Dearly devoted Dexter

by Jeffry P. Lindsay

  “Why is it you who asks me?” Ariel said through her son. “This is no job for you. A pretty woman like you, you should have a husband. A family.”

  “El victimo proximo es el novio de mi hermana,” I said. The next victim is my sister’s sweetheart. Deborah glared at me, but Ariel said, “Aaahhh,” clucked her tongue, and nodded her head. “Well, I don’t know what I can tell you. I did see the man, maybe two times.” She shrugged and Deborah leaned forward impatiently. “Always at night, never very close. I can say, the man was small, very short. And skinny as well. With big glasses. More than this, I don’t know. He never came out, he was very quiet. Sometimes we would hear music.” She smiled just a little and added, “Tito Puente.” And Lázaro echoed unnecessarily, “Tito Puente.”

  “Ah,” I said, and they all looked at me. “It would hide the noise,” I said, a little embarrassed at all the attention.

  “Did he have a car?” Deborah asked, and Ariel frowned.

  “A van,” she said. “He drove an old white van with no windows. It was very clean, but had many rust spots and dents. I saw it a few times, but he usually kept it in his garage.”

  “I don’t suppose you saw the license plate?” I asked her, and she looked at me.

  “But I did,” she said through her son, and held up one hand, palm outward. “Not to get the number, that only happens in the old movies. But I know it was a Florida license plate. The yellow one with the cartoon of a child,” she said, and she stopped talking and glared at me, because I was giggling. It’s not at all dignified, and certainly not something I practice on a regular basis, but I was actually giggling and I could not help myself.

  Deborah glared at me, too. “What is so goddamned funny?” she demanded.

  “The license plate,” I said. “I’m sorry, Debs, but my God, don’t you know what the yellow Florida plate is? And for this guy to have one and do what he does…” I swallowed hard to keep from laughing again, but it took all my self-control.

  “All right, damn it, what’s so funny about the yellow license plate?”

  “It’s a specialty plate, Deb,” I said. “The one that says, CHOOSE LIFE.”

  And then, picturing Dr. Danco carting around his wriggling victims, filling them with chemicals and cutting so very perfectly to keep them alive through it all, I’m afraid I giggled again. “Choose life,” I said.

  I really wanted to meet this guy.

  We walked back to the car in silence. Deborah got in and called in the description of the van to Captain Matthews, and he agreed that he could probably put out an APB. While she talked to the captain, I looked around. Neatly manicured yards, mostly consisting of colored rocks. A few children’s bicycles chained to the front porch, and the Orange Bowl looming in the background. A nice little neighborhood to live in, work in, raise a family in-or chop off somebody’s arms and legs.

  “Get in,” said Deborah, interrupting my rustic reverie. I got in and we drove off. At one point, stopped at a red light, Deb glanced at me and said, “You pick a funny time to start laughing.”

  “Really, Deb,” I said. “This is the first hint of personality we’ve got from the guy. We know he has a sense of humor. I think that’s a big step forward.”

  “Sure. Maybe we’ll catch him at a comedy club.”

  “We will catch him, Deb,” I said, although neither one of us believed me. She just grunted; the light changed and she stomped on the gas as if she was killing a poisonous snake.

  We moved through the traffic back to Deb’s house. The morning rush hour was coming to an end. At the corner of Flagler and 34th a car had run up onto the sidewalk and smacked into a light pole in front of a church. A cop stood beside the car between two men who were screaming at each other. A little girl sat on the curb crying. Ah, the enchanting rhythms of another magical day in paradise.

  A few moments later we turned down Medina and Deborah parked her car beside mine in the driveway. She switched off the engine and for a moment we both just sat there listening to the ticking of the cooling motor. “Shit,” she said.

  “I agree.”

  “What do we do now?” she said.

  “Sleep,” I said. “I’m too tired to think.”

  She pounded both hands on the steering wheel. “How can I sleep, Dexter? Knowing that Kyle is…” She hit the wheel again. “Shit,” she said.

  “The van will turn up, Deb. You know that. The database will spit out every white van with a CHOOSE LIFE tag, and with an APB out it’s just a matter of time.”

