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“Glaziers, Dunstan! A team of glaziers?” Elias spat. “Do you know how many windows that castle has, and how variable the window measurements?”

Elias knew. The family seat boasted thirty-seven different window sizes—everything from arrow slits to Palladian fancies inflicted by improving Victorians, and no two were the same size.

“You should be happy that Zebedee reserved the services of historically astute professionals. Jeannie says their work is backlogged for two years.”

“Which means,” Elias retorted, “their prices will amount to daylight robbery.”

This discussion took place on a porch painted white and decorated with potted ferns, wicker chairs, and hanging baskets of red, white, and purple petunias. Hostility crackled across this pretty magazine cover of a porch, not simply a difference of opinion.

“Did you plan to undertake renovations without installing windows?” Dunstan asked. “Is that what passes for Scottish air conditioning these days, your lordship?”

Elias stepped closer to Dunstan, though he knew he was being distracted from the real issue. “Do not call me that, Dunstan Cromarty.”

“Why not? You’re a bloody earl. Will you banish me from your windowless castle?”

“You wanted them to talk like cousins,” somebody—Violet—muttered.

Dunstan clearly hadn’t noticed the ladies standing in the doorway any more than Elias had. Violet looked amused, and Jane was holding a brownie an inch from her mouth.

While Elias was holding at least one answer. “I don’t have to banish you, Dunstan. You banished yourself when you turned nineteen and upped stakes for the New World. You’ve no idea how envious I was, or how proud we all are of you.”

Dunstan absorbed that blow while he took a sip of a fine Speyside single-malt. “If you’re so proud of me, why does nobody ever come visit? Am I the only Cromarty capable of booking a flight?”

He’d made a try for casual grousing, but bewilderment had crept into the question. Bewilderment—and hurt?

Elias loved his cousins, though he hadn’t found a way to express that sentiment, other than by handing out advice, ceremonial whisky, and funds in equal measure. Watching the look that passed between Jane and Dunstan—one consuming a brownie, the other Scots whisky—insight struck Elias, like the sun cresting a hill.

Dunstan was soon to be a father. That’s what this grousing and snorting was about. Whether the conclusion was the result of instinct, prescience, or keen observation, Elias didn’t care. He knew only that Dunstan was asking for support, the only way a proud man could.

“You’re the only Cromarty who doesn’t expect me to pay for your flights,” Elias said. “Or one of the few, and now that I know your marriage can bear the strain of houseguests, I’ll send you all the company you like. Helga and Heidi will likely lead the charge.”

“They aren’t houseguests,” Dunstan said. “They’re a plague of locusts on a man’s liquor cabinet. They’ll get along with Jane famously, and be teaching her sword dances in the living room.”

“That’s the best place to learn the sword dances,” Elias said. “I am not happy about your deception, Dunstan.”

“Dunstan is honest,” Jane interjected, her defense marred by a spot of chocolate on her upper lip.

“Dunstan withheld information from me,” Elias said. “I was prepared to be bankrupted by a team of masons I’d never hired. In addition to masons, I now learn—only because the liquor is in the study, and Dunstan had printed out Jeannie’s last email—that glaziers, carpenters, landscapers, a veritable army of first-rate artisans, are descending on my castle with signed contracts in hand. When did you plan to tell me, Dunstan?”

Jane stuffed another bite of brownie in her mouth. Violet took up a lean against the doorjamb.

“Sooner begun is sooner done,” Violet said. “I thought this whole business of selling the farm was to finance renovations, and now it’s a problem that the renovations are under way. What exactly is going on?”

“It’s a bad news/bad news situation,” Elias began.

“Must you be so Scottish?” Dunstan muttered.

 “I am Scottish. So, as it happens, are you, and if we’re to compete for most stubbornly, pessimistically Scottish, I will concede rather than bloody my knuckles knocking aside your plaid crown.”

“This is like watching a pair of lawyers go at it in court,” Jane said, passing Violet a brownie. “Though the sniping sounds a lot more impressive with those accents.”

