“I’d—”

“See?” He was smiling brightly, but his eyes were still hollow and unhinged. “The thought repulsed you, didn’t it?”

“Eric, I—”

“Didn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said quietly. And wondered what that made me.

He held up a hand. “It’s okay, Patrick. I’ve known you for ten years, and you’re one of the least homophobic straight men I know. But you’re still homophobic.”

“Not when it comes to—”

“You and your gay friends,” he said, “you’re fine. I grant you that. But when it comes to the possibility of your son and his gay friends…”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Jason and I had an affair,” he said and poured his coffee into the sink.

“When?” I said.

“Last year. It ended. It only lasted a month in the first place. I was a family friend, and I felt like I was betraying Diandra. Jason, for his part, I think wanted to be with someone closer to his own age, and he still had a pretty powerful attraction to women as well. But the breakup was very amicable.”

“Did you tell the FBI this?”

“No.”

“Eric, for Christ’s sake, why not?”

“It’ll destroy my career,” he said. “Remember your reaction to my hypothetical. No matter how liberal you think academia is, the trustees of most colleges are straight white males. Or their country-club wives. And as soon as they think a fag professor is turning their children or their friends’ children into fag students, they’ll ruin him. Bank on it.”

“Eric, it’s going to come out. The FBI, Eric. The FBI. They’re going through your life right now with magnifying glasses. They’ll turn over the right rock sooner or later.”

“I can’t admit this, Patrick. I can’t.”

“What about Evandro Arujo? Did you know him?”

He shook his head. “No. Jason was scared, Diandra was scared, so I called you in.”

I believed him. “Eric, please consider talking to the Feds.”

“Will you be telling them what I told you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t work that way. I’ll tell them, for what it’s worth, that I don’t think you’re a suspect, but I don’t think it’ll change their minds without proof.”

He nodded and walked out of the kitchen to the door. “Thanks for coming by, Patrick.”

I paused in the doorway. “Tell them, Eric.”

He put a hand on my shoulder and smiled at me, trying to look brave. “The night Jason was killed, I was with a student. A lover. The student’s father is a high-powered attorney from North Carolina and a ranking member of the Christian Coalition. What do you think he’ll do when he finds out?”

I looked down at his dusty carpet.

“Teaching’s all I know, Patrick. It is me. Without it, I disappear.”

I looked at him and he seemed to be disappearing as he said it, floating away to mist right in front of me.

“I stopped at The Black Emerald on my way over to the hospital, but it was closed. I looked up at Gerry’s apartment above it. The shades were drawn. I looked for Gerry’s Grand Torino, usually parked out in front of the bar. It wasn’t here.