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“I found him just ten minutes ago,” said Purvis. His voice was cracked. He started to reach for a cigarette, then stopped himself. He was a red-faced, soft-looking man of about sixty who wore an orange camouflage hunting jacket and dark blue shirt and pants. “The cops’ll be here anytime.”

Hawthorne didn’t answer. He felt sick in his stomach. A pole with a hook hung on the far wall but Hawthorne didn’t think it was long enough to reach the boy. The lights flickered, giving the two men’s faces a greenish tint. Hawthorne took off his glasses, then kicked off his shoes and began removing his pants.

“You’re supposed to wait for the police,” said Purvis. “I know that much. You’re not supposed to touch the body.” Purvis moved back as if to disassociate himself from Hawthorne.

Again Hawthorne ignored him. Once he was down to his underwear, he stepped to the edge of the pool and dove, gliding under the water with his eyes shut till he rose to the surface. He thought of the hours he had spent in this ugly space coaching the swim team with Kate and how he had never imagined it could get any uglier. Using a breaststroke and keeping his head above water, he swam toward the dead boy, who bobbed gently, as if there were still life in him. When the kitten saw Hawthorne approaching, it began to mew loudly in terror and anticipation, arching its back and bristling its orange fur. Hawthorne tried not to disturb the water, so as not to jostle the boy’s body and further frighten the kitten. Reaching Scott, he began pushing him to the side of the pool. When he’d gone halfway, Hawthorne felt a sudden pain on his right shoulder. The kitten had jumped onto him and dug in its claws. Hawthorne sucked in his breath, trying not to move abruptly. He nudged the body forward. The boy’s skin was the same temperature as the water and felt like rubber. Long strands of Scott’s hair floated on the surface and brushed against Hawthorne’s face.

When Hawthorne had pushed Scott up against the gutter, he called to Purvis, who still stood by the door watching.

“Grab his arm!”

The pain from the kitten’s claws made Hawthorne feel dizzy. Purvis walked part way around the pool, then said something that Hawthorne couldn’t make out because the kitten kept mewing just a few inches from his ear.

“Say that again?” Hawthorne kept kicking his feet to stay afloat.

Purvis took a few more steps along the side of the pool and shouted. “I said I don’t want to touch him. I mean, you’re not supposed to touch the body. I know that much.”

Hawthorne felt so angry that it scared him. “Then take the cat. And for Pete’s sake, hurry!”

Hawthorne had an arm under Scott’s neck and was holding on to the gutter along the side of the pool. With his other hand he held the body against the tiles. This close and without his glasses, Hawthorne took in Scott’s face as a chalky blur—the bump of his nose, the curved horizon of forehead. He tried to lift himself in the water so that Scott’s hair wouldn’t touch his face. The kitten mewed and clung to him anxiously.

Purvis knelt down on the side and reached over Scott’s body to the kitten, which began to hiss and spit. Then he grabbed the kitten, but the kitten wouldn’t let go. Bending forward, Purvis yanked the kitten loose, then fell back into a sitting position.

“Jesus!” said Hawthorne.

Purvis groaned and got to his feet, holding the kitten away from his body with both hands so its legs dangled down. “You’re bleeding,” he said. He seemed surprised

Hawthorne didn’t answer. He tried to roll Scott’s body up onto the side but the water was over his head and he couldn’t get sufficient purchase. He let go of the boy and scrambled out of the water. Then he grabbed Scott’s arm and pulled him onto the tiles. The boy’s skin was puckered and wattled. He looked swollen. There was a black-and-blue mark on the upper part of his right arm. He lay on his back and the water ran off him, forming rivulets that ran back into the pool. Scott’s eyes were slightly open but there was only grayness behind them. Hawthorne stared at him. It was worse than seeing Evings dead. Hawthorne’s grief made him breathless.

“He must of been fooling around and got drowned,” said Purvis matter-of-factly, still holding the kitten away from his body. The kitten squirmed and tried to scratch him but couldn’t.

Hawthorne walked toward his clothes, keeping his back to Purvis. “Then how did he get in? The door was locked.” He picked up his glasses and put them on.

“He must of had a key.”

