The Lesson of Her Death

nearby the Student Union and he asked me if I’d minddropping this off and I said I’d be happy to.” He stopped abruptly, looking pleased he’d given the explanation so smooth. On the outside was stamped:
Forensic Lab Interoffice Use Only—Fredericksberg
. Kresge asked him, “They have a division in the state that looks for clues?”
    “This’s the county lab. Jim Slocum was in the office? He’s supposed to be checking out the roads and the mall,” Corde snapped.
    Kresge asked, “You want me to check out anything at the mall? I’d be happy to.”
    “No.” Corde was miffed. He walked out of Room 121 to a phone booth disfigured with innocuous messages. Kresge remained in the activity room for a moment looking awkwardly at the blackboard. Then he left, walking past Corde and waving good-bye. Corde, the phone crooked under his neck, nodded and watched his broad trapezoidal back disappear down the corridor. A deputy in the office said that Slocum wasn’t there. Did Corde want him to call in? Corde answered, “No,” and hung up angrily. He returned to the room and looked inside the envelope Kresge had brought.
    “Oh, no.”
    Miller looked at him.
    “We missed ourselves a knife.”
    “At the crime scene?”
    “Yup.” Corde was looking at a bad photocopy. The technician had merely laid the weapon on the copier platen. The edges were out of focus and the background was smudged black. It was a short folding stiletto with a dark handle and a thin blade, which looked about four inches long—two shorter than the state limit for concealed weapons. There was a design on the handle—an insignia of some kind—in the shape of crossed lightning bolts. It looked vaguely like a Nazi insignia, Corde thought.
    He read the brief report from the Harrison County Crime Scene Division. The knife had been found in the flowers beneath where Jennie Gebben had lain, the blade closed. It had not been used on her—there were notraces of blood or tissue on the blade—though it might have been used to cut the rope the killer strangled her with.
    Steve Ribbon had added a handwritten note.
Bill
—
Offering? Sacrifice? More evidence of Cult action. You should follow up
.
    “Stupid of us, Lance. Damn stupid, missing something like this. And I went over the site twice. Slocum and I both.” Corde’s skin felt hot from this lapse. He pulled another report from the envelope—about the newspaper clipping and its threatening message. There had been no fingerprints. The red ink, in which were found several marker fibers, was from a Flair pen, sold in millions of stores around the country.
    On the Analysis Request form he had filled out to accompany the threat Corde had asked,
What was used to cut the clipping out of the paper?
    A technician had replied,
Something sharp
.
    Finally the envelope contained the warrant permitting them to search Jennie’s half of the dorm room. He handed it to Miller and told him to get over there with a crime scene unit. As he did so he happened to glance at Miller’s notes and he realized he should have been paying more attention to what the young deputy was doing. “You wrote down the score of the homecoming game she went to.”
    “Shouldn’t I’ve?”
    “No.”
    “Oh. I thought you wanted specifics.”
    Corde said, “And you’re supposed to be asking the girls in her dorm when Jennie had her period.”
    “You can’t go asking somebody that.”
    “Ask.”
    Miller turned fire red. “Can’t we look it up somewhere?”
    “Ask,” Corde barked.
    “Okay, okay.”
    Corde read one of Miller’s notes:
Roommate and JGjust before dinner on Tuesday night. They had discussion
—
“Serious” (Fight?) Couldn’t tell what was said. JG unhappy as she left. Roommate: Emily Rossiter
.
    Corde tapped it. “That’s interesting. I want to talk to Emily. Get over there now and have her come in.”

B ill Corde was irritated at the fluorescent tube that flickered frantically above his head and he was exhausted from sifting for hours through the goofy and theatrical attitudes of young people on their own for the first time. He was thinking of closing up for the day and returning to the office when a young man appeared at the door. He was in his mid-twenties. A squat mass of black crinkly hair was tied in a ponytail. His face was very narrow and he had high ridges of cheekbones, under which was a dark beard. He wore blue jeans and a black T-shirt. “You Detective Corde?”
    “That’s me. Come on