Chapter 4 - The Sound of the Blue Glass
The sun was dropping behind the ridge, turning the oak woods into long, barred cages of shadow across the dust of the road.
I sat in David’s sedan, three hundred yards down from the gate, behind a dense clump of sumac that grew along the ditch. The swelling on the left side of my face had closed my eye to a slit, through which the world looked like a dark, yellowing oil painting. The pain was no longer sharp; it had become an engine—a steady, rhythmic piston that pumped heat through my neck and into my collarbone.
In the driveway, the cars were still thick.
There was Uncle Wayne’s flatbed, its tailgate down, loaded with empty beer coolers. There was Aunt Diane’s Buick, parked on the clover where Grandma used to keep her beehives. In the center of the gravel turn-around sat Evan’s truck—a six-liter diesel that had never carried a load of fence posts in its life, its black paint waxed until it looked like wet licorice under the trees.
The music had started again. It was that country-pop they played from the satellite stations—loud, bright, and full of fake tailgates and cold cans.
"They're comfortable," David said. He had his hands on the steering wheel, his engine idling so low the fan belt barely purred. "Look at them. They’ve already moved the card tables onto the lawn."
Through the gap in the sumac, I saw Lauren.
She had changed her apron. She was wearing a white linen shirt now, her hair tied back with a silk scarf. She was carrying a tray of coffee cups out to the old ladies near the well-house. She was laughing—that wide, tilted-head laugh that made people in church say, Isn't that Lauren Mercer just the sweetest thing? Always looking after her people.
A white Ford Explorer with the gold county star on the door slipped past our rear bumper without a siren. Behind it came a second cruiser—an older Crown Victoria with a scarred push-bumper and two whip antennas that dipped under the willow branches.
They didn't speed. They rolled up the gravel lane at ten miles an hour, their tires making a steady, crunching sound that was swallowed by the bass coming from the outdoor speakers.
"Stay in the car until I get to the porch," David said.
"No," I said.
"Claire—"
"It’s my name on the deed, David. I’m not sitting in the ditch like a stray."
He looked at me through his glasses, his jaw working on a piece of tobacco. "You look like hell, girl."
"Then they can look at hell," I said.
We got out together. The air had cooled slightly, but the smell of scorched fat was still heavy on the breeze.
Lieutenant Vance was already out of his cruiser. He was six-foot-three, with the pale, shaved head of an enlisted man and a duty belt that didn't rattle when he moved. His deputy, a younger kid named Cole whose father ran the feed mill, stayed three paces behind him, his hand resting lightly near the snap of his holster.
The music didn't stop until Lieutenant Vance’s boots hit the bottom step of the brick terrace.
Evan had his back to us. He was standing over the remains of the fire, showing Uncle Robert how to scrape the iron grates with a wire block.
"I told you," Evan was saying, his voice carrying clearly over the lawn, "the secret is getting the iron hot enough to burn off the lard before you wipe it with the bacon fat. If you use water, you rust the weld—"
"Evan Mercer?"
Lieutenant Vance’s voice wasn't loud, but it had the specific, metallic weight of an order that wasn't going to be repeated.
Evan turned around, the wire brush still in his grease-stained hand. He saw the grey uniform first, then the gold shield, then the blue cruiser idling behind his truck.
His chest rose—that same automatic, puffed-out swell he had used on me three hours ago.
"Yeah? What’s the trouble, Lieutenant? We’re just finishing up a family dinner here. If someone down the road called about the noise, we were just about to shut the box down."
"Put the wire brush on the stone, Mr. Mercer," Vance said.
"Excuse me?"
"Put the brush down. Step away from the fire. Put your hands behind your back."
Aunt Diane stood up so fast her wicker chair tipped backward into the hydrangea bush with a dry, splintering crack. "What on earth is this? Wayne! Wayne, get over here!"
Lauren came through the screen door with a glass pot of fresh coffee. When she saw the two deputies, the pot tilted in her hands, dark brown liquid spilling over the lip and hissing against the hot stone of the step.
"What is going on?" she cried, her voice climbing into that shrill, bird-like register. "Who called the police to our house?"
David Vance stepped past the lilac bush, his briefcase held against his ribs like a shield.
"Nobody called them to your house, Lauren," David said, his voice cutting through her shrillness like an iron blade through lard. "They were called to June Barrows’s house. On behalf of the owner."
From behind the second cruiser, I walked into the light.
