Whatever 1969 might mean in the larger historical context of America as the year of Woodstock, Teddy Kennedy's automotive plunge from a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, the visit Charles Manson's faithful followers paid to actress Sharon Tate, and man's first walk on the moon, it will now, and forever, be remembered in Delphi as the first time Janelle Ross and Doug Fischbach disappeared together.
As a committee member, I was required to arrive at the All-School Reunion early for last-minute preparations. One class was in charge of the bar. Another group adjusted the microphone and sound equipment on a small stage platform at the far end of the room. Some were taping up last-minute banners and decorations. We were supposed to hand out reunion booklets, and since no one had yet arrived to claim one, I had plenty of time to dissect, with the other locals, the only occurrence as fascinating as the first time Janelle Ross and Doug Fischbach had disappeared.
"Don't you think the similarities are amazing?" Rhonda asked, concentrating soberly over a paper cup of fruit punch. If the get-together had been held at the bar, Rhonda could have enjoyed an underage beer. And though this little soiree, staged in the school gymnasium, had a special dispensation to sell and serve alcohol, Rhonda would have had a hard time convincing the bartender that she was over twenty-one.
"Thanks, Mrs. Saunders," I said, handing over a couple of bucks for an overflowing cup of Michelob drawn from a keg packed in a washtub full of ice.
"See you later, Mom," Rhonda said over her shoulder, leading us away from the small crowd at the makeshift bar. She returned to the subject that had caught everyone's attention. "You all went to an after-homecoming party at the river—just like last night. And everyone got drunk."
"Wrong," Del said, sipping a beer. She stood with us, but her eyes swept the room constantly. "The only drunks last night were members of the Fischbach family."
"Not entirely," I said hesitantly. She still didn't know about Presley. "Debbie drank several beers, but I wouldn't have said she was drunk. But Gina Adler was a bit tipsy." Del herself had downed several cans in quick succession between her arrival with Hugh and the fight that ended the party.
"My point," Del said, "was that last night wasn't like that party in 1969."
"Of course it was," Rhonda insisted. She'd spent all day questioning us endlessly about both occasions. She ticked points on her fingers. "It was homecoming. The weather was icky and the river was high. Doug Fischbach punched Stu McKee."
There was another similarity that Rhonda didn't know about—both parties had been witnessed by drunken thirteen-year-olds, and I'd had to clean up the aftermath.
"At each party, Debbie Fischbach was upset and left early, without Doug." Rhonda grinned, working up to her finale. "And Janelle Ross and Doug Fischbach were last seen together at the river."
"Yeah, and both of them had vice presidents named Johnson," Del said tiredly. "Aren't you forgetting one major point?"
"Oh, yeah, at both parties, people spent time with other people they really shouldn't have." Rhonda winked me; she was teasing Del.
Del's lips tightened. "No, dipshit. This time, there are no dead bodies."
"Just wait," Rhonda said, nodding. "I have a feeling."
"That's silly," I said. Rhonda was determined to turn a nasty little affair into an intrigue. "Everyone has been accounted for."
"Everyone, except for Doug and Janelle," she said, pointedly.
"You think they killed each other?" I asked, trying to grin. Though I have been known, on occasion, to jump to some pretty wild, and mostly erroneous, conclusions about cause-of-death in Delphi, I generally had the minimum evidence of an indisputably dead body.
"Well, one of them might have killed the other one," she chirped. "For all we know, they both might be Jack the Rippers." Rhonda frowned, and tried again. "Or would that be Jacks the Ripper?"
"I'd be more worried about the Teds Bundy and the Jeffreys Dahmer," Neil Pascoe said, carrying a glass of punch. He'd come in a while ago and worked his way slowly around toward us. "I assume you are discussing this evening's Hot Topic."
"What else?" I laughed.
"How thoughtful of the movie star and the football coach to provide us with a conversational ice breaker," Neil said.
''So have you come up with anything new?" Rhonda asked Neil.
"Not really. Debbie hasn't been seen since this morning when she and Lisa whatsername made the rounds in town. Ditto Cameron. It's too soon to file a missing person report with the police, and besides, everyone thinks Doug and Janelle are just knocking off a few for old time's sake."
That seemed to be the general consensus. Small groups broke and reformed all around the gymnasium. Some newcomers had arrived. Nicely dressed alumni of various ages, each wearing a name tag that also stated the year of graduation, earnestly discussed Coach Fischbach's latest breach of athletic etiquette. It's not that they were any easier on Janelle, it's just that, since she was a movie star and all, they never really expected proper behavior from her.
"What's Stu think of all this?" Neil asked me quietly.
I shrugged. Our conversation at the cafe had been too much like a fight for either of us to make a firm date for the evening. Stu was on the reunion planning committee; I assumed he'd show up sooner or later. And we'd talk. Maybe.
Good friend that he is, Neil didn't press.
"Gina Adler is sure taking it hard," Rhonda nodded toward a small group a few feet away from us.
