Dexter Is Dead

THREE

Lazlo holds my arm as he opens the door, perhaps afraid that the sight of Anderson will turn my knees to jelly and render me incapable of maintaining an upright posture. He pauses in the doorway, and of necessity, so do I.

“Wait outside,” Anderson says, still smiling at me.

Lazlo doesn’t move. “You alone?” he asks.

“You see anybody else?” Anderson sneers.

“Supposed to be two of you,” Lazlo says, stubbornly refusing to move.

“I’m not afraid of this fuckhead,” Anderson says.

“It’s regulations,” Lazlo says. “Two of you.”

“Listen, chump,” Anderson says. “My regulations say I’m a cop and you’re a fucking corrections clown. Wait outside.”

Lazlo shakes his head, looks at me. “Seventeen months and I retire,” he says. He looks at Anderson and shakes his head again, then turns to go, closing the door behind him.

“Well, fuckhead,” Detective Anderson says in cheerful greeting when we are finally alone. “How d’you like it here?”

“It’s very nice,” I tell him. “You should try it sometime.”

His smile morphs into a sneer, an expression that is much more natural for him. “I don’t think so,” he says.

“Suit yourself,” I say. I move to a chair, and Anderson scowls.

“I didn’t tell you to sit,” he says.

“That’s true,” I say, “which is unusual for you.” I sit. For a moment he thinks he might stand up and smack me out of my chair. I smile patiently at him and glance at the window, where Lazlo stands. He’s watching us and talking into his radio. Anderson decides against smacking me and slumps back into his chair.

“What did your lawyer say?” he asks me.

It’s a surprisingly illegal question, even from a malignant pimple like Anderson. “Why do you want to know?” I say.

“Just answer, fuckhead,” he says with massive authority.

“I don’t think so. That’s privileged information,” I tell him.

“Not to me,” he says.

“Especially to you,” I say. “But maybe you were absent the day they went over that in middle school.” I smile. “Or more likely you never got as far as middle school. That would explain a lot.”

“Wiseass,” he says.

“Is dumb ass better? I mean, in your experience?”

He has at least lost his annoying smirk, but it has been replaced by a rather alarming flush of color and an angry frown. This is clearly not going the way he had fantasized. As someone with recent professional acting experience, I wonder briefly whether I should grovel and plead, just to play out his script, but I decide against it; my character just wouldn’t do that. “You’re in a lot of fucking trouble,” he snarls. “If you’re so fucking smart, you’ll cooperate a little.”

“Detective, I am cooperating,” I say. “But you have to give me something to cooperate with. Hopefully something legal, and not too stupid. Unlikely as that might be, coming from you.”

Anderson takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “Fucking wiseass,” he says. “You know why I’m here?”

I did know; he was here to gloat. But since he probably didn’t know that word, I decided to avoid it. “You’re here because you know I’m innocent,” I say instead. “And you’re hoping I have found the real killer, because you know that even locked up in here, I have a better chance of solving a crime than you do.”

“I solved it,” he says. He lifts a huge, meaty finger and jabs it at me. “You’re it.”

I looked at Anderson. His face was full of anger, venom, dislike for me, and above all, impenetrable stupidity. It was possible that he actually thought I was guilty, or had talked himself into believing it. I didn’t think so. “If you say it enough times, you might actually believe it,” I say.

“I don’t have to believe it,” he snarls. “I just have to make a judge believe it.”

“Good luck with that,” I say, even though he is apparently having quite good luck so far even without my wishes.

Anderson takes another deep breath, letting his face relax into its more natural uncomprehending scowl. “I need to know what your lawyer said,” he says again.

“Better ask him,” I say, helpfully adding, “his name is Bernie.”

Before Anderson can do any more than drum his fingers on the tabletop, the door opens. “Time’s up,” Lazlo says. “Prisoner has to go.”

“I’m not done with him,” Anderson says without looking up.

“Yes, you are,” Lazlo says firmly.

“Who says?”

“I do,” says a new voice, and now Anderson looks up.

A woman steps out from behind Lazlo. She is tall, African American, and good-looking in a severe way. She is also wearing a uniform, and her uniform spells trouble for Anderson, because it quite clearly says she is a captain, and she is looking directly at Detective Anderson with an expression that falls far short of friendly cooperation. “I don’t know what you think you’re pulling here, Detective,” she says, “but you’re done. Get out.” Anderson opens his mouth to say something, and the captain steps closer. “Now,” she says quietly, and Anderson closes his mouth so fast I can hear his teeth click. He stands up, looks at me, and I smile. Anderson very obligingly turns red again, and then turns away and stalks out through the door that Lazlo is holding so politely open for him.

