2

'Big Jim,' Randolph said. 'What's happened here?'

'I believe that's obvious,'Big Jim said.'ChuckThompson's airplane got into a little argument with a pulp-truck. Looks like they fought it to a draw.' Now he could hear sirens coming from Castle Rock. Almost: certainly FD responders (Rennie hoped their own two new—and horribly expensive—firewagons 'were among them; it would play better if no one actually realized the new trucks had been out of town when this cluster mug happened). Ambulances and police would be close behind.

'That ain't what happened,' Alden Dinsmore said stubbornly 'J was out in the side garden, and I saw the plane just—'

'Better move those people back, don't you think?' Rennie asked Randolph, pointing to the lookie-loos. There were quite a few on the pulp—truck side, standing prudently away from the blazing remains, and even more on The Mill side. It was starting to look like a convention.

Randolph addressed Morrison and Wettington. 'Hank,' he said, and pointed at the spectators from The Mill. Some had begun prospecting among the scattered pieces of Thompson's plane. There were cries of horror as more body parts were discovered.

'Yo,' Morrison said, and got moving.

Randolph turned Wettington toward the spectators on the pulp-truck side. 'Jackie, you take…' But there Randolph trailed off.

The disaster-groupies on the south side of the accident were standing in the cow pasture on one side of the road and knee-deep in scrubby bushes on the other. Their mouths hung open, giving them a look of stupid interest Rennie was very familiar with; he saw it on individual faces every day, and en masse every March, at town meeting. Only these people weren't looking at the burning truck.

And now Peter Randolph, certainly no dummy (not brilliant, not by a long shot, but at least he knew which side his bread was buttered on), was looking at the same place as the rest of them, and with that same expression of slack-jawed amazement. So was Jackie Wettington.

It was the smoke the rest were looking at. The smoke rising from the burning pulper.

It was dark and oily. The people downwind should have been darned near choking on it, especially with a light breeze out of the south, but they weren't. And Rennie saw the reason why. It was hard to believe, but he saw it, all right. The smoke did blow norti, at least at first, but then it took an elbow-bend—almost a right angle—and rose straight up in a plume, as if in a chimney. And it left a dark brown residue behind. A long smudge that just seemed to float on the air.

Jim Rennie shook his head to clear the image away, but it was still there when he stopped.

'What is it?' Randolph asked. His voice was soft with wonder.

Dinsmore, the farmer, placed himself in front of Randolph. "TW guy'—pointing at Ernie Calvert—'had Homeland Security on the phone, and this guy'—pointing at Rennie in a theatrical courtroom gesture Rennie didn't care for in the least—'took the phone out of his hand and hung up! He shun't'a done that, Pete. Because that was no collision. The plane wasn't anywhere near the ground. I seen it. I was covering plants in case of frost, and I seen it.'

'I did, too—' Rory began, and this time it was his brother Ollie who went up the backside of Rory's head. Rory began to whine.

Alden Dinsmore said, 'It hit something. Same thing the cruck hit. It's there, you can touch it. That young fella—the cook—said there oughta be a no-fly zone out here, and he was right. But Mr Rennie'—again pointing at Rennie like he thought he was a gosh-darn Perry Mason instead of a fellow who earned his daily bread attaching suction cups to cows' tiddies—'wouldn't even talk. Just hung up.'

Rennie did not stoop to rebuttal. 'You're wasting time,' he told Randolph. Moving a little closer and speaking just above a whisper, he added: 'The Chief's coming. My advice would be to look sharp and control this scene before he gets here.' He cast a cold momentary eye on the farmer. 'You can interview the witnesses later.'

But—maddeningly—it was Alden Dinsmore who go: the last word. 'That fella Barber was right. He was right and Rennie was wrong.'

Rennie marked Alden Dinsmore for later action. Sooner or later, farmers always came to the Selectmen with their hats in their hands wanting an easement, a zoning exception, something—and when Mr Dinsmore next showed up, he would find little comfort, if Rennie had anything to say about it. And he usually did.

'Control this scene!' he told Randolph.

'Jackie, move those people back,' the Assistant Chief said, pointing toward the lookie-loos on the pulp-truck side of the accident. 'Establish a perimeter.'

'Sir, I think those folks are actually in Morton—'

'I don't care, move them back.' Randolph glanced over his shoulder to where Duke Perkins was working his way out of the green Chief's car—a car Randolph longed to see in his own driveway. And would, with Big Jim Rennie's help. In another three years at the very latest. 'Castle Rock PD'll thank you when they get here, believe me.'

'What about…' She pointed at the smoke-smudge, which was still spreading. Seen through it, the October-colorful trees looked a uniform dark gray, and the sky was an unhealthy shade of yellowy-blue.

'Stay clear of it,' Randolph said, then went to help Hank Morrison establish the perimeter on the Chester's Mill side. But first he needed to bring Perk up to speed.

Jackie approached the people on the pulp-truck side. The crowd over there was growing all the time as the early arrivers worked their cell phones. Some had stamped out little fires in the bushes, which was good, but now they were just standing around, gawking. She used the same shooing gestures Hank was employing on The Mill side, and chanted the same mantra.

'Get back, folks, it's all over, nothing to see you haven't seen already, clear the road for the firetrucks and the police, get back, clear the area, go home, get ba—'

She hit something. Rennie had no idea what it was, but he could see the result. The brim of her hat collided with it first. It bent, and the hat tumbled off behind her. An instant later those insolent tiddies of hers—a couple of cotton-picking gunshells was what they were—flattened. Then her nose squashed and gave up a jet of blood that splattered against something… and began to run down in long drips, like paint on a wall. She went on her well-padded ass with an expression of shock on her face.

The goddarn farmer stuck his oar in then: 'See? What'd I tell you:›'

Randolph and Morrison hadn't seen. Neither had Perkins; the three of them were conferring together by the hood of the Chief's car. Rennie briefly considered going to Wettington, but others were doing that, and besides—she was still a little too close to whatever it was she'd run into. He hurried toward the men instead set face and big hard belly projecting get—'er-done authority. He spared a glare for Farmer Dinsmore on his way by.