Under the Dome: A Novel (71 page)

“Chef?” he asked. “You here, buddy?”

No answer. And although he had no business doing so—was probably crazy himself for doing so—curiosity got the better of him and he used his makeshift club to push open the door.

The fluorescents in the lab were on, but otherwise this part of the Christ Is King storage building looked empty. The twenty or so cook-ers—big electric grills, each hooked to its own exhaust fan and propane canister—were off. The pots, beakers, and expensive flasks were all on their shelves. The place stank (always had, always would, Fern thought), but the floor was swept and there was no sign of disarray. On one wall was a Rennie’s Used Cars calendar, still turned to August.
Probably when the motherfucker finished losing touch with reality,
Fern thought.
Just flooaated away.
He ventured a little farther into the lab. It had made them all rich men, but he had never liked it. It smelled too much like the funeral parlor’s downstairs prep room.

One corner had been partitioned off with a heavy steel panel. There was a door in the middle of it. This, Fern knew, was where The Chef’s product was stored, long-glass crystal meth put up not in gallon Baggies but in Hefty garbage bags. Not shitglass, either. No tweeker scruffing the streets of New York or Los Angeles in search of a fix would have been able to credit such stocks. When the place was full, it held enough to supply the entire United States for months, perhaps even a year.

Why did Big Jim let him make so fucking much?
Fern wondered.
And why did we go along? What were we thinking of?
He could come up with no answer to this question but the obvious one: because they could. The combination of Bushey’s genius and all those cheap Chinese ingredients had intoxicated them. Also, it funded the CIK
Corporation, which was doing God’s work all up and down the East Coast. When anyone questioned, Big Jim always pointed this out. And he would quote scripture:
For the laborer is worthy of his hire
—Gospel of Luke—and
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox while he is threshing
—First Timothy.

Fern had never really gotten that one about the oxes.

“Chef?” Advancing in a little farther still. “Goodbuddy?”

Nothing. He looked up and saw galleries of bare wood running along two sides of the building. These were being used for storage, and the contents of the cartons stacked there would have interested the FBI, the FDA, and the ATF a great deal. No one was up there, but Fern spied something he thought was new: white cord running along the railings of both galleries, affixed to the wood by heavy staples. An electrical cord? Running to what? Had that nutball put more cookers up there? If so, Fern didn’t see them. The cord looked too thick to be powering just a simple appliance, like a TV or a ra—

“Fern!” Stewart cried, making him jump. “If he ain’t there, come on and help us! I want to get out of here! They said there’s gonna be an update on TV at six and I want to see if they’ve figured anything out!”

In Chester’s Mill, “they” had more and more come to mean anything or anyone in the world beyond the town’s borders.

Fern went, not looking over the door and thus not seeing what the new electrical cords were attached to: a large brick of white clay-like stuff sitting on its own little shelf. It was explosive.

The Chef’s own recipe.

4

As they drove back toward town, Roger said: “Halloween. That’s a thirty-one, too.”

“You’re a regular fund of information,” Stewart said.

Roger tapped the side of his unfortunately shaped head. “I store it up,” he said. “I don’t do it on purpose. It’s just a knack.”

Stewart thought:
Jamaica. Or Barbados. Somewhere warm, for sure. As soon as the Dome lets go. I never want to see another Killian. Or anyone from this town.

“There’s also thirty-one cards in a deck,” Roger said.

Fern stared at him. “What the fuck are you—”

“Just kiddin, just kiddin with you,” Roger said, and burst into a terrifying shriek of laughter that hurt Stewart’s head.

They were coming up on the hospital now. Stewart saw a gray Ford Taurus pulling out of Catherine Russell.

“Hey, that’s Dr. Rusty,” Fern said. “Bet he’ll be glad to get this stuff. Give im a toot, Stewie.”

Stewart gave im a toot.

5

When the Godless ones were gone, Chef Bushey finally let go of the garage door opener he’d been holding. He had been watching the Bowie brothers and Roger Killian from the window in the studio men’s room. His thumb had been on the button the whole time they were in the storage barn, rummaging around in his stuff. If they had come out with product, he would have pushed the button and blown the whole works sky-high.

