We did need a shovel to open it, and without asking Tolliver went across the barn to take Manfred’s. We stuck the spade in the little opening and pried. After Tolliver got it up a little, I held the spade with my good hand while Tolliver grasped the edge and swung back the trapdoor. It was very heavy, and we found out why—there was insulation liberally tacked on the underside, which would muffle any sounds from below.

I looked down into a kind of pit, maybe six by six. Probably eight feet deep, it was reachable by a steep wooden ladder. The dead body of Chuck Almand lay at the foot of the ladder. He was staring up at us. The boy had shot himself in the head. What drew the eye first was the terrible damage to Chuck’s head.

Behind the corpse there was a naked boy chained to the wall. His mouth was duct-taped shut. He was whimpering behind it, and he was looking over his shoulder and up at us with an expression I never want to see again. He was spattered with Chuck’s blood and I suppose some of his own. There were cuts on his body, and the blood there was crusted and black. The cuts were swollen and red with infection. He had no blanket, no jacket, nothing, and he’d been in the pit with the corpse all night.

I ran out of the barn and vomited. One of the ambulance drivers rushing in stopped to check on me, and I just waved my arm to indicate the interior of the barn.

After a few minutes, Tolliver came out. I was leaning against the peeling wood, wishing I were anywhere but here.

“He killed himself so you’d find him,” Tolliver said. “So you’d find out what his father was doing.”

“So I’d have a corpse to find,” I said. “Oh, Jesus, he took such a chance. What if I hadn’t come back?”

“What if Manfred hadn’t decided he had to check the barn again?”

“Do you think Tom Almand’s known where Chuck was all this time, since he reported him missing?”

“No, but I guess he didn’t have a chance to come out here to check. That other counselor asking to see Chuck made Tom report him missing.” Tolliver shuddered. “I never want to see anything like that again.”

“He sacrificed himself,” I said. I couldn’t get my thoughts together. “And it was almost—almost—for nothing.”

“He wasn’t thinking good,” Tolliver said in a massive understatement. “And he was just thirteen.”

The stretchers went by, Manfred’s first, his face white as death and his eyes open and blank.

“Manfred!” I called, just wanting him to know that someone who knew him was near, knew what he had done. But his face didn’t change.