The Lesson of Her Death

stacks like ivy boughs. The structure might have been imported brick by brick from sooty London and reassembled on this grassy quad within sight of thousands of acres of stalky fields growing a green pelt of corn shoots.
    This was the library of a university that Bill Corde would not be admitted to and whose tuition he could not have afforded if he had been.
    He had just gotten off the phone with Sheriff Willars in Lewisboro and learned that Dudley Franks was in critical but stable condition. Whatever that meant. Willars had said, “I’m not a happy camper, Bill, no sir,” and Corde knew there’d be some hefty reparation payments between the two counties.
    Gloom had settled on the New Lebanon Sheriff’s Department after the shooting. The manhunt that seemed so like a game several days ago had now turned rooty and mean. Gilchrist was both far crazier and far more savage than any of them had guessed and though those two adjectives were rarely if ever found in the vocabulary of modern law enforcement, Corde now felt the full pressure of their meaning.
    Gilchrist, Leon David, b. 1951, Cleary, New York. B.A. summa cum laude, M.A., Northwestern University; Ph.D. English literature, Harvard University; Ph.D. psychology, Harvard University. Assistant Professor and Fellow, Department of English, School of Arts & Sciences, Harvard University. Tenured Professor, Department of English, School of Arts & Sciences, Auden University. Lecturing Professor, Department of Special Education, School of Education, Auden University. Visiting Professor, Vanderbilt University, University of Naples, Le Sorbonne Université, College of William & Mary
.…
    There were two more full paragraphs.
    Corde finished his notes then closed the
Directory of Liberal Arts Professors
. It contained no picture of Gilchrist—the main purpose of his visit here. Neither did the three books written by Gilchrist in the library’s permanent collection. They were books without author photos, books without jackets, smart-person books. Corde jotted a note on a three-by-five card to call the sheriff in Cleary, New York, to see if there were any Gilchrists still in the area.
    He flipped quickly through the
Index to Periodicals
. He was about
to
close the book when his eye caught the title of an article. He walked to the Periodicals desk and requested the journal the article had been published in. The clerk vanished for a moment and returned with the bound volume of
Psyche: The Journal of Psychology and Literature
.
    Corde sat at his place again, read the first paragraph of “The Poet and the Violent Id” by Leon D. Gilchrist,Ph.D. He returned to the counter and borrowed a dictionary.
    He tried again.
    The poet, by which expansive term I am taking the liberty of referring to anyone who creates fictional modes with words, is himself a creation of the society in which he lives. Indeed, it is the obligation of the poet to deliquesce
…
    “Deliquesce.”
    Corde marked his place in the journal with his elbow and thumbed through the dictionary. The “levitate”/“licentious” page fell out. He stuffed it back between “repudiate”/“resident” and “residual”/“response.”
    “Deliquesce, v. To melt by absorbing moisture or humidity contained in the air.”
    Okay. Good.
    …
obligation of the poet to deliquesce so that he might permeate all aspects of society
.…
    “Permeate.”
    Corde lifted the dictionary again.
    For ten minutes he fought through the article, his sweaty hands leaving splendid fingerprints on the torn jacket of the dictionary, his stomach wound into a knot—not by what he learned about Gilchrist (which was hardly anything) but by the slippery obscurity of meaning. For the first time Corde truly understood his daughter’s predicament.
    He paused, saturated by frustration. He breathed slowly several times and resumed.
    …
does not the id of a pulp thriller writer encompass a lust to travel the countryside, strangling women
.…
    Words.…
    What did these words say about where Gilchrist was? What state he would flee to, what country? How he would try to escape? What kind of weapon he might use?
    Letters syllables words sentences.…
    What do they say about a beautiful young girl lying dead in a bed of hyacinths, swabbed with cold mud? What do they say about the man who closed his hands around her neck, felt her breasts shaking under his elbows, felt the slow, bloody give of her throat, felt the last shiver of her breath on his wrists