“Elias doesn’t snipe,” Violet said, saluting with her brownie. “Tell us what’s going on, guys, and you can get back to playing Robert the Bruce later.”

“Braveheart, please,” Dunstan said, taking one of the wicker chairs.

“Then you have to be William Wallace,” Elias retorted, propping a hip against the porch railing. “Executed by the enemy, but fondly remembered by those whose opinions matter.”

Jane took the chair next to Dunstan’s. “We were bringing you seconds on the brownies. Guess you might have to get your own.”

“I’ll get them,” Violet said, disappearing back into the house.

So Dunstan missed his family? Elias knew all too well what that was like. He’d been missing his family since he’d turned eleven.

“You know Dunstan, when that plane went down, I lost more than my mother and father.” Elias hadn’t planned to say that, but then he hadn’t planned to fall in love with Violet Hughes either.

“Damned rotten business, losing a parent, much less two,” Dunstan said. “If I never said it before, I’m saying it now. You have my condolences.”

The sun had set, and the Maryland version of the gloaming was fading. In the woods bordering Dunstan’s back yard, darkness had taken hold, though a tiny light glowed momentarily in mid-air.

“Was that a firefly?” Elias asked.

“Or a lightning bug,” Jane said. “Same thing. First I’ve seen this year.”

Another little flicker glowed closer to the house then winked out. What a curious creature, the firefly must be.

“None of the cousins expressed condolences,” Elias said, getting back to the topic at hand. “What child knows enough to offer sympathy when the greatest imaginable cataclysm has befallen one of their number? Most children can contemplate their own death more calmly than that of a parent.”

“Were your cousins cruel to you?” Jane asked.

Violet set a plate of brownies on the wicker coffee table and took the chair closest to Elias. He shifted to sit at her feet, his back resting against her legs.

“Nobody was cruel to me, not on purpose,” Elias said. “But whenever I attended family gatherings, awkwardness followed me like a stray dog. If Zeb came along, he deposited me among the children, then wandered off to drink with the men and flirt with the ladies.”

“While the rest of us had parents,” Dunstan said, “and siblings, which probably broke your stubborn little heart every time you had to watch us take that for granted. I’m fetching a wee dram for the ladies.”

Or maybe Dunstan needed a moment to compose himself. Elias should have—but he’d worked these sentiments out for himself years ago.

“So nobody knew what to say to you,” Violet said, “and you didn’t know how to ask for what you wanted?”

“I wanted my parents back, of course, and nobody could give me that, so then I wanted the awkwardness to stop.” And Elias wanted this gloomy conversation to be over, so he could get back to verbally thrashing Dunstan.

“Which, I’m guessing,” Jane said around a yawn, “is when your darling little cousins started calling you ‘your lordship.’”

“Among other things.” School had eventually become a refuge, at least for Elias’s intellect.

“I’m sorry for that too,” Dunstan said, setting the whisky bottle next to the brownies. “Consider yourself invited to visit here any time, Elias, and I will buy your plane ticket happily.”

The offer was sincere, and heartwarming. Violet’s silence behind Elias was… not heartwarming.

The talk drifted from there to various topics—the meeting with the bank, the success of Jeannie’s holiday cottage, the difference between practicing law in Scotland and in Maryland. When Jane yawned for the second time, Violet patted Elias’s shoulder.

“I hear my chickens calling me,” Violet said. “Elias, will you take me home?”

Goodnights followed, with Jane hugging Violet hard, and Dunstan bussing her cheek. They liked her, and if the sale to Maitland went through, Elias’s family would try to look after Violet when he’d gone back to Scotland.

Not that Violet would allow them to.

They drove back to her house in Dunstan’s truck, a smoother ride than the hybrid.

“James said something I wanted to pass along to you,” Violet said as they left the lights of the town behind.

James? Ah, the attorney fellow. “Is it bad news or awful news?”

“It’s paperwork, which is never good news,” Violet said. “File a police report on the stolen livestock. Dunstan can help you do it, and insurance might reimburse you.”

Well, likely not. The same caretaker who’d failed to pay the electric bill had also failed to tend to much of anything since the first of the year. The insurance policy was doubtless a casualty of bad management.

