The Empire was about to fall. The first cruiser to arrive was Sheriff Carmine Doyles at 8:31 a.m. He came down the access road slow with his lights on but no siren and parked the cruiser broadside across the north portal of the bridge to block any further crossing. He stepped out in his 58-year-old slowness, hand on his utility belt, and took in the scene with the same flat expression my father used to wear at funerals. Mr. Carver, you all right? Sheriff, I'm fine.
The bridge is not. Anybody hurt? Driver took off on foot toward Eagle Ridge. He's heavy and slow. He won't make a mile.
Carmine keyed his radio. Two deputies and a second cruiser turned onto the access road 2 minutes later and picked Cody Reams up at the halfmile marker, sweating and limping. He surrendered without a word. He gave them his commercial driver's license and asked very quietly if he was going to be able to make his daughter's 7th birthday on Saturday. Special agent Larkin Boswell of the EPA arrived at 8:39 a.m. in a Navy bureau windbreaker with two agents from her region 4 criminal enforcement office.
They walked the upstream bank of the creek. They took water samples from three points downstream of the back hollow. They sealed the samples in tamper evident bags with timestamps and witnesses. Pernell Brigham handed them his two years of accumulated documentation. Larkin Boswell read the first page and looked at Pernell with the expression of an agent who had just been handed a federal indictment in a Manila folder.
Mr. Bighgam, sir, I am going to need you in Atlanta for 2 weeks. Ma'am, I have nothing to do for 2 weeks. Ranger Pelum from NC DOT arrived at 8:47 a.m. and immediately closed the bridge to all traffic. He walked the deck with a notebook. He photographed every fracture.
He photographed the Bode truss. He told me very quietly that the bridge was repairable, but that every commercial crossing for the next 90 days had to be off the table while structural engineers stabilized the South Cord. Felicity Athetherton's Channel 13 news crew had been filming since 8:27 a.m. The cameraman had already captured the cracking, the broken decking, the driver's flight on foot, and Sheriff Doyle's arrival. By 8:51 a.m., she had a full reporter stand up at the south portal of the bridge. That was the moment Tessa Hulcom made her last decision of the morning.
She walked across the dirt road from her Range Rover in her tennis whites with her pink visor pulled low and stepped directly in front of Felicity Athetherton's camera. This is a setup. This man, Brennan Carver, sabotaged his own bridge and lured an innocent driver across to make a political point. He has been harassing our community for 2 years. We have evidence.
We have files. We have Felicity, who had been working in Western North Carolina news for 14 years, tilted her head about half an inch. She said in a very polite voice, "Mrs. Hulcom, are you currently the president of the Eagle Ridge Mountain Estates HOA?" "I am. And are you currently married to Roland Hulcom of Hulcom Paving and Excavation?"