The Lesson of Her Death

that was before …” Kresge’s hand rose in a straight-arm salute then closed into a fist. He looked at Corde expectantly.
    “I’m sorry?”
    Kresge said, “You know, the knife. So now I figure it was a kid, maybe some punk.”
    “Uh-huh.” Corde nodded absently then said, “What knife?”
    “‘I come in peace.’” Kresge’s hand rose and closed again. “‘From a land that is here and yet not here.’”
    “Uh-huh. What are you talking about?”
    “Didn’t you see
The Lost Dimension?”
    Corde said he hadn’t.
    “The movie. It was at the Duplex a couple months ago.”
    “I don’t remember.” Corde was thinking of some film with creatures that had red eyes. “Oh, wait, was that the one with these snake things?”
    “Yeah. The Honons. They were battling the Naryans in the Lost Dimension.”
    “But what’s …” He lifted his hand and closed his fist.
    “It’s the Naryan salute.” Kresge snorted a baritone laugh. “Don’t you remember?”
    “Nup.”
    “You mean you guys don’t know? … About the knife? Back there in that bag.”
    The cult knife.
    “I saw it on the deputy’s desk.…” Kresge pointed.
    “That symbol on the knife? It’s from the
movie?”
    “You really didn’t know, did you?”
    Corde lifted his fingers to his eyes. “I don’t believe it!” He turned toward the department. “Hell, I gotta tell ’em.”
    But he stopped abruptly. Staring at the ancient Town Hall he sucked on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Wynton, you want to go for a ride?”
    “I guess. Can we go in the squad car?”
    “Sure. Only I can’t use the siren.”
    “That’s okay.”

T hey arrived at the toy store just as it was closing. Together the two large men strode to the door. Kresge stood awkwardly with his hands on his hips while Corde knocked. After a moment the owner appeared.
    “Can you open up, Owen? Important.”
    “I’m closed, Bill. It’s suppertime.”
    “Open her up. We gotta talk to you. Business.”
    “Couldn’t you call me—”
    “Official, Owen.”
    The heavyset, mustachioed man in a plaid shirt and blue jeans opened the door. The store was dim. Costumes and helmets and monster masks lining the wall made the place seem as eerie as a wax museum at night. Some toy at the far end of the store gave off red dots ofOwen. He stared at thirty stilettos just like the one found under Jennie Gebben.
    “What are these?”
    “What do you think they are?” As if Corde had asked who was George Washington.
    “Owen.”
    He said, “They’re Naryan Lost Dimension survival knives.”
    “What’s that symbol?”
    Owen sighed. “That’s the insignia of the Naryan Empire.” He extended his hand the way Kresge had done. “‘I come in peace, from—’”
    Corde said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. The movie company makes ’em?”
    “They license somebody in China or Korea to make them. They sell all kinds of things. Helmets, xaser guns, Dimensional cloaks, scarves … All that stuff in the movie.”
    Kresge said, “He doesn’t remember the movie.”
    “He doesn’t?” Owen asked. “Like Ninja Turtles a few years ago. T-shirts. Toys. Tie-ins they’re called.”
    “How many of these knives you sold?”
    “They’re a best-seller.”
    Corde glanced at Kresge and said, “I somehow figured they might be. How many?”
    Owen said, “That’s I think my third merch rack. Why?”
    “Has to do with an investigation.”
    “Oh.”
    Corde pulled out a pen and handed it and a stack of blank three-by-five cards to Owen. He asked, “Could you give me the names of everybody you’ve sold one of those knives to?”
    “You’re kidding.” Owen laughed, then looked at Kresge. “He’s kidding.”
    Kresge said, “No, I don’t think he’s kidding.”
    Owen’s smile faded. “Practically every kid in New Lebanon bought one. It’d take me an hour to remember half of them.”
    “Then you better get started.”
    “Aw, Bill. It’s suppertime.”
    “The sooner you write the sooner you eat, Owen.”
    Bill Corde parked the squad car in the lot next to the five-foot-high logo of the Fredericksberg
Register
—the name in the elaborate hundred-year-old typeface as it appeared on the paper’s masthead. He and Wynton Kresge got out of the car and walked into the advertising office. The girl behind the counter snapped her gum once and hid it somewhere in her mouth. “Hi, gentlemen. Help you?”
    Corde said, “Last week I called about running an ad as part of an investigation