JESUS OF FIRE COMING 31

The three men crammed into the cab of the rumbling Public Works truck looked at this cryptic message with some wonder. It had been painted on the storage building behind the WCIK studios, black on red and in letters so large they covered almost the entire surface.

The man in the middle was Roger Killian, the chicken farmer with the bullet-headed brood. He turned to Stewart Bowie, who was behind the wheel of the truck. “What’s it mean, Stewie?”

It was Fern Bowie who answered. “It means that goddam Phil Bushey’s crazier than ever, that’s what it means.” He opened the truck’s glove compartment, removed a pair of greasy work gloves, and revealed

a.38 revolver. He checked the loads, then snapped the cylinder back into place with a flick of his wrist and

jammed the pistol in his belt.

“You know, Fernie,” Stewart said, “that is a goddam good way to blow your babymakers off.”

“Don’t you worry about me, worry about him, ” Fern said, pointing back at the studio. From it the faint sound of gospel music drifted to them. “He’s been gettin high on his own supply for most of a year now, and he’s about as reliable as nitroglycerine.”

“Phil likes people to call him The Chef now,” Roger Killian said. They had first pulled up outside the studio and Stewart had honked the PW truck’s big horn—not once but several times. Phil Bushey had not come out. He might be in there hiding; he might be wandering in the woods behind the station; it was even possible, Stewart thought, that he was in the lab. Paranoid. Dangerous. Which still didn’t make the gun a good idea. He leaned over, plucked it from Fern’s belt, and tucked it under the driver’s seat.

“Hey!” Fern cried.

“You’re not firing a gun in there,” Stewart said. “You’re apt to blow us all to the moon.” And to Roger, he said: “When’s the last time you saw that scrawny motherfucker?”

Roger mulled it over. “Been four weeks, at least—since the last big shipment out of town. When we had that big Chinook helicopter come in.” He pronounced it Shinoook. Rommie Burpee would have understood.

Stewart considered. Not good. If Bushey was in the woods, that was all right. If he was cowering in the studio, paranoid and thinking they were Feds, probably still no problem … unless he decided to come out shooting, that was.

If he was in the storage building, though … that might be a problem. Stewart said to his brother, “There’s some goodsize junks of wood in the back of the truck. Get you one of those. If Phil shows and starts cuttin up rough, clock im one.” “What if he has a gun?” Roger asked, quite reasonably.

“He won’t,” Stewart said. And although he wasn’t actually sure of this, he had his orders: two tanks of propane, to be delivered to the hospital posthaste. And we’re going to move the rest of it out of there as soon as we can, Big Jim had said. We’re officially out of the meth business.

That was something of a relief; when they were shut of this Dome thing, Stewart intended to get out of the funeral business, too. Move someplace warm, like Jamaica or Barbados. He never wanted to see another dead body. But he didn’t want to be the one who told “Chef” Bushey they were closing down, and he had informed Big Jim of that.

Let me worry about The Chef, Big Jim had said.

Stewart drove the big orange truck around the building and backed it up to the rear doors. He left the engine idling to run the winch and the hoist.

“Lookit that,” Roger Killian marveled. He was staring into the west, where the sun was going down in a troubling red smear. Soon it would sink below the great black smudge left by the woods-fire and be blotted out in a dirty eclipse. “Don’t that just beat the dickens.”

“Quit gawking,” Stewart said. “I want to do this and get gone. Fernie, get you a junk. Pick out a good one.”

Fern climbed over the hoist and picked out a leftover piece of planking about as long as a baseball bat. He held it in both hands and gave it an experimental swish. “This’ll do,” he said.

“Baskin-Robbins,” Roger said dreamily. He was still shading his eyes and squinting west. The squint was not a good look for him; it made him resemble a fairy-tale troll.

Stewart paused while unlocking the back door, a complicated process that involved a touchpad and two locks. “What are you pissing about?”

“Thirty-one flavors,” Roger said. He smiled, revealing a rotting set of teeth that had never been visited by Joe Boxer or probably any dentist.

Stewart had no idea what Roger was talking about, but his brother did. “Don’t think that’s an ice cream ad on the side of the buildin,” Fern said. “Unless there’s Baskin-Robbins in the book of Revelations.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Stewart said. “Fernie, stand ready with that junk.” He pushed the door open and peered in. “Phil?”

“Call im Chef,” Roger advised. “Like that nigger cook on South Park. That’s what he likes.”

“Chef?” Stewart called. “You in there, Chef?”

No answer. Stewart fumbled into the gloom, half expecting his hand to be seized at any moment, and found the light switch. He turned it on, revealing a room that stretched about three-quarters the length of the storage building. The walls were unfinished bare wood, the spaces between the laths stuffed with pink foam insulation. The room was almost filled with LP gas tanks and canisters of all sizes and brands. He had no idea how many there were in all, but if forced to guess, he would have said between four and six hundred.

Stewart walked slowly up the center aisle, peering at the stenciling on the tanks. Big Jim had told him exactly which ones to take, had said they’d be near the back, and by God, they were. He stopped at the five municipal-size tanks with CR HOSPon the side. They were between tanks that had been filched from the post office and some with MILL MIDDLE SCHOOL on the sides.

“We’re supposed to take two,” he said to Roger. “Bring the chain and we’ll hook em up. Fernie, go you down there and try that door to the lab. If it ain’t locked, lock it.” He tossed Fern his key ring.

Fern could have done without this chore, but he was an obedient brother. He walked down the aisle between the piles of propane tanks. They ended ten feet from the door—and the door, he saw with a sinking heart, was standing ajar. Behind him he heard the clank of the chain, then the whine of the winch and the low clatter of the first tank being dragged back to the truck. It sounded far away, especially when he imagined The Chef crouching on the other side of that door, red-eyed and crazy. All smoked up and toting a TEC-9.

“Chef?” he asked. “You here, buddy?”

No answer. And although he had no business doing so—was probably crazy himself for doing so— curiosity got the better of him and he used his makeshift club to push open the door.

The fluorescents in the lab were on, but otherwise this part of the Christ Is King storage building looked empty. The twenty or so cook-ers—big electric grills, each hooked to its own exhaust fan and propane canister—were off. The pots, beakers, and expensive flasks were all on their shelves. The place stank (always had, always would, Fern thought), but the floor was swept and there was no sign of disarray. On one wall was a Rennie’s Used Cars calendar, still turned to August. Probably when the motherfucker finished losing touch with reality, Fern thought. Just flooaated away. He ventured a little farther into the lab. It had made them all rich men, but he had never liked it. It smelled too much like the funeral parlor’s downstairs prep room.

One corner had been partitioned off with a heavy steel panel. There was a door in the middle of it. This, Fern knew, was where The Chef’s product was stored, long-glass crystal meth put up not in gallon Baggies but in Hefty garbage bags. Not shitglass, either. No tweeker scruffing the streets of New York or Los Angeles in search of a fix would have been able to credit such stocks. When the place was full, it held enough to supply the entire United States for months, perhaps even a year.

