Donna herself was standing very still, her clipboard at her side, her face a careful arrangement of expressions that did not quite settle into any of them.
Finch turned to her and asked, in the most professionally neutral tone he could manage, whether she had been aware of the water access agreement before calling law enforcement this morning.
Donna said that she had acted in the best interests of the community.
Finch said that was not what he had asked.
There was a pause that lasted several seconds. Donna said she had not had time to review all of the historical documents. Finch nodded. He did not say anything else. He did not need to.
Whatever composure Donna Marsh had assembled around herself began to come apart, not all at once, but in pieces—the way a wall comes apart after the mortar has dried out: one section holding while another crumbles, and then the weight shifts, and the next section goes. She had come to that property that morning carrying absolute certainty, and absolute certainty is a comfortable thing to carry until the moment it isn't, and then it becomes a burden unlike any other because you have already spent it. She still had her clipboard. She still had her official title. But the authority she had assumed those things granted her had evaporated in the last 30 minutes, and everyone present could see it, and that made it worse.
She demanded that Deputy Wallace take action. She said that Raymond had still not restored the water, that the community was being harmed, that something needed to be done.
Wallace said that the well was private and the shutoff was legal, and that there was no action to take against the property owner.