was,” Green said.
“I decided to find out,” Lemon said.
“Which is better,” Green said. “Deciding something is a good idea before you’ve tried it is not particularly interesting. Deciding to find out is honest.” He looked at the pasture. “The wanting drove you here. You did the rest yourself.”
Lemon sat with that.
“You make this sound simple,” he said.
“It’s not simple,” Green said. “It’s just true. The wanting and the fear are both true. You drove past twice because of the fear. You drove in because of the wanting. The wanting won. That’s not a small thing.”
“No,” Lemon said. “I suppose it isn’t.”
The swing moved slowly. The stars were doing their unreasonable packed thing. Somewhere across the pasture a nighthawk called.
“Come upstairs,” Green said.
“That’s very direct,” Lemon said.
“I find direct saves time,” Green said. “And everyone’s dignity. You can say no. The evening continues. I offer you another drink and we talk about the county drainage infrastructure, which Cole has strong opinions about.”
“I don’t want to talk about the drainage infrastructure,” Lemon said.
“Then come upstairs,” Green said.
Lemon looked at the dark pasture one more time.
“Alright,” he said.
Green looked genuinely pleased rather than triumphant, which was the right response and the one that made Lemon follow him inside without hesitation.
The Upstairs Room: The Deputy and The Hardware (Continued)
Green closed the door and turned around and looked at Lemon in the lamplight with the specific attention of someone who was actually seeing.
“You can still leave,” Green said.
“You keep saying that,” Lemon said.
“Because it’s true every time I say it,” Green said.
“I know,” Lemon said. “I’m not leaving.”
Green crossed to him and put his hands flat on his chest, not pulling, just resting, and the warmth of them went through the cotton of Lemon’s shirt and Lemon felt twenty years of managed distance between himself and what he wanted and felt it starting to collapse into the present moment.
“Breathe,” Green said.
“I’m breathing,” Lemon said.
“Breathe like you mean it,” Green said.
Lemon breathed.
Green kissed him and Lemon kissed back and felt the specific real fact of another man’s mouth and another man’s hands and the knowledge that this was the truth and had always been the truth and he had been circling it since approximately 1957 but that was not relevant information at this moment.
Green was unhurried. He had the ease of someone who had learned that unhurried was its own gift and was generous with it. He got Lemon’s shirt off and his own and his hands moved across everything with the patient attention of a man who understood that a first time was a specific kind of thing that should be treated accordingly.
Lemon’s hands found Green’s chest and his shoulders and moved with less certainty but not without conviction, and Green made small sounds when his hands found the right places, which taught Lemon about the right places quickly.
They went to the bed.
Green moved down him with the unhurried attention of a man who cared about the quality of his work. His mouth at Lemon’s throat, his jaw, down his chest and the space between his ribs where, apparently, there were nerves that Lemon had not known about and Green clearly had. Down his stomach. The inside of his thigh, which produced a sound from Lemon that he had not heard himself make before and which Green noted and returned to.
He worked Lemon with his mouth for a long time.
He had done this before and was good at it, but there was a specific quality of attention he gave to first times that was different from the general practice. He was reading Lemon the way he would read any new thing: carefully, with respect for what he didn’t know yet, filing what produced sound and returning to it.
Lemon’s hands were in his hair. Not directing, just present, the involuntary grip of a man whose body was running ahead of him and he was trying to keep up. The sounds he made were new to both of them, the specific sounds of someone discovering that their body could do something it had been waiting to do for twenty years.
Green took his time. He worked Lemon to the edge and felt the tension of it and eased back and worked him again, not cruel, just patient, learning the geography. Lemon made a sound that was approximately his own name and Green took note of the register and stayed there.
When he finally let it arrive Lemon’s whole body locked up around it and the sound he made was nothing he had heard himself make before, full and open and unmanaged, and Green held him through every second of it with both hands and stayed until the last pulse had finished.
He came back up and lay beside him.
Lemon was breathing with the concentration of a man to whom breathing had become temporarily a project.
“Take your time,” Green said.
“I’m fine,” Lemon said.
“You’re excellent,” Green said. “Take your time anyway.”
After, lying in the August dark with the ceiling fan turning and the August heat pressing against the window and the stars doing their unreasonable packed thing outside:
“What were you circling,” Green said.
“All of it,” Lemon said. “The whole question.”
“How long.”
“Since I was about seventeen,” Lemon said. “Give or take.”
Green was quiet for a moment. “That’s a long time to be careful.”
“You said that already,” Lemon said.
“It’s worth saying twice,” Green said. He turned his head toward Lemon in the dark. “How are you.”
“I’m good,” Lemon said.
“Honestly.”
“Honestly,” Lemon said, “I feel like I’ve been carrying something very heavy for a long time and I just put it down for a minute and I’m not sure what to do with my hands.”
“I know that feeling,” Green said.
They lay in the dark. The ceiling fan turned.
“Your turn,” Lemon said.
Green turned his head.