Hawthorne said nothing to that. He went into the pool office and called Alice Beech and after another moment he called Kate because he wanted to hear the voice of someone he felt close to. Although he had only spoken a dozen words to her alone since Evings’s funeral, Hawthorne couldn’t get her out of his mind and he kept worrying about what she thought. He felt convinced that she despised him.

“Scott McKinnon drowned in the pool.” He described how the watchman had found him and explained that he was calling from the pool office.

At first Kate couldn’t believe it and began to ask questions. Then she said, “I’ll be right over.”

Hawthorne started to say that she didn’t need to come and then he said nothing.

After he hung up, he looked at his shoulder in the mirror. It was still bleeding and drops of blood had rolled down to the waistband of his wet underwear. There was a first aid kit in a rusty white cabinet with a red cross attached to the wall and Hawthorne took out some bandages. Purvis stood in the doorway of the office still holding the kitten, which had stopped mewing and was dangling from his hands and looking around as if trying to accommodate itself to a difficult situation. Purvis held it out as if offering a gift.

“Can you wipe off this blood and put a bandage on my shoulder?” asked Hawthorne. The scratches and cuts were on his shoulder blade below where he could easily reach. Through the window of the office he saw Scott lying by the side of the pool. Very briefly Hawthorne felt surprise that the boy was still there, that he hadn’t gotten up.

Purvis looked at the scratches on Hawthorne’s shoulder, squinting his eyes. “I’d rather not,” he said. “My hands aren’t steady.”

Hawthorne had taken a towel from the coach’s locker and was drying himself. He paused to glance at Purvis but didn’t speak. Alice could put on the bandage. The scratches still stung but not as badly. Hawthorne took off his wet underwear, then went to get his pants. Purvis seemed uncomfortable with Hawthorne’s nakedness and looked away.

“What do you want me to do with this here cat?” asked Purvis.

Hawthorne finished putting on his pants, then reached out to take the kitten, holding it close to his naked chest and scratching its ears. He knew it was Jessica’s kitten and wondered how it had gotten in the pool. He thought about the cat that had been hung in September, but beyond summoning up the recollection, he didn’t know what to do with it. He took the kitten into the office and dried it off on the towel, then he got another towel and made a little nest on the desk. The kitten began to purr. He put the kitten into the nest and stood back.

“It’ll get away,” said Purvis. He was still swaying a little.

The kitten stretched and began sniffing its way around the desk.

“It might fall in the pool again.”

Hawthorne made no answer and went to put on his shoes.

When Alice showed up a few minutes later, she was out of breath. Her square, chunky face was red with cold. She knelt down by Scott’s body and smoothed back his hair, touching him with great tenderness. She wore jeans and a gray sweater under her down jacket and her short dark hair looked bristly.

“But how’d he get in the water?” she said at last. “Couldn’t he swim?”

“I don’t know,” said Hawthorne.

“He’s been in the water quite a while.”

“The door was locked,” said Hawthorne. “I don’t know how he got in here. And I don’t know where his clothes are. Maybe in the locker room.”

“Where’re the police?”

“Supposedly on their way.”

Alice stood up and moved behind Hawthorne, then lightly touched his back with one finger. “Let me fix up your shoulder. It must hurt.”

They walked back to the pool office. Purvis had gone outside to smoke a cigarette and wait for Chief Moulton. The kitten was nosing around the office, sniffing what there was to be sniffed.

Alice unwrapped the bandage, then took a bottle of alcohol from the cabinet. “This is going to sting a bit.”

Chief Moulton and Kate arrived at the same time about five minutes later. It was snowing and they brushed snow from their jackets and stamped their feet, leaving small puddles of water on the tiles. Purvis ushered them in somewhat officiously, as if he were personally responsible for their arrival. The shoulders of his orange hunting coat were white with snow and there was snow in his gray hair.

“I told Dr. Hawthorne to leave the body where he found it,” he said. “But he insisted on dragging it out.” He looked disappointed and disapproving. He wheezed when he breathed.

Purvis and Moulton knew each other but there seemed no love lost between them. The policeman acted as if Purvis were invisible, hardly looking at him when he spoke. Both he and Kate went over to the boy’s body. Moulton bent down, taking hold of Scott’s arm and moving it a little. Kate stood behind him, staring down with one hand pressed to her mouth and the other pressed across her stomach.

