by Jeff Lindsay
I do the math. On one side: Anderson, the entire police force, the media, and most likely the pope himself.
On the other side, my innocence.
This does not add up to a terribly encouraging bottom line.
But surely there is more. Certainly it could never end like this. Somewhere, somehow, isn’t it absolutely essential to the immutable principals of Balance, Righteousness, and a healthy GNP that some small but powerful hole card exists? Shouldn’t it be true that some unknown but potent force will emerge and set things right? Somehow, somewhere, isn’t there something?
There is.
Unknown to the forces of evil and indifference that grind so ponderously powerfully slow, there is an equal and opposing force that even now must be gathering its irresistible strength for one mighty, liberating blast of Truth that will topple the whole rotten mess and set Dexter Free.
Deborah. My sister.
She will come and save me. She must.
This, I must confess, is my one Happy Thought. Deborah is my Forlorn Hope, the tiny ray of sunshine trickling into the dark and dreary night of Dexter’s Detention. Deborah will come. She must, she will. And she will help me, her only living relative, the last of the Morgans. Together we will find a way to prove my innocence and spring me from this, my soul-crushing confinement. She will breeze in like the winds of April, and the doors will spring open at her touch. Deborah will come and end Dexter’s Durance Vile. Put aside for the moment the memory of Deborah’s last words to me. These words were far from supportive, and some might even say they were rather Final. They were spoken in the heat of an unpleasant moment, and not to be taken at face value in any permanent sense. Remember instead the deep and abiding bonds of family that lock us unchangeably together. Deborah will come.
The fact that she has not come yet, has not in any way communicated with me, should not really trouble me. It is almost certainly a strategic move, creating the appearance of indifference to lull our enemies into complacency. When the time is right, she will come, I must not doubt it. Of course she will come; she’s my sister. This implies quite strongly that I am her brother, and it’s exactly the sort of thing one does for Family. I would do it for her, willingly and even cheerfully, and so I know for a stone-cold fact that she will do it for me. Without even a moment of doubt, I know it. Deborah will come.
Eventually. Sooner or later. I mean, where is she?
The days pass, and inevitably they turn into weeks—two of them now—and she has not come. She has not called; she has not written. No secret note written in butter and pressed into my sandwich. Nothing at all, and I am still here, in my ultrasecure cell, my little kingdom of solitude. I read, I ponder, and I exercise. And what I exercise most is my healthy sense of very justified bitterness. Where is Deborah? Where is Justice? Both are as elusive as Diogenes’ Honest Man. I ponder the thought that I, above all, should be reduced to hoping for real justice—a justice that, if it frees me as it should, has clearly done an outrageous Injustice by turning me loose to resume my beloved pastime. It is ironic, like so much of my present circumstance.
But out of the many ironies in my current unhappy contretemps, perhaps the worst of all is that I, Dexter the Monster, Dexter the Ultimate Outsider, Dexter the Nonhuman—I, too, am reduced in extremis to that ultimate human lament:
Why Me?
TWO
The days pass indistinguishably. Dull routine plods along in the wake of dull routine. Nothing, in short, Happens that has not already happened yesterday and the day before, and will almost certainly happen again the next day, and the next, and the next, ad infinitum. No visitors, no mail, no calls, no sign at all that Dexter still has any sort of existence outside of this unchanging unending unpleasant one.
And yet, I hope. This cannot continue eternally, can it? Something must someday happen. It is not possible that I should be a permanent fixture here, on the ninth floor of TGK, perpetually repeating the same small and meaningless rituals by rote. Someone will realize a monstrous injustice has been done, and the machine will spit me out. Or perhaps Anderson himself, overcome with shame, will perform a public mea culpa and set me free in person. Of course, it is more likely that I should burrow through the concrete block walls with my toothbrush—but surely there will be something. And if nothing else, sooner or later, some bright day, Deborah will come.
Of course she will. I hold on to that certainty, raising it in my mind to the status of Immutable Eternal Truth, something as certain as the law of gravity. Deborah will come. In the meantime, I know that at the very least, TGK is not a prison. It is merely a detention center, intended for temporarily housing the provisionally wicked until such time as their promotion to Enemy of Society is made permanent. They can’t keep me here forever.