“I’ll take care of filing a police report after the meeting tomorrow,” Elias said. “May I say goodnight to the chickens with you?”

“I’d like that.”

While Violet counted her hens, and Elias retrieved Brunhilda from beneath the trough, stars came out. The lightning bugs apparently hadn’t hatched this far out in the valley yet, and the peace of the evening was profound. 

“How bad is the situation with the castle?” Violet asked, as she walked Elias back to the truck.

He understood why Dunstan had dissembled. The situation had been challenging before, but now…

“It’s bloody awful,” Elias said. “Zebedee hired the best, and promised them premium wages for putting his project ahead of others. They all have signed contracts, and are eager to commence work on such a large job. Zeb was often foolish like that, or maybe he knew his time was growing short.”

“Another reason to be unhappy with your family,” Violet said. “Will you be able to sleep tonight, Elias?”

“I’ll dream of you.”

Dunstan had given Elias a look that promised the door to the house would remain unlocked, and Elias had passed at least one late-night pharmacy on the trip from town, but he hadn’t stopped for more condoms.

The afternoon’s lovemaking had been lovely, and devastating, and he couldn’t ask that of Violet again.

“Are you angry with your uncle, Elias?” 

Elias couldn’t see her expression, but he could hear the concern in her voice. “Anger is a part of grief. Try not to be too angry with me if the meeting with the banker doesn’t go well tomorrow, Violet.”

“Let me know how it goes.” She kissed him goodnight, then walked through the darkness to her house. Elias waited until the lights went on, then climbed back into the truck.

An honest self-appraisal of Elias’ s emotional state revealed surprisingly little ire directed toward his uncle. Zebedee had probably sensed his heart trouble growing worse, and known his time to set the castle to rights had been limited.

A bad feeling, when a man’s time grew short, and his heart was increasingly troubled.

“Let me remind you about how this is supposed to work, Derek,” Bonnie said, her words dripping with ire. “When you take the last cup of coffee, and it’s all of 9 a.m., you’re supposed to make a fresh pot.”

The reception area was free of clients, so Max remained at his desk, letting the altercation in the kitchen run its course.

“Don’t get your panties in an uproar, Bonbon,” Derek Hendershot retorted. “So I drank the last of the coffee. You can make more.”

“You can make more,” Bonnie shot back. “You are of age, and thanks to blind chance and your daddy’s money, you survived college and law school, both of which require a passing grade in Java 101. You know how to make a pot of coffee, and if you’ve forgotten, you are literate, and can read all three lines of instructions some underappreciated, overworked admin kindly posted on the wall.”

“Maybe you should read up on perimenopause,” Derek suggested. “Makes women irritable and too hard deal with. There are drugs for it, though, hormones and shit that—what are you doing with the coffee pot, Bonnie? We only have the one, and if you—”

“It’s my coffeemaker,” Bonnie said, “because neither of my bigshot attorney bosses could be troubled to replace the cheap-tastic one that died at Christmas. Possession being nine-tenths of the office policy around here, I’m revoking your caffeine privileges.”

In the ominous beat of silence that followed Bonnie’s decree, Max pushed away from his desk. He picked up the vase of flowers—happy somethings—and marched down the hall to the kitchen.

“Derek, if you have a minute, I’d like to bounce something off of you.” A few quick lefts to the solar plexus, a boot to the rear, and a rabbit punch, for starters.

“I’ll be across the street grabbing a cup of coffee,” Derek said, shooting Bonnie the women-are-crazy look that had been getting men in trouble for eons. “Better company and better coffee.”

He slouched out of the kitchen, hands jammed in his pockets in what was doubtless intended as a blond, blue-eyed, Great Gatsby exit. When the front door had slammed in his wake, Bonnie took the flowers from Max.

“He’s spawn, Max. You are a hardass, entirely lacking in clues, and you’ll be the ruin of this valley, but somebody ought to put Derek in the witness protection program and lose his file.”

She poured the water from the vase, got a knife from a drawer, and cut the flower stems an inch shorter, then refilled the vase, and handed it back to Max, all in the space of a minute.