“It’s in your hands, my Jesus,” he had muttered. “Like we used to say when we were kids, I don’t wanna but I will.”

And Jesus handled it. Chef had a feeling He would when he heard George Dow and the Gospel-Tones come over the sat-feed, singing “God, How You Care for Me,” and it was a true feeling, a true Sign from Above. They hadn’t come for long glass but for two piddling tanks of LP.

He watched them drive away, then shambled down the path between the back of the studio and the combination lab–storage facility. It was
his
building now,
his
long-glass, at least until Jesus came and took it all for his own.

Maybe Halloween.

Maybe earlier.

It was a lot to think about, and thinking was easier these days when he was smoked up.

Much easier.

6

Julia sipped her small tot of whiskey, making it last, but the women cops slugged theirs like heroes. It wasn’t enough to make them drunk, but it loosened their tongues.

“Fact is, I’m horrified,” Jackie Wettington said. She was looking down, playing with her empty juice glass, but when Piper offered her another splash, she shook her head. “It never would have happened if Duke was still alive. That’s what I keep coming back to. Even if he had reason to believe Barbara had murdered his wife, he would’ve followed due process. That’s just how he was. And allowing the father of a victim to go down to the Coop and confront the perp?
Never.
” Linda was nodding agreement. “It makes me scared for what might happen to the guy. Also …”

“If it could happen to Barbie, it could happen to anyone?” Julia asked.

Jackie nodded. Biting her lips. Playing with her glass. “If something happened to him—I don’t necessarily mean something balls-to-the-wall like a lynching, just an accident in his cell—I’m not sure I could ever put on this uniform again.”

Linda’s basic concern was simpler and more direct. Her husband believed Barbie innocent. In the heat of her fury (and her revulsion at what they had found in the McCain pantry), she had rejected that idea—Barbie’s dog tags had, after all, been in Angie McCain’s gray and stiffening hand. But the more she thought about it, the more she worried. Partly because she respected Rusty’s judgment of things and always had, but also because of what Barbie had shouted just before Randolph had Maced him.
Tell your husband to examine the bodies. He
must
examine the bodies!

“And another thing,” Jackie said, still spinning her glass. “You don’t Mace a prisoner just because he’s yelling. We’ve had Saturday nights, especially after big games, when it sounded like the zoo at feeding time down there. You just let em yell. Eventually they get tired and go to sleep.”

Julia, meanwhile, was studying Linda. When Jackie had finished, Julia said, “Tell me again what Barbie said.”

“He wanted Rusty to examine the bodies, especially Brenda Perkins’s. He said they wouldn’t be at the hospital. He
knew
that. They’re at Bowie’s, and that’s not right.”

“Goddam funny, all right, if they was murdered,” Romeo said. “Sorry for cussin, Rev.”

Piper waved this away. “If he killed them, I can’t understand why his most pressing concern would be having the bodies examined. On the other hand, if he didn’t, maybe he thought a postmortem would exonerate him.”

“Brenda was the most recent victim,” Julia said. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” Jackie said. “She was in rigor, but not completely. At least it didn’t look to me like she was.”

“She wasn’t,” Linda said, “And since rigor starts to set in about three hours after death, give or take, Brenda probably died between four and eight AM. I’d say closer to eight, but I’m no doctor.” She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “Rusty isn’t either, of course, but he could have nailed down the TOD a lot closer if he’d been called in. No one did that. Including me. I was just so freaked out … there was so much going on …”

Jackie pushed her glass aside. “Listen, Julia—you were with Barbara at the supermarket this morning, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“At a little past nine. That’s when the riot started.”

“Yes.”

“Was he there first, or were you? Because I don’t know.”

Julia couldn’t remember, but her impression was that she had been there first—that Barbie had arrived later, shortly after Rose Twitchell and Anson Wheeler.

“We cooled it out,” she said, “but he was the one who showed us how. Probably saved even more people from being seriously hurt. I can’t square that with what you found in that pantry. Do you have any idea what the order of the deaths were? Other than Brenda last?”

“Angie and Dodee first,” Jackie said. “Decomp was less advanced with Coggins, so he came later.”

“Who found them?”

