Sibling Rivalry and Dark Secrets: A Blood Spatter Analyst's Dilemma, Exams of Voice

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Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Dexter,

by Jeff Lindsay, 1952-

Published: 2004

J J J J J I I I I I

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1 … thru … Chapter 27

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

J J J J J I I I I I

For Hilary who is everything to me

Chapter 1

MOON. GLORIOUS MOON. FULL, FAT, REDDISH moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy. Bringing too the full-throated call of the tropical night, the soft and wild voice of the wind roaring through the hairs on your arm, the hollow wail of starlight, the teeth-grinding bellow of the moonlight off the water. All calling to the Need. Oh, the symphonic shriek of the thousand hiding voices, the cry of the Need inside, the entity , the silent watcher, the cold quiet thing, the one that laughs, the Moondancer. The me that was not-me, the thing that mocked and laughed and came calling with its hunger. With the Need. And the Need was very strong now, very careful cold coiled creeping crackly cocked and ready, very strong, very much ready now—and still it waited and watched, and it made me wait and watch. I had been waiting and watching the priest for five weeks now. The Need had been prickling and teasing and prodding at me to find one, find the next, find this priest. For three weeks I had known he was it, he was next, we belonged to the Dark Passenger, he and I together. And that three weeks I had spent fighting the pressure, the growing Need, rising in me like a great wave that roars up and over the beach and does not recede, only swells more with every tick of the bright night's clock. But it was careful time, too, time spent making sure. Not making sure of the priest, no, I was long sure of him. Time spent to be certain that it could be done right, made neat, all the corners folded, all squared away. I could not be caught,

I sat up in his backseat and slipped the noose around his neck. One quick, slippery, pretty twist and the coil of fifty-pound-test fishing line settled tight. He made a small ratchet of panic and that was it. “You are mine now,” I told him, and he froze as neat and perfect as if he had practiced, almost like he heard the other voice, the laughing watcher inside me. “Do exactly as I say,” I said. He rasped half a breath and glanced into his rearview mirror. My face was there, waiting for him, wrapped in the white silk mask that showed only my eyes. “Do you understand?” I said. The silk of the mask flowed across my lips as I spoke. Father Donovan said nothing. Stared at my eyes. I pulled on the noose. “Do you understand?” I repeated, a little softer. This time he nodded. He fluttered a hand at the noose, not sure what would happen if he tried to loosen it. His face was turning purple. I loosened the noose for him. “Be good,” I said, “and you will live longer.” He took a deep breath. I could hear the air rip at his throat. He coughed and breathed again. But he sat still and did not try to escape. This was very good. We drove. Father Donovan followed my directions, no tricks, no hesitations. We drove south through Florida City and took the Card Sound Road. I could tell that road made him nervous, but he did not object. He did not try to speak to me. He kept both hands on the wheel, pale and knotted tight, so the knuckles stood up. That was very good, too. We drove south for another five minutes with no sound but the song of the tires and the wind and the great moon above making its mighty music in my veins, and the careful watcher laughing quietly in the rush of the night's hard pulse. “Turn here,” I said at last. The priest's eyes flew to mine in the mirror. The panic was trying to claw out of his eyes, down his face, into his mouth to speak, but— “Turn!” I said, and he turned. Slumped like he had been expecting this all along, waiting for it forever, and he turned. The small dirt road was barely visible. You almost had to know it was there. But I knew. I had been there before. The road ran for two and a half miles, twisting three times, through the saw grass, through the trees, alongside a small canal, deep into the swamp and into a clearing. Fifty years ago somebody had built a house. Most of it was still there. It was large for what it was. Three rooms, half a roof still left, the place completely abandoned now for many years. Except the old vegetable garden out in the side yard. There were signs that somebody had been digging there fairly recently. “Stop the car,” I said as the headlights picked up the crumbling house. Father Donovan lurched to obey. Fear had sealed him into his body now, his limbs and thoughts all rigid. “Turn off the motor,” I told him, and he did. It was suddenly very quiet.

