Dexter in the Dark, page 9
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Kurt,” he said. “Kurt Wagner. What’s yours?”
“Dexter,” I said. “Wait here a moment, Kurt.” I hurried over to Deborah before the strain of trying to think again proved too much for the boy.
“Deborah,” I said, “we may have a small break here.”
“Well, it isn’t your damned pot ovens,” she snarled. “They’re too small for a body.”
“No,” I said. “But the young man over there is missing a girlfriend.”
Her head jerked up and she rose to standing almost on point like a hunting dog. She stared over at Jessica’s like-boyfriend, who looked back and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “About fucking time,” she said, and she headed for him.
I looked at Angel. He shrugged and stood up. For a moment, he looked like he was going to say something. But then he shook his head, dusted off his hands, and followed Debs over to hear what Kurt had to say, leaving me really and truly all alone with my dark thoughts.
Just to watch; sometimes it was enough. Of course there was the sure knowledge that watching would lead inevitably to the surging heat and glorious flow of blood, the overwhelming pulse of emotions throbbing from the victims, the rising music of the ordered madness as the sacrifice flew into wonderful death…All this would come. For now, it was enough for the Watcher to observe and soak in the delicious feeling of anonymous, ultimate power. He could feel the unease of the other. That unease would grow, rising through the musical range into fear, then panic, and at last full-fledged terror. It would all come in good time.
The Watcher saw the other scanning the crowd, flailing about for some clue to the source of the blossoming sense of danger that tickled at his senses. He would find nothing, of course. Not yet. Not until he determined that the time was right. Not until he had run the other into dull mindless panic. Only then would he stop watching and begin to take final action.
And until then-it was time to let the other begin to hear the music of fear.
CHAPTER 11
H ER NAME WAS JESSICA ORTEGA. SHE WAS A JUNIOR AND lived in one of the nearby residence halls. We got the room number from Kurt, and Deborah left Angel to wait at the kilns until a squad car arrived to take over.
I never knew why they were called residence halls instead of dormitories. Perhaps it was because they looked so much like hotels nowadays. There were no ivy-covered walls bedecking the hallowed halls here, the lobby had lots of glass and potted plants, and the halls were carpeted and clean and new-looking.
We stopped at the door of Jessica’s room. It had a small, neat card taped at eye level that read ARIEL GOLDMAN & JESSICA ORTEGA. Below that in smaller print it said INTOXICANTS REQUIRED FOR ENTRY. Someone had underlined “Entry” and scrawled below it YOU THINK?
Deborah raised an eyebrow at me. “Party girls,” she said.
“Somebody has to do it,” I said.
She snorted and knocked on the door. There was no answer, and Debs waited a full three seconds before knocking again, much harder.
I heard a door open behind me and turned to see a reed-thin girl with short blond hair and glasses looking at us. “They’re not here,” she said with clear disapproval. “For like a couple of days. First quiet I’ve had all semester.”
“Do you know where they went?” Deborah asked her.
The girl rolled her eyes. “Must be a major kegger somewhere,” she said.
“When was the last time you saw them?” Deborah said.
The girl shrugged. “With those two it’s not seeing them, it’s hearing them. Loud music and laughing all night, okay? Major pain in the butt for somebody who actually studies and goes to class.” She shook her head, and her short hair riffled around her face. “I mean, please.”
“So when was the last time you heard them?” I asked her.
She looked at me. “Are you like cops or something? What did they do now?”
“What have they done before?” Debs asked.
She sighed. “Parking tickets. I mean, lots of them. DUI once. Hey, I don’t want to sound like I’m ratting them out or something.”
“Would you say it’s unusual for them to be away like this?” I said.
“What’s unusual is if they show up to class. I don’t know how they pass anything. I mean,” she gave us half a smirk, “I can probably guess how they pass, but…” She shrugged. She did not share her guess with us, unless you counted her smirk.
