The Lesson of Her Death

water of the pond. The woods stretched away from him, endless acres encased in a piercing glare.
    Listen
…
    He cocked his head and pointed his ear at the stream of light.
    Footsteps!
    He gazed once again into the heart of the forest. He lifted his hand to his eyebrows to shade the sun yet still the light dazzled. It stung his eyes. He could see everything, and he could see nothing.
    Where?
    When he lowered his palm it came to rest on the grip of his service revolver.

    She ran most of the way.
    The route from New Lebanon Grade School to Blackfoot Pond was three miles along 302 (which she was forbidden to walk on) but only a half-hour through the forest, and that was the path she took.
    Sarah avoided the marshy areas, not because of any danger—she knew every trail through every forest around New Lebanon—but because she was afraid of getting mud on the shoes her father had polished the night before, shiny as a bird’s wings, and on her rose-print knee socks, a Christmas present from her grandmother. She stayed to the path that wound through oak trees and juniper and pine and beds of fern. Far off a bird called.
Ah-hoo-eeeee
. Sarah stopped to look for it. She was warm and took off her jacket, then rolled up the sleeves of her white blouse and unbuttoned the collar. She ran on.
    As she approached Blackfoot Pond she saw her father standing with Mr. Slocum at the far end of the water, two or three hundred feet away through the thickest part of the forest. Their heads were down. It looked as if they were searching for a lost ball. Sarah started toward them but as she stepped out from behind a maple tree she stopped. She had walked right into a shaft of sunlight so bright it blinded her. The light was magical—golden yellow and filled with dust and steam and dots of spring insects that glowed in the river of radiant light. But this was not what made her hesitate. In a thicket of plants beside the path she saw—she
thought
she saw—someone bending forward watching her father. With the light in her eyes she couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman, young or adult.
    Maybe it was just a bunch of leaves and branches.
    No. She saw movement. It
was
somebody.
    Her curiosity suddenly gave way to uneasiness and Sarah turned away, off the path, starting downhill to the pond where she could follow the shoreline to the dam.Her cautious eyes remained on the figure nearby and when she stepped forward her gleaming black shoe slipped on a folded newspaper hidden under a pile of dry leaves.
    A short scream burst from her mouth and she reached out in panic. Her tiny fingers found only strands of tall grass, which popped easily from the ground and followed her like streamers as she slid toward the water.
    Corde called to Slocum, “You hear anybody over that way?”
    “Thought I might have.” Slocum lifted off his Smokey the Bear hat and wiped his forehead. “Some footsteps or rustling.”
    “Anything now?”
    “Nope.”
    Corde waited four or five minutes then walked down to the base of the dam and asked, “You through?”
    “Yessiree,” Slocum said. “We head back now?”
    “I’ll be taking a Midwest puddle jumper over to St. Louis to talk with the girl’s father. Should be back by three or so. I want us all to meet about the case at four, four-thirty at the office. You stay here until the Crime Scene boys show up.”
    “You want me just to wait, not do anything?”
    “They’re due here now. Shouldn’t be long.”
    “But you know the county. Could be an hour.” Slocum’s way of protesting was to feed you bits of information like this.
    “We gotta keep it sealed, Jim.”
    “You want.” Slocum didn’t look pleased but Corde wasn’t going to leave a crime scene unattended, especially with a gaggle of reporters on hand.
    “I just don’t want to get into a situation where I’m sitting here all day.”
    “I don’t think it’ll—”
    A crackle of brush, footsteps coming toward them.
    The officers spun around to face the forest. Corde’s hand again fell to his revolver. Slocum dropped the tape, which hit the ground and rolled, leaving a long thick yellow tail behind it. He too reached for his pistol.
    The noise was louder. They couldn’t see the source but it was coming from the general direction of the rosebush that had held the clipping.
    “Daddy!”
    She ran breathlessly toward him, her hair awash in the air around her, beads of sweat on her dirty face. One of her knee socks had slipped almost to