Why did Big Jim let him make so fucking much? Fern wondered.And why did we go along? What were we thinking of? He could come up with no answer to this question but the obvious one: because they could. The combination of Bushey’s genius and all those cheap Chinese ingredients had intoxicated them. Also, it funded the CIK Corporation, which was doing God’s work all up and down the East Coast. When anyone questioned, Big Jim always pointed this out. And he would quote scripture: For the laborer is worthy of his hire—Gospel of Luke—and Thou shalt not muzzle the ox while he is threshing—First Timothy.

Fern had never really gotten that one about the oxes.

“Chef?” Advancing in a little farther still. “Goodbuddy?”

Nothing. He looked up and saw galleries of bare wood running along two sides of the building. These were being used for storage, and the contents of the cartons stacked there would have interested the FBI, the FDA, and the ATF a great deal. No one was up there, but Fern spied something he thought was new: white cord running along the railings of both galleries, affixed to the wood by heavy staples. An electrical cord? Running to what? Had that nutball put more cookers up there? If so, Fern didn’t see them. The cord looked too thick to be powering just a simple appliance, like a TV or a ra—

“Fern!” Stewart cried, making him jump. “If he ain’t there, come on and help us! I want to get out of here! They said there’s gonna be an update on TV at six and I want to see if they’ve figured anything out!”

In Chester’s Mill, “they” had more and more come to mean anything or anyone in the world beyond the town’s borders.

Fern went, not looking over the door and thus not seeing what the new electrical cords were attached to: a large brick of white clay-like stuff sitting on its own little shelf. It was explosive.

The Chef’s own recipe.

As they drove back toward town, Roger said: “Halloween. That’s a thirty-one, too.”

“You’re a regular fund of information,” Stewart said.

Roger tapped the side of his unfortunately shaped head. “I store it up,” he said. “I don’t do it on purpose. It’s just a knack.”

Stewart thought: Jamaica. Or Barbados. Somewhere warm, for sure. As soon as the Dome lets go. I never want to see another Killian. Or anyone from this town.

“There’s also thirty-one cards in a deck,” Roger said.

Fern stared at him. “What the fuck are you—”

“Just kiddin, just kiddin with you,” Roger said, and burst into a terrifying shriek of laughter that hurt Stewart’s head.

They were coming up on the hospital now. Stewart saw a gray Ford Taurus pulling out of Catherine Russell.

“Hey, that’s Dr. Rusty,” Fern said. “Bet he’ll be glad to get this stuff. Give im a toot, Stewie.”

Stewart gave im a toot.

When the Godless ones were gone, Chef Bushey finally let go of the garage door opener he’d been holding. He had been watching the Bowie brothers and Roger Killian from the window in the studio men’s room. His thumb had been on the button the whole time they were in the storage barn, rummaging around in his stuff. If they had come out with product, he would have pushed the button and blown the whole works sky-high.

“It’s in your hands, my Jesus,” he had muttered. “Like we used to say when we were kids, I don’t wanna but I will.”

And Jesus handled it. Chef had a feeling He would when he heard George Dow and the Gospel-Tones come over the sat-feed, singing “God, How You Care for Me,” and it was a true feeling, a true Sign from Above. They hadn’t come for long glass but for two piddling tanks of LP.

He watched them drive away, then shambled down the path between the back of the studio and the combination lab–storage facility. It was his building now, his long-glass, at least until Jesus came and took it all for his own.

Maybe Halloween.

Maybe earlier.

It was a lot to think about, and thinking was easier these days when he was smoked up.

Much easier.

Julia sipped her small tot of whiskey, making it last, but the women cops slugged theirs like heroes. It wasn’t enough to make them drunk, but it loosened their tongues.

“Fact is, I’m horrified,” Jackie Wettington said. She was looking down, playing with her empty juice glass, but when Piper offered her another splash, she shook her head. “It never would have happened if Duke was still alive. That’s what I keep coming back to. Even if he had reason to believe Barbara had murdered his wife, he would’ve followed due process. That’s just how he was. And allowing the father of a victim to go down to the Coop and confront the perp? Never. ” Linda was nodding agreement. “It makes me scared for what might happen to the guy. Also …”

“If it could happen to Barbie, it could happen to anyone?” Julia asked.

Jackie nodded. Biting her lips. Playing with her glass. “If something happened to him—I don’t necessarily mean something balls-to-the-wall like a lynching, just an accident in his cell—I’m not sure I could ever put on this uniform again.”

Linda’s basic concern was simpler and more direct. Her husband believed Barbie innocent. In the heat of her fury (and her revulsion at what they had found in the McCain pantry), she had rejected that idea— Barbie’s dog tags had, after all, been in Angie McCain’s gray and stiffening hand. But the more she thought about it, the more she worried. Partly because she respected Rusty’s judgment of things and always had, but also because of what Barbie had shouted just before Randolph had Maced him. Tell your husband to examine the bodies. He must examine the bodies!

“And another thing,” Jackie said, still spinning her glass. “You don’t Mace a prisoner just because he’s yelling. We’ve had Saturday nights, especially after big games, when it sounded like the zoo at feeding time down there. You just let em yell. Eventually they get tired and go to sleep.”

Julia, meanwhile, was studying Linda. When Jackie had finished, Julia said, “Tell me again what Barbie said.”

“He wanted Rusty to examine the bodies, especially Brenda Perkins’s. He said they wouldn’t be at the hospital. He knew that. They’re at Bowie’s, and that’s not right.”

“Goddam funny, all right, if they was murdered,” Romeo said. “Sorry for cussin, Rev.”

Piper waved this away. “If he killed them, I can’t understand why his most pressing concern would be having the bodies examined. On the other hand, if he didn’t, maybe he thought a postmortem would exonerate him.”

“Brenda was the most recent victim,” Julia said. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” Jackie said. “She was in rigor, but not completely. At least it didn’t look to me like she was.”

“She wasn’t,” Linda said, “And since rigor starts to set in about three hours after death, give or take, Brenda probably died between four and eight AM. I’d say closer to eight, but I’m no doctor.” She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “Rusty isn’t either, of course, but he could have nailed down the TOD a lot closer if he’d been called in. No one did that. Including me. I was just so freaked out … there was so much going on …”

Jackie pushed her glass aside. “Listen, Julia—you were with Barbara at the supermarket this morning, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“At a little past nine. That’s when the riot started.”

“Yes.”

“Was he there first, or were you? Because I don’t know.”

Julia couldn’t remember, but her impression was that she had been there first—that Barbie had arrived later, shortly after Rose Twitchell and Anson Wheeler.

“We cooled it out,” she said, “but he was the one who showed us how. Probably saved even more people from being seriously hurt. I can’t square that with what you found in that pantry. Do you have any idea what the order of the deaths were? Other than Brenda last?”

“Angie and Dodee first,” Jackie said. “Decomp was less advanced with Coggins, so he came later.”

“Who found them?”

“Junior Rennie. He was suspicious because he saw Angie’s car in the garage. But that’s not important. Barbara ’s the important thing here. Are you sure he arrived after Rose and Anse? Because that doesn’t look good.”