“What classes do they have together?” Deborah asked.
The girl shrugged again and shook her head. “You’d have to check like the registrar,” she said.
It was not a terribly long walk to see like the registrar, especially at the pace Deborah set. I managed to keep up with her and still have enough breath to ask her a pointed question or two. “Why does it matter what classes they had together?”
Deborah made an impatient gesture with her hand. “If that girl is right, Jessica and her roommate-”
“Ariel Goldman,” I said.
“Right. So if they are trading sex for good grades, that makes me want to talk to their professors.”
On the surface, that made sense. Sex is one of the most common motives for murder, which does not seem to fit in with the fact that it is often rumored to be connected to love. But there was one small thing that did not make sense. “Why would a professor cook them and cut off their heads like that? Why not just strangle them and throw the bodies in a Dumpster?”
Deborah shook her head. “It’s not important how he did it. What matters is whether he did.”
“All right,” I said. “And how sure are we that these two are the victims?”
“Sure enough to talk to their teachers,” she said. “It’s a start.”
We arrived at the registrar’s office, and when Debs flashed her badge we were shown right in. But it was a good thirty minutes of Deborah pacing and muttering while I went through the computer records with the registrar’s assistant. Jessica and Ariel were, in fact, in several of the same classes, and I printed out the names, office numbers, and home addresses of the professors. Deborah glanced at the list and nodded. “These two guys, Bukovich and Halpern, have office hours now,” she said. “We can start with them.”
Once again Deborah and I stepped out into the muggy day for a stroll across campus.
“It’s nice to be back on campus, isn’t it?” I said, in my always futile effort to keep a pleasant flow of conversation going.
Deborah snorted. “What’s nice is if we can get a definite ID on the bodies and maybe move a little closer to grabbing the guy who did this.”
I did not think that identifying the bodies would really move us closer to identifying the killer, but I have been wrong before, and in any case police work is powered by routine and custom, and one of the proud traditions of our craft was that it was good to know the dead person’s name. So I willingly trundled along with Deborah to the office building where the two professors waited.
Professor Halpern’s office was on the ground floor just inside the main entrance, and before the outer door could swing shut Debs was already knocking on his door. There was no answer. Deborah tried the knob. It was locked, so she thumped on the door again with the same lack of result.
A man came strolling along the hall and stopped at the office next door, glancing at us with a raised eyebrow. “Looking for Jerry Halpern?” he said. “I don’t think he’s in today.”
“Do you know where he is?” Deborah said.
He gave us a slight smile. “I imagine he’s home, at his apartment, since he’s not here. Why do you ask?”
Debs pulled out her badge and showed it to him. He didn’t seem impressed. “I see,” he said. “Does this have anything to do with the two dead bodies across campus?”
“Do you have any reason to think it would?” Deborah said.
“N-n-n-o,” he said, “not really.”
Deborah looked at him and waited, but he didn’t say anything more. “Can I ask your name, sir?” she said at last.
“I’m Dr. Wilkins,” he said, nodding toward the door he stood in front of. “This is my office.”
“Dr. Wilkins,” Deborah said. “Could you please tell me what your remark about Professor Halpern means?”
Wilkins pursed his lips. “Well,” he said, hesitating, “Jerry’s a nice enough guy, but if this is a murder investigation…” He let it hang for a moment. So did Deborah. “Well,” he said at last, “I believe it was last Wednesday I heard a disturbance in his office.” He shook his head. “These walls are not terribly thick.”
“What kind of disturbance?” Deborah asked.
“Shouting,” he said. “Perhaps a little bit of scuffling? Anyway, I peeked out the door and saw a student, a young woman, stagger out of Halpern’s office and run away. She was, ah-her shirt was torn.”
“By any chance did you recognize the young woman?” Deborah asked.
“Yes,” Wilkins said. “I had her in a class last semester. Her name is Ariel Goldman. Lovely girl, but not much of a student.”
