Some people rise to every occasion with that famous pioneer can-do attitude. They gird their loins, grit their teeth, put their shoulders to the wheel and noses to the grindstone. They embody every cliché for human nobility. And what's more, they do it with a song in their hearts and a smile on their lips.
I am not one of them.
I do what I have to do, sure—I'll even make the leap to self-sacrifice, but I will not smile as I tread the long and winding road.
And I sure as hell won't be singing.
Everyone else was, however. Inside the gym, someone led the reunion attendees in a rousing off-tempo version of the Delphi school song. It kept them focused on the stage and not on the lobby while the four of us tried to figure out what to do.
Or at least two of us were figuring. The other two stood silently.
"Are you sure?!" Stu demanded unnecessarily.
The boys' faces confirmed their awful suspicions.
"I'd better get Del," I said quietly to Stu.
"No!" Pres said vehemently. "Mr. Kincaid is in there with her. See?" He pointed into the gym. "If he finds out that I was at the river today, he'll find out that I was at the river last night too. I'll get suspended."
Sure enough, Del and Hugh were singing amiably on the edge of the crowd. Del took Hugh's arm companionably and they walked off together.
"Can't you do it?" Pres asked me, scrunching down so no one would see him. "You're a grown-up."
"Do what?" I asked, not liking the turn of the conversation.
"Go back to the river and check it out," Pres said, as though that should have been obvious. "We're just kids. We can't call the sheriff. They won't believe us. You have to. After you're sure."
"What do you think?" I asked. "Should we at least get Debbie? She's Doug's wife, she deserves to know."
"I don't think we should do anything," Stu said quickly. "I vote we call the police right here and now. It's not our business."
Unfortunately, with Presley involved, it was my business. Pres still refused to make the call, and I didn't think I should do it until their story had been confirmed.
"Are you sure you don't want me to get your mom instead?" I asked Pres, sighing.
"No. Please."
I chewed my lip trying to decide what to do. Stu tapped his foot impatiently.
"What's up, guys?" Neil asked, stepping out into the lobby. He wrinkled his glasses up on his nose, cheerful but alert.
"You're here. Good. Maybe they'll listen to you," Stu said to Neil.
I shot Stu a sharp look of exasperation, and then in as few words as possible, explained the situation to Neil.
"You're absolutely certain?" he asked Presley, who nodded almost imperceptibly. "Well then..." He paused, working his mouth in concentration. "I guess we better go and see."
"Thanks," I said gratefully. No matter how little I enjoyed the prospect, driving out to the river seemed the best course of action.
"Jesus, Pascoe, I thought you had some common sense," Stu exploded. "If these kids are wrong, it's just a wild-goose chase. If they're right, it could be dangerous. Maybe Doug needs medical attention. You a run a library, not a hospital."
"When did you find him?" Neil asked the boys.
Pres looked over at John, then back at Neil. They both shrugged. "About an hour ago."
"Another ten minutes won't make much difference then," Neil said calmly to Stu. "But you have a point: If we're not back in half an hour, call the sheriff."
"And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?" Stu asked sarcastically.
Neil ignored the tone and answered the question. "Watch out for Debbie, if you can. Someone else might have been to the river already. They might be less discreet about making sensational announcements."
"Anything else?" Stu asked, anger barely contained beneath the surface of his voice.
"Yeah, find Junior and ask her to hand out reunion booklets for me," I added quietly, pleading for his understanding, "I'll be back as soon as I can. I have to do this."
Stu locked eyes with me but said nothing. Torn, and hating the situation, I glanced at Neil, but found no help in his carefully neutral expression. I knew it was my call, and I'd already made my decision. I turned to explain, plead with Stu again, but he spun on one heel and stalked back into the gym.
There was no time to sort through the undercurrents of that last exchange, or why I was relieved that Neil was going instead of Stu.
"Come on," Presley said, grabbing John's arm and pulling him out the lobby door.
I sighed and followed them. We loaded ourselves into one of Neil's refurbished pickup trucks—Neil and I in the cab and the boys settled in the box.
I knew Neil would not bring up Stu unless I did, and I had no intention of doing so. "You think Doug is really dead?" I asked as we sped along the familiar gravel road.
"It's pretty hard to mistake dead for anything else," Neil said simply. "As you know from experience."
"Everyone figured Doug and Janelle ran away together You think she's there too?" I asked. "Dead?"
"The boys didn't say anything about finding another body," Neil said, "and I don't suppose that's the kind of detail they'd leave out.
"This'll make Rhonda's day," I said sadly. "She's been pestering everyone about the similarities between that party in 1969 when Butchie Pendergast drowned and last night. She swore we'd find another body."
