Under the Dome

'What kind of note?'

'I'm going to break him out tomorrow night,'Jackie said, more calmly than she felt. 'During the big town meeting. I won't need you for that part - '

'You won't get me for that part!' Linda was clutching the neck of her nightgown.

'Keep your voice down. I'm thinking maybe Romeo Burpee - assuming I can convince him Barbie didn't kill Brenda. We'll wear balaclavas or something, so we can't be identified. No one will be surprised; everyone in this town already thinks he has cohorts.'

'You're insane!'

'No. There'll be nothing but a skeleton crew at the PD during the meeting - three, four guys. Maybe only a couple. I'm sure of it.'

'I'm not!'

'But tomorrow night's a long way away. He has to string them alongl at least that far. Now get me that bowl.'

'Jackie, I can't do this.'

'Yes, you can.' It was Rusty, standing in the doorway and looking relatively enormous in a pair of gym shorts and a New England Patriots tee-shirt. 'It's time to start taking risks, kids or no kids. We're on our own here, and this has got to stop.'

Linda looked at him for a moment, biting her lip. Then she bent to one of the lower cabinets. 'The Tupperware's down here.'

23

Wheri they came into the police station, the duty desk was unmanned - Freddy Denton had gone home to catch some sleep - but half a dozen of the younger officers were sitting around, drinking coffee and talking, high enough on excitement to get up at an hour few of them had experienced in a conscious state for a long time. Among them Jackie saw two of the multitudinous Killian brothers, a smalltown biker chick and Dipper's habitue named Lauren Conree, and Carter Thibodeau. The others she couldn't name, but she recognized two as chronic truants from high school who had also been in on various minor drug and MV violations.The new 'officers' - the newest of the new - weren't wearing uniforms, but had swatches of blue cloth tied around their upper arms.

All but one were wearing guns.

'What are you two doing up so early?'Thibodeau asked, strolling over. 'I got an excuse - ran out of pain pills.'

The others guffawed like trolls.

'Brought breakfast for Barbara,'Jackie said. She was afraid to look at Linda, afraid of what expression she might see on Linda's face.

Thibodeau peered into the bowl. 'No milk?'

'He doesn't need milk,' Jackie said, and spat into the bowl of Special K. 'I'll wet it down for him.'

A cheer went up from the others. Several clapped.

Jackie and Linda got as far as the stairs before Thibodeau said, 'Gimme that.'

For a moment Jackie froze. She saw herself flinging the bowl at him, then taking to her heels. What stopped her was a simple fact: they had nowhere to run. Even if they made it out of the station, they'd be collared before they could get past the War Memorial.

Linda took the Tupperware bowl from Jackie's hands and held it out. Thibodeau peered into it. Then, instead of investigating the cereal for hidden treats, he spat into it himself.

'My contribution,' he said.

'Wait a minute, wait a minute,' the Conree girl said. She was a rangy redhead with a model's body and acne-ravaged cheeks. Her voice was a little foggy, because she had one finger rammed up her nose to the second knuckle. 'I got sumpin, too.' Her finger emerged with a large booger riding the end of it. Ms Conree deposited it on top of the cereal, to more applause and someone's cry of 'Laurie mines for the green gold!'

'Every box of cereal s'posed to have a toy surprise in it,' she said, smiling vacantly. She dropped her hand to the butt of the.45 she was wearing. Thin as she was, Jackie thought the recoil would probably blow her right off her feet if she ever had occasion to fire it.

'All set,' Thibodeau said. 'I'll keep you company.'

'Good,' Jackie said, and when she thought of how close she'd come to just putting the note in her pocket and trying to hand it to Barbie, she felt cold. All at once the risk they were taking seemed insane... but it was too late now. 'Stay back by the stairs, though. And Linda, you keep behind me. We take no chances.' She thought he might argue that, but he didn't.

24

Barbie sat up on the bunk. On the other side of the bars stood Jackie Wettington with a white plastic bowl in one hand. Behind her, Linda Everett had her gun drawn and held in a double fist, pointing at the floor. Carter Thibodeau was last in line at the foot of the stairs with his hair in sleep-spikes and his blue uniform shirt unbuttoned to show the bandage covering the dogbite on his shoulder.

'Hello, Officer Wettington,' Barbie said. Thin white light was creeping in through his slit of a window. It was the kind of first light that ijiakes life seem like the joke of jokes. 'I'm innocent of all accusations. I can't call them charges, because I haven't been - '

'Shut up,' Linda said from behind her. 'We're not interested.'

'Tell it, Blondie,' Carter said. 'You go, girl.' He yawned and scratched at the bandage.

'Sit right there,' Jackie said. 'Don't you move a muscle.'

Barbie sat. She pushed the plastic bowl through the bars. It was small, and just fit.

He picked up the bowl. It was filled with what looked like Special K. Spit gleamed on top of the dry cereal. Something else as well: a large green booger, damp and threaded with blood. And still his stomach rumbled. He was very hungry.

He was also hurt, in spite of himself. Because he'd thought Jackie Wettington, whom he had spotted as ex-military the first time he saw her (it was partly the haircut, mostly her way of carrying herself), was better than this. It had been easy to deal with Henry Morrison's disgust. This was harder. And the other woman cop - the one married to Rusty Everett - was looking at him as if he were some rare species of stinging bug. He had hoped at least some of the department's regular officers -

'Eat up,' Thibodeau called from his place on the steps. 'We fixed it nice for you. Didn't we, girls?'