“I am, because he wasn’t in Rose’s van. Just the two of them got out. So if we assume he wasn’t busy killing people, then where would he … ?” But that was obvious. “Piper, can I use your phone?”

“Of course.”

Julia briefly consulted the pamphlet-sized local phone book, then used Piper’s cell to call the restaurant. Rose’s greeting was curt: “We’re closed until further notice. Bunch of assholes arrested my cook.”

“Rose? It’s Julia Shumway.”

“Oh. Julia.” Rose sounded only a shade less truculent. “What do you want?”

“I’m trying to check out a possible alibi timeline for Barbie. Are you interested in helping?”

“You bet your ass. The idea that Barbie murdered those people is ridiculous. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know if he was at the restaurant when the riot started at Food City.”

“Of course.” Rose sounded perplexed. “Where else would he be right after breakfast? When Anson and I left, he was scrubbing the grills.”

The sun was going down, and as the shadows grew lengthened, Claire McClatchey grew more and more nervous. Finally she went into the kitchen to do what she had been putting off: use her husband’s cell phone (which he had forgotten to take on Saturday morning; he was always forgetting it) to call hers. She was terrified it would ring four times and then she’d hear her own voice, all bright and chirrupy, recorded before the town she lived in became a prison with invisible bars.Hi, you’ve reached Claire’s voice mail. Please leave a message at the beep.

And what would she say? Joey, call back if you’re not dead?

She reached for the buttons, then hesitated. Remember, if he doesn’t answer the first time, it’s because he’s on his bike and can’t get the phone out of his backpack before it goes to voice mail. He’ll be ready when you call the second time, because he’ll know it’s you.

But if she got voice mail the second time? And the third? Why had she ever let him go in the first place? She must have been mad.

She closed her eyes and saw a picture of nightmare clarity: the telephone poles and storefronts of Main Street plastered with photos of Joe, Benny, and Norrie, looking like any kids you ever saw on a turnpike rest area bulletin board, where the captions always contained the words LAST SEEN ON.

She opened her eyes and dialed quickly, before she could lose her nerve. She was preparing her message —I’m calling back in ten seconds and this time you better answer, mister—and was stunned when her son answered, loud and clear, halfway through the first ring.

“Mom! Hey, Mom!” Alive and more than alive: bubbling over with excitement, from the sound.

Where are you? she tried to say, but at first she couldn’t manage anything. Not a single word. Her legs felt rubbery and elastic; she leaned against the wall to keep from falling on the floor.

“Mom? You there?”

In the background she heard the swish of a car, and Benny, faint but clear, hailing someone: “Dr. Rusty! Yo, dude, whoa!”

She was finally able to throw her voice in gear. “Yes. I am. Where are you?”

“Top of Town Common Hill. I was gonna call you because it’s gettin near dark—tell you not to worry—and it rang in my hand. Surprised the heck out of me.”

Well that put a spoke in the old parental scolding-wheel, didn’t it? Top of Town Common Hill. They’ll be here in ten minutes. Benny probably wanting another three pounds of food. Thank You, God.

Norrie was talking to Joe. It sounded like Tell her, tell her. Then her son was in her ear again, so loudly jubilant that she had to hold the receiver away from her ear a little bit. “Mom, I think we found it! I’m almost positive! It’s in the orchard on top of Black Ridge!”

“Found what, Joey?”

“I don’t know for sure, don’t want to jump to conclusions, but probably the thing generating the Dome. Almost gotta be. We saw a blinker, like the ones they put on radio towers to warn planes, only on the ground and purple instead of red. We didn’t go close enough to see anything else. We passed out, all of us. When we woke up we were okay, but it was starting to get la—”

“Passed out ?” Claire almost screamed this. “What do you mean, you passed out ? Get home! Get home right now so I can look at you!”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Joe said soothingly. “I think it’s like … you know how when people first touch the Dome they get a little shock, then they don’t? I think it’s like that. I think you pass out the first time and then you’re like, immunized. Good to go. That’s what Norrie thinks, too.”

“I don’t care what she thinks or what you think, mister! You get home right now so I can see you’re all right or I’m going to immunize your ass!”

“Okay, but we have to get in touch with that guy Barbara. He’s the one who thought of the Geiger counter in the first place, and boy, he was right on the money. We should get Dr. Rusty, too. He just drove by us. Benny tried to wave him down, but he didn’t stop. We’ll get him and Mr. Barbara to come to the house, okay? We hafta figure out our next move.”

“Joe … Mr. Barbara is …”

Claire stopped. Was she going to tell her son that Mr. Barbara—whom some people had begun referring to as Colonel Barbara—had been arrested on multiple murder charges?

“What?” Joe asked. “What about him?” The happy triumph in his voice had been replaced by anxiety. She supposed he could read her moods as well as she could read his. And he had clearly pinned a lot of hope on Barbara—Benny and Norrie had too, probably. This wasn’t news she could keep from them (much as she would have liked to), but she didn’t have to give it to them on the phone.

“Come home,” she said. “We’ll talk about it here. And Joe—I’m awfully proud of you.”

Jimmy Sirois died late that afternoon, as Scarecrow Joe and his friends were tearing back toward town on their bikes.

Rusty sat in the hallway with his arm around Gina Buffalino and let her cry against his chest. There was a time when he would have felt exceedingly uncomfortable about sitting this way with a girl who was barely seventeen, but times had changed. You only had to look at this hallway—lit now with hissing Coleman lanterns instead of by fluorescents shining calmly down from the paneled ceiling—to know that times had changed. His hospital had become an arcade of shadows.

“Not your fault,” he said. “Not your fault, not mine, not even his. He didn’t ask to have diabetes.”

Although, God knew, there were people who coexisted with it for years. People who took care of themselves. Jimmy, a semi-hermit who had lived by himself out on the God Creek Road, had not been one of those. When he had finally driven himself in to the Health Center—last Thursday, this had been—he hadn’t even been able to get out of his car, just kept honking until Ginny came out to see who it was and what was wrong. When Rusty got the old fellow’s pants off, he had observed a flabby right leg that had turned a cold, dead blue. Even if everything had gone right with Jimmy, the nerve damage probably would have been irreversible.

“Don’t hurt at all, Doc,” Jimmy had assured Ron Haskell just before slipping into a coma. He had been in and out of consciousness ever since, the leg getting worse, Rusty putting off the amputation even though he knew it had to come if Jimmy were to have any chance at all.

When the power went out, the IVs feeding antibiotics to Jimmy and two other patients continued to drip, but the flowmeters stopped, making it impossible to fine-tune the amounts. Worse, Jimmy’s cardiac monitor and respirator failed. Rusty disconnected the respirator, put a valve mask over the old man’s face, and gave Gina a refresher course on how to use the Ambu bag. She was good with it, and very faithful, but around six o’clock, Jimmy had died anyway.

Now she was inconsolable.

She lifted her tear-streaked face from his chest and said, “Did I give him too much? Too little? Did I choke him and kill him?”

“No. Jimmy was probably going to die anyway, and this way he’s spared a very nasty amputation.”

