Pulse by John Lutz

not a coldhearted assessment of the situation, but a pragmatic one. In the wider world there will come times when you’ll be faced with similar situations. What will be right won’t seem right. Vestiges of childhood concepts of morality, of rights and wrongs, can haunt and cloud your logic. It must not. You can’t let it. Your opposite number somewhere will be yielding to no such delusions. He or she will have long ago locked them away so that they’re no longer a part of the decision-making process. The earlier you learn to compartmentalize, the better for all concerned.”
    “Except Macy Collins,” Juditha Jason said. Juditha, known on campus as “Jody,” didn’t say it in a tone of disagreement. She seemed to be speaking thoughtfully, and mainly to herself.
    “Macy will not lodge a complaint,” Professor Pratt said. There were a few snickers. “In the military,” she said, “there was an officer who, shortly before a major battle, stood before his fresh recruits, a dead enemy at his feet. He kicked the dead man in the head. Then he opened his canteen and poured water into the corpse’s gaping mouth. He made his troops do the same. He was teaching them there was nothing to be feared from the dead. They had nothing more to do with the living. They would not feel nor benefit from your respect, your empathy, your regret, or any other emotion. They were simply ... the dead.” She met the gazes of each of her students. “He doubtless saved many of his troops’ lives with that demonstration. They learned that there is a time for grieving, and then the dead are simply inanimate objects. Am I making myself understood?”
    “If you aren’t pragmatic, you’re going to lose the battle,” a tousle-haired boy in the last row said.
    “Precisely,” Professor Pratt said, pleased.
    “I agree with what you say,” Jody Jason said, “but we can’t simply put what happened to Macy out of our minds.”
    “We can for the next hour,” the professor said.
    And for the most part, they did.
    Professor Pratt considered that a breakthrough.
     
     
    After class, Jody lingered and approached the professor, who was gathering her teaching materials and poking them into a brown leather bag that was a cross between a large purse and a briefcase.
    “I noticed a man and woman talking with Schueller,” Jody said.
    “You mean Chancellor Schueller.”
    “Of course.” Jody actually thought of the professor as “Elaine,” and the chancellor simply as “Schueller.” But she’d learned to be careful. Hierarchy and respect were important at Waycliffe. “I was wondering if they were talking about Macy Collins.”
    “I can’t enlighten you on that,” Professor Pratt said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
    “Were they police?”
    “Yes. That’s my understanding.”
    “Are they going to talk to any of the students?”
    “I wouldn’t know.” Professor Pratt closed and latched her purse-briefcase. “Why are you so interested?”
    “It’s a puzzle,” Jody said. “A murder case that cries out to be solved.”
    “How do you know it isn’t solved? There might be an obvious perpetrator. Possibly a boyfriend none of us knows about.”
    “I wouldn’t think so. And the way she was killed. Did you read about Macy’s injuries, the awful things done to her?”
    “Actually I haven’t,” Professor Pratt said. “All I’ve seen or heard about the case is from a capsule report on a cable news channel this morning. It was too hysterical to be very informative.”
    “The twenty-four-hour news cycle.”
    “Yes, it’s changed the world,” Professor Pratt said. “Not necessarily for the better.”
    “It’s easier to find people.”
    Professor Pratt looked at Jody as if trying to decipher some code. “That’s not always a good thing.”
    “I meant with the Internet. The social networks.”
    “More like antisocial networks.”
    “Sometimes, I guess. Do you happen to know the names of the two detectives who were here