Page 124 of The Goat Next Door

On Thursday the rain comes down in thick, gray sheets that turn the valley roads into a soup of mud and pine needles.

“You’re going out in that?” Davis asks as I pull my rain jacket over my uniform shirt in the bay. “The council meeting isn’t until seven, Chief.”

“I have a meeting with the community safety committee,” I say, grabbing my yellow pad from the desk.

Davis frowns. “The safety committee met last Tuesday.”

“This is a subcommittee,” I state, shoving my truck keys into my pocket. “The textile and infrastructure division.”

“Chief, with respect, I think you’re having a very specific mental breakdown. I’m begging you to either kiss the woman or request psychiatric leave.”

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The church basement smells like fifty years of damp carpet, old coffee, and wool grease. The fluorescent lights overhead hum as I walk down the concrete steps, my heavy boots squelching with every step.

The room is silent except for the rhythmic click-clack of aluminum needles.

Sitting in a circle of folding chairs near the industrial coffee urn are Bernice, Hazel, Dotty, two other women I recognize from the library board, and Ember.

She’s sitting between Dotty and Bernice, a ball of bright, obnoxious mustard-yellow yarn resting in her lap. She’s wearing a thick gray sweater that looks three sizes too big for her, and she’s staring down at her hands with a look of intense, concentrated frustration.

Her tongue is poking out of the corner of her mouth just a fraction of an inch.

The click-clack of the needles stops the instant my boots hit the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

Six pairs of elderly eyes snap up to mine, locking onto my face with the kind of unified hostility usually reserved for developers trying to turn the historic park into a strip mall.

Ember doesn’t look up.

She keeps her eyes fixed on the yellow yarn, her fingers twisting a loop around her needle with a jerky, aggressive movement that looks like she’s trying to strangle the thread.

“This is a private meeting, Chief,” Bernice says. She doesn’t drop her knitting. She just glares over the rims of her glasses.

“The building is a public space, Bernice,” I say, as I walk toward the circle. “And technically, the fire exit behind your chair is partially blocked by that stack of folding tables. I’m here to conduct a visual assessment.”

“The tables have been there since 1994, Brooks,” Hazel says, her needles starting up again with a vicious, rapid-fire speed. “You aren’t here for the tables. You’re here because you’re an asshole.”

I stop exactly three feet outside the circle, directly across from Ember.

Up close, I can see that her yellow knitting is a complete disaster.

It looks less like a scarf and more like a bird’s nest that’s been run over by a lawnmower. There are massive, gaping holes in the center of the row, and one side is twice as wide as the other.

“Your gauge is inconsistent,” I say, pointing a finger toward her needles.

Ember’s fingers freeze. Slowly, deliberately, she lifts her head.

“My gauge is artistic, Chief,” she says. “You wouldn’t understand it. There aren’t any municipal codes for it.”

“If you don’t maintain the tension on the yarn, the whole edge is going to curl,” I say, taking a step closer, ignoring the gasp that comes from Dotty on her left. “You’ve dropped four stitches in the last three rows, city girl. At this rate, by the time you reach the collar, you’re just going to have a single, long string of knots.”

“Maybe I like knots,” she says, her eyes locking onto mine, a stubborn spark finally flaring up in the dark brown depths. “Maybe I think things that are perfectly straight and uniform are incredibly boring.”

“They aren’t boring,” I say. “They’re stable. They keep the roof from coming down.”

“Some roofs need to come down,” she whispers.

Bernice lets out a sharp, rhythmic sniff that sounds like a warning shot.