12
After the roof collapsed, Julia couldn't bear to watch anymore.'Come home with me,' Rose said. 'The guest room is yours as long as you want it.'
'Thanks, but no. I need to be by myself now, Rosie. Well, you know... with Horace. I need to think.'
'Where will you stay? Will you be all right?'
'Yes.' Not knowing if she would be or not. Her mind seemed okay, thinking processes all in order, but she felt as if someone had given her emotions a big shot of Novocaine. 'Maybe I'll come by later.'
When Rosie was gone, walking up the other side of the street (and turning to give Julia a final troubled wave), Julia went back to the Prius, ushered Horace into the front seat, then got behind the wheel. She looked for Pete Freeman and Tony Guay and didn't see them anywhere. Maybe Tony had taken Pete up to the hospital to get some salve for his arm. It was a miracle neither of them had been hurt worse. And if she hadn't taken Horace with her when she drove out to see Cox, her dog would have been incinerated along with everything else.
When that thought came, she realized her emotions weren't numb after all, but only hiding. A sound - a kind of keening - began to come from her. Horace pricked up his considerable ears and looked at her anxiously. She tried to stop and couldn't.
Her father's paper.
Her grandfather's paper.
Her great-grandfather's.
Ashes.
She drove down to West Street, and when she came to the abandoned parking lot behind the Globe, she pulled in. She turned off the engine, drew Horace to her, and wept against one furry, muscular shoulder for five minutes. To his credit, Horace bore this patiently.
When she was cried out, she felt better. Calmer. Perhaps it was the calmness of shock, but at least she could think again. And what she thought of was the one remaining bundle of papers in the trunk. She leaned past Horace (who gave her neck a companionable lick) and opened the glove compartment. It was jammed with rickrack, but she thought somewhere... just possibly...
And like a gift from God, there it was. A little plastic box filled with Push Pins, rubber bands, thumbtacks, and paper clips. Rubber bands and paper clips would be no good for what she had in mind, but the tacks and Push Pins...
'Horace,' she said. 'Do you want to go walkie-walk?'
Horace barked that he did indeed want to go walkie-walk.
'Good,' she said. 'So do I.'
She got the newspapers, then walked back to Main Street. The Democrat building was now just a blazing heap of rubble with cops pouring on the water (from those oh-so-convenient Indian pumps, she thought, all loaded up and ready to go). Looking at it hurl: Julia's heart - of course it did - but not so badly, now that she had something to do.
She walked down the street with Horace pacing in state beside her, and on every telephone pole she put up a copy of the Democrat's last issue. The headline - RIOT AND MURDERS AS CRISIS DEEPENS - seemed to glare out in the light of the fire. She wished now she had settled for a single word: BEWARE.
She went on until they were all gone.
13
Across the street, Peter Randolph's walkie-talkie crackled three times: break-break-break. Urgent. Dreading what he might hear, he thumbed the transmit button, and said: 'Chief Randolph. Go.'
It was Freddy Denton, who, as commanding officer of the night shift, was now the de facto Assistant Chief. 'Just got a call from the hospital, Pete. Double murder - '
' WHAT?' Randolph screamed. One of the new officers - Mickey Wardlaw - was gawking at him like a Mongolian ijit at his first county fair.
Denton continued, sounding either calm or smug. If it was the latter, God help him. '-and a suicide. Shooter was that girl who cried rape. Victims were ours, Chief. Roux and DeLesseps.'
'You... are... SHITTING ME!'
'I sent Rupe and Mel Searles up there,' Freddy said. 'Bright side, it's all over and we don't have to jug her down in the Coop with Barb - '
'You should've gone yourself, Fred. You're the senior officer.'
"Then who'd be on the desk?'
Randolph had no answer for that - it was either too smart or too stupid. He supposed he better get his ass up to Cathy Russell.
I no longer want this job. No. Not even a little bit.
But it was too late now. And with Big Jim to help him, he'd manage. That was the thing to concentrate on; Big Jim would see him through.
Marty Arsenault tapped his shoulder. Randolph almost hauled off and hit him. Arsenault didn't notice; he was looking across the street to where Julia Shumway was walking her dog. Walking her dog and... what?
Putting up newspapers, that was what. Tacking them to the goddam Christing telephone poles.
'That bitch won't quit,' he breathed.
'Want me to go over there and make her quit?'Arsenault asked.
Marty looked eager for the chore, and Randolph almost gave it to him. Then he shook his head.'She'd just start giving you an earful about her damn civil rights. Like she doesn't realize that scaring the holy hell out of everyone isn't exactly in the town's best interest.' He shook his head. 'Probably she doesn't. She's incredibly...' There was a word for what she was, a French word he'd learned in high school. He didn't expect it to come to him, but it did. 'Incredibly naive.'
'I'll stop her, Chief, I will. What's she gonna do, call her lawyer?'
'Let her have her fun. At least it's keeping her out of our hair. I better go up to the hospital. Denton says the Bushey girl murdered Frank DeLesseps and Georgia Roux. Then killed herself
'Christ,' Marty whispered, his face losing its color. 'Is that down to Barbara too, do you think?'
Randolph started to say it wasn't, then reconsidered. His second thought was of the girl's rape accusation. Her suicide gave it a ring of truth, and rumors that Mill police officers could have done such a thing would be bad for department morale, and hence for the town. He didn't need Jim Rennie to tell him that.