第 56 页

What are you talking about?'

'And he went for a swim, I heard. The music these young people listen to ...'

He's trying to get my goat. Calm, stay calm,

'Suicide by drowning. That was uniquely his. The song, I believe, mentions razors and ropes ... An alliteration suitable for adolescent lyrics.'

What did you have to do with that?' Corde's grip on the gun tightened and he was beset by a frightening sense that he was losing control of himself. In his ears he heard a humming of immense pressure. He swung the muzzle toward the professor's face, which tightened microscopically but remained otherwise passive. The barrel stopped short of striking skin. 'I could kill you-'

Gilchrist said slowly, 'I don't imagine you know the writing of Paul Verlaine. The French symbolist poet? No, of course not. I find his poems stunning but I also believe he suffered from the same problem as you do. Stoic on the outside, raging within. He tried to murder his close friend Rimbaud in a fit of passion. He ended up a worthless drunk. But if not for his psychoses the world wouldn't have his astonishing work. The element of compensation is miraculous - compensation, which your little Sarah displays so well.'

Corde's breathing was fierce. He felt himself hyperventilating. He grabbed Gilchrist's collar and pressed the gun muzzle against his ear.

'Ah,' Gilchrist said in a silky voice, 'remember her. Remember Sarah. Our conversation mustn't become so obfuscated by passion that we forget that only I know where she is. Obfuscated. Can you deduce what that means, Detective? Can you?'

Corde shoved Gilchrist away and stepped back. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He felt that he was the cornered animal and that it was Gilchrist who was playing him.

'Detective, you continually misunderstand whom you're dealing with. I'm not a thug barricaded in a convenience shop. Your concept of intelligence is that it gets you to the bottom row of a category in Jeopardy! I'm different in kind from people like Jennie Gebben and you and your son and your Sarah and your beautiful Diane.

'I've been studying you and your family since the morning after Jennie died. I saw your daughter at the pond after I'd left my first note to you. Her beautiful hair. The sun was so pretty on her tight, white blouse. Last year's fashions? . . . Had to put off the spring shopping spree at Sears, did we? You know, I've been corresponding with Sarah ever since then. Why the shock, Detective? You would have figured it out eventually. See, that's the problem that concerned me. You're not intelligent but you're dogged - unlike the rest of your colleagues, who are neither intelligent nor persistent.

'Undoubtedly we could put you on the couch and wrench up some reason for this chronic tenacity. You fell asleep at the wheel once or twice when it mattered, didn't you? When was it? Not too formative, I'd guess. Your teenage years? Maybe later. Whatever happened, you'll be paying it off for a long time. I was sure you'd plod along until you stumbled across me.

'Sarah was the perfect distraction. At first I convinced her to run away. When that didn't work I decided I'd infiltrate, throw you off the track. The town wanted a Moon Killer so I skinned a goat and gave them one. "Lunatic." And I did some painting around town with a bit of the leftover blood. Mezza luna... Oh, I'll bet my frescoes had your boss salivating. But not you, Detective. You kept plodding, ever the pedestrian, getting closer and closer. I needed a more direct attack. I tried threatening you off the case.'

He pointed to a Polaroid camera. Tm quite some photog, don't you think? Oh, an aside: I detected that your wife's contraceptive had not been much used of late. Are we in the middle of the sixteen-year itch? Have you noticed any change in her recently? Her pathetically polished fingernails? Her sudden interest in eye shadow? Did you know she and Breck have been for several walks in the forest?'

The professor smiled and lifted his hands like a TV preacher. 'Did you know that while that buffoon of a deputy was supposed to be guarding the old homestead, I was browsing through your bedroom? I opened your dresser and rearranged Diane's panties. I smelled her pillow. I washed my hands with her cheap L'Air du Las soap. Oh, I sat on Sarah's bed. I caressed your son's pajamas. It was all so fascinating to me! I lecture -excuse me, I used to lecture - about psychology every day. I've written articles for the most prestigious journals in the field, journals . . .' He cocked an eyebrow with amusement.'... that perhaps you've tried to read. But I don't do clinical practice. Toying with your family has amused me greatly. Entwining them in this whole matter. I drew you away from the nest. I sent you to Lewisboro. I sold a handful of credit cards to this polyester thug in a bar in Fitzberg so you'd hightail it over there. Then I circled back. I followed that fool Breck-' Gilchrist sneered the name.'-and I killed him deader than Dreiser's prose. I did all that, Detective, right under your nose and I escaped.'