Gina, pale and drawn, had obviously been crying, though she flashed a wan smile in my direction. Ron hovered around her like an anxious moth.
"She's probably worried about Debbie. They worked together a long time on this reunion," I said, watching as Ron took Gina's punch cup to be refilled.
"She's probably hungover," Del said shortly.
"It's probably guilt," Rhonda corrected. "After all, Gina helped to bring Janelle back to Delphi in the first place."
"Not according to Doug," Neil said, watching them closely.
Hugh Kincaid had joined Gina's group and was talking quietly with her. She briefly laid her head on his shoulder as he said something comforting in her ear.
"Nope," Rhonda said, "it's pure guilt." She turned to Del for a little more needling, but Del had stalked off without even a cursory good-bye. "A lot of that going around lately."
People poured in steadily, conversations became more animated, and the subject turned from recent scandals to past glories. Women, especially from the later classes, squealed in recognition of each other. They hugged, laughed, and drank beer. And went to the bathroom in groups of at least four.
I found myself straining to recognize faces as people claimed their reunion booklets, but discovered it helped more to squint and concentrate on postures and profiles while, searching the memory banks. Unfortunately, everyone I thought looked my age was actually quite a bit younger.
Once I narrowed myself to attendees with grayer hair and larger waistlines, I began to recognize former classmates without referring to name tags.
Gerald Messner, still tall and goofy-looking, but goofy-looking in the debonair way of millionaire software designers, stood with a possessive arm around a very young, very blond, very large-chested woman. The fabled Monique. She would have given Janelle a run for her money in the Most Beautiful Woman in the Room Department.
If Janelle had been there, of course.
Rhonda had drifted off to squeal at others from her class, and Neil was schmoozing some oldsters a few feet away.
I was deep into a one-sided conversation with a woman a couple years younger than me, learning more than I ever wanted to know about her and her recent spiritual reawakening, when I noticed a change in the timbre of the conversations in the gym.
A small pause of hushed expectation swept the room as Lisa Franklin Hauck-Robertson propelled a frail and exhausted Debbie Fischbach toward the stage.
Debbie looked years older than she had last night. An expert makeup job obscured, but did not completely hide, a new bruise on her cheek. Slightly shaky, she mounted the stairs and approached the microphone.
She surveyed the crowd for a moment and then spoke. "As chairwoman of Delphi High School's All-School Reunion, classes 1965-1975, I'd like to welcome each and every one of you to dear old Delphi High," she said in a careful voice, completely neglecting to mention Gina Adler, who, as co-chair, had done most of the actual work.
Lisa stood at the foot of the stage, watching the crowd warily, as Debbie continued her speech, a standard self-congratulatory message that no one would have paid attention to had not the speaker's husband recently disappeared with the evening's guest of honor.
If Gina minded being left out of the credits, it didn't show. She stood calmly on the sidelines listening, arm linked through Ron's, as his face worked itself through an amazing array of blinks and contortions. Pregnant Junior was a little farther away, with a few others from the committee, their faces, like those of most of the crowd, avidly curious. Rhonda watched the stage raptly, occasionally whispering comments to Neil. Del stood a little behind the Adlers, face unreadable.
I had to admire Debbie's courage in facing the room head on—she must have known she'd be an object of curiosity.
The speech finally ended, and Lisa forced everyone into a round of applause a good deal more enthusiastic than the crowd might have bestowed without her glaring example.
"Tory." An urgent male voice in my ear startled me. "Can you come here a minute? I think it's important."
Without waiting for my assent, Stu grabbed and pulled me toward the gymnasium door. Framed there, in the dim light of the lobby, stood Presley, pale and, obviously upset, wringing something between his hands.
"What's going on?" I asked Stu. "Is something wrong with Pres?"
"I don't know. I found them wandering around outside. They wouldn't tell me anything. Presley insisted that I come and find you. Not his mother. Just you."
Thirteen years old, taller than me now, though still impossibly young, Presley paced back and forth in the lobby as a very anxious, pale, and blinking John Adler—Ron and Gina's son—stood near the emergency exit.
Irritation at being unceremoniously yanked from the reunion changed to concern, which changed to apprehension as I recognized the object Presley held in his hands.
It was an old and dirty Delphi Oracle football jersey. Imprinted with number 69.
"I was feeling better, Tory, so John and I rode our bikes back out to the river where you guys were last night, to check for stuff. You know, dropped money or leftover beers. Stuff like that," Presley said in a rush. His voice, which had not yet changed, rose a notch. "I'm sorry. If I'd known, I never woulda went back there. But I didn't know." He was perilously close to tears.
In the background, John, still pacing, wheezed a high-pitched confirmation.
"Known what?" I asked Presley, heart sinking, not wanting to hear his answer.
"We didn't know he'd be there," Presley said desperately.
"Who?" Stu demanded.
Pres closed his eyes, summoning his courage. "Coach Fischbach," he said in a small voice threaded with anguish. "Coach Fishbach is down at the oxbow. In the water. And, oh God, Tory—he's dead!"