Dexter Is Dead

TWELVE

I called Deborah to tell her I had signed the custody papers. She was at work, of course, and may have had a very good reason for declining to answer my call. Perhaps she was busy shooting someone, or maybe wading through viscera at a crime scene. Whatever the truth, she did not answer, and I could not help thinking that she just didn’t want to taint her righteous ears with the dreadful pollution of my voice. I left a message, and headed for my lunch appointment with Vince Masuoka.

Lunar Sushi was a newish place in North Bay Village. It sat in a strip mall, in between a grocery store and a sports bar. It really should have been a little bit tacky, considering this less than ideal location. But they’d put quite a bit of money into the decor, making it look like the kind of chic, upscale place where you expect to see movie stars drop in for some kajiki and a Kirin.

At this time of day, in midweek, there was no problem finding a good parking spot, and I was tucked in at the bar with a pot of very hot green tea when Vince came stumbling in at twelve minutes past noon. He stood in the doorway for a moment, blinking away the effects of the bright sunlight outside and goggling around the cool dark of the interior. It was kind of fun to watch him stand there and gawp, but it was just a little cruel, too — perhaps that was part of what made it fun in the first place. Still, he was here, after all, to do me a good turn, so I took pity on him and waved.

“Over here, Vince,” I called.

He actually flinched when I said his name, and raised his hands to make a shushing gesture. But he apparently realized that was a bit much, and he dropped his hands again and came wobble-stepping rapidly across the floor. “Dexter,” he said in the same hushed tone he’d used on the phone. He put his hands on my shoulders and, to my complete astonishment, he leaned forward, putting his head down on my chest and giving me a hug. “Oh, my God, I’m so glad you’re okay.” He took his head off my chest and looked at me. “You are okay, aren’t you?”

“Too soon to tell,” I said, wondering how I could pry myself out of his strange and uncharacteristic embrace. Vince was no more a touchy-feely-huggy guy than I was. In fact, one of the reasons I liked him was that I could tell he was faking most of his Human Behavior, too, just like I was. I was merely a little better at it. But as far as I could remember, we’d never even shaken hands — and here he was locking me in a stifling and very awkward clinch.

But happily for me, he gave me one last quick squeeze and then stepped back. “Well, you’re out of jail,” he said. “That’s the important thing.” He stood only about two feet away and looked at me with a weird expression, kind of a yearning, searching gaze, as if he was trying to find some hidden pain in my face, and he might cry when he found it.

“I am out,” I said. “At least for now.”

Vince blinked. “Is there some — I mean, they can’t just…uh…” he said, stumbling to a halt and looking over my shoulder.

I turned. The sushi chef had appeared noiselessly on the far side of the bar and stood there regarding us with solemn expectation. I looked back at Vince. “Let’s put in an order and move to a booth,” I said. “So we can talk.”

Vince nodded and stepped up to the bar. And then, to my utter astonishment, he began to make a series of harsh and sibilant sounds in the direction of the chef. Even more surprisingly, the chef stood a little straighter, smiled, and made some very similar sounds back at Vince. They both laughed — and then actually bowed at each other — and the chef scurried away, a wicked-looking blade already raised in his hand. He began slapping great chunks of raw fish onto his chopping block and attacking them with his knife.

I looked at Vince, and it occurred to me again that I really didn’t know anything at all about him. “Was that Japanese?” I asked him.

He turned and looked at me as if I was the one speaking a foreign language. “Huh?” he said.

“Those noises you just made,” I said. “You were speaking Japanese with the sushi chef?”

He looked a little puzzled. “You did know that Masuoka is a Japanese name, right?” He shrugged. “What did you expect?”

I might have pointed out that Morgan is a Welsh name and I didn’t speak a word of that language, but it seemed like a rather low-priority observation. “Let’s get a booth,” I said.

“Oh, right,” he said, looking startled and furtive again, and I led him to a booth in the back, sliding in so I faced the front door. Vince climbed in across from me, and glanced all around the restaurant with a wide-eyed, paranoid glare. If anyone actually was looking for suspicious behavior, they would definitely know that they should start with Vince. But maybe he had a real reason, other than a fevered imagination.

“Vince,” I said, “you weren’t followed, were you?”

He snapped his head back around and looked at me. “What?” he said. “Why would you — Did you see somebody?”

