Klink snatched off his glasses, ran a hand through his remaining hair. “This is a police-state tactic, making threats, knowing that I’m screwed no matter what I do. Even if I talk to an attorney, he’ll tell his wife…”
Virgil: “And you being a celebrity…”
“There’s no way out,” Lucas said.
“Well, unless you answer some questions privately and do a voluntary DNA scrub,” Virgil added. “All that would be confidential…as long as you’re not the one who murdered Doris.”
“I am not!” Klink screeched. He turned away from them, toward a window covered with venetian blinds. He reached out, pulled a cord to open the blinds, looked out at the city, his face gone haggard.
“Ask a question. I can’t promise to answer,” he said.
“You did know Doris?”
“I knew her, yes. Oh, and I will do the DNA sample if that can be handled discreetly. I am not the man who slept with her the night she was murdered.”
“We can have a tech do the DNA right here in your office, or at your home, after hours if you prefer,” Lucas said. “She’ll keep her mouth shut, you know, because she likes her job.”
“And it sounds like you know some of the details of the case,” Virgil said.
Klink circled back around his chair, dropped back into it. “I am aware of the renewed media interest in the case, of course. I even looked at some of the files that have been posted online. I was horrified by the photos. As a psychologist, I can tell you that the killer is a very troubled human being…”
“We know that,” Lucas said dryly. “We need to catch him…”
“Or her…” Klink said.
“You think the killer could be a woman?” Virgil asked, clearly curious.
“Possibly. If you read the ME’s report carefully, you’ll see they checked if she was pregnant when she died. She wasn’t, but she’d had sexual intercourse shortly before she was murdered.”
“Yes, we know all that,” Virgil said. “There’s an argument about whether the sex was rape or consensual.”
“It seems unlikely to me that she was raped, but what I think is neither here nor there. The details of the report say that semen was found in her vagina and cervix, but not in her uterus or fallopian tubes. After ejaculation, the semen passes through the uterus and into the fallopian tubes in a matter of minutes—fifteen minutes in some cases. It never got there. She must have been murdered immediately after having sex. I mean within minutes. Looking at thephotos, I thought, this is a crime of passion. Either passion on the part of the male who ejaculated into her, or someone who passionately objected to that.”
“An act of jealousy,” Lucas said.
“It could be,” Klink said.
“This is very interesting, Doc,” Virgil said. “How do you know all that stuff about fallopian tubes and so on?”
“Much of my…practice, such as it is, involves questions of sexuality. I need to know how the parts work.”
Lucas: “Are you married?”
“No. Never.”
“Do you still see escorts? Are you out on Tinder?”
“I do not patronize prostitutes, and never have. I have used Internet dating services,” Klink said.
“But you did patronize Doris,” Virgil said.
“I did, but when we met, when we first slept together, I didn’t realize that…she would ask for a gift.” Lucas glanced at Virgil, who nodded: Klink wasn’t being entirely truthful—they already knew he’d been introduced to Doris with sex in the offing.
“A gift. Okay. I’ll let that go,” Virgil said. “Did you give her gifts more than once?”
“Yes, several times,” Klink said. “At the time of her death, I hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks.”
“And you had no further contact with her?”