I mention this in passing to my shepherd, Lazlo, as he escorts me to my daily stint of sitting in the yard and enjoying the rain. They can’t, I say, keep me here forever.
Lazlo laughs—not cruelly, it must be said, but with a certain wry, institutional amusement. “The guy in the cell next to you?” he says. “Know who he is?”
“We haven’t met,” I admit. In fact, I haven’t seen any occupant of the other cells.
“You remember, I think it was 1983?” Lazlo says.
“Not very well,” I say.
“There was a guy drove his car into the mall and opened up with an automatic weapon? Killed fourteen people?” he says.
I do remember that. Everyone in Miami, whatever their age, remembers. “I remember.”
Lazlo nods at the cell next to mine. “That’s him,” he says. “Still awaiting trial.”
I blink.
“Oh,” I say. “Can they do that to me?”
He shrugs. “Sure looks like it.”
“But how?”
“It’s all politics,” he says. “The right people squeeze the right place and…” He makes a whaddaya-gonna-do gesture that I am sure I saw on The Sopranos.
“I think I need to see a lawyer,” I tell him.
He shakes his head sadly. “I retire in a year and a half,” he says. And with this apparent non sequitur our conversation is over and I am buttoned securely into my cell once more.
And as I arrange my toothbrush yet again I reconsider: Perhaps they actually can keep me here forever. That would avoid all the fuss, bother, and expense of a trial, with its accompanying risk of Freedom for Dexter. That would certainly be the tidiest solution for Anderson and the department. And later, as I sit down in the afternoon rain once more, I ponder that. Forever seems like a very long time.
But everything must end, even Eternity. And one fine gray institutional day, indistinguishable from all the others, my unending routine ends, too.
As I sit in my cell, alphabetizing my bar of soap, I hear the metallic sounds of my cell door opening. I look up; it is eleven-thirty-four a.m., too soon for my au naturel shower in the Yard. That makes this a unique event, and my eager little heart goes pitter-pat with anticipation. What can it be? Surely it must be a reprieve, a last-minute stay of tedium from the governor—or perhaps even Deborah at last, triumphantly clutching my release papers.
Time slows; the door swings inward at a slothful pace that defies possibility—until finally it comes to rest in the full open position to reveal Lazlo. “Your lawyer’s here,” he says.
It gives me pause. I did not know I had a lawyer—which is to his benefit, since I would otherwise have sued him for neglect. And I have certainly not had the chance to get one, either. Could it be that my one small comment to Lazlo has caused him enough uneasiness with the vast injustice of Justice that he arranged this?
Lazlo gives no indication, and no chance for me to ask. “Come on,” he says, and I need no further urging. I leap to my feet and let Lazlo lead me on a long and wondrous journey across ten full feet of floor. It seems a nearly endless expedition after the tiny cell—and also because I have become convinced that Freedom Awaits. And so I trudge forever across the floor and arrive at last
at the large, thick slab of bulletproof glass that is my window on the world. On the opposite side sits a man in a very cheap-looking dark gray suit. He is thirtyish, balding, bespectacled, and he looks weary, harried, and hassled beyond measure. He is gazing down at a stack of official-seeming papers, flipping hurriedly through them and frowning, as if this is the first time he has seen them and he does not like what he sees. He is, in short, the very picture of an overworked public defender, a man who is engaged in principle but having trouble maintaining interest in specifics. And since I actually am the specifics in this case, his appearance does not fill me with confidence.
“Siddown,” Lazlo says, not unkindly.
I sit in the chair provided, and eagerly lift the old-fashioned telephone receiver that hangs to one side of the window.
My lawyer does not look up. He continues to flip through the papers until, at last, he comes to a page that seems to surprise him. His frown deepens, and he looks up at me and speaks. Of course, I do not hear what he says, since he has not picked up the phone, but at least I can see his lips moving.
I hold up my phone and raise my eyebrows politely. See? Electric communication. It’s wonderful! You should try it sometime—perhaps now?