“Any time you want to file a sexual harassment claim against him, don’t let me stop you,” Max said. “But he does pay half the rent and half of your salary.”

“No, he does not pay half the rent. When I took the checks over to the realty office at the first of the month, the check for Derek’s half was written by Ms. Lila Fortunato. I think our Derek is entering into that phase of masculine stupidity known as the post-divorce light sword display. Throw an aspirin in with these, and they’ll last longer.”

Unease joined the general tension of the day, which was tense enough. “Isn’t Lila the admin at old man Hendershot’s office who was—?”

“Named in Derek’s divorce, much to her boss’s dismay,” Bonnie said. “Gotta love the gossip vine in a small town bar association.”

Actually, Max did appreciate the gossip vine in a small town bar association, though he preferred to call it a network.

“I’m expecting a call from Valley bank,” he said, peeling the coffee-making instructions from the bulletin board. “A very, extremely, sensitive call. It ought to come through on my cell, but if my line rings while I’m across the street, please pick up.”

“I usually do,” Bonnie said, unplugging the coffee maker. “Do I take a message or have the party call you back?”
“The call will be from Ned Hirschman, and you will give him my cell number and tell him I’m waiting to hear from him.” Max had made sure to give Hirschman his cell the last time they’d teed off in the same foursome, but that had been in the fall.

“Are we in trouble, Max?”

We? When it came to business, Max didn’t deal in “we,” and it took him a moment to realize Bonnie wasn’t prying, exactly, she was concerned for him.

“I’m not applying for a line of credit, if that’s what you’re asking. Elias Brodie is meeting with the bank today. Could be he’s opening a business office in the States, and simply wants the bank accounts under his cousin’s watchful eye, or it could be something else altogether. Ned mentioned the meeting to me at the gym last night, and I asked for details.”

Bonnie took the flowers from him and set them on the counter. “I thought a banker was supposed to be the soul of discretion.”

Ned Hirschman’s second wife was twenty years his junior, wanted another kid, and relished the pleasure of being Mrs. Big Fish in a Small Pond. Ned could not afford to be discreet when the largest construction project in the valley might be financed through his institution.

Or not.   

“Ned is simply taking care of business, which I will also do, over a cup of coffee with Derek.”

“Slip him some saltpeter, would you?”

Max did not slip Derek saltpeter. He instead took the chair opposite him in the coffee shop favored by most of the businesses centered around the courthouse. The bondsmen, private investigators, transcription services, and lawyers all ran on caffeine and carbs, and the Chat and Chew had thrived for decades as a result.

“You’re not having anything to drink?” Derek asked.

“Had my two cups for the day.” Rather than gag down the insult to the palate that was decaf, Max switched to water thereafter.

“You’re not human,” Derek said, sipping at something that left foam on his upper lip. He licked it off and set down his cup. “Bonnie will have that coffee pot plugged in and perking by lunchtime if she knows what’s good for her. Speaking of perking, I did you a favor.”

 Derek Hendershot never did anybody any favors, though committing adultery had certainly allowed the former Mrs. Hendershot to depart for Scottish climes with her head held high.

“I don’t ask for favors, Derek, and generally don’t want them or reciprocate them when they come my way.”

“That’s what I mean about not being human, or maybe you were playing with your slide rule when the common sense was handed out. Business runs on favors. I know this because business is in my blood.”

Nepotism was in his blood. Absent his father’s influence, Derek would have little education and less revenue. Daddy Hender-bucks had taken a dim of view Derek fishing off the company dock, though, and Derek had been cut loose to stand on his own two Johnson-and-Murphy shod feet when the marriage had fallen apart.

“So what’s this favor?” Max asked. “A first-rate single-serve coffee maker for the office might restore you to Bonnie’s good graces.”

Derek sneered, but with latte foam on his lip, the effect was comical. “Girl needs to get laid, not that I’m in the pity—”

“Bonnie is an adult, not a girl, and you don’t talk that way about a co-worker in my hearing. I’m in a hurry, so listen up. I could well be moving my office. I’ll know by next week, and the chances are, I’ll turn in a 90-day notice at the end of the month. Plan accordingly, but plan quietly unless you want people to speculate that you’re closing up shop.”

