The Dells. Michael Blair

kitchen shelter was getting crowded, so Shoe went out into the hard, hot sunshine and purchased a bottle of water for two dollars from a Girl Scout sitting beside a plastic wading pool of ice in the shade of a beach umbrella. Most of the ice in the pool had already melted. He was standing in what shade there was outside the shelter when the man and the woman came out. The woman looked at him and smiled. He felt he should recognize her, but he didn’t.

      “You’re Joseph Schumacher, aren’t you?” she said. She had a faint British accent. “I thought so. You don’t recognize me, do you?”

      Suddenly, he did recognize her. Something in the way she’d spoken his name. He didn’t recall that she’d had a British accent when she’d been his ninth-grade English teacher, however.

      “Miss Hahn,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”

      “And you, Joseph,” she said. They shook hands, his hand engulfing hers. She turned to the older man standing quietly beside her, whom Shoe had also recognized. “Jake,” she said, “you remember Joseph Schumacher, don’t you?”

      “I’m afraid I don’t,” the man said in a rough, gravelly voice as he and Shoe shook hands. “But my memory isn’t what it used to be. My apologies, Mr. Schumacher. I assume you were one of Claudia’s students.”

      “Yes, sir, I was.” Jacob “Nine Fingers” Gibson had been the principal of Black Creek Junior High School when Shoe had been a student there. He had been called Jacob Nine Fingers because he was missing the ring finger of his left hand. The legend was that he’d lost it during a school fire drill when he’d fallen on the stairs and his wedding ring had caught on a railing.

      “There were so many students, Mr. Schumacher. And only one of me.”

      “I understand, sir.”

      “Joseph,” Miss Hahn said. “Perhaps we could get together later and talk. Catch up. I expect you’ve led an interesting life.”

      “I’d like that very much,” he said.

      “Good,” she said. She took Mr. Gibson’s arm and walked him toward a craft table featuring hand-painted ceramic figurines.

      Rachel came out of the welcome tent and stood beside him. “That’s your old junior high school English teacher?” she said. “No wonder you had a crush on her. She’s beautiful.”

       chapter thirteen

      Patty had taken the Navigator, so Tim Dutton drove the Audi to the store. The heat and humidity had put him in a crappy mood, which wasn’t made better when he saw the Harley-Davidson motorcycle parked by the employee entrance. He didn’t especially like motorcycles, or generally have much use for people who rode them. He made a mental note to find out who it belonged to and tell him to park it somewhere else. Better yet, not to ride it to work at all.