The Lesson of Her Death

"No, I just better collect Sarah. I've got the video camera reserved for two-thirty."

"Honey," Diane shouted, "Dr. Breck's here."

"Kay," came the answering shout. Diane asked, "These tests you're giving Sarah, what are they?"

"They're the same as Dr. Parker gave her. I want to correlate short-term results to sessions of study per week. The first draft of my article for the New England Journal of Child Psychology is due tomorrow and I wanted to include her revised results on the Bender Gestalt and Gray's Oral. The data are also important for me – they'll give me an idea of where we should go next."

Data are… Some boys never quit being the show-offs.

"You think they'll upset her?" Diane asked cautiously.

He shook his head. "Ill be videotaping her but it's a hidden camera. She'll never know she's being filmed. She'll do fine."

Sarah's face appeared through the front screen door. "Dr. Breck!"

"Hello, Sarah. Bring your book with you. If we get a chance, we'll do some more work."

"I've got it here." She slapped her backpack.

"All of it?"

"Everything. The new pages from Dr. Parker too."

"Good. Let's get a move on."

She ran to the car. He hesitated, his face clouded. Diane noticed it. "Something wrong?"

His eyes were distant. He didn't seem to hear her and she repeated the question, touching his arm gently. He blinked and said, "I was thinking about Jamie."

"No, no. He's going to be fine. He is."

Breck's smile returned but Diane saw a glint of something in his eyes – regret or pining, she believed. She considered this. Perhaps what she saw was a childless man approaching middle age, which was one of the saddest things she could imagine. She wanted to wrap her arms around him. She muscled up restraint and laughed. "That boy's going to be just fine. He's a tough one."

"I must stop by and visit him sometime. I'll bring him a present Maybe something about that movie he liked."

"Come on, Dr. Breck!"

Diane said to them both, "Don't be late," and stepped back into the tilled dirt of her garden.

When he noticed Tom – the young deputy who had guarded his house – walking toward him, Corde was crouched down, jamming stacks of papers from the Gebben case into file cabinets in the small storeroom off the Sheriffs Department. He paused, a file halfway sunk into a clogged drawer. He froze as he watched the grave face of the approaching deputy.

Jamie!

He knew without a doubt that the hospital had just called and that his son had died. When Corde had last seen him the boy was frighteningly disoriented. His eyes wouldn't stay on his father's face and he blacked out twice.

Propelled by fear Corde rose fast, his knee a resounding gunshot. "What is it?" he demanded. The desperation in his voice stopped the deputy short.

Tom told him, "There's a problem on your case, Bill."

Case?

Corde was confused. He wasn't working on any cases at the moment. The only case he could have meant was the Gebben case. But it was closed. Corde knew this because he had written that word in careful block printing in the "Status" box on form FI-113, which was this very moment sitting in Sheriff Jim Slocum's in basket.

Corde was wrong.

Tom said, "We just got a fax. An erroneous identification notice from Fitzberg. The man Wynton Kresge shot wasn't Gilchrist. It was some guy with a rap sheet full of GL arrests, mostly credit card dealing. Prints confirmed it."

"Oh, no." Corde closed his eyes as he leaned against the doorjamb. "Did you tell Wynton?"

"Yessir. And Emma says a call just came in. A grad student was found in Gilchrist's old office a few minutes ago. Murdered, looks like."

"Okun? Was that the name?"

"Matter of fact, that's it."

Corde's grim-set mouth didn't come close to the despair he felt. And fear too. Gilchrist had returned to New Lebanon. And Corde knew why.

"Okay, Tom, get over to my house now and keep an eye on Diane and Sarah. I think Gilchrist is after them. And get somebody over to the hospital to stay with Jamie."

"Will do."

As he hurried back to the squad room Emma shouted from the dispatcher office, "Detective Corde? It's Wynton Kresge on the phone for you. He's over at the university."

Corde sent Tom on his way then trotted to his office and snatched up the phone. "Wynton, what've we got?"

"Killed just like Sayles, Bill." Kresge sounded despondent. "Cut throat. Razor. Witness says a car stopped outside the building, man matching Gilchrist's description got out and went inside for three, four minutes then left, got into the car and drove off. Late-model green sedan, no tag, no make. About forty minutes ago."

"Any idea where he headed?"

"Just toward the campus exit. They didn't see after that."

There was a lengthy pause, both men lost in their own vital thoughts. Kresge finally said, "Looks like I got the wrong man, huh, Bill?"

Corde's squad car moves at seventy, lights whipping around, siren grating. The driving is fast but, in this big taut American cruiser, oddly placid. He is on the outskirts of town, passing small stores and buildings. He sees a vet's office. Dog 8 Cat Hospital, the numeral substituting for an ampersand stolen long ago. Along white structure, TRIBUTION CENTR, burnt out letters never replaced. He blazed through the town's last stoplight, then the land opens up, there is no traffic and Corde is free to have a discussion with himself. This makes him extremely agitated.

Think, goddamn it. Think.

Leon Gilchrist, who sees by the light of pure brilliance, the Prince of Auden University. Come on, think of something clever, think of something unlikely, think of something he would think of.

Think!

His hands sweat and he feels ill.

I can't think!

The newspaper clipping, the scrawled threat.

IT COULD HAPPEN TO THEM.

Corde zooms past Andy Dexter's harvester listing half off the highway as it bobs along at ten miles per hour. The cruiser's slipstream rattles the blades as it passes.

I can't think the way he does… He's too smart for me…

Corde sees the Polaroid of Sarah and Jamie, looking safe and silly as actors in a commercial. He sees Gilchrist's handwriting:

SAY GOOD-BYE, DETECTIVE.

Corde crests the road by Sutler's farm and is blinded by a sheet of stu

His skid is as precariously controlled as the ones he practiced for weeks on the State Police course. The Dodge comes to rest dead center in the road, at the head of twin black stripes. The cloud of burnt rubber and dust catches up with the cruiser, encloses it, then passes away intact on an impossibly gentle breeze.

Corde's car sat askew in front of his own house, half on the lawn, engine still ru

Inside Diane looked up at her husband's wide green eyes as he burst through the door. He took her hands and placed her on the couch.

"You're scaring me, Bill." As if speaking to a stranger. "Is it Jamie? What's happened?"

Corde sat next to her. His breath was rapid. He didn't let go of her hands. She squirmed. "What?" she said, then louder: "What is it?"

"I think…" He squeezed her cold fingers. "I think Ben Breck is Leon Gilchrist."