The Lesson of Her Death

rented in his latest victim’s name. A dilapidated two-story frame home on whose south side paint was peeling like colonial-red snake scales. The whole place was settling bad and only the portion near the chimney had good posture. The screen door on the porch was torn and every second window was cracked. A typical vacation house in the lake district of Lewisboro—not a two-week dream rental but a badly built clapboard that had been foreclosed on.
    Up next to them walked Willars, Franks and a crew-cut local deputy, a young man bowlegged with muscles. Corde and Kresge had their service pistols drawn and the Lewisboro lawmen held battered dark gray military rifles, muzzle up.
    Kresge looked at the machine guns and said, “Well, well.”
    “Peace,” whispered Willars, “through superior firepower. Your show, Bill. Whatcha wanta do?”
    “I’ll go in with Wynton and somebody else. I’d like somebody on the front door and the back just in case.”
    Willars sent the stocky deputy out back and he took the front door. He said to Franks, “You be so kind as to accompany our cousins here?”
    “Look,” Corde whispered. A light was flashing in an upstairs window. “He’s there.…” The men crouched down.
    Kresge said, “No, look. It’s just the sunlight. A reflection.”
    “No, I don’t think so,” Franks said with a taut voice. “I think it’s a light.”
    “Whatever it is,” Corde said, “let’s go in.”
    To his men Willars said, “Check your pieces. Load and lock. Semiauto fire.” The sharp clicks and snaps of machined metal falling into place filled the clearing then there was silence again. They started forward. A large grackle fluttered past them and a jay screamed. Once out of the brush they ran, crouching, to the front porch and walked up the stairs, keeping low to the steps, smelling old wet wood and decaying paint.
    They stood on either side of the door, backs to the house. Near Kresge’s head was a sign:
Beware of Dog
. Kresge tested the door. It was locked.
    Franks whispered, “What about the dog?”
    “There was one, he’d be barking by now,” Corde said.
    Kresge said, “We knock, or not?”
    Corde thought of the Polaroid of the girl possibly his daughter. He said, “No.”
    Kresge grunted his agreement like a veteran SWAT team cop and pulled open the screen door for Franks to hold.
    “Pit bulls don’t bark,” Franks said. “I saw that on
Current Affair
or something.” He flicked the trigger guard of his rifle with a nervous finger.
    Kresge stepped back but Corde touched him by the arm and shook his head then stepped into his place. “I’ve got fifteen years’ experience on you. Just stay close behind.”
    “But I got sixty pounds’ weight on you, Detective,” Kresge said and lowered his shoulder and charged into the door. It blew inward, the jamb shattering under his momentum. He slipped on the carpet and went down on his hip as Corde then Franks leapt into the living room after him.
    A half dozen mangy pieces of sour overstuffed furniture and a hundred books stared silently back at them.
    Franks kept his M-16 up, swiveling from door to door nervously with his head cocked, listening for malevolent growling.
    The sunlight was fading fast and throughout the house the colors of rugs and paintings and wallpaper were vanishing. The men walked like soldiers through this monotone. Corde listened for Gilchrist and heard only old boards moaning beneath their feet, the tapping and surges of tiny household motors and valves.
    Franks stayed downstairs while Corde and Kresge climbed up to where they had seen the light. They paused at the landing then continued to the second floor. Corde was suddenly aware of the smells: lemon furniture polish, musty cloth, after-shave or perfume.
    They swung open the door to the master bedroom. It was empty. Corde smelled the dry after-shave stronger here and he wondered if it was Gilchrist’s. It seemed similar to a cologne that he himself had worn, something Sarah had bought him for his birthday. This thought deeply upset him. The sun was low at the horizon, shining into his face. Maybe that
was
the light he’d seen, its reflection in the window. The sun dipped below the trees, and the light grew murkier. Corde reached toward the bedside lamp to pull the switch.
    “Damn!”
    The bulb was hot.
    He told this to Kresge. The two men looked at each other, put their backs together, squinting through the gloom at the half dozen menacing near-human