Township

The man had collapsed in aisle 3, across from the bath tissue, as he reached for a box of fancy drinking straws. Anne David was the lone clerk in Mauch’s Market, punching into the register the prices of the basketful of items placed there by a young man in a windbreaker and thick-framed glasses, like those she imagined an fbi agent might wear.

The man in aisle 3 made a sound like “eh,” then fell forward—Anne happened to be half-watching the man in the magnifying mirror at the end of the aisle—bringing a clatter of boxes and jars to the floor along with him. The fbi agent went to investigate, and Anne followed, untying the apron string at her lower back. They found the man splayed on his chest, his legs spread and bent, like a still frame of someone running.

“Hey, pal,” said the fbi agent. “You all right?”

It was clear that he was not, an assessment confirmed when the man, who wore blue dress pants that rode up his lower legs, revealing white socks and hairy calves, began to twitch, his hips pulsating against the tile floor—a vision that struck Anne as oddly, frighteningly lewd. She jumped back a step.

“Ah, hell.” The fbi agent stripped off his windbreaker; he knelt and tried to wedge it under the man’s head, which was now smacking temple-first against the floor. “Call Leo down at the station house!” he barked over his shoulder.

Then, in 1940, the town of Bentlee, Pennsylvania, maintained one emergency vehicle—a Chevy pickup loaded with sandbags, rock salt, shovels, tow rope, and a first-aid kit—out of the municipal garage. The phone number was the same as for the police station, which Merle Horning, who now owned Mauch’s Market and would soon turn it into a Red & White, made Anne memorize, in case of a burglary attempt. But her mind went blank.

“Hang on there, partner,” the fbi agent was saying as Anne backed away. “It’s gonna be okay.” She heard a staccato clicking sound and realized that the man’s teeth were rattling together. It occurred to her that this man was going to die on the floor in front of her, and Anne didn’t know why, and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t even know who he was. She saw now that his thin, graying hair was matted down in a circumferential line, indicating that he’d been recently wearing a hat. And there it was, over by the dog-food display: a dark green, mesh trucker’s hat, lying upside down.

“Go!” the fbi agent screamed at her. But then the man’s flopping ceased. Anne waited, guiltily anxious for it to begin again. The man gave one last heave upward with his hips, gasped, eyes and mouth opening fully, like a fish, then collapsed and lay still.

fbi agent put his hand on the man’s back, paused, and said, “Holy Christ. Guy’s … guy’s dead.” He turned to Anne. “Did you know this guy?”

Anne stood back and stared at the dead man, her hands twisting her apron strings. The man’s forearms were hairy, but even the hairs looked suddenly dead. The middle fingernail of his right hand was a deep purplish-black.

“Leo here yet?” asked the fbi agent.

Anne shook her head.

“Maybe we should …” He pointed at the man’s rear end area, where his coat flaps had flipped over his lower back, revealing the bump of a wallet.

“Maybe we should wait,” Anne managed.

“Probably right.”

“I never called the station house,” Anne blurted.

The fbi agent stood and slapped his thighs, as if brushing dust away. “Yeah, well. Wouldn’ta made any difference. Jesus.” He adjusted his glasses and glanced down at the man on the floor. She noticed now that his eyes were heavy lidded, like a sleepy person’s. It made his movements seem slower than they actually were. “We should probably call now, though.”

Once Leo arrived with his first-aid kit, a chewed cigar dangling from...