The Lesson of Her Death

on that deceased confirmed dead you sent to the morgue two days ago?”
    “An erroneous ID?” Neale growled. “Tell me about it, Officer.”
    “We had a tentative ID from personal effects and from some out-of-town deputy?”
    “Yes, that’s right. The DCDS was the perp in a four-eleven, two counts. Fellow was a real bad operator.”
    Tell me, dickhead, do you polish your medals every night?
“Yessir,” Golding said, “well, the prints the coroner sent down match a felon there’s a bench warrant out on. Eddie Scavello. Two counts armed, one burglary and ten receiving stolen. Rap sheet full of hot plastic.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “We’re talking ninety-eight percent.”
    There was silence. Neale said, “Okay, do me a favor, fax the EID to Harrison County and New Lebanon. Sheriffs’ Departments.”
    “They have a fax machine in New Lebanon?”
    “Officer,” Neale said, “Consolidated Law Enforcement Agency Guidelines require one in every town—”
    It was a joke
.
    “—over five thousand population.”
    “Oh, that’s right. I’m glad you reminded me. Whose attention?”
    “Wynton Kresge at County, William Corde in New Lebanon. That’s
Deputy
Kresge and
Detective
Corde. Write that down and don’t get them mixed up.”
    “No, sir. I wouldn’t.”
    “And attach a cover note—mark it urgent—and tell them it looks like their boy Gilchrist is still a loose cannon. My compliments on a job well done, Tech Officer.”
    “A pleasure to be of help, Detective.”
    Brian Okun celebrated the announcement that Auden University would stay open for another year in what hethought was an appropriate manner: he fucked a student on Leon Gilchrist’s desk.
    He had another cause for celebration as well. He would, subject to formal acceptance of his Ph.D. thesis this summer, be joining the faculty of the Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences, Auden University.
    Okun was now alone. The blond student—ironically, one who had sat next to Jennie Gebben in his seminar session—was gone and he sat naked to the waist in Gilchrist’s chair, spinning in slow circles. The blinds were down and since the AC was off (the school being officially closed for two weeks until summer school began) the office was hot as an Ozark swamp in August. Okun looked at spots of moisture on the desktop and wondered whether they were semen or sweat.
    Okun had been shocked at the news that Gilchrist was a killer. For a horrible moment he had wondered if the rumor he had started had gotten out of hand. But in reading the
Register
he had understood that Gilchrist and Jennie
had
had an affair. But killing her and Professor Sayles! Astonishing. Okun had suspected that Gilchrist was violent and probably was capable of murder but he had never thought that he
would
kill.
    And now the son of bitch was himself dead, shot down by police.… Okun searched his repertoire for a suitable maxim that might summarize the man. He could think of nothing.
    Slipping on his T-shirt, Okun stretched out again, gazing at the old prints, at the hundreds of books that he supposed would go into Gilchrist’s estate. An old volume of Freud that might be valuable. More recent books on psychoses and literature. Okun had no claim to them, even as Gilchrist’s academic successor, but he figured he could pilfer the choicest ones before the dean raided the office. Musing on these additions to his library, feeling warm and spent, smelling a May breeze and the redolence of sex, Okun closed his eyes.
    He was awakened sometime later by a slight stinging on his neck. At first he thought a bee or mosquitohad gotten him but as he reached up to the sting he found himself so weak that he could barely lift his hand above his chest.
    He looked down and saw that his shirt was soaked with blood. He cried out and forced his hands to his neck. He touched the loose flap of skin where his carotid artery had been severed. Okun tried to stand and fell immediately to the floor. He grabbed at the telephone cord and pulled it off the desk onto the floor beside him.
    “Ohgodhelp.…” The weakness of his voice terrified him.
    He pressed 9.
    The receiver slipped from his bloody hand. He managed to retrieve it.
    He pressed 1.
    He stared at the blurring number pad of the phone. He tried to touch the final digit but found his arm would not respond. He heard a hum and a click then a three-part ascending musical tone followed by a woman’s electronically-generated voice speaking