My lawyer looks slightly startled. He drops the wad of paper and picks up the phone, and almost immediately I hear his voice.
“Uh, Dieter,” he says.
“Dexter,” I tell him. “With an ‘X.’ ”
“My name is Bernie Feldman; I’m your court-appointed attorney.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I tell him.
“Okay, listen,” he says—unnecessarily, since I am doing nothing but. “Let’s go over what will happen at your arraignment.”
“When is that?” I ask with keen interest. I find that I am suddenly, stupidly eager for arraignment. It will at least get me out of my cell for a few hours.
“The law says within forty-eight hours of your arrest,” he says impatiently.
“I’ve been here two and a half weeks,” I tell him.
He frowns, tucks the phone between ear and shoulder, and looks at the papers. He shakes his head. “That’s not possible,” he says, digging deeper into the paperwork. Or I assume from the motion of his mouth that he says that. I do not hear him say it, since the act of shaking his head causes the phone to lurch off his shoulder and swing down to the end of its cord, smashing into the concrete wall with a thunderous crash that leaves me half-deaf in one ear.
I switch ears. My lawyer picks up the phone.
“According to this,” Bernie says, “you were arrested last night.”
“Bernie,” I say. The use of his name appears to offend him, and he frowns, but flips a page and continues to look at the papers. “Bernie. Look at me,” I say, and I admit I am pleased with the vaguely sinister sound of it. Bernie looks up at last. “Have you seen my face before?” I ask. “In the paper, on TV?”
Bernie stares. “Yes, of course,” he says. “But…that was a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?”
“Two and a half weeks,” I say again. “And I have been here ever since.”
“But that’s…I don’t see how…” Once again he flutters through the assembled pages, and once again the phone leaps off his shoulder and smashes into the wall. Now I am half-deaf in both ears. By the time Bernie has the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear again, the ringing sound has subsided to slightly less than symphonic levels, enough so that I can hear him.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “There’s some problem with the paperwork. It’s completely…Did you have a psych evaluation?”
“I don’t think so,” I admit.
“Ah,” he says. He looks relieved. “Okay, well—I think we should set that up in any case, right? Because to kill all those people like that—”
“I didn’t kill them, Bernie,” I tell him. “I’m innocent.”
He waves that off. “And the pedophile thing, you know. That’s being reclassified as a mental illness? So we can work that, too.”
I open my mouth to protest that I am innocent of pedophilia, too—but Bernie drops the receiver again, and I choose to save my hearing instead, yanking the phone away from my ear and waiting patiently until he picks it up.
“So anyway, the arraignment has to be within forty-eight hours. The law. So it should have….” He frowns again, and pulls out one stapled stack of papers. “Except—shit, I didn’t see this before.” His lips move as he reads, flips quickly through three pages to the end, frowns heavily. “Didn’t see this,” he repeats. “Shit.”
“What is it?” I ask.
He shakes his head but miraculously keeps his grip on the phone. “I don’t get it,” he mutters. “This doesn’t make any—” Bernie flips through the entire stack once more, apparently without finding anything he likes. “Well, shit, this changes everything,” he says briskly.
“In a good way?” I ask hopefully.
“This whole…The paperwork is…” He shakes his head.
This time I am ready, and with the lightning reflexes for which I am justly famous, I hold the phone away from my ear as, once again, Bernie drops his end. Even from a safe distance, I hear the crash.
I put the phone back to my ear and watch as Bernie juggles the stack of papers, vainly trying to shove it into some state that resembles neatness.
“All right,” he says. “I’m going to look into this. I’ll be back,” he promises, without sounding even vaguely sinister.
“Thank you,” I say, since good manners must prevail even in the darkest circumstance. But Bernie is already gone.