  “Kyle doesn’t have time,” she said.

  “Human beings need sleep, Debs,” I said. “And so do I.”

  A courier’s van squealed around the corner and clunked to a halt in front of Deborah’s house. The driver jumped out with a small package and approached Deb’s front door. She said, “Shit,” one last time and got out of the car to collect the package.

  I closed my eyes and sat for just a moment longer, pondering, which is what I do instead of thinking when I am very tired. It really seemed like wasted effort; nothing came to me except to wonder where I’d left my running shoes. With my new sense of humor apparently still idling, that seemed funny to me and, to my great surprise I heard a very faint echo from the Dark Passenger. Why is that funny? I asked. Is it because I left the shoes at Rita’s? Of course it didn’t answer. The poor thing was probably still sulking. And yet it had chuckled. Is it something else altogether that seems funny? I asked. But again there was no answer; just a faint sense of anticipation and hunger.

  The courier rattled and roared away. Just as I was about to yawn, stretch, and admit that my finely tuned cerebral powers were on hiatus, I heard a kind of retching moan. I opened my eyes and looked up to see Deborah stagger forward a step and then sit down hard on her front walk. I got out of the car and hurried over to her.

  “Deb?” I said. “What is it?”

  She dropped the package and hid her face in her hands, making more unlikely noises. I squatted beside her and picked up the package. It was a small box, about the right size to hold a wristwatch. I pried the end up. Inside was a ziplock bag. And inside the bag was a human finger.

  A finger with a big, flashy pinkie ring.

  CHAPTER 16

  IT TOOK A VERY GREAT DEAL MORE THAN PATTING DEBORAH on the shoulder and saying “There there” to get her calmed down this time. In fact I had to force-feed her a large glass of peppermint schnapps. I knew that she needed some kind of chemical help to relax and even sleep if possible, but Debs had nothing in her medicine chest stronger than Tylenol, and she was not a drinker. I finally found the schnapps bottle under her kitchen sink, and after making sure it wasn’t actually drain cleaner I made her chug down a glass of it. From the apparent taste, it might as well have been drain cleaner. She shuddered and gagged but she drank it, too bone weary and brain numb to fight.

  While she slumped in her chair I threw a few changes of her clothing into a grocery bag and dropped it by the front door. She stared at the bags and then at me. “What are you doing,” she said. Her voice was slurred and she sounded uninterested in the answer.

  “You’re staying at my place for a few days,” I said.

  “Don’t want to,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You have to.”

  She shifted her gaze to the bag of clothing by the door. “Why.”

  I walked over to her and squatted beside her chair. “Deborah. He knows who you are and where you are. Let’s try to make it just a little bit of a challenge for him, all right?”

  She shuddered again, but she didn’t say anything more as I helped her to her feet and out the door. Half an hour and one more slug of peppermint schnapps later she was in my bed, snoring lightly. I left her a note to call me when she woke up, and then I took her little surprise package with me and headed in to work.

  I didn’t expect to find any important clues from running the finger through a lab check, but since I do forensics for a living it seemed like I really ought to
give it a professional once-over. And because I take all my obligations very seriously, I stopped on the way and bought doughnuts. As I approached my second-floor cubbyhole, Vince Masuoka came down the hall from the opposite direction. I bowed humbly and held up the bag. “Greetings, Sensei,” I said. “I bring gifts.”

  “Greetings, Grasshopper,” he said. “There is a thing called time. You must explore its mysteries.” He held up his wrist and pointed to his watch. “I’m on my way to lunch, and now you bring me my breakfast?”

  “Better late than never,” I said, but he shook his head.

  “Nah,” he said. “My mouth has already changed gears. I’m gonna go get some ropa vieja and plátanos.”

  “If you spurn my gift of food,” I said, “I will give you the finger.” He raised an eyebrow, and I handed him Deb’s package. “Can I have half an hour of your time before lunch?”

  He looked at the small box. “I don’t think I want to open this on an empty stomach, do I?” he said.

  “Well then, how about a doughnut?”