“I called the troopers and the rescue squad,” said Moulton, standing up, then bending over and rubbing his knees. “Not much to be done, but the troopers like to stay abreast of things. Who’s the kitten belong to?”

“A girl at the school,” said Hawthorne.

“It’s a wonder it didn’t get drowned as well,” said Moulton. “It must of fallen into the water after the boy had already been dead a while.”

“Why do you say that?”

“If he drowned, then he’d sink down and some time later he’d come up again. The kitten couldn’t have been paddling all that time, leastways I don’t think so.”

Scott’s clothes were found behind the bleachers, where they had apparently fallen. There were no keys in his pockets to let him into the gymnasium. Hawthorne remembered the boy’s green parka and wondered where it was.

“Little cold to be wandering around without a coat,” said Moulton.

They stood just outside the pool office. Kate hadn’t said anything. She held the kitten in her arms, stroking it. “Scott called me Thursday evening. Thanksgiving.” She nodded toward Hawthorne. “He was looking for you. He sounded excited and scared. I told him you were down in Concord but would be back on Friday or Saturday. I asked if anything was wrong and he said nothing was wrong. But he was almost whispering over the phone and talking fast. I asked if he wanted to come over to my house and even offered to pick him up. But he said no, he could handle it himself, that it wasn’t important. Then I gave him your friend’s name. I told him I didn’t have the number but he could probably get it from information. I don’t know, I should have gone over to the school right away. It was past eight o’clock and Todd’s bedtime.” She turned away and didn’t say anymore. Alice Beech put her hand on Kate’s arm.

“He didn’t call,” said Hawthorne uncertainly. “What happened on Thanksgiving? Did Larry Gaudette come back?”

Gaudette had turned up missing on Tuesday. His car was gone and he seemed to have taken a small suitcase of clothes. LeBrun said he had no idea where his cousin had disappeared to. “Maybe he’s got family problems,” he had suggested. “That whole family’s messed up.”

LeBrun had declared that he could handle the cooking by himself. He seemed eager. It would be a challenge. Tuesday had been the last day of classes and many of the students had left for Thanksgiving, but twenty students had remained, including Scott and Jessica. LeBrun cooked four large turkeys, making a Thanksgiving dinner with the fixings, including fresh biscuits. Alice Beech had eaten with the students, as had some of the faculty members. She said the meal had been wonderful.

“Frank LeBrun was a real impresario,” she said. The Reverend Bennett had said grace and led them in a few Thanksgiving hymns, accompanied by Rosalind Langdon on an electric keyboard. LeBrun had sung as well, louder than anyone. Alice couldn’t remember if Scott had been there, but she thought he had. She just wasn’t sure.

Moulton asked a few questions about Gaudette, where he was from and how long he had been at the school. Then he made several phone calls from the office. The rescue squad arrived and a few minutes later Fritz Skander came hurrying into the natatorium. He had seen the flashing lights on the rescue truck and asked why no one had called him.

“What a pity, what a pity,” he kept saying. His dark overcoat was dusted with snow. About ten students had gathered outside and Purvis kept them from entering the building. Skander stood by the pool office and watched the men from the rescue squad lift Scott onto the stretcher. He kept wringing his hands as if they were wet. “Jim, could you have possibly left the pool open? After all, you’d been coaching the team—”

“Of course not. Everything was locked. Purvis had to unlock the door.”

“I don’t understand it,” said Skander. “What a tragedy.”

“Did you see Scott on Thursday or Friday? Did he talk to you?”

Skander seemed to consider this. “I don’t think I saw him since
before
Thanksgiving. We had a quiet turkey at home with a few friends. I don’t believe I came over to the school all day.”

The men from the rescue squad covered Scott with a red blanket. As they carried him past the group standing by the office, Kate began to weep. Hawthorne wished he could weep as well.

“This is awful, simply awful,” said Skander. “Jim, you’ll have to call the boy’s parents right away. Poor things. And goodness knows what the newspapers will make of this. What a pariah we’ll become.” His thick gray hair sparkled with melting snow. He ran his hands through his hair, wiped them on his overcoat, then studied them.

The rescue squad carried the boy out of the building and drove off, taking the body down to Plymouth. Moulton was waiting for someone from the state police. He went outside to talk to Purvis about when he had found the body, when he had last looked in on the pool, and whether he had seen Scott on the grounds either Thursday or Friday.