Jeffery Deaver - The Lesson of Her Death

When Mahoney's thoughts got tired of Midwest decor they ambled over to Richard Gebben.

Mahoney, not a man with much heart to spare for anyone, least of all an employer, had sat with perplexed but genuine sympathy as he watched Richard Gebben absently drive the toy Christmas truck back and forth on his desk, back in St Louis.

Gebben Pre-Formed We Fabricate the World.

"Jennie's mother, I don't know when she's going to come out of it. She may never. She doesn't cry anymore. She doesn't do anything but sometimes she has these, I don't know, bursts of energy, Charlie. She'll be lying in bed then she leaps up and has to polish the silver. The silver, Charlie. For Christsake, we have a maid."

A jet had begun its takeoff run and the tenor roar filled the beige office. The DC-10 was well over Illinois before Gebben spoke again.

"Jennie," he had said, addressing Mahoney, not the spirit of his daughter.

He had proceeded to speak about reputation. About the media, about misunderstandings. He had spoken about troubling discoveries. Then he paused and the truck stopped rolling and as he stared out the window at a tall gray McDonnell Douglas hangar Richard Gebben spoke about his daughter the whore.

To Mahoney – a man who had seen evidence of just about every sexual act humankind could think of- the fact that Jennie slept with women as well as men was unremarkable. What was a little boggling, at least in the age of AIDS, was the sheer volume of both men and women she'd had between her legs.

"Charlie, I don't care what you have to do. This fellow Corde is going to be taking her life apart. He's already been looking for diaries and letters. I can't let that happen, Charlie. You know what happens in investigations like this. They look at every little detail of somebody's life. They make up stories about people. The newspapers just love that crap. You know, Charlie. It happens all the time. You saw it happen."

No, Mahoney had never seen it happen. What he saw happen was Ismalah R dissed Devon Jefferies who went home to his crib on South Halsted, picked up his MAC-10 then came a'calling to spray Ismalah R with forty or fifty rounds and the asshole just died where he stood and nobody made up a single fucking thing about him at all.

That was what Mahoney had seen.

And what he saw now was a pathetic Richard Gebben with his pitted face and moist eyes, trying to save what little remained of his daughter.

Well, that was how Gebben had explained Mahoney's mission to New Lebanon, and ten thousand dollars had bought Mahoney's unwavering acceptance of it along with a generous number of encouraging nods and mutterings of sympathy thrown in.

But Mahoney knew there was more.

Gebben had taken many business trips to places that had a light market share of the Gebben Pre-Formed steel sheeting business, if any at all. Unnecessary trips. To Acapulco, Aspen, Puerto Vallarta, Palm Beach. And he was always accompanied by a sultry blond secretary or young marketing assistant or steno typist. This was the role model he had been for his daughter. It was a lesson she had learned, and learned well, and maybe it had killed her.

And, who knew? Maybe Gebben himself had even come to visit Jennie late at night, Mommy fast asleep…

As a cop Mahoney had seen a good deal of emotional pain. He remembered walking up three flights of shit-stinking stairs in a tenement, knocking on the door to deliver some news to a young woman. She listened, nodding vigorously as she held her daughter, who had little plastic toys tied into her hair where pigtails sprouted from her scalp – tiny trains, soda bottles, dogs, dolls. The woman saying, "I unnerstand, I unnerstand," and Mahoney thinking, Understand? You poor bitch. There's nothing complicated here. Your old man just got blown away in a drug deal …

But Mahoney knew of course that it was complicated.

So complicated she would never unnerstand it. As complicated as Gebben's reasons for wanting his daughter's secrets to stay hidden forever. Reasons that Charlie Mahoney, lying on a lumpy bed in front of a flickering Ralston Purina commercial, would never completely figure out.

Not that he needed to. He had his ten thousand dollars and he had a specific job.

Which arrived at that moment in the form of Steve Ribbon, who knocked and called, "Hey, Charlie? I'm a little late, sorry. You in there, Charlie?"

"Right with you."

Mahoney let him wait for a full minute then stretched and stood and opened the door.

Ribbon grinned shyly like a police cadet on graduation day. The sheriff, who had ten years on Mahoney, looked like a youngster and Mahoney thought, Damn if these small towns didn't preserve you real well.

"Steve," he said ebulliently, "how you doing?"

They shook hands. Ribbon walked in, saying, "I like that. The way you kept your hand in your jacket when you opened the door."

"Habit."

"You looked pretty smooth. Cabrini projects, you were telling me the other night. War zone. Brung a present. You want a drink?"

"Sure."

Ribbon poured John Begg scotch into squooshy plastic hotel cups. They tapped them together and sipped. Ribbon was in uniform and when Mahoney glanced at the top of the sheriffs head Ribbon took off his Smokey hat and dropped it down on the dresser.

"You're not getting tired of our little town, are you?"

"Tired?" Mahoney grunted. "It's heaven on earth." He slipped off his jacket. He hung it up and poured more scotch.

Ribbon's eyes slipped to the large dark gray automatic pistol riding high on Mahoney's right hip.

"Steve, I happened to have a talk with Deputy Ebbans, Jim Slocum and some of the other boys on the case today. I sounded them out about how the investigation's going." Mahoney's eyes tunneled into Ribbon's, which danced a little, looked briefly back then danced away again. This was fun. It was the way Mahoney used to look at perps and he missed doing it. "There're a couple of things I've got to talk to you about."

Ribbon responded exactly the same way the perps had – fiercely studying the scenery behind Mahoney as if memorizing the wall or window or front door.

"But first off. Good news. I just talked to Mr. Gebben."

"Did you now?"

"And you know that reward I was talking about?"

"Reward?" Ribbon frowned. Then he nodded. "Right, yeah, I recall you mentioning that."

"Well, he's authorized me to release some of it now."

"We haven't caught anybody yet, Charlie." Ribbon snorted a laugh.

"Well, I've told him you're doing a good job and he wants to show his support."

"That's real kind of him, Charlie."

"He's a generous man. But I'm afraid we've got to talk about something. Kind of an unpleasant situation."

"Unpleasant."

Ribbon licked the rim of his cup and Mahoney let him fret for a delectable minute before he said, "Again, I don't want to be imposing myself. You're the boss here, Steve."

"I value your opinion. You're surely more of an expert than any of us." Ribbon seemed at sea and took refuge in the scotch. He drank long and busied himself with pouring another glass.

"I hate to say anything."

"Naw, go ahead, Charlie."

"Well, it's about this Bill Corde."

Corde pulled into the Town Hall driveway and saw three deputies standing in front of a new Nissan Pathfinder 4X4. It was a beauty. Corde admired it. He saw nothing wrong with buying foreign as long as the quality was better than American. He had a little problem paying foreign, having testdriven a Pathfinder himself; he knew he was looking at over twenty thousand dollars worth of transport.

Corde turned his attention away from the truck and back to the lardy figure of Dodd Humphries he was helping out of the squad car and through the parking lot. As he passed the truck Corde said to the men, "Who's the proud father?"