The two men, Smith and Critchfield, weren’t dressed for dinner. They wore heavy coats still glistening from outside snowfall and their cheeks were flushed from the cold. They looked inside the dining room, imploring someone to invite them in, it seemed.
Nate observed what followed as Liv spotted the two men and excused herself with an exasperated smile. She strode toward the two men and walked past them so they had to follow her into the great room and farther from the guests. There was a heated exchange, with Liv refusing something at first and pointing toward the front door as if ordering the dog to go outside, but she soon relented as they continued to gesticulate. She put her hands on her hips and told them to wait where they were for the time being, then reentered the dining room and whispered a long message into Templeton’s ear.
Templeton’s eyes narrowed, but his face gave nothing away. Halfway during the message, he glanced up at Smith and Critchfield and shook his head, then looked away with annoyance. The cacophony in the room never wavered — no one else was paying attention to what was going on. Nate saw that Missy had her eyes averted from Templeton but her head cocked in a way that indicated she could hear everything that was said.
When the message was delivered, Liv paused for a response. Templeton took a deep breath, sighed, and turned toward Missy and had a whispered conversation. Then, with a tiny sour nod, he indicated, Okay.
Liv left him crisply to return to Critchfield and Smith. In a moment, the two men were gone. And when Nate looked across the table, so was Whip. He hadn’t seen him slip away.
When Liv sat back down, her eyes were downcast and there was a concerned set to her face for a moment, but she quickly recovered when one of the locals said something to her.
Nate had no idea what had just happened.
Rocco Biolchini was now into his entrepreneurial phase in the Silicon Valley, where his once-trusted partner was beginning to “put the screws to him” by turning his corporate board and the Wall Street Journal against him…
“You and me, we’re okay, right?” Sheriff Mead asked Nate, while Nate tried to put together all the nonverbal clues as to what had transpired among Smith, Critchfield, Liv, Templeton, Missy, and Whip.
“What?” Nate asked, annoyed by the interruption.
“I mean, what you said after I searched you for weapons. We’re okay, right? After all, we’re all on the same team here.”
“I’m not on anyone’s team.”
Nate didn’t want to engage in conversation with the sheriff. He’d seen the man down four quick glasses of wine and the main course hadn’t even arrived yet. Mead seemed like the type who would just get louder, although even Mead would have trouble out-trumpeting Chief Miller or Biolchini, who was reciting some of the charges his bastard partner’s lawyers had made against him in their first epic legal showdown…
“Excuse me,” Nate said. “I’ll be right back.”
He got up without fanfare and passed the locals, who seemed not to notice he was leaving the room. The din died as he stepped outside onto the front porch and closed the door behind him.
The sky had cleared and the moon now had a halo. Thick bands of stars were brushed across the sky. He could smell the fireplace smoke as the coming low pressure tamped it down. It would be a very cold night.
Smith, Critchfield, and Whip were long gone.
“Are you all right?” Liv asked, startling him. He hadn’t heard her open the door.
“Fine,” he said. “I needed a break. When the air is that thick with bullshit, I have trouble breathing.”
She laughed and said, “I’ve seen worse. Sometimes the locals get completely out of control and we need to drive them into town. They seem more restrained than usual tonight — probably because of Herself.”
Nate grunted.
“It’s probably time to come back in. The steaks are ready to bring out.”
“What happened in there?” he asked her sharply. “What did Templeton agree to?”
She paused. “I really can’t say.”
“Sure you can. It seems like an odd thing to happen during a dinner that supposedly requires mandatory attendance.”
“I told you — I can’t say. I’ve already told you too much about what goes on around here. Besides, I didn’t think you cared.”
“I don’t. But I’m stuck sitting there with the sheriff on one side, Missy on the other, and Biolchini going on and on right across from me. It’s my idea of hell on earth. If anyone’s going to bolt this place, it ought to be me.”
“Oh dear,” she said. Then: “Hold on for a second. Don’t leave. I’ve got to clear something with Mr. T.”
Nate nodded.
When Liv withdrew and closed the door, Nate acted quickly.
He was back on the porch when the door opened again. But instead of Liv, Wolfgang Templeton stepped out on the landing and closed the door behind him.
“It’s going to get cold, isn’t it?” Templeton asked, looking up at the sky as Nate had.
Nate didn’t respond.
“Liv said you saw something going on in there and it bothered you. I thought rather than have her play go-between, we could talk about it briefly ourselves.”
Nate nodded.
“Whip has been with me for a lot of years. There would be problems if I didn’t reach out to him first in an emergency situation. I hope you understand that.”
Nate squinted at Templeton in the dark. Templeton seemed to think Nate was miffed he hadn’t been chosen to go with Smith and Critchfield. Nate let him think it.
“So what’s going on?” Nate asked.
“Just a local problem,” Templeton said with a sigh. “There seems to be more and more of them all the time and they’re making me weary. I despise these situations and I’m frankly sick of dealing with them.”
Templeton spat out the last few words with the kind of vehemence Nate had never experienced in him before.
“When I moved here, this county was like some kind of transplanted backwoods Appalachia,” Templeton said. “The people were lazy, unemployed, and without hope. You’ve never seen so many EBT cards floating around. The responsible citizens were leaving in droves. It touched me and I wanted to help those who stayed, but I had no idea what kind of monster I was creating. They’ve become totally dependent on me for everything. No one has any drive or ambition — they just want to suck on the tit of Wolfgang Templeton.
“At first, I admit, it felt kind of good to be held in such regard. Every man wants to be liked and admired and looked up to. I helped everyone I could — entire families! But by helping them — giving them what they said they needed to survive — I created my own entitlement state. The more I give them, the more they want. They don’t seem capable of solving their own problems anymore, and whenever one comes up, who do they come to? Me!”
Templeton shook his head. “In the most bizarre and unexpected way, I find myself being held hostage to them. If I don’t give them what they ask, I fear they’ll turn on me. On us. They’ll keep our secret as long as the trough is full, but they keep demanding more of me. I can hardly keep up.”
Nate said, “That’s why you brought me on. To double your output.”
“Our output,” Templeton said. “We’re in this together. I thought that by stepping up what I could give them, I could live a more comfortable life without all these constant problems. But it hasn’t worked. In fact, it gets worse every day. And in order to keep up, I have to become less discriminating in the kind of work I accept. I used to turn clients away if what they asked didn’t feel right. But now…”