The Lesson of Her Death

by Jeffery Deaver

"They're thinking it was curious you flew to St. Louis so fast after the killing. When you didn't find anything there you went to her dorm room and took them and burned it all up. Don't look that way, Bill. They think you were trying to cover up something between you and her. There'll be an inquest next month and you're off the case till it's over."

  Wynton Kresge's great-great-great-grandfather, whose name was Charles Monroe, had been a slave, one of two, on a small farm near Fort Henry, Tennessee. The story goes that when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on New Year's Day in 1863 Monroe went to his master and said, "I am sorry to tell you this, Mr. Walker, but there is a new law that says you can't own slaves anymore, including us."

  Walker said, "They did that in Nashville?"

  Monroe answered, "No, sir, they did that in the capital, that is to say, Washington, D.C."

  "Blazes," Walker said, and added that he'd have to look into it. Because both he and his wife were illiterate they had to ask someone to tell them more about this law. Their charming innocence was demonstrated by their choice of Abigail, the Walker's second slave, to confirm the news. She did so by reading from an outspoken abolitionist penny sheet, which printed the text of the Proclamation while avoiding an inconvenient discussion of Lincoln's jurisdiction to free slaves located in the Confederacy.

  "Damnation, he's right," Walker said. Then he wished Monroe luck and said by any chance you be interested in staying on for pay and Monroe said he'd be happy to and they negotiated a wage and room and board and Monroe kept on working on the Walker farm until he married Abigail. The Walkers gave them their wedding and Monroe named his first son Walker.

  Family history.

  And probably as embellished and half-true as any. But what Wynton Kresge thought was most interesting was how his children responded to the story. His eldest son, Darryl, eighteen, was horrified that he had been descended from slaves and never wanted the fact mentioned. Kresge felt bad the boy was so ashamed and grumbled that since he was black and had grown up in the United States and not on the Ivory Coast, how come that was such a shock?

  Kresge's eldest daughter, Sephana, sixteen, on the other hand often talked about Monroe's plight. Which was how she referred to it. Plight. She hated Monroe for going back to work for Walker. She hated him for not putting a Minie ball in his master's head and torching the farm. Sephana had posters of Spike Lee and Wesley Snipes on her wall. She was beautiful. Kresge had put all serious talks with his daughter on hold for a few years.

  Kresge's fifth child, named after the ancestor in question, was eight and he loved the story. Charles often wanted to act it out, insisting that Kresge take the role of Mr. Walker, while Charles did an impersonation of someone probably not unlike his namesake. Kresge wondered what his youngest son, Nelson, aged two, would say about their ancestor when he learned the story.

  These were the thoughts that kept intruding into Kresge's mind as he sat trying to read in the massive bun-buster swivel chair. He felt all stifled and bouncy with nervous energy so he stood up and walked to the window in the far corner of his office. He reached out and rested his hands on the windowsill and did a dozen lazy-boy push-ups then twelve more and twelve more after that until he smelled sweat through his shirt.

  The window overlooked not the quad but a strip of commercial New Lebanon, storefronts and flashing trailer signs and a chunk of the satellite dish on the Tavern. He was anxious and his muscles quivered from using them the wrong way, in a soft office, in a soft university, a soft white university, where you had to keep your temper and give reasons and all the suspects were good students and were trying hard and were just out for some fooling 'round.

  He sat on the windowsill, his huge shoulders slumped.

  Thinking of his ancestor (perhaps because Walker had ultimately gotten his freedom) had put Wynton Kresge in mind of his essential problem--he was not what he wanted to be.

  Which was a cop.

  He would be a cop in Des Moines. He would be a cop in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. In Sandwich, Illinois. He'd be a cop taking tolls on the interstate if they also let him spend a good portion of the time cruising around in a souped-up four-barrel Dodge, tagging speeders and hunting down child molesters and stopping DUIs.

  What was ironic--no, what was bitterly mean--was that every day Kresge got resumes from cops all over the country. From real COPS! They wanted to work for him. Dear Sir: As a law enforcement officer of ten years standing, I am seeking a position in private security services and would like to be considered for any positions you might have open....

