Double Dexter

TWENTY

Somewhere in this world it is quite possible that children laughed without a care and played with unworried joy. Somewhere, gentle breezes probably blew across a field of grass as innocent young lovers held hands and strolled through the sunlight. And somewhere on this grubby little globe it is even remotely possible that peace, love, and happiness were abounding in the hearts and minds of the righteous. But right now, in the present location, Dexter was Deep in the Doo-doo, and happiness of any kind was a bitter, mocking fable unless your name was Hood or Doakes, in which case you were in the best of all possible worlds. See the funny Dexter? See him squirm? See the sweat pop out on his forehead? Ha, ha, ha. What a funny, funny guy. Oh, look his mouth is moving, but nothing is coming out except meaningless vowels. Sweat, Dexter. Stutter and sweat. Ha, ha, ha. Dexter is funny.

I was still struggling to find a consonant when my sister spoke up. What the fuck are you trying to pull here, shithead? she said, and I realized that those were the exact words I had been searching for, so I closed my mouth and nodded.

Hood raised his eyebrows, and his forehead was so low they almost merged with his hair. Pull? he said with exaggerated innocence. I m not pulling nothing. I m investigating a murder.

With a couple of bullshit pictures? Deborah said with heartwarming scorn.

Hood leaned toward her and said, Couple? He snorted. Like I said, there s hundreds of em. He shoved his gigantic finger toward my head again.

Every one of em a picture of laughing boy here, he said.

That doesn t mean shit, Deborah said.

Framed and hanging on the walls, Hood said relentlessly. Taped to the refrigerator. Stacked on the bedside table. In boxes in the closet. In a binder on the back of the toilet, he said with a leer. Hundreds of pictures of your brother, sweetheart. He took a half step toward Debs and winked. And I may not get to go on the Today show to talk about it, like some losers who arrest the wrong guy? he said.

But I am in charge of this investigation now, and I think all those pictures do mean shit, and maybe a lot more than shit. I think they mean he was banging Camilla, and I think she was going to tell his pretty little wifey, and he didn t want her to. So lemme ask this one more time real polite and official, he said, stepping back from Debs. He leaned over me now, and as he spoke the smell of his unwashed armpits mingled with his rotten breath and made my eyes water. You got anything you want to tell me about these pictures, Dexter? he said. And maybe about your relationship with Camilla Figg?

I don t know anything about the pictures, I said. And I didn t have any relationship with Camilla except that I worked with her. I barely knew her.

Uh-huh, Hood said, still bent over and in my face. That all you got to say?

Well, I said, I d also like to say that you really need to brush your teeth.

He didn t move at all for a few long seconds, made even longer by the fact that he exhaled again. But finally he nodded, straightened up slowly, and said, This is going to be fun. He nodded at me, and his nasty smile got bigger. As of five o clock today, you are suspended, pending the results of this investigation. If you wish to appeal this decision, you may contact the administrative coordinator for personnel. He turned to Sergeant Doakes and nodded cheerfully, and I felt a cold knot form in my stomach even before he added the inevitable clincher.

That would be Sergeant Doakes, he said.

Of course it would, I said. Nothing could be more perfect. The two of them smiled at me with genuine, heartfelt happiness, and when Hood had done all the smiling his system could stand without melting, he turned away and stepped to the door. He spun around there, and pointed his finger at Deborah, making a clicking sound as he dropped his thumb like he was shooting her. See you later, loser, he told her, and he sauntered out, smiling like he was going to his own birthday party.

Sergeant Doakes hadn t taken his eyes off me the whole time, and he didn t now. He just smiled at me, clearly having more fun than he d had in a very long while, and then finally, just as I was thinking about throwing a chair at his head, he made his horrible, gargling, tongueless-laughing sound, and followed Hood out into the hall.

There was silence in my office for what seemed like a very long time. It was not by any means a peaceful, contemplative silence. It was, instead, the kind of quiet that comes right after an explosion, when the survivors are looking around at all the dead bodies and wondering if another bomb is going to go off, and the eerie silence did not end until Deborah finally shook her head and said, Jesus Christ. That seemed to sum things up pretty well, so I didn t say anything, and Deborah said it again and then added,

Dexter I have to know.

I looked at her with surprise. She seemed to be very serious, but I couldn t imagine what she was thinking. Know what, Debs? I said.

Did you sleep with Camilla? she said.

