4
Rusty drove up the ridge--slowly now--and parked the van between the barn and the dilapidated farmhouse. The Sweetbriar Rose van was there; the Burpee's Department Store van; also a Chevrolet Malibu. Julia had parked her Prius inside the barn. Horace the Corgi sat by its rear bumper, as if guarding it. He did not look like a happy canine, and he made no move to come and greet them. Inside the farmhouse, a couple of Coleman lanterns glowed.
Jackie pointed at the van with EVERY DAY IS SALE DAY AT BURPEE'S on the side. "How'd that get here? Did your wife change her mind?"
Rommie grinned. "You don't know Misha if you ever t'ink dat. No, I got Julia to thank. She recruited her two star reporters. Dose guys--"
He broke off as Julia, Piper, and Lissa Jamieson appeared from the moonlit shadows of the orchard. They were stumbling along three abreast, holding hands, and all of them were crying.
Barbie ran to Julia and took her by the shoulders. She was on the end of their little line, and the flashlight she had been holding in her free hand dropped to the weedy dirt of the dooryard. She looked up at him and made an effort to smile. "So they got you out, Colonel Barbara. That's one for the home team."
"What happened to you?" Barbie asked.
Now Joe, Benny, and Norrie came running up with their mothers close behind them. The kids' shouts cut short when they saw the state the three women were in. Horace ran to his mistress, barking. Julia went to her knees and buried her face in his fur. Horace sniffed her, then suddenly backed away. He sat down and howled. Julia looked at him and then covered her face, as if in shame. Norrie had grabbed Joe's hand on her left and Benny's on her right. Their faces were solemn and scared. Pete Freeman, Tony Guay, and Rose Twitchell came out of the farmhouse but did not approach; they stood clustered by the kitchen door.
"We went to look at it," Lissa said dully. Her usual gosh-the-world-is-wonderful brightness was gone. "We knelt around it. There's a symbol on it I've never seen before ... it's not kabbalah ..."
"It's awful," Piper said, wiping at her eyes. "And then Julia touched it. She was the only one, but we ... we all ..."
"Did you see them?" Rusty asked.
Julia dropped her hands and looked at him with something like wonder. "Yes. I did, we all did. Them. Horrible."
"The leatherheads," Rusty said.
"What?" Piper said. Then she nodded. "Yes, I suppose you could call them that. Faces without faces. High faces."
High faces, Rusty thought. He didn't know what it meant, but he knew it was true. He thought again of his daughters and their friend Deanna exchanging secrets and snacks. Then he thought of his best childhood friend--for a while, anyway; he and Georgie had fallen out violently in second grade--and horror rolled over him in a wave.
Barbie grabbed him. "What?" He was almost shouting. "What is it?"
"Nothing. Only ... I had this friend when I was little. George Lathrop. One year he got a magnifying glass for his birthday. And sometimes ... at recess we ..."
Rusty helped Julia to her feet. Horace had come back to her, as if whatever had scared him was fading like the glow had faded on the van.
"You did what?" Julia asked. She sounded almost calm again. "Tell."
"This was at the old Main Street Grammar. Just two rooms, one for grades one to four, the other for five to eight. The playground wasn't paved." He laughed shakily. "Hell, there wasn't even running water, just a privy the kids called--"
"The Honey House," Julia said. "I went there, too."
"George and I, we'd go past the monkey bars to the fence. There were anthills there, and we'd set the ants on fire."
"Don't take on about it, Doc," Ernie said. "Lots of kids have done that, and worse." Ernie himself, along with a couple of friends, had once dipped a stray cat's tail in kerosene and put a match to it. This was a memory he would share with the others no more than he would tell them about the details of his wedding night.
Mostly because of how we laughed when that cat took off, he thought. Gosh, how we did laugh.
"Go on," Julia said.
"I'm done."
"You're not," she said.
"Look," said Joanie Calvert. "I'm sure this is all very psychological, but I don't think this is the time--"
"Hush, Joanie," Claire said.
Julia had never taken her eyes from Rusty's face.
