Randolph started to say it wasn't, then reconsidered. His second thought was of the girl's rape accusation. Her suicide gave it a ring of truth, and rumors that Mill police officers could have done such a thing would be bad for department morale, and hence for the town. He didn't need Jim Rennie to tell him that.
'Don't know,' he said, 'but it's possible.'
Marty's eyes were watering, either from smoke or from grief. Maybe both. 'Gotta get Big Jim on top of this, Pete.'
T will. Meanwhile'—Randolph nodded toward Julia—'Keep an eye on her, and when she finally gets tired and goes away, take all that shit down and toss it where it belongs.' He indicated the torch that had been a newspaper office earlier in the day. 'Put litter in its place.'
Marty snickered. 'Roger that, boss.'
And that was just what Officer Arsenault did. But not before others in town had taken down a few of the papers for perusal in brighter light—half a dozen, maybe ten. They were passed from hand to hand in the next two or three days, and read until they quite literally fell apart.
14
When Andy got to the hospital, Piper Libby was already there. She was sitting on a bench in the lobby, talking to two girls in the white nylon pants and smock tops of nurses… although to Andy they seemed far too young to be real nurses. Both had been crying and looked like they might start again soon, but Andy could see Reverend Libby was having a calming effect on them. One thing he'd never had a problem with was judging human emotions. Sometimes he wished he'd been better at the thinking side of things.
Ginny Tomlinson was standing nearby, conversing quietly with an oldish-looking fellow. Both looked dazed and shaken. Ginny saw Andy and came over. The oldish-looking fellow trailed along behind. She introduced him as Thurston Marshall and said he was helping out.
Andy gave the new fellow a big smile and a warm handshake. 'Nice to meet you, Thurston. I'm Andy Sanders. First Selectman.'
Piper glanced over from the bench and said,'If you were really the First Selectman, Andy, you'd rein in the Second Selectman.'
'I understand you've had a hard couple of days,' Andy said, still smiling. 'We all have.'
Piper gave him a look of singular coldness, then asked the girls if they wouldn't like to come down to the caff with her and have tea. T could sure use a cup,' she said.
'I called her after I called you,' Ginny said, a little apologetically, after Piper had led the two junior nurses away. 'And I called the PD. Got Fred Denton.' She wrinkled her nose as people do when they smell something bad.
'Aw, Freddy's a good guy,' Andy said earnestly. His heart was in none of this—his heart felt like it was still back on Dale Barbara's bed, planning to drink the poisoned pink water—but the old habits kicked in smoothly, nevertheless. The urge to make things all right, to calm troubled waters, turned out to be like riding a bicycle. 'Tell me what happened here.'
She did so. Andy listened with surprising calmness, considering he'd known the DeLesseps family all his life and had in high school once taken Georgia Roux's mother on a date (Helen had kissed with her mouth open, which was nice, but had stinky breath, which wasn't). He thought his current emotional flatness had everything to do with knowing that if his phone hadn't rung when it did, he'd be unconscious by now. Maybe dead. A thing like that put the world in perspective.
'Two of our brand-new officers,' he said. To himself he sounded like the recording you got when you called a movie theater to get showtimes. 'One already badly hurt trying to clean up that supermarket mess. Dear, dear.'
'This is probably not the time to say so, but I'm not very fond of your police department,' Thurston said. 'Although since the officer who actually punched me is now dead, lodging a complaint would be moot.'
'Which officer? Frank or the Roux girl?'
'The young man. I recognized him in spite of his… his mortal disfigurement.'
'Frank DeLesseps punched you?'Andy simply didn't believe this. Frankie had delivered his Lewiston Sun for four years and never missed a day. Well, yes, one or two, now that he thought of it, but those had come during big snowstorms. And once he'd had the measles. Or had it been the mumps?
'If that was his name.'
'Well, gosh… that's…' It was what? And did it matter? Did anything? Yet Andy pushed gamely forward. 'That's regrettable, sir. We believe in living up to our responsibilities in Chester's Mill. Doing the right thing. It's just that right now we're kind of under the gun. Circumstances beyond our control, you know.'
'I do know!' Thurse said. 'As far as I'm concerned, it's water over the dam. But sir… those officers were awfully young. And very out of line.' He paused. 'The lady I'm with was also assaulted.'
