by Stephen King
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 à 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 Mill 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 à 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 the
y 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.”
Thurston smiled ruefully. “We were all excited. Having fun.”
When it came to possible lodging, Piper first thought of the McCain house, which was close by. Only she didn’t know where their spare key might be hidden.
Alice Appleton was on the floor, feeding Fig Newton crumbs to Clover. The shepherd was doing the old my-muzzle’s-on-your-ankle-because-I’m-your-best-friend routine in between offerings. “This is the best dog I’ve ever seen,” she told Piper. “I wish we could have a dog.”
“I’ve got a dragon,” Aidan offered. He was sitting comfortably on Carolyn’s lap.
Alice smiled indulgently. “That’s his invisible F-R-E-I-N.”
“I see,” Piper said. She supposed they could always break a window at the McCain place; needs must when the devil drives.
But as she got up to check on the coffee, a better idea occurred. “The Dumagens’. I should have thought of them right away. They went to Boston for a conference. Coralee Dumagen asked me to water her plants while they’re gone.”
“I teach in Boston,” Thurston said. “At Emerson. I edited the current issue of Ploughshares. ” And sighed.
“The key is under a flowerpot to the left of the door,” Piper said. “I don’t believe they have a generator, but there’s a woodstove in the kitchen.” She hesitated, thinking City people. “Can you use a wood-stove to cook on without setting the house on fire?”
“I grew up in Vermont,” Thurston said. “Was in charge of keeping the stoves lit—house and barn—until I went off to college. What goes around comes around, doesn’t it?” And sighed again.
“There’ll be food in the pantry, I’m sure,” Piper said.
Carolyn nodded. “That’s what the janitor at the Town Hall said.”
“Also Joooon-yer, ” Alice put in. “He’s a cop. A foxy one.” Thurston’s mouth turned down. “Alice’s foxy cop assaulted me,” he said. “Him or the other one. I couldn’t tell them apart, myself.”
Piper’s eyebrows went up.
“Punched Thurse in the stomach,” Carolyn said quietly. “Called us Massholes—which, I suppose, we technically are—and laughed at us. For me, that was the worst part, how they laughed at us. They were better once they had the kids with them, but …” She shook her head. “They were out of control.”
And just like that, Piper was back to Sammy. She felt a pulse beginning to beat in the side of her neck, very slow and hard, but she kept her voice even. “What was the other policeman’s name?”
“Frankie,” Carolyn said. “Junior called him Frankie D. Do you know these guys? You must, huh?”
“I know them,” Piper said.
7
She gave the new, makeshift family directions to the Dumagens’—the house had the advantage of being near to Cathy Russell if the boy had another seizure—and sat awhile at her kitchen table after they were gone, drinking tea. She did it slowly. Took a sip and set the cup down. Took a sip and set it down. Clover whined. He was tuned in to her, and she supposed he could sense her rage.
Maybe it changes my smell. Makes it more acrid or something.
A picture was forming. Not a pretty one. A lot of new cops, very young cops, sworn in less than forty-eight hours ago and already running wild. The sort of license they had exhibited with Sammy Bushey and Thurston Marshall wouldn’t spread to veteran cops like Henry Morrison and Jackie Wettington—at least she didn’t think so—but to Fred Denton? Toby Whelan? Maybe. Probably. With Duke in charge, those guys had been all right. Not great, the kind of guys apt to lip you unnecessarily after a traffic stop, but all right. Certainly the best the town’s budget could afford. But her mother had been wont to say, “You buy cheap, you get cheap.” And with Peter Randolph in charge—
Something had to be done.
Only she had to control her temper. If she didn’t, it would control her.
She took the leash from the peg by the door. Clover was up at once, tail swishing, ears perked, eyes bright.
“Come on, you big lug. We’re going to lodge a complaint.”
Her shepherd was still licking Fig Newton crumbs from the side of his muzzle as she led him out the door.
8
Walking across the town common with Clover heeling neatly to her right, Piper felt she did have her temper under control. She felt that way until she heard the laughter. It came as she and Clove were approaching the police station. She observed the very fellows whose names she had gotten out of Sammy Bushey: DeLesseps, Thibodeau, Searles. Georgia Roux was also present, Georgia who had egged them on, according to Sammy: Do that bitch. Freddy Denton was there too. They were sitting at the top of the stone PD steps, drinking sodas, gassing among themselves. Duke Perkins never would have allowed such a thing, and Piper reflected that if he could see them from wherever he was, he’d be rolling in his grave fast enough to set his own remains on fire.
