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.”

DEXTER IN THE DARK

83

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.

84

JEFF LINDSAY

Tags: Jeff Lindsay Dexter Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net