The sun was nearly down now, the red horizontal rays catching the side of my face. The swelling had turned my left cheek into a shiny, dark dome that pulled my mouth down at the corner.
Uncle Wayne froze with his hands half-raised toward his belt. Cousin Mark dropped a pair of horseshoes into the sand.
Lauren’s eyes hit my face, and for half a second—one single, fraction of a beat—her jaw went slack. Then her gaze dropped to the blue cruisers, to the deputy unhooking the cuffs from his belt, and the panic set in.
"Claire!" she screamed, taking three steps down the terrace. "What did you do? What did you tell them?"
"She didn't tell them anything they couldn't see with their own eyes," Lieutenant Vance said. He didn't wait for Evan to move. He stepped forward, caught Evan’s right wrist in a grip that turned the man's knuckles white, and twisted the arm behind his shoulder blade with a short, efficient torque that brought Evan down to one knee on his own grease-spotted flagstones.
"Hey! Get your hands off me!" Evan bellowed, his face turning the dark, congested purple of an eggplant. "I didn't do anything! She assaulted me! She came at me with a tray! Ask anyone here! Wayne! Tell him!"
Wayne looked at the ground. He looked at the toe of his work boot. He looked at the horsehair bushes. He didn't say a word.
"We have the video, Mr. Mercer," Deputy Cole said, stepping around to catch the left arm. The steel cuffs went click-clack-click against the bone. "We have the urgent care report. We have the doctor's statement regarding the ring laceration on the victim’s cheek."
"It was an accident!" Lauren shrieked, running at the deputy. "He was turning around! She bumped him! Claire, tell them! Tell them you bumped him!"
She reached for my arm, her manicured fingers hooked like claws, but David Vance stepped between us, his bulk immovable as a bridge pier.
He didn't touch her. He simply extended a heavy manila envelope with his left hand, holding it six inches from her nose.
"Mrs. Mercer," David said. "Take this."
"I’m not taking anything from you! You old crook! You’ve been trying to get us off this ridge since Grandma died!"
"This is an emergency Notice to Vacate under Section 42-14 of the General Statutes," David recited, his voice completely level, completely flat, carrying across the twenty-three people who stood like wooden posts in the dusk. "Your occupancy is terminated effective at 6:00 PM this date due to the commission of an act of criminal violence upon the deeded premises. You have seventy-two hours to remove your personal effects under the supervision of a sheriff’s deputy. Any entry upon this land after Wednesday noon will be treated as second-degree criminal trespass."
"You can't do that!" Lauren screamed. Her face was unrecognizable now—the sweet, gentle porch-girl had vanished, replaced by something wild, snarling, and cornered. "We live here! We remodeled the kitchen! We spent six thousand dollars on the tile!"
"You spent Claire's money on the tile," David said. "The receipts from Oakhaven Building Supply are in her name, billed to her account, which you accessed using her social security number—an issue we will be discussing with the state attorney’s office tomorrow morning at nine."
Evan was on his feet now, being propelled toward the cruiser by Lieutenant Vance’s forearm in the middle of his back. His head was down, his shirt pulled up so his pale, hairy belly was exposed to his wife’s cousins.
"Wayne!" Evan roared, his spit flying onto the cruiser’s trunk. "Call your brother! Call Bob! Get the magistrate on the phone!"
Wayne didn't reach for his pocket. He reached for the handle of his truck door, pulled it open, and climbed into the cab without looking back. The starter groaned twice before the old V8 caught, and the truck began backing down the lane before the deputies had even closed the door on Evan.
"Aunt Diane," Lauren sobbed, turning toward the hydrangeas. "Aunt Diane, help me! Look what she’s doing to us!"
Aunt Diane didn't look at her. She picked up her wicker purse, tucked her paper napkins inside, and walked toward her Buick with the slow, measured gait of an old woman who knew that if she stayed five minutes longer, she might be asked to sign an affidavit.
Within four minutes, there were only four people left in the yard: David, the young deputy, Lauren, and me.
The cruiser carrying Evan was already at the main road, its red and blue lights painting the tree line in alternating bands of blood and ice.
Lauren stood in the middle of the terrace. The manila envelope lay on the limestone flagstones between us, right where she had knocked it from David’s hand. The glass coffee pot had rolled into the grass, unbroken, but empty.
She looked at me through her swollen, wet eyes.
May you like
"You're a monster," she whispered.
"I’m the owner," I said.
