The Lesson of Her Death

then slipped his hands into his pockets and studied Corde as if the detective were a bug padding his last circle on thecyanide disk in a kill jar. Then he asked, “How’s your son, Detective?”
    An uncertain flicker was in Corde’s eyes as they scanned the face of Leon Gilchrist.
    “Still enjoy bicycling, does he? Despite the dangers.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “And he went for a swim, I heard. The music these young people listen to.…”
    He’s trying to get my goat. Calm, stay calm
.
    “Suicide by drowning. That was uniquely his. The song, I believe, mentions razors and ropes.… An alliteration suitable for adolescent lyrics.”
    “What did you have to do with that?” Corde’s grip on the gun tightened and he was beset by a frightening sense that he was losing control of himself. In his ears he heard a humming of immense pressure. He swung the muzzle toward the professor’s face, which tightened microscopically but remained otherwise passive. The barrel stopped short of striking skin. “I could kill you—”
    Gilchrist said slowly, “I don’t imagine you know the writing of Paul Verlaine. The French symbolist poet? No, of course not. I find his poems stunning but I also believe he suffered from the same problem as you do. Stoic on the outside, raging within. He tried to murder his close friend Rimbaud in a fit of passion. He ended up a worthless drunk. But if not for his psychoses the world wouldn’t have his astonishing work. The element of compensation is miraculous—compensation, which your little Sarah displays so well.”
    Corde’s breathing was fierce. He felt himself hyperventilating. He grabbed Gilchrist’s collar and pressed the gun muzzle against his ear.
    “Ah,” Gilchrist said in a silky voice, “remember her. Remember Sarah. Our conversation mustn’t become so obfuscated by passion that we forget that only I know where she is.
Obfuscated
. Can you deduce what that means, Detective? Can you?”
    Corde shoved Gilchrist away and stepped back. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He felt that
he
was the cornered animal and that it was Gilchrist who was playing him.
    “Detective, you continually misunderstand whom you’re dealing with. I’m not a thug barricaded in a convenience shop. Your concept of intelligence is that it gets you to the bottom row of a category in
Jeopardy!
I’m different in
kind
from people like Jennie Gebben and you and your son and your Sarah and your beautiful Diane.
    “I’ve been studying you and your family since the morning after Jennie died. I saw your daughter at the pond after I’d left my first note to you. Her beautiful hair. The sun was so pretty on her tight, white blouse. Last year’s fashions? … Had to put off the spring shopping spree at Sears, did we? You know, I’ve been corresponding with Sarah ever since then. Why the shock, Detective? You would have figured it out eventually. See, that’s the very problem that concerned me. You’re not intelligent but you’re dogged—unlike the rest of your colleagues, who are neither intelligent nor persistent.
    “Undoubtedly we could put you on the couch and wrench up some reason for this chronic tenacity. You fell asleep at the wheel once or twice when it mattered, didn’t you? When was it? Not too formative, I’d guess. Your teenage years? Maybe later. Whatever happened, you’ll be paying it off for a long time. I was sure you’d plod along until you stumbled across me.
    “Sarah was the perfect distraction. At first I convinced her to run away. When that didn’t work I decided I’d infiltrate, throw you off the track. The town wanted a Moon Killer so I skinned a goat and gave them one. ‘Lunatic.’ And I did some painting around town with a bit of the leftover blood.
Mezza luna
.… Oh, I’ll bet my frescoes had your boss salivating. But not you, Detective. You kept plodding, ever the pedestrian, getting closer and closer. I needed a more direct attack. I tried threatening you off the case.”
    He pointed to a Polaroid camera. “I’m quite somephotog, don’t you think? Oh, an aside: I detected that your wife’s contraceptive had not been much used of late. Are we in the middle of the sixteen-year itch? Have you noticed any change in her recently? Her pathetically polished fingernails? Her sudden interest in eye shadow? Did you know she and Breck have been for several walks in the forest?”
    The professor smiled and lifted his hands like a TV