The Lesson of Her Death

may be attributable to inebriation, drug use, emotional disturbance or unsteadiness of writing surface.’”
    “Why didn’t Philip say anything about it?”
    “Maybe he didn’t see it. Maybe he saw it and it didn’t mean anything to him.” Corde looked at the letter for a long moment then said, “Let’s assume it’s really Emily’s, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “Does it tell us anything?”
    “Well, it says two things. First, it’s a suicide note. So it means—”
    “Suggests,” Corde corrected.
    “Suggests
that Emily killed herself. She wasn’t murdered.”
    “Okay. What’s the second thing?”
    “That the Halpern boy didn’t kill Jennie either. I mean, it
implies
that he didn’t.”
    “Why?”
    “Because the ‘someone’ Emily mentions is probably, well, maybe, the killer. Someone Jennie had an affair with, I’d guess. She sure didn’t have an affair with Philip Halpern.”
    “Because of where she says she thought it was over?”
    “Yeah. Like the affair was over.”
    Corde said, “And look at ‘go that night.’ Tuesday night, she might be talking about.” He opened his attache case. The now-tattered picture of Jennie Gebben fresh off the volleyball court stared down at stacks of plump, dog-eared three-by-five cards. He flipped through one pile and extracted a card.
    “That your computer, Bill?”
    “Computer, ha. Here we go. Between about five and six on the night Jennie was killed she and Emily had a serious discussion of some kind. Maybe an argument. And Emily was moody that night. She didn’t join her friends for supper.”
    “So maybe Jennie was going to see her lover, or former lover, and Emily was ticked off.”
    “Could be.”
    “Wait,” Corde said. He dug through another card. “The girl who told me that Jennie was bisexual also said that she’d had a fight with somebody the Sunday night she was killed. She said, ‘I love her, I don’t love you.’ What if she agreed to
meet
that man—”
    “Or woman,” Kresge added.
    Corde raised an eyebrow, acknowledging the point. “Possibly. But Trout, the carpet guy, said he saw a man.… What if she agreed to meet him one last time, and he killed her?”
    “That’s sounding pretty good.”
    “But what about the DNA match? It was Philip’s semen found at the scene.”
    “Damn, that’s right.” Kresge frowned.
    “Don’t agree with me too fast.”
    Kresge considered for a minute and said, “Maybe the lover killed her. Then the boy came along and raped her—”
    “Actually, if she was dead first, it wasn’t rape. It was violation of human remains. Misdemeanor.”
    “Oh.” Kresge looked troubled. “I’ve got a hell of a lot to learn.”
    Corde mused, “Well, why didn’t Emily come to us and tell us what she knew? Wouldn’t she want the killer arrested?”
    “Maybe she didn’t know his name. If the girls were lovers then somebody Jennie’d had an affair with’d be a sore point between them. Emily maybe didn’t want to hear about him.”
    “Good point, Wynton. But she could still come in and tell us that
somebody
Jennie had an affair with had killed her.”
    Kresge had to agree with that.
    Then Corde said, “Of course look what happened. Emily killed herself. She was pretty crazy with grief, I suppose. She wouldn’t be thinking about police. All she knew was her lover was dead.”
    Kresge nodded. “That’s good. Yeah, I’ll buy that.”
    “We got our work cut out for us.” He selected one stack of cards and tossed it to Kresge. “What we know about Jennie, there’re a lot of people who might’ve had affairs with her.”
    “Well, there can’t be that many who’re professors.”
    “Professors?”
    Kresge tapped the plastic. “Well, she’s talking about a professor, isn’t she?”
    Corde stared for the answer in the note. He looked up and shook his head. “Why do you say that?”
    “Well,” Kresge said, “it says ‘teach.’ I just assumed she was talking about one of her professors.”
    “Well, Emily could’ve meant that like in a general sense.”
    “Could be,” Kresge conceded. “But maybe we could save ourselves a lot of time by checking out the professors first.”
    Corde picked up the cards and replaced them in his briefcase. He said,
“This
time we get to use the siren, Wynton.
And
the lights.”
    You think they care? Oh, you’ll learn soon.
You think they want you,
but the way they want you is cold as mother moon
.…
    Jamie Corde listened to the lyrics chugging out of