“I mean,” Lemon said, “I would like.” He stopped. “You should tell me what you want.”
“What I want,” Green said, “is what you’re apparently willing to attempt, so.”
“Tell me anyway,” Lemon said. “Specifically.”
Green told him specifically, which took a short time and was very clear, and Lemon listened with the attention of a man who had been listening carefully to things his whole life and applied the same skill here.
He applied the information.
He was not practiced. He was honest about this fact and Green was generous about receiving it, which turned out to be the correct combination. Lemon’s hands moved with more conviction than expertise and Green guided him without making the guidance feel like correction, the way a good teacher redirected without diminishing.
“There,” Green said.
Lemon noted the register and stayed.
He worked Green with his mouth and his hands and felt the sounds this produced as a kind of education, each one telling him something he did not know before, and filed all of it. Green was responsive in the uncomplicated way of a man comfortable in his body and he made no effort to manage his sounds, which gave Lemon a clear map.
He learned the geography thoroughly.
Green came with his hand in Lemon’s hair and a sound that was unmanaged and real and Lemon took it and held until the grip loosened.
After, Green looked at the ceiling with the expression of a man who had been genuinely surprised.
“You,” he said.
“I was paying attention,” Lemon said.
“You were very much paying attention,” Green said.
“I’m a good listener,” Lemon said.
“You’re a remarkable listener,” Green said. “That skill should be more widely discussed.”
They lay in the August dark and the ceiling fan turned and neither of them said anything for a while.
“What do you do,” Lemon said eventually. “When you’re not being careful. Practically. In a county like this.”
“You find the right people,” Green said. “You make arrangements. You live your life more fully than anyone on the outside can see.” He tilted his head toward Lemon. “I can tell you how. It takes time to explain.”
“I have time,” Lemon said.
“I know you do,” Green said. “That’s one of the things I like about you.”
They slept, eventually, until the Colonel knocked on Lemon’s door in the morning and said that something had happened.
Saturday Morning: The Discovery
The Colonel found Harlan at seven.
He had come to ask about breakfast and found the door unlocked and Harlan Morrow on the floor beside his bed, looking, as the Colonel would later put it, decisively dead.
He stood in the doorway for a moment.
Then he went to get Lemon, who was the only person in the house with professional qualifications for this particular situation.
Lemon was in his own room, which was the correct answer from an alibi standpoint and which Green had facilitated by returning to his own room at approximately two in the morning, both of them agreeing that this was sensible and neither of them entirely wanting to part.
The Colonel knocked.
“Something’s happened,” the Colonel said.
“What something,” Lemon said, from inside.
“The fatal variety,” the Colonel said.
There was a pause.
“Give me a minute,” Lemon said.
He came out two minutes later with his badge in his shirt pocket, which was where it lived now, and followed the Colonel to Harlan’s room.
He stood in the doorway and looked at Harlan on the floor and felt the specific quality of a man who has been enjoying a weekend and has had it change register.
“Right,” he said.
He stood in Harlan’s doorway for a moment and looked at the room, Harlan on the floor, the decanter on the bedside table, the lamp still on from the night before.
“I’ll get the others,” the Colonel said.
His voice was controlled. His face was controlled. Thirty years of being controlled was doing its work and Lemon appreciated it professionally.
“Yes,” Lemon said. “Do that.”
The Colonel went. His footsteps on the stairs had the specific rhythm of a man performing composure for an audience of none, because it was what he did and he did not know how to stop.
Lemon listened to them and thought about the night before, the warmth of it, and felt the warmth and this morning as two separate facts that were both true and that he was going to have to carry in the same body.
The Colonel knocked on the Reverend’s door first. The Reverend’s room was next to his own, which the Colonel knew and which Lemon had not asked about.
He could hear, in the hall, the Reverend’s door open.
The Colonel spoke for a moment. Lemon could not hear the words.
The Reverend said: “Oh.”
Just that.
Then the sound of the Reverend getting up.
Two more doors knocked. Two more muffled voices. Then Lemon heard Green’s door, last, closest to his own, and heard the Colonel say something, and heard nothing back for a moment, and then heard Green say: “I’ll be right down.”
Lemon walked down the hall.
Green’s door was open. He was sitting on the edge of his bed with his shirt not yet buttoned and his expression the one you put on when you were deciding what to look like before anyone saw you deciding.
He looked up when Lemon appeared in the doorway.
“Are you alright,” Green said.
“Yes,” Lemon said. “I have work to do.”
Green nodded. He buttoned his shirt. He stood up. He looked at Lemon.
“Later,” he said.
“Yes,” Lemon said. “Later.”
He went to do his work.
Saturday Morning: The Parlor
Before the others were fully awake Lemon walked the house.
Professional habit. He had always walked crime scenes before the principals arrived to give him theories he had not asked for.
He found three things of interest.
Before he could begin his walk he opened the wrong door.
This was the room at the end of the hall, which he had thought was a linen closet and which was, as it turned out, occupied.
