Ebbans said, "What's the coroner say about COD?"
"Just what it looked like. Traumatic asphyxiation. Pinpoint hemorrhages in the eyes. Fractured hyoid. Our man used his hands at first then he finished with a wire or rope. We didn't find any weapons. The coroner said the man was a foot or so taller than her. He wasn't so strong. He had to rearrange his grip on her neck several times. He did it from the front. Oh and the coroner guessed he wasn't married. Or he had a bad sex life with his wife."
"Why's that?" Miller asked.
"Quantity of the semen. Probably hadn't had sex for four, five weeks."
Jim Slocum said, "Then you mean he had a good sex life with his wife." Miller laughed out loud; the others except Corde snickered.
Corde looked at his cards, fanned some out. "Now what I want to do is focus on four areas. First, on the mall and on drivers along 302. I'd like you to handle that, Jim. It's a tall order. But that's a real busy road and we probably had some people coming home from the mall around ten that night," Corde jotted a note on an index card. "Oh, and check out if anybody picked up any hitchhikers."
"Now, second, T.T., I was thinking maybe you could hit the houses around the pond."
Ebbans nodded and Corde said, "Third, Lance and I'll set up shop at the school and start talking to students and employees."
"Yessir." Even sitting, Miller seemed to be at attention. He reminded Corde of a color guard Marine. "What exactly -"
"We'll go over it later. I also want you to talk to the phone company and find out what calls went out from the phones in the dorm from last Saturday through Tuesday night."
Miller whistled softly. "Must be a lot of students making a lot of calls, wouldn't you think?"
"You would," Corde said. "And we need a warrant for the dorm room. It'll be pro forma but you've gotta do the paperwork."
"Right."
"And finally I want all the prints on everything we found at the scene matched against known sex offenders in the county. T.T., if you could coordinate that with your office?"
"Will do. I'll order the printout."
"Wynton, I don't suppose you folk fingerprint students and professors?"
"Been my dream and desire but no we don't."
Corde referred to his notes again and started to say something to Kresge then paused. He scanned everyone's face. "One thing Steve said is right. The Register and WRAL are going to be looking at this thing real close. No talking to reporters. Refer everyone to me or Steve or Sheriff Ellison."
Echoes of "yup" or "uh-huh" filled the room.
Corde turned back to the security chief. "You get us a room, William? Uh, Wynton, I mean."
"In the Student Union. Off the cafeteria. Room 121. You got it all week, next too if you let me know by Friday."
"Predate it."
Kresge cleared his large throat with a snapping sound. "One thing I thought I should mention. I was driving past the pond on my way to work this morning. I just took a stroll around."
"What time?" Corde noticed something challenging in his own voice. He wished he'd used more of it.
"Six-thirty. I left about seven."
"You see anybody there?"
"Yessir," Kresge said enthusiastically. "A Con Ed tent up the road forty yards past the dam. You know, the kind they use for emergency repairs and -"
Corde said, "They weren't there last night. They set up at five a.m. Branch took down a line. I already checked."
"Oh," Kresge said with disappointment.
"You see anybody else?"
"No." He consulted his supple leather notebook. "There's a whole 'nother thing I wanted to bring up. What you and I and the dean were talking about. Susan Biagotti."
Corde and Ebbans exchanged looks but this time there was no eye rolling.
"Who's that?" Miller asked. "Rings a bell."
"Auden student killed last year."
"Ah, right."
Corde had been away on a joint county-state task force in Fredericksberg for a month. The case had landed in Ribbon's lap and by the time Corde returned to New Lebanon, many leads had gone cold. They had never even ID'd a suspect, let alone made a case.
"It's my intention to look into it," Corde said abruptly. "Like I told the dean."
"I've got my own file on the case," Kresge said. "You want, you can have a copy of it."
Corde smiled in a meaningless way. "I'll let you know if we need it."
As he rearranged his papers the plastic bag containing the clipping he had found that morning at the pond fell to the floor. He stooped and picked it up. He stood. His knee didn't pop. Thirty-nine years of knee, five of it popping. He wondered if he'd gone and cured himself. He passed the clipping around the table. "This is another thing we have to consider."
The deputies frowned with suitable concern as they read.
"I'm sending it up to Higgins for analysis today. Unless we find prints though or the rest of the paper it came from in somebody's back pocket I don't think it'll help. But you might want to keep an eye on yourselves and your families. You know most threats like this are just cranks but you never can tell."
"Most threats?" Kresge asked. "You mean this happens a lot?"
Corde hesitate then said, "Actually it's never happened."
Ebbans looked up from the note then slid it back to Corde. "I know something else about this guy," he announced.
"What's that?" Jim Slocum asked.
"Well, you could nearly see the girl from the road even if you weren't looking. Why didn't he drag her behind the truck at least? Then he came back in the morning to leave that note? It was like he didn't care if anybody saw him. That says to me he's a real gutsy fellow."
Corde lifted the plastic bag away from Miller. "Gutsy," he said. "Or crazy. Either way's a problem."
4
By the time she approached her house, Sarah had memorized the note, which now rested in her skirt pocket, along with the five twenty-dollar bills that had been wrapped in it.
Dear Sarah -
I heard you fighting with your daddy today, about school. I know he'll keep making you go back. I want to help. I'm just like you, we both hate school. You have to leave. Get away! Go to Chicago or, St Louis. There's nothing left for you to do. You'll be safe. I'll look out for you.
– Your friend
This idea is not new to her. Sarah had thought of running away a dozen times. Last March, the week before the arithmetic test, she had spent an hour at the Greyhound station, working up courage to buy a ticket to Grandma's place, before her courage broke and in tearful frustration she returned home.
Running away…
Sarah paused at the front doorstep. On tiptoe she saw her mother in the living room. She ducked. The motion made the paper in her pocket crinkle. While she waited for her mother to leave the room she pulled out the money and studied the bills, cautiously rubbing them as if they were pages from a book of witch's spells. She folded them tight again and put them back into her pocket.
Sarah Corde, nine years old, cared nothing for school, hopscotch, Simon Says, housework, Nintendo, sewing, cooking, cartoons on TV. But she believed fervently in magic and wizards, and she believed that this message was from a particular wizard who had been watching out for her for years. He was all-knowing and he was kind, and – with all the money – he was pretty darn rich too, it seemed.
Sarah was nobody's fool. She was going to do exactly what the wizard suggested. She also noted to her vast joy that although she would probably take this advice and go to Chicago, he had given her enough money to surely take her halfway around the world.
The front door slammed and the feet were up the six stairs in three fast thuds before Diane could get to the front hall.
She dried her hands as she continued to the stairs, pausing beside the coat rack and a wooden plaque of a goose wearing a blue bonnet and scarf. She straightened it absently and called, "Honey! Sarrie?"