“Irv, please, calm down,” Sigrid says, but he doesn’t calm down, because he feels not only rage but a burning and righteous indignation. She might have raised her voice, but she can’t deny that he’s justified in feeling this way. The only consolation, as she listens to his diatribe, is that he probably won’t shoot Marcus while he’s yelling. Americans have always preferred separating their talking from their violence; it seems to be a sequential thing with them.
Eventually Irv regains a measure of control. The calm is not necessarily comforting. He may not want to shoot Marcus, but he’s unlikely to risk his own life to prevent it. What he says next she believes:
“Marcus,” Irv says from behind the tree. “I will not let you point that at me. So help me God, if you do, I will draw on you. When I became sheriff I spent hours in front of the mirror learning to quick-draw. So know two things. First, I am very, very fast on the draw. And second, I am a terrible shot because I never pulled the trigger. So if you think I’m going to shoot the gun out of your hand or put one in your knee, you’re wrong. You point that at me, I will go for center of mass and let the chips fall where they may. And if by some chance I don’t hit you, there are six guys behind me who will pepper you until you are dead, and all they do is shoot things. They will not miss. Do you understand me?”
Sigrid has been standing at the edge of the water, and from her angle she can see most of Irv behind the tree. She can also see Marcus on his rock, his feet still in the water, the pistol between his legs hanging in his right hand as limply as a sandwich that has lost its appeal but has nowhere to go.
“I understand you,” Marcus answers quietly.
“So throw the gun into the water and throw it far so I can see it fly and watch the splash. If you are very, very lucky and very, very convincing, I might—and I mean might—pretend I didn’t see it.”
“No,” Marcus says. “I don’t think I will.”
Irv momentarily emerges from behind the tree and he hurls something into the air. As it arcs toward Marcus she hears him yell, “I even brought you a goddamned muffin!”
Irv’s toss belies his claims about not being a good shot, because it smacks Marcus in the side of the face and bounces off into the water, where it is immediately devoured by a dozen quacking, snapping, and flapping ducks. Marcus doesn’t flinch.
Irv removes his radio from his belt and calls Alfonzo. He explains how there is now a “situation” and he and his men should surround them at a distance and make sure they have a clear shot at Marcus in case events go pear-shaped.
From his angle behind the tree, Irv cannot see Marcus. But he can watch Sigrid. He studies her face the way an infant watches a parent to know what to feel. What he sees is a woman who does not know what to do. He has known her for less than a week, but even so he sees it as an expression that rests uncomfortably on her face. Her eyes and body seem purposeless. She stands there, disassembled.
As all three wait for something to change, the sunlight continues to shift through the canopy. The wind arrives as heat against their necks. It pushes away the breathable air.
Irv looks at the water, as pure and cold as runoff from a glacier.
Hatless and annoyed that he doesn’t have any new ideas, Irv decides to repeat the old one: “Throw the gun in the water, Marcus, for the love of God. If for no other reason than to let me have a drink,” yells Irv. “How do you think this is going to end?”
“I think we all know how it’s going to end,” Marcus says.
“What does that mean?” Sigrid says in Norwegian.
“You know what needs to happen,” he answers.
“What are you two going on about?” Irv yells.
“He wants you to shoot him,” Sigrid says.
“You had better think of something fast, Sigrid. Because while I don’t want to shoot him, I might be the last person who doesn’t and I’m feeling mighty lonely about it.”
Melinda pulls up to First Baptist in her squad car, parks by a lamppost, and dodges puddles in the parking lot, sizzling in the midday sun like tidal pools. There is a rank smell floating up from the parking lot from last night’s rain.
Twenty feet away, out of the pitch-black entrance of the church’s open door marches Reverend Green. He approaches and shakes her hand. He wears a cordial smile and smells like an amber cologne.
“Why are we meeting again, Deputy?” the reverend asks her.
“Sir, Sheriff Wylie has a few questions he wanted me to ask you as a follow-up to your meeting the other night, and he also wondered if you might accompany me to the crime scene, where we might have a chance to talk about what happened. He’s really hoping that the facts of the case might do something to break through the problems we’re all facing.”
“What do you mean by ‘what happened’?” he says, his voice flat.
“To Dr. Jones, sir.”
“And you think the facts are going to help us break through the
