The Lesson of Her Death Read online

  Some people in town--that is to say, the people who worked for him--thought Corde took his job too seriously, New Lebanon being a place where the State Penal Code's thousand-dollar threshold between petty and grand larceny was not often crossed, and four of last year's six deaths by gunshot were from failing to open a bolt or breach when climbing over a fallen tree. On the other hand Corde's arrest-per-felony rate was a pleasure to behold--ninety-four percent--and his conviction-to-arrest ratio was 8.7:10. Corde kept these statistics in a thirdhand IBM XT computer, the department's major concession to technology.

  He now finished reviewing the coroner's preliminary report on Jennie Gebben and stood up from his desk. He left the sheriff's office and strode across the hall to the lunchroom. As he walked a quarter materialized in his hand and he rolled it over the back of one finger to the next and so on, around and around, smooth as a pool-hall hustler. His father had taught him this trick. Corde Senior made the boy practice it with his hand extended over an old well on the back of the family property. If he dropped a coin, plop, that was that. And his father had made him use his own two bits. Corde had seen a lot on TV recently about men's relations with their fathers and he thought there was something significant about the way his father had taught him this skill. He had learned a few other things from his old man: His posture. A loathing of second mortgages. An early love of hunting and fishing and a more recent fear of the mind's wasting before the body. That was about all.

  Corde was real good at the coin trick.

  He entered the lunchroom, which was the only meeting place in the town building large enough to hold five brawny men sitting--aside from the main meeting room, which was currently occupied by the New Lebanon Sesquicentennial Celebration Committee.

  He nodded to the men around the chipped fiber-board table: Jim Slocum, T.T. Ebbans--the lean, ex-Marine felony investigator from the Harrison County Sheriff's Department--and New Lebanon Deputy Lance Miller. At the far end of the table, surrounded by two empty chairs, was Wynton Kresge. Corde thought, Antsy as a tethered retriever on the first day of season.

  He dropped the quarter into his pants pocket and stood in front of a row of vending machines. He was about to speak when Steve Ribbon walked in. Corde nodded to him and leaned back against the Coke machine.

  "Howdy, Bill. Just want to say a few words to the troops about this case, you don't mind." The sheriff's ruddy face looked out over the men as if he were addressing a crowd of a thousand. Ribbon scrutinized Wynton Kresge who represented two oddities in this office--he was black and he wore a suit. Kresge took the look for a moment, realized he was being asked a question then said, "I'm from the college."

  "Oh. Well." Ribbon's voice enlarged to encompass everyone. "I just want to put my two cents in. You all are the task force on this thing. Now Bill's in charge." He looked at Ebbans. "Which I think is what Sheriff Ellison's agreeable to."

  "Yessir," said Ebbans. "I'm just a hired hand here."

  "Now between all of you," Ribbon continued, "you got a flatbed full of investigating experience." His burdened gray eyes rose to Corde's. "And I'm busier'n a dog in a fire hydrant factory...."

  Corde nodded sympathetically. You're running and there's an election come November.

  "So I can't get as involved in the case as I'd like. But keep remembering, people're going to be watching us. They're going to be real curious how we do on this one so I want us to be pretty, you know, aggressive. Now I've been doing some research and I'm pretty bothered by this cult business."

  Corde was silent. It was Ebbans who asked, "Cult?"

  "What I want you to do is first come up with a profile of our killer."

  Jim Slocum said, "In these situations that's what you always have to do."

  Wynton Kresge wrote this down.

  "Absolutely," Ribbon said. "I know we haven't had any of these kinds of killers here in New Lebanon before but I think it's important for us to get up to speed. What you have to do with cult murderers is peg them. Find out what makes them tick."

  Kresge scribbled rapidly. Corde glared at him and he stopped writing.

  Ribbon continued, "Now a profile should include two things. The physical description of our man, one, and what's going on in his mind, two. Stuff like is he sexually repressed, does he hate his mother, does he have trouble, you know, getting it up, was he beaten as a child...."

  Corde, who had a well-used NCAVC criminal profiling flowchart tacked up on his wall, nodded solemnly and let the embarrassment for his boss trickle off.