And now it was my turn to say it. Jesus Christ, Debs, I said, and I was genuinely shocked. Do you think I killed her, too?

She hesitated half a second too long. No-o, she said, and it was not very convincing. But you gotta see how it looks.

To me it looks like you re playing Pile On Dexter, I said. This is crazy I barely spoke twenty words to Camilla in my entire life.

Yeah, but come on, Deborah said. All those fucking pictures.

What about them? I said. I didn t take them, and I don t see what you think they mean.

I m just saying they mean a lot to a brainless shit-bag like Hood and he s going to run with it, and he might even make it stick, she went on, recklessly mixing her metaphors. It s perfect for him married guy bangs chick at work, then kills her to keep his wife from finding out.

That s what you think? I said.

I m just saying, she said. I mean, you gotta see how it would look like that. It s totally believable.

It s totally unbelievable to anybody who knows me, I said. That s just completely How can you even think that for a second? And I was actually feeling authentic human emotions of hurt, betrayal, and outrage. Because for once, I was totally innocent but even my very own sister didn t seem to believe that I was.

All right, Jesus, she said. I m just saying, you know.

You re just saying I m up Shit Creek and you won t hand me a paddle? I said.

Come on, she said, and to her great credit she squirmed uncomfortably.

You re saying you want to know if it s all right if they arrest your brother, I said, because I can be relentless, too. Because you know he s secretly the kind of guy who smashes his coworkers with a hammer?

Dexter, for fuck s sake! she said.

I m sorry, okay?

I looked at her another second, but she actually did seem sorry, and she wasn t reaching for her cuffs, so I just said,

Okay.

Deborah cleared her throat, looked away for a moment, then looked back at me. So you never banged Camilla, she said, and with a little more conviction she added, And you totally never beat anybody to death with a hammer.

Not yet, I said, with just a touch of warning.

Fine, she said, holding up her good hand, as if she wanted to make sure she was ready if I really did try to smack her with a hammer.

And seriously, I said. Why would anybody want even one picture of me?

Deborah opened her mouth, closed it again, and then looked like she d thought of something funny, although I certainly didn t see anything to laugh about. You really don t know? she said.

Know what, Debs? I said. Come on.

She still seemed to think something was comical. But she shook her head and said, All right. You don t know. Shit. She smiled and said, I shouldn t be the one to tell you, your sister, but hey. She shrugged. You re a good-looking guy, Dexter.

Thank you, you re not so bad yourself, I said. What s that got to do with anything?

Dexter, for Christ s sake, don t be dense, she said. Camilla had a crush on you, asshole.

On me? I said. A crush? Like, a romantic infatuation crush?

Shit, yeah, for years. Everybody knew about it, Deborah said.

Everybody but me.

Yeah, well, she said, shrugging. But all those pictures, it looks more like a total obsession.

I shook my head, as if I could make the idea go away. I mean, I don t pretend to understand the clinically insane human race, but this was a bit much. That s crazy, I said. I m married.

Apparently that was a funny thing to say. In any case, it was funny to Deborah; she snorted with amusement. Yeah, well, getting married didn t make you ugly, she said.

Not yet, anyway.

I thought about Camilla and how she had behaved toward me over the years. Just recently, while we were working on the site where Officer Gunther s body had been dumped, she had taken a picture of me, and then stammered out something lame and incoherent about the flash when I looked at her. Maybe her inability to speak in complete sentences only happened when she was in my presence. And it was true that she had blushed every time she saw me and come to think of it, she had tried to kiss me in a drunken stupor at my bachelor party, instead only managing to pass out at my feet. Did all this add up to a secret obsession with little old me? And if so, how did a crush get her crushed?

I have always prided myself on my ability to see things as they really are, without any of the hundreds of emotional filters humans put between themselves and the facts. So I made a conscious effort to clear away the bad air, real and metaphorical, that Hood had left behind. Fact one: Camilla was dead. Two: She had been killed in a very unusual way and that was actually more important than fact one, because it was an imitation of what had been done to Gunther and Klein. Why would somebody do that?

First, it made Deborah look bad. There were people who would want that, but they were either in jail or busy running a murder investigation. But it also made me look bad and that was more to the point. My Witness had made the threat, and then Camilla turned up dead and I was the main suspect.

But how could he have known that Camilla had all those pictures? A stray wisp of memory wafted by, some snippet of office gossip.

