The Brandt estate was a football field of grass cut even as carpeting and set here and there with lush flower garden enclaves all of it tended by a groundskeeper, a man named Petrov whose son Ivan was in my class at school. A tall wrought-iron fence surrounded the entire property and the only way in was through a gate opening onto a long drive that led to the house. Ornately crafted into the iron of the gate was a great wrought-iron letter B. Two enormous stone pillars flanked the entrance and as I drew up before the gate I saw in the bright moonlight that a word had been spray-painted in black on one of the pillars: Murdrer.
I stood before the gate and stared at that angry misspelling. A can of spray paint lay on the ground not far away. I looked down the street which ran empty through the ghostly light. The houses on the far side were large and sat upon substantial properties though none even began to approach the extent of the Brandt estate. They all stood completely dark.
I continued a hundred yards farther to a place where a big maple grew outside the fence but with some branches that arched over the wrought iron. I laid my bike against the trunk, shinnied up the tree, scooted out along the thickest branch, and dropped into the Brandts’ yard. Across a broad lake of moonlight I raced toward the house that was all white stone and white columns and had been built in the days when New Bremen was young. I veered toward the garage, a converted carriage house. Parked on the drive in front was Karl’s little red sports car.
I did as my mother had asked then I sprinted back to the fence. Without the tree to help me I had some difficulty scaling the wrought iron but I finally made it over and leaped onto my bike and pumped hard toward home.
I hadn’t gone far and was just turning a sharp curve in the road that led downhill toward the main part of town when headlights from an oncoming car blinded me. I swerved quickly and almost fell off my bike. I stopped and the car stopped too. I heard a door open and close. Because of the headlight glare, I couldn’t see who it was. Then Doyle’s big shadow fell over me and I figured I was dead.
“Got a call someone was messing around the Brandt place,” he said. “Why am I not surprised it’s you? Off the bike, Frank, and let’s go.”
I followed Doyle to the back of his cruiser. He opened the trunk and said, “Put your bike in there.” When I’d done what he asked, he pointed toward the passenger side and said, “Get in.”
We continued up the road to the gate of the Brandt mansion where Doyle’s headlights illuminated the graffiti. He looked over at me but said nothing. He got out and picked up the can of spray paint and got back in. He turned his cruiser around and we descended slowly from the Heights. For a long time Doyle said nothing, just drove with his wrist draped over the top of his steering wheel. The radio of his cruiser squawked now and then but he didn’t bother to pick up his mic.
I sat silent beside him, feeling doomed. I saw my father coming down to the jail in the middle of the night in just the way he’d come for Gus and I could already see the look on his face.
At the junction with Main Street, instead of turning toward the town square and the jail, Doyle turned toward the Flats.
He said, “A lot of folks around here, they think the Brandts are kind of big for their britches. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What happened to your sister, it’s got people upset. The Brandt boy, I’m betting he goes scot-free. I’m sorry to say that, Frank, but that’s the way the world works. The rich, they walk on stilts and the rest of us, we just crawl around under them in the dirt. So what do you do? Well, you spray-paint the truth where the world can see it, I guess that’s one thing. Rub their noses a little in the stink of what they’ve done and who they are, huh?” He smiled and laughed quietly.
I thought I hated the Brandts but the way Doyle talked made me feel uncomfortable, like we were both part of some larger darker conspiracy, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that. Still it was better than being taken to jail.
He pulled to a stop in front of our house and we got out and he opened the trunk so I could get my bike. He held up the can of spray paint I’d seen lying near the Brandts’ gate. “I’ll keep this, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Dump it somewhere nobody’ll find it. Frank, this is between you and me, understand? You say a word to anyone, I’ll swear you’re a liar, we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right then. Get some sleep, kid.”
He watched me lean my bicycle against the garage wall and then go quietly in the side door to the kitchen. Before I went upstairs to bed I looked out the front window and he was gone.
29
First thing next morning the sheriff arrived. We were eating breakfast, all of us except my mother who was still in bed. My father answered the front door and the sheriff stepped inside. I got up from the kitchen table and stood in the doorway listening to the two men talk and I could barely breathe.
“We had some vandalism last night out at the Brandt home, Nathan. Somebody spray-painted those folks’ front gate. Wrote Murderer there. Except the vandal wasn’t too bright. Left out an e and spelled it Murdrer. But it’s pretty clear what the intent was.”
“That’s a shame,” my father said.
“I don’t suppose you or your family know anything about it.”
“No. Why would we?”
“Didn’t figure as much but I’ve got to ask. The truth is it could be just about anybody in town. Sentiment against the Brandts is pretty sour these days. By the way, heard you almost lost Ruth last night.”
“Nothing like that. She just took a walk and didn’t tell any of us where she was going. It got a little late and we got a little worried.”
“Ah,” the sheriff said. “Must’ve heard it wrong.” Then he looked past my father into our house the same way he’d looked past me a couple of days earlier. His eyes found me in the kitchen doorway and held on me in a way that made me believe he was certain who the vandal was.
“Is that all, Sheriff?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Just thought you ought to know.”
He left and got into his car and drove away and when I turned back to the kitchen table Jake was sitting there looking at me in the same way the sheriff had. My father returned to the table and Jake didn’t say anything and we finished our breakfast.
Later in our room Jake said, “Murdrer? You couldn’t even spell it right?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I wondered why you went to bed in your pajamas but got up wearing your underwear and T-shirt. You went to the Brandts’ last night, didn’t you?”