"No. Go home. Sleep. No setting the alarm, either." Then an idea struck him. "But stop by Sweetbriar Rose on the way, why don't you? They're having chicken. I heard it from a reliable source."
"The Bushey girl--"
"I'll be checking on her in five minutes. What you're going to do is make like a bee and buzz."
He closed his phone before she could protest again.
3
Big Jim Rennie felt remarkably good for a man who had committed murder the night before. This was partially because he did not see it as murder, no more than he had seen the death of his late wife as murder. It was cancer that had taken her. Inoperable. Yes, he had probably given her too many of the pain pills over the last week, and in the end he'd still had to help her with a pillow over her face (but lightly, ever so lightly, slowing her breathing, easing her into the arms of Jesus), but he had done it out of love and kindness. What had happened to Reverend Coggins was a bit more brutal--admittedly--but the man had been so bullish. So completely unable to put the town's welfare ahead of his own.
"Well, he's eating dinner with Christ the Lord tonight," Big Jim said. "Roast beef, mashed with gravy, apple crisp for dessert." He himself was eating a large plate of fettuccini alfredo, courtesy of the Stouffer's company. A lot of cholesterol, he supposed, but there was no Dr. Haskell around to nag him about it.
"I outlasted you, you old poop," Big Jim told his empty study, and laughed goodnaturedly. His plate of pasta and a glass filled with milk (Big Jim Rennie did not drink alcohol) were set on his desk blotter. He often ate in the study, and he saw no need to change that simply because Lester Coggins had met his end here. Besides, the room was once more squared away and spandy-clean. Oh, he supposed one of those investigation units like the ones on TV would be able to find plenty of blood-spatter with their luminol and special lights and things, but none of those people was going to be here in the immediate future. As for Pete Randolph doing any sleuthing in the matter ... the idea was a joke. Randolph was an idiot.
"But," Big Jim told the empty room in a lecturely tone, "he's my idiot."
He slurped up the last few strands of pasta, mopped his considerable chin with a napkin, then once more began to jot notes on the yellow legal pad beside the blotter. He had jotted plenty of notes since Saturday; there was so much to do. And if the Dome stayed in place, there would be more still.
Big Jim sort of hoped it would remain in place, at least for a while. The Dome offered challenges to which he felt certain he could rise (with God's help, of course). The first order of business was to consolidate his hold on the town. For that he needed more than a scapegoat; he needed a bogeyman. The obvious choice was Barbara, the man the Democrat Party's Commie-in-Chief had tapped to replace James Rennie.
The study door opened. When Big Jim looked up from his notes, his son was standing there. His face was pale and expressionless. There was something not quite right about Junior lately. As busy as he was with the town's affairs (and their other enterprise; that had also kept him busy), Big Jim realized this. But he felt confident in the boy just the same. Even if Junior let him down, Big Jim was sure he could handle it. He'd spent a lifetime making his own luck; that wasn't going to change now.
Besides, the boy had moved the body. That made him part of this. Which was good--the essence of smalltown life, in fact. In a small town, everybody was supposed to be a part of everything. How did that silly song put it? We all support the team.
"Son?" he asked. "All right?"
"I'm fine," Junior said. He wasn't, but he was better, the latest poisonous headache finally lifting. Being with his girlfriends had helped, as he'd known it would. The McCain pantry didn't smell so good, but after he'd sat there awhile, holding their hands, he'd gotten used to it. He thought he could even come to like that smell.
"Did you find anything in his apartment?"
"Yes." Junior told him what he had found.
"That's excellent, Son. Really excellent. And are you ready to tell me where you put the ... where you put him?"
Junior shook his head slowly back and forth, but his eyes stayed in exactly the same place while he did it--pinned on his father's face. It was a little eerie. "You don't need to know. I told you that. It's a safe place, and that's enough."
"So now you're telling me what I need to know." But he said it without his usual heat.
"In this case, yes."
Big Jim considered his son carefully. "Are you sure you're all right? You look pale."
"I'm fine. Just a headache. It's going now."
