The rain rolled in with the constable and a couple of his deputies. Together, the lawmen walked the shoreline’s rocks like the kids had before them. Dodo blocked his subordinates with his right hand in one’s belly and his left hand in the other’s. “Fellas,” he said with five decades of compassion, “wait here—I wanna talk to the kids, first.”

“Okay.” / “Sure.” <– the replies from each of them.

Dodo did the cobble wobble and came up behind the kids. Inca, River, and Martie were soaked to the bone, shivering, and still suffering the sharpest edge of a jagged trauma. Inca's was crying her eyes out. River was wailing words like “no” and “why”. Meanwhile, Martie had her back turned and longed for the opposite shore and the lie that everything was going to be fine.

“I got your call,” Constable Dodo said calmly. “A couple of my best guys are over there.” The constable pointed to the two belly boys a way down the shore. “They’ve got blankets and coats—some warm soup. I want you to go back to town with them.”

Nothing.

Constable Dodo waited.

He corrected the hood of his raincoat with a tug and dug his hands into his pocket.

There was a chill, and together with the rain, it worked to cement the details of a day that nobody in this lonesome town would ever forget. Mountaintop gusts bit their faces. The clouds were low enough to touch and black enough to haunt. The psychosphere conspired with the atmosphere and the very mountains themselves to isolate the sorrow-ridden people of Bluewood Mountain.

“I’m sorry, guys,” he said after a minute. “I’ve got to get you back to your parents.”

River sniffed and snarled, “what about Autumn’s parents?”

“River,” the constable said, stiffening his lip against the tragedy, “I’ve got to get Autumn out of here as well. You know that. I have to get her back to her parents… even still. I have to do it. And I have to begin the investigation right now.”

Snorting and driving his feet into the substrate, River Roe reluctantly conceded. The young lad was like a young bullock, yielding to life's worst moments like cattle yield to a stern master. He grabbed Inca by the shoulder and tugged her under his arm. “Mart,” he shouted, trying to snap her out of her traumatic trance. “Let’s go,” he insisted. “MARTIE!”

She snapped, “SHUT THE FUCK UP! OKAY?”

River flared his nostrils. Inca thumped him in the solar plexus. River didn’t budge. She thumped him again.

“Fucking stop it, guys,” Martie said turning away from the water and dragging her two friends by the wrist. “Autumn’s gone, she’s not there. That’s it.”

The three teenagers and two officers of the peace headed back to town.

Dodo was left alone with the body.