Lester had a moment to cradle the child in his arms before the father arrived and tore him away. That was all right. That was as it should be. Lester had sinned and begged guidance from the Lord. Guidance had been given, an answer provided. He knew now what he was to do about the sins he'd been led into by James Rennie.
A blind child had shown him the way.
CHAPTER 7
THIS IS NOT AS BAD AS IT GETS
1
What Rusty Everett would recall later was confusion. The only image that stuck out with complete clarity was Pastor Coggins's naked upper body: fishbelly-white skin and stacked ribs.
Barbie, however - perhaps because he'd been tasked by Colonel Cox to put on his investigator's hat again - saw everything. And his clearest memory wasn't of Coggins with his shirt off; it was of Melvin Searles pointing a finger at him and then tilting his head slightly - sign language any man recognizes as meaning We ain't done yet, Sunshine.
What everyone else remembered - what brought the town's situation home to them as perhaps nothing else could - were the father's cries as he held his wretched, bleeding boy in his arms, and the mother screaming 'Is he all right, Alden? IS HE ALL RIGHT?' as she labored her sixty-pounds-overweight bulk toward the scene.
Barbie saw Rusty Everett push through the circle gathering around the boy and join the two kneeling men - Alden and Lester. Alden was cradling his son in his arms as Pastor Coggins stared with his mouth sagging like a gate with a busted hinge. Rusty's wife was right behind him. Rusty fell on his knees between Alden and Lester and tried to pull the boy's hands away from his face. Alden - not surprisingly, in Barbie's opinion - promptly socked him one. Rusty s nose started to bleed.
'No! Let him help!' the PA's wife yelled.
Linda, Barbie thought. Her name is Linda, and she's a cop.
'No, Alden! No!' Linda put her hand on the farmer's shoulder and he turned, apparently ready to sock her. All sense had departed his face; he was an animal protecting a cub. Barbie moved forward to catch his fist if the farmer let it fly, then had a better idea.
'Medic here!' he shouted, bending into Alden's face and trying to block Linda from his field of vision. 'Medic! Medic, med - '
Barbie was yanked backward by the collar of his shirt and spun around. He had just time enough to register Mel Searles - one of Junior's buddies - and to realize that Searles was wearing a blue uniform shirt and a badge. Tlxis is as bad as it gets, Barbie thought, but as if to prove him wrong, Searles socked him in the face, just as he had that night in Dipper's parking lot. He missed Barbie's nose, which had probably been his target, but mashed Barbie's lips back against his teeth.
Searles drew back his fist to do it again, but Jackie Wettington - Mel's unwilling partner that day - grabbed his arm before he could. 'Don't do it!' she shouted. 'Officer, don't do itV
Fbr a moment the issue was in doubt. Then Ollie Dinsmore, closely followed by his sobbing, gasping mother, passed between them, knocking Searles back a step.
Searles lowered his fist. 'Okay,' he said. 'But you're on a crime scene, ass**le. Police investigation scene. Whatever.'
Barbie wiped his bleeding mouth with the heel of his hand and thought, This is not as bad as it gets. That's the hell of it - it's not.
2
The only part of this Rusty heard was Barbie shouting medic. Now he said it himself. 'Medic, Mr Dinsmore. Rusty Everett. You know me. Let me look at your boy.'
'Let him, Alden!' Shelley cried. 'Let him take care of Rory!'
Alden relaxed his grip on the kid, who was swaying back and forth on his knees, his bluejeans soaked with blood. Rory had covered his face with his hands again. Rusty took hold of them - gently, gently does it - and pulled them down. He had hoped it wouldn't be as bad as he feared, but the socket was raw and empty, pouring blood. And the brain behind that socket was hurt plenty. The news was in how the remaining eye cocked senselessly skyward, bulging at nothing.
Rusty started to pull his shirt off, but the preacher was already holding out his own. Coggins's upper body, thin and white in front, striped with crisscrossing red welts in back, was running with sweat. He held the shirt out.
'No,' Rusty said. 'Rip it, rip it.'
For a moment Lester didn't get it. Then he tore the shirt down the middle. The rest of the police contingent was arriving now, and some of the regular cops - Henry Morrison, George Frederick, Jackie Wettington, Freddy Denton - were yelling at the new Special Deputies to help move the crowd back, make some space. The new hires did so, and enthusiastically. Some of the rubberneckers were knocked down, including that famous Bratz-torturer Samantha Bushey. Sammy had Little Walter in a Papoose carrier, and when she went on her ass, both of them began to squall. Junior Rennie stepped over her with out so much as a look and grabbed Rory's mom, almost pulling the wounded boy's mother off her feet before Freddy Denton stopped him
'No, junior, no! It's the kid's mother! Let her loose!'
'Police brutality!' Sammy Bushey yelled from where she lay in the grass. 'Police brutal - '
Georgia Roux, the newest hire in what had become Peter Randolph's police department, arrived with Carter Thibodeau (holding his hand, actually). Georgia pressed her boot against one of Sammy's br**sts - it wasn't quite a kick - and said, 'Yo, dyke, shut up.'
Junior let go of Rory's mother and went to stand with Mel, Carter, and Georgia. They were staring at Barbie. Junior added his eyes to theirs, thinking that the cook was like a bad goddamned penny that kept turning up. He thought Baarbie would look awfully good in a cell right next to Sloppy Sam's. Junior also thought that being a cop had been his destiny all along; it had certainly helped with his headaches.
Rusty took half of Lester's torn shirt and ripped it again. He folded a piece, started to put it over the gaping wound in the boy's face, then changed his mind and gave it to the father. 'Hold it to the - '