I nodded my thanks and strolled out.
The calypso band was still playing—with more enthusiasm than skill, but the crowd seemed to be enjoying them. Or maybe they just enjoyed having a place to sit that was out of the sun—the Shiffley Construction Company had installed dozens of new, sturdy wooden benches in a semicircle around the front side of the bandstand, and hung giant tarpaulins over them, turning the whole place into a much more usable event space. Every bench was filled, and there were even a few people standing at the back or along the sides, braving the blistering sun to hear the concert. The Fourth of July decorations had turned out well. The bandstand’s ornate Victorian wooden fretwork had been freshly painted so that it looked more than ever like a giant wedding cake, and it was so festooned with flags and red, white, and blue bunting that even the old-timers who hung out at the VFW hall allowed that the new mayor had done the town proud this year.
I glanced over at the courthouse. Normally it, too, would be decorated for the upcoming holiday with multiple flags and several square miles of bunting, but the new occupant didn’t go in for holiday frills. A tour group was clustered on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, listening to their leader, who was standing on the third or fourth step of the wide marble stairs leading up the front of the building. And predictably, on the veranda at the top of the stairs stood two uniformed guards—part of the force hired by the lender to patrol the vacant courthouse.
I sighed. I knew the guards would remain there, glaring down at the tour group until it moved on. Did they suspect the tourists of some evil intentions?
Or were they just hot and cranky about having to wear an outfit more suited to a Chicago winter than a Virginia summer, and taking it out by glaring at the tourists? The dark blue uniforms were long-sleeved, high-necked, and decorated on collar and cuff with a glitzy bright red lightning bolt. We’d thought they were ridiculous even before one of Michael’s film students pointed out the strong resemblance between the guards’ uniforms and those worn by the Flying Monkeys in the movie of The Wizard of Oz.
Of course, they might not know we’d started referring to them as “the Flying Monkeys.” I wasn’t about to ask.
The guards glared on. Maybe they were afraid the locals would infiltrate the tour groups in the hope of sneaking inside the building to resupply Mr. Throckmorton. I had to smile at the image of a group of tourists, posing in front of the barricade for a group photo, while behind them a rebel sympathizer tried to slip bits of food through the barricade.
Which wouldn’t be all that easy to do—the barricade was pretty formidable. In fact, it was actually two barricades.
Last year, after our creditor had seized the buildings, they hadn’t noticed for two weeks that Mr. Throckmorton had locked himself in the basement. For that matter, it was at least a week before anyone else in town noticed either. But once the lender realized it had a stubborn squatter in residence, its staff took action.
They battered down the basement door, only to find that Mr. Throckmorton had erected an inner barricade of six-by-six-inch landscape timbers. When they took a chainsaw to one of the timbers they discovered that he’d drilled holes in the timbers and threaded inch-thick iron bars through them. At that point they gave up. They covered the outside of his barricade with chicken wire and erected their own external barricade, a flimsy affair of one by sixes nailed in place.
Mr. Throckmorton’s barricade was solid except for a few places where he’d put spacers to leave chinks an inch tall by a few inches wide—I assumed for ventilation. A well-intentioned visitor might be able to slip a few grapes or cherries through the chinks, or maybe a hot dog minus the bun. Anything larger would be impossible.
Not that they were letting tourists into the courthouse, much less down in the basement where the barricade was. The Evil Lender had originally tried to block off all access to the town square, to tourists and locals alike, but Judge Jane Shiffley had ruled that the streets and the town square were public property, and the appeals court in Richmond had upheld her ruling. So all the guards could do was frown menacingly at passersby, in the hope of scaring them away.
Far from scaring anybody away, the guards’ presence had inspired the residents with a keen new interest in enjoying the town’s public spaces. Weather permitting, the sidewalk in front of the courthouse normally teemed with people walking, power walking, dog walking, jogging, carrying on animated conversations with friends, playing musical instruments, singing (either with the instruments or a cappella), sunning themselves on the benches—and, of course, wishing the guards a good morning, afternoon, or evening, and offering them cookies and glasses of iced tea or lemonade.