'But,' Corde said, 'here I am.'

The smile on the professor's face did not diminish. 'But I. .. have your daughter.'

'I want to know where she is!' Corde shouted in anguish.

'Stating the obvious,' Gilchrist snorted, 'diminishes you, as a late colleague of mine used to say.'

Sarah, cry for me, baby! Shout, scream...

You son of a bitch!' The menace in Corde's voice rose to the distant smudged ceiling. It seemed to break the shafts of weak light that fell onto the bloodred carpet. Corde pressed his revolver forward and the hammer actually started back. Gilchrist's eyes registered an instant of monumental fear then became calm and conciliatory. He lifted a palm. 'She's all right. I swear it.'

"Where is she?'

Gilchrist's eyes swept over him. The smile had faded. He was now composed and his face was a mask of concern. 'I can't tell you that. I'm sorry.'

'If you've hurt her-' Corde stepped forward, his hand kneading the gun.

'She's fine,' Gilchrist said in a soothing voice. Think, Detective. Why would I hurt her? I kidnapped her because I needed some insurance. I couldn't stop you any other way.' He spread his hands out in front of him. 'Look . .. You found out where I was. I had to protect myself."

'I swear I'll kill you if you don't tell me what you've done with her.' He stifled a spiny urge to fire a bullet into Gilchrist's leg or elbow.

The professor's voice was suavely reassuring. 1 haven't done anything with her. She's safe.' He nodded at his suitcase. 'As long as I get out of here she'll be fine. If you hurt me or arrest me you'll never see her again. It's as simple as that.'

Corde stepped forward and held the gun close to Gilchrist's face. "Where is she?" he cried.

Gilchrist stepped back. Those are my terms. There's no negotiation. My freedom for your daughter. Take it or leave it.'

You bastard, you damn bastard,' Corde growled.

That's perhaps true in one context or another but it's irrelevant at this moment.'

The muzzle of the pistol lowered.

Corde's breathing calmed. At least Sarah was alive. At least he had a chance of getting her back home safe. He had a poignant image of the girl sitting in bed, wearing her pajamas and talking to a stuffed bear. Tears saturated his eyes.

'Ill tell you what I'll do,' Gilchrist offered. 'Let's up the ante. In exchange for my head start I'll tell you where your daughter is and I'll give you an explanation. Ill tell you exactly how I killed Jennie and why.'

Corde squinted slightly and somewhere in his mind the policeman stepped side by side with the father.

Gilchrist took the uneasy caution in Corde's eyes as an affirmative answer. He sat down in an armchair, launching motes of dust into the sallow light.

'I loved Jennifer Gebben very much. The first time I've ever felt that way about a woman. Ridiculous, when you think about it. She was a simple girl. She wasn't particularly pretty. She vacillated between intense and moody. But when she was with you, in bed, she was completely with you. Do you understand what I'm saying? She was the center of the universe. We'd play our games, we'd take our hickory sticks, we'd get out the straps. A lot of women just tolerate it for their man - the remote father problem, of course. But Jennie loved it. She lived for it.'

'Gilchrist-'

'Please. Let me finish. This spring she dropped me cold. She went back to that fucking roommate of hers. "Sorry, it's over with." Well, that wasn't good enough for me. No, sir. I wasn't going to be discarded the way she tossed aside Sayles or Okun. "Sorry, it's over with." Oh, no. I wouldn't tolerate it, not even from a borderline personality. I called her up from San Francisco. She was too pusillanimous to break up - excuse me, Detective. She was too cowardly to do it in person. I was in a consuming rage for a full twenty-four hours. I calmed then I flew back.'

'You bought a ticket under a different name. So you intended to kill her.'

Gilchrist paused for a moment and seemed neither surprised nor alarmed that this was public knowledge. There's another part. Can you figure it out?'

Corde was nodding. You killed Susan Biagotti and Jennie found out about it.'

