10
Wheii the parsonage doorbell rang, Piper Libby was still in the Bruins tee-shirt and shorts that served as her nightwear. She opened the door, assuming her visitor would be Helen Roux, an hour early for her ten o'clock appointment to discuss Georgia's funeral and burial arrangements. But it was Jackie Wettington. She was wearing her uniform, but there was no badge over her left breast and no gun on her hip. She looked stunned. 'Jackie? What's wrong?'
'I've been fired. That bastard has had it in for me since the PD Christmas party, when he tried to cop a feel and I slapped his hand, but I doubt if that was all of it, or even most of it - '
CHAPTER 21
'Come in,' Piper said. 'I found a little gas-operated hotplate - from the last minister, I think - in one of the pantry cupboards, and for a wonder, it still works. Doesn't a cup of hot tea sound good?'
'Wonderful,'Jackie said. Tears welled in her eyes and overspilled. She wiped them off her cheeks almost angrily.
Piper led her into the kitchen and lit the single-burner Brinkman camp-grill on the counter. 'Now tell me everything.'
Jackie did, not failing to include Henry Morrison's condolences, which had been clumsy but sincere. 'He whispered that part,' she said, taking the cup Piper gave her. 'It's like the goddam Gestapo over there now. Excuse my language.'
Piper waved this away.
'Henry says that if I protest at the town meeting tomorrow, I'll only make things worse - Rennie'll whip out a bunch of trumped-up incompetency charges. He's probably right. But the biggest incompetent in the Department this morning is the one running the place. As for Rennie... he's packing the PD with officers who'll be loyal to him in case of any organized protest to the way he's doing things.'
'Of course he is,' Piper said.
'Most of the new hires are too young to buy a legal beer, but they're carrying guns. I thought of telling Henry he'd be the next to go - he's said things about the way Randolph's running the department, and of course the bootlickers will have passed his comments on - but I could see by his face that he already knows it.'
'Do you want me to go see Rennie?'
'It wouldn't do any good. I'm actually not sorry to be out, I just hate to be fired. The big problem is that I'll look very good for what's going to happen tomorrow night. I may have to disappear with Barbie. Always assuming we can find a place to disappear to.'
'I don't understand what you're talking about.'
'I know, but I'm going to tell you. And this is where the risks start. If you don't keep this to yourself, I'll wind up in the Coop myself. Maybe even standing next to Barbara when Rennie lines up his firing squad.'
Piper regarded her gravely. 'I've got forty-five minutes before Georgia Roux's mother shows up. Is that time enough for you to say 'what you have to say?'
'Plenty.'
Jackie began with the examination of the bodies at the funeral home. Described the stitch marks on Coggins's face and the golden baseball Rusty had seen. She took a deep breath and next spoke of her plan to break Barbie out during the special town meeting the following night. 'Although I have no idea where we can put him if we do get him out.' She sipped her tea. So what do you think?'
'That I want another cuppa. You?'
'I'm good, thanks.'
From the counter, Piper said: 'What you're planning is terribly dangerous - I doubt if you need me to tell you that - but there may be no other way to save an innocent man's life. I never believed for a second that Dale Barbara was guilty of those murders, and after my own i close encounter with our local law enforcement, the idea that they'd execute him to keep him from taking over doesn't surprise me much.'Then, following Barbie's train of thought without knowing it: 'Rennie isn't taking the long view, and neither are the cops. All they care about is who's boss of the treehouse. That kind of thinking is a disaster waiting to happen.'
She came back to the table.
'l've known almost from the day I came back here to take up the pastorate - which was my ambition ever since I was a little girl - that Jim Rennie was a monster in embryo. Now - if you'll pardon the melodramatic turn of phrase - the monster has been born.'
'Thank God,' Jackie said.
'Thank God the monster has been born?' Piper smiled and raised her eyebrows.
'No - thank God you're down with this.'
'There's more, isn't there?'
'Yes. Unless you don't want to be a part of it.'
'Honey, I'm already a part of it. If you can be jailed for plotting, I could be jailed for listening and not reporting. We're now what our government likes to call "homegrown terrorists."'
Jackie received this idea in glum silence.