Chapter 17 Summary

Tony drives out to the gravesite of the man he and the others killed last summer. Armed with a flashlight and shovel, he begins to dig at the ground where he remembers burying the man. Because the grave they dug was shallow, he expects to find him quickly, and begins to wonder whether he's chosen the right place when he has dug waist deep and found nothing. But when Tony finds the small gold crucifix that Neil placed around the man's neck, he knows he found the right place. The body, however, is not there. Tony realizes that it is buried in place of Neil at the Rose Memorial Lawn.

The reason Tony went out to the gravesite was to confirm his suspicions. He had reexamined the classified ad that had directed Fran to streak through the school naked and noted that the...