The Reverend and the Colonel were inside. They were sitting in two separate chairs with their dressing gowns on and a pot of coffee between them, talking quietly, and they both looked up when Lemon opened the door.
“Deputy,” the Colonel said.
“I was looking for the linen closet,” Lemon said.
“Next door,” the Reverend said.
“Thank you,” Lemon said.
He closed the door.
He stood in the hall for a moment.
He opened the next door. It was the linen closet. He went to Harlan’s room.
First: in the hallway outside Harlan’s room, a smear of something dark on the doorframe at shoulder height. He looked at it for a moment. Shoe polish. Black. The kind the Colonel used. He noted it and moved on.
Second: the library sofa had been moved approximately four inches from its usual position against the wall. Someone had moved it and not moved it back. He noted this and the fact that the Colonel and the Reverend had been in the library for three and a half hours and filed the sofa accordingly.
Third: in the kitchen, on the counter beside the sink, a small glass vial he did not immediately recognize. He picked it up. Read the label. Put it back where he found it.
He stood in the kitchen for a moment.
The vial was a sedative compound. Not digitalis. Not the same medication. A different one entirely.
Someone had brought a sedative to this weekend.
He went to wake the others.
They gathered at eight. Five of them in dressing gowns except Lemon, who had his badge and the expression of a man who had put professionalism back on and was wearing it imperfectly.
Green looked at him from across the parlor with the expression of a man who knew exactly what the badge was doing and was not going to make it complicated.
“The telephone line is down,” Lemon said. “Someone will drive for help this afternoon. Until then we stay here and we figure out what happened.”
“It was his heart,” Scarfe said, from the sofa.
“It was digitalis in his brandy,” Lemon said. “Which is a heart medication that he did not take. Which came from somewhere.”
Scarfe looked at his bag.
“Does anyone want coffee,” the Reverend said.
Everyone looked at him.
“It seems like a coffee situation,” the Reverend said. “I’ll make the coffee. Someone else can discuss the murder.”
“I’ll help,” Green said.
“No one is leaving this room,” Lemon said.
“To make coffee,” Green said.
“To make,” Lemon said, and stopped. “Fine. Coffee. Yes. Everyone else stays.”
The Reverend and Green went to the kitchen, which was audible from the parlor, and the sound of them moving around and talking about where the cups were was oddly comforting under the circumstances.
“Harlan kept good coffee,” Green called.
“Harlan kept good everything,” the Colonel said, to the room.
He said it with something in his voice that was not grief exactly, something more complicated, the way loss and guilt occupied the same space.
The Reverend returned with six cups on a tray with the steady practiced efficiency of a man who had made coffee for congregations in crisis for twenty-two years and found the skill transferable.
“The cups are different sizes,” Moss said.
“Yes,” the Reverend said. “They are.”
“This one is larger than mine,” Moss said.
“That seems right,” the Reverend said pleasantly, and sat down.
“My cup has a chip,” Scarfe said.
“There are six people and seven cups,” Green said, from the kitchen doorway. “One has a chip. Someone gets the chip. This is the nature of cups.”
“Which cup does the person who did the murder get,” Kenny asked.
“Nobody’s confirmed a murder yet,” Lemon said.
“The man is dead on the floor,” the Colonel said.
“It was his heart,” Scarfe said, automatically.
Everyone looked at him.
“That is,” Scarfe said, “to be determined.”
“It was his heart,” Lemon said, “in the sense that his heart stopped, yes. The question is why it stopped.”
“The brandy,” the Colonel said.
“There was something in the brandy,” Lemon said.
Everyone looked at the bar, where Harlan’s brandy decanter sat on its tray with the specific innocence of an object that did not know it was evidence.
“Should we,” the Reverend said, gesturing at the decanter.
“Do not touch the decanter,” Lemon said.
“I wasn’t going to touch the decanter,” the Reverend said.
“Nobody touch the decanter,” Lemon said.
“I have touched the decanter,” the Colonel said. “Last night. When I poured a brandy.”
“You’re fine,” Lemon said. “You’re here.”
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “I am. Unlike Harlan.”
The room absorbed this.
“Coffee,” the Reverend said. “I think we all need more coffee.”
The Interrogations
(Conducted in various rooms, in ascending order of revelation)
The Library:
“You and Harlan,” Lemon said. “How long.”
“Six years,” the Colonel said. He was at the window, hands clasped behind his back, looking at the east pasture in the way of a man who had delivered difficult briefings and found the posture useful. “Before you ask: I was with the Reverend from ten-thirty until approximately two. I am providing this information voluntarily because I prefer to manage the disclosure personally rather than have it arrived at through investigation.”
“What kind of alibi,” Lemon said.
“An intimate one,” the Colonel said. “If you require specifics I can provide them, though I’d prefer not to. If you require confirmation, the Reverend is in the garden. He is a direct man when circumstances require it.”
“He has a lovely singing voice,” Lemon said.
