Jeffery Deaver - The Lesson of Her Death

But he can compliment her on her work, which he does, and watch with fascination as she leans forward, writing with the awkward elegance of a doe on ice.

Corde notices her techniques. With her index finger she writes letters and words on her palm, she traces the letters in a dust of salt on the tabletop, she tears sheets of paper containing a single word into portions of the word and stares at them. Corde himself forgets what the fragments of words are called. Syllabus? No. Then he remembers, syllables. Although her spelling still needs much work, her self-confidence is bursting. He has never seen her enjoy herself this way. He looks at the first page of the slim stack of sheets Sarah has printed.

MY BOOK

BY SARAH REBECCA CORDE, FOURTH GRADE

DEDICATED TO DR BRECK MY TUTOR

Corde stares at this for a few minutes, wondering if jealousy will surface. It does not.

When she finishes, Corde rises to leave. He watches her for a moment then leans forward and hugs her suddenly and hard. This surprises and pleases her and she hugs back enthusiastically. Corde does not tell his daughter that the complex gratitude he is filled with is only in part for her.

An officer in the Fitzberg Police Department's Demographics and Vital Statistics Division made the discovery.

The DemVit man had been cross-checking prints of the bodies of recent DCDS's found at crime scenes against Known Felons (Warrants Open) and was at the tail end of his shift so it took him longer than it normally would have to find the glitch. He marked his conclusion down on an BID form and was about to drop it in the interoffice mail to the Detective Division when he noticed that the body was due for shipping out later that day.

Oh, boy,

Reluctantly he called Mister Master Sergeant Super Detective Franklin Neale.

"Detective? This is Tech Officer Golding in DemVit?"

"Yes, Golding, what's on the agenda?" Neale said.

Hup, two, three four …

"There's an EID on that deceased confirmed dead you sent to the morgue two days ago?"

"An erroneous ID?" Neale growled. "Tell me about it, Officer."

"We had a tentative ID from personal effects and from some out-of-town deputy?"

"Yes, that's right. The DCDS was the perp in a four-eleven, two counts. Fellow was a real bad operator."

Tell me, dickhead, do you polish your medals every night? "Yessir," Golding said, "Well, the prints the coroner sent down match a felon there's a bench warrant out on. Eddie Scavello. Two counts armed, one burglary and ten receiving stolen. Rap sheet full of hot plastic."

"You're sure?"

"We're talking ninety-eight percent."

There was silence. Neale said, "Okay, do me a favor, fax the BID to Harrison County and New Lebanon. Sheriffs' Departments."

"They have a fax machine in New Lebanon?"

"Officer," Neale said, "Consolidated Law Enforcement Agency Guidelines require one in every town -"

It was a joke.

"- over five thousand population."

"Oh, that's right. I'm glad you reminded me. Whose attention?"

"Wynton Kresge at County, William Corde in New Lebanon. That's Deputy Kresge and Detective Corde. Write that down and don't get them mixed up."

"No, sir. I wouldn't."

"And attach a cover note – mark it urgent – and tell them it looks like their boy Gilchrist is still a loose cannon. My compliments on a job well done, Tech Officer."

"A pleasure to be of help, Detective."

Brian Okun celebrated the announcement that Auden University would stay open for another year in what he thought was an appropriate manner: he fucked a student on Leon Gilchrist's desk.

He had another cause for celebration as well. He would, subject to formal acceptance of his PhD thesis this summer, be joining the faculty of the Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences, Auden University.

Okun was now alone. The blond student – ironically, one who had sat next to Jennie Gebben in his seminar session – was gone and he sat naked to the waist in Gilchrist's chair, spinning in slow circles. The blinds were down and since the AC was off (the school being officially closed for two weeks until summer school began) the office was hot as an Ozark swamp in August. Okun looked at spots of moisture on the desktop and wondered whether they were semen or sweat.

Okun had been shocked at the news that Gilchrist was a killer. For a horrible moment he had wondered if the rumor he had started had gotten out of hand. But in reading the Register he had understood that Gilchrist and Jennie had had an affair. But killing her and Professor Sayles! Astonishing. Okun had suspected that Gilchrist was violent and probably was capable of murder but he had never thought that he would kill.

And now the son of bitch was himself dead, shot down by police… Okun searched his repertoire for a suitable maxim that might summarize the man. He could think of nothing.

Slipping on his T-shirt, Okun stretched out again, gazing at the old prints, at the hundreds of books that he supposed would go into Gilchrist's estate. An old volume of Freud that might be valuable. More recent books on psychoses and literature. Okun had no claim to them, even as Gilchrist's academic successor, but he figured he could pilfer the choicest ones before the dean raided the office. Musing on these additions to his library, feeling warm and spent, smelling a May breeze and the redolence of sex, Okun closed his eyes.

He was awakened sometime later by a slight stinging on his neck. At first he thought a bee or mosquito had gotten him but as he reached up to the sting he found himself so weak that he could barely lift his hand above his chest.

He looked down and saw that his shirt was soaked with blood. He cried out and forced his hands to his neck. He touched the loose flap of skin where his carotid artery had been severed. Okun tried to stand and fell immediately to the floor. He grabbed at the telephone cord and pulled it off the desk onto the floor beside him.

"Ohgodhelp…" The weakness of his voice terrified him.

He pressed 9.

The receiver slipped from his bloody hand. He managed to retrieve it.

He pressed 1.

He stared at the blurring number pad of the phone. He tried to touch the final digit but found his arm would not respond. He heard a hum and a click then a three-part ascending musical tone followed by a woman's electronically-generated voice speaking to him, saying the last words he would ever hear: "Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try your call again."

Diane Corde slipped her arms around Ben Breck and hugged him hard.

This seemed a wholly natural thing to do: standing up in her garden as she watched him pull up in the driveway then walking quickly to him, wrapping her arms around him, feeling his around her.

Wholly natural. This frightened her terribly. She said, "I left a message for you at the library."

"I've been over at Arts and Sciences. How's Jamie?"

"That's what I called about. He's much better. I just got back from the hospital."

Diane realized with a shock that they were still embracing. She stepped back quickly. Oh, God, the neighbors… At least he didn't kiss me … She looked around and stepped into the cover of the juniper bushes. Breck followed.

And why didn't he kiss me?

Diane haltingly explained Jamie's diagnosis by rote, not even hearing the words she'd repeated a dozen times that day.

As they talked Breck slipped his hands into his pockets. This added to his boyishness and made him infuriatingly appealing. He wore dark jeans and a thick burgundy sweater with a braided collar. He said, "You told me on the phone that Wisconsin's out."