"Why does it matter to you?" Rusty asked. He felt, at that moment, as though there were no onlookers. As if it were only the two of them.
"Just tell me."
"One day while we were doing ... that ... it occurred to me that ants also have their little lives. I know that sounds like sentimental slop--"
Barbie said, "Millions of people all over the world believe that very thing. They live by it."
"Anyway, I thought 'We're hurting them. We're burning them on the ground and maybe broiling them alive in their underground houses.' About the ones who were getting the direct benefit of Georgie's magnifying glass there was no question. Some just stopped moving, but most actually caught fire."
"That's awful," Lissa said. She was twisting her ankh again.
"Yes, ma'am. And this one day I told Georgie to stop. He wouldn't. He said, 'It's jukular war.' I remember that. Not nuclear but jukular. I tried to take the magnifying glass away from him. Next thing you know, we were fighting, and his magnifying glass got broken."
He stopped. "That's not the truth, although it's what I said at the time and not even the hiding my father gave me could make me change my story. The one George told his folks was the true one: I broke the goddam thing on purpose." He pointed into the dark. "The way I'd break that box, if I could. Because now we're the ants and that's the magnifying glass."
Ernie thought again of the cat with the burning tail. Claire McClatchey remembered how she and her third-grade best friend had sat on a bawling girl they both hated. The girl was new in school and had a funny southern accent that made her sound like she was talking through mashed potatoes. The more the new girl cried, the harder they laughed. Romeo Burpee remembered getting drunk the night Hillary Clinton cried in New Hampshire, toasting the TV screen and saying, "Dat's it for you, you goddam baby, get out the way and let a man do a man's job."
Barbie remembered a certain gymnasium: the desert heat, the smell of shit, and the sound of laughter.
"I want to see it for myself," he said. "Who'll go with me?" Rusty sighed. "I will."
5
While Barbie and Rusty were approaching the box with its strange symbol and brilliant pulsing light, Selectman James Rennie was in the cell where Barbie had been imprisoned until earlier this evening.
Carter Thibodeau had helped him lift Junior's body onto the bunk. "Leave me with him," Big Jim said.
"Boss, I know how bad you must feel, but there are a hundred things that need your attention right now."
"I'm aware of that. And I'll take care of them. But I need a little time with my son first. Five minutes. Then you can get a couple of fellows to take him to the funeral parlor."
"All right. I'm sorry for your loss. Junior was a good guy."
"No he wasn't," Big Jim said. He spoke in a mild just-telling-it-like-it-is tone of voice. "But he was my son and I loved him. And this isn't all bad, you know."
Carter considered. "I know."
Big Jim smiled. "I know you know. I'm starting to think you're the son I should have had."
Carter's face flushed with pleasure as he trotted up the stairs to the ready room.
When he was gone, Big Jim sat on the bunk and lowered Junior's head into his lap. The boy's face was unmarked, and Carter had closed his eyes. If you ignored the blood matting his shirt, he could have been sleeping.
He was my son and I loved him.
It was true. He had been ready to sacrifice Junior, yes, but there was precedent for that; you only had to look at what had happened on Calvary Hill. And like Christ, the boy had died for a
cause. Whatever damage had been caused by Andrea Grinnell's raving would be rep
aired when the town realized that Barbie had killed several dedicated police officers, including their leader's only child. Barbie on the loose and presumably planning new deviltry was a political plus.
Big Jim sat awhile longer, combing Junior's hair with his fingers and looking raptly into Junior's reposeful face. Then, under his breath, he sang to him as his mother had when the boy was an infant lying in his crib, looking up at the world with wide, wondering eyes. "Baby's boat's a silver moon, sailing o'er the sky; sailing o'er the sea of dew, while the clouds float by ... sail, baby, sail ... out across the sea ..."
There he stopped. He couldn't remember the rest. He lifted Junior's head and stood up. His heart did a jagged taradiddle and he held his breath ... but then it settled again. He supposed he would eventually have to get some more of that verapa-whatsis from Andy's pharmacy supplies, but in the meantime, there was work to do.