The office lease was in Max’s name, and had gone month-to-month at the first of the year. If the deal went through with Elias Brodie, a much larger space would be needed to serve as project headquarters.

  Though no space Max chose would be large enough to include an office for Derek Hendershot.

“Remind me again why I do you favors,” Derek said. “Your timing sucks, Max. I’m barely getting started as a solo, and you pull this shit? Are your boys in Baltimore ditching you?”

“No, as a matter of fact, and nothing’s final yet. If this deal goes down, it could go down quickly, and you deserve notice.”

“Notice,” Derek said, draining his cup. “Notice that you’re bailing on a guy who’s made your life a lot easier in the past few months. Paid half of everything, no questions; put up with the legal assistant from hell, no complaints. I’m sorry for your troubles, man, but maybe now you’ll see why favors are a good thing. I’ve pretty much guaranteed that Violet Hughes woman won’t be a thorn in your side ever again.”

Of all the grand pronouncements Derek might have made, that one hadn’t been on the list of pronouncements Max might have predicted.

“Violet Hughes merely exercises her rights as a citizen.” She did so at the worst possible times and places, hogging the mike at zoning hearings, rattling off facts and figures that by no means represented the whole land use debate fairly.

But Violet played by the rules, and Derek… Derek merely played.

“Violet Hughes would keep this valley sweating behind a team of stinking draft horses,” Derek replied. “That’s what you said after she trashed your last project at the public hearing stage. You’re not the only person who feels that way.”

Violet Hughes was a problem, of course. Max could and would buy the Hedstrom property, and then came the first major hurdle on the path to developing it: The land had to be rezoned to permit subdivision into residential lots. The risk of buying land speculatively was that the rezoning request could be denied, or take years to resolve.

Expensive, frustrating years while other developers went forward with their projects.

“Land use is always subject to debate,” Max said, “and I have to get back to work. What favor have you done me?”

Derek crumpled up his coffee cup and lobbed it toward the trash receptacle. He missed, and the cup bounced to the floor.

Max waited a moment for Derek to get up and tend to the mess—the business owner hadn’t been born who wasn’t aware of the risks of a slip-and-fall hazard, even trash on the floor—but Derek stayed in his seat and waved to the barista on duty.

“I’ll have another double sweet, double whip, large, babe.”

Her smile should have had Derek backing slowly out the door. “Got it, Mr. Hendershot.”

“I’m outside counsel for Brethren Amalgamated Insurance,” Derek said, getting out his phone. “So happens I met with my clients last week. We came up with list.”

Insurance companies were not among Max’s favorite institutions. Many of them were in the something for nothing business—pay them exorbitant premiums for years on end, and when a claim was filed, they dithered around, denied coverage, or jerked the policy on a technicality.

“Did you check your list twice?”

“Yes, we did,” Derek said. “If you were more of a businessman, you’d know that every prudent organization is always looking to keep itself in a lucrative posture. In a place like Damson Valley, for an insurance company, that means dumping high risk properties and keeping the low risk properties.”

“I still think you should get Bonnie a new coffeemaker,” Max said. “The single-serve version so nobody has to make a fresh pot.”

“Fine. Don’t listen to me, but when good luck comes your way, remember who sent it to you,” Derek said.

Elias Brodie’s late uncle was on the list of people sending good fortune Max’s way—Max hoped—along with Ned Hirschman and a very few others.

“I’d rather earn my luck, Derek. You might give that approach a try yourself.”

“Too much like hard work,” Derek said. “I’d rather work smart.”

The barrista suffered a coughing fit. Max winked at her, picked up Derek’s discarded coffee cup, and tossed it in the trash. He was half-way across the street when his phone rang, the bank’s main number beaming up at him from the screen.

“That went reasonably well,” Dunstan said.

Elias walked along beside him, the morning sunshine and damned chirping birds adding insult to injury.

