'Maybe, maybe,' Rommie said, but he doubted there would be any such sale. This morning he was much less interested than he had been in unloading shoddy goods at prices that looked like bargains. He fell; that he had undergone big changes in the last three days - not so much of character as of perspective. Some of it had to do with fighting the fire and the camaraderie afterward. That had been the real town at work, he thought. The town's better nature. And a lot of it had to do with the murder of his once-upon-a-time lover, Brenda Perkins... whom. Rommie still thought of as Brenda Neale. One hot ticket she'd been, and if he discovered who had cooled her off - assuming that Rusty was right about it not being Dale Barbara - that person would pay. Rommie Burpee would see to that personally.
At the back of his cavernous store was the Home Repairs section, conveniently located next to the Do-It-Yourself section. Rommie grabbed a set of heavy-duty metal snips from the latter, then entered the former and proceeded to the farthest, darkest, and dustiest corner of his retail kingdom. Here he found two dozen fifty-pound rolls of Santa Rosa lead sheeting, ordinarily used for roofing, flashing, and chimney insulation. He loaded two of the rolls (and the metal snips) into a shopping cart and rolled the cart back through the store until he reached the sports department. Here he set to work picking and choosing. Several times he burst out laughing. It was going to work, but yes, Rusty Everett was going to look tres amusant.
When he was done, he straightened up to stretch the kinks out of his back and caught sight of a deer-in-the-crosshairs poster on the far side of the sports department. Printed above the deer was this reminder: HUNTING SEASON'S ALMOST HERE - TIME TO GUN UP!
Given the way things were going, Rommie thought that gunning up might be a good idea. Especially if Rennie or Randolph decided that confiscating any weapons but those belonging to the cops would be a good idea.
He rolled another shopping cart over to the locked rifle cases, working through the considerable ring of keys hanging from his belt by touch alone. Burpee's sold exclusively Winchester products, and given that deer season was only a week away, Rommie thought he could justify a few holes in his stock if he were asked. He selected a Wildcat.22, a speed-pump Black Shadow, and two Black Defenders, also with the speed-pump feature. To this he added a Model 70 Extreme Weather (with scope) and a 70 Featherweight (without). He took ammo for all the guns, then pushed the cart down to his office and stowed the guns in his old green Defender floor-safe.
This is paranoid, you know, he thought as he twirled the dial.
But it didn't feel paranoid. And as he went back out to wait for Rusty and the kids, he reminded himself to tie a blue rag around his arm. And to tell Rusty to do the same. Camouflage wasn't a bad idea.
Any deer hunter knew that.
8
At eight o'clock that morning, Big Jim was back in his home study, Carter Thibodeau - now his personal bodyguard for the duration, Big Jim had decided - was deep in an issue of Car and Driver, reading a comparison of the 2012 BMW H-car and the 2011 Ford Vesper R/T. They both looked like awesome cars, but anybody who didn't know that BMWs ruled was insane. The same was true, he thought, of anyone who didn't understand that Mr Rennie was now the BMW H-car of Chester's Mill.
Big Jim was feeling quite well, partly because he'd gotten another hour of sleep after visiting Barbara. He was going to need lots of power naps in the days ahead. He had to stay sharps on top. He would not quite admit to himself that he was also worried about more arrhythmias.
Having Thibodeau on hand eased his mind considerably, especially with Junior behaving so erratically {That's one way to put it, he thought). Thibodeau looked like a thug, but he seemed to have a feel for the aide-de-camp role. Big Jim wasn't completely sure yet, but he thought Thibodeau might actually turn out to be smarter than Randolph.
He decided to test that.
'How many men guarding the supermarket, son? Do you know?'
Carter put his magazine aside and drew a battered little notebook from his back pocket. Big Jim approved.
After thumbing through it a little, Carter said: 'Five last night, three regular guys and two new ones. No problems. Today there's only gonna be three. All new ones. Aubrey Towle - his brother owns the bookshop, y'know - Todd Wendlestat, and Lauren Conree.'
'And do you concur that that should be enough?'
'Huh?'
'Do you agree, Carter. Concur means agree.'
'Yeah, that should do it. Daylight and all.'
No pause to calculate what the boss might want to hear. Rennie liked that a bunch.
'Okay. Now listen. I want you to get with Stacey Moggin this morning. Tell her to call every officer we've got on our roster. I want them all at Food City tonight at seven. I'm going to talk to them.'
Actually he was going to make another speech, this time with all the stops out. Wind them up like Granddad's pocketwatch.
'Okay' Carter made a note in his little aide-de-camp book.
'And tell each of them to try and bring one more.'
Carter was running his gnawed-upon pencil down the list in his book. 'We've already got... lemme see... twenty-six.'
'That still might not be enough. Remember the market yesterday morning, and the Shumway woman's newspaper last night. It's us or anarchy, Carter. Do you know the meaning of that word?'
'Uh, yessir.' Carter Thibodeau was pretty sure it meant an archery range, and he supposed his new boss was saying that The Mill could become a shooting gallery or something if they didn't take a good hard hold. 'Maybe we ought to make a weapons sweep, or something.'