  It took more than half an hour, but by the time Vince left for lunch we had learned that there was nothing to learn from Kyle’s finger. The cut was extremely clean and professional, done with a very sharp instrument that left no trace behind in the wound. There was nothing under the fingernail except a little dirt that could have come from anywhere. I removed the ring, but we found no threads or hairs or telltale fabric swatches, and Kyle had somehow failed to etch an address or phone number onto the inside of the ring. Kyle’s blood type was AB positive.

  I put the finger into cold storage, and slipped the ring into my pocket. That wasn’t exactly standard procedure, but I was fairly sure that Deborah would want it if we didn’t get Kyle back. As it was, it looked like if we did get him back it would be by messenger, one piece at a time. Of course, I’m not a sentimental person, but that didn’t seem like something that would warm her heart.

  By now I was very tired indeed, and since Debs hadn’t called yet I decided that I was well within my rights to head for home and take a nap. The afternoon rain started as I climbed into my car. I shot straight down LeJeune in the relatively light traffic and got home after being screamed at only one time, which was a new record. I dashed in through the rain and found Deborah gone. She had scribbled a note on a Post-it saying she would call later. I was relieved, since I had not been looking forward to sleeping on my half-size couch. I crawled right into my own bed and slept without interruption until a little after six o’clock in the evening.

  Naturally, even the mighty machine that is my body needs a certain amount of maintenance, and when I sat up in bed I felt very much in need of an oil change. The long night with so little sleep, the missed breakfast, the tension and suspense of trying to think of something besides “There there” to say to Deborah-all these things had taken their toll. I felt as though someone had snuck in and packed my head with beach sand, even including the bottle caps and cigarette butts.

  There is only one solution to this occasional condition, and that is exercise. But as I decided that what I really needed was a pleasant two-or three-mile jog, I remembered again that I had misplaced my running shoes. They were not in their usual spot by the door, and they were not in my car. This was Miami, so it was possible that someone had broken into my apartment and stolen them; they were, after all, very nice New Balance shoes. But I thought it more likely that I had left them over at Rita’s. For me, to decide is to act. I toddled down to my car and drove over to Rita’s house.

  The rain was long gone-it seldom lasts even an hour-and the streets were already dry and filled with the usual cheerfully homicidal crowd. My people. The maroon Taurus showed up behind me at Sunset, and stayed with me all the way. It was nice to see Doakes back on the job. I had felt just a little bit neglected. Once again he parked across the street as I knocked on the door. He had just turned off the engine when Rita opened the door. “Well,” she said. “What a surprise!” She lifted her face for a kiss.

  I gave her one, putting a little extra English on it to entertain Sergeant Doakes. “There’s no easy way to say this,” I said, “but I’ve come for my running shoes.”

  Rita smiled. “Actually, I just put mine on. Care to get sweaty together?” And she held the door wide for me.

  “That’s the best invitation I’ve had all day,” I said.

  I found my shoes in her garage beside the washing machine, along with a pair of shorts and a sleeveless sweatshirt, laundered and ready to go. I went into the bathroom and changed clothes, leaving my work clothes folded neatly on the toilet seat. In just a few minutes Rita and I were trotting up the block together. I waved to Sergeant Doakes as we went by. We ran down the street, turned right for a few blocks, and then around the perimeter of the nearby park. We had run this route together before, had even measured it out at just under three miles, and we were used to each other’s pace. And so about half an hour later, sweaty and once again willing to face the challenges of another evening of life on Planet Earth, we stood at the front door of Rita’s house.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll take the first shower,” she said. “That way I can start dinner while you clean up.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I’ll just sit out here and drip.”

  Rita smiled. “I’ll get you a beer,” she said. A moment later she handed me one and then went in and closed the door. I sat on the step and sipped my beer. The last few days had gone by in a savage blur, and I had been so entirely upended from my normal life that I actually enjoyed the moment of peaceful contemplation, calmly sitting there and drinking a beer while somewhere in the city Chutsky was shedding spare parts. Life whirled on around me with its sundry slashings, strangulations, and dismemberings, but in Dexter’s Domain it was Miller Time. I raised the can in a toast to Sergeant Doakes.