The Colonel turned from the window. “Why does everyone keep saying that.”
“You mentioned it,” Lemon said. “Yesterday evening.”
“I mentioned it in an entirely different context,” the Colonel said.
“Right,” Lemon said. “The financial motive.”
“The will change,” the Colonel said. “Yes. I had one. I’m telling you because you will find it regardless.” He paused. “I did not kill Harlan. I was occupied. With the Reverend.”
“For three and a half hours,” Lemon said.
“We have a great deal to discuss,” the Colonel said, with dignity.
“What do you discuss,” Lemon said.
“The farm,” the Colonel said. “The county. Current events.” A pause. “Augustine.”
“Augustine.”
“The Reverend has strong views on Augustine’s conception of grace,” the Colonel said. “He finds it more generous than most of the tradition allows. We discuss it.”
“While,” Lemon said.
The Colonel looked at him. “Are you asking me to be specific about the nature of our evening.”
“I’m asking about the alibi,” Lemon said.
“The alibi,” the Colonel said, “is that the Reverend would have noticed if I left. And if I had left for any purpose he found concerning, he would have become theological about it. Specifically Revelations.”
“Revelations,” Lemon said.
“His displeasure scale runs from Augustine to Job to Revelations,” the Colonel said. “In eleven years I have reached Job twice. Never Revelations.” He met Lemon’s eye. “I have no interest in reaching Revelations.”
The Garden:
The Reverend was on the stone bench with his hands on his knees and his eyes closed and he looked so peaceful that Lemon felt briefly bad about interrupting.
“I know why you’re here,” the Reverend said, without opening his eyes.
“Then let’s make this quick,” Lemon said.
“Ten-thirty to two,” the Reverend said. “The library. The Colonel and I. I can describe the room in considerable detail if the alibi requires it.”
“The room.”
“The books on the third shelf from the left are mostly Dickens,” the Reverend said. “Harlan had a lovely set of Bleak House. There is a crack in the ceiling plaster in the northwest corner. The sofa.” He paused. “The sofa is a very good sofa. Structurally sound.”
“I see,” Lemon said.
“The Colonel,” the Reverend said, “has strong opinions about Augustine’s conception of grace. We discussed it. At length.”
“While,” Lemon said.
“The discussions were not sequential,” the Reverend said. “They were.”
“Simultaneous,” Lemon offered.
“Interwoven,” the Reverend said, with more dignity. “I am a minister. I can do two things at once.”
“Fine,” Lemon said. “Did you see or hear anything after two.”
“I went to my room at two,” the Reverend said. “I heard nothing unusual. Though I should mention.” He opened his eyes. “The Colonel and I were not entirely quiet earlier in the evening. Anyone in the east wing of the second floor would have heard us.”
“So anyone who claims they were in the east wing and heard nothing suspicious,” Lemon said.
“Was either not there,” the Reverend said, “or was there and heard us and chose not to mention it.”
“Which is useful,” Lemon said.
“I try to be helpful,” the Reverend said. “It’s the profession.”
The Upstairs Bedroom:
Green was at the vanity with the mirror tilted away from him and an expression of a man who had decided to be very cooperative and was prepared to be very cooperative in several different senses.
“The interrogation,” Green said. “I’ve been expecting it.”
“Tell me about last night,” Lemon said. He stood by the window and did not sit on the bed, which Green noted with an expression that suggested he noted it.
“Porch with you until eleven,” Green said. “Inside, kitchen for water, then bed.” He looked at Lemon. “Alone, before you ask.”
“I was going to ask,” Lemon said.
“I know,” Green said. “The answer is alone. Harlan and I had an arrangement previously but this weekend was social.” He paused. “He seemed distracted. Something was on his mind.”
“And at midnight.”
“I heard movement,” Green said. “Downstairs. I did not investigate because in a house like this that is not the polite response to sounds in the night.” He looked at his hands. “I assumed it was someone else’s business.”
“It was,” Lemon said. “Just not the kind you were thinking.”
There was a pause of exactly four seconds during which neither of them moved and the ceiling fan turned overhead and the August heat pressed against the window.
“Harlan was kind to me,” Green said, quietly. “He made something here. Something real. I’d like it to matter that you find who did this.”
“It matters,” Lemon said.
Another pause. Two seconds this time.
“You’re doing the professional face,” Green said.
“I’m working,” Lemon said.
“You’re also doing something else,” Green said.
“Green,” Lemon said.
“Later,” Green said. “I know. Go be a deputy.”
Between the upstairs rooms, Lemon crossed the hall and found Green standing in front of the linen closet holding a piece of paper.
“What is that,” Lemon said.
“A fragment,” Green said. He held it out. “I found it on the ground outside the root cellar. I went for a walk this morning. I didn’t know whether it was relevant.”
It was torn at both edges. The handwriting was meticulous. The legible portion read: ...the record of the ruling in question, deposited with the county clerk October 1961, which I have obtained and which clearly establishes...
