My legs went weak as Dana wrapped her arms around my neck and put her wet face against mine. "Jack, I'm so sorry. It's Peter. Oh, Jack, I'm sorry."
After Dana let go, I hugged my father, but it just wouldn't take. He was too far gone into his own pain and misery. We were both mumbling words that couldn't express what we were feeling.
Thank God for Mack, I thought as my grandfather put his arms around me. When I was little, my grandfather had been a large, thickly muscled man. In his mid-forties, he tipped the scales at a Mullen family record of 237 pounds and needed little provocation to throw it around. In the past twenty years, he'd shed more than a third of that weight, but he still possessed enormous hands and big, thick bones, and he embraced me with such shocking ferocity that it almost knocked out my wind.
He clutched me for dear life, and whispered in my ear: "Jack, they say Peter went swimming and drowned. It's the single biggest piece of crap I've ever heard."
Chapter 5
THE MULLENS CLIMBED INTO THE BACK of the police cruiser, and Dana sat up front with Belnap.
As I looked at her through the scuffed-up Plexiglas, she seemed a million miles away. She turned and whispered, "Oh, Jack," then stalled, unable to finish her thought.
Light flashing but no siren, we pulled out of the deserted lot and sped westward through the quiet center of town.
"Last night was the big Memorial Day weekend party," said my grandfather, breaking the awful silence, "and Peter was parking cars as usual. About nine he grabs some supper. But when the party breaks up and it's time to retrieve the cars, Peter's nowhere to be found.
"His absence is noted, but since it's not exactly unheard-of, no one gives it much mind. Two hours ago, Dr. Elizabeth Possidente is walking her rottweiler. The dog starts acting crazy. She runs after him and almost trips over Peter's body where it washed up at the edge of the Neubauer property. He's still there, Jack. I wouldn't let them move the body till you got here."