By May, Bridget had submitted three more health-department complaints. One about a concerning amount of livestock activity near her property line. One about uncertified well-water runoff. And one about the aesthetic impact of a hay barn I had built in 1987 with my father. All three dismissed. The complaints were starting to look less like complaints and more like a paper trail Bridget was building for something else.
In late July, Celine Wickersham filed a request with the Bourbon County Tourism Office for wedding-venue accreditation of a parcel that did not belong to her client. The request was denied. Celineโs name was added to a list that weeks later would prove to be very useful in court.
In late August, I drove down to a livestock auction in Louisville to bid on six replacement heifers. My daughter Eliza came over from her school to have dinner with me at a steakhouse on Bardstown Road. We talked about a boy named Andrew she was thinking about marrying. I tried to listen without making the face fathers make.
I drove back on Sunday evening through soft slanted September light that made the hay rolls in every passing field look bronze. I made the turn onto Caldwell Lane at 6:45 p.m. There were six unmarked trailers parked along the gravel shoulder of my west field. Two crews of men in matching navy polos were unloading aluminum tent poles from the back of a flatbed.
A diesel generator was humming behind the gazebo I had built for Maggieโs fiftieth birthday in 2018. A man in a yellow vest was driving an auger into my pasture to set what appeared to be the foundation for a wooden dance floor. Strings of unlit fairy lights lay coiled in plastic bins. A florist truck idled by the gate with the back doors open and a refrigeration unit running.
I pulled the pickup onto the shoulder. I rolled the window down. I did not get out. I took a slow breath. I let the muscles in my forearms unclench one at a time, the way the army taught me to do before I was about to do something I would later be questioned about.
A crew foreman jogged over. He was sweating and friendly. โSir, this laneโs closed for the next six days. Weโve got a private event set up in progress.โ โIs that so?โ โYes, sir. Wedding next Saturday. Permit and everything.โ โWhose permit?โ
He pulled out a laminated card from a clipboard. He showed it to me through the truck window. It read Temporary Event Permit, Bourbon County. Venue: Caldwell Family Farm, West Pasture. Approved. Venue operator: Wyatt Caldwell. Approval: T. Pickerel, Zoning.