I am on the verge of thanking the captain, perhaps offering her a hearty handshake — even a hug — when she turns steely brown eyes on me, her expression leaving no doubt at all that no profession of gratitude on my part, however sincere, would be welcome, and a hug is quite clearly out of the picture.

The captain turns away, facing Lazlo. “I don’t need any paperwork this time,” she says, and Lazlo heaves a sigh of relief. “But if that dickhead comes back, I want to know about it.”

“Okay, Captain,” Lazlo says. She nods and stalks out the door, which Lazlo holds even more politely for her.

When she has vanished around a turn in the corridor, Lazlo looks at me and says, “Let’s go, Dex.”

I stand up. “I think I should say thank-you…?” I say, rather tentatively.

Lazlo shakes his head. “Forget it,” he says. “I didn’t do it for you. Can’t fucking stand an asshole cop. Come on,” he finishes seamlessly, and with his hand on my elbow, I totter along: down the hall, into the elevator, up to nine, through the airlock, and back once more to the tiny world of my cell. The door closes behind me with absolute certainty and I am Dexter the Chrononaut again, spinning silently through endless empty time in my little steel-and-concrete capsule.

I stretch out on my bunk, but this time I do not nap. This time I have Things to ponder. And ponder I do.

First and most interesting: Thanks to the captain, I now knew that Anderson was “up to something.” This was highly significant. I had known, of course, that he was cutting corners — many of them quite savagely. And I had been sure he was shading the truth, shaping the evidence, coloring events. All these things are Standard Issue, part and parcel of regular Shoddy Police Work, which was, after all, the only kind Anderson could do.

But if he was “up to something” in any official way — and the captain had hinted that he was — then perhaps there was some small and exploitable opening for Dexter to wiggle at, expand, turn into a doorway to freedom.

I added that to what dear Bernie, my lawyer, had said: The paperwork wasn’t right. Instead of viewing that with alarm, as evidence that they could keep me here forever, I began to look at it as more ammunition in my anti-Anderson salvo. He had committed hanky-panky with paperwork, and if something in the System is committed to paper, it becomes transubstantiated into a Sacred Relic. To violate any official and therefore consecrated paperwork was a Cardinal Sin, and it could well result in Anderson’s utter ruin. If I could prove it — and get the right person to see it. A big “if,” but a vital one. Because Anderson wasn’t keeping me here: paperwork was. And if that paperwork was desecrated…?

We read every day of some vile perpetrator of dark deeds, turned loose on an undeserving world because Proper Procedure had been neglected. Just this once, why couldn’t the vile perpetrator be me?

And if Procedure was not merely neglected but willfully falsified, and if I could prove it…It was at least possible that the consequences for Anderson might go far beyond administrative scolding, suspension, even loss of pay. He might actually be sent here, perhaps even to the very cell I walked out of. The sheer poetic, balanced beauty of that possibility was dizzying, and I contemplated it for a long time. Switch places with Anderson. Why not?

Of course, first I had to find out a few relevant details. And then find a way to bring them to the attention of a proper authority of some kind — a judge? Perhaps the judge at my arraignment, when it someday came along — if ever? If Anderson kept me here permanently without arraignment, as it seemed he was doing so far, I couldn’t wait. Forever was much too long. I had to find someone on the outside to get the information to a judge, or even to Captain Matthews. Someone, yes — and who? It could only be Deborah, of course. No one else had the skill, the cojones, and the sheer force of will to pursue this to its happiest conclusion. Deborah it was, and at last I had something helpful to give her when she came.

…which she would. Soon. I mean, eventually she had to.

Didn’t she?

—

Yes. She did.

Eventually.

It was a full two days after my lighthearted chat with Anderson when once again I heard the massive metallic sounds that meant my door was opening. Again it was an inappropriate time for door opening, eleven-oh-seven, and it was close enough to the time Bernie had previously visited me that I assumed it was he, returning with satisfactorily ordered papers and maybe even a date in court. I refused to think it might be something more than that, like a pardon from the governor, or the pope coming to wash my feet. I had allowed that little Pigeon of Hope far too much leeway, and each time I let it soar it had circled the room and come back to poop on my head. I was not going to let it fly again.

So with a face set in Prisoner’s Ennui, an expression I was getting quite good at, I allowed Lazlo to lead me over to the thick bulletproof window, with its phone receiver on each side, its chairs facing each other through the glass, and Deborah sitting in the seat on the far side.

Deborah. At last.

I fell into the chair and lurched for the phone with pathetic eagerness, and on her side of the glass, Deborah watched my pitiful performance with a face that might have been carved from stone, and then, with slow and deliberate calmness, she picked up the phone.

“Deborah!” I said with a bright and hopeful smile on my face — a smile that I actually felt for once.

Deborah simply nodded at me. Her expression did not change, not even a twitch.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” I said, still all puppy-dog happy and overflowing with good cheer.