“I didn’t resort to fisticuffs when you referred to my title, Dunstan, but that doesn’t mean I’ve put the option entirely aside.” The meeting had gone civilly, cordially even, on Mr. Hirschman’s part. It had not gone well.

“Hirschman is a banker,” Dunstan said, in the same tones he might have referred to a Scotsman who rooted for an English football team. “They are the most risk-averse species on the face of the earth, when it comes to their own interests, though it’s not as if he’d be lending you his personal money.”

“He’s concerned with personal influence and with personal money,” Elias said, stepping over a large crack in the sidewalk. “With the much greater money to be made on a hundred home mortgages rather than one farm mortgage. He’s also concerned with his position, with the promotion he’ll likely earn if the development is financed through his bank, and the mortgages are added to his portfolio too.”

Why hadn’t Elias seen this coming? Why had he assumed a small town bank would be interested in holding a relatively low risk note for a large farm? Low risk meant low return, in which few banks were interested anymore.

“He asked the right questions about lending to you,” Dunstan said. “Turn right, if you’re still intent on filing a police report.”

“He was probably sniffing about in hopes of lending to my not-for-profit clients,” Elias said, following the uneven sidewalk down another tree-lined street. “The clients I’m neglecting while I’m dodging kamikaze mosquitos in the jungles of Maryland.”

“What sort of clients, Elias?”

What followed was an oddly comforting business discussion. Dunstan’s law practice was general, though he and Jane each specialized somewhat. Divorces and wills made up a portion of the practice, but so did incorporations, contracts, and civil disputes.

“I had no idea you were even involved in such goings on,” Dunstan said as they approached the police station. “Do you enjoy it?”

Interesting question, which nobody had asked Elias previously. “I enjoy when clients listen to me. They usually pay me exorbitant sums in exchange for what is mostly commonsense advice, then ignore the lot of it, and retain me again a year later to tell them why matters haven’t improved.”

Dunstan held the door to the police station. “Sounds a lot like being a lawyer. At least you’re trying to build something up. We’re often involved in tearing something down—a family, an estate, a business relationship. The criminal defense work is something of an exception, but I always feel as if a social worker on the case ten years previous to my involvement might have spared society and the client a lot of bother.”

The police station had at one time apparently been a train station. The building was long and narrow with ornate plasterwork. After stating their business to a uniformed officer at the front window, Dunstan and Elias were ushered through a door with a coded lock, and then past a bullpen.

“They might have made that ticket area a bit homier,” Elias said. “A potted palm or two, maybe a fern. The glass barriers are a bit off-putting.”

“It’s bullet proof glass, Elias.”

The officer escorting them gave Elias a tolerant look.

The bullpen itself reminded Elias of a corner pub. Work progressed with a hum and bustle, the officers yelled to each other across desks and three-quarter height dividers, a copying machine of venerable size thumped out paper over in one corner.

Elias was unused to seeing guns on display even among law enforcement professionals, while Dunstan was not only at home in this environment, he was apparently welcome.

“Cromarty,” said their escort, “next time you need to file a stolen property report, send Ms. De Luca with the client. She’s good for morale, when we don’t have to deal with her in court.”

“She’s good for my morale too,” Dunstan said, “especially when she has a go at one of your rookies. Sergeant Detwiler, this is my cousin, Elias Brodie. He owns the Hedstrom farm, from which we believe livestock having substantial value has been taken.”

Detwiler was a well-fed, graying specimen who nonetheless looked capable of handling himself well in dark alleys and dim bars. His smile was merry, his eyes watchful.

“You want forms, we got forms,” Detwiler said, cracking a wad of gum. “What we don’t got is a damned pen that works. MacHugh, lend me a pen!”

A pen came sailing through the air, which Detwiler caught with his left hand. “In here, gentlemen,” he said, gesturing to a small conference room. “Make yourself at home and we’ll get you squared away in no time.”

The room was small, windowless, and devoid of decoration. “Do they interrogate suspects here?” Elias asked.

“Very likely,” Dunstan said, taking a chair, “and probably play hearts at lunch time.”

