The Lesson of Her Death Read online

  Richard Gebben, who by fluke of age had missed military service, knew the Chicago story about Mahoney because the security chief was Gebben's surrogate platoon buddy. They drank together on occasion and told war stories and travel stories, though most of them involved Mahoney talking and Gebben saying, "It must've been a fucking great time," or, "I've really gotta do that." Gebben always picked up the check.

  Gebben now held Mahoney's eyes for a moment. "I'm going to ask you to do something for me, Charlie."

  "Sure, I'd--"

  "Let me finish, Charlie."

  Mahoney's eyes were on a toy truck that Gebben's Human Resources Department passed out at Christmas. On the side of the trailer was the blue company logo. Mahoney didn't have any kids so he'd never been given a truck. This irked him in a minor way.

  "If you agree to help me I'll pay you ten thousand dollars cash. Provided--"

  "Ten thousand?"

  "Provided that what I'm about to tell you never leaves this room."

  She put the words one right after another in her mind. She said them aloud. "'As virtuous men pass mildly away / And whisper to their souls to go ...'"

  The girl lay in the single bed, on top of a university-issue yellow blanket, under a comforter her mother had bought at Neiman-Marcus. The room lamps were out and light filtered through the curtains, light blue like the oil smoke of truck exhaust. Tears escaped from her eyes, saliva dripped onto the blanket beneath her head.

  She remembered the last thing Jennie Gebben had said to her. "Ah, kiddo. See you soon."

  Emily Rossiter spoke in a frantic whisper, "'Whilst some of their sad friends do say, / The breath goes now and some say no.'"

  They weren't working. The words were powerless. She rested the book on her forehead for a moment then dropped it on the floor. Emily, who was twenty years old and intensely beautiful, had a large mass of curly dark hair, which she now twined compulsively around her fingers. She recited the poem again.

  At the knock on the door she inhaled in shock.

  "Emily Rossiter?" A man's voice was speaking. The doors were thin. She felt the knocking resonate upon her heart. "It's Deputy Miller? I was by before? We were wondering if you could come in and speak to Detective Corde for a bit? He's pretty anxious to see you."

  A woman's voice, that of the housemother, asked, "Emily? Are you there? This gentleman wants to talk with you."

  "I'll drive you over."

  She heard their voices speaking to one another. She couldn't make out the words. She--

  Oh no. The key! The housemother has a key. Emily flipped off the covers. She scooted off the bed and stood in the middle of the room like a child, knees together, panicked. Another knock.

  Emily stepped into her closet and sat on the floor, which was strewn with fallen hangers and dust balls and tissue from the dry cleaner's. She quietly pulled several of her winter coats off the hooks above her and covered herself entirely.

  "Emily?"

  Breathe slowly, breathe slowly. They can't get you here.... You're safe with me, kiddo.

  But there were no keys in the door. After a moment she heard footsteps walking away, the jangle of the awful police equipment receding. It would be safe to climb out but there was something so comforting about lying under satin and cashmere so hidden that she was compelled to stay. "'Such wilt thou be to me, who must / Like the other fool obliquely run....'"

  She wrapped the coats tighter about her.

  They took Jennie away.

  They took her letters away.

  And now they want me too....

  Ah, kiddo.... Emily lay her head on the thick hump of a suede jacket.

  "'Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end where I begun.'"

  The green Schwinn bicycle sat in the garage, standing upright. Twined around and around the small bike were little lights, a string of Christmas lights from the indoor tree. Wound around the handlebars, the fenders, the training wheels. The lights were on and the bike glowed like a city seen from an airplane landing.

  They glowed too in reflection on the surface of the puddle of water on the garage floor.

  Sarah stood in the doorway and looked at the spectacle in awe. It made her think of the movie E.T., which she'd seen five times, the scene where the creature makes the bikes fly through the sky.

  She walked around it, studying the lights with fascination. This bicycle had terrified her when she'd received it two years ago. At her mother's insistence she had tried riding it several times without the training wheels and nearly fell headlong onto the concrete of the driveway. She'd leapt off and run into the house screaming in panic. Even with the wheels on she avoided riding it when other children or Jamie, who rode his tall fifteen-speed so fast, might see her.