“Harlan’s handwriting,” Green said. “I recognized it from the invitation.”
Lemon looked at the fragment.
“Someone tore this,” he said.
“Before you watched them go to the root cellar,” Green said. “Which means there was an earlier visit.”
“Yes,” Lemon said.
They stood in the hall.
“I was going to tell you,” Green said.
“When,” Lemon said.
“When I determined it was relevant,” Green said. “Which I have now done.”
“You were assessing relevance yourself,” Lemon said.
“I run a hardware store,” Green said. “Inventory demands method.”
“Stay out of the root cellar,” Lemon said.
“I haven’t been in the root cellar,” Green said.
“The barn.”
“I haven’t been in the barn either,” Green said. “I went for a walk. I found a piece of paper. I am handing it to you. This is cooperative behavior.”
“It would have been more cooperative before the walk,” Lemon said.
“Noted,” Green said, pleasantly.
Lemon took the fragment.
“Stay in rooms I can find you,” he said.
“I’ll be very findable,” Green said.
The Study:
The Judge had the bearing of a man who was used to the desk being the position of authority and had taken it accordingly, which told Lemon something.
“You’ve found the records,” Lemon said.
“I’ve been reviewing Harlan’s files,” Moss said. “He kept meticulous documentation.”
“Including,” Lemon said, “a file about a case from 1961 where a Judge C. Moss made a ruling that cost a family their land and was later overturned on appeal.”
Moss looked at his hands.
“He wanted you to reopen it,” Lemon said. “Testify against your own ruling.”
“That would have ended everything,” Moss said.
“Everything meaning,” Lemon said.
“My reputation,” Moss said. “My standing. My.” He stopped. “Everything I have left.” He looked at the desk. “I am sixty-one years old. I have one or two winters remaining in which any of it matters.”
“Where were you last night,” Lemon said.
“With Scarfe until one-thirty,” Moss said. “My own room after.”
“Your room is on the east side,” Lemon said. “My window looks over the root cellar.”
Moss went very still.
“Twelve-forty,” Lemon said. “Someone crossed from the house to the root cellar. I saw them from my window.”
“You were awake at twelve-forty,” Moss said.
“I don’t sleep well away from home,” Lemon said. “As it turns out this was useful.”
The study was very quiet.
Moss looked at the window. He looked at the desk. He looked at his hands.
“What size was the person you saw,” he said.
“Medium,” Lemon said.
“Medium describes four of the six people in this house,” Moss said.
“It does,” Lemon said.
“So you cannot say with certainty it was me,” Moss said.
“No,” Lemon said. “Not with certainty.”
Moss sat up straighter. “The letter fragment Green found.”
“Yes,” Lemon said.
“Green was at the root cellar,” Moss said.
“Near it,” Lemon said.
“He had access to Harlan,” Moss said. “He knew this house. He knew the root cellar location. He had a prior arrangement with Harlan which may have involved financial matters we don’t know about.”
“Go on,” Lemon said.
“Green is a young man with a hardware store,” Moss said. “Hardware stores require capital. Perhaps Harlan provided capital. Perhaps there was a dispute.” He paused. “Perhaps Green had more reason than anyone thinks.”
“That’s very thorough,” Lemon said.
“I spent twenty-two years on the bench,” Moss said. “I can construct a case.”
“Yes,” Lemon said. “You can.” He let this sit. “Green was in his room last night. The walls of this house are not thick. The Colonel and the Reverend confirmed each other’s location for most of the night. Dr. Scarfe confirmed yours until one-thirty. After one-thirty you were alone.” He paused. “Green was alone all night. Green is twenty-eight and runs a hardware store in Bellridge. His arrangement with Harlan involved no money.” He waited. “The arithmetic still comes out the same way, Judge.”
The study held them.
“I was trying to get the records,” Moss said, finally.
“I know,” Lemon said. “But Harlan kept copies. You put the originals back but the copies were in the study and I read them this afternoon.”
Moss sat very still.
“The digitalis,” Lemon said. “You knew what Scarfe carried. You took it before dinner.”
“You can prove that,” Moss said. Not a question.
“I can establish that you knew,” Lemon said. “That you had access. That you had motive. That you were seen at the root cellar.” He paused. “The rest is arithmetic.”
The study held them.
“He was asleep,” Moss said, after a long time. “I put it in the decanter. I went back to my room.” He looked at the window. “I didn’t watch.”
“No,” Lemon said. “I don’t suppose you did.”
The Barn:
Scarfe was on a hay bale with his bag at his feet and the expression of a man who had been waiting for the worst and was finding that waiting for it was almost worse than the worst itself.
“Sit down,” he said.
Lemon sat on the bale across from him.
“The digitalis is gone from my bag,” Scarfe said. “I noticed this morning. I didn’t say anything because I knew how it would look.”
“It looks like you killed him,” Lemon said.
“Yes,” Scarfe said. “I’m aware.”
“The debt,” Lemon said.