“So did I,” she said, and although I would not have thought it was possible for her stone face to harden, it did.

I began to feel some small dark thoughts clouding over my sunny-day happiness. “But,” I said, hoping to put things back on an optimistic footing, “you’re here. You came.”

Deborah didn’t say anything. She sat and looked at me, and her face did not soften noticeably.

“I mean, you are here, aren’t you?” I said, not at all sure what I was saying, nor what I meant.

Deborah moved at last. She nodded her head, one small nod of no more than half an inch up, and then down again. “I’m here,” she said. She didn’t make it sound like she was thrilled at being in her present location.

But she was, in fact, here, and that was really all that mattered. I launched right into telling her about my discoveries, suppositions, and conjectures regarding the All-Important Case of Dexter Detained. “I think I have a major lead,” I said. “Anyway, it’s at least something to investigate. Anderson was here — and from what he said, and then what my lawyer said, too, it seems like a good bet that…”

I trickled to a stop. Deborah was not merely paying no attention to my excited rambling. With her face still set in its mask of granite indifference, she had actually put the phone down and turned sideways, away from the window, away from any possible glimpse of offensive little old me.

“Deborah…?” I said, quite stupidly, since I could see the phone lying there, several feet away from her ear.

She turned back to face me, almost as if she’d heard, and waited a moment — an interval filled with no more than an unblinking stare from that hard face that had become so monotonously unfriendly. Then she picked up the phone again.

“I’m not here to listen to your bullshit,” she said.

“But that’s…But then…But why?” I said, and in my defense I have to say that her comment had rendered me even stupider than I sounded. It was a true miracle of wit, in fact, that I could speak at all.

“I need you to sign some papers,” she said. She held up a sheaf of official-looking documents, and in spite of all the massive evidence to the contrary, I actually felt a small surge of relief. After all, what official documents could she possibly bother to bring down here, other than something dealing with my case? And since the true and hidden meaning of “my case” actually meant “my release,” a little ray of sunshine peeped out from behind the newly formed dark clouds.

“Of course,” I said. “I’ll be happy to…You know that I…What are they?” I said, all pathetic eagerness to please once again.

“Custody,” she said, grinding the word out as if one more syllable would have broken her jaw.

I could only blink in surprise. Custody? Was she really going to take me into her house, assume the role of legal guardian to Dexter in Disgrace, until such time as my good name was re-untarnished? It went far beyond what I hoped for — it sounded very much like a full pardon, if only a nonlegal one from Deborah. “Custody,” I repeated inanely, “well, of course, that’s — I mean, thank you! I didn’t think you would—”

“Custody for your kids,” she said, nearly spitting the words. “So they don’t go to a foster home.” And she looked at me as if it had been my plan, my entire purpose in life, to send children to orphanages.

Whether from the look or from her words, I felt so completely deflated that I had to wonder whether I would ever hold air again. “Oh,” I said. “Of course.”

Deborah’s look changed at last, which was all to the good. On the downside, however, what it changed to was a sneer. “You haven’t given those kids one fucking thought, have you?”

It may not stand as absolutely the best character reference for me, but in truth, I had not thought about the kids. Cody, Astor, and, of course, Lily Anne — they must have been scooped up somehow when I was arrested. And naturally, Deborah, as their closest relative — because of course my brother, Brian, would be totally out of the question, and…Honestly, I had not devoted even one gray cell to thinking about the kids, and I am quite sure that anyone with actual feelings would have a rather large lump of shame in their lap. I did not. In my defense, however, I would like to point out that I did have other things to think about — for instance, I was actually incarcerated. For multiple murders, remember? And unjustly. “Well,” I said, “I have been kind of, um…in jail?”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Not one fucking thought.”

For a moment I was too stunned to respond. Here I was in quite literal chains, with reason to think it would soon be my permanent condition, and she was blaming me for not thinking of the children. Who, it must be said, were perfectly free to wander around and sit on the swings and eat pizza or whatever they wanted. It was a monstrous injustice approaching even the unfairness of my imprisonment, but there it was, and at last my wits returned and brought with them a large helping of indignation.

“Deborah, that’s completely unfair,” I said. “I have been in here without any kind of…” And I trickled to a truly feeble halt, because once again, Deborah was holding the phone away from her head and waiting for me to stop talking.

When I did, she let it hang for another minute before she finally picked up the phone. “The papers give me full custody of the kids,” she said. “I’m leaving them with the guard.” She waved the papers. “Sign them.” She began to stand up, and panic flooded into me, from the basement up. My last, my only hope, and she was leaving.

“Deborah, wait!” I called.

