The Lesson of Her Death

He breathed deeply. He was still queasy from the bumpy flight back from St Louis and more so from the frantic drive from the county airport to make this meeting.

Through the windows of her breezy office Corde saw the manicured grass of the quadrangle, bordered with luminous green trees. Students walked along the sidewalks and paths; it seemed to Corde that they moved in slow motion. He remembered college as much more frantic. He was constantly hurrying, walking briskly into class, sweating, unprepared.

A man appeared in the doorway, a tall, heavyset black man.

"Ah," the dean said, "Detective Corde. Wynton Kresge, head of campus security." Corde shook his callused wad of hand and did a double take when Kresge's expensive suit coat swung open, revealing the no-nonsense automatic pistol.

The dean looked at Kresge but when she spoke it was to the sixteen thousand parents of her eight thousand wards. "We've got to catch this man. We're going to catch him."

Corde said, "I'd like to start interviewing Je

The dean's stubby fingers aligned a pen three times. "Of course," she said after a moment. "Is that necessary?"

Corde took out a stack of blank three-by-five cards. "I'd like to ask some preliminary questions. I have an address for her. McReynolds Hall. That's correct?"

"Right. She was GDI," Kresge answered; the dean frowned.

Corde began to write. He printed his notes and used only capital letters, which with their many curved strokes gave a vaguely oriental appearance to his handwriting. "GDI? That's a sorority?"

"No," Kresge explained, "GDI is what the dormies call themselves. People who aren't in frat or sorority houses. It means God Damn Independents." The dean kept staring at him and Kresge said, "Well, that's what they say."

The dean said, "There are so many implications."

Corde said, "I beg your pardon."

"We may get sued," she said. "When I talked to her father last night he said he may sue the university. I told him it didn't happen on campus."

"It didn't," Kresge said. "Happen on campus, I mean."

Corde waited a respectful time for either of them to make some point then continued, "I'd like a list of all the residents and employees, handymen and so on, in that hall -"

"It's a very large dorm," the dean said. "That might cause, I don't know, panic."

"- and also her professors and students in all her classes." Corde noticed Dean Larraby wasn't writing any of this down. He heard rustling next to him. Kresge was jotting notes with a silver pen in a soft leather diary.

Corde asked, "I'd like to know if she was seeing a therapist or counselor. And I'd like a list of any employees of the school convicted of violent crimes."

As icily as a deposed prime minister, Dean Larraby said, "I'm sure we don't have any."

"You'd be surprised," Corde said.

"I'll find out," Kresge said.

"I'll guarantee you that we have no criminals on our staff."

"Probably not," Corde said agreeably. He turned to Kresge. "You're going to be my contact here?"

"Sure."

Corde shuffled his index cards. He said to Kresge, "If you could get this info to me ASAP?"

"No problem, Detective," Kresge said. "And I'd be happy to interview some of the students for you, or the professors. I know a lot of them personally and…"

Corde found he'd been ignoring Kresge. He looked up and smiled. "Sorry?"

When Kresge repeated his offer Corde said, "Not necessary, thanks."

"I'm just saying if you need a hand."

Corde turned to the dean. "I'd like a room of some kind."

Dean Larraby asked, "Room?"

"For the interviews. We'd prefer to do it on campus."

Kresge said, "The Student Union's got a lot of activity rooms."

Corde marked a note on one of his cards. "Book one for me, would you?"

There was a slight lapse before Kresge said, "Will do."

"Detective…" The dean's voice contained an element of desperation. Both men looked at her. She put her hands flat on the desk as if she were about to rise and lecture. Her fingers touched the wood with twin clicks and Corde noticed rings – a thick purple stone on her left hand, an even larger yellow one on her right. Presents to herself, Corde thought. "We have a contradictory problem here," she said. "You read the Register, you must know this school's in the midst of a fiscal crisis. Our enrollment is the lowest it's been in twenty-three years." She smiled humorlessly. "The baby boomers have come and gone."

Corde did read the Register. He had no idea what shape the finances of Auden University were in.

"It's of course in our interest to find the man who did this as fast as possible. But we don't want it to appear that we're panicked. I've already gotten a call from one of the school's benefactors. He's quite concerned about what happened." Corde looked at her blankly. "When benefactors get concerned, Detective, I get concerned."

Kresge said, "We've beefed up security patrols in the evening."

Corde said that was good.

The dean continued as if neither had spoken. "We're getting applications now for the fall term and they're ru

Kresge said, "We can't assume anything, Dean."

The dean was ignoring Kresge too. She was his boss and could do a better job of it than Corde.

Corde said, "We just don't know anything at this point."

Kresge said, "One thing I wanted to mention. The Biagotti killing."

The dean clucked. "Wynton, Susan lived off-campus. She was killed in a robbery attempt. Isn't that what happened, Detective?"

"Susan Biagotti? It seemed to be a robbery, I recall."

The dean continued, "The school had nothing to do with it. So -"

"It was never solved, Dean," Kresge's baritone droned. "I was just speculating."

"- why bring it up?"

Corde said to both of them, "I don't think there's any co

"There was no co

"Yes, ma'am. I'm sure that's the case. Now the sooner I get back to work, the sooner we'll catch this fellow. You'll get that information, William?"

"Wynton."

"Sorry."

"Uhn, Detective, I wanted to ask you something. About motives for this type of crime. I -"

Corde said, "I'm sorry. I'm ru

Kresge's spacious unsmiling face nodded slowly. "You'll get it when you want it."

Diane Corde pressed the phone tight against her ear. She still held a grocery bag in one muscular arm.

"Oh, no…" She listened for a moment longer then lifted the phone away from her mouth. She called, "Sarah? Sarah are you home?"

Silence, broken only by the click and whir of the refrigerator.

"No. She hasn't come back yet. When she's upset sometimes she hides in the woods."

Diane cocked her head as she listened to Sarah's teacher explain how concerned they all were. Mrs. Beiderson also added delicately that the girl had been daydreaming all morning before the practice test. "I sympathize, Mrs. Corde, I really do. But she simply must try harder. She's bringing a lot of these problems on herself." Diane nodded at the phone. Finally she said the words that seemed to end so many of these conversations: "We'll talk to her about it. We'll talk to her."

They hung up.

Diane Corde wore blue jeans and a burgundy cotton blouse. With her high school graduation cross gold and glistening at her throat she looked like a pretty, born-again country-western singer. Her husband said she had thisaway hair because she wore it moussed up and brushed back. Wide-shouldered and thin-hipped, Diane had a figure that had pretty much withstood two children and forty-three years of gravity. On her forehead was a small scar like a crescent moon, which mimicked by half the end of the iron pipe she'd run hard into when she was four.