I looked at Deborah. She was watching me with one eyebrow raised, as if she thought I might fall off my chair. Did you hear that Camilla had a boyfriend? I asked her.

Yeah, she said. You think he did it?

Yes, I said.

Why?

Because he saw her photo gallery of me, I said.

Debs looked dubious and shook her head. So, what? she said. He killed her because he was jealous?

No, I said. He killed her to frame me.

Deborah stared at me for several seconds, with a look on her face that said she couldn t decide whether to smack me or call for medical assistance. She finally blinked, took a deep breath, and said, with obviously artificial calm, All right, Dexter. Camilla s new boyfriend killed her to frame you. Sure, why not. Just because it s totally fucking crazy

Of course it s crazy, Debs. That s why it makes sense.

Uh-huh, she said. Very logical, Dex. So what kind of psycho asshole would kill Camilla just to drop you in the shit?

It was an awkward question. I knew what psycho asshole had done it. My Witness had said he was moving closer, and he had; that had been him watching me at the crime scene and taking pictures. And he had killed Camilla Figg, purely as a way to get at me. It really was remarkably wicked, killing an innocent person merely to cause me inconvenience, and it would have been very tempting to pause and ponder the absolute depths of callous perfidy that this act revealed. But there really wasn t a lot of time to ponder at present, and in any case worrying about moral turpitude is best left to those with morals.

The real question at this point, and it was an awkward one, was how to tell Deborah that all this was happening because somebody had seen me in flagrante delicto. Debs had accepted me for the monster I am, but that was not at all the same thing as sitting in police headquarters and hearing about an actual example of my hobby. Aside from that, I really find it a bit uncomfortable to talk about my Dark Dabbling, even to Debs. Still, it was the only way to explain things.

So without giving her too many embarrassing details, I told her how I had been seen at play by an unhinged blogger who was now taking it all personally. As I stumbled awkwardly through my tale of woe, Deborah took on her stonefaced I-am-a-cop expression, and she said nothing at all until I finished. Then she sat quietly a little longer and looked at me as if she was waiting for more.

Who was it, she said at last a statement rather than a question, and it didn t quite make sense to me.

I don t know who it is, Debs, I said.

If I did we could go get him.

She shook her head impatiently. Your victim, she said. The guy he saw you doing. Who was it.

For a moment I just blinked at her; I couldn t imagine why she would focus on such an unimportant detail when my precious neck was halfway into the noose. And she made it sound so tawdry, just saying it right out like that. Victim and doing, in that flat cop tone of voice, and I didn t really like thinking about it that way. But she kept staring, and I realized that explaining to her that it really wasn t like that would be a great deal harder than simply answering her question.

Steven Valentine, I told her. A pedophile. He raped and strangled little boys. She just stared, so I added, Um, at least three of them.

Deborah nodded. I remember him, she said.

We pulled him in twice, couldn t make it stick. About half the frown lines vanished from her forehead, and I realized with surprise why she had wanted to know who my playmate had been. She had to be sure that I had followed the rules set down by Harry, her demigod father, and she was now satisfied that I had. She knew Valentine fit the bill, and she accepted the justice of his unorthodox end with satisfaction. I looked at my sister with a real fondness. She had certainly come a long way from when she first found out what I am, and had needed to fight down the desire to lock me up.

All right, she said, jolting me out of my doting reverie before I could sing Hearts and Flowers.

So he saw you, and now he wants to take you down.

That s it, I said. Deborah nodded and continued to study me, pursing her lips and shaking her head as if I was a repair problem beyond her ability to fix.

Well, I said at last, when I had gotten tired of being stared at. So what do we do about it?

There s not a whole shitload we can do, at least officially, she said. Anything I try is going to get me suspended and I can t even ask somebody off the record, because it s my brother under investigation

It s not actually my fault, I said, mildly peeved that she made it sound like it was.

Yeah, well, so lookit, she said, waving that off.

If you really are innocent

Deborah!

Yeah, sorry, I mean, because you re really innocent, she said. And Hood is a brain-dead bag of shit who couldn t find anything even if you were guilty, right?

Is this going somewhere? I said. Maybe someplace far away from me?

Listen, she said. I m just saying, in a couple of days, when they got nothing at all, we can start looking for this guy. For now, just don t get too worked up about Hood and his bullshit. Nothing to worry about. They got nothing.

Really, I said.

Just stay cool for a couple of days, my sister said with complete conviction. It can t get any worse.