Deborah paused in an awkward position, a kind of squat between standing and sitting, and it seemed to my fevered brain that she stayed like that for an awfully long time, as though she couldn’t wait to leave, but some stupid obligation had frozen her in place and kept her from fleeing something distasteful. We both thought she was going to leave anyway. But then, to my idiotic relief, she sat down and picked up the phone again. “What,” she said, in a voice as dead as it could be and still come from a living human mouth.

Once more I could only blink stupidly. The “what” of it seemed painfully obvious, so patently clear that I couldn’t think of any way to say it that wasn’t insulting her intelligence. I said it anyway. “I need your help,” I said.

And just to prove that she could insult my intelligence right back, she said, “For what?”

“To get out of here,” I said. “To find a way to prove that…that—”

“That you’re innocent?” she snarled. “Bullshit.”

“But — I am innocent!”

“The hell you are,” she said, looking and sounding angry for the first time, but at last she was finally showing a little emotion. “You left Jackie alone, you abandoned Rita and let her get killed, and you handed Astor over to a homicidal pedophile!” I could see the knuckles of her hand clutching the phone turning white. She took a deep breath, and her face settled back into cold indifference. “Show me the innocent part, Dexter. Because I don’t see it.”

“But…but, Debs,” I whimpered. “I didn’t kill anybody.”

“This time!” she snapped.

“Well, but…but,” I stammered, “but that’s what I’m in here for. This time. And I didn’t…”

“This time,” she repeated softly. But even though her voice had softened, her eyes were still hard and bright. She leaned in close to the window. “How many other times did you kill somebody, Dexter? How many more times would you if you got out?” It was a fair question, and the answer would certainly compromise my innocent plea, so I wisely said nothing, and Deborah went on.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “I can’t help it. I know you say Dad set the whole thing up so you—” She looked away again. “I can’t do it anymore. I thought I could live with it, close one eye and just…” She looked back at me, and there was no softness in her anywhere. “But now this, and I don’t have any idea who the fuck you are anymore. Maybe I never did — and you could’ve been lying all along about Daddy, and…I mean, he was a cop, and a Marine vet! What would he have said, Dexter? What would Daddy say about the shit you just pulled?”

She glared at me, and I realized she really wanted an answer, but all I could think of to say was, “Semper fi…”

Deborah looked at me a little longer. Then she leaned back in her chair. “I wake up at night, and I think about all the people you killed. And I think about all the people you’ll kill if you get out again. And if I help you get out, I am as good as killing them myself,” she said.

“I thought you were okay with — I mean, Dad really did set it up, and…”

Once more her expression was enough to make me trickle to a stop.

“I can’t do it anymore,” she said. “It’s wrong. It goes against everything I ever—” Her voice was rising, and she caught herself, stopped, and went on calmly. “You belong here,” she said matter-of-factly. “The world is a better and safer place with you locked up.”

It was difficult to argue with her logic, but it would have been rather counterproductive not to try. “Debs,” I said. “I’m in here for something you know I didn’t do. You can’t let them hang it on me — you’re better than that.”

“Save it,” she said. “I’m not the fucking Innocence Project. And if I was, I’d pick somebody who deserved to be saved.”

“I’ve got nobody else,” I said, trying very hard not to sound whiny.

“No, you don’t,” she said. “You let them all get killed.”

“That’s not—”

“And you don’t have me, either,” she said. “You’re on your own.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“You’re goddamned right I mean it,” she said. “I help you get out, I do nothing but turn a killer loose — and just incidentally kill my career, too.”

“Oh, well,” I said. And I was so unhinged at her attitude that I sank into sarcasm. “Of course, if it’s a question of your career—I mean, what does my life matter compared to your career?”

She ground her teeth audibly, and her nostrils flared out and turned white, which I knew from our childhood meant she was about to lose it. “If I can save my career, keep a killer in jail, and help the department at the same time—”

“You’re not helping the department,” I said, and I was peevish now, too. “You’re not helping anyone but Anderson. And you’re doing it by abandoning your own brother!”

“Adopted,” she spat. “Not my real brother.”

For a very long moment those words just hung between us. For my part, I felt as if I had been poleaxed. For her to think that, let alone say it, was so far beyond any possible propriety that I couldn’t believe she’d really said it. Surely I had imagined it? Deborah would never…I mean, would she?

And for her part, Deborah spent a long stretch of that eternity grinding her teeth at me. There was one small, quick flash of something in her eyes: a frail and fleeting thought I could almost see that said she knew she should never say such a thing, and she couldn’t believe she’d said it, either. But that thought was gone, faster than a speeding bullet, and she settled back into her chair and got comfortable, nodding slightly, as though she was actually quite glad she’d finally said something that had been troubling her for a while. And then, just to be sure I was completely and utterly crushed, she said it again.

“Adopted,” she said with matter-of-fact venom. “You were never really my brother.”

She glared at me for another eternity or two, and then she stood up, gathered her papers, and walked away.