  "Sounds important," Miller said, and brushed his hand over his excessively short crew cut.

  "Absolutely," Ribbon said. "I've been reading up on investigations like this. One thing that's troubling is this moon business. Think about it. She was killed on the night of the quarter moon. That could be lunar fixation for you. And this one's particularly troubling, you know why? Because we've got two quarters and a full and a new. So that's four potential strike windows--"

  "What's that?" Wynton Kresge asked the question that Corde had been about to.

  Ribbon said patiently, "That's the entire period when our man's likely to kill again. In this case I'd say it's from thirty-six hours in front of the full moon till thirty-six hours after."

  Corde and Ebbans, who'd worked together on investigations for four years, got to play the eye-rolling game.

  "Ah," Kresge said, and wrote.

  Corde and Ebbans played the game again.

  "Well, that's my two cents. I'll let you boys be. Do me proud and go catch this sickie." Ribbon left the room.

  Corde took center stage. He searched for something politic to say. "All right, I suppose we might be looking at the possibility of a serial killing here but I wouldn't go spreading that around. We don't want to give anybody any ideas." Slocum seemed about to speak but remained silent and Corde continued, "Now I'm going to give us ten days to get a suspect under. And I want an ID within two or three." From his St. Louis days Corde remembered the forty-eight/four rule in homicide investigations: If you don't identify the perp within forty-eight hours of a killing, the odds are it will take at least four weeks to find him.

  "Also," Slocum said, "the full moon's coming up in seven days or so." He was scanning a Farmer's Almanac.

  Corde said delicately, "I think Steve's got a good point. We've got to be aware of this moon business but we don't want to drop other leads because of it. It'll be something to consider, is all." Corde opened the envelope Kresge had brought and pulled out several sheets. "Wynton here was good enough to bring us some dope on the victim and I want to go over it now."

  Corde also opened an envelope of his own. He shook out the glossy photograph of Jennie Gebben on the volleyball court. It showed clear eyes, a competitive smile, patches of sweat soaking her T-shirt, more throat than a girl that age would want. He noticed in the photo two metal hoops in each ear. When had the third hole been added? he wondered.

  Corde handed the photo around. Miller glanced quickly then passed it on.

  "No." Corde said solemnly. "Take a good look. Remember what she looked like."

  Miller was flustered for a moment then did what he'd been told.

  When the picture had made the rounds Corde said, "I flew over to see her father this morning and he wasn't much help. There were no diaries or letters I could find but he's going to keep looking. He says he doesn't know of anybody who might've wanted to hurt her but I put the bug in his ear and he might not know it but he's going to be looking at people at the funeral, who's there and who isn't. Maybe he'll remember a boyfriend or somebody who had a grudge against her."

  Kresge said, "That's why you went this soon to see him? I was wondering why you did that."

  "You were?" Corde asked absently. He turned to the files that Kresge had brought. "Jennie Gebben was twenty. She was a junior at Auden. No loans or scholarships, so I guess Daddy paid for most of it. She was an English lit major. GPA two point nine seven. Say, I'd like you to take notes on this." Slocum and Miller
picked up pens. Corde continued, "Treasurer of the Folklore Club. Meals on Wheels volunteer once a week early in the semester but she gave that up after a couple months. Worked three days a week in the office of the dean of financial aid.

  "Her classes this semester were French Reading III. Her professor was Dominique LeFevre. The Civil War to the Centennial taught by Randolph Sayles. Contemporary Literary Criticism, by Elaine Adler-Blum. Chaucer, by Robert ... Ostopowiscz. Well, that's a mouthful. And here's another one: The Relation Between Psychology and Literature: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Her teacher there, I mean, her professor was Leon Gilchrist. And a seminar group of that same class taught by Brian Okun. Finally The Roots of Naturalism, Charles Gorney."

  Corde wondered momentarily what the courses were about. Corde had graduated in the top half of his class because his school had plenty of engineering courses. He shuffled through the file Kresge had brought him then stapled the class roster sheets together. He set them aside.

  Kresge said, "Excuse me."

  Corde glanced up. "Yes?"

