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Or I had until now. But suddenly I was all alone in there, and things did not seem quite so hard-edged and certain. And for the first time, I truly needed to know.
Of course, few jobs provide paid time off for introspection, even on a topic as important as missing Dark Passengers. No, Dexter must still lift that bale. Especially with Deborah cracking the whip.
Happily, it was mostly routine. I spent the morning with my fellow geeks combing through Halpern’s apartment for some concrete residue of his guilt. Even more happily, the evidence was so abun-dant that very little real work was necessary.
In the back of his closet we found a sock with several drops of blood on it. Under the couch was a white canvas shoe with a matching blotch on top. In a plastic bag in the bathroom was a pair of pants with a singed cuff and even more blood, small dots of spray that had been heat-hardened.
It was probably a good thing that there was so much of it out in the open, because Dexter was truly not his usual bright and eager self today. I found myself drifting in an anxious gray mist and wondering if the Passenger was coming home, only to jerk back to the present, standing there in the closet holding a dirty, blood-spattered sock. If any real investigation had been necessary, I am not sure I could have performed up to my own very high standards.
Luckily, it wasn’t needed. I had never before seen such an out-pouring of clear and obvious evidence from somebody who had, after all, had several days to clean up. When I indulge in my own little hobby I am neat and tidy and forensically innocent within minutes; Halpern had let several days go by without taking even the most elementary precautions. It was almost too easy, and when we checked his car I dropped the “almost.” Clearly displayed on the central armrest of the front seat was a thumbprint of dried blood.
Of course, it was still possible that our lab work would show that it was chicken blood, and Halpern had simply been indulging 100
JEFF LINDSAY
in an innocent pastime, perhaps as an amateur poultry butcher.
Somehow, I doubted it. It seemed overwhelmingly clear that Halpern had done something truly unkind to someone.
And yet, the small nagging thought tugged at me that it was, just as overwhelmingly so, too easy. Something was not quite right here. But since I had no Passenger to point me in the right direction, I kept it to myself. It would have been cruel, in any case, to burst Deborah’s happy balloon. She was very nearly glowing with satisfaction as the results came in and Halpern looked more and more like our demented catch of the day.
Deborah was actually humming when she dragged me along to interview Halpern, which took my unease to a new level. I watched her as we went into the room where Halpern was waiting. I could not remember the last time she had seemed so happy. She even forgot to wear her expression of perpetual disapproval. It was very unsettling, a complete violation of natural law, as if everyone on I-95
suddenly decided to drive slowly and carefully.
“Well, Jerry,” she said cheerfully as we settled into chairs facing Halpern. “Would you like to talk about those two girls?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said. He was very pale, almost greenish, but he looked a lot more determined than he had when we brought him in. “You’ve made a mistake,” he said. “I didn’t do anything.”
Deborah looked at me with a smile and shook her head. “He didn’t do anything,” she said happily.
“It’s possible,” I said. “Somebody else might have put the bloody clothes in his apartment while he was watching Letterman.”
“Is that what happened, Jerry?” she said. “Did somebody else put those bloody clothes in your place?”
If possible, he looked even greener. “What—bloody—what are you talking about?”
She smiled at him. “Jerry. We found a pair of your pants with blood on ’em. It matches the victims’ blood. We found a shoe and a sock, same story. And we found a bloody fingerprint in your car.
Your fingerprint, their blood.” Deborah leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “Does that jog your memory at all, Jerry?”
DEXTER IN THE DARK
101
Halpern had started shaking his head while Deborah was talking, and he continued to do so, as if it was some kind of weird reflex and he didn’t know he was doing it. “No,” he said. “No. That isn’t even— No.”
“No, Jerry?” Deborah said. “What does that mean, no?”
He was still shaking his head. A drop of sweat flew off and plopped on the table and I could hear him trying very hard to breathe. “Please,” he said. “This is crazy. I didn’t do anything. Why are you— This is pure Kafka, I didn’t do anything.”
Deborah turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “Kafka?” she said.
“He thinks he’s a cockroach,” I told her.
“I’m just a dumb cop, Jerry,” she said. “I don’t know about Kafka. But I know solid evidence when I see it. And you know what, Jerry? I’m seeing it all over your apartment.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” he pleaded.