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she said, beginning to weep again. “It’s too scary. It’s awful now.”

Rusty didn’t know how to respond to this, but he didn’t have to. “You’ll be okay,” a raspy, plugged-up voice said. “You have to be, hon, because we need you.”

It was Ginny Tomlinson, walking slowly up the hallway toward them.

“You shouldn’t be on your feet,” Rusty said.

“Probably not,” Ginny agreed, and sat down on Gina’s other side with a sigh of relief. Her taped nose and the adhesive strips running beneath her eyes made her look like a hockey goalie after a difficult game. “But I’m back on duty, just the same.”

“Maybe tomorrow—” Rusty began.

“No, now.” She took Gina’s hand. “And so are you, hon. Back in nursing school, this tough old RN had a saying: ‘You can quit when the blood dries and the rodeo’s over.’”

“What if I make a mistake?” Gina whispered.

“Everybody does. The trick is to make as few as possible. And I’ll help you. You and Harriet both. So what do you say?”

Gina gazed doubtfully at Ginny’s swollen face, the damage accented by an old pair of spectacles Ginny had found somewhere. “Are you sure you’re up to it, Ms. Tomlinson?”

“You help me, I help you. Ginny and Gina, the Fighting Females.” She raised her fist. Managing a little smile, Gina tapped Ginny’s knuckles with her own.

“That’s all very hot shit and rah-rah,” Rusty said, “but if you start to feel faint, find a bed and lie down for a while. Orders from Dr. Rusty.”

Ginny winced as the smile her lips were trying on pulled at the wings of her nose. “Never mind a bed, I’ll just hosey Ron Haskell’s old couch in the lounge.”

Rusty’s cell phone rang. He waved the women away. They talked as they went, Gina with an arm around Ginny’s waist.

“Hello, this is Eric,” he said.

“This is Eric’s wife,” a subdued voice said. “She called to apologize to Eric.”

Rusty walked into a vacant examining room and closed the door. “No apology necessary,” he said … although he wasn’t sure that was true. “Heat of the moment. Have they let him go?” This seemed to him a perfectly reasonable question, given the Barbie he was coming to know.

“I’d rather not discuss it on the phone. Can you come to the house, honey? Please? We need to talk.”

Rusty supposed he could, actually. He’d had one critical patient, who had simplified his professional life considerably by dying. And while he was relieved to be on speaking terms again with the woman he loved, he didn’t like the new caution he heard in her voice.

“I can,” he said, “but not for long. Ginny’s back on her feet, but if I don’t monitor her, she’ll overdo. Dinner?”

“Yes.” She sounded relieved. Rusty was glad. “I’ll thaw some of the chicken soup. We better eat as much as the frozen stuff as we can while we’ve still got the power to keep it good.”

“One thing. Do you still think Barbie’s guilty? Never mind what the rest of them think, do you?”

A long pause. Then she said, “We’ll talk when you get here.” And with that, she was gone.

Rusty was leaning with his butt propped against the examination table. He held the phone in his hand for a moment, then pressed the END button. There were many things he wasn’t sure of just now—he felt like a man swimming in a sea of perplexity—but he felt sure of one thing: his wife thought somebody might be listening. But who? The Army? Homeland Security?

Big Jim Rennie?

“Ridiculous,” Rusty said to the empty room. Then he went to find Twitch and tell him he was leaving the hospital for a little while.

Twitch agreed to keep an eye on Ginny and make sure she didn’t overdo, but there was a quid pro quo: Rusty had to examine Henrietta Clavard, who had been injured during the supermarket melee, before leaving.

“What’s wrong with her?” Rusty asked, fearing the worst. Henrietta was strong and fit for an old lady, but eighty-four was eighty-four.

“She says, and I quote, ‘One of those worthless Mercier sisters broke my goddam ass.’ She thinks Carla Mercier. Who’s Venziano now.”

“Right,” Rusty said, then murmured, apropos nothing: “It’s a small town, and we all support the team. So is it?”

“Is it what, sensei?”

“Broken.”

“I don’t know. She won’t show it to me. She says, and I also quote, ‘I will only expose my smithyriddles to a professional eye.’”

They burst out laughing, trying to stifle the sounds.

From beyond the closed door, an old lady’s cracked and dolorous voice said: “It’s my ass that’s broke, not my ears. I hear that.”

Rusty and Twitch laughed harder. Twitch had gone an alarming shade of red.

From behind the door, Henrietta said: “If it was your ass, my buddies, you’d be laughing on the other side of your faces.”

Rusty went in, still smiling. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Clavard.”

She was standing rather than sitting, and to his immense relief, she smiled herself. “Nah,” she said. “Something in this balls-up has got to be funny. It might as well be me.” She considered. “Besides, I was in there stealing with the rest of them. I probably deserved it.”

Henrietta’s ass turned out to be badly bruised but not broken. A good thing, because a smashed coccyx was really nothing to laugh about. Rusty gave her a pain-deadening cream, confirmed that she had Advil at home, and sent her away, limping but satisfied. As satisfied, anyway, as a lady of her age and temperament was ever likely to get.

On his second escape attempt, about fifteen minutes after Linda’s call, Harriet Bigelow stopped him just short of the door to the parking lot. “Ginny says you should know Sammy Bushey’s gone.”

“Gone where?” Rusty asked. This under the old grade-school assumption that the only stupid question was the one you didn’t ask.

“No one knows. She’s just gone.”

“Maybe she went down to Sweetbriar to see if they’re serving dinner. I hope that’s it, because if she tries to walk all the way back to her place, she’s apt to bust her stitches.”

Harriet looked alarmed. “Could she, like, bleed to death? Bleeding to death from your woo-woo … that would be bad. ”

Rusty had heard many terms for the vagina, but this one was new to him. “Probably not, but she could end up back here for an extended stay. What about her baby?”

Harriet looked stricken. She was an earnest little thing who had a way of blinking distractedly behind the thick lenses of her glasses when she was nervous; the kind of girl, Rusty thought, who might treat herself to a mental breakdown about fifteen years after graduating summa cum laude from Smith or Vassar.

“The baby! Omigod, Little Walter!” She dashed down the hall before Rusty could stop her and came back looking relieved. “Still here. He’s not very lively, but that seems to be his nature.”

“Then she’ll probably be back. Whatever other problems she might have, she loves the kid. In an absentminded sort of way.”

“Huh?” More furious blinking.

“Never mind. I’ll be back as soon as I can, Hari. Keep em flying.”

“Keep what flying?” Her eyelids now appeared on the verge of catching fire.

Rusty almost said, I mean keep your pecker up, but that wasn’t right, either. In Harriet’s terminology, a pecker was probably a wah-wah.

“Keep busy,” he said.

Harriet was relieved. “I can do that, Dr. Rusty, no prob.”

Rusty turned to go, but now a man was standing there—thin, not bad-looking once you got past the hooked nose, a lot of graying hair tied back in a ponytail. He looked a bit like the late Timothy Leary. Rusty was starting to wonder if he was going to get out of here, after all.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“Actually, I was thinking that perhaps I could help you.” He stuck out a bony hand. “Thurston Marshall. My partner and I were weekending at Chester Pond, and got caught in this whatever-it-is.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Rusty said.

