The Lesson of Her Death (18 page)

And by her own guilt.

Diane Corde gazes with unseeing eyes at a glossy magazine peppered with giddy photos of models while her legs shake with the terrible anguish of retribution. Diane Corde, fairly good Methodist, has been taught to believe in divine justice, taught to believe that revenge is fair and cleansing. But it is not. Because the person who is paying the exacted price for the sins is not the mother who committed them but the daughter.

Did you drink while you were pregnant?

No. Of course not
.

What a question! No one drank when they were pregnant. No one took sleeping pills. No one took
aspirin
. All you had to do was read the science and health section of the
Post-Dispatch
or
Register
or even
Reader’s
Digest
, for heaven’s sake, and you knew how to behave when you were pregnant.

Drinking liquor? No sane pregnant woman would drink.

Unless, unless …

Unless, for instance, someone you loved had perhaps done something very bad. Your husband maybe. And after word got out—in the newspapers—the neighbors would look at you funny or not look at you at all. And people would call late at night and just listen for a moment before hanging up as if they were curious to hear if your breathing was more monstrous than theirs.

Unless that person, your husband maybe, kept doing nothing and saying nothing nothing nothing until the money ran out and the only solution was to move from a nice shipshape suburb to a small, tired rural town and start life over again.

His
life.

And yours, in the process.

So even if you were pregnant wasn’t that reason enough to take a drink now and then? Just to kill the silence of a man doing nothing, the heaviest silence that there is? A pill now and then. A few more drinks. And a few more.… To break the mournful web surrounding the seven
A.M.
breakfast table? To help you sleep, even if you woke up with a dogjaw pressure in the back of your head every other morning? Nobody drinks when they’re pregnant.

Oh, Sarah
…

Diane Corde looked at the cheap door separating herself from her injured daughter and focused on the magazine again. She read every word of an article about a boat trip down the Loire as if she were going to be tested on the subject in the morning.

“I don’t like her,” Sarah announced in the car on the way home.

“Why not?”

“She gave me all this stupid stuff to do. Drawing pictures and answering questions. I did it at school already.”

“Wasn’t she nice to you?”

“Mrs. Beiderbug—”

“Beiderson.”

“Mrs. Beiderson’s nice to me and
she
makes me feel all yucky. I felt yucky when I did those tests in Dr. Parker’s office.”

“She’s trying to help you.”

“I hate her!”

“Sarah, don’t talk that way.”

“She’s going to make me take the spelling test at school. I saw you talking with her after. That’s what she told you, isn’t it?”

Yes, it was
. Diane hesitated then said, “Dr. Parker wants you to keep studying. Next time you see her she’s going to give you some tricks to help you take tests.”

“I’m
not
going back to school.”

Diane’s patience had just about evaporated and she said nothing.

“I hate it. I feel stupid in school. The Sunshine Man …” Her voice faded.

“We all hated school. That’s what your father and I keep telling you. Everybody does.” This was spoken through firmly clenched teeth. “You remember what a good job you did on your story this spring? About the birds.”

Sarah got a C plus, her highest grade ever in English, and had written a single page. Other students had filled four or five.

Sarah whined, “I don’t want to take the tests. Don’t make me!”

“I’m going to work with you on the words tonight. Then we’re going to Jamie’s match.”

“No,” she announced. “I want Daddy to help me.”

“Your father’s working late.” Diane pulled the car into the driveway. She waved at the deputy in the cruiser
parked in front of the house. He nodded back and returned to the newspaper. Diane braked to an angry stop.

Sarah said, “He’s always working.”

They got out of the car and walked through the garage to the back door.

“No, he isn’t. He spends a lot of time with you. He’s missing Jamie’s match too tonight.”

“Wrestling’s stupid.”

“Don’t criticize your brother! He’s doing just fine in school.…” Diane was horrified at these words. She glanced at Sarah surreptitiously but the girl hadn’t noticed the unintended slight. “Mommy, look, there’s something on the back steps.”

Diane saw a small white envelope. Sarah scooped it up eagerly and looked at it. She frowned then handed it to her mother. They continued into the house. Diane paused in the hallway, the sunlight pouring through the open door. It fell on her hands, turning them blood red. “Go on upstairs and get your books.” The little girl gave an extended sigh and clomped up the stairs.

The envelope was addressed to
Officer Corde
. Red ink, sloppy handwriting. Diane tore it open, lifted out the contents.

“What is it?” Sarah yelled.

Diane jumped. “Nothing, honey.”

She dropped the glossy square Polaroid back into the envelope, which she shoved into her pocket. She called the Sheriff’s Department. She got the dispatcher. “Emma, it’s Diane Corde. Find him and tell him to get home. Tell him we’re okay but I need him and I need him now.”

She hung up and started toward the front door to summon the deputy. She got only as far as the living room before she paused, leaned against the wall and surrendered to her tears.

B
ill Corde crouched casually in front of Sarah. He measured his words then said, “Honey, I have to ask you something and you’ll tell me the as-you-love-me truth?”

“Sure, Daddy.” The girl returned his gaze cautiously. “Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry.”

“No, no, honey.” Corde’s heart cried as he looked into her penitent eyes. “I’m just curious to know something. Has anybody maybe taken your picture in the last couple days?”

“My picture? No.”

“Or maybe just asked if he could take your picture? Some stranger on the way home from school?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Did I do something wrong?” She seemed about to cry.

“No, nothing. It’s okay. You didn’t do anything
wrong. I was just curious. You run get washed up for dinner.”

Corde returned to Steve Ribbon and Tom, who were walking in slow paces around the fence behind Corde’s property. “Nothing, Bill,” Ribbon said. “Not a footstep.”

“Dry grass. What do you expect?”

