“Word around town is this weren’t no accident!” shouted a man in the fourth row.

“Are the Badgers really responsible?” hollered another. “’Cause they’re gonna burn if they are!”

Principal Hodges gestured for quiet. “Please, folks. There’s no reason why we can’t do this in an orderly manner.”

“Put a cork in it, Hodges. We want to hear from the sheriff!”

Mr. Hodges crumpled the note cards with one fist, covered the mike with the other, and peered down at the sheriff. “Perhaps I’ll let you take it from here, Curtis.” Before yielding the floor, he added, “Oh, let me just take this opportunity to announce that Mr. Farley Butler, the head of our booster club, has generously offered to host a memorial gathering at his house for the players’ parents and loved ones. It will begin at five o’clock this evening. We hope you will all attend, so that we can begin this difficult healing process together.”

Curtis took the principal’s place at the podium. “Uh, thank you, Mr. Hodges … ladies and gentlemen . . .” He remembered the matchstick wedged between his lips and stuck it into his hatband. “Well … from the law enforcement standpoint, I can tell you that my office is working tirelessly to ensure that our investigation of the bus incident is carried out with the utmost adherence to proper procedure. But it is slow, meticulous work and it is going to take time. What I can tell you now is that, while nothing has been proven at this time, we do have reason to suspect foul play.”

“No shit!” came a voice to Curtis’s right.

“The Badgers, weren’t it?” said another to his left. “Damn them all to hell!”

Principal Hodges’s hand came out of nowhere to slap the podium. “Order! Order!”

But the crowd was already too far gone. Heads were still popping up in every direction, shouting invectives.

Curtis made no attempt to compete with either the vocal outbursts or Mr. Hodges’s continuous pounding.

A moment later one voice rang out above all the others. Coot Taylor, the deputy fire chief, whose deceased son, Elmont, had been a second-string defensive end, shouted, “Sheriff, I only got two questions: Who’re are you bringin’ in and when are you doin’ it? I wanna start seein’ people fry for this!”

Coming into the assembly, Curtis had had no intention of revealing anything more than what he had already said in his opening remarks. Now, standing under the glare of the hostile crowd, he still considered that to be the wisest course of action. But against his better judgment, he wondered if maybe he should give them something more. His silence might lead some people to take the law into their own hands. The crowd already had the makings of a lynch mob.