“Junior Rennie. He was suspicious because he saw Angie’s car in the garage. But that’s not important.
Barbara
’s the important thing here. Are you sure he arrived after Rose and Anse? Because that doesn’t look good.”

“I am, because he wasn’t in Rose’s van. Just the two of them got out. So if we assume he wasn’t busy killing people, then where would he … ?” But that was obvious. “Piper, can I use your phone?”

“Of course.”

Julia briefly consulted the pamphlet-sized local phone book, then used Piper’s cell to call the restaurant. Rose’s greeting was curt: “We’re closed until further notice. Bunch of assholes arrested my cook.”

“Rose? It’s Julia Shumway.”

“Oh. Julia.” Rose sounded only a shade less truculent. “What do you want?”

“I’m trying to check out a possible alibi timeline for Barbie. Are you interested in helping?”

“You bet your ass. The idea that Barbie murdered those people is ridiculous. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know if he was at the restaurant when the riot started at Food City.”

“Of course.” Rose sounded perplexed. “Where else would he be right after breakfast? When Anson and I left, he was scrubbing the grills.”

7

The sun was going down, and as the shadows grew lengthened, Claire McClatchey grew more and more nervous. Finally she went into the kitchen to do what she had been putting off: use her husband’s cell phone (which he had forgotten to take on Saturday morning; he was always forgetting it) to call hers. She was terrified it would ring four times and then she’d hear her own voice, all bright and chirrupy, recorded before the town she lived in became a prison with invisible bars.
Hi, you’ve reached Claire’s voice mail. Please leave a message at the beep.

And what would she say?
Joey, call back if you’re not dead?

She reached for the buttons, then hesitated.
Remember, if he doesn’t answer the first time, it’s because he’s on his bike and can’t get the phone out of his backpack before it goes to voice mail. He’ll be ready when you call the second time, because he’ll know it’s you.

But if she got voice mail the second time? And the third? Why had she ever let him go in the first place? She must have been mad.

She closed her eyes and saw a picture of nightmare clarity: the telephone poles and storefronts of Main Street plastered with photos of Joe, Benny, and Norrie, looking like any kids you ever saw on a turnpike rest area bulletin board, where the captions always contained the words LAST SEEN ON.

She opened her eyes and dialed quickly, before she could lose her nerve. She was preparing her message—
I’m calling back in ten seconds and this time you better answer, mister
—and was stunned when her son answered, loud and clear, halfway through the first ring.

“Mom! Hey, Mom!” Alive and more than alive: bubbling over with excitement, from the sound.

Where are you?
she tried to say, but at first she couldn’t manage anything. Not a single word. Her legs felt rubbery and elastic; she leaned against the wall to keep from falling on the floor.

“Mom? You there?”

In the background she heard the swish of a car, and Benny, faint but clear, hailing someone: “Dr. Rusty! Yo, dude, whoa!”

She was finally able to throw her voice in gear. “Yes. I am. Where are you?”

“Top of Town Common Hill. I was gonna call you because it’s gettin near dark—tell you not to worry—and it rang in my hand. Surprised the heck out of me.”

Well that put a spoke in the old parental scolding-wheel, didn’t it?
Top of Town Common Hill. They’ll be here in ten minutes. Benny probably wanting another three pounds of food. Thank You, God.

Norrie was talking to Joe. It sounded like
Tell her, tell her.
Then her son was in her ear again, so loudly jubilant that she had to hold the receiver away from her ear a little bit. “Mom, I think we found it! I’m almost positive! It’s in the orchard on top of Black Ridge!”

“Found what, Joey?”

“I don’t know for sure, don’t want to jump to conclusions, but probably the thing generating the Dome. Almost gotta be. We saw a blinker, like the ones they put on radio towers to warn planes, only on the ground and purple instead of red. We didn’t go close enough to see anything else. We passed out, all of us. When we woke up we were okay, but it was starting to get la—”

“Passed
out
?” Claire almost screamed this. “What do you mean, you passed
out
? Get home! Get home right now so I can look at you!”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Joe said soothingly. “I think it’s like … you know how when people first touch the Dome they get a little shock, then they don’t? I think it’s like that. I think you pass out the first time and then you’re like, immunized. Good to go. That’s what Norrie thinks, too.”