第 9 页

Threats plural?

... Sheriff Steve Ribbon stated emphatically, however, that they would in no way impede the investigation. "We aren't going to be bullied by these people, whoever they are, however sick they might be,'Ribbon said. We have some strong leads and we're pursuing them real hard.'

'Damn,' Corde muttered, bringing an end to breakfast table arguments and meditations on freedom. He looked over the paper to find his family staring at him.

'What is it, hon?'

He handed Diane the article and told the children it was nothing. Jamie glanced over his mother's shoulder as she read.

'A cult?'he asked.

Diane finished the article. Jamie picked it up and continued to read.

His wife asked him, 'What's wrong with the story? I don't get it.'

Too much publicity,' he muttered. 'I think it's best to play cases like this close to your chest.'

'I suppose,' she said, and began clearing away dishes.

Corde stood to fetch his gunbelt but before he left the kitchen he glanced at his wife. She was intent on dishes and seemed to have missed what was so troubling to him - that this story was a huge sign for the killer, which said, in the vernacular of Steve Ribbon, You may've threatened Corde but no matter. He's going ahead full steam and he don't give a good goddamn about your threats. You do your worst, you aren't stopping our boy BUI

They wouldn't go so far as to blurt out, 'I was at a frat party", or 'I was on a date the night it happened' or 'You can ask anyone, I didn't even see her that night', even though that's what they wanted to blurt. But they were defensive and they were scared. Dodging Corde's cool green eyes, the boys glanced from his face to his gun, the girls to the floor. Some of them seemed inconvenienced, some were near tears. Often they did cry.

Room 121 in the Student Union had never been put to such a sorrowful purpose.

The room was worse than any interrogation cubicle at the New Lebanon Sheriffs Department. Itwas painted beige and smelled of adolescent perfume and aftershave lotion, chalk, poster paints, bitter bad coffee and food cooking in grease. Corde sat at a lightweight metal desk he could lift with his knees by flexing his toes and he felt ridiculous. Lance Miller was in the opposite corner of the room.

Throughout the morning students and staff workers of the school gave Corde their version of the essay The Jennie Gebben That I Knew.' They put their words to many uses-exonerating themselves, pressing the wound of loss, putting their names into the public record.

Some even tried to help him catch a killer.

In the morning alone Corde filled two packs of three-by-five cards. At one p.m. they took a break. Corde opened his briefcase to get a new pack of cards. As he cracked the cellophane wrapping, Miller glanced into the briefcase and noticed Corde staring at a photo taped to the inside. It was the one of Jennie Gebben, face shiny with sweat. Corde was aware of Miller's watching him and closed the lid. Miller went to the cafeteria to buy sandwiches.

After lunch Miller looked out the window and said, 'Oh, boy, here he comes again.' Corde looked up and saw Wynton Kresge coming up the sidewalk. 'What's that man want?' Corde asked.

The security chief entered the small room, carrying an envelope.

'Hiya, Wynton,' Corde said. "What can we do you for?* Kresge set an envelope on Corde's desk. 'What'd this be?' the detective asked.

'I don't know. I was over to Town Hall and I saw Detective Slocum there. I mentioned I was going to be nearby the Student Union and he asked me if I'd mind dropping this off and I said I'd be happy to.' He stopped abruptly, looking pleased he'd given the explanation so smooth. On the outside was stamped: Forensic Lab Interoffice Use Only - Fredericksberg. Kresge asked him, They have a division in the state that looks for clues?'

This's the county lab. Jim Slocum was in the office? He's supposed to be checking out the roads and the mall,' Corde snapped.

Kresge asked, "You want me to check out anything at the mall? I'd be happy to.'

'No.' Corde was miffed. He walked out of Room 121 to a phone booth disfigured with innocuous messages. Kresge remained in the activity room for a moment looking awkwardly at the blackboard. Then he left, walking past Corde and waving good-bye. Corde, the phone crooked under his neck, nodded and watched his broad trapezoidal back disappear down the corridor. A

deputy in the office said that Slocum wasn't there. Did Corde want him to call in? Corde answered, 'No,' and hung up angrily. He returned to the room and looked inside the envelope Kresge had brought.