“Four thousand dollars,” Scarfe said. “I know.” He looked at the bag. “I didn’t kill him over four thousand dollars.”
“Because,” Lemon said.
“Because Harlan Morrow,” Scarfe said carefully, “was one of six people in this county who knew what I was and found it entirely unremarkable. You don’t kill your safe harbor.”
Lemon sat on the hay bale in the August afternoon and felt the light coming through the boards and thought about this.
“No,” he said. “You don’t.”
Scarfe looked at him. “You believe me.”
“You told me about the bag before I asked,” Lemon said. “Guilty men don’t do that.”
“Frightened men do,” Scarfe said.
“You’re both,” Lemon said. “Frightened and innocent. The two things can coexist.”
Scarfe looked at him for a long moment. “You’re not what I expected from a deputy.”
“I’m having an unusual weekend,” Lemon said.
“Are you going to be all right,” Scarfe said. “After. With all of this.”
Lemon looked at the light through the boards.
“Yes,” he said. “I think I am.”
Saturday Night: The Parlor
Nine o’clock. The five of them assembled. The taxidermy watching. The ceiling fan doing its clicking rotation. The August heat pressing against the windows and not coming in.
Lemon stood at the fireplace with the expression of a man who had come to this house for one kind of weekend and had been given two entirely different ones simultaneously.
“Here is what I know,” he said.
“Should I take notes,” the Reverend said.
“No,” Lemon said.
“I’m a good note taker,” the Reverend said.
“I know,” Lemon said. “No notes.”
“I could use shorthand,” the Reverend said. “I learned it for sermons.”
“No notes,” Lemon said.
The Reverend folded his hands.
“Before we begin,” Lemon said. “I found something in the kitchen this morning. A vial. Small glass. On the counter by the sink.”
The room did what rooms did when something was introduced.
Scarfe looked up. He looked at his bag. He looked at Lemon.
“I can explain that,” Scarfe said.
Everyone looked at Scarfe.
“It’s a sedative compound,” Scarfe said. “I left it on the counter last night. I couldn’t sleep and I took a very small dose and put the vial on the counter because my bag was.” He paused. “My bag was across the room.”
“Across the room,” Lemon said.
“I’d put it down,” Scarfe said. “When I was in the parlor. I didn’t want to get up.”
“You couldn’t sleep,” the Colonel said, with a specific quality that conveyed his awareness of where Scarfe had been until one-thirty.
“It was late when I got to my room,” Scarfe said, without looking at Moss.
“The sedative is not the same medication as what killed Harlan,” Lemon said.
The room decompressed slightly.
“But,” Lemon said, “it raises the question of what else might have been in someone’s bag.”
Everyone looked at Scarfe again.
“I’m a doctor,” Scarfe said. “I travel with medications. That is the definition of being a doctor.”
“What medications,” the Colonel said.
“Colonel,” the Reverend said.
“It’s a reasonable question,” the Colonel said.
“It is a reasonable question from an investigating officer,” the Reverend said. “From you it’s an accusation in a dressing gown.”
The Colonel looked at his dressing gown.
“The dressing gown,” the Reverend said, “does not confer investigative authority.”
“I’m not claiming authority,” the Colonel said.
“You’re claiming suspicion,” the Reverend said. “Which is different.”
“Gentlemen,” Lemon said.
He went through it methodically. The Colonel’s motive: the will. His alibi: the Reverend, eleven years, St. Augustine. The Reverend’s alibi: the Colonel, confirmed. Scarfe’s motive: the debt. The missing medication. The Judge as the person who knew what Scarfe carried. Green’s movement: heard something at midnight, assumed it was ranch business of the private variety, which was a reasonable assumption in this particular house.
“And then there’s you,” Lemon said to Moss.
Moss sat very still.
“The records in the root cellar,” Lemon said. “A case from 1961 where a ruling was made for financial reasons that cost a family their land. Harlan had the records. Harlan wanted you to reopen the case. That would have ended everything.”
“Yes,” Moss said.
“You went to the root cellar at twelve-forty to retrieve the originals,” Lemon said. “But Harlan was careful. He kept copies in the study. The originals in the cellar, the copies in the study. You put the originals back before anyone was up. But the copies were still in the study and I read them this afternoon.”
The parlor was very quiet.
“You took the digitalis before dinner,” Lemon said. “You knew what it was. The Judge who treated you for arrhythmia. Except you went to Scarfe, and Scarfe told you what he carried, and you filed it.”
Moss looked at his hands.
“I went to his room at one o’clock,” Moss said. “He was asleep. The brandy was on the bedside table.”
No one moved.
“I did not watch him drink it,” Moss said. “I went back to my room.” He looked at nothing in particular. “I have been a judge for thirty years. I have sentenced men for exactly this. I understand what I have done.”
“Yes,” Lemon said. “I think you do.”
The room held all of them.
The taxidermy bass above the bar watched the proceedings with the patience of something that had been watching proceedings for sixteen years and had no expectations.
