Under the Dome

Junior reached for Barbie, but before he could so much as touch a raised wrist, Barbie put his hands behind his back and turned around. Rusty and Linda Everett were still on the floor, Linda with her arms wrapped around her husband’s chest in a restraining bearhug.

“Remember,” Barbie said to Rusty as the plastic cuffs went on… and were then tightened until they dug into the scant meat above the heels of his hands.

Rusty stood up. When Linda tried to hold him, he pushed her away and gave her a look she had never seen before. There was sternness in it, and reproach, but there was also pity. “Peter,” he said, and when Randolph began to turn away, he raised his voice to a shout. “I’m talking to you! You look at me while I do!”

Randolph turned. His face was a stone.

“He knew you were here for him.”

“Sure he did,” Junior said. “He may be crazy, but he’s not stupid.” Rusty took no notice of this. “He showed me his arms, his face, raised his shirt to show me his stomach and back. He’s unmarked, unless he raises a bruise where Thibodeau suckerpunched him.”

Carter said, “Three women? Three women and a preacher

? He deserved it.”

Rusty didn’t shift his gaze from Randolph. “This is a setup.”

“All due respect, Eric, not your department,” Randolph said. He had holstered his sidearm. Which was a relief.

“That’s right,” Rusty said. “I’m a patch-em-up guy, not a cop or a lawyer. What I’m telling you is if I have occasion to look him over again while he’s in your custody and he’s got a lot of cuts and bruises, God help you.”

“What are you gonna do, call the Civil Liberties Union?” Frank DeLesseps asked. He was white-lipped with fury. “Your friend there beat four people to death. Brenda Perkins’s neck was broken. One of the girls was my fiancée, and she was sexually molested. Probably after she was dead as well as before, is the way it looks.”

Most of the crowd that had scattered at the gunshot had crept back to watch, and now a soft and horrified groan arose from it.

“This is the guy you’re defending? You ought to be in jail yourself!”

“Frank, shut up!” Linda said.

Rusty looked at Frank DeLesseps, the boy he had treated for chicken pox, measles, head lice picked up at summer camp, a broken wrist suffered sliding into second base, and once, when he was twelve, a particularly malicious case of poison ivy. He saw very little resemblance between that boy and this man. “And if I was locked up? Then what, Frankie? What if your mother has another gallbladder attack, like last year? Do I wait for visiting hours at the jail to treat her?”

Frank stepped forward, raising a hand to either slap or punch. Junior grabbed him. “He’ll get his, don’t worry. Everyone on Barbara’s side will. All in good time.”

“Sides?” Rusty sounded honestly bewildered. “What are you talking about, sides? This isn’t a goddam football game.”

Junior smiled as if he knew a secret.

Rusty turned to Linda. “Those are your colleagues talking. Do you like how they sound?”

For a moment she couldn’t look at him. Then, with an effort, she did. “They’re mad, that’s all, and I don’t blame them. I am, too. Four people, Eric—didn’t you hear? He killed them, and he almost certainly raped at least two of the women. I helped take them out of the hearse at Bowie’s. I saw the stains.”

Rusty shook his head. “I just spent the morning with him, watching him help people, not hurt them.”

“Let it go,” Barbie said. “Stand back, big guy. It’s not the ti—”

Junior poked him in the ribs. Hard. “You have the right to remain silent, assmunch.”

“He did it,” Linda said. She stretched out a hand to Rusty, saw he wasn’t going to take it, and dropped it to her side. “They found his dog tags in Angie McCain’s hand.”

Rusty was speechless. He could only watch as Barbie was hustled out to the Chief’s car and locked in the backseat with his hands still cuffed behind him. There was one moment when Barbie’s eyes found Rusty’s. Barbie shook his head. A single shake only, but hard and firm.

Then he was driven away.

There was silence in the lobby. Junior and Frank had gone with Randolph. Carter, Jackie, and Freddy Denton headed out to the other police car. Linda stood looking at her husband with pleading and anger. Then the anger disappeared. She stepped toward him, raising her arms, wanting to be held, if only for a few seconds.

“No,” he said.

She stopped. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with you? Did you miss what just happened here?”

“Rusty, she was holding his dog tags!”

He nodded slowly. “Convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

Her face, which had been both hurt and hopeful, now froze. She seemed to notice that her arms were still held out to him, and she lowered them.

“Four people,” she said, “three beaten almost beyond recognition. There are sides, and you need to think about which one you’re on.”

“So do you, honey,” Rusty said.

From outside, Jackie called, “Linda, come on!”