“No, no,” I said, trying to sound confident and soothing at the same time. “You’re just acting like you expect to be shot at any moment.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know,” he said. “I mean, the things that have been going on since you—” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Dexter, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s gotten so — Anderson is completely off the reservation. He’s gone rogue, and nobody seems to — It’s like they all want him to do it, because they want you to be convicted!”

“What was Anderson doing?”

Vince looked around again. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead and began to roll slowly down his face. “He’s falsifying records,” he said in a strangled whisper. “Putting in fake evidence and forging the signatures and—” He fluttered his hands in dismay. They looked like two spastic birds who’d forgotten how to fly. “Dexter, Jesus, it’s illegal. Like a felony, and he’s just doing it and nobody does anything about it. It’s like—”

He stopped abruptly as a young Japanese girl in tight black pants and a loose white shirt came smiling out of the kitchen, put two glasses of cold water and a pot of tea on our table, and then vanished again. Vince watched her go, swallowed, and then picked up his glass and gulped down about half of it.

“Anderson hates me,” I said. “He’ll do anything to see me burn.”

“But that’s just it!” Vince said. He put down his water glass with a thump so hard it scared him. He flinched, and then pushed the glass nervously to one side. “It’s not just Anderson,” he said, back to a near-whisper again. “It’s the whole department, and even—” He shook his head and sighed. “When I saw the first report Anderson turned in, I thought, Okay, he’s got a hard-on for Dexter.” He looked startled by what he’d said and stammered out, “Ah, I mean, you know, metaphorically…?”

“Yeah, I got that,” I said reassuringly.

He nodded, relieved. “Right. So I thought, No way he’ll get away with this. And I reported it.” He leaned toward me as far as he could go without climbing onto the table. “I was told to mind my own business.”

“But you didn’t,” I said.

“What? No, how could I? I mean, it’s my name on the forensic report, and it’s not what I wrote!” He rubbed his hands together, hard enough that I could hear a kind of whispery-raspy sound coming from them. “I can’t let him do that — not my name.” He frowned. “Um, and, you know — when they’re framing you, too?”

“Unthinkable,” I said, thinking it was a nice sentiment, even if my life and liberty got second billing to Vince’s good name.

“So, I kept at it,” he said. “I mean, I tried to tell somebody, anybody, and everybody told me to mind my own business.” He gave a one-syllable not-funny laugh and spread his hands. “Mind my own — I just, I always thought it was everybody’s business when somebody does that sort of thing.” He shook his head in wonder. “I even told the captain, and it was the same thing. ‘Stay out of it. Mind your own business. Don’t make waves, Masuko.’ ” He blinked at me, looking like he had reached a new and deeper level of despair and degradation. “He calls me ‘Mah-soo-ko,’ ” he said.

“Some people’s ignorance knows no bounds,” I said.

“Ignorance and…and…” He picked up his water glass and chugged the rest of the contents. “So I went to the state attorney.”

“And he told you to mind your own business,” I said, hoping I could urge him to the finish line. After all, I’d heard a recap of all this from Brian, and I was really hoping to move on to some sort of understanding on the future agenda.

“He told me…” Vince started to say. He sounded like he was choking on something, and he turned his head and coughed violently for a few seconds. Then he looked back at me, took a deep breath, and in a soft and raspy voice he said, “He told me that these were very serious allegations involving an ongoing case, and was I aware that I was bringing them against a distinguished officer?” He gave that one-syllable not-laugh again. “Distinguished. Anderson is distinguished now.” He coughed again, just once. “I told him they weren’t allegations; I had proof, and when I tried to show it to him, he said no, he would have to recuse himself, and I should just stay out of it and let justice take its course. Otherwise, he would speak to the commissioner and see that I lost my job.” He blinked and looked away. “And then it got even worse. The next day at work, Anderson grabbed me from behind, lifted me up, and slammed me against a wall.” He turned to me. “He’s very strong,” he said unnecessarily.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said.

“He told me if I tried anything like that again, he’d break my neck.” He made a limp-wristed gesture of despair, raising both hands and then letting them flop back down onto the table again. “He knew, Dexter. Somebody at the state attorney’s office must have told him.”

“Probably the state attorney,” I said.