  Knock me upside the head. I mean, this is too much!

  Kresge would have dropped down on his massive, linebacker knees to kiss the police academy graduation ring of any one of those applicants and trade jobs in a minute. Gold shields, GLA supervisors, Ops-Coordinators, portable patrolmen, CS technicians. They all wanted to sit in Kresge's cracked leather chair and swivel back and forth and spend the three hours between start of business and lunch deciding how to allocate guards for the homecoming game.

  And what did Wynton Kresge want to do but walk a beat?

  He wanted to drive an RMP (remote mobile patrol, a squad car to everybody else; Kresge had learned this), he wanted to kick in doors of murder suspects, he wanted to pin drug dealers up against jagged brick walls and scream at them: WHERE'S THE STASH? (Was that what they called it? He'd learned a lot but there was much he had not learned.)

  He had a very real problem however. Wynton Kresge's first goal in life was to be a cop. But his other goal was to make sure his salary exceeded his age. He now made fifty-three thousand dollars a year (being forty-two he was proud of this accomplishment). He was therefore in the Loop. Hooked. Hung up. Wynton Kresge received a salary not unattainable by senior detectives or police administrators in large cities but a complete rainbow for a rookie. It'd be back to school at no pay then a grunt pulling twenty, twenty-five even with overtime. Kresge alone would be able to cope with a career change of that magnitude. Kresge married might be able to.

  But not Wynton Kresge father of seven. He loved cops but he also loved being a good father. He thought about reeducating them. He thought about having a family conference and telling them they were going to have to buckle down. Dad was about to take a fifty percent cut in salary and become a cop. (Man, he could taste the silence in the living room after dropping that news.)

  So he watched Miami Vice reruns and led his men in drills for dealing with students who'd gone ED (the cop word for emotionally disturbed) and with demonstrators who might try to burn down the stadium (none so far) and he kept his thirteen-shot 9mm automatic loaded and ready on his hip waiting for the chance to draw down on a crazed assault-rifle-wielding sniper (none of them either), picking him off from fifty yards on the knoll of the quad.

  This was all Wynton Kresge had for police work.

  This, and thinking a lot about the murders of Jennie Gebben and Emily Rossiter, which is what he had been doing most of this hot afternoon. He now walked to his desk and balanced a book on his hand then flipped it lightly in the air as if he were tossing a coin to help him make a choice. That was in fact exactly what he was doing and when he caught the book, cover up, Kresge walked abruptly out of his office.

  She died two weeks ago tonight. It took me all of fourteen days to lose the case.

  Corde spent five minutes looking for change in front of the vending machines, waiting for the jolts of anger that never came. He dropped in thirty-five cents and pushed coffee milk and sugar. The steaming liquid poured in a loud stream into a fragile cardboard cup. It sounded exactly like a man taking a leak.

  T.T. Ebbans walked up next to him, digging in his pockets. Corde held out a handful of change. Ebbans picked out some and bought himself a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. "I'm sorry, Bill."

  Corde sipped the coffee. It tasted salty. The machine's spigot dispensed both coffee and chicken bouillon.

  "This's real bushwah. I don't know what's going on. What'd Ribbon say?"

 
"I'm off the case. He's going to fight the inquest. But I hardly believe him. He didn't fight worth diddly to keep me from getting the boot."

  "The burnt letters?"

  "Yup."

  "Did anybody see you take them? They have a witness? Any fingerprints? What's their probable cause?"

  Corde said, "We're at the witch-hunt stage now, T.T. The due process comes later--after my name's been drug through the dirt."

  After they find out about St. Louis. When it'll be too late.

  When Ebbans spoke again, after a pause, the flinch in his voice was unmistakable. "Hammerback ordered me to look into every escape and recent release from the hospital at Gunderson."

  "I've heard this before." Corde shook his head.

  Ebbans continued, "Yep and then talk to school counselors and psychiatrists in town here and see if they had any patients with, you know, dangerous tendencies."

  "They won't say anything. It's all privileged. Hammerback oughta know that."

  "There was some mention of it in a book that Ribbon keeps loaning to people."

