The Lesson of Her Death

by Jeffery Deaver

  "No, Bill," she protested. "No!"

  "What does he look like?"

  "No, no, no.... He wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn't do it! ..." Her voice vanished in hysterical sobbing.

  "Diane," Corde said harshly, "you've got to help me on this. Think."

  "Oh, Bill, no!"

  He gripped her shoulders. "Describe him!"

  She did, as best she could, her words punctuated with sobs. When she finished she cried, "Oh, God, it can't be. I know it can't."

  Diane's description was vague but it did depict someone who could resemble Gilchrist. "Where's he staying?"

  "I don't know! Near here somewhere. He never told me.

  "He never told you?" Corde shouted. "How did you call him?"

  "Usually he called me. When I called I left messages at the library. I never saw his office." Every word grew weaker as the evidence mounted.

  "What kind of car does he drive?"

  "I don't know! Quit cross-examining me!"

  Corde gripped his wife by her shoulders. "Think. You must've seen it. Is it green?"

  "I don't know. Just a car. American, I think. A four-door of some kind. I don't remember the color. I think it was dark. No.... Oh, and I just saw it! When he picked her up...." Her hands flew to her face. "Oh Bill!"

  "Sarah?" Corde shouted. "Sarah's with him now?"

  He grabbed the phone and dialed Auden. He heard a click. "You have reached Auden University. The school will be closed until summer session registration on June 10. If you would like to leave a message, press the number of the extension for the department you wish to reach and at the tone leave your message. If you--"

  He slammed the phone down. He paused a moment then picked up the receiver again, intending to dial directory assistance. In his frazzled state of mind he dialed 911 by mistake. He shuddered at the error and pressed the receiver cradle down then released it. The line wouldn't disconnect. He held it again for three seconds. Still no dial tone. Then five seconds. GOD STRIKE THEM DEAD! Finally he heard the tone.

  Four. One. One.

  "Operator, this is the New Lebanon Sheriff's Department. We have a police emergency. I need the number and address of a man named Breck. In New Lebanon."

  "Breck? First name?"

  How many Brecks do you have? "Ben. Benjamin."

  The wait was a huge black pit. He heard the clattering of keys. He heard pages riffling. He heard a onesided conversation--another operator saying "I'll bring 'em home but you have to cook 'em. I won't have time."

  "Sir?"

  "Yes?" Corde asked.

  "How would you be spelling that?"

  "Spell it? How do you think? B-R-E-C-K."

  "There's no listing of Ben, Benjamin or B. Breck in New Lebanon or Fredericksberg. Would he--"

  He jammed the button on the phone down again. Shaking his head, he made another call. Dr. Parker's receptionist said she was with a patient and Corde said, "Please tell her this is an emergency."

  The psychiatrist came on the phone and said coolly, "Yes, Mr. Corde?"

  He said, "Do you personally know Dr. Breck?"

  "Why, what's the problem?"

  "Do you know him?"

  She paused a moment in irritation but must have sensed the urgency. She said, "No. But I've spoken to him several times about Sarah's course of treatment."

  "But it might not have been Breck you talked to."

  "You mean you think he was an impostor? Oh, I don't think so. He seemed to know a great deal about your daughter. Come to think of it, he knew a great deal about your whole family, Detective."

  "What's your daddy doing today?" Dr. Breck asked.

  "I don't know. He's at work, I guess."

  "Do you love your daddy?"

  "Oh yeah. Sure."

  "Does your mommy love your daddy?"

  "Sure. I guess."

  Dr. Breck drove quickly. The scenery raced past as if Sarah were riding Cloud-Tipper the eagle. A barn was a red dot in the distance then a red ball then a huge red whale then it vanished behind them like a wish.

  Dr. Breck slowed and pulled into the driveway of the college. He turned toward a part of the school that was deserted, more trees than buildings. Sarah was able to read at least one sign. Auden University. She couldn't understand the word "university" but she had memorized it because this was where Dr. Breck worked and that made it important to her.

  "I like these buildings," Sarah announced. They looked to her like castles--only without gates and drawbridges and the lakes around them. Some even had up-down teeth on the tops like in Robin Hood (the old Robin Hood, the good one) where the sheriff's soldiers stood and shot crossbow darts at the star, renamed by her "Arrow Flynn." Sarah's book contained two stories about castles.