Some small something chittered in a tree. The wind rattled the grass. And then more quiet, silence so deep it almost drowned out the roar of the night music that pounded away in my secret self. “Get out,” I said. Father Donovan did not move. His eyes were on the vegetable garden. Seven small mounds of earth were visible there. The heaped soil looked very dark in the moonlight. It must have looked even darker to Father Donovan. And still he did not move. I yanked hard on the noose, harder than he thought he could live through, harder than he knew could happen to him. His back arched against the seat and the veins stood out on his forehead and he thought he was about to die. But he was not. Not yet. Not for quite some time, in fact. I kicked the car door open and pulled him out after me, just to let him feel my strength. He flopped to the sandy roadbed and twisted like an injured snake. The Dark Passenger laughed and loved it and I played the part. I put one boot on Father Donovan's chest and held the noose tight. “You have to listen and do as I say,” I told him. “You have to.” I bent and gently loosened the noose. “You should know that. It's important,” I said. And he heard me. His eyes, pounding with blood and pain and leaking tears onto his face, his eyes met mine in a rush of understanding and all the things that had to happen were there for him to see now. And he saw. And he knew how important it was for him to be just right. He began to know. “Get up now,” I said. Slowly, very slowly, with his eyes always on mine, Father Donovan got up. We stood just like that for a long time, our eyes together, becoming one person with one need, and then he trembled. He raised one hand halfway to his face and dropped it again. “In the house,” I said, so very softly. In the house where everything was ready. Father Donovan dropped his eyes. He raised them to me but could not look anymore. He turned toward the house but stopped as he saw again the dark dirt mounds of the garden. And he wanted to look at me, but he could not, not after seeing again those black moonlit heaps of earth. He started for the house and I held his leash. He went obediently, head down, a good and docile victim. Up the five battered steps, across the narrow porch to the front door, pushed shut. Father Donovan stopped. He did not look up. He did not look at me. “Through the door,” I said in my soft command voice. Father Donovan trembled. “Go through the door now,” I said again. But he could not. I leaned past him and pushed the door open. I shoved the priest in with my foot. He stumbled, righted himself, and stood just inside, eyes squeezed tight shut. I closed the door. I had left a battery lamp standing on the floor beside the door and I turned it on. “Look,” I whispered. Father Donovan slowly, carefully, opened one eye. He froze.

Father Donovan tried to scream. There was not enough left of his throat for it to be a very good scream, but it had real feeling behind it, which made up for the poor technique. Then he fell forward onto his face and I let him snivel for a while before I pulled him up and onto his feet. He was not steady, and not in control. His bladder had let loose and there was drool on his chin. “Please,” he said. “I couldn't help myself. I just couldn't help myself. Please, you have to understand—” “I do understand, Father,” I said, and there was something in my voice, the Dark Passenger's voice now, and the sound of it froze him. He lifted his head slowly to face me and what he saw in my eyes made him very still. “I understand perfectly,” I told him, moving very close to his face. The sweat on his cheeks turned to ice. “You see,” I said, “I can't help myself, either.” We were very close now, almost touching, and the dirtiness of him was suddenly too much. I jerked up on the noose and kicked his feet out from under him again. Father Donovan sprawled on the floor. “But children? ” I said. “I could never do this to children.” I put my hard clean boot on the back of his head and slammed his face down. “Not like you, Father. Never kids. I have to find people like you.” “What are you?” Father Donovan whispered. “The beginning,” I said. “And the end. Meet your Unmaker, Father.” I had the needle ready and it went into his neck like it was supposed to, slight resistance from the rigid muscles, but none from the priest. I pushed the plunger and the syringe emptied, filling Father Donovan with quick, clean calm. Moments, only moments, and his head began to float, and he rolled his face to me. Did he truly see me now? Did he see the double rubber gloves, the careful coveralls, the slick silk mask? Did he really see me? Or did that only happen in the other room, the Dark Passenger's room, the Clean Room? Painted white two nights past and swept, scrubbed, sprayed, cleaned as clean as can be. And in the middle of the room, its windows sealed with thick white rubberized sheets, under the lights in the middle of the room, did he finally see me there in the table I had made, the boxes of white garbage bags, the bottles of chemicals, and the small row of saws and knives? Did he see me at last? Or did he see those seven untidy lumps, and who knows how many more? Did he see himself at last, unable to scream, turning into that kind of mess in the garden? He would not, of course. His imagination did not allow him to see himself as the same species. And in a way, he was right. He would never turn into the kind of mess he had made of the children. I would never do that, could never allow that. I am not like Father Donovan, not that kind of monster. I am a very neat monster. Neatness takes time, of course, but it's worth it. Worth it to make the Dark Passenger happy, keep him quiet for another long while. Worth it just to do it right and tidy. Remove one more heap of mess from the world. A few more neatly wrapped bags of garbage and my one small corner of the world is a neater, happier place. A better place. I had about eight hours before I had to be gone. I would need them all to do it right.

