That was the wrong thing to say.
"Who's going to fight them if not us?" he demanded. "Would you just abandon Liz and all the other people terrorized by these murderous bastards? We're not just doing this for us! This is our chance to make a difference, to stand up and be counted!"
She'd nodded, raised her hands in acquiescence. She knew better than to press the issue and paint him into a corner If she left him an out, he might eventually take it, might: eventually see that it was the smartest of all possible options and that they could always continue their Quixotic battle from afar.
She shut off her computer, switched off the monitor. The strangest thing, the most unsettling thing, was their temporary alliance with the association. It felt wrong to her. And to Barry, too, she knew. The association had poisoned dogs in town and, intentionally or unintentionally, two children had been killed as well. The sheriff had refused to do anything about it, so families, friends, and neighbors had taken matters into their own hands and staged a rally to draw attention to the problem and intimidate the guilty into giving themselves up. It was a just cause, a moral purpose, and she and Barry and all of their neighbors had only opposed it because they were concerned for their own safety and for the condition of their houses.
They were practicing self-defense, went the rationalization, the most natural and legitimate reaction a human could have. But it did not feel that way to her. It felt as though they were shallow, self-absorbed assholes more concerned about their own real estate values than the lives of other people's children.
She and Barry had participated unwillingly, as a result of a threat, but they had participated nonetheless, and that made them morally culpable. She felt guilty about that, and she wished to Christ that they'd defied the association, that they'd at least attempted to stay neutral by remaining home and sitting it out--even if they'd had to pay a fine. They should not have lent their support or given their tacit approval to anything the association had done.
To her surprise, they were still able to shop at the market in Corban .
Even after all that had happened. It had been a nerve-racking trip for groceries yesterday when they'd made their first post-rally trek into town, and they'd invited Mike and Tina, and the Stewarts' friends Lou and Stacy, to go with them in case there was trouble, but neither the clerk at the checkout stand nor the store's two other customers had said a word. They'd bought enough groceries for the next two weeks with no problem.
Perhaps the sheriff's deputy stationed by the cash register had something to do with it.
Even if it was only Wally Addison.
They were already making contingency plans, though. Mule Park was the closest town to Corban , and while it was forty miles to the south, they could easily make the trip there and back in the space of a morning and stock up enough food and necessities for a month. The people of Corban had to be resentful of Bonita Vista residents and of the sheriff's obvious partiality, and it was only a matter of time before that resentment bubbled up and boiled over.
She stared at the blank monitor and found herself wondering if she and Barry weren't barking up the wrong tree by attributing everything to the homeowners' association. It seemed to her that Hitman was the real power behind the throne. He was the one straddling the two communities, enforcing the laws as he saw fit, allowing Bonita Vista to run roughshod over the town. He could have--and should have--sided with the families of the victims and investigated the poisonings and brought the perpetrators up on charges, but instead he'd ignored the situation, allowed it to fester, and when people had tried to take the law into their own hands, he'd reasserted his authority, allowing them to be beaten by the volunteers before he had them arrested. Now he'd stationed a deputy at the market to ensure that Bonita Vistans could purchase groceries and assigned another deputy to guard the gas station and make sure they were unmolested and able to buy gas.
It was as if the sheriff had declared martial law in Corban , and it occurred to her that he could have accomplished all of this without the association.
That was wishful thinking, though. The sheriff was just a pawn. He was the muscle. The association was the brains.
No, he was not even the muscle. Or not all of it. She remembered those shirtless volunteers with their missing fingers and hands and ears beating the hell out of local farmers and ranchers, using the Corbanites' own weapons against them, and she shivered.
Hitman might be keeping Corban safe for Bonita Vista residents, but Barry had not returned to his office. Not yet. For all they knew, it had been ransacked and vandalized, his computer smashed, but he was not ready to see for himself. His landlord and his old pals from the coffee shop had been in the forefront of the skirmish at the gate, and it did not seem prudent to provoke them.
He'd write on her computer for a while, Barry told her. He'd go back, pick up his equipment, and clear out his office after the furor died down a bit.
Mike was still working at the Cablevision office, and his friend Lou at the telephone company, but it was tense, they said. Several Bonita Vistans worked in town, and Maureen wondered how the rest of them were handling it. No doubt there'd be more than a few fights during breaks and lunches as tensions spilled over, and she just prayed that no one got seriously hurt.
She looked out the window, saw green pines against a clear blue sky.
God, she wished that they'd never driven through Utah, never found this place.
She stood, left her office, and walked upstairs to where Barry was lying on the couch watching a political talk show. On the coffee table beside him was the pen he'd planned to use to jot down notes for a new novel, and a spiral notebook turned to an empty first page.
"Doesn't look like you got much done," she said. "My brain's not working."
"I'm not working either. No one wants my e-services. Want to sit here with me and watch some BVTV?" "Very funny," Barry said. "Very funny."
They went to bed early, both of them tired and fatigued not from any physical exertion but from stress.
They were awakened in the middle of the night by banging, thumping, and heavy scraping that sounded as though furniture was being moved. The bedroom door was closed, but from underneath the door shone a strip of yellow light. Someone was upstairs.
Maureen sat up quickly, looking into Barry's face and seeing there an expression that mirrored the way she felt. "What do you think they want?" she whispered.
Who do you think it is? was what she'd originally intended to ask, but she already knew the answer to that and so did he. These weren't burglars who had broken into their home. And while she didn't know the specific identity of the individuals who were searching the house, she knew what they represented, she knew where they were from.
The homeowners' association.
"I'm going to find out," Barry said grimly. He threw the covers off, grabbed his bathrobe, and angrily opened the bedroom door.
She quickly picked up her own bathrobe and put it on over her nightgown, and the two of them walked into the lighted hallway and up the stairs to the living room.
They should have brought along some type of weapon, she thought. A
heavy blunt object. Just in case it was a prowler. But their first instincts had been correct. The man who stood in the center of the well-lit room, smiling at them, was obviously not a criminal. He looked more like a stockbroker.
"Sorry to disturb you," the man said cheerfully. "We were trying to be quiet."
There were five men all together, each of them dressed in identical business suits, each with a pen and clipboard. Two of them were in the living room, reading the titles of books on the bookshelf, examining the artwork on the walls. The three others were upstairs in the kitchen, loudly opening cupboards and digging through drawers.