  Dr. Breck had remained silent as they drove. He seemed lost in thought and she didn't want to trouble him but she tried to read the sign in the front of the building they were passing. She couldn't and she asked him about the words. "It says 'Graduate School of Education,'" he answered. "Read the other sign there."

  She frowned. "'Arts.' Oh oh oh, and 'School of.' I can read those. And 'Sciences.'"

  "That's good," he said. "'School of Arts and Sciences.'"

  "I got back my last story from Dr. Parker," Sarah said. "Can we read it today?"

  "If you'd like."

  "It's my favorite. It's about a wizard. I saw over by Blackfoot Pond. He lives in the woods behind my house. He watches the house a lot. It took me like forever to write it. I wanted to get it just right. It's got Cloud-Tipper the eagle in it and--"

  With sudden curiosity Dr. Breck asked, "This wizard's in your story?"

  "Uh-huh. It's called 'The Sunshine Man.' That's his name."

  "And you saw him by Blackfoot Pond? When?"

  "One morning. Last month, I guess. He's been behind the house too."

  "What does he look like?"

  "I never saw him up close." Sarah brushed a strand of hair off her face. "You know, Dr. Breck, I wanted to ask the Sunshine Man to make me smart only I was scared to. But I think he knew. I think he sent you to me.

  "You think so?" Dr. Breck pulled the car onto an empty parking lot beside a deserted building. He braked to a stop. She reached for the door handle but before she could pull the lever up Dr. Breck's hand touched her arm. "No, Sarah. Wait just a minute."

  She did as she was told.

  Corde ran to the front door. He said to Tom, "Deputy ..." His voice shook and he took a deep breath to calm himself before starting again. "I think that man who's been coming here for the past month, Breck, I think he's Gilchrist."

  "What?"

  "I'm not going into it now." He turned to Diane. "He and Sarah left when?"

  Through her tears she said, "A half hour ago."

  Where are they, where could they go?

  Where has he taken my daughter?

  "They were going to the school."

  "Which school?"

  "Auden. To take some tests. Oh, Bill." She sobbed and gripped the pillow hysterically. "He said he was going to tape her. He had a camera...."

  Corde said to the deputy, "Do an APB. State and federal. Call in a kidnapping-in-progress code and an approach-with-caution. Check Auden first but if he killed Okun this morning--" This brought a moan from Diane. "--I doubt he's anywhere near the campus now."

  "Right, sir."

  "And you tell them that it's my daughter he's got."

  "Yessir."

  "If he hostages her I'm doing the negotiating, got it? Tell that to Slocum and Ellison and if they have any trouble with that they're to call me. And I want somebody to keep an eye on Wynton Kresge's house. Watch his wife and all the kids."

  Where is she? Where is my daughter? ...

  The deputy asked, "You gonna stay here, sir? Or you want a couple men on the house?"

  "Oh, Bill," Diane whispered. "Please God--"

  "All units in the vicinity ..."

  From outside over the PA system of both squad cars, as if in stereo,
came the radio broadcast.

  "All units in the vicinity. Ten-thirty-three in progress. School of Education Building, Auden University. Assault. Man with a knife or razor in late-model sedan. No plates ..."

  Corde and Diane looked at each other.

  "Further to that ten-thirty-three. Ambulance is en route. And we have unconfirmed report that a juvenile is involved.... Make that a female juvenile about ten years of age. Repeat. Ten-thirty-three in progress...."

  It looked like an auto accident--the driver's door open, the figure lying bloody and still beside the car, one foot up on the driver's seat. Revolving red lights, men and women in uniform.

  Diane screamed and flung open the door before Corde had brought his cruiser to a stop in the school parking lot. She sprinted over the cracked asphalt to where the ambulance crew, a cluster of white-coated attendants, was huddled, working feverishly. With her hands over her mouth, Diane looked down, then closed her eyes, muttering indistinct words over and over.

  Corde trotted to the car and looked down at the bloody mass at his feet. He took a deep breath and peered over the head of an attendant.

  It was not Sarah.

  Lying on his back Ben Breck opened his eyes. He squinted and spit blood. He whispered halting yet astonished words: "Leon Gilchrist! ... Following us...." He held up his arm to examine deep slashes in the palm of his hand with serene curiosity. "I don't feel any pain." He looked back at Diane. "We were in the car ... he just appeared. Just like that. Had a razor ..."

