"Those assholes aren't people," she said. "All they want is to get some goddamned pictures of their perfect fucking haircuts standing in front of the heads, so they can send their tape to the network. What kind of animal wants to see this?"
Actually, I knew the answer to that one, since I was shepherding two of them at the moment and, truth be told, might be considered one myself. But it did seem like I should avoid this question and try to keep our focus on the problem at hand. So I pondered whatever it was that had made Cody's scary guy seem scary, and the fact that he'd had what looked very much like a university parking permit.

"I've had a thought," I said to Deborah, and the way her head snapped around you might have thought I'd told her she was standing on a python. "It doesn't really fit with your dentist-as-drug-lord theory," I warned her.

"Out with it," she said through her teeth.
"Somebody was here, and he scared the kids. He took off in a car with a faculty parking tag."

Deborah stared at me, her eyes hard and opaque. "Shit," she said softly. "The guy Halpern said, what's his name?"

"Wilkins," I said.
"No," she said. "Can't be. All because the kids say somebody scared them? No."
"He has a motive," I said.
"To get tenure, for Christ's sake? Come on, Dex."
"We don't have to think it's important," I said. "They do."

"So to get tenure," she said, shaking her head, "he breaks into Halpern's apartment, steals his clothes, kills two girls-" "And then steers us to Halpern," I said, remembering how he had stood there in the hall and suggested it. Deborah's head jerked around to face me. "Shit," she said. "He did do that, didn't he? Told us to go see Halpern." "And however feeble tenure might seem as a motive," I said, "it makes more sense than Danny Rollins and Ted Bundy getting together on a little project, doesn't it?" Deborah smoothed down the back of her hair, a surprisingly feminine gesture for someone I had come to think of as Sergeant Rock. "It might," she said finally. "I don't know enough about Wilkins to say for sure."

"Shall we go talk to him?"
She shook her head. "First I want to see Halpern again," she said.
"Let me get the kids," I said.

Naturally enough, they were not anywhere near where they should have been. But I found them easily enough; they had wandered over to get a better look at the two heads, and it may have been my imagination, but I thought I could see a small gleam of professional appreciation in Cody's eyes.

"Come on," I told them, "we have to get going." They turned away and followed me reluctantly, but I did hear Astor muttering under her breath, "Better than a stupid museum anyway." image