He looked at me with his mouth open, moving it like a grouper struggling to breathe. Then he sagged over, looking defeated and helpless. “Well, shit,” he said with a very nice mix of hopelessness and despair. “If the state attorney is in this…” He shook his head, and he made it look like his skull weighed fifty pounds. “What the fuck can we do?” he said, and I looked at him with mild surprise. I couldn’t remember hearing Vince use dirty language, except sexual, in the course of one of his awful jokes. Here he had just done it twice in ten seconds. The poor fellow really was on the ropes.

“This is crazy,” he went on. “I’m trying to do the right thing, and the people who are supposed to help me, supposed to be grateful…I mean…” He shook his head. “Dexter, my whole life, I couldn’t—”

I didn’t get to find out what he couldn’t, because our food arrived. And if I showed more than my normal enthusiasm in attacking it, it’s only fair to point out that I had quite nobly abstained from following my restaurant map in a pilgrimage of gluttony, and I therefore truly deserved to enjoy my lunch now, since there was only one of it. And I did — all the more because Vince just picked at his food. Waste is a terrible thing, so I helped him finish the hand rolls. One of them was quite good — spicy, with a little crunchy something in it, and a burst of umami at the finish.

When I was happily full, and somewhat tired of watching Vince mope and push sushi around the platter with a chopstick, I leaned back and decided to get down to the real business at hand.

“I appreciate what you’ve done, Vince,” I said. It’s always nice to start with kind words, especially when you want something.

“That’s…But I didn’t do anything,” he said. “Not really.” His eyes got very moist, and there was even a little quaver in his voice. “I wanted to help you,” he said.

“You still can,” I said with firmness and an optimism I didn’t feel.

For some reason, he didn’t look any more optimistic. “You don’t know,” he said. “They’re watching me now, and it’s…I know it’s stupid, but…” He leaned across the table again and lowered his voice. “I actually started to think, like, my life might be in jeopardy. From cops.”

“It might be,” I said, and he goggled at me, and then nodded, took a deep breath, and leaned back again.

“This is completely insane,” he whispered. “I mean, the whole system is against us, the captain and the state attorney and…They might kill me and there’s nothing I can do about it?”

The smile I gave him was not quite a shark’s smile, but I did feel like I could taste red meat as I did it. “Actually,” I said, “there’s one really good way to guarantee your safety.”

He looked at me dubiously, as if he couldn’t believe there was any way out. “That’s not…I mean, you can’t do any, because…What?” he said, and the way he said it was so fragmented that for just a half second, I thought of Rita, my dear dead wife. That was the way she had talked.

But of course, nostalgia for run-on sentences in a female voice would not get the job at hand done, so I pushed her memory away. “Do you still have all those doctored reports?” I asked Vince.

“Yes,” he said. “I kept the originals and filed copies.”

I looked at Vince with surprise. His behavior is usually so eccentric and even goofy that every now and then I forget that he’s actually very smart, too. “Well done,” I said. “Where are they?”

“They’re safe,” he said. “In my locker at work.”

I sighed. We were back to goofy again. “Vince, that’s not actually safe.”

“But it’s my locker,” he said. “I mean, you know. It’s locked.”

“They’ve falsified official documents and threatened your life,” I said. “Did you really think they would hesitate to pick a lock?”

He looked very startled. “Oh,” he said. “I guess I…Oh, right.” He shook his head. “Oh, boy. What should I do, Dexter?”

“Bring them to me,” I said. “The whole file, all of it.”

He actually looked offended, as if I was suggesting something indecent. “I can’t do that,” he said. “It’s a misdemeanor to take that stuff out of the building.”

I stared at him, and I admit I was a little shocked at the depths of his naive and loony rectitude. “Vince,” I said, “if they get the stuff out of your locker, there’s nothing to stop them from killing you, and that will be your fault. And suicide is a felony.”

“But you — Oh,” he said. “That’s a joke, right?”

“Almost,” I said. “But it’s true, too. Vince — your only hope here is to let them all know you have that stuff, and you’ve put it someplace safe. And in the meantime,” I said, with a very small return to the shark smile, “I show it to my attorney.”

“Your attorney?!” he said. “But he might…I mean that—” He stopped himself mid-dither and said, “Is Frank Kraunauer really representing you?”

“He is,” I said. “And they can’t ignore him, can they?”