  "Where's Sarah?" Diane cried.

  Corde said to a county deputy, "Do you know who this man is?"

  Diane shouted at her husband, "It's Ben Breck!"

  "She's right, Detective." The deputy offered Corde a bloody wallet. He opened it. Inside there was an Illinois driver's license with Breck's picture, a University of Chicago faculty picture ID, and an Auden ID, which identified him as a visiting professor.

  Visiting professor. So, a temporary address and no directory assistance listing.

  Corde crouched. "Where's Sarah?"

  "She ran. I think he's got her," Breck gasped. "I don't know what happened. He was ..." The words dissolved into bloody coughing. "We'd stopped and he came ... up behind the car. He was ... just there. Cutting me, slashing. Grabbing for Sarah...."

  "Did he hurt her?" Diane asked, choking on tears.

  "I don't ... I couldn't ... see."

  An attendant finished applying a tourniquet and started bandaging a deep cut.

  Corde asked Breck, "Where did they go? Did you see--"

  "There. There." Breck reached up a bloody hand. At first Corde thought he was pointing out a direction. But no. He saw in the front seat of the car two typed pages. Corde said, "Those sheets?"

  Breck nodded. "Take them. Read ... I'm getting very dizzy. My mouth is dry...." He closed his eyes.

  Corde picked up the sheets. He started to read. His attention flagged and he looked down. Diane took Breck's face in both of her slick, red hands and shouted to him, "You're going to be all right! You're going to be fine! Do you hear me? Do you hear me?"

  She looked up at her husband. Corde put his hand on her shoulder. She picked it up and flung it off then lowered her head to Breck's chest and began to cry.

  It wasn't until the ambulance left a minute later, kicking up dust and siren howling, that Corde walked abruptly back to his car and sat in the driver's seat. Finally he began to read.

  They stepped over a tangle of brush, between two beech trees that pretty much marked the start of Corde's backyard and entered the forest at the exact spot he had seen, or imagined, the moonlit face staring at the house a month before. They walked on a carpet of spring-dried leaves and low raspy grass, yellow and deer-chewed.

  Beside him, dressed in a beige uniform and tan windbreaker, Wynton Kresge was carrying a Remington pump shotgun. The gun had a stiff sling but he did not carry it slung. He held it two-handed like a soldier, index finger pointed forward outside of the trigger guard. The men walked quickly, Corde consulting two sheets of dark-stained typewriter paper as if they were instructions on a scavenger hunt.

  The sky was milky. The sun, a white disk low in the sky, was trying to burn off the overcast, but the density of gray meant that it was going to lose. The forest, the cow pasture, the yellow-green carpet in front of him were an opaque watercolor. A coal black grackle flew immediately toward him then turned abruptly away, startling both men.

  At an old burnt-down barn that he had forbidden Jamie and Sarah from playing in, they turned right. Beams of the silo rose like charred bones. They walked on, over an old railroad bridge then followed the gravelly roadbed to the Des Plaines. They walked along the bank through more woods until they found the house. Corde folded the sheets of paper and put them in his pocket.

  The house was another dilapidated colonial, two stories, narrow and sagging. This one was set in a grim, scruffy clearing, past which you could see storage tanks along the river. A tug towed a rusty barge upstream, its harsh, chugging engine irksome in the heavy air.

  In the front yard was parked a green car. A Hertz sticker in the windshield. Corde read the plate.

  "It's the one Gilchrist rented."

  Corde crouched and Kresge knelt beside him, under cover of a fallen branch. Corde looked at the ground. He said, "You stay outside. No matter what you hear. If he comes out alone, stop him. He's the only one who knows where Sarah is. I want him alive."

  Kresge said, "I'd feel better calling in some backup. That's what the manual says in cases like this."

  Corde kept studying the house. Lord, it seemed ominous--towery and pale, mean. He said, "I'm going to get my daughter one way or another. I may need some time with Gilchrist by myself."

  Kresge looked long at Corde, considering these words. He turned back to the house. "How'd you know this was his place?"

  Corde shushed him. Together they closed in on the colonial. Kresge crouched behind the Hertz car and rested the shotgun on the hood. He pointed at the front and back doors, nodding, meaning that he could cover them both. Corde nodded back and, crouching, ran to the front of the house. He paused beside the rotting gray porch. He caught his breath then eased slowly up to the door. He smashed the door in with a vicious kick of his boot and stepped into the rancid-smelling house.

