Страница 13 из 104
Je
He asked her out three days later, a record in self-restraint.
At a university like Auden, located in a two-cinema, four-screen town, inappropriate liaisons ca
He brooded to the point of fetish. Why this fierce attraction? Je
Of course some aspects of Je
Several times she dressed him in one of her nightgowns and on those occasions he emptied himself inside her within seconds of fierce penetration.
These were the bearings of their relationship and as impassioned as Okun felt, he knew they could not be trusted. Not when your lover was Je
It occurred when one night he had blurted a marriage proposal to her. And she, less intelligent, a common person, had suddenly encircled him in her arms in a terrifying maternal way. She shook her head and said, "No, honey. That's not what you want."
Honey. She called him honey! It broke his heart.
He raged. Je
Brian Okun, radiant scholar of the esoteric grafting of psychology and literature, recognized this obsessive effluence for what it was. So he was not surprised when, in an instant, love became hate. She had seen him vulnerable, she had comforted him – this, the only woman who had ever rejected him – and he detested her.
Even now, months after this incident, a day after her murder, Okun felt an uncontrollable surge of anger at her, for her simpering patronizing Mutterheit. He was back on the Nobel path, yes. But she had shaken something very basic in his nature. He had lost control, and his passions had skidded violently like a car on glazed snow. He hated her for that.
Ah Je
Brian Okun pushed his hands together and waited for the trembling to stop. It did not. He breathed deeply and hoped for his heart to calm. It did not. He thought that if only Je
The smell of the halls suggested something temporary: Pasty, cheap paint. Sawdust. Air fresheners and incense covering stale linens. Like a barracks for refugees in transit. The color of the walls was green and the linoleum flecked stone gray.
Bill Corde knocked on the door. There was no answer.
"Ms. Rossiter? I'm from the Sheriffs Department."
Another knock.
Maybe she'd gone to St Louis for the funeral.
He glanced behind him. The corridor was empty. He tried the knob and pushed the open door.
A smell wafted out and surrounded him. Je
Corde hesitated. This was not a crime scene and students in dormitories retained rights of privacy and due process. He needed a warrant in hand to even step into the room.
"Ms. Rossiter?" Corde called. When there was no answer he walked inside.
The room Je
Corde examined Je
Corde noticed a picture of two girls: Je
A clattering of laughter from the floor above reminded him that he was here without permission. He set the picture down and turned toward Je
He crested the rise on 302 just in front of his house.
Corde had ticketed drivers a dozen times for sprinting along this strip at close to sixty. It was a straightaway, posted at twenty-five after a long stretch of fifty, so you couldn't blame them for speeding, Corde supposed. But it was a straightaway in front of his house where his kids played. When he wasn't in the mood to ticket he took to leaving the squad car parked nose out in the drive, which slowed the hot-rodders down considerably and put a slew of brake marks on the asphalt just over the crown on the rise like a grouping of bullet tracks in a trap.
Setting a good example, Corde braked hard then signaled and made the turn into his driveway. He parked the cruiser next to his Ford pickup, which was fourthhand but clocked in at only sixty-seven thousand miles. He stepped out into the low sun and waved to Jamie, who was in the garage, lifting his bike up onto pegs in the exposed two-by-fours. In Jamie's hands, the bike seemed to weigh only a pound or two.
The boy was fair-ski