The professor was, however, overtly disappointed that Corde had made the deduction. Still he continued unemotionally. 'Lying in bed with Jennie...' Gilchrist smiled at some memory. 'Or lying in the bathtub with her or on the kitchen floor, I'd tell her things. You did that with her. She was disarming. Well, Susan and I had played some very serious games. I mentioned that one time to Jennie. Stupid of me but I did it.'

'Why did you kill Susan?'

'Accidental. We got carried away and I strangled her.'

Corde winced, uncomprehending. He whispered, 'She was somebody you must've cared about. Yet you hurt her so badly you killed her? Why? Was the sex that good?'

'Not for her it wasn't. Obviously.' He gave Corde a fast chill smile then added, 'I used the hammer to cover up some of the marks and I made it look like a robbery.'

'But you didn't tell Jennie you'd killed her.'

'Of course not.' Gilchrist grimaced at the foolishness of the question. 'But she could link us together. When I called her from San Francisco on Sunday, when she told me she was breaking up with me, we argued. She said she was going back to Emily and if I didn't leave her alone she'd tell the administration about the students I'd slept with. Well, our Virgin Dean has this thing - her professors can fuck students' minds all they want but their bodies are off-limits. If Jennie blew the whistle Larraby would find out about Susan and me and I'd have problems. I flew back to New Lebanon and asked Jennie if I could see her. I told her I wanted us to end on a positive note. I said I had a book for her - in memory of our relationship. She agreed. We went for a walk. We ended up at the pond.'

'And you killed her.'

'And I killed her, yes.' Gilchrist seemed to be considering if there was anything else to say about Jennie Gebben and concluded there was not. He added, 'And I killed Sayles and Okun because...' He brought his hands together in a concluding way.'... they were my enemies.'

'That deputy in Lewisboro got himself shot too.'

'I'm very pleased about that - that it wasn't you, I mean. I was actually feeling somewhat bad thinking that you would be the first one through the door.' He nodded his head slightly.

Corde said, 'I'll give you a one-hour start.'

'Is there anybody outside the house?'

'Just one deputy.'

'So this is an unofficial visit, is it?' Gilchrist glanced at Corde with a certain level of respect. Well, all right. Drop your car keys there.'

We walked. We didn't drive.'

'Humor me.'

Corde tossed the keys into the middle of the floor. Gilchrist pocketed them.

'She's all right?'

'Of course she's all right. I've tied her hands and feet. That's all. And gagged her.'

People suffocate under gags. An FBI bulletin had just reported on this. Corde had noted the fact in boxy script on a. three-by-five index card.

Gilchrist picked up his suitcase. He said, The basement.' He walked to the doorway and opened it. He stood at the top of the stairs and flicked a light switch on. Corde shouted, 'Sarah! It's Daddy.'

There was no response. Gilchrist said impatiently, The gag. I told you.'

Corde took out his handcuffs and stepped toward Gilchrist. Put one on your right wrist and the other on that radiator pipe there.'

'No. We have a deal.'

Corde said, 'I give you my word you get an hour. But I get my daughter first. Or I'll kill you where you stand.'

Gilchrist studied Corde's eyes. 'I think you might, Detective. All right. Follow me. I'll have to show you. It's hard to find.'

'No. You stay here.'

The professor shrugged and said, 'You'll have to turn left at the foot of the stairs then go down a corridor then-'

Corde handed him the cuffs.

'-up a few stairs. You don't have to worry. She's fine. Just fine.' Gilchrist was speaking like a pediatrician who'd nursed a child out of a fever.

Corde smelled the man's scent, sour, old cloth, sweat. He realized suddenly how close they stood.

Gilchrist, reaching for the cuffs, calmly closed his long fingers around Corde's wrist, the nails dug into flesh, and he threw himself backward down the stairs, dragging Corde with him.

The detective grabbed futilely for the handrail. The gun fired, the bullet sailing into a wall. Together they tumbled down the sharp-edged pine stairs. Snaps and thuds. Corde felt his left wrist pop. The gun flew from his hand. There was a huge reverberation as his head smacked hard into the rickety handrail and he heard another snap of joint that must have come from Gilchrist's arm or leg.