Jeffery Deaver - The Lesson of Her Death

"All I know is I don't get much involved in his cases. It's so, you know, grim. It's different when you watch it on television."

So why hasn't he been married?

"I've done research into violence," Breck said. "Two associates of mine have done work with sociopaths -"

"Is that like a psychopath? Like, you know, Tony Curtis in Psycho."

"Tony Perkins , I believe."

"Right, right." Forty-one and never married.

"They've worked with some pretty odious characters -"

Odious.

"- and their theory is that commercial entertainment does a disservice when it minimizes violence. That it tends to distort mental judgment and leads to situations where individuals act violently because they feel the impact in human terms will be inconsequential. We're seeing -"

Diane's palms moistened as she leaned forward, trying to follow what he said.

"- many cases of blunted affect on the part of young people in response to films and -"

"Uhm. Af-fect ?"

He saw that he'd lost her and shook his head in apology. "Affect. It means emotion. Kids see people getting blown up and murdered on screen and it doesn't move them. They don't feel anything. Or worse, they laugh."

"I'd rather Jamie didn't watch those movies… Well, look at his friend. They got caught up in that Lost Dimension. Look what happened."

"That boy who killed the girls?" Breck asked. "He might have been influenced by the movie."

The corner of Diane's mouth hardened. "Well, even with him getting killed and all, Bill still doesn't think the boy did it."

"He doesn't?" Breck asked with surprise. "But your bodyguard is gone."

"Wait till the story hits the news."

"Story?"

"There's a new witness." She slung the words bitterly.

"But the papers all said the boy did it."

"The papers and just about everybody else in town. They were all too happy to close the case. But not my Bill, oh no. He's still investigating. He doesn't give up. He went charging off this morning after some new lead. He thinks he can prove the boy didn't do it."

Diane noted the anger in her voice as she gazed outside at the spot where Tom's cruiser had been parked all these long weeks. "When you're young, when you're Sarah's age, everything's clear, all the endings are tidy. You know who the bad guys are and if they get away at least they're still the bad guys. At our age, who knows anything?"

Breck finished the coffee. "You have a lovely home here."

It seemed to Diane that he said it wistfully but before she heard anything that confirmed that impression, he added, "Know what I'd like?"

"Name it," she said, smiling, coquettish as a barmaid.

"Let's go for a walk. Show me your property."

"Well, sure." She pulled a jacket on and they walked outside.

She showed him her herb garden then the muddy strip of potential lawn then the spots where the bulbs would've come up if the deer hadn't been at them. Breck muttered appreciative comments then strolled toward the back of the lot and its low post-and-rail fence. "Let's check out the woods."

"Uh-un," Diane said, leading him around to the side. "We have to go the long way."

"Around that little fence? We can jump it, can't we?" Breck asked.

"Uhm, see those cows?"

"What about them?"

"How expensive are those Shee-caw-go shoes of yours?" she asked.

"Oh," he said, "got it."

They both laughed as they walked around the pasture and into the strip of tall grass and knobby oak saplings that bordered the forest. Diane wasn't the least surprised when, out of view of the house, Breck took her hand. Nor was she surprised that she let him.

"Weren't the boy after all?"

"Uh-uh. They got a new witness."

Their eyes would make troubled circuits of the room, following the green-gray checkers of linoleum to their conclusion in the dark reaches of the County Building cafeteria. Then they'd turn back to watch the half-moons of ice slowly water their Cokes.

"Necessitates something." The man speaking was fat. Through a short-sleeved white shirt his belly worked on the elasticity of his Sears waistband. He had white hair, crisp with dried Vitalis, combed back. His name was Jack Treadle and in addition to other jobs he was supervisor of Harrison County. All aspects of his face had jowls – eyes, mouth, chin. He poked his little finger into his cheek to rub a tooth through skin.

"Suppose so," said the other man. Just as jowly though not so fat. He too wore short-sleeved white and on top of it a camel-tan sports coat. Bull Cooper was a real estate broker and the mayor of New Lebanon. These two were major players in the Oval Office of Harrison County.

"Way it sizes up," Treadle said, "the boy -"

Cooper said defensively, "He had a gun."

"Well, he may've. But I don't give two turds about the incident report. We shouldn'ta arrested him, we shouldn'ta let him get loose, we shouldn'ta shot him down."

"Well…"

"Hi ho the derry-o, somebody's gonna get fucked for this."

"Boy got shot bad," Cooper agreed.

"Got shot dead," Treadle snorted. Around them, slow-talking small-town lawyers and their clients ate liverwurst sandwiches and plates of $1.59 macaroni and cheese while they waved away excited spring flies. Treadle was a man who did best with ignorant friends and small enemies; he was in his element here and had nodded greetings to half the room during the course of this meal.

He said, "Hammerback and Ribbon were playing cute. I mean, shit, they were playing big-time sheriffs and they wanted press, they wanted a big bust and they wanted to tie that other co-ed killing last year in with all this serial killer, goat skinner fucking crap. Well, they got press, all right, which are now wondering why we let a innocent kid get killed. We got the SBI looking over our shoulder and we probably got some ethics panel up in Higgins about to poke its finger up our ass. We gotta give ' em somebody. I mean, shit."

"And you're thinking somebody from New Lebanon, I know you are." Cooper hawked and cleared his mouth with a thick napkin.

"Naw, naw, don't matter to me. If we pick a county man and I make the announcement then it looks good for me. If he's town and you make the announcement it's good for you. You know, like, it hurts us to do it but we're cleaning out our own. No cover-up."

"I didn't think of that." Cooper relaxed then added, "What about that Mahoney?"

"What about him?"

"Corde copied me on this letter he sent the Missouri AG. He wants Mahoney's nuts, Corde does. Whoa, Ribbon's got a feather in his ass over that, I'll tell you."

"What's the point?"

Cooper said, "Mahoney shouldn't've even been on the case. He's a civilian."

"Well." Treadle guffawed. "I don't give a shit about Mahoney. What's done's done. Things like Mahoney fall through the cracks and that's the way of the world."

"What's the options? Who bites the big one?"

"There's Ellison," Treadle offered casually, stating the obvious. "Then there's Ribbon. But if it's somebody too high up it'll look bad for us – like you and me weren't enough in charge."

Cooper said, "We had a couple county deputies working on the case. And Bill Corde was running the investigation for a while."

"Corde's a smart guy and he, he…" Treadle stammered as he groped for a thought.

"Found this new witness."

"He found this witness," Treadle agreed. "And he…"

"He doesn't take any crap," Cooper offered.

"No, he doesn't take any crap."

"But," Cooper said slowly, "there's the trouble."

"What trouble?"

"Didn't you hear? He may've accidentally on purpose lost some evidence. There was word he'd been fucking the Gebben girl. She was a regular little c-you-know-what. Anyway, some letters or shit got burnt up that may've connected her with Corde. They dropped the investigation -"