The Lesson of Her Death

as month-old rhubarb but still he liked to sit with his knee pressed accidentally on purpose up against her thigh while she asked her reporter’s ever-serious questions. Now he maneuvered her into a dark corner booth of the mall’s only full-fledged restaurant, T.K. Hoolihan’s.
    “You’re on duty?” she asked.
    “I’m undercover. I can drink.”
    “You’re wearing a uniform. How can you be undercover?”
    “Well, I’m wearing Jockey shorts. No, that’s under-
wear
not undercover.” He laughed to show it was a joke. Addie smiled with flirtatious contempt. They ordered neat scotches and he paid.
    “Thank’y.” She lit a cigarette, inhaled and shot out a stream of smoke at the plastic Tiffany lampshade decorated with robins. “So, you got any leads yet?”
    “I told you—”
    “Is there a connection with the Susan Biagotti killing?”
    “Bill wouldn’t want me talking on that.”
    “I’m sure he wouldn’t. But I can’t ask only questions people want me to ask. The Biagotti killing never got solved. Here Steve Ribbon’s revving up for reelection and he flubbed that case bad. Now there’s a second girl dead.”
    “Addie.”
    She said, “You don’t know how persistent I am. Tellme
something
. Anything. I promise your name won’t appear anywhere in the story.”
    Slocum sighed.
    Addie leaned forward, strategically, and whispered, “Cross my heart.”
    The warmth she denied the parents she spent on the children.
    Diane Corde could at least say that for the woman.
    “Hello, Sarah,” the woman said ebulliently. “I’m Dr. Parker. How are you today?”
    In the silence that followed, the three of them standing in the veterinarian waiting room, Diane said, “Honey, you know how to answer.”
    “I’m not going to take the spelling test,” Sarah said in a dour, snappy voice. “And I’m not going back to school.”
    “Well, now Sarah,” the doctor said cheerfully, “we’ve got some other things to talk about. Let’s not think about your spelling test today, all right?”
    “Sarah,” Diane barked, “I won’t have you behaving this way.”
    Dr. Parker didn’t intrude between mother and daughter; she simply kept the smile and extended her hand. Sarah shook it abruptly then stood back, looking, Diane thought sadly, like the little brat she’d become.
    “Come on inside,” the doctor said. “I’ve got some things I’d like to show you.” She motioned the girl into her office. Diane looked through the door and noticed a number of dark green boxes on her desk. The letters
WISC-R
were stamped into them.
    She then glanced at Dr. Parker to appraise today’s fashion choice. A close-fitting red silk dress. With
dark
stockings. In New Lebanon! Didn’t some famous gangster’s moll wear a red dress when she turned him in?
    Diane stepped forward after Sarah. But Dr. Parkershook her head and nodded to the couch in the waiting room. “Just Sarah and me today.”
    “Oh. Sure.”
    Diane, feeling chastised, retreated to the couch and watched the receptionist open a pack of Trident and slip a piece into her mouth. The woman noticed Diane staring at her and held up the package.
    “I don’t chew gum, thank you.”
    As the doctor’s door closed Diane caught a glimpse of her daughter’s face staring fearfully down at the boxes. The door latch clicked. Diane sighed and aimlessly picked through a basket of wilted magazines. She lifted one to her lap with substantial effort and turned the pages.
    A few minutes later Diane closed the unread magazine and slumped on this rec room couch, awash with defeat.
    Defeated by her husband, in whose presence Sarah relaxed and laughed—her husband who could speak Sarah’s flawed, tricky language while Diane could not.
    Defeated by Sarah herself with her wily tactics of tears and panic.
    By this harlot of a shrink, who was taking their scarce money so eagerly.
    And by her own guilt.
    Diane Corde gazes with unseeing eyes at a glossy magazine peppered with giddy photos of models while her legs shake with the terrible anguish of retribution. Diane Corde, fairly good Methodist, has been taught to believe in divine justice, taught to believe that revenge is fair and cleansing. But it is not. Because the person who is paying the exacted price for the sins is not the mother who committed them but the daughter.
    Did you drink while you were pregnant?
    No. Of course not
.
    What a question! No one drank when they were pregnant. No one took sleeping pills. No one