'Oh, no.'

Miller looked at him.

"We missed ourselves a knife.'

'At the crime scene?'

'Yup.' Corde was looking at a bad photocopy. The technician had merely laid the weapon on the copier platen. The edges were out of focus and the background was smudged black. It was a short folding stiletto with a dark handle and a thin blade, which looked about four inches long - two shorter than the state limit for concealed weapons. There was a design on the handle -an insignia of some kind - in the shape of crossed lightning bolts. It looked vaguely like a Nazi insignia, Corde thought.

He read the brief report from the Harrison County Crime Scene Division. The knife had been found in the flowers beneath where Jennie Gebben had lain, the blade closed. It had not been used on her - there were no traces of blood tissue on the blade - though it might have been used to cut the rope the killer strangled her with.

Steve Ribbon had added a handwritten note. Bill -Offering? Sacrifice? More evidence of Cult action. You should follow up.

'Stupid of us, Lance. Damn stupid, missing something like this. And I went over the site twice. Slocum and I both.' Corde's skin felt hot from this lapse. He pulled another report from the envelope - about the newspaper clipping and its threatening message. There had been no fingerprints. The red ink, in which were found several marker fibers, was from a Flair pen, sold in millions of stores around the country.

On the Analysis Request form he had filled out to accompany the threat Corde had asked, What was used to cut the clipping out of the paper?

A technician had replied, Something sharp.

Finally the envelope contained the warrant permitting them to search Jennie's half of the dorm room. He handed it to Miller and told him to get over there with a crime scene unit. As he did so he happened to glance at Miller's notes and he realized he should have been paying more attention to what the young deputy was doing. *You wrote down the score of the homecoming game she went to.'

'Shouldn't I've?'

'No.'

'Oh. I thought you wanted specifics.'

Corde said, 'And you're supposed to be asking the girls in her dorm when Jennie had her period.'

"You can't go asking somebody that.'

'Ask.'

Miller turned fire red. 'Can't we look it up somewhere?'

'Ask,' Corde barked.

'Okay, okay.'

Corde read one of Miller's notes: Roommate and JG just before dinner on Tuesday night. They had discussion - 'Serious' (Fight?) Couldn't tell what was said. JG unhappy as she left. Roommate: Emily Rossiter.

Corde tapped it. That's interesting, I want to talk to Emily. Get over there now and have her come in.'

7

Bill Corde was irritated at the fluorescent tube that flickered frantically above his head and he was exhausted from sifting for hours through the goofy and theatrical attitudes of young people on their own for the first time. He was thinking of closing up for the day and returning to the office when a young man appeared at the door. He was in his mid-twenties. A squat mass of black crinkly hair was tied in a ponytail. His face was very narrow and he had high ridges of cheekbones, under which was a dark beard. He wore blue jeans and a black T-shirt. "You Detective Corde?'

'That's me. Come on in.'

'I got a message that you wanted to see me.'

What's your name? Here, sit down.'

'Brian Okun. Is this about Jennie Gebben?'

That's right.' Corde was flipping through the index cards. Slowly, card by card, reviewing his boxy handwriting. It took a long time. He looked up. 'Now, how exactly did you know her?'

'She was in Professor Gilchrist's class. Psychology and Literature. He lectures. I teach the discussion section she was in.'

You're on the faculty?'

'I'm a graduate student. Ph.D. candidate.'

'And what did you do in your section?'

They're discussion groups, as I said.'

What do you discuss?'

Okun laughed, puzzled. 'Do you really care?'

'I'm curious.'

The question last week was: "How would John Crowe Ransom and the school of New Criticism approach the poetry written by someone diagnosed with bipolar depression?" Do you know what the New Criticism movement was all about, Officer?'

'No, I don't," Corde answered. "Do you know if Jennie was going with anybody?"

'"Going with." What does that mean? That's a vague term.'

"Was she seeing anyone?"

