At first they were barely audible.
Then one of the armed men heard them.
His head snapped toward the road.
“Chief.”
Mercer pretended not to hear him.
“Chief, we need to go.”
Another man tried the gate again.
“Open it!”
I watched through the security glass as Mercer’s confidence began breaking into smaller pieces.
“Nobody runs,” he told them.
That made several of them stare at him.
They had arrived believing his badge would protect them.
Now they were realizing his badge might be the reason every decision they had made tonight would receive unusual attention.
One man lowered his weapon first.
Mercer saw him.
“Pick that up.”
The man shook his head.
“You said we were coming here to scare somebody.
You didn’t say there were cameras everywhere.”
Lila looked toward me from behind the wall.
I saw the question in her face.
Did they really think that made it better?
I gave her the smallest shake of my head.
No.
The sirens grew louder.
Mercer stepped off the porch and faced his men.
“Listen to me.
I’m the chief of police.
This is under control.”
That sentence did exactly the opposite of what he intended.
One of the men backed away from him.
“Then why are cops coming?”
Mercer had no answer.
Red and blue light began flashing against the trees beyond the gate.
Several vehicles stopped outside the property.
Commands came from the road, amplified and unmistakable.
Weapons down.
Hands visible.
Move away from the vehicles.
For the first time all night, Chief Mercer obeyed someone else.
Slowly, carefully, he lifted his hands.
His men followed at different speeds.
One hesitated long enough to make everyone tense, then placed his weapon on the gravel and stepped back.
Nobody fired.
Nobody needed to.
That was important.
Mercer had come to my home carrying the possibility of violence.
I had no intention of giving him the violence he could later use to muddy the story.
I wanted the truth clean.
The gate was opened only after the responding officers had secured the people outside.
I kept Lila inside while Mercer and the others were separated, searched and questioned.
The men who had arrived together suddenly stopped behaving like a group.
That happens quickly when loyalty meets consequences.
One claimed Mercer had told him there was a family dispute.
Another said he had been told someone had threatened the chief’s son.
A third admitted they had come to “put fear” into me.