“The thing is, I have a bit of medical experience. I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam mess. Thought about going to Canada, but I had plans … well, never mind. I registered as a CO and did two years as an orderly at a veterans’ hospital in Massachusetts.”

That was interesting. “Edith Nourse Rogers?”

“The very one. My skills are probably a bit out-of-date, but—”

“Mr. Marshall, do I have a job for you.”

As Rusty headed down 119, a horn blew. He checked his mirror and saw one of the town’s Public Works trucks preparing to turn in at Catherine Russell Drive. It was hard to tell in the red light of the lowering sun, but he thought Stewart Bowie was behind the wheel. What he saw on second glance gladdened Rusty’s heart: there appeared to be a couple of LP tanks in the bed of the truck. He’d worry about where they came from later, maybe even ask some questions, but for now he was just relieved to know that soon the lights would be back on, the respirators and monitors online. Maybe not for the long haul, but he was in full one­day-at-a-time mode.

At the top of Town Common Hill he saw his old skateboarding patient, Benny Drake, and a couple of his friends. One was the McClatchey boy who’d set up the live video feed of the missile strike. Benny waved and shouted, obviously wanting Rusty to stop and shoot the shit. Rusty waved back, but didn’t slow. He was anxious to see Linda. Also to hear what she had to say, of course, but mostly to see her, put his arms around her, and finish making up with her.

Barbie needed to take a piss but held his water. He had done interrogations in Iraq and knew how it worked over there. He didn’t know if it would be the same here just yet, but it might be. Things were moving very rapidly, and Big Jim had shown a ruthless ability to move with the times. Like most talented demagogues, he never underestimated his target audience’s willingness to accept the absurd.

Barbie was also very thirsty, and it didn’t surprise him much when one of the new officers showed up with a glass of water in one hand and a sheet of paper with a pen clipped to it in the other. Yes, it was how these things went; how they went in Fallujah, Takrit, Hilla, Mosul, and Baghdad. How they also now went in Chester’s Mill, it seemed.

The new officer was Junior Rennie.

“Well, look at you,” Junior said. “Don’t look quite so ready to beat guys up with your fancy Army tricks right now.” He raised the hand holding the sheet of paper and rubbed his left temple with the tips of his fingers. The paper rattled.

“You don’t look so good yourself.”

Junior dropped his hand. “I’m fine as rain.”

Now that was odd, Barbie thought; some people said right as rain and some said fine as paint, but none, as far as he knew, said fine as rain. It probably meant nothing, but—

“Are you sure? Your eye’s all red.”

“I’m fucking terrific. And I’m not here to discuss me.”

Barbie, who knew why Junior was here, said: “Is that water?” Junior looked down at the glass as if he’d forgotten it. “Yeah. Chief said you might be thirsty. Thursday on a Tuesday, you know.” He laughed hard, as if this non sequitur was the wittiest thing to ever come out of his mouth. “Want it?”

“Yes, please.”

Junior held the glass out. Barbie reached for it. Junior pulled it back. Of course. It was how these things went.

“Why’d you kill them? I’m curious, Baaarbie. Wouldn’t Angie fuck you no more? Then when you tried Dodee, you found out she was more into crack-snacking than cock-gobbling? Maybe Coggins saw something he wasn’t supposed to? And Brenda got suspicious. Why not? She was a cop herself, you know. By injection!”

Junior yodeled laughter, but underneath the humor there was nothing but black watchfulness. And pain. Barbie was quite sure of it.

“What? Nothing to say?”

“I said it. I’d like a drink. I’m thirsty.”

“Yep, I bet you are. That Mace is a bitch, idn’t it? I understand you saw service in Iraq. What was that like?”

“Hot.”

Junior yodeled again. Some of the water in the glass spilled on his wrist. Were his hands shaking a little? And that inflamed left eye was leaking tears at the corner. Junior, what the hell’s wrong with you? Migraine? Something else?

“Did you kill anybody?”

“Only with my cooking.”

Junior smiled as if to say Good one, good one. “You weren’t any cook over there, Baaaarbie. You were a liaison officer. That was your job description, anyway. My dad looked you up on the Internet. There isn’t a lot, but there’s some. He thinks you were an interrogation guy. Maybe even a black ops guy. Were you like the Army’s Jason Bourne?”

Barbie said nothing.

“Come on, did you kill anybody? Or should I ask, how many did you kill? Besides the ones you bagged here, I mean.”

Barbie said nothing.

“Boy, I bet this water is good. It came from the cooler upstairs. Chilly Willy!”

Barbie said nothing.

“You guys come back with all sorts of problems. At least that’s what I breed and see on TV. Right or false? True or wrong?”

It isn’t a migraine making him do that. At least not any migraine I ever heard of.

“Junior, how bad does your head hurt?”

“Doesn’t hurt at all.”

“How long have you been having headaches?”

Junior set the glass carefully down on the floor. He was wearing a sidearm this evening. He drew it and pointed it through the bars at Barbie. The barrel was trembling slightly. “Do you want to keep playing doctor?”

Barbie looked at the gun. The gun wasn’t in the script, he was quite sure—Big Jim had plans for him, and probably not nice ones, but they didn’t include Dale Barbara being shot in a jail cell when anybody from upstairs could rush down and see that the cell door was still locked and the victim unarmed. But he didn’t trust Junior to follow the script, because Junior was ill.

“No,” he said. “No doctoring. Very sorry.”

“Yeah, you’re sorry, all right. One sorry shack of sit.” But Junior seemed satisfied. He holstered the gun and picked up the glass of water again. “My theory is that you came back all fucked up from what you saw and did over there. You know, PTSS, STD, PMS, one of those. My theory is that you just snapped. That about right?”

Barbie said nothing.

Junior didn’t seem very interested, anyway. He handed the glass through the bars. “Take it, take it.”

Barbie reached for the glass, thinking it would be snatched away again, but it wasn’t. He tasted it. Not cold and not drinkable, either.

“Go on,” Junior said. “I only shook half a shaker in, you can deal with that, can’t you? You salt your bread, don’t you?”

Barbie only looked at Junior.

“You salt your bread? Do you salt it, motherfucker? Huh?”

Barbie held the glass out through the bars.

“Keep it, keep it,” Junior said magnanimously. “And take this, too.” He passed the paper and pen through the bars. Barbie took them and looked the paper over. It was pretty much what he’d expected. There was a place for him to sign his name at the bottom.

He offered it back. Junior backed away in what was almost a dance step, smiling and shaking his head. “Keep that, too. My dad said you wouldn’t sign it right away, but you think about it. And think about getting a glass of water with no salt in it. And some food. Big old cheeseburger in paradise. Maybe a Coke. There’s some cold in the fridge upstairs. Wouldn’t you like a nice cone Cole?”

Barbie said nothing.

“You salt your bread? Go on, don’t be shy. Do you, assface?” Barbie said nothing.

