CHAPTER 26 SHERIFF ELLIE

26

Sheriff Ellie

WITH

TWENTY-SIX

YEARS OF law enforcement under her belt, Ellie liked to believe she could handle just about anything. Hollows Bend had never had much crime, but she'd seen enough, dealt with her share of drunks and domestics, the occasional smash-and-grab, usually some out-of-towner. She'd even talked a jumper off the old bank building once, not that the two-story fall would have killed him, but she liked to think she at least spared him a nasty broken bone or two.

At least ten seconds ticked by as Ellie stared across the children's section of the library at Edgar Newton—the Stork, Bean, this man she had known her entire life, who always seemed to smell like he had cheese in his pockets. He hovered over the paper cutter, looked down at his severed fingers, then raised his hand to his curious face and studied the remaining nubs as if he were inspecting some item on exhibit rather than his own savaged limb.

Ellie's training kicked in and she rushed over to him, wiping the last of the water from her swollen eyes.

"I seem to have had an accident," Newton mumbled, still eyeing his hand, his voice oddly calm.

Ellie grabbed a tablecloth from under a display of Harry Potter books, spilling the worn hardcovers across the floor. "Hold your arm up," she told him. "You need to keep it above your heart to slow the blood loss." He did as she asked, and Ellie twisted the tablecloth over the wound. "I need your tie," she told him, already working at the knot. She cinched the tie around the bundle as tight as she could get it, knotting it twice.

"Mr. Newton, you still there?"

Sally's voice sounded disembodied, thin and soft. Ellie realized it was coming from the phone receiver; Newton had left it on the table next to the paper cutter. Ellie scooped it up and it on her shoulder. "Sally? It's me, Ellie."

"Oh, thank God! I've been trying to reach you! Phones are down."

Ellie pulled a plastic evidence bag from her pocket and gently began picking up the fingers from next to the paper cutter and dropping them inside. Her stomach groaned, and she choked her breakfast back down. "How did this call get through?"

" Mobile phones are down," Sally corrected. "Radios aren't working right, either, but landlines seem to be okay."

Even as she said this, her voice faded out, the line crackled with the same static Ellie had heard on earlier calls. Then she came back. There was some clicking in the background, steady, one click every three or four seconds.

Ellie quickly told her about Ms. Gilmore and what Newton did to his own hand as she retrieved the remains of his index finger and dropped it in the bag. "I need you to have North Hollow dispatch an ambulance. The cuts are clean—if they hurry, they might be able to reattach them." She needed ice to keep the digits cold.

"You best take him up to North Hollow yourself," Sally replied. "I've been trying to get through to them all morning, and I'm getting nothing but busy signals and disconnects. We got two heart attacks, a stabbing out at the Lecassa house, broken leg from a hit-and-run on Mountain View, two dog bites … God knows what else. Every time someone manages to get through to me, the list gets longer, and that's just the medicals. I've taken three calls for fights, someone vandalized the elementary school—spray-painted Nazi whatnot all over the auditorium … Henry Wilburt said someone broke into his pharmacy and cleared half his shelves—didn't take anything, mind you, just dumped everything on the floor, broke what could be broke. Want me to keep going? 'Cause there's more. I got walk-ins, too. People who couldn't get through on the phone coming through the door. Don't got a single empty seat out in the lobby, and half those people are out there arguing. I had to pull Dave Prath off Lou Passani about ten minutes ago over some bullshit about Lou parking his work truck in the street in front of Dave Prath's house overnight. Crossed the property line by three inches and set him off. On a public street, mind you. Like Prath just wanted a reason to bitch."

Ellie tried to wrap her head around all that. The list Sally rattled off was longer than all the incidents they'd had in the Bend over the last year, maybe the last two. They'd never had much crime. None of this made sense. "What are you seeing on the wire? Is this happening everywhere?"

"Wire system's been down all morning, crashed with the phones. Cable's out, too."

Phones, television, internet … those services all came from a company called BroadNet. They maintained the cell tower, too; maybe they had some central hub down.

"Is Buck out on Main clearing out the dead birds? He might know how to get us back up."

"Haven't seen or heard from Buck, and not for lack of trying, believe you me." She huffed.

Ellie blinked her eyes a few times. Most of the pain was gone, but her left eye still burned. "Okay, has Matt—"

"Are you listening to me?" Sally barked angrily. "I can't get through to anyone! No hospital. No ambulance. No you. No Matt. The fact that we're talking at all is some kind of fluke. You need to get that man to the hospital yourself, then get back here. Matt, too. This town is coming apart, and it feels like I'm here all alone in the thick of it!"

Arwa Gilmore started to come to. She let out a soft groan, rolled her head, and studied the zip ties Ellie had used to fasten her to the chair before finding her across the room. "You need to let me go, Sheriff. I've got work to do."

"You need to sit tight," Ellie replied.

"Sit tight?!? How about I take the rest of the day off? How would you like that?!" Sally shouted back her.

"I was talking to Ms. Gilmore, Sally, not you. I would never—"

"You start shitting on me too, and I'll walk. Don't think I won't."

Ellie was seriously beginning to regret getting out of bed today. "Okay, I'll run Mr. Newton up to North Hollow, then I'll head to the station. If you manage to reach Matt, tell him to come in, too. We'll regroup and figure this thing out. Think you can hold down the fort until then?"

There was a long silence, then: "Tell the med center to send at least three ambulances back with you. We need help."

Ellie went to reply and realized Sally had either hung up or the line had disconnected. She told herself it was the latter. Even when she was aggravated, she'd never known Sally to shirk her duties.

She took Newton by the arm and started leading him toward the door. "Let's get you some help."

"Hey! You can't leave me like this!" Gilmore shouted. She yanked her arms up against the ties hard enough to rock the chair.

Ellie reached down to the pile of books soaked in lighter fluid, plucked out one of the Dr. Seuss titles, and tossed it into the woman's lap. "Read that till I get back."