"I'm actually a Cat'lick," he said (No shit, Piper thought), "but there isn't a Cat'lick church in The Mill ... which acourse you know, bein a minister ... and you know what they say bout any port in a storm. I thought I'd come in and say a little prayer for Brenda. I always liked dat woman." He rubbed a hand up one cheek. The rasp of his palm on the beard-stubble there seemed very loud in the hollow silence of the church. His Elvis 'do was drooping around his ears. "Loved her, really. I never said, but I t'ink she knew."
Piper stared at him with growing horror. She hadn't been out of the parsonage all day, and although she knew about what had happened at Food City--several of her parishioners had called her--she had heard nothing about Brenda Perkins.
"Brenda? What happened to her?"
"Murdered. Others, too. They're sayin that guy Barbie did it. He been arrested."
Piper clapped a hand over her mouth and swayed on her feet. Rommie hurried forward and put a steadying arm around her waist. And that was how they were standing before the altar, almost like a man and woman about to be married, when the vestibule door opened again and Jackie led Linda and Julia inside.
"Maybe this isn't such a good place, after all," Jackie said.
The church was a soundbox, and although she didn't speak loudly, Piper and Romeo Burpee heard her perfectly.
"Don't leave," Piper said. "Not if it's about what happened. I can't believe Mr. Barbara ... I would have said he was incapable. He put my arm back in after it was dislocated. He was very gentle about it." She paused to think about that. "As gentle as he could be, under the circumstances. Come down front. Please come down front."
"People can fix a dislocated arm and still be capable of murder," Linda said, but she was biting her lip and twisting her wedding ring.
Jackie put a hand on her wrist. "We were going to keep this quiet, Lin--remember?"
"Too late for that," Linda said. "They've seen us with Julia. If she writes a story and those two say they saw us with her, we'll get blamed."
Piper had no clear idea what Linda was talking about, but she got the general gist. She raised her right arm and swept it around. "You're in my church, Mrs. Everett, and what's said here stays here."
"Do you promise?" Linda asked.
"Yes. So why don't we talk about it? I was just praying for a sign, and here you all are."
"I don't believe in stuff like that," Jackie said.
"Neither do I, actually," Piper said, and laughed.
"I don't like it," Jackie said. It was Julia she was addressing. "No matter what she says, this is too many people. Losing my job like Marty is one thing. I could deal with that, the pay sucks, anyway. Getting Jim Rennie mad at me, though ..." She shook her head. "Not a good idea."
"It isn't too many," Piper said. "It's just the right number. Mr. Burpee, can you keep a secret?"
Rommie Burpee, who had done any number of questionable deals in his time, nodded and put a finger over his lips. "Mum's the word," he said. Word came out woid.
"Let's go in the parsonage," Piper said. When she saw that Jackie still looked doubtful, Piper held out her left hand to her ... very carefully. "Come, let us reason together. Maybe over a little tot of whiskey?"
And with this, Jackie was at last convinced.
3
31 BURN CLEANSE BURN CLEANSE
THE BEAST WILL BE CAST INTO A
BURNING LAKE OF FIRE (REV 19:20)
"2 BE TORMENTED DAY & NITE 4-EVER" (20:10)
BURN THE WICKED
PURIFY THE SAINTLIE
BURN CLEANSE BURN CLEANSE 31
31 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 HOSP on 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 cookers--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.
4
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.
5
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.
6
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 h
appen 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 ..."