McCall said nothing.
“Why, you ask? Because if you deal in truth you never have a hangup. And who needs hangups? Not I, sir!”
He kept speaking dreamily, drifting about the dismal room, peering at McCall as if through smoke. The record player suddenly turned itself off.
“I knew Laura Thornton, yes,” young Eastman said. “I just winked behind my shades, Mr. McCall. Of course, you couldn’t see it, so it wasn’t effective, but I winked just the same, and that makes me secure.”
“You feel secure?” asked McCall.
“You bet. This is a happening. If it could be on a stage, it would prolly be very entertaining.”
“How well did you know Laura?”
Eastman waved a coy finger. “She thought Damon Wilde was such a great guy. The faithful swain. Horse-balls, Mr. McCall. All the time he’s sleeping with Veronica Gale. C’est à rire. She never wised up.” He stepped closer. “I’m going to give you a fat tip, Mr. McCall. You better watch out. The people here don’t like the way you’re sneaking around. Just a tip, Mr. McCall. Take it any Way you like.”
“Thanks,” McCall said. “Dean Gunther got rather tough with you, didn’t he, Perry?”
“Now, now, there you go, Mr. McCall. I liked Gunther — sometimes. Besides, do I look like the killer type? All that blood discourages me.”
“Who had it in for Gunther? Hated him enough to kill?”
Eastman threw his head back in a spasm of laughter. It lasted only a moment. “Everybody had it in for Gunther. Even me a little. He was a clot.”
“I thought you said you liked him.”
“Dichotomous, y’know? I disliked him, too.”
McCall had begun to detect a wariness under Eastman’s dreamy exterior.
“Did you kill him, Perry?”
“Straight to the nitty-titty, I’ll give you that. No.”
“Where were you last night? Around nine?”
“Oh, wow.”
“Come on, Perry.”
Eastman flapped his arms. “I was right here in my pad. Believe it, man. All alone, too, meditating.”
“Do you get down to the river much?”
“Where the lovebirds go? You’re trying to pin me down, McCall. I don’t like it.”
“You ever take Laura down by the river?” McCall asked patiently.
“No, sir.”
“You wouldn’t beat up on a girl, would you, Perry?”
“Me?” He laughed again. “That’s funny. My mother raised me to respect womanhood, Mr. McCall. No, I wouldn’t.”
“You stick pretty much to yourself, don’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Well, maybe.”
“How about girls generally? You pretty successful?”
“I’m normal, if that’s what you mean.”
“How about Laura? Did you make her?”
“As a gentleman,” began the boy, swaying.
“How about Laura, Perry? You can cut out the cute routine. I want answers.”
Eastman moved over to the leather chair and fell into it. He pushed the sunglasses up and stared at McCall with his muzzy eyes. “I’m through talking to you. Take off, fuzz.”
“I could turn you in for smoking grass.”
Eastman did not reply. His eyelids had come down, and he lay sprawled in the chair as if he had fallen asleep.
“I’ll be seeing you, Perry.”
Eastman began to snore.
McCall left, frowning. It was not that he had expected more from Eastman than he had got out of the others. He had long since realized that, whatever lay behind the beating of Laura, no one was going to make it easy for him to find out. Rather, they all seemed to project a general air, as much of mockery as of evasion, as if they were all enjoying a secret joke at his expense.
One thing had emerged from his otherwise unproductive talk with Eastman: the student had almost nakedly threatened his personal safety. The second threat in two days.
Somebody was afraid of what he might find out.
But why? He was getting nowhere. Didn’t they know that?
McCall drove slowly along the coils of the road winding through the campus, bound for the administration building. He parked and made his way to the entrance, stepping around broken glass. Workmen were already busy repairing windows. The college must spend a fortune in glass, he thought.
For the first time McCall was troubled with a premonition of failure. It was pretty early in the game to be feeling that! But there it was. He had still to find a lead. Each person he had questioned seemed to be withholding something. Perry Eastman’s leering, fogged manner lingered. Damon Wilde had cut it short, abruptly gone his own way. And Dennis Sullivan had been laughing at him. They all resented him. Was it because he was over thirty?
He entered the offices of the dean of women with relief.
“Well, Mr. Investigator.”
Kathryn sat behind her desk, dark glasses on her absurd nose, hair burning under the fluorescents. The office was beautifully peaceful, and he thought how lovely she looked. He felt again a ridiculous itch to run his hands through her hair.
“Busy?”
“Not very. I’m all alone.”
That seemed fortuitous. He wondered. Was it a come-on? But then he approached the desk and looked for the answer in her face. It was solemn and friendly, nothing more. He decided to let it go with a fatuous “I’m glad.”
For some reason that made her flush slightly. “Getting anywhere, Mike?” she asked, glancing at her typewriter as if it contained something earthshaking.
“I’m not even going backward. Dead center, Katie.”
He was moving around the side of her desk, and she turned her swivel chair — quite naturally — toward that side. He felt a thickening in his throat. By God, it’s like the first time. Her knees were crossed and he could see almost all the way up a noble thigh. There was the faintest frown between her eyes, a certain innocent air of expectation.
“Katie?”
“Yes?” she said, raising her head. She had to do that, because he was leaning over her.
He kissed her. His arms went around her and his right hand closed over her breast.
She pulled away, smiling.
“Just what,” she asked, “are you investigating, Mr. McCall?”
13
“I’m damned if I know,” McCall said. “Billy-be-damned. You’re a witch.”
“Did I hear a labial?” Katie asked.
“You’ve witched me. What is it? I never went for Irish girls before. I’d like a refill, please.”
She raised her head again. Their lips touched and then there was pressure, and acceleration, and hands and chests and racing blood until Katie gasped and jerked away and said, “My God, what if somebody walked in? What’s the matter with me? Get over on the other side of that desk, McCall, before I yell rape.”
“You’re something,” McCall said, not moving.
“Right this instant.”
He obeyed.
She sat back and felt her hair. “You’ve ruined me. Just like a man.”
“Have you known many men?”
“In what sense?”
“You know in what sense.”
“You mean how many men have I gone to bed with? You know something, McCall, I ought to kick you in the you-know-where for daring to ask me a question like that on a twenty-four-hour acquaintance!”
“I have a reason for asking,” McCall said doggedly.
“Sure you do. Male ego. What presumption! But as long as you’re asking,” Katie said with a toss of the locks, “no, I haven’t known ‘many’ men. Just enough.”