Doug asked him what he meant, if he had experienced anything unusual connected with the mail, but he frowned and shook his head and refused to answer, and they were both silent as they drove through town toward the school.

Willis High was separated from the town proper by an especially large stand of oaks and acacias and ponderosas, and was located next to the Edward G. Willis Memorial Park. The football field had been constructed at one end of a natural meadow, and the pool, which was shared jointly by the school and the park, was located at the opposite end.

There was a crowd at the school when they arrived, a large group of people standing near the open door of the gym. In the faculty parking lot were two police cars and an ambulance, lights flashing, although neither Doug nor Hobie had heard a siren all morning. Doug glanced over at his friend, then out the window at the scene before them. A strange feeling had come over him. He was at once surprised and not surprised, tense and numb, as he looked at the crowd. He knew this was going to be bad.

“Something happened,” he said simply.

Hobie pulled the truck under a tree for shade, and they got out, hurrying across the dirt to the gym. Several other teachers were there, as well as nearby residents and one of the school-board members.

Doug walked up to Jim Maxwell, who taught ninth-grade social studies. “What is it?”

“Bernie Rogers hung himself in the gym.”

Doug looked at Hobie, shocked, feeling as if someone had just kicked him in the stomach. He did not know what he had been expecting, but it had not been this. A senior who had graduated with honors, Bernie Rogers had been one of those rare students who was into both academics and athletics. The basketball team’s star forward, he had scored in the top 10 percent nationally on his SATs and was the only senior this year to have passed the Advanced Placement tests for both history and English. He was also the only student Doug could remember who had taken both his American Literature class and Hobie’s Advanced Auto, and had excelled in each.

“Lemme see,” Hobie said, pushing his way through the crowd toward the door. Doug followed, jostling past people until he was through the door and inside the gym.

Bernie was naked, his body bluish and bloated, blackened blood dripping in uneven rivulets from where the rope had cut into his neck. It looked as though he had been there for several days. Below him on the smooth wood of the gym floor was a puddle of hardened urine and feces, some of which had run down the inside of his thighs and now hung like stalactites from his feet. The boy’s eyes were wide open and staring, focused on nothing, surprisingly white against his darkened skin.