Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay
“Several people speak it in France,” I said. “And even over here, some people like your mother think they speak it.”
“So what is it?” she asked.
“It’s chicken,” I said.
They looked at each other, then back at me. Oddly enough, it was Cody who broke the silence. “Do we still get pizza?” he asked.
“I’m pretty sure you do,” I said. “So how about rounding up a team for Kick the Can?”
Cody whispered something to Astor, and she nodded. “Can you teach us stuff? You know, the other stuff?” she said.
The “other stuff” she referred to was, of course, the Dark Lore that went with training to be Dexter’s Disciples. I had discovered recently that the two of them, because of the repeated trauma of life with their biological father, who regularly beat them with furniture and small appliances, had both turned into what can only be described as My Children. Dexter’s Descendants. They were as permanently scarred as I was, forever twisted away from fuzzy puppy reality and into the sunless land of wicked pleasure. And they were far too eager to begin playing wicked games, and the only safe way out for them was through me and onto the Harry Path.
And truthfully, it would be a very real delight to conduct a small lesson tonight, as a baby step back in the direction of resuming my normal life, if I can use those two words together when talking about me. The honeymoon had strained my imitations of polite behavior beyond all their previous limits, and I was ready to slither back into the shadows and polish my fangs. Why not bring the children along?
“All right,” I said. “Go get some kids for Kick the Can, and I’ll show you something you can use.”
“By playing Kick the Can?” Astor said with a pout. “We don’t want to know that.”
“Why do I always win when we play Kick the Can?” I asked them.
“You don’t,” Cody said.
“Sometimes I LET one of you win,” I said loftily.
“Ha,” Cody said.
“The point is,” I said, “I know how to move quietly. Why could that be important?”
“Sneak up on people,” Cody said, a lot of words in a row for him. It was wonderful to see him coming out of his shell with this new hobby.
“Yes,” I said. “And Kick the Can is a good game to practice that.”
They looked at each other, and then Astor said, “Show us first, and then we’ll go get everybody.”
“All right,” I said, and I stood up and led them to the hedge between their yard and the neighbors’.
It was not dark yet, but the shadows were getting longer as we stood there in the shaded grass beside the hedge. I closed my eyes for just a moment; something stirred in the dark backseat and I let the rustling of black wings rattle softly through me, feeling myself blend in with the shadows and become a part of the darkness—
“What are you doing?” Astor said.
I opened my eyes and looked at her. She and her brother were staring at me as if I had suddenly started to eat dirt, and it occurred to me that trying to explain an idea like becoming one with the darkness might be a tough sell. But it had been my idea to do this, so there was really no way around it.
“First,” I said, trying to sound casually logical, “you have to make yourself relax, and feel like you’re a part of the night around you.”
“It’s not night,” Astor said.
“Then just be a part of the late afternoon, okay?” I said. She looked dubious, but she didn’t say anything else, so I went on. “Now,” I said. “There’s something inside you that you need to wake up, and you need to listen to it. Does that make sense to you?”
“Shadow Guy,” said Cody, and Astor nodded.
I looked at the two of them and felt something close to religious wonder. They knew about the Shadow Guy—their name for the Dark Passenger. They had it inside them as certainly as I did, and were familiar enough with its existence to have named it. There could be no doubt about it—they were already in the same dark world I lived in. It was a profound moment of connection, and I knew now that I was doing the right thing—these were my children and the Passenger’s and the thought that we were together in this stronger-than-blood bond was almost overwhelming.
I was not alone. And I had a large and wonderful responsibility in taking charge of these two and keeping them safely on the Harry Path to becoming what they already were, but with safety and order. It was a lovely moment, and I am quite sure that somewhere music was playing.
And that really should have been how this day of turmoil and hardship ended. Really and truly, if there were any justice at all in this wide wicked world, we would have frolicked happily in the evening’s heat, bonding and learning wonderful secrets, and then ambling in to a delicious meal of French food and American pizza.
But of course, there is no such thing as justice, and most of the time I find myself pausing to reflect that it must be true that life does not really like us very much, after all. And I should not have been surprised when, just as I reached out a hand to each of them, my cell phone began to warble.
“Get your ass down here,” Deborah said, without even a hello.
“Of course,” I said. “As long as the rest of me can stay here for dinner.”
“That’s funny,” she said, although she didn’t sound very amused. “But I don’t need another laugh right now, because I am looking at another one of those hilarious dead bodies.”
I felt a small inquisitive purr from the Passenger, and several hairs on the back of my neck stood up for a closer look. “Another?” I said. “You mean like the three posed bodies this morning?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” she said, and hung up.
“Har-de-har-har,” I said, and put my phone away.
Cody and Astor were looking at me with an identical expression of disappointment. “That was Sergeant Debbie, wasn’t it?” Astor said. “She wants you to go to work.”
“That’s right,” I admitted.
“Mom is going to be really mad,” she said, and it hit me that she was probably right—I could still hear Rita making furious cooking noises in the kitchen, punctuated with the occasional “damn it.” I was hardly an expert on the subject of human expectations, but I was pretty sure she would be upset that I was going to leave without tasting this special and painfully prepared meal.
