3
She was halfway to the cruiser parked in the driveway when she became aware of Anton Dubcek staring at her. Shirtless, pecs gleaming, pants riding (barely) the spars of his hipbones, the pool guy appeared to be auditioning for the position of May pin-up boy on a Chippendales calendar. He was at the curb by his van, retrieving some piece of pool cleaning equipment. “Anton the Pool Guy” written on the side in Florentine script.
“What are you looking at?”
“Morning glory,” Anton said, and favored her with a radiant smile that had probably charmed every barmaid in the Tri-Counties.
She looked down and saw that she had neither tucked in nor buttoned her shirt. The plain white bra beneath showed a lot less than either of her two bikini tops (and a lot less glamorously), but there was something about men and underwear; they saw a girl in a bra, and it was like they had just won fifty on a five-buck Dollars ‘N’ Dirt scratch ticket. Hell, Madonna had made a career of it back in the day. Probably before Anton was born, she realized.
“Does that line work, Anton?” Buttoning and tucking in. “Ever?”
The smile widened. “You’d be surprised.”
Ah, such white teeth. She wouldn’t be surprised.
“Back door’s open, if you want a Coke. Lock it behind you when you leave, okay?”
“Roger-wilco.” He snapped off a half-assed salute.
“And no beer. It’s too early even for you.”
“It’s always five o’clock somewh—”
“Spare me the lyrics, Anton. It was a long night and if I don’t manage some shut-eye down the line, it’s going to be a long day.”
“Roger that, too. But hey, Sheriff, I got bad news: pretty sure you got Dutch Elm out back. You want me to leave you the phone number for my tree guy? You’re not going to want to let that—”
“Whatever, thanks.” Lila didn’t care about the trees, not this morning, although she had to appreciate the thoroughness of the bad timing: her lies, Clint’s omissions, exhaustion, fire, corpses, and now infested trees, all before nine o’clock. The only thing missing was Jared breaking an arm or something, and Lila would have no choice but to go to St. Luke’s and beg for Father Lafferty to take her confession.
She backed down the driveway, headed east on Tremaine Street, did a California stop that would have earned her a ticket if she hadn’t been the sheriff, saw the smoke rising out Route 17 way, and hit the jackpot lights. She’d save the siren for the three blocks that constituted downtown Dooling. Give everyone a thrill.
4
At the traffic light across from the high school, Frank Geary tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. He was on his way to Judge Silver’s house. The old judge had called him on his cell phone; by the sound he’d barely been holding it together. His cat, Cocoa, had been struck by a car.
A familiar homeless woman, bundled in so many layers of garments that you couldn’t see her feet, crossed in front of his truck, pushing her shopping cart. She was talking to herself with a bright, amused expression. Maybe one of her personalities was planning a surprise birthday party for one of her other personalities. He sometimes thought it would be nice to be crazy, not crazy like Elaine seemed to think he was, but actually crazy, talking-to-yourself-and-pushing-a-shopping-cart-full-of-garbage-bags-and-the-top-half-of-a-male-mannequin crazy.
What reason did insane people have to worry? Crazy reasons, probably, though in his fantasy of madness, Frank liked to imagine it was simpler. Do I pour the milk and cereal over my head, or do I pour it all into the mailbox? If you were bonkers, perhaps that was a stressful decision. For Frank, there was the stress of the upcoming annual cutbacks in the Dooling Municipal Budget that might put him out of work, and there was the stress of trying to hold it together for the weekends when he saw his daughter, and then there was the stress of knowing that Elaine expected him not to be able to hold it together. His own wife rooting against him, how was that for stress? Milk and cereal over the head or into the mailbox, by comparison, he thought he could handle with no problem. Cereal over the head, milk in the mailbox. There. Problem solved.
The light turned green and Frank swung left onto Malloy.
5
On the opposite side of the street the homeless woman—Old Essie to the volunteers at the shelter, Essie Wilcox once upon a time—jounced her shopping cart up the short, grassy embankment that surrounded the high school parking lot. After she had gained the plateau of the pavement, she pushed toward the athletic fields and the scrub woods beyond, where she kept house in the warm months.
“Hurry along, children!” Essie spoke forward, as if to the rattling contents of her shopping cart, but actually addressing her invisible family of four identical little girls, who trailed behind in a row, like ducklings. “We need to be home for supper—or else we might end up as supper! In a witch’s pot!”
Essie chuckled but the girls began to weep and fuss.
“Oh, you silly-billy girls!” she said. “I was only kidding.”
Essie reached the edge of the parking lot and pushed her cart onto the football field. Behind her, the girls had cheered up. They knew that Mother would never let anything happen to them. They were good girls.
6
Evie was standing between two pallets of freshly cut pine boards on the left side of Adams Lumberyard when Unit Four shot past. She was screened from the rubberneckers standing outside the main building, but not from the highway. The responders paid no attention to her, however, although she was still wearing nothing but Truman Mayweather’s shirt on her body and Truman Mayweather’s blood on her face and arms. The cops had eyes only for the smoke rising on the edge of some extremely dry woods.
Terry Coombs sat forward and pointed. “See that big rock with TIFFANY JONES SUCKS spray-painted on it?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll see a dirt road just past it. Turn there.”
“You sure?” Roger Elway asked. “The smoke looks at least a mile further on.”
“Trust me. I’ve been out here before, back when Tru Mayweather considered himself a full-time trailer pimp and a part-time gentleman pot grower. I guess he moved up in the world.”
Unit Four skidded on the dirt, and then the tires caught hold. Roger bucketed along at forty, the county car sometimes bottoming out in spite of the heavy suspension. High weeds growing up the center hump whickered against the undercarriage. Now they could smell the smoke.
Terry grabbed the mic. “Unit Four to Base, Base, this is Four.”
“Four, this is Base,” Linny responded.
“We’ll be at the scene in three, as long as Roger doesn’t put us in the ditch.” Roger raised one hand from the wheel long enough to flash his partner the finger. “What’s the status on the FD?”
“They’re rolling all four engines, plus the ambo. Some of the volunteer guys, too. Should be right behind you. Watch out for the Avon Lady.”
“Avon Lady, got it. Four is out.”
Terry racked the mic just as the cruiser took a bounce that rendered them momentarily airborne. Roger brought the car to a skidding halt. The road ahead was littered with scraps of corrugated roofing, shattered propane canisters, plastic jugs, and shredded paper, some of it smoldering. He spotted a black and white disc that looked like a stove dial.