“You’ll come around. When you get hungry enough and thirsty enough, you will. That’s what my dad says, and he’s usually right about those things. Ta-ta, Baaaarbie. ”

He started down the hall, then turned back.

“You never should have put your hands on me, you know. That was your big mistake.”

As he went up the stairs, Barbie observed that Junior was limping a tiny bit—or dragging. That was it, dragging to the left and pulling on the banister with his right hand to compensate. He wondered what Rusty Everett would think about such symptoms. He wondered if he’d ever get a chance to ask.

Barbie considered the unsigned confession. He would have liked to tear it up and scatter the pieces on the floor outside the cell, but that would be an unnecessary provocation. He was between the cat’s claws now, and the best thing he could do was be still. He put the paper on the bunk and the pen on top of it. Then he picked up the glass of water. Salt. Seeded with salt. He could smell it. Which made him think about how Chester’s Mill was now … only hadn’t it already been this way? Even before the Dome? Hadn’t Big Jim and his friends been seeding the ground with salt for some time now? Barbie thought yes. He also thought that if he got out of this police station alive, it would be a miracle.

Nonetheless, they were amateurs at this; they had forgotten the toilet. Probably none of them had ever been in a country where even a little ditchwater could look good when you were carrying ninety pounds of equipment and the temperature was forty-six Celsius. Barbie poured out the salt water in the corner of the cell. Then he pissed in the glass and set it under the bunk. Then he knelt in front of the toilet bowl like a man at his prayers and drank until he could feel his belly bulging.

Linda was sitting on the front steps when Rusty pulled up. In the backyard, Jackie Wettington was pushing the Little Js on the swings and the girls were urging her to push harder and send them higher.

Linda came to him with her arms out. She kissed his mouth, drew back to look at him, then kissed him again with her hands on his cheeks and her mouth open. He felt the brief, humid touch of her tongue, and immediately began to get hard. She felt it and pressed against it.

“Wow,” he said. “We should fight in public more often. And if you don’t stop that, we’ll be doing something else in public.”

“We’ll do it, but not in public. First—do I need to say again that I’m sorry?”

“No.”

She took his hand and led him back to the steps. “Good. Because we’ve got stuff to talk about. Serious stuff.”

He put his other hand over hers. “I’m listening.”

She told him about what had happened at the station—Julia being turned away after Andy Sanders had been allowed down to confront the prisoner. She told about going to the church so she and Jackie could talk to Julia in private, and the later conversation at the parsonage, with Piper Libby and Rommie Burpee added to the mix. When she told him about the beginning rigor they had observed in Brenda Perkins’s body, Rusty’s ears pricked up.

“Jackie!” he called. “How sure are you about the rigor?”

“Pretty!” she called back.

“Hi, Daddy!” Judy called. “Me’n Jannie’s gonna loop the loop!”

“No you’re not,” Rusty called back, and stood to blow kisses from the palms of his hands. Each girl caught one; when it came to kiss-catching, they were aces.

“What time did you see the bodies, Lin?”

“Around ten-thirty, I think. The supermarket mess was long over.”

“And if Jackie’s right about the rigor just setting in … but we can’t be absolutely sure of that, can we?”

“No, but listen. I talked with Rose Twitchell. Barbara got to Sweetbriar at ten minutes to six. From then until the bodies were discovered, he’s alibied. So he would’ve had to kill her when? Five? Five thirty? How likely is that, if rigor was just setting in five hours later?”

“Not likely but not impossible. Rigor mortis is affected by all sorts of variables. The temperature of the body-storage site, for one. How hot was it in that pantry?”

“Warm,” she admitted, then crossed her arms over her breasts and cupped her shoulders. “Warm and smelly. ”

“See what I mean? Under those circumstances, he could have killed her someplace at four AM, then taken her there and stuffed her into the—”

“I thought you were on his side.”

“I am, and it’s really not likely, because the pantry would have been much cooler at four in the morning. Why would he have been with Brenda at four in the morning, anyway? What would the cops say? That he was boffing her? Even if older women—much older—were his thing … three days after her husband of thirty-plus years was killed?”

“They’d say it wasn’t consensual,” she told him bleakly. “They’d say it was rape. Same as they’re already saying for those two girls.”

“And Coggins?”

“If they’re framing him, they’ll think of something.”

“Is Julia going to print all this?”

“She’s going to write the story and raise some questions, but she’ll hold back the stuff about rigor being in the early stages. Randolph might be too stupid to figure out where that information came from, but Rennie would know.”

“It could still be dangerous,” Rusty said. “If they muzzle her, she can’t exactly go to the ACLU.”

“I don’t think she cares. She’s mad as hell. She even thinks the supermarket riot might have been a setup.”

Probably was, Rusty thought. What he said was, “Damn, I wish I’d seen those bodies.”

“Maybe you still can.”

“I know what you’re thinking, hon, but you and Jackie could lose your jobs. Or worse, if this is Big Jim’s way of getting rid of an annoying problem.”

“We can’t just leave it like this—”

“Also, it might not do any good. Probably wouldn’t. If Brenda Perkins commenced rigor between four and eight, she’s probably in full rigor by now and there isn’t much I can tell from the body. The Castle County ME might be able to, but he’s as out of reach as the ACLU.”

“Maybe there’s something else. Something about her corpse or one of the others. You know that sign they have in some postmortem theaters? ‘This is where the dead speak to the living?’”

“Long shot. You know what would be better? If someone saw Brenda alive after Barbie reported to work at five fifty this morning. That would put a hole in their boat too big to plug.”

Judy and Janelle, dressed in their pajamas, came flying up for hugs. Rusty did his duty in this regard. Jackie Wettington, following along behind them, heard Rusty’s last comment and said, “I’ll ask around.”

“But quietly,” he said.

“You bet. And for the record, I’m still not entirely convinced. His dog tags were in Angie’s hand.”

“And he never noticed they were gone during the time between losing them and the bodies being found?”

“What bodies, Dad?” Jannie asked.

He sighed. “It’s complex, honey. And not for little girls.”

Her eyes said that was good. Her younger sister, meanwhile, had gone off to pick a few late flowers but came back empty-handed. “They’re dying,” she reported. “All brown and yucky at the edges.”

“It’s probably too warm for them,” Linda said, and for a moment Rusty thought she was going to cry. He stepped into the breach.

“You girls go in and brush your teeth. Get a little water from the jug on the counter. Jannie, you’re the designated water-pourer. Now go.” He turned back to the women. To Linda in particular. “You okay?”

“Yes. It’s just that … it keeps hitting me in different ways. I think, ‘Those flowers have no business dying,’ and then I think, ‘None of this has any business happening in the first place.’”

They were silent for a moment, thinking about this. Then Rusty spoke up.

“We should wait and see if Randolph asks me to examine the bodies. If he does, I’ll get my look without any risk of hot water for you two. If he doesn’t, it tells us something.”

“Meanwhile, Barbie’s in jail,” Linda said. “They could be trying to get a confession out of him right now.”