“Now I really am on the poop van,” I said, and I went inside, wondering what I could possibly say and hoping some inspiration might hit me before Rita did.
SIX
I WAS NOT AT ALL CERTAIN I WAS GOING TO THE RIGHT place until I got there and pulled up in front—it had seemed like such an unlikely destination before I got to where I could see the yellow crime-scene tape, the lights of the patrol cars flashing in the dusk, and the growing crowd of gawkers hoping to see something unforgettable. It was almost always crowded at Joe’s Stone Crab, but not in July. The restaurant would not open again until October, which seemed like a long wait even for Joe’s.
But this was a different crowd tonight, and they weren’t here for stone crabs. They were hungry for something else tonight, something Joe would most likely prefer to take off his menu.
I parked and followed the trail of uniformed officers around to the back, where tonight’s entrée sat, leaning back against the wall beside the service door. I heard the sibilant interior chuckling before I actually saw any details, but as I got close enough, the lights strung up by the forensic team showed me plenty worth an appreciative smile.
His feet were crammed into a pair of those black glove-leather shoes that are usually Italian, and most often worn for the sole purpose of dancing. He also wore a pair of very nice resort-style shorts in a tasteful cranberry color, and a blue silk shirt with a silver embossed palm-tree pattern on it. But the shirt was unbuttoned and pulled back to reveal that the man’s chest had been removed and the cavity emptied out of all the natural and awful stuff that should go in there. It was now filled instead with ice, bottles of beer, and what ap
Vince Masuoka crouched on the far side of the doorway spreading dust in slow even strokes across the wall, and I stepped over beside him.
“Are we going to get lucky tonight?” I asked him.
He snorted. “If they let us take a couple of those free beers,” he said. “They’re really cold.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
He jerked his head toward the body. “It’s that new kind, the label turns blue when it’s cold,” he said. He wiped his arm across his forehead. “It’s gotta be over ninety out here, and that beer would taste great right now.”
“Sure,” I said, looking at the improbable shoes on the body. “And then we could go dancing.”
“Hey,” he said. “You want to? When we’re done?”
“No,” I said. “Where’s Deborah?”
He nodded to his left. “Over there,” he said. “Talking to the woman who found it.”
I walked over to where Debs was interviewing a hysterical Hispanic woman who was crying into her hands and shaking her head at the same time, which struck me as a very difficult thing to do, like rubbing your belly and patting your head. But she was doing it quite well, and for some reason Deborah was not impressed with the woman’s wonderful coordination.
“Arabelle,” Debs was saying. “Arabelle, please listen to me.” Arabelle was not listening, and I didn’t think my sister’s vocal tone of combined anger and authority was well calculated to win over anyone—especially not someone who looked like she had been sent over from a casting office to play the part of a cleaning woman with no green card. Deborah glared at me as I approached, as if it was my fault that she was intimidating Arabelle, so I decided to help.
It is not that I think Debs is incompetent—she is very good at her job; it’s in her blood, after all. And the idea that to know me is to love me is one that has never crossed the shadowed threshold of my mind. Just the opposite, in fact. But Arabelle was so upset, it was clear that she was not filled with the thrill of discovery. She was instead several steps over the edge into hysteria, and talking to hysterical people, like so much of ordinary human interaction, takes no particular empathy or liking for people, happily for Dark and Dismal Dexter. It was all technique, a craft and not an art, and that put it squarely inside the expertise of anyone who has studied and copied human behavior. Smile in the right places, nod your head, pretend to listen—I had mastered it ages ago.
“Arabelle,” I said in a soothing voice and with the proper Central American accent, and she stopped shaking her head for a moment. “Arabelle, necitamos descubrir este monstre.” I looked over at Debs, and said, “It is a monster that did this, right?” and she snapped her chin up and down in a nod of agreement.
“Digame, por favor,” I said soothingly, and Arabelle very gratifyingly lowered one hand from her face.
“Sí?”she said shyly, and I marveled once again at the power of my totally smarmy synthetic charm. And in two languages, too.
“En inglés?” I said with a really good fake smile. “Por qué mi hermana no habla español,” I said, nodding at Deborah. I was sure that referring to Debs as “my sister,” rather than “the authority figure with a gun who wants to send you back to El Salvador after she has seen you beaten and raped,” would help to open her up a little bit. “Do you speak English?”
“Lee-tell beet,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “Tell my sister what you saw.” And I took a step back, only to find that Arabelle had shot out a hand and clamped it onto my arm.
“You no go?” she said shyly.
“I stay here,” I said. She looked at me searchingly for a moment. I don’t have any idea what she was looking for, but she apparently thought she saw it. She let go of my arm, dropped both hands to clasp them in front of her, and faced Deborah, standing almost at attention.
I looked at Deborah, too, and found her staring at me with a look of disbelief on her face. “Jesus,” she said. “She trusts you and not me?”
“She can tell that my heart is pure,” I said.
“Pure what?” Debs said, and she shook her head. “Jesus. If she only knew.”