The form was simple to fill out, in part because Elias knew very little about the crime. Detwiler slid into a seat opposite Elias and glanced over the finished product.

“Frederick Mitchell,” Detwiler muttered. “Name rings a bell. That could mean MacHugh dated his sister—MacHugh dates anybody who doesn’t have pending solicitation charges—or it might mean my kid’s third grade teacher was a Mitchell. Fred goddamned Mitchell. Wait here a minute.”

“Uncle Donald would like him,” Elias said, when Detwiler had left the room.

“I respect him,” Dunstan said. “His job isn’t easy, nor is it particularly safe or well paid.”

Being a farmer was less safe. Elias had come across that statistic in his internet travels at some point. The frustration that had followed him from the meeting with the bank resurged, along with a sense of futility.

“They aren’t likely to find my livestock, are they?”

“In all honesty, no. The trail is cold, and livestock are easily moved across state lines.”

Now, Dunstan chose to be honest, now when Elias might have tolerated a ray of optimism in an otherwise rotten morning.

“Have you ever had to tell Jane you’ve failed her?” Too late, Elias realized that the plain, claustrophobic little room bore the quality of a confessional. Sound lay dead between these walls, and the only light was artificial. The day outside might turn to a raging storm, and in this interrogation room, nobody would know.

“Violet knew better than you what you were up against at the bank,” Dunstan said. “I doubt she expected you to walk out with a mortgage closing on your schedule. Why not let the castle crumble to ruins?”

The notion was unthinkable and seductive, both. Elias rose from his chair—the legs of which had been uneven—but the room afforded nowhere to pace.

“Even if I halted work now, I’d owe a fortune in broken contracts, materials on order, permits, wages earned. Jeannie has uprooted her life and Henry’s to manage the business in my absence. The only sensible path is forward.”

“Forward, into enormous debt,” Dunstan said. “What would you tell your clients, Elias? Would you tell them to cut their losses, regroup, and choose the farm over the castle, or to liquidate the farm, and along with it, ruin the hopes of the only woman who’s caught your eye in years?”

“Are you trying to get your face rearranged, Dunstan?”

Dunstan was spared a reply by Detwiler’s return. “I am not losing my marbles, contrary to Mrs. Detwiler’s second worst fears. Fred Mitchell is wanted for non-support. Kid was born last summer, mama was in non-support court within 90 days, and our boy Freddy is racking up arrears. He failed to appear three times, and a bench warrant has been issued. Father of the year, he is not.”

“Any priors?” Dunstan asked.

“DUI, a few years ago, a little too much weed, for which he was given probation. If you own the Hedstrom property, Mr. Brodie, you might want to take a close look around. Never know what might be growing on the back forty.”

“The back forty acres,” Dunstan translated. “Mr. Mitchell might have traded his alpacas for a crop of marijuana.”

“My alpacas,” Elias said, incredulity warring with indignation. “You’re implying he might have grown an illegal crop on my land?”

“I wish I could talk like you guys,” Detwiler said. “Mrs. Detwiler is always reading those books with the headless guys in a kilt on the cover. Don’t go near ‘em myself—my virgin eyes, you know?”

Detwiler wiggled his eyebrows, while Elias wanted to punch a hole in the wall. “Now I’m growing contraband somewhere on an 800-acre farm, which property I cannot mortgage even for pocket change. Perhaps I’ll turn to a life of crime.”

“I don’t recommend it,” Detwiler said as Dunstan stashed a copy of the police report into his brief case. “Decriminalization, you know. Takes all the fun and half the profit out of the business. Getting so an honest criminal can barely make a living.”

Elias could not tell if this lament was in earnest or in jest. “Thank you for your time, officer, and your business advice.”

Detwiler offered a brisk handshake. “Protecting and serving, that’s me. Cromarty, say hi to the missus. We’ll keep an eye out for Mr. Mitchell. FTA on a non-support for a baby less than a year old… guy is a goddamned dopehead sissy.”

On that professional summation, Elias shouldered his backpack and followed Dunstan past the locked door, the bullet-proof glass, and out into the mid-day sun. Thank god for good sunglasses, and a slight breeze.