The Lesson of Her Death (26 page)

Another college girl, it seemed. About the same age as the first one. Only prettier. Not so horsey. He felt the stirring in his groin again. Almost a burning vibration. She was alone. He wondered what her tits looked like, hidden under the thick sweater. Her skirt was loose and flowing. Philip felt a painful erection. The girl walked right past the hemlock. She stood in the center of the clearing.

Pacing back and forth she stared at the ground until she came to a bed of blue flowers. She dropped to her knees, smearing her skirt with mud. She leaned forward. He couldn’t see what she was doing. He heard her muttering to herself.

“Emily!” A man’s breathless voice called from the road.

Philip’s erection vanished and he crouched beneath the tree. The girl dropped lower and melted into the flowers. Ten yards away the man jogged along Route 302. He stopped and looked out over the pond. The moonlight was in his eyes and Philip could see him squinting. He was looking right at where the girl was hiding but didn’t see her. He called once more then started back along the road. Soon he was gone.

The girl sat up. Philip heard a rustle of the leaves as she stood. He heard an owl close by. Philip pulled a
branch down to see her better. He wondered what her ass was like. He wondered if her breasts smelled the way the other girl’s had—like pumpkin pie spices. He wondered if she had blond hair or brown between her legs. The erection returned and pressed roughly against his taut jeans.

Slowly the beautiful girl stood and walked along the path. Philip saw she’d forgotten her purse. He let go of the branch. It snapped up and cut off his view of her. He stepped away from the tree and walked into the clearing, where he picked up the purse and without opening it, lifted it to his face. He smelled the scent of lemon perfume and leather and makeup. He slipped it inside his shirt and followed her.

The full moon is high above New Lebanon.

Most of the men are nearly invisible in their camouflaged hunting gear though you can see occasional glints off class rings and glossy blue-black gun barrels and receivers. They hide behind stands of bushes, dodging pricklers and feeling colder than they think they ought to, it being nearly May. They walk in clusters of two or three along trimmed streets. They cruise in cars. Some, veterans, have blackened their cheekbones and are consumed by a lust they have not felt for twenty-five years.

A number of men pad through fields where they figure there’s not much chance of finding any killers but where, if they do, the spotlight of a moon will illuminate their target. Their guns are loaded with rock salt or buckshot or deer slugs and some of the hunters have tapped the bullets and filled the holes with mercury then waxed them over again to make sure that even if they just wing the killer he’s not getting up ever ever again.

Some go out with beer and fried chicken and make a campfire, hoping their presence alone will deter the man. Some take the job of guardian more seriously and believe that the entire future of a wholesome New Lebanon
depends on their vigilance. And their aim. Jim Slocum and Lance Miller, stripped of their indicia of police authority, are out with one such group.

There are no gunshots until eight
P.M.
, almost exactly as Bill Corde turns onto Route 302, heading home. The first shooting is, not surprisingly, one of the hunters putting a load of buckshot into another one. Fortunately the shooter had his choke wide and the victim got stung by only five or six pellets. The second victim is a cat and the third is a movie poster of Tom Cruise, which may or may not have been an accident.

It isn’t until nearly nine that Waylon Sinks, juggling a thirty-two-ounce bottle of Budweiser and a Browning 16-gauge, forgets to put the safety on as he goes over a fence and kills himself unpleasantly. The New Lebanon Sheriff’s Department, as well as the county sheriff’s dispatcher and 911 for most of Harrison County, have been taking dozens of calls. Mostly they are sightings of the Moon Killer, who is sometimes spotted carrying a long knife, sometimes a rope. Usually he’s standing in backyards and looking in windows though sometimes he is climbing walls or scampering over roofs. There isn’t much the deputies can do. Officers make their rounds, and under their spotlights the offending shadows vanish completely.

The moonlight beats down on the town of New Lebanon.

It beats down so hard you can nearly hear a buzz like a high-watt bulb or like the humming of blood in your ears when you hold your breath in fear. The moonlight beats down and throughout the town you can see uneasy faces in windows and you can hear dogs howling—though what they bay at isn’t the white eye of the moon but the incessant forms of the prowling vigilantes, bleached yet black in the eerie wash of illumination.

Corde arrived home at eight-thirty. He sent Tom the deputy back to his uneasy wife and children. Diane and Jamie were at a wrestling match at the high school, where Corde himself oh-so wanted to be. He walked into the house, half wondering if he should have tipped Tom something; the cheerful young man had been more a baby-sitter than a guard these past few days.

Corde pulled off his muddy shoes and hugged Sarah. He washed his hands and face in the kitchen sink then poured a Diet Coke for her and a seltzer for himself. Only the Warner Brothers glasses were clean and he kept the Road Runner glass for himself. He handed Sarah Porky Pig.

They got to work.

She was particularly edgy tonight. The study session went badly from the start. She panicked often and began talking nonsense, joking and giddy. This put Corde in a bad mood because Diane had told him that Mrs. Beiderson was making special arrangements for Sarah’s tests and he thought the silliness measured up to ingratitude.