6
He left Junior and went slowly up the stairs, holding the railing. Carter was in the ready room. The bodies had been removed, and a double spread of newspapers was soaking up Mickey Wardlaw's blood.
"Let's go over to the Town Hall before this place fills up with cops," he told Carter. "Visitors Day officially starts in"--he looked at his watch--"about twelve hours. We've got a lot to do before then."
"I know."
"And don't forget my son. I want the Bowies to do it right. A respectful presentation of the remains and a fine coffin. You tell Stewart if I see Junior in one of those cheap things from out back, I'll kill him."
Carter was scribbling in his notebook. "I'll take care of it."
"And tell Stewart that I'll be talking to him soon." Several officers came in the front door. They looked subdued, a little scared, very young and green. Big Jim heaved himself out of the chair he'd been sitting in while he recovered his breath. "Time to move."
"Okay by me," Carter said. But he paused.
Big Jim looked around. "Something on your mind, son?"
Son. Carter liked the sound of that son. His own father had been killed five years previous when he crashed his pickup into one of the twin bridges in Leeds, and no great loss. He had abused his wife and both sons (Carter's older brother was currently serving in the Navy), but Carter didn't care about that so much; his mother had her coffee brandy to numb her up, and Carter himself had always been able to take a few licks. No, what he hated about the old man was that he was a whiner, and he was stupid. People assumed Carter was also stupid--hell, even Junes had assumed it--but he wasn't. Mr. Rennie understood that, and Mr. Rennie was sure no whiner.
Carter discovered that he was no longer undecided about what to do next.
"I've got something you may want."
"Is that so?"
Big Jim had preceded Carter downstairs, giving Carter a chance to visit his locker. He opened it now and took out the envelope with VADER printed on it. He held it out to Big Jim. The bloody footprint stamped on it seemed to glare.
Big Jim opened the clasp.
"Jim," Peter Randolph said. He had come in unnoticed and was standing by the overturned reception desk, looking exhausted. "I think we've got things quieted down, but I can't find several of the new officers. I think they may have quit on us."
"To be expected," Big Jim said. "And temporary. They'll be back when things settle and they realize Dale Barbara isn't going to lead a gang of bloodthirsty cannibals into town to eat them alive."
"But with this damned Visitors Day thing--"
"Almost everyone is going to be on their best behavior tomorrow, Pete, and I'm sure we'll have enough officers to take care of any who aren't."
"What do we do about the press con--"
"Do you see I happen to be a little busy here? Do you see that, Pete? Goodness! Come over to the Town Hall conference room in half an hour and we'll discuss anything you want. But for now, leave me the heck alone. "
"Of course. Sorry." Pete backed away, his body as stiff and offended as his voice.
"Stop," Rennie said.
Randolph stopped.
"You never offered me condolences on my son."
"I ... I'm very sorry."
Big Jim measured Randolph with his eyes. "Indeed you are."
When Randolph was gone, Rennie pulled the papers out of the envelope, looked at them briefly, then stuffed them back in. He looked at Carter with honest curiosity. "Why didn't you give this to me right away? Were you planning to keep it?"
Now that he'd handed over the envelope, Carter saw no option but the truth. "Yuh. For a while, anyway. Just in case."
"In case of what?"
Carter shrugged.
Big Jim didn't pursue the question. As a man who routinely kept files on anyone and everyone who might cause him trouble, he didn't have to. There was another question that interested him more.
"Why did you change your mind?"
Carter once again saw no option but the truth. "Because I want to be your guy, boss."
Big Jim hoisted his bushy eyebrows. "Do you. More than him?" He jerked his head toward the door Randolph had just walked out of.
"Him? He's a joke."
"Yes." Big Jim dropped a hand on Carter's shoulder. "He is.
Come on. And once we get over there to the Town Hall, burning these papers in the conference room woodstove will be our first order of business."
7
They were indeed high. And horrible.
Barbie saw them as soon as the shock passing up his arms faded. His first, strong impulse was to let go of the box, but he fought it and held on, looking at the creatures who were holding them prisoner. Holding them and torturing them for pleasure, if Rusty was right.
