Chapter 1 – The School Riverton, Georgia, 1988-89
Brooks Sheffield felt the tingly sensation of a sneeze coming as he held the musty leather volume. Dust particles covered old banker boxes and floated through the heavy, hot air of the attic room where he rummaged for memories. He sniffled, but no sneeze yet. He set the yearbook on a box, wiped his hand across the mold and thick crust of dust, and studied the front.
The cover read: “Panther Paw. Riverton High School, 1963.” A part of his past, Brooks knew, lay before him. He flipped through the first pages. One by one, those times unfolded, and every mental image of that past spawned a dozen more through faces, events and feelings, some wonderful and others disturbing.
His hand moved back to the inside page, and he looked over the faces in the pictures. Most were smiling. A few, primarily the principal and coaches, looked serious, tough and disciplined. Brooks kept turning the pages, searching for nothing in particular but taking in something from each page. There was danger here, and while he turned casually he knew he would rather avoid parts of the book. His fingers and eyes moved gingerly, seeking the good times and fond memories.
“The French Club — ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,'” the caption read. The club's members, nine of them, joked and laughed as they stared into the camera. Monsieur John Wesley Pendergast, the school's French instructor and club sponsor, stood tall behind the group.
Schoolhouse Man Description:
Love and crime. Most unexpectedly, former newspaper editor Brooks Sheffield finds both as he starts a new life in the town of his youth. But strange things happen as he’s settling into his new home in a decrepit schoolhouse. He overhears a murder and gets a visit from a young, provocative escort with a proposition for him. Follow the intrigues, the love and the mystery that slap Sheffield in the face on his journey to rediscover himself.