  The room was milky, as if illuminated through smoke or mist. Light, already diffused by the clouds, ambled off the silver maple leaves outside and fell ashen in the room. The carpet, walls, plywood furniture, paintings seemed bleached by this weak radiance.

  A terrible moment passed. Corde believed the house was empty and Gilchrist had escaped from them again. Then his eyes grew accustomed to the weak light and he saw at the end of the room a pale shape, a sphere that moved. It was mottled with indefinite features like the surface of the moon. Corde saw that it was a man's head and that he was staring back at Corde.

  The man slowly rose and stood behind a cluttered desk. About six-two, graying brown hair, trim, gangling arms and long thin hands. He wore a conservative light green tweed sports jacket and tan slacks. His face gave no clue that he was surprised by the intrusion. He examined Corde with brown eyes that were the only dark aspects of his person.

  He looks like me was the thought that passed involuntarily through Corde's mind.

  "Gilchrist," he said evenly, "where is my daughter?"

  Leon Gilchrist walked through a thick beam of dusty light and stopped ten feet from Corde. He folded his arms. A mirthful half smile was on his face. "Well, I am surprised, Detective Corde."

  "I want to know where she is." Corde's voice trembled. "I want to know now."

  "Of course you do."

  "Sarah!" Corde shouted, looking at a stairway that led to the second floor.

  "I was just thinking of you," Gilchrist said mildly. "You'd be surprised how often you're in my thoughts. About as often as I am in yours, I'd guess."

  Corde stepped forward, raising his revolver to Gilchrist's chest. The professor glanced down at i
t then slipped his hands into his pockets and studied Corde as if the detective were a bug padding his last circle on the cyanide disk in a kill jar. Then he asked, "How's your son, Detective?"

  An uncertain flicker was in Corde's eyes as they scanned the face of Leon Gilchrist.

  "Still enjoy bicycling, does he? Despite the dangers."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "And he went for a swim, I heard. The music these young people listen to...."

  He's trying to get my goat. Calm, stay calm.

  "Suicide by drowning. That was uniquely his. The song, I believe, mentions razors and ropes.... An alliteration suitable for adolescent lyrics."

  "What did you have to do with that?" Corde's grip on the gun tightened and he was beset by a frightening sense that he was losing control of himself. In his ears he heard a humming of immense pressure. He swung the muzzle toward the professor's face, which tightened microscopically but remained otherwise passive. The barrel stopped short of striking skin. "I could kill you--"

  Gilchrist said slowly, "I don't imagine you know the writing of Paul Verlaine. The French symbolist poet? No, of course not. I find his poems stunning but I also believe he suffered from the same problem as you do. Stoic on the outside, raging within. He tried to murder his close friend Rimbaud in a fit of passion. He ended up a worthless drunk. But if not for his psychoses the world wouldn't have his astonishing work. The element of compensation is miraculous--compensation, which your little Sarah displays so well."

  Corde's breathing was fierce. He felt himself hyperventilating. He grabbed Gilchrist's collar and pressed the gun muzzle against his ear.

  "Ah," Gilchrist said in a silky voice, "remember her. Remember Sarah. Our conversation mustn't become so obfuscated by passion that we forget that only I know where she is. Obfuscated. Can you deduce what that means, Detective? Can you?"

  Corde shoved Gilchrist away and stepped back. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He felt that he was the cornered animal and that it was Gilchrist who was playing him.

  "Detective, you continually misunderstand whom you're dealing with. I'm not a thug barricaded in a convenience shop. Your concept of intelligence is that it gets you to the bottom row of a category in Jeopardy! I'm different in kind from people like Jennie Gebben and you and your son and your Sarah and your beautiful Diane.

  "I've been studying you and your family since the morning after Jennie died. I saw your daughter at the pond after I'd left my first note to you. Her beautiful hair. The sun was so pretty on her tight, white blouse. Last year's fashions? ... Had to put off the spring shopping spree at Sears, did we? You know, I've been corresponding with Sarah ever since then. Why the shock, Detective? You would have figured it out eventually. See, that's the very problem that concerned me. You're not intelligent but you're dogged--unlike the rest of your colleagues, who are neither intelligent nor persistent.