8
Walking across the town common with Clover heeling neatly to her rightj, Piper felt she did have her temper under control. She felt that way until she heard the laughter. It came as she and Clove were approaching the police station. She observed the very fellows whose names she had gotten out of Sammy Bushey: DeLesseps, Thibodeau, Searljes. Georgia Roux was also present, Georgia who had egged them on, aiccording to Sammy: Do that bitch. Freddy Denton was there too. They were sitting at the top of the stone PD steps, drinking sodas, gassing among themselves. Duke Perkins never would have allowed suchj a thing, and Piper reflected that if he could see them from wherever he was, he'd be rolling in his grave fast enough to set his
remains on fire.
Mel Searles said something and they all broke up again, laughing and packslapping. Thibodeau had his arm around the Roux girl, the tips bf his fingers on the sideswell of her breast. She said something, and they all laughed harder.
It came to Piper that they were laughing about the rape - what a goldurn good old time it had been - and after that, her father's advice never had a chance. The Piper who ministered to the poor and the sick, who officiated at marrying;; and buryings, who preached charity and tolerance on Sundays, was pushed rudely to the back of her mind, where she could only watch as though through a warped and wavery pane of glass. It was the other Piper who took over, the one who had trashed her room at fifteen, crying tears of rage rather than sorrow.
There was a slate-paved square known as War Memorial Plaza between the Town Hall and the newer brick PD building. At its center was a statue of Ernie Calvert's father, Lucien Calvert, who had been awarded a posthumous Silver Star for heroic action in Korea. The: names of other Chester's Mill war dead, going all the way back to the Civil War, were engraved on the statue's base. There were also two flagpoles, the Stars and Stripes at the top of one and the state flag, with its farmer, sailor, and moose, at the top of the other. Both hung limp in the reddening light of oncoming sunset. Piper Libby passed between the poles like a woman in a dream, Clover still heeling behind her right knee with his ears up.
The 'officers' atop the steps burst into another hearty roar of laughter, and she thought of trolls in one of the fairy stories her dad had sometimes read her. Trolls in a cave, gloating over piles of ill-gotten gold. Then they saw her and quieted.
'Good evenin, Rev'run,' Mel Searles said, and got up, giving his belt a self-important little hitch as he did so. Standing in the presence of a lady, Piper thought. Did his mother teach him that? Probably. The fine art of rape he probably learned somewhere else.
He was still smiling as she reached the steps, but then it faltered and grew tentative, so he must have seen her expression. Just what that expression might be she didn't know. From the inside, her face felt frozen. Immobile.
She saw the biggest of them watching her closely. Thibodeau, his face as immobile as hers felt. He's like Clover, she thought. He smells it on me. The rage.
'Rev'run?' Mel asked. 'Everything okay? There a problem?'
She mounted the steps, not fast, not slow, Clover still heeling neatly behind her right knee. 'You bet there's a problem,' she said, looking up at him.
'What - '
'You', she said. 'You're the problem.'
She pushed him. Mel wasn't expecting it. He was still holding his cup of soda. He went tumbling into Georgia Roux's lap, flailing his arms uselessly for balance, and for a moment the soda was a dark manta ray hanging against the reddening sky. Georgia cried out in surprise as Mel landed on her. She sprawled backward, spilling her own soda. It went running across the wide granite slab in front of the double doors. Piper could smell either whiskey or bourbon. Their Cokes had been spiked with what the rest of the town could no longer buy. No wonder they'd been laughing.
The red fissure inside her head opened wider.
'You can't - ' Frankie began, starting to get up himself. She pushed him. In a galaxy far far away, Clover - ordinarily the sweetest of dogs - was growling.
Frankie went on his back, eyes wide and startled, for a moment looking like the Sunday school boy he once might have been.
'Rape is the problem!' Piper shouted. 'Rape!'
'Shut up,' Carter said. He was still sitting, and although Georgia was cowering against him, Carter remained calm. The muscles of his arms rippled below his short-sleeved blue shirt. 'Shut up and get out of here right now, if you don't want to spend the night in a cell downstai - '
'You're the one who'll be going into a cell,' Piper said. 'All of you.'
'Make her shut up,' Georgia said. She wasn't whimpering, but she was close. 'Make her shut up, Cart.'
'Ma'am - ' Freddy Denton. His uniform shirt untucked and bourbon on his breath. Duke would have taken one look and fired his ass. Fired all their asses. He started to get up and this time he was the one who went sprawling, a look of surprise on his face that would have been comical under other circumstances. It was nice that they had been sitting while she was standing. Made it easier. But oh, how her temples were thudding. She returned her attention to Thibodeau, the most dangerous one. He was still looking at her with maddening calm. As though she were a freak he'd paid a quarter to see in a sideshow tent. But he was looking up at her, and that was her advantage.
'But it won't be a cell downstairs,' she said, speaking directly to Thibddeau. 'It'll be in Shawshank, where they do to little play-yard bullies like you what you did to that girl.'
'You stupid bitch,' Carter said. He spoke as if remarking on the weather. 'We weren't anywhere near her house.'
'That's right,' Georgia said, sitting up again. There was Coke splattered on one of her cheeks, where a virulent case of teenage acne was fading (but still holding onto a few final outposts). 'And besides, everyone knows Sammy Bushey is nothing but a lying lesbo cunt.'