I had to admit there was some truth in my sister’s ironic observation. She had only recently discovered what I am, and to say that she was not quite comfortable with it was a bit of an understatement. Still, it had all been sanctioned and set up by her father, Saint Harry, and even in death his was not an authority that Debs would question—nor would I, for that matter. But her tone of voice was a little sharp for someone who was counting on me for help, and it stung just a little. “If you like,” I said, “I can leave and let you do this alone.”
“No!” said Arabelle, and once again her hand flew over and attached itself to my arm. “You say that you stay,” she said, accusation and near panic in her voice.
I raised an eyebrow at Deborah.
She shrugged. “Yeah,” she said. “You stay.”
I patted Arabelle’s hand and pried it off me. “I’ll be right here,” I said, adding, “Yo espero aquí,” with another completely artificial smile that for some reason seemed to reassure her. She looked into my eyes, smiled back, took a deep breath, and faced Debs.
“Tell me,” Debs said to Arabelle.
“I get here same hour, like every time,” she said.
“What hour is that?” Deborah asked.
Arabelle shrugged. “Five o’clock,” she said. “Threes time a week now, because is close en julio, but they wan keep it clean. No coke-roachess.” She looked at me and I nodded; coke-roachess bad.
“And you went to the back door?” Deborah asked.
“Esway, es—” She looked at me and made an awkward face. “Siempre?”
“Always,” I translated.
Arabelle nodded. “Always back door,” she said. “Frawnt ees close hasta octobre.”
Deborah cocked her head for a moment, but then got it: front closed until October. “Okay,” she said. “So you get here, you go around to the back door, and you see the body?”
Arabelle covered her face again, just for a moment. She looked at me and I nodded, so she dropped her hands. “Yes.”
“Did you notice anything else, anything unusual?” Debs asked, and Arabelle looked at her blankly. “Did you see something that shouldn’t be there?”
“El cuerpo,” Arabelle said indignantly, pointing at the corpse. “He no shood be there.”
“And did you see anybody else at all?”
Arabelle shook her head. “Nobody. Me only.”
“How about nearby?” Arabelle looked blank, and Deborah pointed. “Over there? On the sidewalk? Anybody at all over there?”
Arabelle shrugged. “Turistas. Weeth cameras.” She frowned and lowered her voice, speaking confidentially to me. “Creado que es posible que estan maricones,” she said, shrugging.
I nodded. “Gay tourists,” I said to Deborah.
Deborah glared at her, then turned it on me, as if she could scare one of us into thinking up another really good question. But even my legendary wit had run dry, and I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “She probably can’t tell you any more than that.”
“Ask her where she lives,” Deborah said, and an expression of alarm flitted across Arabelle’s face.
“I don’t think she’ll tell you,” I said.
“Why the fuck not?” Deborah demanded.
“She’s afraid you’ll tell la migra,” I said, and Arabelle visibly jumped when I said it. “Immigration.”
“I know what the fuck la migra means,” Deborah snapped. “I live here, too, remember?”
“Yes,” I said. “But you refused to learn Spanish.”
“Then ask her to tell you,” Deborah said.
I shrugged and turned to Arabelle. “Necesito su dirección,” I said.
“Por qué?” she
“Vamos a bailando,” I said. We’ll go dancing.
She giggled. “Estoy casada,” she said. I’m married.
“Por favor?” I said, with my very best hundred-watt totally fake smile, and I added, “Nunca por la migra, verdadamente.” Arabelle smiled, leaned forward, and whispered an address in my ear. I nodded; it was in an area flooded with Central American immigrants, several of them here legally. It made perfect sense for her to live there, and I was certain she was telling me the truth. “Gracias,” I said, and as I started to pull away, she grabbed my arm again.
“Nunca por la migra?” she said.
“Nunca,” I said. Never. “Solamente para hallar este matador.” Only to find this killer.
She nodded as if that made sense, that I needed her address to find the killer, and gave me her shy smile again. “Gracias,” she said. “Te creo.” I believe you. Her faith in me was really quite touching, especially considering that there was no reason for it at all, beyond the fact that I had given her a completely phony smile. It made me wonder if a career change was in order—perhaps I should sell cars, or even run for president.
“All right,” Deborah said. “She can go home.”
I nodded at Arabelle. “Va a su casa,” I said.
“Gracias,” she said again. And she smiled hugely and then turned and almost ran for the street.
“Shit,” Deborah said. “Shit shit SHIT.”
I looked at her with raised eyebrows, and she shook her head. She seemed deflated, the anger and tension drained out of her. “I know it’s stupid,” she said. “I just hoped she might have seen something. I mean—” She shrugged and turned away, looking in the direction of the body in the doorway. “We’ll never find the gay tourists, either. Not in South Beach.”
“They can’t have seen anything anyway,” I said.
“In broad daylight. And nobody saw anything?”
“People see what they expect to see,” I said. “He probably used a delivery van, and that would make him invisible.”
“Well, shit,” she said again, and this didn’t seem like a good time to criticize her for such a limited vocabulary. She faced me again. “I don’t suppose you got anything helpful from looking at this one.”