Under the Dome

Meanwhile, the man from Homeland Security—did they have the nerve to call themselves agents?—was still jabbering away.

Rennie interrupted him. “Thank you for your interest, Mr. Wozner, but we’ve got this handled.” He pushed the END button without saying goodbye. Then he tossed the phone back to Ernie Calvert.

“Jim, I don’t think that was wise.”

Rennie ignored him and watched Randolph stop behind the Wettington gal’s cruiser, bubblegum bars flashing. He thought about walking down to meet Randolph, and rejected the idea before it was fully formed in his mind. Let Randolph come to him. That was how it was supposed to work. And how it would work, by God.

2

“Big Jim,” Randolph said. “What’s happened here?”

“I believe that’s obvious,” Big Jim said. “Chuck Thompson’s airplane got into a little argument with a pulp-truck. Looks like they fought it to a draw.” Now he could hear sirens coming from Castle Rock. Almost certainly FD responders (Rennie hoped their own two new—and horribly expensive—firewagons were among them; it would play better if no one actually realized the new trucks had been out of town when this clustermug happened). Ambulances and police would be close behind.

“That ain’t what happened,” Alden Dinsmore said stubbornly. “I was out in the side garden, and I saw the plane just—”

“Better move those people back, don’t you think?” Rennie asked Randolph, pointing to the lookie-loos. There were quite a few on the pulp-truck side, standing prudently away from the blazing remains, and even more on The Mill side. It was starting to look like a convention.

Randolph addressed Morrison and Wettington. “Hank,” he said, and pointed at the spectators from The Mill. Some had begun prospecting among the scattered pieces of Thompson’s plane. There were cries of horror as more body parts were discovered.

“Yo,” Morrison said, and got moving.

Randolph turned Wettington toward the spectators on the pulp-truck side. “Jackie, you take…” But there Randolph trailed off.

The disaster-groupies on the south side of the accident were standing in the cow pasture on one side of the road and knee-deep in scrubby bushes on the other. Their mouths hung open, giving them a look of stupid interest Rennie was very familiar with; he saw it on individual faces every day, and en masse every March, at town meeting. Only these people weren’t looking at the burning truck. And now Peter Randolph, certainly no dummy (not brilliant, not by a long shot, but at least he knew which side his bread was buttered on), was looking at the same place as the rest of them, and with that same expression of slack-jawed amazement. So was Jackie Wettington.

It was the smoke the rest were looking at. The smoke rising from the burning pulper.

It was dark and oily. The people downwind should have been darned near choking on it, especially with a light breeze out of the south, but they weren’t. And Rennie saw the reason why. It was hard to believe, but he saw it, all right. The smoke did blow north, at least at first, but then it took an elbow-bend—almost a right angle—and rose straight up in a plume, as if in a chimney. And it left a dark brown residue behind. A long smudge that just seemed to float on the air.

Jim Rennie shook his head to clear the image away, but it was still there when he stopped.

“What is it?” Randolph asked. His voice was soft with wonder.

Dinsmore, the farmer, placed himself in front of Randolph. “ That guy”—pointing at Ernie Calvert—“had Homeland Security on the phone, and this guy”—pointing at Rennie in a theatrical courtroom gesture Rennie didn’t care for in the least—“took the phone out of his hand and hung up! He shun’t’a done that, Pete. Because that was no collision. The plane wasn’t anywhere near the ground. I seen it. I was covering plants in case of frost, and I seen it.”

“I did, too—” Rory began, and this time it was his brother Ollie who went up the backside of Rory’s head. Rory began to whine.

Alden Dinsmore said, “It hit something. Same thing the truck hit. It’s there, you can touch it. That young fella—the cook—said there oughta be a no-fly zone out here, and he was right. But Mr. Rennie”—again pointing at Rennie like he thought he was a gosh-darn Perry Mason instead of a fellow who earned his daily bread attaching suction cups to cows’ tiddies—“wouldn’t even talk. Just hung up.”

Rennie did not stoop to rebuttal. “You’re wasting time,” he told Randolph. Moving a little closer and speaking just above a whisper, he added: “The Chief’s coming. My advice would be to look sharp and control this scene before he gets here.” He cast a cold momentary eye on the farmer. “You can interview the witnesses later.”

But—maddeningly—it was Alden Dinsmore who got the last word. “That fella Barber was right. He was right and Rennie was wrong.”