  But what she was looking at now didn't scare her. It was a bike but it was also something else. Something more. Something pretty and something mysterious. With the cord plugged into the wall socket to light the bulbs she couldn't ride it of course. But she could sit on it and pretend she was pedaling--riding through the sky.

  She could fly to the Sunshine Man's cottage and thank him....

  She could be the queen of the sky, as if the dots of yellow lights were the stars in her own constellation....

  Stepping forward into the puddle of still water, she reached for the handlebar.

  "Sarrie, like what are you doing?"

  Jamie stood in the doorway, pulling on his brown leather biking gloves. He slipped off his Styrofoam helmet and set it on a shelf. He stood with his hands on his hips for a moment then walked toward her bike.

  "Nothing." She stepped away, looking down.

  "Did you do that?"

  She didn't answer.

  "That's like totally stupid."

  "I'm not stupid," she said meekly.

  He walked to the outlet and yanked the plug out of the wall then began unwinding the lights.

  "No, don't!"

  He shouted, "Look! Look at this!" He held up a portion of wire that had been wound around the frame of the bike. The plastic insulation was missing and several inches of copper wire were exposed and wrapped around the foot pedal. He pointed at the floor beneath the bike. "And there's water spilled there."

  "Don't yell at me!"

  "If you do stupid things you're gonna get yelled at."

  "Stop it! Stop it!"

  "Don't lay one of your effing tantrums on me! It won't work," he shot back.

  He wound electrician's tape around the exposed wire, then carefully rolled the wire into a circle and replaced it in the box marked X-mas Lights.

  She muttered ominously, "You shouldn't've done that."

  Diane appeared in the doorway. "What is going on out here? I heard you all the way in the bedroom."

  Jamie said, "Sarah was playing with the Christmas lights."

  "Sarah, were you?"

  The little girl puckered her lips into an angry pout. "He called me stupid."

  Diane turned on him. "Jamie?"

  "Well, she was being stupid. She could've like electrocuted herself or something."

  "It was pretty and he ruined it."

  "Mom," he said, utterly exasperated.

  Diane turned to her daughter. "You know to leave the decorations alone. If you broke any it'll come out of your allowance."

  "I didn't do anything!" Sarah shrieked then stormed out of the garage.

  Jamie pulled his bike off the pegs stuck in the garage wall and lifted it down. Diane walked over to him and spoke in a menacing whisper, "How many times have I told you not to call her stupid."

  "She was playing with--"

  "I don't care what she was doing. It's the worst thing in the world for her. Don't do it."

  "Mom."

  "Just don't do it."

  "You don't under--"

  "Did you hear me?"

  His strong hands squeezed the brake levers on his bike. Diane repeated her question. "Yes," he grumbled formally.

  Diane's voice softened. "If you see
her doing something like that again come tell me. Your sister's going through a very tough time right now. Little things are really hard on her."

  "I said all right."

  He angrily wheeled his bicycle back and forth.

  Diane wiped her hands on her skirt. "I'm sorry I lost my temper."

  "Okay," he muttered. "No problem."

  "You have the match tonight, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "We'll be there."

  "You and Sarah."

  "Your father's going to be working. It's a very important case."

  He leapt on the high bike and rolled down the driveway.

  "I wish you'd let the deputy take you to school. Your father doesn't want you two going places alone."

  He shrugged.

  "Jamie," she shouted, looking on the shelf beside the door. "Wait! Your helmet ..."

  But the boy seemed not to hear and leaned sharply into the turn as he sped out of the driveway and into the road.

  He thought it was a skull but he couldn't be sure.

  "You Watkins?"

  "That I am."

  Naw couldn't be. Jim Slocum walked into a small, windowless office in the State Building in Higgins. He introduced himself. He wasn't impressed; his own office in the New Lebanon Sheriff's Department was bigger and had a window to boot. This room smelled of onions and was filled with books and telexes and photocopies of memos. He glanced at some and thought how boring they must be. Justice Department Monthly Homicide Demographics Report. Intrafamily Violence Review--Midwest Edition.