  Corde pointed in the general direction of Blackfoot Pond. "Well, Emily was Jennie's roommate. It's pretty damn odd for a cult killer to pick her for the second victim, wouldn't you say?"

  "I just tell what I been told."

  "I know that, T.T."

  Ebbans took a long time staring at the copy of the Register sitting in the lunchroom. The front page had a headline: Terror Continues with Stapleton Girl Cult Threat.

  "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the story.

  "Turned out to be the boyfriend she dumped. But the paper had to, you know, put it in terms of the Moon Killer. Damn. Good God damn.... Well, the case's yours now, T.T. I told you what I found most recent, about Jennie having that girlfriend and a fight with somebody who wasn't too happy about it. And about them maybe being killed because they were gay. Oh, and don't forget Gilchrist. He could tell us some good stuff about Jennie."

  "I don't know. Word is we gotta concentrate a hundred percent on the cult thing. Forget the university connection, forget her personal life. Those're orders."

  Corde closed his eyes for a moment, rubbed them. "Son of a gun, this's great. First I lose the investigation. Then it's forget the school. Then they don't want to hear that the victim might've had a girlfriend.... I don't know what's going on, T.T. The biggest problem in this case isn't the killer, it's us. It's the good guys."

  "Seems that way."

  Corde poured the coffee out then said, "You know, I was thinking. You're in a tough spot."

  "How's that?"

  "Let's say it's what you and me think, that it's not a psycho. That'll mean a lot of wasted time and a lot of panic and news stories about the departments' going in the wrong direction. You're walking point on this whole case."

  "Well that's true, Bill. I hope you won't be offended if I tell you that if it turns out right--"

  "You'll be in the catbird's seat, and more power to you. But with Ellison and Ribbon right beside you especially come November."

  "I hear what you're saying. But I just want to get that guy, whoever he is. That's all I care about. I'm no good at this politics stuff. It's like people're using those girls' deaths for themselves. They're twisting things around. Makes me sick."

  Ebbans finished his candy and rolled the wrapper into a tiny wad, pitched it out. He looked around and said in a low voice, "I know you're off the case and everything and you'll be doing a bang-up job keeping the roads free of gin-drunk felons but since you're giving me all your notes and leads it's only fair I give you something in return."

  "What's that?"

  "I told you somebody put the kibosh on the school side of the case? The order came from Ribbon and Hammerback. But you know where they got the word?"

  "Sure, yeah, I know." Corde grimaced. "Dean Larraby."

  "Nope," Ebbans said. "It was a friend of yours. Randy Sayles."

  Corde considered this. "Well, well, well. That's nice to know.... But you didn't hear me say that."

  Ebbans touched his ear. "Deaf as a mounted trout."

  As he walked out of the vending room Bill Corde stepped right into the broad form of Wynton Kresge. "Oh, sorry," Corde said pleasantly, and smiled before he remembered he was mad at the security chief.

  Kresge blinked and started to smile before he recalled he too was mad. He ignored Corde and turned back to where he'd been, standing in Jim Slocum's doorway, holding a book open and pointing to a passage.

  "Yessir, Chief," Slocum was saying to Kresge. "We've pretty much got it under control. But I appreciate your concern."

  "What I'm saying is, you ought to read this...." Kresge sounded like he was arguing with a belligerent waitress.

  Slocum said formally, "We've got ourselves a pretty demanding situation, Chief, as you can well imagine...."

  Corde left the office. He got into his squad car and started the engine. Wynton Kresge came out and walked toward his Olds, which was parked two empty spaces from Corde's cruiser. Kresge's was nice-looking, new. Everybody seemed to have a new car but Corde. Kresge flung the book into the front seat then opened the door. He got in and started the engine. The two men sat twenty feet apart in their cars, staring straight ahead as their engines idled.

  A very strained Bill Corde shut off the engine, paused a moment then walked over to Kresge. "Talk to you?"

  Kresge shut off his engine and got out. He stood up, taller than Corde, many pounds heavier. Corde said, "About last week ... What I want to say is I'm sorry. At first I didn't think you were right and I'll tell you it didn't have anything to do with you being who you are or anything like that but maybe I was the way you said and if I was I apologize."