Deborah glanced at me and I nodded encouragingly. “Do you think Halpern tried to force himself on Ariel Goldman?” Deborah said.
Wilkins tilted his head to one side and held up one hand. “I couldn’t say for sure. That’s what it looked like, though.”
Deborah looked at Wilkins, but he didn’t have anything to add, so she nodded and said, “Thank you, Dr. Wilkins. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I hope so,” he said, and he turned away to open his door and enter his office. Debs was already looking at the printout from the registrar.
“Halpern lives just a mile or so away,” she said, and headed toward the doors. Once again I found myself hurrying to catch up to her.
“Which theory are we giving up?” I asked her. “The one that says Ariel tried to seduce Halpern? Or that he tried to rape her?”
“We’re not giving up anything,” she said. “Not until we talk to Halpern.”
CHAPTER 12
D R. JERRY HALPERN HAD AN APARTMENT LESS THAN TWO miles from the campus, in a two-story building that had probably been very nice forty years ago. He answered the door right away when Deborah knocked, blinking at us as the sunlight hit his face. He was in his mid-thirties and thin without looking fit, and he hadn’t shaved for a few days. “Yes?” he said, in a querulous tone of voice that would have been just right for an eighty-year-old scholar. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What is it?”
Deborah held up her badge and said, “Can we come in, please?”
Halpern goggled at the badge and seemed to sag a little. “I didn’t-what, what-why come in?” he said.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Deborah said. “About Ariel Goldman.”
Halpern fainted.
I don’t get to see my sister look surprised very often-her control is too good. So it was quite rewarding to see her with her mouth hanging open as Halpern hit the floor. I manufactured a suitable matching expression, and bent over to feel for a pulse.
“His heart is still going,” I said.
“Let’s get him inside,” Deborah said, and I dragged him into the apartment.
The apartment was probably not as small as it looked, but the walls were lined with overflowing bookshelves, a worktable stacked high with papers and more books. In the small remaining space there was a battered, mean-looking two-seater couch and an overstuffed chair with a lamp behind it. I managed to heft Halpern up and onto the couch, which creaked and sank alarmingly under him.
I stood up and nearly bumped into Deborah, who was already hovering and glaring down at Halpern. “You better wait for him to wake up before you intimidate him,” I said.
“This son of a bitch knows something,” she said. “Why else would he flop like that?”
“Poor nutrition?” I said.
“Wake him up,” she said.
I looked at her to see if she was kidding, but of course she was dead serious. “What would you suggest?” I said. “I forgot to bring smelling salts.”
“We can’t just stand around and wait,” she said. And she leaned forward as if she was going to shake him, or maybe punch him in the nose.
Happily for Halpern, however, he chose just that moment to return to consciousness. His eyes fluttered a few times and then stayed open, and as he looked up at us his whole body tensed. “What do you want?” he said.
“Promise not to faint again?” I said. Deborah elbowed me aside.
“Ariel Goldman,” she said.
“Oh God,” Halpern whined. “I knew this would happen.”
“You were right,” I said.
“You have to believe me,” he said, struggling to sit up. “I didn’t do it.”
“All right,” Debs said. “Then who did it?”
“She did it herself,” he said.
Deborah looked at me, perhaps to see if I could tell her why Halpern was so clearly insane. Unfortunately, I could not, so she looked back at him. “She did it herself,” she said, her voice loaded with cop doubt.
“Yes,” he insisted. “She wanted to make it look like I did it, so I would have to give her a good grade.”
“She burned herself,” Deborah said, very deliberately, like she was talking to a three-year-old. “And then she cut off her own head. So you would give her a good grade.”
“I hope you gave her at least a B for all that work,” I said.
Halpern goggled at us, his jaw hanging open and jerking spasmodically, as if it was trying to close but lacked a tendon. “Wha,” he said finally. “What are you talking about?”