Their faces--if they were faces--were all angles, but the angles were padded and seemed to change from moment to moment, as if the underlying reality had no fixed form. He couldn't tell how many of them there were, or where they were. At first he thought there were four; then eight; then only two. They inspired a deep sense of loathing in him, perhaps because they were so alien he could not really perceive them at all. The part of his brain tasked with interpreting sensory input could not decode the messages his eyes were sending.
My eyes couldn't see them, not really, even with a telescope. These creatures are in a galaxy far, far away.
There was no way to know that--reason told him the owners of the box might have a base under the ice at the South Pole, or might be orbiting the moon in their version of the starship Enterprise--but he did. They were at home ... whatever home was for them. They were watching. And they were enjoying.
They had to be, because the sons of bitches were laughing.
Then he was back in the gym in Fallujah. It was hot because there was no air-conditioning, just overhead fans that paddled the soupy, jock-smelling air around and around. They had let all the interrogation subjects go except for two Abduls who were unwise enough to snot off a day after two IEDs had taken six American lives and a sniper had taken one more, a kid from Kentucky everyone liked--Carstairs. So they'd started kicking the Abduls around the gym, and pulling off their clothes, and Barbie would like to say he had walked out, but he hadn't. He would like to say that at least he hadn't participated, but he had. They got feverish about it. He remembered connecting with one Abdul's bony, shit-speckled ass, and the red mark his combat boot had left there. Both Abduls naked by then. He remembered Emerson kicking the other one's dangling cojones so hard they flew up in front of him and saying That's for Carstairs, you fucking sandnigger. Someone would soon be giving his mom a flag while she sat on a folding chair near the grave, same old same old. And then, just as Barbie was remembering that he was technically in charge of these men, Sergeant Hackermeyer pulled one of them up by the unwinding remains of the keffiyeh that was now his only clothing and held him against the wall and put his gun to the Abdul's head and there was a pause and no one said no in the pause and no one said don't do that in the pause and Sergeant Hackermeyer pulled the trigger and the blood hit the wall as it's hit the wall for three thousan
d years and more, and that was it, that was goodbye, Abdul, don't forget to write when you're not busy cherrypopping those virgins.
Barbie let go of the box and tried to get up, but his legs betrayed him. Rusty grabbed him and held him until he steadied.
"Christ," Barbie said.
"You saw them, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Are they children? What do you think?"
"Maybe." But that wasn't good enough, wasn't what his heart believed. "Probably."
They walked slowly back to where the others were clustered in front of the farmhouse.
"You all right?" Rommie asked.
"Yes," Barbie said. He had to talk to the kids. And Jackie. Rusty, too. But not yet. First he had to get himself under control.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"Rommie, is there more of that lead roll at your store?" Rusty asked.
"Yuh. I left it on the loading dock."
"Good," Rusty said, and borrowed Julia's cell phone. He hoped Linda was home and not in an interrogation room at the PD, but hoping was all he could do.
8
The call from Rusty was necessarily brief, less than thirty seconds, but for Linda Everett it was long enough to turn this terrible Thursday a hundred and eighty degrees toward sunshine. She sat at the kitchen table, put her hands to her face, and cried. She did it as quietly as possible, because there were now four children upstairs instead of just two. She had brought the Appleton kids home with her, so now she had the As as well as the Js.
Alice and Aidan had been terribly upset--dear God, of course they had been--but being with Jannie and Judy had helped. So had doses of Benadryl all around. At the request of her girls, Linda had spread sleeping bags in their room, and now all four of them were conked out on the floor between the beds, Judy and Aidan with their arms wrapped around each other.
Just as she was getting herself under control again, there was a knock at the kitchen door. Her first thought was the police, although given the bloodshed and confusion downtown, she hadn't expected them so soon. But there was nothing authoritative about that soft rapping.
She went to the door, pausing to snatch a dish towel from the end of the counter and wipe her face. At first she didn't recognize her visitor, mostly because his hair was different. It was no longer in a ponytail; it fell to Thurston Marshall's shoulders, framing his face, making him look like an elderly washerwoman who has gotten bad news--terrible news--after a long, hard day.