Okun asked in a voice crisp with irony, '"Seeing anyone"? Do you mean dating?"

It seemed to Corde that the boy wasn't hostile. He looked genuinely perplexed - as if the detective were asking questions that could not be answered in plain English. 'I'd like to know about anyone Jennie may have had more than a passing friendship with.'

Okun's eyes ricocheted off Corde's cards. 'I suppose you know I took her out a few times.'

Corde, who did not know this, answered, 1 was going to ask you about that - do you usually date students?'

This's a college town. Who else is there to ask out?" Okun's eyes met Corde's.

'Isn't it unusual for a professor to ask out his students?"

'I'm not a professor. I told you that. I'm a doctoral candidate. Therefore we were both students.'

Corde rubbed his finger across a Styrofoam cup of cold coffee. He shuddered at the squeaky sound. 'I'd appreciate you answering my questions in a straightforward way. This is a pretty serious matter. How long were you seeing her?'

'We broke up several months ago. We'd dated for three months off and on.'

Why did you break up?'

'It's not your concern.'

'It may be, son.'

'Look, Sheriff, we went out five or six times. I never spent the night with her. She was sweet but she wasn't my type.'

Corde began to ask a question.

Okun said, 'I don't feel like telling you what my type is.'

What were the circumstances of you breaking up?'

Okun twitched a shoulder. 'You can't really call it breaking up. There was nothing between us, nothing serious. And neither of us saw any point in going on with it.'

'Do you know who Jennie began seeing after you?"

'I know she went out. I don't know with whom.'

Corde fanned through his three-by-fives. That's interesting. Several of her other friends also told me they aren't sure who she was dating recently.'

Okun's eyes narrowed and his tongue touched a stray wire of beard. 'So, a mystery man.'

Corde asked, What kind of student was she?'

'Slightly above average but her heart wasn't in studying. She didn't feel passion for literature.'

He pronounced it lit'rature. Corde asked, Was there anybody in class she was particularly close to? Other than you?"

'I don't know.'

'Did you see her personally in the last month?'

Okun blinked. 'Personally?' he asked the ceiling. 'I suppose I'd have to see her personally, wouldn't you think? How else can one see anyone? Do you mean did I see her intimately? Or do you mean socially?

Corde thought of the time he managed to cuff and hogtie George Kallowoski after the man had spent ten minutes swinging a four-by-four, trying in his drunken haze to cave in Corde's skull. He thought a lot better of Kallowoski than he did of this boy. 'Outside of class, I meant.'

'I hadn't seen her socially for a month. I assume you remember that I told you I didn't see her intimately at all.'

'Do you know if there was anybody who had a gripe with her? Anybody she'd fought with recently?'

'No.'

'Did she get along well with her roommate?'

'I guess. I don't know Emily that well.'

'But you knew Jennie well enough to know that Emily was her roommate."

Okun smiled. 'Ah, ratiocination! Does this mean you've trapped me?'

Corde fanned his cards like a Las Vegas blackjack player. 'Now, Emily . . .' He looked up, frowning. 'I thought you told me you never stayed overnight in Jennie's room?'

Okun, observing the interrogation from a different plane, sighed. He descended to say, 'Emily has a big mouth ... I was being euphemistic when I mentioned spending the night.'

'Euphemistic?'

Okun said, 'It means I was not being literal. I was being metaphoric.'

'I know what euphemistic means,' said Corde, who did not.

'I mean I didn't have sexual relations with her. We stayed up late discussing literature. That was all. Officer, it seems to me like this is some kind of personal vendetta.'

'I don't believe you're right about that.'

Okun looked out of the small window as if he were stargazing then said, 'I don't know whether you went to college or not but I imagine you don't have a lot of respect for what I do.'

Corde didn't say anything.

'I may look like a, what would you call it? Hippie? That's your era. I may look like a hippie. But it's people like me who teach half this illiterate world to communicate. I think that's a rather important thing to do. So I resent being treated like one of your local felons.'

Corde asked, Will you submit a blood sample?"