Jeffery Deaver - The Lesson of Her Death

"Sarah is not crazy," Diane said icily.

"Absolutely not," the doctor said emphatically. "A developmental disability is a common and treatable problem. In our days it translated as stupid or lazy or recalcitrant. Professionals don't think of it that way anymore. But a lot of people do."

Diane felt the sting of criticism coming from the doctor's placid face. She said abruptly, "Why, how can you say that? You should see all the work Bill does with her. And every day I march her downstairs and make her do her homework. Sometimes I spend an hour before breakfast with her."

The doctor said in a soothing voice, "I'm sure it's been very difficult for you and your husband. But if s important to put aside our thoughts that she's lazy or stupid or just ornery."

"It was very hard to come here in the first place," Diane blurted angrily. "I just want you to tell her to buckle down, to -"

Dr. Parker smiled. "I know this is difficult for you, Mrs. Corde. You'd like a quick fix for your daughter's troubles. But I don't think we're going to find one. If she has a developmental problem, as I think she does, then the treatment requires the parents to expect less from the child, not more. We want to reduce the stress and pressure on her."

"But that's just what she wants."

Dr. Parker lifted her hands and although she was smiling Diane believed the gesture meant the doctor had won this round. She boiled at this woman, who was making the meeting into a contest over her daughter's fate. She didn't grow any calmer when the doctor said, "First, I'll do a series of tests to determine exactly what the problems are."

Oh, I can psyche you out, honey. The dollar signs are looming.

"Then I'll have her come in for regular sessions and we'll treat her – probably in conjunction with learning specialists."

"Well," Diane said coldly, still stupefied by what she saw was a dressing-down.

Dr. Parker asked, "Shall we schedule an appointment?"

Diane summoned sufficient etiquette to say politely, "I think I should talk it over with Bill."

She stood up and watched the pink-suited bitch also rise, smile warmly and extend her hand, saying, "I look forward to hearing from you. It's been a pleasure."

For you maybe. Unsmiling, Diane shook the doctor's hand, then walked out the door.

Outside the office, in the parking lot, she tore the doctor's card in four pieces and smiled them into the breeze.

Corde and T.T. Ebbans stood over a desk in the main room of the Sheriffs Department, poring over the computer printout that Ebbans had ordered from the county data base. It was headed: Known Sex Offenders, Convicted, By Offense.

In the past three years the district attorney had prosecuted or pled out eleven rapists, four aggravated sexual assaulters, three child molesters, three exhibitionists ("Hell, flashers, you mean…"), a couple of peepers, and three excessively embarrassed residents whose offenses involved livestock.

"We got ourselves a relatively unperverse community," Ebbans commented, noting that these numbers – except for the sheep – were considerably lower than the state average per thousand residents.

Corde and Ebbans had just learned that every one of the rapists and the assaulters was accounted for. Ebbans said he'd do an informal check of the exhibitionists and peepers. He was not enthusiastic about the prospect.

"It'll be a waste, I know," Corde said. "But we gotta do it."

Ribbon had come up and was tugging at an earlobe as he looked over the list and chuckled. Lance Miller walked into the office, just returned from the dorm. Corde noticed that he was vastly uncomfortable.

"Whatcha got, Lance?"

The young man plunked his hat onto a rack beside the door and buffed his crewcut with his pink fingers. He walked to the cluster of senior officers. His eyes fished around the office. "Well, Bill, I went over there to that McReynolds place, the dorm, with the Crime Scene fellows. Like you asked."

Corde motioned impatiently with his hand. "She coming in to be interviewed? Emily?"

"Well, I just talked to her for a minute. She's real pretty."

"Who's that?" Ribbon asked.

Corde said, "Jennie's roommate."

"She was damn upset," Miller continued. "She said it seems somebody broke into the dorm and stole all of Jennie's letters. She -"

Well, well, well…" the sheriff said. That's interesting."

"She went to a memorial service they had for Jennie over at one of the churches yesterday and left the door unlocked. When she got back somebody'd stolen this folder with all Jennie's letters and important papers."

Corde was nodding.

"I asked around but almost everybody was at the service and nobody had any leads on the break-in."

"Members of the cult maybe," Ribbon offered, looking eyebrows-up at Corde.

Miller said, "There's something else too." His eyes had fallen to the desk and had focused on the phrase that said in green computer type, Incidents of forcible sodomy to date.

"Emily gave me a few things that this guy hadn't stolen."

"Good," said Corde.

"One of them was a calendar from last year." Miller cleared his throat.

"And?" Ribbon said.

"A pocket calendar thing? It was in Emily's desk and that's why it wasn't stolen."

"What about it, Lance?" Corde was growing impatient.

Miller seemed relieved that he could now rely on visual aids. He flipped the battered gray booklet open to the prior year, January. Written in the square for a Saturday night toward the end of the month were the words: Bill Corde. Nine p.m. My place.

"I interviewed her."

"Part of a case?"

"The Biagotti case," Corde said. His eyes were on the rumpled page of Jennie's calendar for the last week in January. On Thursday she had to pick up her dry cleaning. On Friday she was going to the drugstore for shampoo, Tampax and Sudafed.

On Saturday she'd seen Bill Corde. Nine p.m. Her place.

Neither Ebbans, with his affection for Corde, nor Miller, with his inexperience on the job, wanted any part of this.

Ribbon's eyes looked into Corde's, which were two uneasy pools of green.

The sheriff squinted memories back into his thoughts and said, "That was after you got back from the task force, sure. It would've been around the end of January." He seemed measurelessly relieved at this. "You didn't know her otherwise?"

"No."

Then Ribbon's face clouded again and his eyes fell to the calendar. "She called you Bill. What do you make of that?"

Ebbans wandered away to his temporary desk and sat down to make a phone call, real or imaginary.

Corde said calmly, "When I called Jennie up to see when I could interview her about the Biagotti case, she and I got to talking and it turned out we'd lived near each other in St Louis. We, you know, chatted for a while about that. By the end of the conversation I called her Jennie. I guess she wrote down Bill."

"You knew each other in St Louis?"

"What exactly are you getting at?"

"Nothing, Bill. I'm not suggesting a single damn thing. I just have to keep an eye out for this sort of situation."

"What sort of situation?"

"I just want everything on the table."

"Everything is on the table."

"Good. But while your dander's up I'm just gonna ask one more question and then we'll say good-bye to it. In the Biagotti file you've got a record of that conversation you had with Jennie?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I didn't write anything down. I stopped by the dorm that Saturday. Nine o'clock. Jennie and I talked about fifteen minutes. She knew the Biagotti girl a little but that was it. Jennie was one of maybe fifty students I talked to about the case."

"You didn't talk to fifty of them on Saturday night."