I secured the priest to the table with duct tape and cut away his clothes. I did the preliminary work quickly; shaving, scrubbing, cutting away the things that stuck out untidily. As always I felt the wonderful long slow build to release begin its pounding throughout my entire body. It would flutter through me while I worked, rising and taking me with it, until the very end, the Need and the priest swimming away together on a fading tide. And just before I started the serious work Father Donovan opened his eyes and looked at me. There was no fear now; that happens sometimes. He looked straight up at me and his mouth moved. “What?” I said. I moved my head a little closer. “I can't hear you.” I heard him breathe, a slow and peaceful breath, and then he said it again before his eyes closed. “You're welcome,” I said, and I went to work.

Chapter 2

BY FOUR-THIRTY IN THE MORNING THE PRIEST WAS all cleaned up. I felt a lot better. I always did, after. Killing makes me feel good. It works the knots out of darling Dexter's dark schemata. It's a sweet release, a necessary letting go of all the little hydraulic valves inside. I enjoy my work; sorry if that bothers you. Oh, very sorry, really. But there it is. And it's not just any killing, of course. It has to be done the right way, at the right time, with the right partner—very complicated, but very necessary. And always somewhat draining. So I was tired, but the tension of the last week was gone, the cold voice of the Dark Passenger was quiet, and I could be me again. Quirky, funny, happy-go-lucky, dead-inside Dexter. No longer Dexter with the knife, Dexter the Avenger. Not until next time. I put all the bodies back in the garden with one new neighbor and tidied the little falling-down house as much as I could. I packed my things into the priest's car and drove south to the small side canal where I had left my boat, a seventeen- foot Whaler with a shallow draft and a big engine. I pushed the priest's car into the canal behind my boat and climbed on board. I watched the car settle and disappear. Then I cranked up my outboard and eased out of the canal, heading north across the bay. The sun was just coming up and bouncing off the brightwork. I put on my very best happy face; just another early-morning fisherman heading home. Red snapper, anyone? By six-thirty I was home in my Coconut Grove apartment. I took the slide from my pocket, a simple, clean glass strip—with a careful single drop of the priest's blood preserved in the center. Nice and clean, dry now, ready to slip under my microscope when I wanted to remember. I put the slide with the others, thirty-six neat and careful very dry drops of blood. I took an extra-long shower, letting the hot hot water wash away the last of the tension and ease the knots in my muscles, scrubbing off the small final traces of clinging smell from the priest and the garden of the little house in the swamp.

