God, was there a lot of blood. And several bits of shattered teeth. And something that looked like a chunk of the man’s tongue.

Ronnie looked around and saw no one else in the parking lot, and then knelt down and took Mr. Pierce’s wallet and the cash in his pockets, as well as the keys to the van. He ran back to the opened window—making sure to step in a puddle to get any blood off his shoe—and climbed back inside, making sure to close the window behind him.

He walked over to one of the urinals and flushed it just as the door opened and another male supervisor came in, and the urinal (this made Ronnie so happy) overflowed onto his shoes.

“Oh, Ronnie,” said the supervisor, Mr. Ireland, “step back before you ruin your new shoes, why don’t you? Here, let’s get some paper towels and see if we can’t save them, okay?”

Ronnie smiled. “Thanks, Mr. Ireland. I sure don’t want nothing to happen to these.”

“Don’t want anything to happen to them,” said Ireland, correcting Ronnie’s almost always-questionable grammar. “Here, let’s wet down a couple of paper towels and see what that does.”

* * *

The last twenty-five minutes of the dance were among the happiest of Ronnie’s life. For the last dance. Both Vicki and Arlene picked him, and they made a circle and held hands and spun around and around and around to “Gonna Fly Now,” all of them laughing as they got dizzier and dizzier, the multi-colored lights soaring around them like something out of a dream.

When it was over, both Arlene and Vicki kissed him goodnight, one taking each cheek. His face turned so red it looked like an apple.

* * *

Mr. Pierce’s murder was a shock to everyone and Big News for several weeks. The police came and questioned everyone who’d been at the dance, but no one had seen anything. The Cedar Hill Ally ran a long obituary with photos mourning the loss of this “…compassionate community member who served his country, as well as the less fortunate.”

Everyone from all the workshops and group homes attended the funeral. Ronnie and Arlene kept looking at one another and smiling—but not too widely, not so that anyone would know or suspect.

No arrest was ever made in the robbery and brutal murder of James Leonard Pierce.

* * *

What was never made known about Pierce—not even by his wife, who knew some things for a fact and suspected several more—was that he liked to drive to Columbus every few weekends and frequent brothels, both high-class and low-life (his sexual tastes were, to put it mildly, extremely varied). He had, in fact, been planning such a weekend the night of the Valentine’s Day dance (Arlene was beginning to bore him) and so had nearly two thousand dollars in cash on him at the time of his death.

Ronnie was very careful to hide that money because he knew he was going to need it.