  Slocum squinted at the glass-enclosed bookcase behind Watkins. No, it was a grapefruit the guy had put in there and forgotten about. Maybe an ostrich egg.

  Earl Watkins was short and round and wore a tight blue button-down dress shirt. Round metal-rimmed glasses hung on his nose. His mouth was a squooshed O above a deep cleft chin. "Take a pew."

  Slocum settled onto the hard oak chair. "Say, what is that?"

  He followed the deputy's finger. "That? It's a skull. See the bullet hole?" Watkins, a huge Capitol rotunda of a man, with flags of sweat under his arms, was a special agent, Violent Crime Division, State Police.

  Slocum said, "We're hoping you could shed some light on this situation we've got ourselves. Help us out with a profile of the killer. I'll tell you, there's some spooky stuff involved."

  Watkins asked slowly, "Spooky stuff?"

  Slocum gave him a summary of the Gebben murder then added, "Happened on the night of the half-moon and underneath her was this cult knife." He handed Watkins a photocopy.

  The large man looked at it briefly, without emotion. "Uh-huh. When was her birthday?"

  Slocum blinked. He opened his near-empty briefcase and looked into then closed it, remembering the exact spot where he'd left the rest of the file on his desk. "Uhm, I've got somebody compiling all that stuff. I'll get you a copy."

  Watkins then asked, "Multiple perpetrators?"

  "Don't know. Were a lot of footprints around. Mostly men's. I had pictures taken of them. I'll get you copies if you want."

  "Naw." Watkins studied the photocopy of the knife. "Uh-huh, uh-huh. Did he cut her?"

  "No. Strangled."

  Watkins said, "I don't know what this insignia is. You have any idea?"

  "They look sort of German. Like the Nazis, you know."

  "It's not a swastika."

  "No," Slocum said, "I don't mean that. I saw this TV movie. The Gestapo had these insignias--"

  "Not the Gestapo. The SS. The Schutzstaffel."

  "That's it, yeah. Lightning bolts."

  "Only those were parallel. These are crossed." Watkins waved the sheet. "Knife have any manufacturer?"

  "No. Just 'Korea' stamped into the end."

  "The hasp," Watkins said. "When the guy raped her, how much come was there?"

  Slocum sought the answer in the ceiling of the office. He thought that Watkins asked this too eagerly and he wondered if Watkins, who wore no wedding ring, was gay. "The ME estimated three ounces."

  "Uh-huh," Watkins said. He linked his fingers and cradled the back of his head. He asked Slocum dozens of questions: whether restraints were used, if the killer found the victim or kidnapped her, if there was evidence of alcohol, how Jennie's body had been arranged in the flowers, whether foreign objects had been inserted into her anus or vagina, how attractive she was, if there were lip marks or other evidence that the killer had drunk her blood or urine.

  "That's pretty damn gross," Slocum said, offended at the question.

  "Any fingerprints?"

  "On the knife, yeah. Then a mess of 'em other places too. I'm having somebody check those against known sex offenders'."

  "That's a good place to start."

  "I'm making damn sure this situation isn't gonna happen again," Slocum said with relentless sincerity.

  "Are you now?" The state detective seemed amused. He scratched at the photocopy then gazed absently at the black toner that came off on his thumb. Watkins interrupted Slocum's account of the goat found in the grade school by saying, "Tell me about number two."

  "Only one goat I heard about."

  "The other victim?"

  "We've got no other victim. Just the Gebben girl."

  "When you called," Watkins said, examining a slip of paper, "you said killings."

  "Did I? There's only one now. But we're worried that we'll have a repeat in the next week. With the full moon, you know."

  "Steve Ribbon's your sheriff, right?"

  "Yep, sure is."

  "And Hammerback Ellison, he's Harrison County sheriff? They're both up for reelection next fall."

  The dividing line between what he should say and what he shouldn't had always been blurry for Jim Slocum. "Yep. I believe so. I'm not sure they're running."