a cup of Cuban coffee and a medianoche sandwich. Nobody would care, as long as he tipped. Deborah had been spending way too much time out here lately. Her opinion, not mine. It seemed like a good place to go if you were a cop and you wanted to increase your statistical chance of catching somebody doing something awful. Deborah didn't see it that way. Maybe because she was working vice. A good- looking young woman working vice on the Tamiami Trail usually ends up as bait on a sting, standing outside almost naked to catch men who wanted to pay for sex. Deborah hated that. Couldn't get worked up about prostitution, except as a sociological issue. Didn't think bagging johns was real crime fighting. And, known only to me, she hated anything that overemphasized her femininity and her lush figure. She wanted to be a cop; it was not her fault she looked more like a centerfold. And as I pulled into the parking lot that linked the Cacique and its neighbor, Tito's Café Cubano, I could see that she was currently emphasizing the hell out of her figure. She was dressed in a neon-pink tube top, spandex shorts, black fishnet stockings, and spike heels. Straight from the costume shop for Hollywood Hookers in 3-D. A few years back somebody in the Vice Bureau got the word that the pimps were laughing at them on the streets. It seems the vice cops, mostly male, were picking the outfits for the women operatives who worked in the sting operations. Their choice of clothing was showing an awful lot about their preferences in kinkiness, but it did not look much like hooker wear. So everybody on the street could tell when the new girl was carrying a badge and gun in her clutch purse. As a result of this tip, the vice cops began to insist that the girls who went undercover pick their own outfits for the job. After all, girls know more about what looks right, don't they? Maybe most of them do. Deborah doesn't. She's never felt comfortable in anything but blues. You should have seen what she wanted to wear to her prom. And now—I had never seen a beautiful woman dressed in such a revealing costume who looked less sexually appealing than Deb did. But she did stand out. She was working crowd control, her badge pinned to the tube top. She was more visible than the half mile of yellow crime-scene tape that was already strung up, more than the three patrol cars angled in with their lights flashing. The pink tube top flashed a little brighter. She was off to one side of the parking lot, keeping a growing crowd back from the lab techs who appeared to be going through the Dumpster belonging to the coffee shop. I was glad I hadn't been assigned to that. The stink of it came all the way across the lot and in my car window—a dark stench of Latin coffee grounds mixed with old fruit and rancid pork. The cop at the entrance to the parking lot was a guy I knew. He waved me in and I found a spot. “Deb,” I said as I strolled over. “Nice outfit. Really shows your figure to full advantage.” “Fuck off,” she said, and she blushed. Really something to see in a full-grown cop.

“They found another hooker,” she said. “At least, they think it's a hooker. Hard to tell from what's left.” “That's the third in the last five months,” I said. “Fifth,” she told me. “There were two more up in Broward.” She shook her head. “These assholes keep saying that officially there's no connection.” “It would make for an awful lot of paperwork,” I said helpfully. Deb showed me her teeth. “How about some basic fucking police work?” she snarled. “A moron could see these kills are connected.” And she gave a little shudder. I stared at her, amazed. She was a cop, daughter of a cop. Things didn't bother her. When she'd been a rookie cop and the older guys played tricks on Deborah— showing her the hacked-up bodies that turn up in Miami every day—to get her to blow her lunch, she hadn't blinked. She'd seen it all. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. But this one made her shudder. Interesting. “This one is special, is that it?” I asked her. “This one is on my beat, with the hookers.” She pointed a finger at me. “And THAT means I've got a shot to get in on it, get noticed, and pull a transfer into Homicide Bureau.” I gave her my happy smile. “Ambition, Deborah?” “Goddamned right,” she said. “I want out of vice, and I want out of this sex suit. I want into Homicide, Dexter, and this could be my ticket. With one small break—” She paused. And then she said something absolutely amazing. “Please help me, Dex,” she said. “I really hate this.” “Please, Deborah? You're saying please to me? Do you know how nervous that makes me?” “Cut the crap, Dex.” “But Deborah, really—” “Cut it, I said. Will you help me or not?” When she put it that way, with that strange rare “please” dangling in the air, what else could I say but, “Of course I will, Deb. You know that.” And she eyed me hard, taking back her please. “I don't know it, Dex. I don't know anything with you.” “Of course I'll help, Deb,” I repeated, trying to sound hurt. And doing a really good imitation of injured dignity, I headed for the Dumpster with the rest of the lab rats. Camilla Figg was crawling through the garbage, dusting for fingerprints. She was a stocky woman of thirty-five with short hair who had never seemed to respond to my breezy, charming pleasantries. But as she saw me, she came up onto her knees, blushed, and watched me go by without speaking. She always seemed to stare at me and then blush. Sitting on an overturned plastic milk carton on the far end of the Dumpster, poking through a handful of waste matter, was Vince Masuoka. He was half Japanese and liked to joke that he got the short half. He called it a joke, anyway. There was something just slightly off in Vince's bright, Asian smile. Like he had learned to smile from a picture book. Even when he made the required dirty put-

