Stephen King - Under the Dome

She winced as she sat up, rubbing her neck, cursing herself for falling asleep on the couch, also cursing whoever had wakened her at such an ungodly hour and refreshed her recollection of her strange new singularity.

Then it occurred to her that there could be only one reason for such a late call: the Dome was either gone or had been breached. She bumped her leg on the coffee table hard enough to make the papers there rattle, then limped to the phone beside Howie’s chair (how it hurt her to look at that empty chair) and snatched it up. “What? What ?”

“It’s Dale Barbara.”

“Barbie! Has it broken? Has the Dome broken?”

“No. I wish that’s why I was calling, but it’s not.”

“Then why ? It’s almost twelve-thirty in the morning!”

“You said your husband was investigating Jim Rennie.”

Brenda paused, getting the sense of this. She had put her palm against the side of her throat, the place where Howie had caressed her for the last time. “He was, but I told you, he had no absolute—”

“I remember what you said,” Barbie told her. “You need to listen to me, Brenda. Can you do that? Are you awake?”

“I am now.”

“Your husband had notes?”

“Yes. On his laptop. I printed them.” She was looking at the VADER file, spread out on the coffee table.

“Good. Tomorrow morning, I want you to put the printout in an envelope and take it to Julia Shumway. Tell her to put it in a safe place. An actual safe, if she’s got one. A cash strongbox or a locked file cabinet, if she doesn’t. Tell her she’s only to open it if something happens to you or me or both of us.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“She is not to open it otherwise. If you tell her that, will she do it? My instincts say she will.”

“Of course she will, but why not let her look?”

“Because if the editor of the local paper sees what your husband had on Big Jim and Big Jim knows she’s seen it, most of the leverage we have will be gone. Do you follow that?”

“Ye-es…” She found herself wishing desperately that Howie were the one having this post-midnight conversation.

“I said I might be arrested today if the missile strike didn’t work. Do you remember me telling you that?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I wasn’t. That fat sonofabitch knows how to bide his time. But he won’t bide it much longer. I’m almost positive it’s going to happen tomorrow—later today, I mean. If, that is, you can’t put a stop to it by threatening to air whatever dirt your husband dug up.”

“What do you think they’re going to arrest you for?”

“No idea, but it won’t be shoplifting. And once I’m in jail, I think I might have an accident. I saw plenty of accidents like that in Iraq.”

“That’s crazy.” But it had the horrid plausibility she had sometimes experienced in nightmares.

“Think about it, Brenda. Rennie has something to cover up, he needs a scapegoat, and the new Police Chief is in his pocket. The stars are in alignment.”

“I was planning to go see him anyway,” Brenda said. “And I was going to take Julia with me, for safety’s sake.”

“Don’t take Julia,” he said, “but don’t go alone.”

“You don’t actually think he’d—”

“I don’t know what he’d do, how far he’d go. Who do you trust besides Julia?”

She flashed back to that afternoon, the fires almost out, standing beside Little Bitch Road, feeling good in spite of her grief because she was flush with endorphins. Romeo Burpee telling her she ought to at least stand for Fire Chief.

“Rommie Burpee,” she said.

“Okay, then he’s the one.”

“Do I tell him what Howie had on—”

“No,” Barbie said. “He’s just your insurance policy. And here’s another one: lock up your husband’s laptop.”

“Okay… but if I lock up the laptop and leave the printout with Julia, what am I going to show Jim? I guess I could print a second copy—”

“No. One of those floating around is enough. For now, at least. Putting the fear of God into him is one thing. Freaking him out would make him too unpredictable. Brenda, do you believe he’s dirty?”

She did not hesitate. “With all my heart.” Because Howie believed it—that’s good enough for me.

“And you remember what’s in the file?”

“Not the exact figures and the names of all the banks they used, but enough.”

“Then he’ll believe you,” Barbie said. “With or without a second copy of the paperwork, he’ll believe you.”

Brenda put the VADER file in a manila envelope. On the front she printed Julia’s name. She put the envelope on the kitchen table, then went into Howie’s study and locked his laptop in the safe. The safe was small and she had to turn the Mac on its side, but in the end it just fit. She finished by giving the combination dial not just one but two spins, as per her dead husband’s instructions. As she did, the lights went out. For a moment some primitive part of her was certain she had blown them just by giving the dial that extra spin.

Then she realized that the generator out back had died.

When Junior came in at five minutes past six on Tuesday morning, his pale cheeks stubbly, his hair standing up in haystacks, Big Jim was sitting at the kitchen table in a white bathrobe the approximate size of a clipper ship’s mainsail. He was drinking a Coke.

Junior nodded at it. “A good day starts with a good breakfast.”

Big Jim raised the can, took a swallow, and set it down. “There’s no coffee. Well, there is, but there’s no electricity. The generator’s out of LP. Grab yourself a pop, why don’t you? They’re still fairly cold, and you look like you could use it.”

Junior opened the fridge and peered into its dark interior. “Am I supposed to believe you couldn’t score some bottled gas anytime you wanted it?”

Big Jim started a little at that, then relaxed. It was a reasonable question, and didn’t mean Junior knew anything. The guilty man flees where none pursueth, Big Jim reminded himself.

“Let’s just say it might not be politic at this point in time.”

“Uh-huh.”

Junior closed the refrigerator door and sat down on the other side of the table. He looked at his old man with a certain hollow amusement (which Big Jim mistook for affection).

The family that slays together stays together, Junior thought. At least for the time being. As long as it’s…

“Politic,” he said.

Big Jim nodded and studied his son, who was supplementing his early-morning beverage with a Big Jerk beefstick.

He did not ask Where have you been? He did not ask What’s wrong with you?, although it was obvious, in the unforgiving first light that flooded the kitchen, that something was. But he did have a question.

“There are bodies. Plural. Is that right?”

“Yes.” Junior took a big bite of his beefstick and washed it down with Coke. The kitchen was weirdly silent without the hum of the fridge and the burble of the Mr. Coffee.

“And all these bodies can be laid at Mr. Barbara’s door?”

“Yes. All.” Another chomp. Another swallow. Junior looking at him steadily, rubbing his left temple as he did so.

“Can you plausibly discover those bodies around noon today?”

“No prob.”

“And the evidence against our Mr. Barbara, of course.”

“Yes.” Junior smiled. “It’s good evidence.”

“Don’t report to the police station this morning, son.”

“I better,” Junior said. “It might look funny if I don’t. Besides, I’m not tired. I slept with…” He shook his head. “I slept, leave it at that.”