'I know you killed Coggins.'
He hadn't meant to say that, but it was out before he could pull it back. And what harm? It was just the two of them, unless you counted CNN's John Roberts, looking down from the TV on the wall. And besides, the results were worth it. For the first time since he had accepted the reality of the Dome, Big Jim was rocked. He tried to keep his face neutral and failed.
'You're crazy'
'You know I'm not. Last night I went to the Bowie Funeral Home and examined the bodies of the four murder victims.'
'You had no right to do that! You're no pathologist! You're not even a cotton-picking doctor!'
'Relax, Rennie. Count to ten. Remember your heart.' Rusty paused. 'On second thought, I were your heart. After the mess you left behind, and the one you're making now, f**k your heart. There were marks all over Coggins's face and head. Very atypical marks, but easily identifiable. Stitch marks. I have no doubt they'll match the souvenir baseball I saw on your desk.'
'That doesn't mean anything.' But Rennie glanced toward the open bathroom door.
'It means plenty. Especially when you consider the other bodies were dumped in the same place. To me that suggests the killer of Coggins was the killer of the others. I think it was you. Or maybe you and Junior. Were you a father-and-son tag-team? Was that it?'
T refuse to listen to this!' He started to get up. Rusty pushed him back down. It was surprisingly easy.
'Stay where you are!' Rennie shouted. 'Gosh-dammit, just stay where you are!'
Rusty said, 'Why did you kill him? Did he threaten to blow the whistle on your drug operation? Was he part of it?'
'Stay where you are!' Rennie repeated, although Rusty had already sat back down. It did not occur to him - then - that Rennie might not have been speaking to him.
'I can keep this quiet,' Rusty said. 'And I can give you something that will take care of your PAT better than Valium. The quid pro quo is that you step down. Announce your resignation - for medical reasons - in favor of Andrea tomorrow night at the big meeting. You'll go out a hero.'
There was no way he could refuse, Rusty thought; the man was backed into a corner.
Rennie turned to the open bathroom door again and said,'Now you can come out.'
Carter Thibodeau and Freddy Denton emerged from the bathroom where they had been hiding - and listening.
8
'Goddam,' Stewart Bowie said.
He and his brother were in the basement workroom of the funeral parlor. Stewart had been doing a makeup job on Arietta Coombs, The Mill's latest suicide and the Bowie Funeral Home's latest customer. 'Goddam sonofabitch f**king shitmonkey!
He dropped his cell phone onto the counter, and from the - wide front pocket of his rubberized green apron removed a package of peanut butter-flavored Ritz Bits. Stewart always ate when he was upset, he had always been messy with food ('The pigs ate here,' their dad was wont to say when young Stewie left the table), and now Ritz crumbs showered down on Arietta's upturned face, which was far from peaceful; if she'd thought quaffing Liquid-Plumr would be a quick and painless way to escape the Dome, she had been badly deceived. Darn stuff had eaten all the way through her stomach and out through her back.
'What's wrong?' Fern asked.
'Why did I ever get involved with f**king Rennie?'
'For money?'
'What good's money now?' Stewart raved. 'What'm I gonna do, go on a f**kin shopping spree at Burpee^s Department Store? That'd give me a f**kin hardon for sure!'
He yanked open the elderly widows mouth and slammed the remaining Ritz Bits inside. 'There you go, bitch, it's f**king snack-time.'
Stewart snatched up his cell, hit the CONTACTS button, and selected a number. 'If he isn't there,' he said - perhaps to Fern, more likely to himself - 'I'm going to go out there, find him, and stick one of his own chickens right up his f**king a - '
But Roger Killian was there. And in his goddam chickenhouse. Stewart could hear them clucking. He could also hear the swooping violins of Mantovani coming through the chickenhouse sound system. When the kids were out there, it was Metallica or Pantera.
'Lo?'
'Roger. It's Stewie. Are you straight, brother?'
'Pretty,' Roger agreed, which probably meant he'd been smoking glass, but what the f**k.
'Get down here to town. Meet me n Fern at the motor pool. We're gonna take two of the big trucks - the ones with the hoists - out there to WCIK. All the propane's got to be moved back to town. We can't do it in one day, but Jim says we gotta make a start. Tomorrow I'll recruit six or seven more guys we can trust - some of Jim's goddam private army, if he'll spare em - and we'll finish up.'
'Aw, Stewart, no - I got to feed these chickens! The boys I got left has all gone to be cops!'
Which means, Stewart thought, you want to sit in that little office of yours, smoking glass and listening to shit music and looking at lesbian makeout videos on your computer. He didn't know how you could get horny with the aroma of chickenshit so thick you could cut it with a knife, but Roger Killian managed.
'This is not a volunteer mission, my brother. I got ordered, and I'm ordering you. Half an hour. And if you do happen to see any of your kids hanging around, you shanghai em along.'
He hung up before Roger could recommence his whiny shit and for a moment just stood there, fuming. The last thing on earth he wanted to do with what remained of this Wednesday afternoon was muscle propane tanks into trucks... but that was what he was going to be doing, all right. Yes he was.
He snatched the spray hose from the sink, stuck it between Arietta Coombs's dentures, and triggered it. It was a high-pressure hose, and the corpse jumped on the table.'Wash them crackers down, gramma,' he snarled. 'Wouldn't want you to choke.'
'Stop!' Fern cried. 'It'll squirt out the hole in her - '
Too late.