I looked. A small knot of people stood around a cluster of tidy trash bags. “I don't see it,” I said. “Right there. The trash bags. Each one is a body part. He cut the victim into pieces and then wrapped up each one like it was a Christmas present. Did you ever see anything like that before?” Of course I had. That's how I do it.

Chapter 3

THERE IS SOMETHING STRANGE AND DISARMING about looking at a homicide scene in the bright daylight of the Miami sun. It makes the most grotesque killings look antiseptic, staged. Like you're in a new and daring section of Disney World. Dahmer Land. Come ride the refrigerator. Please hurl your lunch in the designated containers only. Not that the sight of mutilated bodies anywhere has ever bothered me, oh no, far from it. I do resent the messy ones a little when they are careless with their body fluids—nasty stuff. Other than that, it seems no worse than looking at spare ribs at the grocery store. But rookies and visitors to crime scenes tend to throw up—and for some reason, they throw up much less here than they do up North. The sun just takes the sting out. It cleans things up, makes them neater. Maybe that's why I love Miami. It's such a neat town. And it was already a beautiful, hot Miami day. Anyone who had worn a suit coat was now looking for a place to hang it. Alas, there was no such place in the grubby little parking lot. There were only five or six cars and the Dumpster. It was shoved over in a corner, next to the café, backed up against a pink stucco wall topped with barbed wire. The back door to the café was there. A sullen young woman moved in and out, doing a brisk business in café cubano and pasteles with the cops and the technicians on the scene. The handful of assorted cops in suits who hang out at homicide scenes, either to be noticed, to apply pressure, or to make sure they know what's going on, now had one more thing to juggle. Coffee, a pastry, a suit coat. The crime-lab gang didn't wear suits. Rayon bowling shirts with two pockets was more their speed. I was wearing one myself. It repeated a pattern of voodoo drummers and palm trees against a lime green background. Stylish, but practical. I headed for the closest rayon shirt in the knot of people around the body. It belonged to Angel Batista-no-relation, as he usually introduced himself. Hi, I'm Angel Batista, no relation. He worked in the medical examiner's office. At the moment he was squatting beside one of the garbage bags and peering inside it. I joined him. I was anxious to see inside the bag myself. Anything that got a reaction from Deborah was worth a peek. “Angel,” I said, coming up on his side. “What do we have?” “What you mean we , white boy?” he said. “We got no blood with this one. You're out of a job.”