“The root cellar,” the Colonel said.
“Yes,” Moss said.
“The brandy decanter.”
“Yes.”
“You came to Harlan’s house,” the Colonel said, “as a guest.”
“Yes,” Moss said.
“As a friend,” the Colonel said. “For twenty years.”
Moss looked at his hands.
The Colonel stood. He was a large man and the standing was its own statement. “I have done things in my life,” the Colonel said, “that I am not proud of. But I have never.” He stopped. His jaw was tight. “Harlan made something here. A specific and private thing. And you.”
“Richard,” the Reverend said quietly.
The Colonel sat back down.
Scarfe looked at his bag with the expression of a man recalculating the cost of four thousand dollars.
Green was looking at the window, the dark August night outside, his expression private.
Lemon looked at Moss. “Is there anything else.”
“No,” Moss said. “That’s all of it.”
The Reverend, quietly: “May I pray.”
Moss looked at him. Something passed across his face that was not contempt and was not gratitude and was something in between.
“Yes,” he said. “I think that would be alright.”
The Reverend bowed his head.
The Colonel looked at the ceiling.
Green looked at his hands.
Scarfe looked at his bag.
Lemon looked at the window and the dark outside and the lamplight reflected back and felt the weight of the weekend in him, both halves of it, and felt them as connected things that could not be separated.
Harlan had made something here. And it was over. And it had been real.
“Thank you,” the Reverend said, when the prayer was done.
Moss said nothing. But he did not look away.
Sunday: Departures
The telephone line came back at ten. Whether it repaired itself or was repaired was never established.
Lemon made the call. The sheriff arrived. The county doctor came. Moss went quietly with his hands in his pockets and his bearing intact, the specific dignity of a man who had decided to face what he had done.
The others left through the afternoon.
The Colonel stood on the porch and shook each man’s hand and did so with slightly more deliberateness than necessary for some of them, less for others. He held Lemon’s hand for a moment.
“You did good work,” the Colonel said.
“I did my job,” Lemon said.
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “You can do both.”
He looked at the house when the handshakes were done, the white frame in the August heat, and said nothing for a moment.
“He built something here,” the Colonel said.
“Yes,” Lemon said.
“It deserved better than what happened to it.”
“It was still what it was,” Lemon said. “Even after.”
The Colonel looked at him. “That’s a generous way to see it.”
“It’s the true way,” Lemon said.
He and the Reverend did not stand near each other when the sheriff’s men were present, which told everyone present exactly everything, and when the Reverend’s car was loaded the Reverend shook Lemon’s hand and Scarfe’s hand and Green’s hand and then stood in front of the Colonel.
They were not going to do anything here with the sheriff’s deputies watching.
The Reverend said: “I’ll speak to you.”
“Yes,” the Colonel said.
“Soon.”
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “That would be.”
He stopped.
The Reverend nodded once and got in his car and drove down the gravel road toward the county road.
The Colonel watched the car until it was gone.
“Do you need anything,” Lemon said.
“No,” the Colonel said. He was a large man and he stood in the August heat on Harlan’s porch and his bearing was intact and his face was the face of a man who had been managing for a very long time and was going to keep managing. “I’ve been getting along without a great deal for a long time. I’ll manage.”
He got in his car and drove.
The gravel road went on in both directions. The pines. The pasture. The gate.
Scarfe and Green sat on the porch steps in the aftermath, which was not something either of them had planned but which the circumstances created.
“Well,” Green said.
“Yes,” Scarfe said.
“This was not the weekend I anticipated,” Green said.
“I had,” Scarfe said, “a much more optimistic picture in my head when the envelope arrived.”
“You too,” Green said.
They sat on the steps.
“The money,” Green said.
“I know,” Scarfe said.
“Do you have it,” Green said.
“No,” Scarfe said. “I have approximately seven hundred dollars and a well-regarded medical practice in a county where everyone knows me and nobody pays on time.”
“I’ll lend it to you,” Green said. “Four thousand. Hardware margins are better than people think.”
Scarfe turned to look at him fully. “Why would you do that.”
“Because Harlan would have forgiven it eventually,” Green said. “He always did. And now he can’t. So.” He shrugged. “Someone should.”
“That’s,” Scarfe said. “That’s quite decent of you.”
“I have depths,” Green said.
“You do,” Scarfe said. “Though I understand the deputy has also recently discovered this.”
Green looked at him. “Word travels fast.”
“The Colonel told the Reverend,” Scarfe said. “The Reverend mentioned it in passing while I was pouring my second coffee.”
“The Reverend,” Green said.
“He said, and I quote,” Scarfe said, “’the deputy and the hardware man have apparently arrived at an understanding, which I find very wholesome.’”
“Wholesome,” Green said.
“His word,” Scarfe said.
They looked at the empty road down which Moss had just been driven.
“I’m going to feel this weekend for a while,” Scarfe said.
“Yes,” Green said. “I think we all are.”