“Suppose you flashed your badges and got me into the funeral parlor?” Rusty asked. “Further suppose I found something that exonerates Barbie. Do you think they’d just say ‘Oh shit, our bad’ and let him out? And then let him take over? Because that’s what the government wants; it’s all over town. Do you think Rennie would allow—”

His cell phone went off. “These things are the worst invention ever,” he said, but at least it wasn’t the hospital.

“Mr. Everett?” A woman. He knew the voice but couldn’t put a name to it.

“Yes, but unless this is an emergency, I’m a little busy right n—”

“I don’t know if it’s an emergency, but it’s very, very important. And since Mr. Barbara—or Colonel Barbara, I guess—has been arrested, you’re the one who has to deal with it.”

“Mrs. McClatchey?”

“Yes, but Joe’s the one you need to talk to. Here he is.”

“Dr. Rusty?” The voice was urgent, almost breathless.

“Hi, Joe. What is it?”

“I think we found the generator. Now what are we supposed to do?”

The evening went dark so suddenly that all three of them gasped and Linda seized Rusty’s arm. But it was only the big smoke-smudge on the western side of the Dome. The sun had gone behind it.

“Where?”

“Black Ridge.”

“Was there radiation, son?” Knowing there must have been; how else had they found it?

“The last reading was plus two hundred,” Joe said. “Not quite into the danger zone. What do we do?”

Rusty ran his free hand through his hair. Too much happening. Too much, too fast. Especially for a smalltown fixer-upper who had never considered himself much of a decision-maker, let alone a leader.

“Nothing tonight. It’s almost dark. We’ll deal with this tomorrow. In the meantime, Joe, you have to make a promise. Keep quiet about this. You know, Benny and Norrie know, and your mom knows. Keep it that way.”

“Okay.” Joe sounded subdued. “We have a lot to tell you, but I guess it can wait until tomorrow.” He took a breath. “It’s a little scary, isn’t it?”

“Yes, son,” Rusty agreed. “It’s a little scary.”

The man in charge of The Mill’s fate and fortunes was sitting in his study and eating a corned beef on rye in big snaffling bites when Junior came in. Earlier, Big Jim had caught a forty-five-minute power nap. Now he felt refreshed and once more ready for action. The surface of his desk was littered with sheets of yellow legal paper, notes he would later burn in the incinerator out back. Better safe than sorry.

The study was lit with hissing Coleman lanterns that threw a bright white glare. God knew he had access to plenty of propane—enough to light the house and run the appliances for fifty years—but for now the Colemans were better. When people passed by, he wanted them to see that bright white glare and know that Selectman Rennie wasn’t getting any special perks. That Selectman Rennie was just like them, only more trustworthy.

Junior was limping. His face was drawn. “He didn’t confess.”

Big Jim hadn’t expected Barbara to confess so soon and ignored this. “What’s wrong with you? You look peaky as hell.”

“Another headache, but it’s letting go now.” This was true, although it had been very bad during his conversation with Barbie. Those blue-gray eyes either saw too much or seemed to.

I know what you did to them in the pantry, they said. I know everything.

It had taken all his will not to pull the trigger of his gun after he’d drawn it, and darken that damnable prying stare forever.

“You’re limping, too.”

“That’s because of those kids we found out by Chester Pond. I was carrying one of them around and I think I pulled a muscle.”

“Are you sure that’s all it is? You and Thibodeau have a job to do in”—Big Jim looked at his watch—“in about three and a half hours, and you can’t mess it up. It has to go off perfectly.”

“Why not as soon as it’s dark?”

“Because the witch is putting her paper together there with her two little trolls. Freeman and the other one. The sports reporter who’s always down on the Wildcats.”

“Tony Guay.”

“Yes, him. I don’t particularly care about them being hurt, especially her”—Big Jim’s upper lip lifted in his doglike imitation smile—“but there must not be any witnesses. No eyeball witnesses, I mean. What people hear … that’s a very different kettle of cod.”

“What do you want them to hear, Dad?”

“Are you sure you’re up to this? Because I can send Frank with Carter instead.”

“No! I helped you with Coggins and I helped you with the old lady this morning and I deserve to do this!”

Big Jim seemed to measure him. Then he nodded. “All right. But you must not be caught, or even seen.”

“Don’t worry. What do you want the … the earwitnesses to hear?”

Big Jim told him. Big Jim told him everything. It was good, Junior thought. He had to admit it: his dear old dad didn’t miss a trick.

When Junior went upstairs to “rest his leg,” Big Jim finished his sandwich, wiped the grease from his chin, then called Stewart Bowie’s cell. He began with the question everybody asks when calling a cell phone. “Where are you?”

Stewart said they were on their way to the funeral home for a drink. Knowing Big Jim’s feeling about alcoholic beverages, he said this with a workingman’s defiance: I did my job, now let me take my pleasure.

“That’s all right, but make sure it’s only the one. You aren’t done for the night. Fern or Roger, either.”

Stewart protested strenuously.

After he’d finished having his say, Big Jim went on. “I want the three of you at the Middle School at nine-thirty. There’ll be some new officers there—including Roger’s boys, by the way—and I want you there, too.” An inspiration occurred. “In fact, I’m going to make you fellows sergeants in the Chester’s Mill Hometown Security Force.”

Stewart reminded Big Jim he and Fern had four new corpses to deal with. In his strong Yankee accent, the word came out cawpses.

“Those folks from the McCains’ can wait,” Big Jim said. “They’re dead. We’ve got an emergency situation on our hands here, in case you didn’t notice. Until it’s over, we’ve all got to pull our weight. Do our bit. Support the team. Nine thirty at the Middle School. But I’ve got something else for you to do first. Won’t take long. Put Fern on.”

Stewart asked why Big Jim wanted to talk to Fern, whom he regarded—with some justification—as the Dumb Brother.

“None of your beeswax. Just put him on.”

Fern said hello. Big Jim didn’t bother.

“You used to be with the Volunteers, didn’t you? Until they were disbanded?”

Fern said he had indeed been with this unofficial adjunct to the Chester’s Mill FD, not adding that he had quit a year before the Vols had been disbanded (after the Selectmen recommended no money be allocated to them in the 2008 town budget). He also did not add that he found the Volunteers’ weekend fund-raising activities were cutting into his drinking time.

Big Jim said, “I want you go to the PD and get the key to the FD. Then see if those Indian pumps Burpee used yesterday are in the barn. I was told that was where he and the Perkins woman put them, and that better be right.”

Fern said he believed the Indian pumps had come from Burpee’s in the first place, which sort of made them Rommie’s property. The Volunteers had had a few, but sold them on eBay when the outfit disbanded.

“They might have been his, but they aren’t anymore,” Big Jim said. “For the duration of the crisis, they’re town property. We’ll do the same with anything else we need. It’s for the good of everyone. And if Romeo Burpee thinks he’s going to start up the Vols again, he’s got another think coming.”

Fern said—cautiously—that he’d heard Rommie did a pretty good job putting out the contact fire on Little Bitch after the missiles hit.

