The Glass Village

They sat on the Shinn porch that night and watched the arrival of Coroner Barnwell. They watched the coroner’s excited gestures, the eddy of villagers, the arrival of the Comfort undertaker’s truck, the departure of Fanny Adams’s remains. With the crickets shrilling, the peepers roaring, the mosquitoes humming, the millers and beetles cracking against Shinn Corners’s sole street light, outside Peter Berry’s store, the weird performance on the village streets that night was played to fitting music. Through it all the Hemus twins flitted about the church grounds like spirits of darkness, each armed with a shotgun. One patrolled the front yard of the church, the other guarded the rear.

When, at ten o’clock, the Cudbury County coroner strode from the Town Hall to the intersection and began to cross Shinn Road to his parked car, Judge Shinn called softly.

“Barnwell, come up here a moment.”

The heavy figure looked startled. Barnwell hurried over the green and across the Judge’s lawn. “I thought they’d strung you up or something, Judge Shinn! What the devil’s come over this one-horse agglomeration of two-footed he- and she-asses?”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. Sit down, Barnwell. By the way, meet a young cousin of mine, John Shinn.”

“Heard the Judge had a long-lost relative floating around town.” Coroner Barnwell groped for Johnny’s hand and wrung it. “Fine mess you’ve stepped into. Judge, what’s going on in Shinn Corners? Do you know they won’t give up this fellow Kowalczyk? Won’t give him up!” The coroner sounded baffled. “Why?”

“I’m afraid there are a great many reasons, all pretty complicated,” sighed Judge Shinn, “but the only fact that need concern us at the moment, Barnwell, is the fact of their refusal. What happened over at Town Hall? Did you have a coroner’s jury?”

“Yes, and they brought in a perfectly proper finding from the testimony and evidence. Kowalczyk obviously must be held for arraignment. But then they handed me my hat and politely asked me to get the hell out of Shinn Corners. I’m still flabbergasted. Of course, I’ll run these local yokels of yours clean back to their primitive privies as soon as I can get some cops down here—”

“That’s exactly what I wish you wouldn’t do, Barnwell. Not right away, anyway.”

“Why not?” The coroner was astonished.

“Because there’ll be a heap of trouble.”

“Who cares!” said Barnwell violently.

“I care,” said the Judge. “And so, I think, Barnwell, will you. I’m not exaggerating the danger. There’s real trouble ahead. Ask an outsider’s opinion. Johnny’s an ex-Intelligence officer, a trouble-shooter of experience! Johnny, what do you think?”

“I think,” said Johnny, “that to bring armed men into this village in its present frame of mind — any armed men, Coroner Barnwell — is to invite a nastier mess than anything New England’s seen since Daniel Shays’s rebellion.”

“Well, I swan to Marthy,” said Barnwell sardonically, “I do believe you two picklepusses are serious. I’ll tell you, Judge. I’ve got my duty, too, though it’s hardly my place to remind you of it, since in our beloved state county coroners are appointed by the judges of the Superior Court, on whose altitudinous bench you’ve parked your fanny with such distinction for so long. In other words, Judge, you share the awful responsibility of my appointment. Consequently, you have a vested ethical interest in seeing that I carry out my duties faithfully and to the last jot and tittle of the law. My duty is to secure custody of the accused, Josef Kowalczyk, and see him lodged in the sacred precincts of our county jail, where the sonofabitch belongs. I’m not going to do it personally; I’m far too sinister for that. Me, I’m going to toss this squishy little old punkin into the mitts of those whose duty in turn it is to assist me in performing mine — to wit, the police power. Rebellion!” Barnwell tramped off the porch, snickering. “Go to bed and sleep it off,” he called back; and he drove off up Shinn Road towards Cudbury with a flirt of his exhaust.