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“This shit is getting out of control,” Susette said.

“No matter what you do, stay away from those people,” Bullock said.

“For God’s sake, I am,” she said, shaken by the fact that violent fanatics might soon be on her doorstep. “But if the city doesn’t back down they’re going to have blood in the streets.”

Bullock had a more immediate problem to address: Governor Rell’s letter to the city. He was not surprised that the governor had extended the deadline a couple more weeks and was prepared to pump more money into settlements. But he was furious at her fallback position—allowing the holdouts to maintain lifetime use of their properties—but with the titles reverting back to the city at death. “That’s completely unacceptable,” Bullock said. “That’s not true ownership.”

“It sounds like Governor Rell is abandoning us,” Susette said. “Why doesn’t she stand up to the city?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But we’re going after the governor.”

By the time she hung up with Bullock, Susette was late for work. Racing out of her neighborhood she spotted Von Winkle working behind the window in his shop. It was the first time she’d seen him since his son’s murder.

Eager to talk to him, she telephoned him as soon as she reached her office. She figured she’d begin by asking him about the governor’s mediator.

“Albright call you?” she asked.

“No. Did he call you?”

“Nope.”

She told him that Matt Dery and Byron Athenian had settled.

Von Winkle didn’t say much. The swagger in his manner had disappeared, the humor in his voice snuffed out by a bullet.

“I probably can’t do anything for you,” Susette told him. “But I feel really bad, Billy. If you’re going to stay, I’ll stay.”

“You’re not going to drive me crazy today, are you, Red?”

She sensed a faint tone of sarcasm. Boy, she missed the old Billy.

Bullock and Kramer worked up a press release that portrayed the governor as a flip-flopping politician who was abandoning the homeowners at the eleventh hour. Bullock then called the capitol building in Hartford and got Representative Bob Ward, one of the ranking Republican legislators. Ward had come out hard against the Supreme Court decision and had previously called the NLDC stupid. More importantly, he had a direct line to the governor.

Bullock read the merciless press release nailing the governor for abandoning the homeowners and mocking her proposal to give the homeowners lifetime use of their properties. “That’s the legal equivalent of being a serf,” Bullock said.

A practical politician who didn’t want to see a Republican governor take a hit in the national media, Ward clearly got the picture. “Give me two hours,” he told Bullock.

Later that afternoon, Governor Rell revised her position. “I believe strongly that the residents of Fort Trumbull have a right to hold property, to hold the title to that property and to pass that title on to their children,” she wrote in a follow-up letter to Mayor Sabilia.

Bullock agreed to quash the press release. The way had been paved for Susette and the Cristofaros to keep their homes. The governor had made clear her intentions. If the last two holdouts didn’t want to accept the state’s money, their titles should be returned and the city should move forward with its development plans.

Beth Sabilia had been mayor for less than six months. It had been six of the worst months of her life. The pressure stemming from the standoff had engulfed her administration and her personal life. No matter what she did, constituents were screaming at her. The acrimony had gotten so out of hand that Sabilia couldn’t even shop for groceries without being confronted by someone who was furious over the inability to resolve the dispute in Fort Trumbull.

The heat went up a few more degrees when Sabilia read Governor Rell’s second letter in as many days. By going on record with a statement in favor of unconditionally returning the deeds to Susette and the Cristofaros, the governor had sent a clear message to the city: if it