“I heard.” I crouched down beside him. “Was it done here, or just dumped?” He shook his head. “Hard to say. They empty the Dumpster twice a week—this has been here for maybe two days.” I looked around the parking lot, then over at the moldy façade of the Cacique. “What about the motel?” Angel shrugged. “They're still checking, but I don't think they'll find anything. The other times, he just used a handy Dumpster. Huh,” he said suddenly. “What?” He used a pencil to peel back the plastic bag. “Look at that cut.” The end of a disjointed leg stuck out, looking pale and exceptionally dead in the glare of the sun. This piece ended in the ankle, foot neatly lopped off. A small tattoo of a butterfly remained, one wing cut away with the foot. I whistled. It was almost surgical. This guy did very nice work—as good as I could do. “Very clean,” I said. And it was, even beyond the neatness of the cutting. I had never seen such clean, dry, neat-looking dead flesh. Wonderful. “Me cago en diez on nice and clean,” he said. “It's not finished.” I looked past him, staring a little deeper into the bag. Nothing moving in there. “It looks pretty final to me, Angel.” “Lookit,” he said. He flipped open one of the other bags. “This leg, he cuts it in four pieces. Almost like with a ruler or something, huh? And so this one,” and he pointed back to the first ankle that I had admired so deeply, “this one he cuts in two pieces only? How's come, huh?” “I'm sure I don't know,” I said. “Perhaps Detective LaGuerta will figure it out.” Angel looked at me for a moment and we both struggled to keep a straight face. “Perhaps she will,” he said, and he turned back to his work. “Why don't you go ask her?” “Hasta luego, Angel,” I said. “Almost certainly,” he answered, head down over the plastic bag. There was a rumor going around a few years back that Detective Migdia LaGuerta got into the Homicide Bureau by sleeping with somebody. To look at her once you might buy into that. She has all the necessary parts in the right places to be physically attractive in a sullen, aristocratic way. A true artist with her makeup and very well dressed, Bloomingdale's chic. But the rumor can't be true. To begin with, although she seems outwardly very feminine, I've never met a woman who was more masculine inside. She was hard, ambitious in the most self-serving way, and her only weakness seemed to be for model-handsome men a few years younger than she was. So I'm quite sure she didn't get into Homicide using sex. She got into Homicide because she's Cuban, plays politics, and knows how to kiss ass. That combination is far better than sex in Miami. LaGuerta is very very good at kissing ass, a world-class ass kisser. She kissed ass all the way up to the lofty rank of homicide investigator. Unfortunately, it's a job where her skills at posterior smooching were never called for, and she was a terrible detective. It happens; incompetence is rewarded more often than not. I have to work with her anyway. So I have used my considerable charm to make her like me. Easier than you might think. Anybody can be charming if they don't mind faking it,

“It is only a matter of time before the killer makes a mistake and we catch him— ” “Meaning,” I said, “that so far he hasn't made any mistakes, you don't have any clues, and you have to wait for him to kill again before you can do anything?” She looked at me hard. “I forget. Why do I like you?” I just shrugged. I didn't have a clue—but then, apparently she didn't either. “What we got is nada y nada. That Guatemalan,” she made a face at the retreating Indio, “he found the body when he came out with the garbage from the restaurant. He didn't recognize these garbage bags and he opened one up to see if maybe there was something good. And it was the head.” “Peekaboo,” I said softly. “Hah?” “Nothing.” She looked around, frowning, perhaps hoping a clue would leap out and she could shoot it. “So that's it. Nobody saw anything, heard anything. Nothing. I have to wait for your fellow nerds to finish up before I know anything.” “Detective,” said a voice behind us. Captain Matthews strolled up in a cloud of Aramis aftershave, meaning that the reporters would be here very shortly. “Hello, Captain,” LaGuerta said. “I've asked Officer Morgan to maintain a peripheral involvement in this case,” he said. LaGuerta flinched. “In her capacity as an undercover operative she has resources in the prostitution community that could assist us in expediting the solution.” The man talked with a thesaurus. Too many years of writing reports. “Captain, I'm not sure that's necessary,” LaGuerta said. He winked and put a hand on her shoulder. People management is a skill. “Relax, Detective. She's not going to interfere with your command prerogatives. She'll just check in with you if she has something to report. Witnesses, that sort of thing. Her father was a damn good cop. All right?” His eyes glazed and refocused on something on the other end of the parking lot. I looked. The Channel 7 News van was rolling in. “Excuse me,” Matthews said. He straightened his tie, put on a serious expression, and strolled over toward the van. “Puta,” LaGuerta said under her breath. I didn't know if she meant that as a general observation, or was talking about Deb, but I thought it was a good time to slip away, too, before LaGuerta remembered that Officer Puta was my sister. As I rejoined Deb, Matthews was shaking hands with Jerry Gonzalez from Channel 7. Jerry was the Miami area's leading champion of if-it-bleeds-it-leads journalism. My kind of guy. He was going to be disappointed this time. I felt a slight quiver pass over my skin. No blood at all. “Dexter,” Deborah said, still trying to sound like a cop, but I could tell she was excited. “I talked to Captain Matthews. He's going to let me in on this.” “I heard,” I said. “Be careful.” She blinked at me. “What are you talking about?” “LaGuerta,” I said. Deborah snorted. “Her,” she said. “Yeah. Her. She doesn't like you, and she doesn't want you on her turf.”