  Watkins wiped a wave of sweat off his forehead. That was the smell, Slocum recognized. Sweat. Not onions. Watkins grinned. "Lotta folk say Steven Ribbon's bubble's a little off-plumb."

  Slocum's eyes weaseled away from Watkins's and he studied the spine of Modern Sociopathology. "I don't know about that."

  "Naw, I suppose you wouldn't." Watkins smiled like he'd hit a hole in one. "Well, you, want to make this more'n what it is--"

  "Hey--"

  "That's your all's business." Then the smile left his face and he said, "With only one killing and on these facts it's way too early to know what you've got. You need more information."

  "Can't you give us some idea, going on the assumption it's a cult?"

  "I can give you the textbook profile for a classic cult killer if you want. But don't take it to the bank. I've got no idea whether it applies or not."

  "I understand that. Sure."

  "That said, you want me to go ahead?"

  "Shoot." Slocum straightened up and flipped his notebook open. As he did so he glanced at the skull and had a passing thought. Where could a man get himself one of those?

  "Dogit," Amos Trout said. "Why'd it have to happen just now?"

  "Always the way. You oughta--"

  "Can't afford a new one. You gotta patch her." Trout stood with the mechanic in the left bay of the Oakwood Mall's Car-Care Center, looking down at the tub of water so grimy it might have come from Higgins Creek downstream of the old paper mill. In the tub was a Goodyear tire and out of its side was escaping a steady stream of greasy bubbles.

  Trout, forty-four, was wearing dark slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt. He had thinning hair, cut short and combed back. In his plastic pocket protector were three pens, a tiny calculator and a sales tax chart. Trout sold carpeting at Floors for All. He looked sadly at the bubbles. "What'll it cost for a patch?"

  "Five seventy-five."

  "I could do it myself, I was home," Trout said.

  "You ain't home."

  "Looks to be a pretty slow leak and she got me all the way here this morning. I could just pump her up and take my chances."

  "You could. You wouldn't want to do that, without you had yourself a good spare.
That's my opinion."

  Trout wouldn't have been so concerned about the tire if after he closed up tonight he and the wife weren't driving up to Minnesota to catch big lazy muskies and sit in lawn chairs while they drank cocktails out of the back of their beige accordion Travel-All. And it was going to be four weeks before he got back to thirteen-ninety-five acrylic pile your choice of colors pad included free if you buy today.

  "Plug her," he said. "And do a good job. I'm about to put some road under that Buick."

  Four blessed weeks thank you Lord though I'm sorry about the wife part.

  The tire man went to work. After a moment he held up a piece of glass like a Dodge City doctor who'd just extracted a bullet from a gunslinger's arm. "There she be. You had steel belteds it wouldn't even've dented em."

  Trout studied the glass. "I knew I picked up something. Tuesday night I was coming back late on 302. And you know that curve by the dam? Blackfoot Pond? Where everybody fishes?"

  The mechanic slicked a plug with glue and began driving it into the puncture. "Uhn."

  "Well, I went around the curve and this fellow comes running up right into my lane."

  "Maybe your lights're on the blink. I could check--"

  "They're fine except one high beam's out of whack."

  "I can just--"

  "That's okay. And so I went off the road so's not to hit him. Wham bam just like that. He froze. I went over a beer bottle. You know it's those fishermen, they leave all kinds of crapola around. They don't do that in Minnesota."

  "They don't?"

  Trout said, "Scared the living you know what out of me, seeing that fellow. He looked scared as I was."

  "Don't blame him. I wouldn't wanta be Buick feed myself."

  "Yessir." Trout looked at his watch. It was two o'clock. He paid for the plug. "You sell propane?"

  "You got a tank, you can fill it."

  "No, I mean for a Coleman."

  "Naw, gotta go to the Outdoor Store for that."

  "Guess I better. Long lunch hour today. But, hell with it, I'm almost on vacation."

  The sound of the gears buzzing was just audible over the wind that hissed past his ears.

  Jamie Corde upshifted as he came to the crest of the hill on Old Farm Road. Below him, a hazy mile away, the school sat in a field--tar-topped brick buildings squatting in a couple of acres of parking lots and lime-green grass.