Resolve Read Online Free PDF Page B

quarterbacks pray for a quick death.
    Determined not to react to any subtle insinuations, I calmly replied, “As well as you can know one out of twenty students in a class. I guess I’ve only known her for about three months.”
    It was Shand’s turn now. They must have been partners for a while. They had a smooth back-and-forth tennis routine down.
    “During those three months, have you . . . socialized with her? Seen her outside of class? Maybe become close with her?”
    “Like I said, she is just a student in one of my classes. What’s happened? What did she say?”
    Ignoring my questions, Hartz asked, “Just one class?”
    “Yes. Victimology,” I answered a little too quickly.
    “Victimology?” Shand bounced back to me even more rapidly.
    The two detectives exchanged a quick glance. I understood they had a job to do, but I didn’t like being the mouse batted around between two predatory cats. I especially didn’t like having to wait for them to tell me what the accusation was when I could probably guess from a list of deviant forms of behavior. These two were not rookies, and I knew they weren’t going to give me anything without some prompting. Show what you have to and keep the rest to yourself. That’s the rule when you are questioning someone.
    I was shivering uncomfortably from the rapidly cooling sweat trickling under the collar of my black and gold Pittsburgh Pirates sweatshirt. The glacial stiffening of my body contrasted with the incendiary activity smoldering in my mind.
    My God! Was she accusing me of rape? I should have picked up on this the first time I thought that she might have been flirting with me. I should have taken precautions. I should have bolted out of the classroom after class. Carried a tape recorder. Something. Anything!
    I wasn’t going to play this game.
    Letting them know that I caught the look they shared, I blurted out, “Is there a problem I should know about? What the hell is going on?”
    Shand looked at me without the slightest trace of irritation. He calmly said, “It’s nothing. It’s just ironic considering the course name. She was killed last night.”

Mile 4
    A s we come off the bridge, the street changes to Chestnut and carries us into the North Shore and East Allegheny neighborhoods. This residential area is where we’ll see spectators sitting on their porches, drinking their morning coffee, and smiling at the production in front of them that has disrupted their usually monotonous Sunday morning routines. There is sporadic clapping from block to block, and we dash by the police cars that block intersections for us. Nobody is cold anymore. Fifty-seven degrees may seem chilly before the start, but after a few miles your body is warm enough. Anything warmer than the low sixties and you’d be shocked how the atmosphere can drain you.
    In the 1982 Boston Marathon, Dick Beardsley and Alberto Salazar provided the most memorable finish in that race’s history. Maybe the sport’s history. The race has been immortalized as the “Duel in the Sun”; and one of the main storylines involves the ridiculously high temperature during the race and how it both mentally and physically depleted the runners. The way the meteorological conditions have been made part of the legend, you would think the heat of that April day would have been comparable to an August day in Savannah. The high temperature that day was only about seventy degrees.
    I’m not tired at all, but I feel like throwing up. I’m thinking about the ancient maxim, “The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.” There’s something to that, I suppose. I think if you know death is imminent then there may be a certain solace in that. It’s inevitable. It’s going to happen regardless of what actions you take. Just submit and accept. However, when the outcome is less than certain—even if all of the data tells you that death is highly likely, but not absolute—then the ambiguity of the