The deputy said, “I was here all afternoon.” He was defensive. “I can’t be both at the front and the back at the same time.”

“I’m not blaming you, Tom.”

Ribbon shielded his eyes like a Plains warrior’s and gazed off into the forest. “Anybody live thataway?”

Corde leaned on a cockeyed, termite-chewed fence post, squinting against the sunset light. “Five hundred acres of forest, mostly private. A few houses. Beyond that’s the river and the other way’s the preserve and the university and downtown beyond that. He could’ve come from anyplace. He could’ve parked on 302 by the bridge and walked. None of the neighbors saw anything.”

Corde examined the photograph again, through the plastic bag in which it now rested. It was of a girl about Sarah’s age—the face wasn’t visible—lying in grass. Her skirt was pulled up to her waist and the V of white underwear filled the center of the shot.

On the back was printed in red marker: YOU’RE WORKING TOO HARD, DETECTIVE

“Hell.” He winced as if the message brought him physical pain. “I don’t think it’s her. She says nobody took her picture recently and I know she wouldn’t lie to me. But goddamn …”

The deputy said, “We should get a handwriting analysis. The newspaper clipping at the pond and this.”

“I’m sure they’re the same,” Corde said. “Even I can see the similarity.”

“Nobody saw nothing? Your son?”

“Nope. Nobody was here.”

“Brother, I’m sorry about all this, Bill,” Ribbon offered.

“You’re
sorry?” Corde muttered, walking inside.

Diane was sitting on the couch, her hands together. Corde sat beside her and cradled her hands in his. “This could be just a prank, maybe it has nothing to do with the case.”

“A prank? It was
our
daughter!” she whispered violently.

“We don’t know that for sure. It could be anybody. She tells me nobody took her picture.”

“She
tells
you? Oh, Bill, you know Sarah. Half the time she’s off in her own world.”

“He’s trying to spook me is all. Look, if that
was
Sarah in the picture and he’d wanted to hurt her, why didn’t he?”

She pressed her eyes closed. Wrinkles blossomed into her face and for a moment she seemed ten years older than she was.

“If anybody’s at risk, it’s me,” Corde said.

“That sure makes me feel damn better,” she shot back at him.

“Honey, this fellow isn’t stupid. Murdering a law enforcement officer’s a capital crime.”

“Does
he
know that?” she blurted.

“Diane.”

She stormed into the kitchen.

There was nothing more to do. Corde went back outside to talk to Ribbon. Ten minutes later Diane poked her head out the door and told him in an ominous monotone that dinner was ready. Corde asked Steve Ribbon and the deputy if they wanted to stay but they couldn’t or more likely didn’t want to. They left. Corde walked into the dining room, then Jamie and Sarah joined their parents and the family sat down to dinner.

Corde told the children with gentle words that there might be some people who weren’t real happy with what he was doing to solve this case, so not to go anywhere by themselves and to stay close to home. Don’t talk to
strangers. Then Corde somehow found the strength to turn the conversation funny and talked about a sports blooper tape he’d seen recently. The only time a pall filled the room was when Corde realized he had stopped talking in mid sentence and was staring out the black window at the backyard. He stood up fast and closed the drapes. Everybody looked at him. Then he sat down and ate a huge third helping of string beans even though he didn’t want them but it seemed like a comic thing to do and the evening returned more or less to normal.

T.T. Ebbans’s practice was to question people at home at night. He’d try not to conduct interviews during business hours at offices, where guards are up and minds instinctively think up lies and excuses—for bosses, for fellow workers, for clients, for creditors.

Ebbans also happened to enjoy the evening. It reminded him of a wholly different era of his life, years before. The oily smell of night, the stillness, the bleaching to monotone of the deep colors of the day and the feel of his heartbeat quickening—a prelude to the five-man search-and-destroy night missions that were both the peak and the valley of his life.

At ten-thirty he came to the last house, a colonial on one acre sloping down to Blackfoot Pond. This hour was usually postbedtime in New Lebanon for anybody under fifteen and over thirty. But lights shone in the windows of this house. He thunked the brass lion’s-head knocker once and the door swung open almost immediately. He found the couple waiting for him. Communication was good among Blackfoot Pond homeowners.

They all introduced themselves church-social formal. Tall, paunchy, bushy-haired Hank said, “Come on in, Officer. Get you anything?”

“Maybe if I could trouble you for a glass of water.”

“Surely.” Lisa, still in her real estate broker’s white
blouse and trim red skirt, vanished like a spooked mouse.

Hank motioned Ebbans into a living room spotless as an operating theater. Plush white carpet, a cream-color sofa covered with clear plastic. The furniture was antiqued white and gold. Lisa walked into the room and handed the water to the deputy. They both stared at him as he drank it all down. He wasn’t so thirsty as this but he didn’t know where to set down the glass. He handed it to her. “Thank you.” She returned a moment later. They sat. Plastic crinkled loudly.

Hank said, “You’re here about the murder.”

“I’m asking everyone in the area if they saw or heard anything around the time of the killing. That would be ten o’clock.”

“That was Tuesday, right?” Lisa asked, gesturing, moving her fingers in a circular motion to count back on an invisible calendar.

“Nothing,” Hank said. “We didn’t see anything.”

“No,” Lisa echoed. “Not a thing. Sorry we can’t be more help.” Hank said he wished they could but, well, Ebbans knew how it was.

The deputy let them stew in a lengthy silence then asked Lisa, “But do I understand that you saw something another night?”

Lisa’s busy hands spread apart for a moment. Ebbans noticed they had left sweat stains on her crimson skirt. “Pardon?”

Hank said, “We didn’t see—”

Ebbans said to his wife, “You asked if it was Tuesday. I was just wondering if that meant you saw something some night other than Tuesday.”