  "Just wanted to tell you, I checked with the clinic. She wasn't seeing a therapist and had only one visit this year. It was to get antibiotics for bronchitis."

  "No therapist," Corde repeated. The fact was recorded neatly on a three-by-five card. He did not notice Slocum and Miller play a round of eye rolling.

  "Also," the security chief added, "Personnel has a policy of never hiring ex-felons. So if there are any on staff they lied about it on their resumes."

  Ebbans asked, "Was she ever up before the UDB?"

  University Disciplinary Board. Kresge said she wasn't.

  "Now," Corde said, jotting down these facts, "as for the murder: At around ten o'clock on Tuesday night she was raped and strangled, possibly by someone she knew."

  "How could you tell that?" Kresge asked and Corde glanced at him with irritation.

  "Look--" Corde began.

  Ebbans answered Kresge. "Because she didn't run and because he got close enough to subdue her before she fought back."

  "How do you know that?"

  "If she'd fought there'd be tissue under her nails."

  "Kleenex?"

  Slocum laughed. Ebbans said, "Skin. The man's skin."

  "Oh." Kresge added, "But then if she knew him, he probably wasn't a, you know, cult killer."

  Slocum lectured, "Not so, Chief. A good percentage of sacrifice killers know their victims."

  "Oh. I didn't know that."

  The meeting was meandering away from Corde. He said emphatically, "We have a lot of unknowns here. Maybe robbery wasn't a motive. But maybe it was. Maybe he got scared before he could take her valuables."

  Slocum laughed. "Bill, she had a diamond necklace. When he was through doing it to her he could've snatched it, just like that." He illustrated ripping a chain off his own neck. "Wouldn't take more than two seconds."

  Ebbans said, "What's the coroner say about COD?"

  "Just what it looked like. Traumatic asphyxiation. Pinpoint hemorrhages in the eyes. Fractured hyoid. Our man used his hands at first then he finished with a wire or rope. We didn't find any weapons. The coroner said the man was a foot or so taller than her. He wasn't so strong. He had to rearrange his grip on her neck several times. He did it from the front. Oh and the coroner guessed he wasn't married. Or he had a bad sex life with his wife."

  "Why's that?" Miller asked.

  "Quantity of the semen. Probably hadn't had sex for four, five weeks."

  Jim Slocum said, "Then you mean he had a good sex life with his wife." Miller laughed out loud; the others except Corde snickered.

  Corde looked at his cards, fanned some out. "Now what I want to do is focus on four areas. First, on the mall and on drivers along 302. I'd like you to handle that, Jim. It's a tall order. But that's a real busy road and we probably had some people coming home from the mall around ten that night." Corde jotted a note on an index card. "Oh, and check out if anybody picked up any hitchhikers.

  "Now, second, T.T., I was thinking maybe you could hit the houses around the pond."

  Ebbans nodded and Corde said, "Third, Lance and I'll set up shop at the school and start talking to students and employees."

  "Yessir." Even sitting, Miller seemed to be at attention. He reminded Corde of a color guard Marine. "What exactly--"

  "We'll go over it later. I also want you to talk to the phone company and find out what calls went out from the phones in the dorm from last Saturday through Tuesday night."

  Miller whistled softly. "Must be a lot of students making a lot of calls, wouldn't you think?"

  "You would," Corde said. "And we need a warrant for the dorm room. It'll be pro forma but you've gotta do the paperwork."

  "Right."

  "And finally I want all the prints on everything we found at the scene matched against known sex offenders in the county. T.T., if you could coordinate that with your office?"

  "Will do. I'll order the printout."

  "Wynton, I don't suppose you folk fingerprint students and professors?"

  "Been my dream and desire but no we don't."

  Corde referred to his notes again and started to say something to Kresge then paused. He scanned everyone's face. "One thing Steve said is right. The Register and WRAL are going to be looking at this thing real close. No talking to reporters. Refer everyone to me or Steve or Sheriff Ellison."

  Echoes of "yup" or "uh-huh" filled the room.

  Corde turned back to the security chief. "You get us a room, William? Uh, Wynton, I mean."

