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.”
DEXTER IN THE DARK
85
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 unti
l we talk to Halpern.”
T W E L V E
Dr. 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.”