"Well," Neil said, "now we know Doug and Janelle didn't run away together again."
"Rhonda's vibes are more tuned than mine," I said. "She was bound and determined to uncover a mystery in all this. All I've done is try to talk her out of the notion."
"We all did." Neil shrugged. "She even asked me who discovered the Pendergast boy's body. I didn't know, do you?"
We turned off the road onto the gravel bank at the oxbow. "I guess that detail got lost in the uproar about Doug and Janelle disappearing together for the first time." I paused. "For the only time."
Neil killed the engine and I sat, as the sun neared the horizon, remembering last night. And 1969. Caught in Rhonda's obsession about similarities between then and now.
He sighed and swung open his door. Presley jumped from the box and pointed to a clump of chokecherries just past the bend in the river.
"Over there, down in the water." He hesitated, waiting for us to take charge.
"We'll go first," Neil said, confirming the decision with a nod. "You boys follow, and tell us if everything looks the same as when you were here earlier. Don't touch anything."
"Oh shit," John said, speaking for the first time. "We already did. Presley picked up that old football shirt."
Pres, who was still holding the jersey, squealed and dropped it. "It wasn't with the other stuff. We picked it up before we saw, uh... the..."
"Too late to worry about it now," I said over my shoulder as Neil rounded the tree clump. "Just put it back about where you found it and don't forget to tell the sheriff."
"Oh jeez," Pres said mournfully.
With a backward glance at them, I stepped through the weeds to the riverbank.
Neil stood, back to me, shoulders slumped and head bowed. Without turning around, he said quietly, "You don't have to come any closer if you don't want to. It's Doug."
I inhaled deeply, wishing I was anywhere but on the bank of the Mighty Jim, stepped beside Neil, and looked down.
Doug Fischbach, ghostly white, naked and bloated, lay faceup, partially submerged in the swirling brown water. He didn't seem to be injured. Except for being dead, that is. He'd apparently snagged on a small outcropping of rock that had been exposed when the high water washed a portion of the bank away. Tree branches and other debris bobbed gently, trapped in the small pool formed by his body.
I stood silent for a moment, absurdly aware of each breath I took. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. I was alive, and Doug wasn't. I blew out all my air and asked, finally, "Can we at least close his eyes?"
I hadn't liked anything about Doug Fischbach—as a coach, he was vindictive; as a husband and father, he was abusive; as a human being, he was totally reprehensible. But, like Butchie Pendergast before him, Doug did not deserve to be so completely stripped of dignity.
"We better not," Neil said softly. He wrinkled his glasses up again and turned to face the pale and very subdued boys standing on the bank. "Does everything look the same to you?"
They nodded. "I think his clothes are on the other side of that tree over there." Presley pointed a small distance upriver. "We saw 'em but we didn't touch 'em," he assured us quickly.
The haphazard clothing pile seemed to contain everything Doug had been wearing last night—pants, shoes, satin Delphi Oracle jacket, socks, and underwear. Littered around the site were assorted pocket change, a knife, and a wallet. The last rays of sunset caught a small sparkle in the mud a few feet away. I bent down to see—it was a gold circle pin with rhinestones dotted around the perimeter, the kind worn by high school girls in the fifties.
"Nice," Neil said, looking over my shoulder at the pin. "Suppose Doug had that with him too?"
"Who knows? Doesn't seem the kind of thing he would carry around. Someone else could have dropped it," I said, straightening up, checking my watch. "We've been gone more than twenty minutes already. We better get back, before Stu gets worried."
Neil harrumphed slightly. "The sheriff is going to want to talk to the boys right away. I think you should drive back into town by yourself and make the call. I'll wait here. With them. Keep an eye on things. Just in case."
I didn't want to think about any "just in cases," and I didn't like the idea of leaving him, or the boys, but I saw the sense in his suggestion.
"I'll go straight to the gym," I said reluctantly, "see Stu, and then call it in. What about Debbie? Should I tell her? Or anyone else?"
Neil frowned. "Better not. Doug has obviously been dead awhile; it won't hurt to leave Debbie with a couple more hours' peace of mind."
I felt like a coward leaving Neil behind. I felt even worse knowing that I was, in effect, withholding the awful news from Doug's next of kin.
"What about Rhonda?" I asked. "She'll be horrified that her prediction came true."
"Her prediction hasn't come true," Neil said, "all we have is a dead football coach. Not a mystery."
I sighed. Neil was right. Doug could have died from any number of causes, and for any number of reasons. None of them sinister. And none of them connected to 1969.
So why was I reluctantly starting to think that Rhonda was right too?
Neil put an arm around my shoulder and planted a soft kiss on the top of my head.
"Drive carefully, be brave, and, most important," he said, "keep your eyes open."