“That wasn’t much more than cigarette butts smoldering in an ashtray,” Big Jim scoffed. A vein was pulsing in his temple and his heart was beating too hard. He knew he’d eaten too fast—again—but he just couldn’t help it. When he was hungry, he gobbled until whatever was in front of him was gone. It was his nature. “Anyone could have put it out. You could have put it out. Point is, I know who voted for me last time, and I know who didn’t. Those who didn’t get no cotton-picking candy.”

Fern asked Big Jim what he, Fern, was supposed to do with the pumps.

“Just make sure they’re in the firebarn. Then come on over to the Middle School. We’ll be in the gym.”

Fern said Roger Killian wanted to say something.

Big Jim rolled his eyes but waited.

Roger wanted to know which of his boys was goin on the cops.

Big Jim sighed, scrabbled through the litter of papers on his desk, and found the one with the list of new officers on it. Most were high-schoolers, and all were male. The youngest, Mickey Wardlaw, was only fifteen, but he was a bruiser. Right tackle on the football team until he’d been kicked off for drinking. “Ricky and Randall.”

Roger protested that them was his oldest and the only ones who could be reliably counted on for chorin. Who, he asked, was going to help out with them chickens?

Big Jim closed his eyes and prayed to God for strength.

Sammy was very aware of the low, rolling pain in her stomach—like menstrual cramps—and much sharper twinges coming from lower down. They would have been hard to miss, because another one came with each step. Nevertheless, she kept plodding along 119 toward the Motton Road. She would keep on no matter how much it hurt. She had a destination in mind, and it wasn’t her trailer, either. What she wanted wasn’t in the trailer, but she knew where it could be found. She’d walk to it even if it took her all night. If the pain got really bad, she had five Percocet tablets in her jeans pocket and she could chew them up. They worked faster when you chewed them. Phil had told her that.

Do her.

We’d come back and really fuck you up.

Do that bitch.

You better learn to keep your mouth for when you’re on your knees.

Do her, do that bitch.

No one would believe you, anyway.

But the Reverend Libby had, and look what happened to her. Dislocated shoulder; dead dog.

Do that bitch.

Sammy thought she would hear that pig’s squealing, excited voice in her head until she died.

So she walked. Overhead the first pink stars glimmered, sparks seen through a dirty pane of glass.

Headlights appeared, making her shadow jump long on the road ahead. A clattery old farm truck pulled up and stopped. “Hey, there, climb in,” the man behind the wheel said. Only it came out Hey-yere-lime-in, because it was Alden Dinsmore, father of the late Rory, and Alden was drunk.

Nevertheless, Sammy climbed in—moving with an invalid’s care.

Alden didn’t appear to notice. There was a sixteen-ounce can of Bud between his legs and a half-empty case beside him. Empties rolled and rattled around Sammy’s feet. “Where you goin?” Alden asked. “Porrun? Bossum?” He laughed to show that, drunk or not, he could make a joke.

“Only out Motton Road, sir. Are you going that way?”

“Any way you want,” Alden said. “I’m just drivin. Drivin and thinkin bout my boy. He died on Sarraday.”

“I’m real sorry for your loss.”

He nodded and drank. “M’dad died las’ winner, you know it? Gasped himself to death, poor old fella. Empha-seeme. Spent the last year of his life on oxygen. Rory used to change his tanks. He loved that ol’ bassid.”

“I’m sorry.” She’d already said that, but what else was there to say?

A tear crept down his cheek. “I’ll go any way you want, Missy Lou. Gonna keep drivin till the beer’s gone. You wa’m beer?”

“Yes, please.” The beer was warm but she drank greedily. She was very thirsty. She fished one of the Percs out of her pocket and swallowed it with another long gulp. She felt the buzz hit her in the head. It was fine. She fished out another Perc and offered it to Alden. “Want one of these? They make you feel better.”

He took it and swallowed it with beer, not bothering to ask what it was. Here was the Motton Road. He saw the intersection late and swung wide, knocking the Crumleys’ mailbox flat. Sammy didn’t mind.

“Grab another, Missy Lou.”

“Thank you, sir.” She took another beer and popped the top.

“Wa’m see my boy?” In the glow of the dashboard lights, Alden’s eyes looked yellow and wet. They were the eyes of a dog who’d stepped in a hole and went legbroke. “Wa’m see my boy Rory?”

“Yes, sir,” Sammy said, “I sure do. I was there, you know.”

“Everybody was. I rented my fiel. Prolly helped to kill im. Din know. We never know, do we?”

“No,” Sammy said.

Alden dug into the bib pocket of his overalls and pulled out a battered wallet. He took both hands off the wheel to pull it open, squinting and flipping through the little celluloid pockets. “My boys gay me this warret,” he said. “Ro’y and Orrie. Orrie’s still ’live.”

“That’s a nice wallet,” Sammy said, leaning across to take hold of the steering wheel. She had done the same for Phil when they were living together. Many times. Mr. Dinsmore’s truck went from side to side in slow and somehow solemn arcs, barely missing another mailbox. But that was all right; the poor old guy was only doing twenty, and Motton Road was deserted. On the radio, WCIK was playing low: “Sweet Hope of Heaven,” by the Blind Boys of Alabama.

Alden thrust the wallet at her. “There e is. There’s my boy. Wif his grampa.”

“Will you drive while I look?” Sammy asked.

“Sure.” Alden took the wheel back. The truck began to move a little faster and a little straighter, although it was more or less straddling the white line.

The photograph was a faded color shot of a young boy and an old man with their arms around each other. The old man was wearing a Red Sox cap and an oxygen mask. The boy had a big grin on his face. “He’s a beautiful boy, sir,” Sammy said.

“Yeah, beauful boy. Beauful smart boy.” Alden let out a tearless bray of pain. He sounded like a donkey. Spittle flew from his lips. The truck plunged, then came right again.

“I have a beautiful boy, too,” Sammy said. She began to cry. Once, she remembered, she had taken pleasure in torturing Bratz. Now she knew how it felt to be in the microwave herself. Burning in the microwave. “I’m going to kiss him when I see him. Kiss him once more.”

“You kiss im,” Alden said.

“I will.”

“You kiss im and hug im and hold im.”

“I will, sir.”

“I’d kiss my boy if I could. I’d kiss his cole-cole cheek.”

“I know you would, sir.”

“But we burrit him. This morning. Right on the place.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Have another beer.”

“Thank you.” She had another beer. She was getting drunk. It was lovely to be drunk.

In this fashion they progressed as the pink stars grew brighter overhead, flickering but not falling: no meteor showers tonight. They passed Sammy’s trailer, where she’d never go again, without slowing.

It was about quarter to eight when Rose Twitchell knocked on the glass panel of the Democrat ’s door. Julia, Pete, and Tony were standing at a long table, creating copies of the newspaper’s latest four-page broadside. Pete and Tony put them together; Julia stapled them and added them to the pile.

When she saw Rose, Julia waved her in energetically. Rose opened the door, then staggered a little. “Jeez, it’s hot in here.”

“Turned off the AC to save juice,” Pete Freeman said, “and the copier gets h

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 730