The Lesson of Her Death

jumped. “Nothing, honey.”
    She dropped the glossy square Polaroid back into the envelope, which she shoved into her pocket. She called the Sheriff’s Department. She got the dispatcher. “Emma, it’s Diane Corde. Find him and tell him to get home. Tell him we’re okay but I need him and I need him now.”
    She hung up and started toward the front door to summon the deputy. She got only as far as the living room before she paused, leaned against the wall and surrendered to her tears.

B ill Corde crouched casually in front of Sarah. He measured his words then said, “Honey, I have to ask you something and you’ll tell me the as-you-love-me truth?”
    “Sure, Daddy.” The girl returned his gaze cautiously. “Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry.”
    “No, no, honey.” Corde’s heart cried as he looked into her penitent eyes. “I’m just curious to know something. Has anybody maybe taken your picture in the last couple days?”
    “My picture? No.”
    “Or maybe just asked if he could take your picture? Some stranger on the way home from school?”
    “No.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Did I do something wrong?” She seemed about to cry.
    “No, nothing. It’s okay. You didn’t do anythingwrong. I was just curious. You run get washed up for dinner.”
    Corde returned to Steve Ribbon and Tom, who were walking in slow paces around the fence behind Corde’s property. “Nothing, Bill,” Ribbon said. “Not a footstep.”
    “Dry grass. What do you expect?”
    The deputy said, “I was here all afternoon.” He was defensive. “I can’t be both at the front and the back at the same time.”
    “I’m not blaming you, Tom.”
    Ribbon shielded his eyes like a Plains warrior’s and gazed off into the forest. “Anybody live thataway?”
    Corde leaned on a cockeyed, termite-chewed fence post, squinting against the sunset light. “Five hundred acres of forest, mostly private. A few houses. Beyond that’s the river and the other way’s the preserve and the university and downtown beyond that. He could’ve come from anyplace. He could’ve parked on 302 by the bridge and walked. None of the neighbors saw anything.”
    Corde examined the photograph again, through the plastic bag in which it now rested. It was of a girl about Sarah’s age—the face wasn’t visible—lying in grass. Her skirt was pulled up to her waist and the V of white underwear filled the center of the shot.
    On the back was printed in red marker: YOU’RE WORKING TOO HARD, DETECTIVE
    “Hell.” He winced as if the message brought him physical pain. “I don’t think it’s her. She says nobody took her picture recently and I know she wouldn’t lie to me. But goddamn …”
    The deputy said, “We should get a handwriting analysis. The newspaper clipping at the pond and this.”
    “I’m sure they’re the same,” Corde said. “Even I can see the similarity.”
    “Nobody saw nothing? Your son?”
    “Nope. Nobody was here.”
    “Brother, I’m sorry about all this, Bill,” Ribbon offered.
    “You’re
sorry?” Corde muttered, walking inside.
    Diane was sitting on the couch, her hands together. Corde sat beside her and cradled her hands in his. “This could be just a prank, maybe it has nothing to do with the case.”
    “A prank? It was
our
daughter!” she whispered violently.
    “We don’t know that for sure. It could be anybody. She tells me nobody took her picture.”
    “She
tells
you? Oh, Bill, you know Sarah. Half the time she’s off in her own world.”
    “He’s trying to spook me is all. Look, if that
was
Sarah in the picture and he’d wanted to hurt her, why didn’t he?”
    She pressed her eyes closed. Wrinkles blossomed into her face and for a moment she seemed ten years older than she was.
    “If anybody’s at risk, it’s me,” Corde said.
    “That sure makes me feel damn better,” she shot back at him.
    “Honey, this fellow isn’t stupid. Murdering a law enforcement officer’s a capital crime.”
    “Does
he
know that?” she blurted.
    “Diane.”
    She stormed into the kitchen.
    There was nothing more to do. Corde went back outside to talk to Ribbon. Ten minutes later Diane poked her head out the door and told him in an ominous monotone that dinner was ready. Corde asked Steve Ribbon and the deputy if they wanted to stay but they couldn’t or more likely didn’t want to. They left. Corde walked into the dining room, then Jamie and Sarah joined their parents and the family sat down to