23

Dawn’s friend Christine gave me the names of several men who had dated Dawn. The first two I talked with said they’d been out with her only once. One of them said she was too needy. The other one said she was kind of boring. Neither seemed eager to be associated with a murder inquiry. The third dater’s name was Marc Perry. I met him on a construction site, where he was working as a carpenter. He had dated her in high school, and he was more interesting.

“You been doing this since high school?” I said.

“Naw, went to Brown,” he said.

“Graduate?” I said.

“BA in psych,” he said. “Maybe I’ll go to grad school in a while, I don’t know. At the moment, I’m sort of looking around, and while I’m looking around, I kind of like this work.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I would, too. Tell me about Dawn Lopata.”

“That guy really kill her?” he said.

“Something did, don’t know if it was him,” I said.

“Too bad,” he said. “She was an okay kid.”

“You liked her?”

“Sure,” Perry said.

“One of the other guys I talked with said she was needy,” I said.

“Yeah,” Perry said. “Yeah, I guess she probably was.”

“How so?” I said.

“You know, she was always afraid she didn’t measure up. Like she always seemed worried that you were just there to bang her.”

“She was sexually available?”

“Aren’t they all.”

“I’ve always hoped so,” I said. “Passive or aggressive?”

“Hey,” he said. “Were you a psych major, too?”

“I’m best friends with one,” I said. “Was she one of those women who sort of submit, or did she seek?”

“Funny thing is,” he said, “she was both. She seemed eager, and she was very interested in whatever sexual contrivance you could, ah, come up with.”

“Positions?” I said. “Sex aids?”

“Yeah, whatever you might know that she hadn’t tried.”

“And the passive part?” I said.

“Once you were, like, in the saddle, or whatever, she just lay there.”

“No response?”

“Limp as a glove,” he said.

“She ever play choking games?”

“Like cut off her breathing so she gets an extra thrill?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I got no interest in that stuff,” he said. “Wouldn’t do it if I was asked.”

“She ask?” I said.

“Nope. You think that’s how she got killed?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “Why I’m asking.”

“I read that he strangled her,” Perry said.

“Me too,” I said.

“But you don’t know.”

“Why I’m asking,” I said. “Any of the other guys that dated her play choking games, that you know about?”

“No,” Perry said. “But it’s not the kind of thing most guys talk about.”

“The sex that she was interested in, was that primarily aimed at intensifying your experience or hers?”

He was silent for a time.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You know? I mean, you’re doing something that really turns the girl on, it usually turns you on, too, doesn’t it. I assume that would be vice versa with her. I can’t believe I’m talking about shit like this with a stranger.”

“Lucky. You were a psych major,” I said.

“Doesn’t seem to be doing me much good at the moment,” he said.

“Any theories about why she was the way she was?” I said.

He grinned.

“Failure to resolve the conflict between passivity and aggression,” he said.

“Ah,” I said. “That clears it up.”

“A BA in psych don’t make me a shrink.”

“I know,” I said. “But it might help you pay attention.”

He nodded.

“All I can give you,” he said, “is how she was really worried that you cared about her for herself, not for the sex.”

“Did you?”

“I liked her okay,” Perry said.

“With or without sex?”

“Sure,” he said.

He looked down, and while he was looking down, he adjusted the hammer in his hammer holster.

“Honestly?” he said.

“I’d prefer it,” I said.

“She wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“I was nineteen,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, hell,” he said. “Course not. She wasn’t coming across, I wouldn’ta dated her.”

I nodded.

“So her fears were well founded,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“And most of the people she dated felt that way?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head.

“She was kind of a joke,” he said.

I nodded. We were quiet. Perry absently jiggled the hammer in its holster.

“I feel kind of bad for her,” he said.

“Me too,” I said.

“And I feel kind of bad about myself and how I was with her.”

“Probably should,” I said. “On the other hand, nineteen and male is nineteen and male.”

“I know that, too,” Perry said.

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