  Somewhere in the house I heard a commotion. There was shouting and a little bit of squealing, as if Rita had just discovered the Beatles in her bathroom. Then the front door slammed open and Rita grabbed me around the neck in a stranglehold. I dropped my beer and gasped for air. “What? What did I do?” I said. I saw Astor and Cody watching from just inside the door. “I’m terribly sorry, and I’ll never do it again,” I added, but Rita kept squeezing.

  “Oh, Dexter,” she said, and now she was crying. Astor smiled at me and clasped her hands together under her chin. Cody just watched, nodding a little bit. “Oh, Dexter,” Rita said again.

  “Please,” I said, struggling desperately to get some air, “I promise it was an accident and I didn’t mean it. What did I do?” Rita finally relented and loosened her death grip.

  “Oh, Dexter,” she said one more time, and she put her hands on my face and looked at me with a blinding smile and a faceful of tears. “Oh, YOU!” she said, although to be honest it didn’t seem very much like me at the moment. “I’m sorry, it was an accident,” she said, snuffling now. “I hope you didn’t have anything really special planned.”

  “Rita. Please. What is going on?”

  Her smile got bigger and bigger. “Oh, Dexter. I really-it was just-Astor needed to use the toilet, and when she picked up your clothes, it just fell out onto the floor and-Oh, Dexter, it’s so beautiful!” She had now said Oh Dexter so many times that I began to feel Irish, but I still had no idea what was going on.

  Until Rita lifted up her hand in front of her. Her left hand. Now with a large diamond ring sparkling on her ring finger.

  Chutsky’s ring.

  “Oh, Dexter,” she said again, and then buried her face in my shoulder. “Yes yes YES! Oh, you’ve made me so happy!”

  “All right,” Cody said softly.

  And after that, what can you say except congratulations?

  The rest of the evening passed in a blur of disbelief and Miller Lite. I knew very well that hovering somewhere out in space was a perfect, calm, logical series of words that I could put together and say to Rita to make her understand that I had not actually proposed to her, and we would all h
ave a good laugh and say good night. But the harder I searched for that magical elusive sentence, the faster it ran away from me. And I found myself reasoning that perhaps one more beer would unlock the doors of perception, and after several cans Rita went up to the corner store and returned with a bottle of champagne. We drank the champagne and everyone seemed so very happy, and one thing led to another and somehow I ended up in Rita’s bed once again, witness to some exceedingly unlikely and undignified events.

  And once again I found myself wondering, as I drifted off to stunned and unbelieving sleep: How do these terrible things always happen to me?

  Waking up after a night like that is never very pleasant. Waking up in the middle of the night and thinking, Oh God-Deborah! is even worse. You may think I was guilty or uneasy about neglecting someone who depended on me, in which case you would be very wrong. As I have said, I don’t really feel emotions. I can, however, experience fear, and the idea of Deborah’s potential rage pulled the trigger. I hurried into my clothes and managed to slip out to my car without waking anyone. Sergeant Doakes was no longer in his position across the street. It was nice to know that even Doakes needed to sleep sometime. Or perhaps he had thought that someone who just got engaged deserved a little privacy. Knowing him as I did, however, this didn’t seem likely. It was far more likely that he had been elected pope and had to fly off to the Vatican.

  I drove home quickly, and checked my answering machine. There was one automated message urging me to buy a new set of tires before it was too late, which seemed ominous enough, but no message from Debs. I made coffee and waited for the thump of the morning paper against my door. There was a sense of unreality to the morning that was not entirely caused by the aftereffects of the champagne. Engaged, was I? Well well. I wished that I could scold myself and demand to know what I thought I had been doing. But the truth was that, unfortunately, I hadn’t been doing anything wrong; I was entirely clothed in virtue and diligence. And I had done nothing that could be called spectacularly stupid-far from it. I had been proceeding with life in a noble and even exemplary manner, minding my own business and trying to help my sister recover her boyfriend, exercising, eating plenty of green vegetables, and not even slicing up other monsters. And somehow all this pure and decent behavior had snuck around behind me and bitten me on the ass. Never a good deed goes unpunished, as Harry used to say.