“Tough. She got her orders from the captain.” “Uh-huh. And she's already spent five minutes figuring out how to get around them. So watch your back, Debs.” She just shrugged. “What did you find out?” she asked. I shook my head. “Nothing yet. LaGuerta's already nowhere. But Vince said—” I stopped. Even talking about it seemed too private. “Vince said what?” “A small thing, Deb. A detail. Who knows what it means?” “Nobody will ever know if you don't say it, Dexter.” “There… seems to be no blood left with the body. No blood at all.” Deborah was quiet for a minute, thinking. Not a reverent pause, not like me. Just thinking. “Okay,” she said at last. “I give up. What does it mean?” “Too soon to tell,” I said. “But you think it means something.” It meant a strange light-headedness. It meant an itch to find out more about this killer. It meant an appreciative chuckle from the Dark Passenger, who should have been quiet so soon after the priest. But that was all rather tough to explain to Deborah, wasn't it? So I just said, “It might, Deb. Who really knows?” She looked at me hard for half a moment, then shrugged. “All right,” she said. “Anything else?” “Oh, a great deal,” I said. “Very nice blade work. The cuts are close to surgical. Unless they find something in the hotel, which no one expects, the body was killed somewhere else and dumped here.” “Where?” “Very good question. Half of police work is asking the right questions.” “The other half is answering,” she told me. “Well then. Nobody knows where yet, Deb. And I certainly don't have all the forensic data—” “But you're starting to get a feel for this one,” she said. I looked at her. She looked back. I had developed hunches before. I had a small reputation for it. My hunches were often quite good. And why shouldn't they be? I often know how the killers are thinking. I think the same way. Of course I was not always right. Sometimes I was very wide of the mark. It wouldn't look good if I was always right. And I didn't want the cops to catch every serial killer out there. Then what would I do for a hobby? But this one—Which way should I go with this so very interesting escapade? “Tell me, Dexter,” Deborah urged. “Have you got any guesses about this?” “Possibly,” I said. “It's a little early yet.” “Well, Morgan,” said LaGuerta from behind us. We both turned. “I see you're dressed for real police work.” Something about LaGuerta's tone was like a slap on the face. Deborah stiffened. “Detective,” she said. “Did you find anything?” She said it in a tone that already knew the answer. A cheap shot. But it missed. LaGuerta waved a hand airily. “They are only putas,” she said, looking hard at Deb's cleavage, so very prominent in her hooker suit. “Just hookers. The important thing here is to keep the press from getting hysterical.” She shook her head slowly, as if in disbelief, and looked up.