“No, not Frank Kraunauer, they’d have to…” he said. “But what will he — I mean, even so…What will he do with that stuff?”

“He’ll take it to a judge,” I said.

“No,” Vince said, the first forceful and undithering thing he’d said so far. “No, they would know it came from me. I could lose my job.”

For just a moment I was speechless. Lose his job? With his life on the line? And mine, of course, which was considerably more to the point. “Vince, you’re not thinking clearly,” I said. “They’re going to kill you. And then you’ll be permanently unemployed.” But he still looked stubborn.

“No, Dexter,” he said. “It’s wrong. I can’t let you make that stuff public. Think how it would look.”

“What do we care how it looks if we’re both dead?” I said. “And it might not go public anyway. Once the judge sees it, he’ll probably just throw my case out and issue bench warrants.”

“But he might not,” Vince said, and I really wanted to slap him. “It might get out and then — No, Dexter. There has to be a better way.”

“This is the better way; don’t you see?” I said. “This is perfect. For both of us.” And now I gave him my best imitation kindly smile. “It’s so simple. Kraunauer uses that stuff to prove that I was framed; I am free, and you are exonerated, probably even promoted.” I nodded at him to show that I regarded it as a sure thing. “I get out of jail for good, and Anderson gets my old cell. Happy ending all around.”

I could see he was wavering a little, so I leaned across the table to make my point. “Of course, there is an alternative.” He looked hopeful, so I went for the jugular. “You let them kill you, and they plant all sorts of incriminating stuff in your house — drugs, kiddie porn, dirty money from the evidence room. So you’re dead and disgraced. And I go to trial and spend twenty years on death row, wondering why I ever tried to help poor old Vince Masuoka, the bribe-taking pedophile junkie.” I spread my hands, and then leaned back to show I was all done. “Your choice, Vince. It’s up to you. Life or death. Shame or praise. All — or nothing.”

He goggled at me again, clearly not quite there yet despite my magnificent oration. I poured a cup of tea and didn’t look at him.

“I can picture Anderson standing over your cold dead body with that stupid smile of his and then, just because nobody can stop him, zzziipp! He opens his fly and pees all over your cold, dead—”

“All right, all right! Jesus, Dexter,” he said, his face twisted into a mask of disgusted anguish.

“Just sayin’,” I said. “You know he will.”

“All right, fine,” he said. He blew out a huge loud breath. It sounded like a radiator bursting. “I’ll do it!”

He looked relieved — and, it must be said, a little guilty, too. I didn’t care. I had worked so hard on him for something that was, to my mind, so simple and obvious, that it was hard to think of him as an intelligent creature anymore. I felt like I should scratch him behind the ear, say, “Good boy!” and toss him a cookie.

Instead I just nodded and said, “Smart choice. When can you get it to me?”

He shook his head, looking numb, and said, “Jesus, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Doing what, Vince?” I said sweetly. “Saving your own life?”

“I can’t…I, uh,” he said. He sighed. “I can bring it home with me tonight. After work.”

I nodded. But if there is a wicked thought to be had, we must assume that Dexter will have it first. So I said, “Can I suggest that you leave work early?”

“What? No,” he said. “I have a ton of work — I mean, we are shorthanded, you know.” He looked at me like it was my fault — and of course it was, in a way.

“Yes, I do know,” I said mildly. “But if you stay late, you’re giving Anderson a shot at you. And even if you leave on time, he’ll be expecting it, and…” I turned my hands palm up and shook my head. “We don’t know what he might do. Or when.”

“Oh…” he said, very faint and looking shocked again.

“So the best move is to do the unexpected, right?”

“Yes. Uh-huh, of course, okay,” he said, staring down at the table and clearly thinking very hard. He snapped his head up and looked at me, clear-eyed and determined. “I can leave at around three-thirty, dentist appointment or something,” he said.

“Perfect. Where should I meet you?”

He blinked. “Um,” he said. “My house? Like, a little after four?”

I tried to think of a reason that would be a bad idea. I didn’t come up with anything. No one would look for him to be at his house at four o’clock on a workday, and it would make him feel more secure, so I nodded. “All right,” I said. “I’ll come by to collect it a little after four.”

He looked away, staring out the front window of the restaurant as if he could see his childhood out there in the parking lot. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said again.