Back in the present, the Simpsons decide to investigate. They go to the old quarry where they meet Chief Wiggum, who comes with them. Marge uses Burly paper towels to drain the water from the quarry. Finding nothing left of the corpse but a skeleton, they take its skull with them and travel through the pipe to emerge through a hatch in Mr. Burns's office. They confront him about the body, but he insists he did not murder anyone. He tells them that the dead man is Waylon Smithers' father, Waylon Smithers Sr. He shows an old surveillance tape, filmed during the imminent meltdown in which Smithers' father sacrificed himself by going into an unstable reactor core in order to prevent the meltdown and succumbed to the radiation. Burns then kept the truth from Smithers, who then enters the room, having heard the entire story. Burns apologizes to him, saying he wanted to spare him from knowing the truth about his father's real death. However, Smithers admits that he is glad that his father died as a real hero rather than from a tribe of savage Amazon women, which Burns told him earlier.