The Lesson of Her Death Read Online Free PDF

joyous anticipation.
    Sarah rises to her feet, thinking that one part of the note certainly is true. There really
is
nothing left for her to do.

T he New Lebanon Sheriff’s Department was a small place. Four private offices—for the sheriff, for Detectives Corde and Slocum and for Emma, the radio dispatcher/secretary. The central room contained eight gray GI desks for the deputies. To the side was a long corridor that led to the two cells of the lockup. On the wall was a rack containing three shotguns and five black AR-15s. The room was filled with enough unread and unfiled paper to go head to head with any small-town law enforcement office in the country.
    Jim Slocum—fresh back from the pond—looked up from his desk, where he was reclining in a spring-broken chair and reading the
Register
. Sheriff Steve Ribbon stood above him. Ribbon, solid and sunburnt red as the flesh of a grilled salmon, was slapping his ample thigh with a book.
What’s the Pocket Fisherman want now?
Slocum raised an eyebrow. “Damn mess.” He held upthe paper like a crossing guard with a portable Stop sign. It was folded to the article on the Gebben murder.
    Ribbon crooked his head to say, yeah, yeah, I read it. “Come on into my den, would you, Jim?”
    Slocum followed the sheriff five feet into his office. Ribbon sat, Slocum stood in the doorway.
    This’s right clever, we just reversed positions
.
    “Bill here?” Ribbon asked.
    “He flew over to St. Louis this morning to talk to the girl’s father—”
    “He did
what?”
    “Flew up to St. Louis. To talk to the girl’s—”
    Ribbon said, “The girl was killed? That girl? Why’d he do that for? He think we’re made of money?”
    Slocum chose not to answer for Bill Corde and said only, “He said he wants us all to meet about the case. At four, I think it was.”
    “We gotta watch our pennies, I hope he knows that. Anyway, I wanted to kick something around with you. This killing’s got me bothered. I hear it wasn’t a robbery.”
    “Doesn’t seem to be.”
    “I was noticing there were some parallels between what happened and a couple other cases I’d read about. It occurred to me that we might have a cult killer problem here.”
    “Cult?” Slocum asked carefully.
    The book dropped onto the desk. A paperback, fanned from bathtub or hammock reading.
Bloody Rites
. On the cover were three black-and-white photos of pretty girls over a color photo of a blood-spattered pack of tarot cards. “Whatsis?” Slocum picked it up.
    “I want you to read it. I want you to think about it. It’s about this Satanist down in Arizona a couple years ago. A true story. There are a lot of similarities between what happened here and that fellow.”
    Slocum flipped to the pictures of the crime scenes. “You don’t think it’s the same guy?”
    “Naw, they caught him. He’s doing life in Tempebut there are … similarities.” Ribbon stretched out the word. “It’s kind of scary.”
    “Damn, they were good-looking.” Slocum gazed at the page of the book showing the victims’ high school graduation pictures.
    Ribbon absently stroked his black polyester tie and said softly, “What I’d like you to do is get yourself up to Higgins. The state police have a psychology division up there. Follow up with them on it.”
    “You think?” Slocum read a passage where the writer described what the Arizona killer had done to one co-ed. He reluctantly lowered the book and said, “I’ll mention it to Bill.”
    “Naw, you don’t have to. Just call up the boys in Higgins and get an appointment.”
    Slocum grinned. “Okay. I won’t fly.”
    “What?”
    “I won’t fly up there.”
    “Why would you?—Oh, yeah, haw.” The sheriff added, “We gotta make sure word gets around about this.”
    “How’s that?”
    Ribbon said, “Well, we should make sure the girls in town are warned about it.”
    “Wouldn’t that kind of tip our hand?”
    “It’s our job to
save
lives too.”
    Slocum flipped