Green drove away. The Reverend had already gone. Scarfe drove away with a check in his coat pocket and the specific strange lightness of a man who had been carrying a weight and had it lifted in the most unexpected possible circumstances.
Lemon sat on the porch.
The house was quiet. The August afternoon was doing its unreasonable thing. A hawk made its lazy circle over the east pasture.
He thought about Harlan Morrow, who had spent twenty-three years making a space where men could be exactly what they were, and who had been killed by a man too frightened to be what he was outside that space.
He thought about the gap between the two things, the space Harlan had made and the world that had made Moss so afraid he had carried digitalis in his coat pocket to a dinner party.
He drove back to Bellridge at five o’clock on Sunday afternoon.
The county road, the gravel giving way to blacktop, everything exactly as he had left it Friday morning. This was both obvious and somehow surprising.
He went to the sheriff’s office and wrote the report that needed writing and made the calls that needed making and did the work the weekend had generated, which was considerable. He put his badge back on his shirt and did not feel different about it, which was informative.
Monday Morning
He drove past Green’s Hardware at seven-forty-five on his way to the first call.
He drove past it again at noon. He was across the street at the diner and could see it through the window with Green visible behind the counter.
“Something on your mind,” the waitress said.
“No,” Lemon said.
She refilled his coffee anyway.
At three-thirty he stopped.
The bell rang. Green looked up from his inventory and his face did the easy thing.
“Deputy,” he said.
“Green,” Lemon said. He stood at the counter. He had driven past twice and was here on the third pass and they both knew the arithmetic.
“I need a key cut,” he said.
“What kind,” Green said.
“I’ve been keeping something locked for a long time,” Lemon said. “I’m done keeping it locked. I need a spare key so I have one to give somebody.”
Green looked at him for a moment.
The bell above the door rang.
The Reverend came in.
Both men looked at him.
The Reverend looked at both of them, standing at the counter with the specific quality of a conversation just interrupted.
“I need,” the Reverend said, “a length of good rope.”
There was a pause.
“Rope,” Green said.
“For a fence,” the Reverend said. “I’m helping Colonel Hartwell with a fence repair. He called me this morning.” He looked between them. “I can come back.”
“No,” Green said. “I’ll get the rope.” He went to the back wall. Over his shoulder: “What weight.”
“Medium,” the Reverend said. He stood at the counter. He looked at Lemon. “You’re buying a key.”
“Having one cut,” Lemon said.
“For something you’ve been keeping locked,” the Reverend said. He had clearly been near enough to the window to hear at least part of the exchange. “That sounds significant.”
“It’s a hardware transaction,” Lemon said.
“Most significant things,” the Reverend said, “look like something else from the outside.”
Green came back with the rope.
The Reverend paid. He looked at them both again.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he said.
The bell rang on his way out.
Green looked at Lemon.
“That’s the most poetic request I’ve received in five years of running a hardware store,” he said.
“I mean it practically,” Lemon said.
“I know you do,” Green said. “That’s one of the things about you.” He came around the counter. “That’s not a standard key I stock.”
“I know,” Lemon said.
“But I can help anyway,” Green said.
He turned the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.
Outside, Bellridge went about its Monday afternoon in August of 1974. The church stood at the end of Main Street where it had stood since 1912. The diner finished its lunch trade. Down County Road 12, somewhere eleven miles east where the gravel started, the gate of Plum Creek Ranch stood open in the late afternoon light with nobody to close it.
The world was considerably larger than it had looked on Thursday.
It had taken a weekend, a murder, a cream envelope, and a considerable quantity of Armagnac to establish this, which was an inefficient way to establish it, but Harlan Morrow had never been interested in efficiency when the alternative was company.
Discretion assured, his invitations had always said.
Better late than never, was what he would have added, if he had been there to say it.
The Plum Creek Ranch sold in October 1974 to a family from Houston who raised quarter horses and knew nothing of its previous accommodations. The library still has the leather sofa. The taxidermy bass still watches whoever pours a drink.
Deputy Ray Lemon was elected sheriff in 1978, unopposed. He served four terms.
Dr. Emmett Scarfe repaid Wesley Green in eighteen months. The arrangement between them lasted considerably longer and was never, as far as anyone could tell, discussed.
Colonel Hartwell and Reverend Plum continued their understanding until the Colonel’s death in 1989. The Reverend delivered the eulogy. Three people in the front pew understood what he meant. Everyone else thought he was simply very fond of the man.
Judge Carter Moss served four years in prison and was released on account of age and declining health in 1979. He died in 1982. His obituary called him a distinguished jurist. Two people who read it knew what that was worth.
Harlan Morrow’s preservation society received the full bequest. They restored a 19th-century courthouse in downtown Dallas that still stands. The bronze plaque inside says: Restored 1975, in memory of H.M., who understood that some things are worth keeping.
Nobody talked about the weekend at Plum Creek.
Everybody remembered it.
Everybody remembered it.
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