8.
THE TWENTY-EIGHTH OF OCTOBER, 2017, Millbrook, New York, at six in the evening, Patrick Brashner stood on his terrace. He was a short man in his mid-fifties, not fat, but with the physique of a pipe, arms too long for his body. The mansion behind him was shaped like a Stealth Bomber, the cockpit the mansion’s entrance and its fuselage fanning out behind fir trees, opening onto a terrace and then a manicured lawn, a large swimming pool, and tall green hedgerows. Preparations for a dinner party were in progress, caterers bustling about, spreading linen and silver cutlery on dinner tables on the lawn, the scent of wealth in the air, wafting over the scene from the estate’s thirty acres of fields and trees. The grounds were screened by trees along the Millbrook town road, a half mile away,