"Why not have something to eat? There are a few more fettuccinis in the freezer, and the microwave does a great job on them." He smiled. "Might as well enjoy them while we can."
The dark, considering eyes dropped for a moment to the puddle of white sauce on Big Jim's plate, then rose again to his father's face. "Not hungry. When should I find the bodies?"
"Bodies?" Big Jim stared. "What do you mean, bodies ?"
Junior smiled, lips lifting just enough to show the tips of his teeth. "Never mind. It'll help your cred if you're surprised like everyone else. Let's put it this way--once we pull the trigger, this town will be ready to hang Baaarbie from a sour apple tree. When do you want to do it? Tonight? Because that'll work."
Big Jim considered the question. He looked down at his yellow pad. It was crammed with notes (and splattered with alfredo sauce), but only one was circled: newspaper bitch.
"Not tonight. We can use him for more than Coggins if we play this right."
"And if the Dome comes down while you're playing it?"
"We'll be fine," Big Jim said. Thinking, And if Mr. Barbara is somehow able to squirm free of the frame--not likely, but cockroaches have a way of finding cracks when the lights go on--there's always you. You and those other bodies. "Now get yourself something to eat, even if it's only a salad."
But Junior didn't move. "Don't wait too long, Dad," he said. "I won't."
Junior considered it, considered him with those dark eyes that seemed so strange now, then seemed to lose interest. He yawned. "I'm going up to my room and sleep awhile. I'll eat later."
"Just make sure you do. You're getting too thin."
"Thin is in," his son replied, and offered a hollow smile that was even more disquieting than his eyes. To Big Jim, it looked like a skull's smile. It made him think of the fellow who now just called himself The Chef--as if his previous life as Phil Bushey had been canceled. When Junior left the room, Big Jim breathed a sigh of relief without even being aware of it.
He picked up his pen: so much to do. He would do it, and do it well. It was not impossible that when this thing was over, his picture would be on the cover of Time magazine.
4
With her generator still running--although it wouldn't be for much longer unless she could find some more LP canisters--Brenda Perkins was able to fire up her husband's printer and make a hard copy of everything in the VADER file. The incredible list of offenses Howie had compiled--and which he had apparently been about to act on at the time of his death--seemed more real to her on paper than they had on the computer screen. And the more she looked at them, the more they seemed to fit the Jim Rennie she'd known for most of her life. She had always known he was a monster; just not how big a monster.
Even the stuff about Coggins's Jesus-jumping church fit ... although if she was reading this right, it was really not a church at all but a big old holy Maytag that washed money instead of clothes. Money from a drug-manufacturing operation that was, in her husband's words, "maybe one of the biggest in the history of the United States."
But there were problems, which both Police Chief Howie "Duke" Perkins and the State AG had acknowledged. The problems were why the evidence-gathering phase of Operation Vader had gone on as long as it had. Jim Rennie wasn't just a big monster; he was a smart monster. That was why he had always been content to remain the Second Selectman. He had Andy Sanders to break trail for him.
And to wear a target--that, too. For a long time,
Andy was the only one against whom Howie had had hard evidence. He was the frontman and probably didn't even know it, cheery gladhanding dumbshit that he was. Andy was First Selectman, First Deacon at Holy Redeemer, first in the hearts of the townsfolk, and out front on a trail of corporate documents that finally disappeared into the obfuscatory financial swamps of Nassau and Grand Cayman Island. If Howie and the State Attorney General had moved too soon, he would also have been first to get his picture taken while holding a number. Maybe the only one, should he believe Big Jim's inevitable promises that all would be well if Andy just kept mum. And he probably would. Who was better at dummying up than a dummy?
Last summer, things had begun working toward what Howie had seen as the endgame. That was when Rennie's name had started showing up on some of the paperwork the AG had obtained, most notably that of a Nevada corporation called Town Ventures. The Town Ventures money had disappeared west instead of east, not into the Caribbean but into mainland China, a country where the key ingredients of decongestant drugs could be bought in bulk, with few or any questions.