  "In the Student Union. Off the cafeteria. Room 121. You got it all week, next too if you let me know by Friday."

  "'Predate it."

  Kresge cleared his large throat with a snapping sound. "One thing I thought I should mention. I was driving past the pond on my way to work this morning. I just took a stroll around."

  "What time?" Corde noticed something challenging in his own voice. He wished he'd used more of it.

  "Six-thirty. I left about seven."

  "You see anybody there?"

  "Yessir," Kresge said enthusiastically. "A Con Ed tent up the road forty yards past the dam. You know, the kind they use for emergency repairs and--"

  Corde said, "They weren't there last night. They set up at five A.M. Branch took down a line. I already checked."

  "Oh," Kresge said with disappointment.

  "You see anybody else?"

  "No." He consulted his supple leather notebook. "There's a whole 'nother thing I wanted to bring up. What you and I and the dean were talking about. Susan Biagotti."

  Corde and Ebbans exchanged looks but this time there was no eye rolling.

  "Who's that?" Miller asked. "Rings a bell."

  "Auden student killed last year."

  "Ah, right."

  Corde had been away on a joint county-state task force in Fredericksberg for a month. The case had landed in Ribbon's lap and by the time Corde returned to New Lebanon, many leads had gone cold. They had never even ID'd a suspect, let alone made a case.

  "It's my intention to look into it," Corde said abruptly. "Like I told the dean."

  "I've got my own file on the case," Kresge said. "You want, you can have a copy of it."

  Corde smiled in a meaningless way. "I'll let you know if we need it."

  As he rearranged his papers the plastic bag containing the clipping he had found that morning at the pond fell to the floor. He stooped and picked it up. He stood. His knee didn't pop. Thirty-nine years of knee, five of it popping. He wondered if he'd gone and cured himself. He passed the clipping around the table. "This is another thing we have to consider."

  The deputies frowned with suitable concern as they read.

  "I'm sending it up to Higgins for analysis today. Unless we find prints though or the rest of the paper it came from in somebody's back pocket I don't think it'll help. But you might want to keep an eye on yourselves and your families. You know most threats like this are just cranks but you n
ever can tell."

  "Most threats?" Kresge asked. "You mean this happens a lot?"

  Corde hesitated then said, "Actually it's never happened."

  Ebbans looked up from the note then slid it back to Corde. "I know something else about this guy," he announced.

  "What's that?" Jim Slocum asked.

  "Well, you could nearly see the girl from the road even if you weren't looking. Why didn't he drag her behind the truck at least? Then he came back in the morning to leave that note? It was like he didn't care if anybody saw him. That says to me he's a real gutsy fellow."

  Corde lifted the plastic bag away from Miller. "Gutsy," he said. "Or crazy. Either way's a problem."

  By the time she approached her house, Sarah had memorized the note, which now rested in her skirt pocket, along with the five twenty-dollar bills that had been wrapped in it.

  Dear Sarah--

  I heard you fighting with your daddy today, about school. I know he'll keep making you go back. I want to help. I'm just like you, we both hate school. You have to leave. Get away! Go to Chicago or, St. Louis. There's nothing left for you to do. You'll be safe. I'll look out for you.

  --Your friend

  This idea is not new to her. Sarah had thought of running away a dozen times. Last March, the week before the arithmetic test, she had spent an hour at the Greyhound station, working up courage to buy a ticket to Grandma's place, before her courage broke and in tearful frustration she returned home.

  Running away ...

  Sarah paused at the front doorstep. On tiptoe she saw her mother in the living room. She ducked. The motion made the paper in her pocket crinkle. While she waited for her mother to leave the room she pulled out the money and studied the bills, cautiously rubbing them as if they were pages from a book of witch's spells. She folded them tight again and put them back into her pocket.

  Sarah Corde, nine years old, cared nothing for school, hopscotch, Simon Says, housework, Nintendo, sewing, cooking, cartoons on TV. But she believed fervently in magic and wizards, and she believed that this message was from a particular wizard who had been watching out for her for years. He was all-knowing and he was kind, and--what with all the money--he was pretty darn rich too, it seemed.