Wilkins shrugged. “Just rumors, you know. The kids talk. Some of them think Halpern is gay.”
“Less competition for you,” I said. “Like with Tammy Connor.”
Wilkins scowled at me and I’m sure I would have been intimidated if I was a university sophomore. “You need to make up your mind whether I killed my students or screwed them,” he said.
“Why not both?”
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JEFF LINDSAY
“Did you go to college?” he demanded.
“Why yes, I did,” I said.
“Then you ought to know that a certain type of girl sexually pursues her professors. Tammy was over eighteen, and I’m not married.”
“Isn’t it a little bit unethical to have sex with a student?” I said.
“Ex-student,” he snapped. “I dated her after the class last semester. There’s no law against dating an ex-student. Especially if she throws herself at you.”
“Nice catch,” I said.
“Did you sabotage Professor Halpern’s paper?” Deborah said.
Wilkins looked back at Deborah and smiled again. It was wonderful to watch somebody almost as good as I am at switching emotions so quickly. “Detective, do you see a pattern here?” he said.
“Listen, Jerry Halpern is a brilliant guy, but . . . not exactly stable?
And with all the pressure on him right now, he’s just decided that I am a whole conspiracy to get him, all by myself.” He shrugged. “I don’t think I’m quite that good,” he said with a little smile. “At least, not at conspiracy.”
“So you think Halpern killed Tammy Connor and the others?”
Deborah said.
“I didn’t say that,” he said. “But hey, he’s the psycho. Not me.”
He made a step toward the door and raised an eyebrow at Deborah.
“And now, if you don’t mind, I really have to get going.”
Deborah handed him a business card. “Thank you for your time, Professor,” she said. “If you think of anything that might help, please give me a call.”
“I certainly will,” he said, giving her the kind of smile that killed disco and placing a hand on her shoulder. She managed not to flinch. “I really hate to throw you back out into the rain, but . . .”
Deborah moved, very willingly I thought, out from under his hand and toward the door. I followed. Wilkins herded us out the door and through the gate, and then climbed into his car, backed out of the driveway, and drove away. Debs stood in the rain and watched him go, which I am sure she intended to make Wilkins nervous enough to leap from the car and confess, but considering the DEXTER IN THE DARK
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weather it struck me as excessive zeal. I got into the car and waited for her.
When the blue Lexus had vanished Deborah finally got in beside me. “Guy gives me the fucking creeps,” she said.
“Do you think he’s the killer?” I asked. It was a strange feeling for me, not knowing, and wondering if somebody else had seen behind the predator’s mask.
She shook her head with irritation. Water flew off her hair and hit me. “I think he’s a fucking creep,” she said. “What do you think?”
“I’m pretty sure you’re right,” I said.