"She burned herself," Deborah said, very deliberately, like she was talking to a three-year-old. "And then she cut off her own head. So you would give her a good grade." "I hope you gave her at least a B for all that work," I said. Halpern goggled at us, his jaw hanging open and jerking spasmodically, as if it was trying to close but lacked a tendon. "Wha," he said finally. "What are you talking about?" "Ariel Goldman," Debs said. "And her roommate, Jessica Ortega. Burned to death. Heads cut off. What can you tell us about that, Jerry?"

Halpern twitched and didn't say anything for a long time. "I, I-are they dead?" he finally whispered. "Jerry," said Deborah, "their heads were cut off. What do you think?"

I watched with great interest as Halpern's face slid through a whole variety of expressions portraying different kinds of blankness, and finally, when the nickel dropped, it settled on the unhinged-jaw look again. "You-you think I-you can't-"

"I'm afraid I can, Jerry," Deborah said. "Unless you can tell me why I shouldn't."
"But that's-I would never," he said.
"Somebody did," I said.
"Yes, but, my God," he said.
"Jerry," Deborah said, "what did you think we wanted to ask about?"
"The, the rape," he said. "When I didn't rape her."

Somewhere there's a world where everything makes sense, but obviously we were not in it. "When you didn't rape her," Deborah said.

"Yes, that's-she wanted me to, ah," he said.
"She wanted you to rape her?" I said.

"She, she," he said, and he began to blush. "She offered me, um, sex. For a good grade," he said, looking at the floor. "And I refused."

"And that's when she asked you to rape her?" I said. Deborah hit me with her elbow.
"So you told her no, Jerry?" Deborah said. "A pretty girl like that?"

"That's when she, um," he said, "she said she'd get an A one way or the other. And she reached up and ripped her own shirt and then started to scream." He gulped, but he didn't look up. "Go on," said Deborah.

"And she waved at me," he said, holding up his hand and waving bye-bye. "And then she ran out into the hall." He looked up at last. "I'm up for tenure this year," he said. "If word about something like this got around, my career would be over."

"I understand," Debs said very understandingly. "So you killed her to save your career."
"What? No!" he sputtered. "I didn't kill her!"
"Then who did, Jerry?" Deborah asked.

"I don't know!" he said, and he sounded almost petulant, as if we had accused him of taking the last cookie. Deborah just stared at him, and he stared back, flicking his gaze from her to me and back again. "I didn't!" he insisted.