Amerikan Eagle

Thirty minutes earlier he had been dozing on the couch—half-listening to the radio, half-listening, too, to Sarah talking to Toby, warm and comfortable, feet stretched out on an old ottoman, and he had been… well, if not dreaming, then just remembering. He wasn’t sure why—and maybe it was the onset of his finger aching as the temperature dropped—but he was remembering that muddy day on the football field of Portsmouth High School in the finals of the state championship in November, he the first-string quarterback… an overcast autumn day ten years ago, wind like a knife edge with the salt tang from the harbor… the wooden bleachers crowded with his neighbors and schoolmates… slogging through the muddy field, aching, face bruised, and the first finger of his right hand taped after an earlier tackle, no doubt broken, but he wasn’t going to be pulled out, no sir… down by three points against Dover, their longtime rival… knowing that a pretty cheerleader named Sarah Young was watching him from the sidelines, and Mom, Dad, and his older brother, Tony, were there, too, in the nearest row of the stands, the first time Tony and Dad had ever come to one of his games.

Slog, slog, slog… minutes racing away… only seconds left… and then an opening, a burst of light, he got the ball tight under his arm, raced to the left, his finger throbbing something awful… dodging, dodging, focusing on the goalposts… a hard tackle from behind… a faceful of cold mud… his taped finger screaming at him… and then quiet, just for an instant, before the whistles blew and the cheers erupted.

He scrambled up, breathing hard, ball still in his hands, seeing the scoreboard change, seeing the hand of the clock sweep by, and then a gunshot… game over. Portsmouth had won… Portsmouth had won the state championship.

Chaos… shouts… cheers… slaps on the back… being jostled around… looking at the people, his high school, his playing field… pushing… taking off the snug leather helmet, his hair sweaty… and there, Mom clapping, her face alight, and Dad had his arm around Tony’s shoulders, Tony standing there, grinning… Mom saying something, but he was staring at Dad, waiting, desperate for him to say something, anything, as so many hands patted his back… hands trying to get the game ball away from him… his broken finger throbbing.

Then Dad spoke, and Sam could smell the Irish whiskey on his breath. “Great news, boy, great news! Tony got into the apprenticeship program at the shipyard. Like father, like son… ain’t that great?”

Sam’s eyes teared up. “We won,” he said, despising himself for the humiliation in each word. “We won.”

Dad squeezed Tony’s shoulder. “But that’s just a game. Our Tony, he’s got a future now… a real future.”

And that winning, confident grin of Tony the school dropout, Tony the hell-raiser and hunter, Tony whom Dad cared about… not the other son, the winning football hero, the Eagle Scout, the one who—

A series of bells rang somewhere. Something nudged his foot. Sam opened his eyes.

“That was the station,” Sarah said. “Someone’s found a body.”

* * *

The taller cop said, “Sorry to get you wet, Sam. You okay with that?” His companion laughed. The tall cop was Frank Reardon, and his shorter and younger partner was Leo Gray. The third man stood behind them, silent, arms folded, shivering.

“I’ll be just fine,” Sam answered. The body beside the tracks was splayed out like a starfish, mouth open to the falling rain, eyes closed. The man had on black shoes and dark slacks and a white shirt and a dark suit coat. No necktie. No overcoat. Sam stepped closer, stopped at the gravel edge of the tracks. The man lay on a stretch of ground that was a smooth outcropping of mud, with just a few tufts of faded grass.

“How long have you been here?” Sam asked Frank.

“ ’Bout ten minutes. Just long enough to make sure there was something here.”

“That our witness?”

“Yeah.” Frank grabbed the third man by the elbow and tugged him forward. “Lou Purdue, age fifty. Claims he found the body about an hour ago.”

“An hour?” Sam asked. “That’s a long time. Why did it take you so long to call us?”

Purdue was bearded and smiled with embarrassment, revealing bad teeth. He wore a tattered wool watch cap and a long army overcoat missing buttons and held together with safety pins. “I tried, I really tried.” His voice was surprisingly deep. “But the Shanty place, I went there and asked them to call, and they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t even give me a nickel for the pay phone. So I went out in the street and waited till I saw a cop car come by. I waved them down, that’s what I did.”

Sam asked Frank Reardon, “That true?”

“Yeah, Sam. Almost ran over the poor bastard. Said there was a dead guy by the tracks, we had to come up to see it. We came up, saw what was what, then I sent Leo back to make the call. And here you are. Pulled you away from dinner, I bet.”