'Well, whoever it is—'

Another siren started up, this one of the newer kind that Duke Perkins thought of as Tweety Birds. That would be Two, Jackie Wettington. Had to be Jackie, while Randolph sat minding the store, rocked back in his chair with his feet cocked up on his desk, reading the Democrat. Or sitting in the crapper. Peter Randolph was a fair cop, and he could be just as hard as he needed to be, but Duke didn't like him. Partly because he was so clearly Jim Rennie's man, partly because Randolph was sometimes harder than he needed to be, but mostly because he thought Randolph was lazy, and Duke Perkins could not abide a lazy policeman.

Brenda was looking at him with large eyes. She had been a policeman's wife for forty-three years, and she knew that two booms, two sirens, and a power failure added up to nothing good. If the lawn got raked this weekend — or if Howie got to listen to his beloved Twin Mills Wildcats take on Castle Rock's football team — she would be surprised.

'You better go on in,' she said. 'Something got knocked down. I just hope no one's dead.'

He took his cell phone off his belt. Goddam thing hung there like a leech from morning til night, but he had to admit it was handy. He didn't dial it, just stood looking down at it, waiting for it to ring.

But then another Tweety Bird siren went off: car One. Randolph rolling after all. Which meant something very serious. Duke no longer thought the phone would ring and moved to put it back on his belt, but then it did. It was Stacey Moggin.

'Stacey?' He knew he didn't have to bellow into the goddam thing, Brenda had told him so a hundred times, but he couldn't seem to help it. 'What are you doing at the station on Saturday m—'

'I'm not, I'm at home. Peter called me and said to tell you it's out on 119, and it's bad. He said… an airplane and a pulp-truck collided.' She sounded dubious. 'I don't see how that can be, but—'