Why would Rennie allow such exposure? Howie Perkins had been able to think of only one reason: the money had gotten too big too fast for one holy washing machine. Rennie's name had subsequently appeared on papers concerning half a dozen other fundamentalist churches in the northeast. Town Ventures and the other churches (not to mention half a dozen other religious radio stations and AM talkers, none as big as WCIK) were Rennie's first real mistakes. They left dangling strings. Strings could be pulled, and sooner or later--usually sooner--everything unraveled.
You couldn't let go, could you? Brenda thought as she sat behind her husband's desk, studying the papers. You'd made millions--maybe tens of millions--and the risks were becoming outrageous, but you still couldn't let go. Like a monkey who traps himself because he won't let go of the food. You were sitting on a damn fortune and you just kept on living in that old three-story and selling cars at that pit of yours out on 119. Why?
But she knew. It wasn't the money; it was the town. What he saw as his town. Sitting on a beach somewhere in Costa Rica or presiding over a guarded estate in Namibia, Big Jim would become Small Jim. Because a man without a sense of purpose, even one whose bank accounts are stuffed with money, is always a small man.
If she confronted him with what she had, could she make a deal with him? Force him out in return for her silence? She wasn't sure. And she dreaded the confrontation. It would be ugly, possibly dangerous. She would want to have Julia Shumway with her. And Barbie. Only Dale Barbara was now wearing his own target.
Howie's voice, calm but firm, spoke up in her head. You can afford to wait a little while--I was waiting for a few final items of proof myself--but I wouldn't wait too long, honey. Because the longer this siege goes on, the more dangerous he'll become.
She thought of Howie starting to back down the driveway, then stopping to put his lips on hers in the sunshine, his mouth almost as well known to her as her own, and certainly as well loved. Caressing the side of her throat as he did it. As if he knew the end was coming, and one last touch would have to pay for all. An easy and romantic conceit for sure, but she almost believed it, and her eyes filled with tears.
Suddenly the papers and all the machinations contained therein seemed less important. Even the Dome didn't seem very important. What mattered was the hole that had appeared so suddenly in her life, sucking out the happiness she had taken for granted. She wondered if poor dumb Andy Sanders felt the same way. She supposed he did.
I'll give it twenty-four hours. If the Dome's still in place tomorrow night, I'll go to Rennie with this stuff--with copies of this stuff--and tell him he has to resign in favor of Dale Barbara. Tell him that if he doesn't, he's going to read all about his drug operation in the paper.
"Tomorrow," she murmured, and closed her eyes. Two minutes later she was asleep in Howie's chair. In Chester's Mill, the supper hour had come. Some meals (including chicken a la king for a hundred or so) were cooked on electric or gas ranges courtesy of the generators in town that were still working, but there were also people who had turned to their woodstoves, either to conserve their gennies or because wood was now all they had. The smoke rose in the still air from hundreds of chimneys.
And spread.
5
After delivering the Geiger counter--the recipient took it willingly, even eagerly, and promised to begin prospecting with it early on Tuesday--Julia headed for Burpee's Department Store with Horace on his leash. Romeo had told her he had a pair of brand-new Kyocera photocopiers in storage, both still in their original shipping cartons. She was welcome to both.
"I also got a little propane tucked away," he said, giving Horace a pat. "I'll see you get what you need--for as long as I can, at least. We gotta keep that newspaper running, am I right? More important than ever, don't you t'ink?"
It was exactly what she t'ought, and Julia had told him so. She had also planted a kiss on his cheek. "I owe you for this, Rommie."
"I'll be expectin a big discount on my weekly advertising circular when this is over." He had then tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger, as if they had a great big secret. Maybe they did.
As she left, her cell phone chirruped. She pulled it out of her pants pocket. "Hello, this is Julia."
"Good evening, Ms. Shumway."
"Oh, Colonel Cox, how wonderful to hear your voice," she said brightly. "You can't imagine how thrilled we country mice are to get out-of-town calls. How's life outside the Dome?"
"Life in general is probably fine," he said. "Where I am, it's on the shabby side. You know about the missiles?"
"Watched them hit. And bounce off. They lit a fine fire on your side--"
"It's not my--"
"--and a fairly good one on ours."
