The Lesson of Her Death

sentences together,” and walked back to the house along a narrow patch stained red and purple by droppings from a row of mulberry trees.
    Where T.T. Ebbans wanted to be: standing in the exact position of the man he was talking to, the man leaning on the bent branch beside the muddy Des Plaines and connected to a hook sunk in murky water by twenty feetof fishing line via a Sears rod and reel. The man in the red hat.
    “Those’re some flies,” Ebbans said, nodding at the hat.
    “Yessir.”
    Ebbans leaned over and looked into the Rubbermaid bucket where three pale catfish floated motionless. “A fly fisherman doesn’t get bored feeding stinkballs to suckers?”
    “I don’t fly. S’only the hat. Was a present from the wife.” A moment later he added, “I got a license. Only I left her at home.”
    “Uh-huh,” Ebbans said. “You by any chance fishing on Tuesday evening down at Blackfoot Pond?”
    “This
is
my evening.”
    “How’s that?” Ebbans asked.
    “I work owl at the container plant. Get off at seven in the A.M. Go to bed. Eat Fish. Go to work. That’s my life. Your evening’s my day.”
    “Some fella there saw someone fits your description.”
    He grunted.
    Ebbans said, “We had a girl killed over there on Tuesday.”
    “That was there? Shitabrick. I didn’t know. Yeah, I was there on Tuesday.”
    “When did you leave?”
    “Must’ve been nine-thirty or ten. Got off to a late start because of the storm.”
    “You see anybody else?”
    “When I was leaving I seen two kids come up. They had tackle but they weren’t fishing. I figured they maybe had a Delco or a hand-crank and were just going to jolt up some worms.”
    “They were kids?”
    “Looked to be teenagers.”
    “You know them?”
    “Didn’t see ’em up close. They were down at the foot of the dam, walking up to the pond. One of themwas fat so they were going slow. The fat one was wearing something dark. The other one was thin and was wearing a jacket may’ve been gray.”
    “How old?”
    “High school. I dunno.”
    “Both white?” Ebbans asked.
    “What else ’round here?”
    “I’d like to have a talk with those boys or one of them. You see them I’d appreciate your letting us know.”
    “You bet.”
    “You do that I’ll forget to tell Fish and Game about the license you left at home.”
    “I’ve been meaning to get me one,” he said. “You know how it is. One thing after another.”
    The First Methodist Church of New Lebanon announced today that Sunday school classes will be canceled until further notice following the vandalism of the school by the man authorities are calling the “Moon Killer.”
    “Authorities” are calling?
    A painting of a half-moon in blood was found on the door of the first-floor girls’ room in the Sunday school building, located at 223 Maple Street, adjacent to the church
.
    The blood matched that from a goat whose carcass was found several days ago in the New Lebanon Grade School
.
    How do they know that? I didn’t know that.
    Attendance at the town’s schools has fallen dramatically since the Moon Killer began stalking the streets of New Lebanon
.…
    “Stalking” the streets?
    Tonight will be the first full moon since the murder of the Auden co-ed
.…
    Jennie. Her name is Jennie Gebben.
    …
and residents are urged to stay home from sunset to sunrise
.…
    Bill Corde, sitting in Room 121 of the Auden Student Union, stared at that morning’s
Register
for five minutes before pitching it out. He opened an envelope he had picked up at the office on the way over here. It contained a report from the county lab about the match between the carcass blood and the graffiti blood.
    How did they know? I didn’t
.
    A man appeared in the doorway. Corde looked up at him.
    “Excuse me. I’m Professor Sayles. You wanted to see me?”
    “Come on in. Sit down.” Corde shoved aside the lab report and motioned with his palm toward the chair across from his miniature desk.
    Sayles sat, folding his long legs slowly. He scooted the seat back. “This has to do with the Jennifer Gebben murder?”
    Corde asked, “She was in your class?”
    “Yes, she was.” Sayles looked at his watch. A wrinkled, frayed shirt cuff appeared outside his blue blazer and stayed there. “And she worked part-time for me. In the Financial Aid Department.”
    “Did you know her well?”
    “I try to know all my students.”
    “But you knew her better than the others,” Corde said.
    “The class she