I hang up the phone and turn around. My faithful companion, Lazlo, is right there, and he nods at me to stand. “Let’s go, Dex,” he says. I rise, still in something of a fog, and Lazlo takes me back to my snug little alcove. I sit down on my bunk, and for once I don’t feel the hardness underneath the pitifully thin “mattress.” There is much to ponder: arraignment within forty-eight hours of arrest, for starters. It rings a dim bell, summoning up some faint memory from a criminal justice class long ago at UM. I believe I recall that it is one of my most basic rights, along with Presumption of Innocence, and the fact that Anderson has managed to avoid both is very troubling. Clearly things are much worse than even I could anticipate.
I think of my next-door neighbor, here since 1983. I wonder if Detective Anderson’s father arrested him. I wonder whether some gray-bearded version of Dexter will still be sitting here in thirty years, listening to some future version of Lazlo, perhaps even a robotic one, telling some new hopeless ninny that poor feeble-witted old Dexter has been here all along, still awaiting arraignment. I wonder if I will have any teeth left by then. Not that I need them for the cheese-substance sandwiches. But teeth are good things to have in any case. They improve your smile, no matter how fake it is. And without teeth, all the money I have spent on toothpaste over the years would be a complete waste.
I vow to keep my teeth. In any case, I am more worried at this point about keeping my mind. The reality of my situation is not in any way encouraging. I am trapped in a true nightmare, confined to a small and inescapable space, with absolutely no control of anything at all, except possibly my breathing. Even this, I am quite sure, would be out of my control if I decide to stop it. Suicide is actively discouraged here for some reason, in spite of the fact that it would help reduce overcrowding, save money, and lighten the workload for Lazlo and his comrades.
No way out, no power over my own fate, no end to it all—and now, with a surreal flourish of bureaucratic cruelty, my court-appointed attorney has informed me that my papers are not in order, without informing me what that means. Naturally I assume the implications are ominous. I know very well that things can always get worse—the kitchen might run out of cheeselike substance—but really, isn’t there a point where even a hypothetical god has heaped on enough? No matter how furious he is at Dexter for violating some basic Rules of the Playground, haven’t we piled on sufficient fecal matter?
A
pparently not.
The very next day, Things do indeed get worse.
Once again I am sitting in my cell, busily engaged in productive and industrious activity—a nap, to be honest. I have begun to feel the need for naps, and my luncheon has encouraged the feeling. Today’s delightful viands included a sandwich of Probable Chicken, Jell-O, and a red liquid whose taste might have been intended to evoke some sort of association with an unspecified fruit. The experience was exhausting, and I had to stretch out on my bed almost immediately to recover.
After far too brief a time, I hear once more the heavy metallic sounds of my door opening. I sit up; Lazlo is there. But this time his hands are full of chains. “On your feet,” he says.
“My arraignment?” I ask hopefully.
He shakes his head. “Detective to see you,” he says. “Turn around.”
I follow his brisk instructions and in a few moments I am securely bound. Once more I allow the small white bird that is hope to flutter from its perch and begin to wing away across the exceeding dark of Dexter’s Inner Sky. “Detective” could mean many things—but one of them is Deborah, and I cannot stop myself from thinking she has come at last.
Lazlo leads me out of the cell—but this time not to the thick window where Bernie shattered my eardrums. We walk on past the window, all the way over to the door that leads out, off the cell block. Lazlo must use his radio and his ID card, and then wave at the female guard who controls the doors. She sits in the center of the cell block in a glass-walled booth. There is a row of thick windows around the cells and then a deep, two-story well of space before the second row of windows that surrounds her booth. The booth is like an indoor airport’s control tower, standing in the middle in isolation, completely inaccessible from here, unless one has a bazooka and a good ladder, and possessing such things is generally discouraged here.
The woman in the booth looks up at Lazlo’s wave, checks her computer screen and monitors, and a moment later the door clicks open. We step through into a room the size of a large closet and the door closes behind us. Two steps forward and we face another door. Lazlo nods at the camera above the door, and a moment later it opens and we are in the hall. Five more steps to the elevator—and crossing such vast space is dizzying after the tight confinement of my cell. But somehow I manage, and in only a moment or two we are in the elevator. The door closes and I am back within four snug walls, relaxing in the comfort of a space more like the one I am used to now, something the size of my cell. I take a deep breath, enjoying the security.
