Under the Dome

'Maybe Junior killed the girls and his old man killed Brenda and Coggins,' Rusty said, and waited for someone to laugh. No one did. 'If so, why?'

They all shook their heads.

'There must have been a motive,' Rusty said, 'but I doubt if it was sex.'

'You think he has something to hide,'Jackie said.

'Yeah, I do. And I have an idea of someone who might know what it is. He's locked in the Police Department basement.'

'Barbara?' Jackie asked. 'Why would Barbara know?'

'Because he was talking to Brenda. They had quite a little heart-to-heart in her backyard the day after the Dome came down.'

'How in the world do you know that?' Stacey asked.

'Because the Buffalinos live next door to the Perkinses and Gina BufFalino's bedroom window overlooks the Perkins backyard. She saw them and mentioned it to me.' He saw Linda looking at him and shrugged.'What can I say? It's a small town. We all support the team.'

'I hope you told her to keep her mouth shut,' Linda said.

'I didn't, because when she told me I didn't have any reason to suspect Big Jim might have killed Brenda. Or bashed Lester Coggins's head in with a souvenir baseball. I didn't even know they were dead.'

'We still don't know if Barbie knows anything,' Stacey said.'Other than how to make a hell of a mushroom-and-cheese omelet, that is.'

'Somebody will have to ask him,'Jackie said. 'I nominate me.'

'Even if he does know something, will it do any good?' Linda asked.'This is almost a dictatorship now. I'm just realizing; that. I guess that makes me slow.'

'It makes you more trusting than slow,'Jackie said,'and normally trusting's a good way to be. As to Colonel Barbara, we won't know what good he might do us until we ask.' She paused. 'And that's really not the point, you know. He's innocent. That's the point.'

'What if they kill him?' Rusty asked bluntly. 'Shot while trying to escape.'

T'm pretty sure that won't happen,' Jackie said. 'Big Jim wants a show-trial. That's the talk at the station.' Stacey nodded.'They want to make people believe Barbara's a spider spinning a vast web of conspiracy. Then they can execute him. But even moving at top speed, that's days away. Weeks, if we're lueky.'

'We won't be that lucky,' Linda said, 'Not if Rennie wants to move fast.'

'Maybe you're right, but Rennie's got the special town meeting to get through on Thursday first. And he'll want to question Barbara. If Rusty knows he's been with Brenda, then Rennie knows.'

'Of course he knows,' Stacey said. Sounding impatient. 'They were together when Barbara showed Jim the letter from the President.'

They thought about this in silence for a minute.

'If Rennie's hiding something,' Linda mused,'he'll want time to get rid of it.'

Jackie laughed. The sound in that tense living room was almost shocking. 'Good luck on that. Whatever it is, he can't exactly put it in the back of a truck and drive it out of town.'

'Something to do with the propane?' Linda asked.

'Maybe; Rusty said. 'Jackie, you were in the service, right?'

'Army. Two tours. Military Police. Never saw combat, although I saw plenty of casualties, especially on my second tour. Wiirzburg, Germany, First Infantry Division.You know, the Big Red One? Mostly I stopped bar fights or stood guard outside the hospital there. I knew guys like Barbie, and I would give a great deal to have him out of that cell and on our side. There was a reason the President put him in charge. Or tried to.' She paused. 'It might be possible to break him out. It's worth considering.'

The other two women - police officers who also happened to be mothers - said nothing to this, but Linda was nibbling her nails again and Stacey was - worrying her hair.

'I know,'Jackie said.

Linda shook her head. 'Unless you have kids asleep upstairs and depending on you to make breakfast for them in the morning, you don't.'

'Maybe not, but ask yourself this: If we're cut off from the outside world, which we are, and if the man in charge is a murderous nut-ball, which he may be, are things apt to get better if we just sit back and do nothing?'

'If you broke him out,' Rusty said, 'what would you do with him? You can't exactly put him in the Witness Protection Program.'

'I don't know,' Jackie said, and sighed. 'All I know is that the President ordered him to take charge and Big Jim Fucking Rennie framed him for murder so he couldn't.'

'You're not going to do anything right away,' Rusty said. 'Not even take the chance of talking to him. There's something else in play here, and it could change everything.'

He told them about the Geiger counter - how it had come into his possession, to whom he had passed it on, and what Joe McClatchey claimed to have found with it.

'I don't know,' Stacey said doubtfully. 'It seems too good to be true. The McClatchey boy's... what? Fourteen?'

'Thirteen, I think. But this is one bright kid, and if he says they got a radiation spike out on Black Ridge Road, I believe him. If they have found the thing generating the Dome, and we can shut it down...'

'Then this ends!' Linda cried. Her eyes were bright. 'And Jim Rennie collapses like a... a Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon with a hole in it!'

'Wouldn't that be nice,' Jackie Wettington said.'If it was on TV, I might even believe it.'

17

'Phil?' Andy called. 'Phil?'

He had to raise his voice to be heard. Bonnie Nandella and The Redemption were working through 'My Soul is a Witness' at top volume. All those ooo-oohs and whoa-yeahs were a little disorienting. Even the bright light inside the WCIK broadcast facility was disorienting; until he stood beneath those fluorescents, Andy hadn't really realized how dark the rest of The Mill had become. And how much he'd adapted to it. 'Chef?'

No answer. He glanced at the TV (CNN with the sound off), then looked through the long window into the broadcast studio. The lights were on in there, too, and all the equipment was running (it gave him the creeps, even though Lester Coggins had explained with great pride how a computer ran everything), but there was no sign of Phil.