Mel Searles said something and they all broke up again, laughing and backslapping. Thibodeau had his arm around the Roux girl, the tips of his fingers on the sideswell of her breast. She said something, and they all laughed harder.
It came to Piper that they were laughing about the rape—what a goldurn good old time it had been—and after that, her father’s advice never had a chance. The Piper who ministered to the poor and the sick, who officiated at marryings and buryings, who preached charity and tolerance on Sundays, was pushed rudely to the back of her mind, where she could only watch as though through a warped and wavery pane of glass. It was the other Piper who took over, the one who had trashed her room at fifteen, crying tears of rage rather than sorrow.
There was a slate-paved square known as War Memorial Plaza between the Town Hall and the newer brick PD building. At its center was a statue of Ernie Calvert’s father, Lucien Calvert, who had been awarded a posthumous Silver Star for heroic action in Korea. The names of other Chester’s Mill war dead, going all the way back to the Civil War, were engraved on the statue’s base. There were also two flagpoles, the Stars and Stripes at the top of one and the state flag, with its farmer, sailor, and moose, at the top of the other. Both hung limp in the reddening light of oncoming sunset. Piper Libby passed between the poles like a woman in a dream, Clover still heeling behind her right knee with his ears up.
The “officers” atop the steps burst into another hearty roar of laughter, and she thought of trolls in one of the fairy stories her dad had sometimes read her. Trolls in a cave, gloating over piles of ill-gotten gold. Then they saw her and quieted.
“Good evenin, Rev’run,” Mel Searles said, and got up, giving his belt a self-important little hitch as he did so. Standing in the presence of a lady, Piper thought. Did his mother teach him that? Probably. The fine art of rape he probably learned somewhere else.
He was still smiling as she reached the steps, but then it faltered and grew tentative, so he must have seen her expression. Just what that expression might be she didn’t know. From the inside, her face felt frozen. Immobile.
She saw the biggest of them watching her closely. Thibodeau, his face as immobile as hers felt. He’s like Clover, she thought. He smells it on me. The rage.
“Rev’run?” Mel asked. “Everything okay? There a problem?”
She mounted the steps, not fast, not slow, Clover still heeling neatly behind her right knee. “You bet there’s a problem,” she said, looking up at him.
“What—”
“You,” she said. “You’re the problem.”
She pushed him. Mel wasn’t expecting it. He was still holding his cup of soda. He went tumbling into Georgia Roux’s lap, flailing his arms uselessly for balance, and for a moment the soda was a
dark manta ray hanging against the reddening sky. Georgia cried out in surprise as Mel landed on her. She sprawled backward, spilling her own soda. It went running across the wide granite slab in front of the double doors. Piper could smell either whiskey or bourbon. Their Cokes had been spiked with what the rest of the town could no longer buy. No wonder they’d been laughing.
The red fissure inside her head opened wider.
“You can’t—” Frankie began, starting to get up himself. She pushed him. In a galaxy far far away, Clover—ordinarily the sweetest of dogs—was growling.
Frankie went on his back, eyes wide and startled, for a moment looking like the Sunday school boy he once might have been.
“Rape is the problem!” Piper shouted. “Rape!”
“Shut up,” Carter said. He was still sitting, and although Georgia was cowering against him, Carter remained calm. The muscles of his arms rippled below his short-sleeved blue shirt. “Shut up and get out of here right now, if you don’t want to spend the night in a cell downstai—”
“You’re the one who’ll be going into a cell,” Piper said. “All of you.”
“Make her shut up,” Georgia said. She wasn’t whimpering, but she was close. “Make her shut up, Cart.”
“Ma’am—” Freddy Denton. His uniform shirt untucked and bourbon on his breath. Duke would have taken one look and fired his ass. Fired all their asses. He started to get up and this time he was the one who went sprawling, a look of surprise on his face that would have been comical under other circumstances. It was nice that they had been sitting while she was standing. Made it easier. But oh, how her temples were thudding. She returned her attention to Thibodeau, the most dangerous one. He was still looking at her with maddening calm. As though she were a freak he’d paid a quarter to see in a sideshow tent. But he was looking up at her, and that was her advantage.