“This is a public street,” Jenny says pleasantly, from her lawn chair. “We live here.”
“We’re just standing,” Elsie confirms.
“In our town,” Danny adds.
Hale breathes. “I have a warrant—”
“For what specifically?” Ryan asks.
A pause. “For a thief—”
“Who has requested the presence of her lawyer.”
“I need her to come with me,” Hale says.
“We’ll wait for her attorney,” Ryan replies. “Andyou’re welcome to wait with us.”
The standoff has an atmosphere I couldn’t have anticipated. It’s not tense in the way I expected tension to feel with sharp-edges, and the imminent-threats of someone about to run or fight. It’s more like pressure. Sustained and collective. The pressure of a community that has made a decision and is holding it, quietly, without drama, without the need for drama.
Hale and his officers on one side.
The town on the other.
Me in the back.
The pack around me.
Doris Harrow brings a chairs from a store and sets it beside me. “In case you want to sit, sweetie,” she says.
“I’m all right standing,” I reply. “Thank you, Doris.”
She nods. Stays beside the chair.
Ten minutes pass.
Then fifteen.
Hale makes two phone calls. His officers confer in low voices. The crowd stands. Nobody leaves. Jenny drinks her tea. Elsie says something to the woman beside her that makes them both laugh quietly.
The town is patient in the way of people who have nowhere else to be because this is where they’ve decided to be.
At the twenty-minute mark a car comes down Main Street.
Not a police vehicle. A dark sedan, moving at the pace of someone who knows where they’re going and intends to get there efficiently. It parks at the edge of the cobblestones, the door opens, and Scarlet gets out. I have never been happier to see her before.
I’ve known Scarlet since grade school and I have always found her alarming in the best possible way. She’s compact, with the energy of someone whose brain runs faster than most rooms can keep up with. She’s carrying a briefcase and a tablet and the expression of a woman who has been on the phone for three hours and has arrived ready.
She finds me through the crowd immediately.
She finds Hale immediately after.
“Detective,” she says, walking toward him rather than toward me, which is the right call and exactly Scarlet. “Scarlet James. I’m Ms. Wilson’s attorney.” She opens the briefcase without breaking stride. “I have some materials I’d like you to look at before this goes any further.”
Hale looks at her. “Ms. James—”
“It won’t take long.” She holds out a folder. “Please.”
He takes it. He opens it.
