The Lesson of Her Death

mounted trout.”
    As he walked out of the vending room Bill Corde stepped right into the broad form of Wynton Kresge. “Oh, sorry,” Corde said pleasantly, and smiled before he remembered he was mad at the security chief.
    Kresge blinked and started to smile before he recalled
he
too was mad. He ignored Corde and turned back to where he’d been, standing in Jim Slocum’s doorway, holding a book open and pointing to a passage.
    “Yessir, Chief,” Slocum was saying to Kresge. “We’ve pretty much got it under control. But I appreciate your concern.”
    “What I’m saying is, you ought to read this.…” Kresge sounded like he was arguing with a belligerent waitress.
    Slocum said formally, “We’ve got ourselves a pretty demanding situation, Chief, as you can well imagine.…”
    Corde left the office. He got into his squad car and started the engine. Wynton Kresge came out and walked toward his Olds, which was parked two empty spaces from Corde’s cruiser. Kresge’s was nice-looking, new. Everybody seemed to have a new car but Corde. Kresge flung the book into the front seat then opened the door. He got in and started the engine. The two men sat twenty feet apart in their cars, staring straight ahead as their engines idled.
    A very strained Bill Corde shut off the engine,paused a moment then walked over to Kresge. “Talk to you?”
    Kresge shut off his engine and got out. He stood up, taller than Corde, many pounds heavier. Corde said, “About last week … What I want to say is I’m sorry. At first I didn’t think you were right and I’ll tell you it didn’t have anything to do with you being who you are or anything like that but maybe I was the way you said and if I was I apologize.”
    There was a moment of fierce silence and Corde couldn’t think of anything to do but stick out his hand. Kresge looked down and seemed boxed into a corner. He took the hand and shook it firmly then released it. “I’m bad-tempered sometimes.”
    “I get kind of caught up in these cases. They can be frustrating.”
    “I understand that.” He nodded with a grimace toward the Sheriff’s Department.
    “What were you doing there?”
    Kresge fished the book out of the front seat. “Finished this today. I’m not saying I’m an expert but I think you’re looking for the wrong guy.”
    Corde looked at the spine.
Psychotic Functioning Individuals: Volume Three. Criminal Behavior
.
    “Listen up.” Kresge opened the book, found an underlined paragraph, and read: “‘In a study of psychopathic and sociopathic (here used synonymously) homicides in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland conducted from 1956 through 1971, we (Irvine & Harrington 1972) concluded that the number of homicides that are in fact astrologically or astronomically driven are exceedingly rare. Of the eighty-nine psychopathic murderers convicted of their crimes, only one was in fact motivated to commit murder on the night of the full moon. In extensive interviews and examinations of records in the man’s hometown of Manchester, it was learned that he had been killing animals and human victims indiscriminately, as often as five times a year for the past fifteen years, always on the night of the full moon.He had no sexual contact with his victims and indeed found such thoughts abhorrent. On the other hand, Scotland Yard reported that for the years 1961 through the present, the only years for which such data are available, as many as ten murders per year are committed on the nights of full moons, under the guise of psychopathic episodes when the criminal’s true motives for the killing are revenge, robbery, rape and organized-crime expediency.’”
    “You just read them that?” Corde nodded toward the office.
    “Tried. They weren’t interested.”
    “You mind if I borrow it? Make a copy of some of it? It’s kind of a jawful and I’d like to read it slow.”
    “It’ll be overdue day after tomorrow.”
    “I’ll do it myself. Tonight.” After a moment Corde asked, “If you don’t think it’s a psycho, who would you be looking for?”
    “Nobody’s been much interested in my opinion.”
    “Tell me. Just for the hell of it.”
    Kresge said, “At first I was pretty sure it was the girl’s lover. A professor or a student. You should see all of what goes on here on campus. Young people on their own. Doing whatever they want. Fair game for the professors—men
and
women, I ought to tell you. So that was my original thought. But