The Lesson of Her Death

Maybe something about that movie he liked.”
    “Come on, Dr. Breck!”
    Diane said to them both, “Don’t be late,” and stepped back into the tilled dirt of her garden.
    When he noticed Tom—the young deputy who had guarded his house—walking toward him, Corde was crouched down, jamming stacks of papers from the Gebben case into file cabinets in the small storeroom off the Sheriff’s Department. He paused, a file halfway sunk into a clogged drawer. He froze as he watched the grave face of the approaching deputy.
    Jamie!
    He knew without a doubt that the hospital had just called and that his son had died. When Corde had last seen him the boy was frighteningly disoriented. His eyes wouldn’t stay on his father’s face and he blacked out twice.
    Propelled by fear Corde rose fast, his knee a resounding gunshot. “What is it?” he demanded. The desperation in his voice stopped the deputy short.
    Tom told him, “There’s a problem on your case, Bill.”
    Case?
    Corde was confused. He wasn’t, working on any cases at the moment. The only case he could have meant was the Gebben case. But it was closed. Corde knew this because he had written that word in careful block printing in the “Status” box on form FI-113, which was this very moment sitting in Sheriff Jim Slocum’s in basket.
    Corde was wrong.
    Tom said, “We just got a fax. An erroneous identification notice from Fitzberg. The man Wynton Kresge shot wasn’t Gilchrist. It was some guy with a rap sheet full of GL arrests, mostly credit card dealing. Prints confirmed it.”
    “Oh, no.” Corde closed his eyes as he leaned against the doorjamb. “Did you tell Wynton?”
    “Yessir. And Emma says a call just came in. A grad student was found in Gilchrist’s old office a few minutes ago. Murdered, looks like.”
    “Okun? Was that the name?”
    “Matter of fact, that’s it.”
    Corde’s grim-set mouth didn’t come close to the despair he felt. And fear too. Gilchrist had returned to New Lebanon. And Corde knew why.
    “Okay, Tom, get over to my house
now
and keep an eye on Diane and Sarah. I think Gilchrist is after them. And get somebody over to the hospital to stay with Jamie.”
    “Will do.”
    As he hurried back to the squad room Emma shouted from the dispatcher office, “Detective Corde? It’s Wynton Kresge on the phone for you. He’s over at the university.”
    Corde sent Tom on his way then trotted to his office and snatched up the phone. “Wynton, what’ve we got?”
    “Killed just like Sayles, Bill.” Kresge sounded despondent. “Cut throat. Razor. Witness says a car stopped outside the building, man matching Gilchrist’s description got out and went inside for three, four minutes then left, got into the car and drove off. Late-model green sedan, no tag, no make. About forty minutes ago.”
    “Any idea where he headed?”
    “Just toward the campus exit. They didn’t see after that.”
    There was a lengthy pause, both men lost in their own vital thoughts. Kresge finally said, “Looks like I got the wrong man, huh, Bill?”

    Corde’s squad car moves at seventy, lights whipping around, siren grating. The driving is fast but, in this big taut American cruiser, oddly placid. He is on the outskirts of town, passing small stores and buildings. He sees a vet’s office.
Dog 8 Cat Hospital
, the numeral substituting for an ampersand stolen long ago. A long white structure,
TRIBUTION CENT R
, burnt out letters never replaced. He blazes through the town’s last stoplight, then the land opens up, there is no traffic and Corde is free to have a discussion with himself. This makes him extremely agitated.
    Think, goddamn it. Think.
    Leon Gilchrist, who sees by the light of pure brilliance, the Prince of Auden University. Come on, think of something clever, think of something unlikely, think of something he would think of.
    Think!
    His hands sweat and he feels ill.
    I
can’t
think!
    The newspaper clipping, the scrawled threat.
    IT COULD HAPPEN TO THEM .
    Corde zooms past Andy Dexter’s harvester listing half off the highway as it bobs along at ten miles per hour. The cruiser’s slipstream rattles the blades as it passes.
    I can’t think the way he does.… He’s too smart for me.…
    Corde sees the Polaroid of Sarah and Jamie, looking safe and silly as actors in a commercial. He sees Gilchrist’s handwriting:
    SAY GOOD-BYE, DETECTIVE
    Corde crests the road by Sutter’s farm and is blinded by a sheet of stunning sun. The