“Ariel Goldman,” Debs said. “And her roommate, Jessica Ortega. Burned to death. Heads cut off. What can you tell us about that, Jerry?”
Halpern twitched and didn’t say anything for a long time. “I, I-are they dead?” he finally whispered.
“Jerry,” said Deborah, “their heads were cut off. What do you think?”
I watched with great interest as Halpern’s face slid through a whole variety of expressions portraying different kinds of blankness, and finally, when the nickel dropped, it settled on the unhinged-jaw look again. “You-you think I-you can’t-”
“I’m afraid I can, Jerry,” Deborah said. “Unless you can tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“But that’s-I would never,” he said.
“Somebody did,” I said.
“Yes, but, my God,” he said.
“Jerry,” Deborah said, “what did you think we wanted to ask about?”
“The, the rape,” he said. “When I didn’t rape her.”
Somewhere there’s a world where everything makes sense, but obviously we were not in it. “When you didn’t rape her,” Deborah said.
“Yes, that’s-she wanted me to, ah,” he said.
“She wanted you to rape her?” I said.
“She, she,” he said, and he began to blush. “She offered me, um, sex. For a good grade,” he said, looking at the floor. “And I refused.”
“And that’s when she asked you to rape her?” I said. Deborah hit me with her elbow.
“So you told her no, Jerry?” Deborah said. “A pretty girl like that?”
“That’s when she, um,” he said, “she said she’d get an A one way or the other. And she reached up and ripped her own shirt and then started to scream.” He gulped, but he didn’t look up.
“Go on,” said Deborah.
“And she waved at me,” he said, holding up his hand and waving bye-bye. “And then she ran out into the hall.” He looked up at last. “I’m up for tenure this year,” he said. “If word about something like this got around, my career would be over.”
“I understand,” Debs said very understandingly. “So you killed her to save your career.”
“What? No!” he sputtered. “I didn’t kill her!”
“Then who did, Jerry?” Deborah asked.
“I don’t know!” he said, and he sounded almost petulant, as if we had accused him of taking the last cookie. Deborah just stared at him, and he stared back, flicking his gaze from her to me and back again. “I didn’t!” he insisted.
“I’d like to believe you, Jerry,” Deborah said. “But it’s really not up to me.”
“What do you mean?” he said.
“I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” she said.
“You’re arresting me?” he said.
“I’m taking you down to the station to answer a few questions, that’s all,” she said reassuringly.
“Oh my God,” he said. “You’re arresting me. That’s-no. No.”
“Let’s do this the easy way, Professor,” Deborah said. “We don’t need the handcuffs, do we?”
He looked at her for a long moment and then suddenly jumped up to his feet and ran for the door. But unfortunately for him and his masterful escape plan, he had to get past me, and Dexter is widely and justly praised for his lightning reflexes. I stuck a foot in the professor’s way, and he went down onto his face and slid headfirst into the door.
“Ow,” he said.
I smiled at Deborah. “I guess you do need the cuffs,” I said.
CHAPTER 13
I AM NOT REALLY PARANOID. I DON’T BELIEVE THAT I AM surrounded by mysterious enemies who seek to trap me, torture me, kill me. Of course, I know very well that if I allow my disguise to slip and reveal me for what I am, then this entire society will join together in calling for my slow and painful death, but this is not paranoia-this is a calm, clearheaded view of consensus reality, and I am not frightened by it. I simply try to be careful so it doesn’t happen.
But a very large piece of my carefulness had always been listening to the subtle whisperings of the Dark Passenger, and it was still being strangely shy about sharing its thoughts. And so I faced a new and unsettling inner silence, and that made me very edgy, sending out a little ripple of uneasiness. It had started with that feeling of being watched, even stalked, at the kilns. And then, as we drove back to headquarters, I could not shake the idea that a car seemed to be following us. Was it really? Did it have sinister intent? And if so, was it toward me or Deborah, or was it just random Miami driver spookiness?
