I turned to page eighty-nine. It was headed LONGACRE SCIENCE DEPARTMENT. There was a corny group shot of four teachers in white lab coats holding bubbling beakers — paging Dr. Jekyll — and below it were four studio shots. John Clayton didn’t look a bit like Lee Oswald, but he had the same sort of pleasantly forgettable face, and his lips were dimpled at the corners by the same suggestion of a smile. Was that the ghost of amusement or barely hidden contempt? Hell, maybe it was just the best the obsessive-compulsive bastard could do when the photographer told him to say cheese. The only distinguishing features were hollows at the temples, which almost matched the dimples at the corners of his mouth. The photo wasn’t color, but his eyes were light enough to make me pretty sure they were either blue or gray.
I turned the book toward my friends. “See these indents on the sides of his head? Is that just a natural formation, like a hooked nose or a chin-dimple?”
They said “No” at exactly the same time. It was sort of comical.
“They’re forceps marks,” Deke said. “Made when some doc finally got tired of waiting and dragged him out of his mama. They usually go away, but not always. If his hair wasn’t thinning on the sides, you wouldn’t see them at all, would you?”
“And he hasn’t been around, asking about Sadie?” I asked.
“No.” They said it in unison again. Ellen added, “No one’s been asking after her. Except for you, George. You damned fool.” She smiled as people do when it’s a joke, but not really.
I looked at my watch and said, “I’ve kept you folks long enough. I’ll be heading on back.”
“Want to take a stroll down to the football field before you go?” Deke asked. “Coach Borman said to bring you by, if I got a chance. He’s got them practicing already, of course.”
“In the cool of the evening, at least,” Ellie said, getting up. “Thank God for small favors. Remember when the Hastings boy got a heatstroke three years ago, Deke? And how they thought it was a heart attack at first?”
“I can’t imagine why he’d want to see me,” I said. “I turned one of his prize defensemen to the dark side of the universe.” I lowered my voice and whispered hoarsely,
Deke smiled. “Yeah, but you saved another one from maybe getting red-shirted at ’Bama. Or at least that’s what Borman thinks. Because, my son, that’s what Jim LaDue told him.”
At first I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Then I remembered the Sadie Hawkins, and grinned. “All I did was catch three of them passing a bottle of rotgut. I threw it over the fence.”
Deke had stopped smiling. “One of those boys was Vince Knowles. Did you know he was drunk when he rolled that truck of his?”
“No.” But it didn’t surprise me. Cars and booze have always been a popular and sometimes lethal high school cocktail.
“Yessir. That, combined with whatever you said to those boys at the dance, got LaDue to swear off drinking.”
“What
“I don’t remember,” I said.
Ellie trotted off to pay the check.
I said, “Tell Miz Dockerty to keep an eye out for the man in that picture, Deke. You too. He may not come around, I’m starting to think I could’ve been wrong about that, but he might. And he’s not wrapped too tightly.”
Deke promised he would.
I almost didn’t walk over to the football field. Jodie was particularly beautiful in the slanting light of that early July evening and I think part of me wanted to get my ass back to Fort Worth before I lost the will to go there. I wonder how much would have changed if I had skipped that little side trip? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot.
Coach was running a final two or three plays with the special teams kids while the rest of the players sat on the bench with their helmets off and sweat trickling down their faces.
I looked across the field and saw a guy in a sport coat loud enough to scream. He was trotting up and down the sidelines with earphones on his head and what looked like a salad bowl in his hands. His glasses reminded me of someone. At first I couldn’t make the connection, then I did: he looked a little like Silent Mike McEachern. My own personal Mr. Wizard.
“Who’s that?” I asked Deke.
