Under the Dome

As Ginny was winding up her second recitation, a thought came to Andy. Possibly an important one. 'Has anyone - '

Thurston returned with the newcomers in tow. 'Selectman Sanders - Andy - this is my partner, Carolyn Sturges. And these are the children we're taking care of. Alice and Aidan.'

'I want my binkie,' Aidan said morosely.

Alice said, 'You're too old for a binkie,' and elbowed him.

Aidan's face scrunched, but he didn't; quite cry.

'Alice,' Carolyn Sturges said, 'that's mean. And what do we know about mean people?'

Alice brightened. 'Mean people suck!' she cried, and collapsed into giggles. After considering a moment, Aidan joined her.

'I'm sorry,' Carolyn said to Andy. 'I had no one to watch them, and Thurse sounded so distraught when he called...'

It was hard to believe, but it seemed possible the old guy was bumping sweet spots with the young lady. The idea was only of passing interest to Andy, although under other circumstances he might have considered it deeply, pondering positions, wondering about whether she frenched him with that dewy mouth of hers, etc., etc. Now, however, he had other things on his mind.

'Has anyone told Sammy's husband that she's dead?' he asked.

'Phil Bushey?' It was Dougie Twitchell, coming down the hall and into the reception area. His shoulders were slumped and his complexion was gray. 'Sonofabitch left her and left town. Months ago.' His eyes fell on Alice and Aidan Appleton. 'Sorry, kids.'

'That's all right,' Caro said. 'We have an open-language house. It's much more truthful.'

'That's right,' Alice piped up. 'We can say shit and piss all we want, at least until Ma gets back.'

'But not bitch,' Aidan amplified. 'Bitch is ex-ist.'

Caro took no notice of this byplay. 'Thurse? What happened?'

'Not in front of the kids,' he said. 'Open language or no open language.'

'Frank's parents are out of town,'Twitch said,'but I got in touch with Helen Roux. She took it quite calmly.'

'Drunk?' Andy asked.

'As a skunk.'

Andy wandered a little way up the hall. A few patients, clad in hospital johnnies and slippers, were standing with their backs to him. Looking at the scene of the slaughter, he presumed. He had no urge to do likewise, and was glad Dougie Twitchell had taken care of whatever needed taking care of. He was a pharmacist and a politician. His job was to help the living, not process the dead. And he knew something these people did not. He couldn't tell them that Phil Bushey was still in town, living like a hermit out at the radio station, but he could tell Phil that his estranged wife was dead. Could and should. Of course it was impossible to predict what Phil's reaction might be; Phil wasn't himself these days. He might lash out. He might even kill the bearer of bad tidings. But would that be so awful? Suicides might go to hell and dine on hot coals for eternity, but murder victims, Andy was quite sure, went to heaven and ate roast beef and peach cobbler at the Lord's table for all eternity.

With their loved ones.

15

In spite of the nap she'd had earlier in the day, Julia was more tired than ever in her life, or so it felt. And unless she took Rosie up on her offer, she had nowhere to go. Except her car, of course.

She went back to it, undipped Horace's leash so he could jump onto the passenger seat, and then sat behind the wheel trying to think. She liked Rose Twitchell just fine, but Rosie would want to rehash the entire long and harrowing day. And she'd want to know what, if anything, was to be done about Dale Barbara. She would look to Julia for ideas, and Julia had none.

Meanwhile Horace was staring at her, asking with his cocked ears and bright eyes what came next. He made her think of the woman who had lost her dog: Piper Libby. Piper would take her in and give her a bed without talking her ear off. And after a night's sleep, Julia might be able to think again. Even plan a little.

She started the Prius and drove up to the Congo church. But the parsonage was dark, and a note was tacked to the door. Julia pulled the tack, took the note back to the car, and read it by the dome light.

I have gone to the hospital. There has been a shooting there.

Julia started to make the keening noise again, and when Horace began to whine as if trying to harmonize, she made herself stop. She put the Prius in reverse, then put it back in Park long enough to return the note to where she had found it, in case some other parishioner with the weight of the world on his shoulders (or hers) might come by looking for The Mill's remaining spiritual advisor.

So now where? Rosie's after all? But Rosie might already have turned in. The hospital? Julia would have forced herself to go there in spite of her shock and her weariness if it had served a purpose, but now there was no newspaper in which to report whatever had happened, and without that, no reason to expose herself to fresh horrors.

She backed out of the driveway and turned up Town Common Hill with no idea where she was going until she came to Prestile Street. Three minutes later, she was parking in Andrea Grinnell's driveway. Yet this house was also dark. There was no answer to her soft knocks. Having no way of knowing that Andrea was in her bed upstairs, deeply asleep for the first time since dumping her pills, Julia assumed she had either gone to her brother Dougie's house or was spending the night with a friend.

Meanwhile, Horace was sitting on the welcome mat, looking up at her, waiting for her to take charge, as she had always done. But Julia was too hollowed out to take charge and too tired to go further. She was more than half convinced that she would drive the Prius off the road and kill them both if she tried going anywhere.

What she kept thinking about wasn't the burning building where her life had been stored but of how Colonel Cox had looked when she'd asked him if they had been abandoned.

Negative, he'd said. Absolutely not. But he hadn't quite been able to look at her while he said it.