They were in the living room, on the couch, surrounded by a mass of papers. Sarah looked so small and overwhelmed by the mess that Corde picked up the papers and organized them into a single stack. They were Sarah’s attempts at the practice spelling test. So far, twelve tries, her best score had been twenty-two out of fifty. Thirty-three was passing.

Corde had that day written a check to Dr. Parker for $880, which was exactly twice what it cost him to insulate the entire attic.

“Let’s try again,” he said.

“Daddy, I don’t want to take the test. Please! I don’t feel good.”

“Honey, we’ve got to work on a few more words. We’re only up to the M’s.”

“I’m tired.”

Tired was the one thing his souped-up little daughter was not. At battle stations again, they sat with the spelling list between them.

“Okay, the M words.” He joked, “The M for ‘mouthful’ words.”

“I don’t want to take the damn test,” Sarah said sullenly.

“Don’t cuss.”

“It’s a shitty test! I don’t want—”

“Young lady, don’t you use that word again.”

“—to take it! I hate Dr. Parker.”

“Just the M words.”

“I’m tired,” she whined.

“Sarah. Spell ‘marble.’”

Eyes squinting, lip between teeth, back erect. She said, “M-A-R-B-L-E.”

“Very good, honey. Wonderful.” Corde was impressed.

“Marble” went on the plus side, joined by “make,” “mark,” “miss” and “milk.” Sarah wasn’t as lucky with “middle,” “missile,” “makeshift,” “messenger,” “melon” and “mixer.” Dr. Parker hadn’t suggested it but Corde took to drawing pictures of the objects next to the words. This seemed clever but didn’t help.

Sarah’s mood was getting progressively worse. Her leg bounced. Her tiny fingers wound together frantically.

“Now spell ‘mother.’”

Sarah started to cry.

Corde was sweating. He’d been through this so many times and her defeats were always his. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and point her at Jamie and say,
“You’ve got the same blood. There’s no difference between you. Can’t you understand that? Just work hard! Work hard! Why won’t you do that?”
He wanted to call up the psychiatrist and tell her to get her fashion-plate ass over here this minute. In a tired voice: “You’re doing fine. A lot better than when we started tonight.”

“No, I’m not!” she said. She stood up.

“Sit down, young lady. You’ve done the word before. Try it again. ‘Mother.’”

“M-O- …”

Corde heard her hyperventilating and thought momentarily of Diane’s long labor when the girl was born.
Breathe, breathe, breathe
.…

“It’s E-R. No, wait. M-O-T … I got lost. Wait, wait …”

Corde set the piece of paper on the table with the other failed tests and picked up a blank sheet. He began to write, “M-O-T-H …”

“No!” she screamed.

Corde blinked at the volume of the wail and the terror it contained. “Sarah!”

“I don’t know it! I don’t know it!” She was howling. Corde—standing up, sending a chair flying—believed she was having a seizure.

“Sarah!” he shouted again. His neck bristled in panic.

Corde took her by the shoulders. “Sarah, stop it!”

She screamed again and tipped into hysteria.

He shook her hard, her hair flying around her head like golden smoke. The glass tumbled over, a flood of brown soda poured onto the carpeting. She broke away from him and raced up the stairs to her room. Sheetrock throughout the house shook as her door slammed.

Corde, hands shaking, was mopping up the spilled soda with wads of napkins when the doorbell rang.

“Oh, Lord, now what?”

Steve Ribbon leaned on the doorpost, looking out over the lawn. “Talk to you for a minute, Bill?”

Corde looked toward Sarah’s bedroom then back to Ribbon. “Come on in.”

Ribbon didn’t move. “Your family home?”

“Just Sarah. Jamie and Diane are at a meet. Should be home anytime.”

The sheriff didn’t speak for a minute. “Why don’t you step outside here?”

Corde shook his head. “I don’t want to go too far.
Sarah’s not feeling well.” He stepped onto the porch. Ribbon closed the door behind him. Corde flicked spilled soda off his fingers. The sheriff’s squad car was parked in the driveway. Jim Slocum was driving. In the back was a blond man, heavy, craggy-faced, eyes fixed on the headrest in front of him.

Ribbon’s eyes scanned the moonlit ground, studying the perfectly trimmed grass. He said, “Bill, I’ve got to talk to you. They found Jennie’s roommate. Emily Rossiter.”

Corde crossed his arms.

They
found … Not
we
found. Corde understood the difference.

It was his turn to stare at the neatly edged front lawn. From where he stood it was in some geometric shape whose name he couldn’t recall—a rectangle pushed to one side.

“Somebody hit her over the head then threw her in Blackfoot Pond right by the dam. She drowned. And there’s some pretty unpleasant stuff he did to her.” Ribbon paused. “There’s a tentative match between shoeprints nearby her and those found by the dam the night Jennie Gebben was killed. I know your opinion, Bill, but it looks like there probably was a cult killer all along.”

PART TWO
Physical Evidence

T
he medical examiner was in a prickly mood. For the second time in two weeks, he stood in mud, at night, beside this dark pond. His usual demeanor—that of a cheerful TV doctor—was absent.