in the afternoon to hear what I'd discovered, which was very little. They'd found no traces of anything at the motel. There were so many tire tracks in the parking lot that none were distinct. No prints or traces in the Dumpster, on the bags, or on the body parts. Everything USDA inspection clean. The one big clue of the day was the left leg. As Angel had noticed, the right leg had been sectioned into several neat pieces, cut at the hip, knee, and ankle. But the left leg was not. It was a mere two sections, neatly wrapped. Aha, said Detective LaGuerta, lady genius. Somebody had interrupted the killer, surprised him, startled him so he did not finish the cut. He panicked when he was seen. And she directed all her effort at finding that witness. There was one small problem with LaGuerta's theory of interruption. A tiny little thing, perhaps splitting hairs, but—the entire body had still been meticulously cleaned and wrapped, presumably after it had been cut up. And then it had been transported carefully to the Dumpster, apparently with enough time and focus for the killer to make no mistakes and leave no traces. Either nobody pointed this out to LaGuerta or—wonder of wonders!—could it be that nobody else had noticed? Possible; so much of police work is routine, fitting details into patterns. And if the pattern was brand new, the investigation could seem like three blind men examining an elephant with a microscope. But since I was neither blind nor hampered by routine, it had seemed far more likely to me that the killer was simply unsatisfied. Plenty of time to work, but—this was the fifth murder in the same pattern. Was it getting boring, simply chopping up the body? Was Our Boy searching for something else, something different? Some new direction, an untried twist? I could almost feel his frustration. To have come so far, all the way to the end, sectioning the leftovers for gift wrapping. And then the sudden realization: This isn't it. Something is just not right. Coitus interruptus. It wasn't fulfilling him this way anymore. He needed a different approach. He was trying to express something, and hadn't found his vocabulary yet. And in my personal opinion—I mean, if it was me—this would make him very frustrated. And very likely to look further for the answer. Soon. But let LaGuerta look for a witness. There would be none. This was a cold, careful monster, and absolutely fascinating to me. And what should I do about that fascination? I was not sure, so I had retreated to my boat to think. A Donzi cut across my bow at seventy miles per hour, only inches away. I waved happily and returned to the present. I was approaching Stiltsville, the mostly abandoned collection of old stilt homes in the water near Cape Florida. I nosed into a big circle, going nowhere, and let my thoughts move back into that same slow arc. What would I do? I needed to decide now, before I got too helpful for Deborah. I could help her solve this, absolutely, no one better. Nobody else was even moving in the right direction. But did I want to help? Did I want this killer arrested? Or did I want to find him and stop him myself? Beyond this—oh, nagging little thought—did I even want him to stop? What would I do?

To my right I could just see Elliott Key in the last light of the day. And as always, I remembered my camping trip there with Harry Morgan. My foster father. The Good Cop. You're different, Dexter. Yes, Harry, I certainly am. But you can learn to control that difference and use it constructively. All right, Harry. If you think I should. How? And he told me.

There is no starry sky anywhere like the starry sky in South Florida when you are fourteen and camping out with Dad. Even if he's only your foster dad. And even if the sight of all those stars merely fills you with a kind of satisfaction, emotion being out of the question. You don't feel it. That's part of the reason you're here. The fire has died down and the stars are exceedingly bright and foster dear old dad has been quiet for some time, taking small sips on the old-fashioned hip flask he has pulled from the outside flap of his pack. And he's not very good at this, not like so many other cops, not really a drinker. But it's empty now, and it's time for him to say his piece if he's ever going to say it. “You're different, Dexter,” he says. I look away from the brightness of the stars. Around the small and sandy clearing the last glow of the fire is making shadows. Some of them trickle across Harry's face. He looks strange to me, like I've never seen him before. Determined, unhappy, a little dazed. “What do you mean, Dad?” He won't look at me. “The Billups say Buddy has disappeared,” he says. “Noisy little creep. He was barking all night. Mom couldn't sleep.” Mom needed her sleep, of course. Dying of cancer requires plenty of rest, and she wasn't getting it with that awful little dog across the street yapping at every leaf that blew down the sidewalk. “I found the grave,” Harry says. “There were a lot of bones in there, Dexter. Not just Buddy's.” There's very little to say here. I carefully pull at a handful of pine needles and wait for Harry. “How long have you been doing this?” I search Harry's face, then look out across the clearing to the beach. Our boat is there, moving gently with the surge of the water. The lights of Miami are off to the right, a soft white glow. I can't figure out where Harry is going, what he wants to hear. But he is my straight-arrow foster dad; the truth is usually a good idea with Harry. He always knows, or he finds out. “A year and a half,” I say. Harry nods. “Why did you start?” A very good question, and certainly beyond me at fourteen. “It just—I kind of… had to,” I tell him. Even then, so young but so smooth. “Do you hear a voice?” he wants to know. “Something or somebody telling you what to do, and you had to do it?” “Uh,” I say with fourteen-year-old eloquence, “not exactly.” “Tell me,” Harry says.