The Lesson of Her Death

you want.”
    “Naw.” Watkins studied the photocopy of the knife. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Did he cut her?”
    “No. Strangled.”
    Watkins said, “I don’t know what this insignia is. You have any idea?”
    “They look sort of German. Like the Nazis, you know.”
    “It’s not a swastika.”
    “No,” Slocum said, “I don’t mean that. I saw this TV movie. The Gestapo had these insignias—”
    “Not the Gestapo. The SS. The
Schutzstaffel.”
    “That’s it, yeah. Lightning bolts.”
    “Only those were parallel. These are crossed.” Watkins waved the sheet. “Knife have any manufacturer?”
    “No. Just ‘Korea’ stamped into the end.”
    “The hasp,” Watkins said. “When the guy raped her, how much come was there?”
    Slocum sought the answer in the ceiling of the office. He thought that Watkins asked this too eagerly and hewondered if Watkins, who wore no wedding ring, was gay. “The ME estimated three ounces.”
    “Uh-huh,” Watkins said. He linked his fingers and cradled the back of his head. He asked Slocum dozens of questions: whether restraints were used, if the killer found the victim or kidnapped her, if there was evidence of alcohol, how Jennie’s body had been arranged in the flowers, whether foreign objects had been inserted into her anus or vagina, how attractive she was, if there were lip marks or other evidence that the killer had drunk her blood or urine.
    “That’s pretty damn gross,” Slocum said, offended at the question.
    “Any fingerprints?”
    “On the knife, yeah. Then a mess of ’em other places too. I’m having somebody check those against known sex offenders’.”
    “That’s a good place to start.”
    “I’m making damn sure this situation isn’t gonna happen again,” Slocum said with relentless sincerity.
    “Are you now?” The state detective seemed amused. He scratched at the photocopy then gazed absently at the black toner that came off on his thumb. Watkins interrupted Slocum’s account of the goat found in the grade school by saying, “Tell me about number two.”
    “Only one goat I heard about.”
    “The other
victim?”
    “We’ve got no other victim. Just the Gebben girl.”
    “When you called,” Watkins said, examining a slip of paper, “you said
killings.”
    “Did I? There’s only one now. But we’re worried that we’ll have a repeat in the next week. With the full moon, you know.”
    “Steve Ribbon’s your sheriff, right?”
    “Yep, sure is.”
    “And Hammerback Ellison, he’s Harrison County sheriff? They’re both up for reelection next fall.”
    The dividing line between what he should say andwhat he shouldn’t had always been blurry for Jim Slocum. “Yep. I believe so. I’m not sure they’re running.”
    Watkins wiped a wave of sweat off his forehead. That was the smell, Slocum recognized. Sweat. Not onions. Watkins grinned. “Lotta folk say Steven Ribbon’s bubble’s a little off-plumb.”
    Slocum’s eyes weaseled away from Watkins’s and he studied the spine of
Modern Sociopathology
. “I don’t know about that.”
    “Naw, I suppose you wouldn’t.” Watkins smiled like he’d hit a hole in one. “Well, you, want to make this more’n what it is—”
    “Hey—”
    “That’s your all’s business.” Then the smile left his face and he said, “With only one killing and on these facts it’s way too early to know what you’ve got. You need more information.”
    “Can’t you give us some idea, going on the assumption it’s a cult?”
    “I can give you the textbook profile for a classic cult killer if you want. But don’t take it to the bank. I’ve got no idea whether it applies or not.”
    “I understand that. Sure.”
    “That said, you want me to go ahead?”
    “Shoot.” Slocum straightened up and flipped his notebook open. As he did so he glanced at the skull and had a passing thought.
Where could a man get himself one of those?
    “Dogit,” Amos Trout said. “Why’d it have to happen just now?”
    “Always the way. You oughta—”
    “Can’t afford a new one. You gotta patch her.” Trout stood with the mechanic in the left bay of the Oakwood Mall’s Car-Care Center, looking down at the tub of water so grimy it might have come from Higgins Creek downstream of the old paper mill. In the tub wasa Goodyear tire and out of its side was escaping a steady stream of greasy bubbles.
    Trout, forty-four, was wearing dark slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt. He had thinning hair, cut short