Immediately after the trial that wasn’t, the court clerk, along with Sheriff Todd Godwin and a handful of deputies, decided to go for an early lunch at a nearby hoagie chain. The mood was celebratory, the clerk bought everyone a cookie, the deputies talked and joked and speculated about how bad the traffic would be on the ride home. Bad in Virginia Beach, at least, which was why none of them lived in Virginia Beach. Once they crossed the Bay Bridge-Tunnel and were back safe on the Eastern Shore, all of the cars would fall away. It was the off-season. Only locals would be driving through.
The hoagie place was a little bit out of the way, but it was reasonably priced and everyone liked the sandwiches. Also, it wasn’t a chain that existed on the Eastern Shore, which made going there seem even more like a special occasion. Appropriately, though nobody commented on it at the time, the name of the place was Firehouse Subs.
A little after noon, they got back in their cars. The lunchtime traffic was bad but not too bad, and they hit the Accomack border some ninety minutes later, and everything was quiet and whatever passions had caused the fires had ended, and nothing was burning anymore.