  There was a moment of fierce silence and Corde couldn't think of anything to do but stick out his hand. Kresge looked down and seemed boxed into a corner. He took the hand and shook it firmly then released it. "I'm bad-tempered sometimes."

  "I get kind of caught up in these cases. They can be frustrating."

  "I understand that." He nodded with a grimace toward the Sheriff's Department.

  "What were you doing there?"

  Kresge fished the book out of the front seat. "Finished this today. I'm not saying I'm an expert but I think you're looking for the wrong guy."

  Corde looked at the spine. Psychotic Functioning Individuals: Volume Three. Criminal Behavior.

  "Listen up." Kresge opened the book, found an underlined paragraph, and read: "'In a study of psychopathic and sociopathic (here used synonymously) homicides in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland conducted from 1956 through 1971, we (Irvine & Harrington 1972) concluded that the number of homicides that are in fact astrologically or astronomically driven are exceedingly rare. Of the eighty-nine psychopathic murderers convicted of their crimes, only one was in fact motivated to commit murder on the night of the full moon. In extensive interviews and examinations of records in the man's hometown of Manchester, it was learned that he had been killing animals and human victims indiscriminately, as often as five times a year for the past fifteen years, always on the night of the full moon. He had no sexual contact with his victims and indeed found such thoughts abhorrent. On the other hand, Scotland Yard reported that for the years 1961 through the present, the only years for which such data are available, as many as ten murders per year are committed on the nights of full moons, under the guise of psychopathic episodes when the criminal's true motives for the killing are revenge, robbery, rape and organized-crime expediency.'"

  "You just read them that?" Corde nodded toward the office.

  "Tried. They weren't interested."

  "You mind if I borrow it? Make a copy of some of it? It's kind of a jawful and I'd like to read it slow."

  "It'll be overdue day after tomorrow."

  "I'll do it myself. Tonight." After a moment Corde asked, "If you don't think it's a psycho, who would you be looking for?"

  "Nobody's been much interested in my opinion."

  "Tell me. Just
for the hell of it."

  Kresge said, "At first I was pretty sure it was the girl's lover. A professor or a student. You should see all of what goes on here on campus. Young people on their own. Doing whatever they want. Fair game for the professors--men and women, I ought to tell you. So that was my original thought. But that was before ..." Kresge's hand rose in a straight-arm salute then closed into a fist. He looked at Corde expectantly.

  "I'm sorry?"

  Kresge said, "You know, the knife. So now I figure it was a kid, maybe some punk."

  "Uh-huh." Corde nodded absently then said, "What knife?"

  "'I come in peace.'" Kresge's hand rose and closed again. "'From a land that is here and yet not here.'"

  "Uh-huh. What are you talking about?"

  "Didn't you see The Lost Dimension?"

  Corde said he hadn't.

  "The movie. It was at the Duplex a couple months ago."

  "I don't remember." Corde was thinking of some film with creatures that had red eyes. "Oh, wait, was that the one with these snake things?"

  "Yeah. The Honons. They were battling the Naryans in the Lost Dimension."

  "But what's ..." He lifted his hand and closed his fist.

  "It's the Naryan salute." Kresge snorted a baritone laugh. "Don't you remember?"

  "Nup."

  "You mean you guys don't know? ... About the knife? Back there in that bag."

  The cult knife.

  "I saw it on the deputy's desk...." Kresge pointed.

  "That symbol on the knife? It's from the movie?"

  "You really didn't know, did you?"

  Corde lifted his fingers to his eyes. "I don't believe it!" He turned toward the department. "Hell, I gotta tell 'em."

  But he stopped abruptly. Staring at the ancient Town Hall he sucked on the inside of his cheek for a moment. "Wynton, you want to go for a ride?"

  "I guess. Can we go in the squad car?"

  "Sure. Only I can't use the siren."

  "That's okay."

  They arrived at the toy store just as it was closing. Together the two large men strode to the door. Kresge stood awkwardly with his hands on his hips while Corde knocked. After a moment the owner appeared.

  "Can you open up, Owen? Important."

  "I'm closed, Bill. It's suppertime."