"I'm calling for Colonel Barbara," Cox said. "Who should be carrying his own goddam phone by now."
"Goddam right!" she cried, still in her brightest tone. "And people in goddam hell should have goddam icewater!" She stopped in front of the Gas & Grocery, now shut up tight. The hand-lettered sign in the window read HRS OF OP TOMORROW 11 AM-2 PM GET HERE EARLY!
"Ms. Shumway--"
"We'll discuss Colonel Barbara in a minute," Julia said. "Right now I want to know two things. First, when is the press going to be allowed at the Dome? Because the people of America deserve more than the government's spin on this, don't you think?"
She expected him to say he did not think, that there would be no New York Times or CNN at the Dome in the foreseeable future, but Cox surprised her. "Probably by Friday if none of the other tricks up our sleeve work. What's the other thing you want to know, Ms. Shumway? Make it brief, because I'm not a press officer. That's another pay grade."
"You called me, so you're stuck with me. Suck it up, Colonel."
"Ms. Shumway, with all due respect, yours is not the only cell phone in Chester's Mill I can reach out and touch."
"I'm sure that's true, but I don't think Barbie will talk to you if you shine me on. He's not particularly happy with his new position as prospective stockade commandant."
Cox sighed. "What's your question?"
"I want to know the temperature on the south or east side of the Dome--a true temperature, meaning away from the fire you guys set."
"Why--"
"Do you have that information or not? I think you do, or can get it. I think you're sitting in front of a computer screen right now, and you have access to everything, probably including my underwear size." She paused. "And if you say sixteen, this call is over."
"Are you exhibiting your sense of humor, Ms. Shumway, or are you always this way?"
"I'm tired and scared. Chalk it up to that."
There was a pause on Cox's end. She thought she heard the click of computer keys. Then he said, "It's forty-seven Fahrenheit in Castle Rock. Will that do?"
"Yes." The disparity wasn't as bad as she had feared, but still considerable. "I'm looking at the thermometer in the window of the M
ill Gas and Grocery. It says fifty-eight. That's an eleven-degree difference between locations less than twenty miles apart. Unless there's a hell of a big warm front pushing through western Maine this evening, I'd say something's going on here. Do you agree?"
He didn't answer her question, but what he did say took her mind off it. "We're going to try something else. Around nine this evening. It's what I wanted to tell Barbie."
"One hopes Plan B will work better than Plan A. At this moment, I believe the President's appointee is feeding the multitudes at Sweetbriar Rose. Chicken a la king is the rumor." She could see the lights down the street, and her belly rumbled.
"Will you listen and pass on a message?" And she heard what he did not add: You contentious bitch?
"Happy to," she said. Smiling. Because she was a contentious bitch. When she had to be.
"We're going to try an experimental acid. A hydrofluoric compound, man-made. Nine times as corrosive as the ordinary stuff."
"Living better through chemistry."
"I'm told you could theoretically burn a hole two miles deep in the bedrock with it."
"What highly amusing people you work for, Colonel."
"We're going to try where Motton Road crosses--" There was a rustle of paper. "Where it crosses into Harlow. I expect to be there."
"Then I'll tell Barbie to have someone else wash up."
"Will you also be favoring us with your company, Ms. Shumway?"
She opened her mouth to say I wouldn't miss it, and that was when all hell broke loose up the street.
"What's going on there?" Cox asked.
Julia didn't reply. She closed her phone and stuck it in her pocket, already running toward the sound of yelling voices. And something else. Something that sounded like snarling.
The gunshot came while she was still half a block away.
6
Piper went back to the parsonage and discovered Carolyn, Thurston, and the Appleton kids waiting there. She was glad to see them, because they took her mind off Sammy Bushey. At least temporarily.
She listened to Carolyn's account of Aidan Appleton's seizure, but the boy seemed fine now--chowing ever deeper into a stack of Fig Newtons. When Carolyn asked if the boy should see a doctor, Piper said, "Unless there's a recurrence, I think you can assume it was brought on by hunger and the excitement of the game."