Dexter Is Delicious

by Jeff Lindsay

  Deke whistled and Alvarez said, “A what?”

  “Hayabusa,” Deke said, looking suitably impressed. “Very hot bike.”

  “Right, got it,” Alvarez said, looking at Deke with weary resignation, and Debs turned to Hood.

  “You get on Tyler Spanos’s car,” she said. “It’s a 2009 Porsche, blue, convertible. It’s gotta turn up somewhere.”

  “Probably Colombia,” Hood said, and as Deborah opened her mouth to scold him he added, “Yeah, I know; I’ll find it if it isn’t gone already.” He shrugged. “Not that it’ll do any good.”

  “Hey,” Deke said. “Gotta do the routine stuff, you know?”

  Hood looked at him with amusement. “Yeah, Deke,” he said. “I know.”

  “All right,” Chambers said in a loud voice, and all eyes in the room clicked over to him as if they were on the same switch. “If I could have your attention over here for a minute.”

  Chambers stood up and backed to a spot where he could see everybody. “First, I want to thank Major Nelson”—he nodded at the man in the trooper uniform—“and Detective Weems from the Miccosukee Tribal Police.” And the giant man raised a hand to wave and, oddly, smiled at everyone.

  I nudged Deborah and whispered, “Watch and learn, Debs. Politics.”

  She elbowed me hard and whispered, “Shut up.”

  Chambers went on. “They’re here because this thing is turning into an A-one, world-class, top-of-the-line screamer, and we might need their help. We got a possible connection into the Everglades,” he said, nodding again to Weems, “and we’re gonna need all the help we can get covering the roads statewide.” Major Nelson didn’t even blink at this.

  “What about the Fibby?” Hood said, pointing at Special Agent Recht, and Chambers stared at him for a moment.

  “The FBI is here,” Chambers said carefully, “because this is a group we’re looking for, and if it’s at all organized, maybe national, they want to know about it. Besides, we still got one girl missing, and it may turn out to be kidnapping. And frankly, since this is such a freaking mess, you are damned lucky you don’t have Treasury, ATF, and Naval Intelligence in here, too, so shut up and cowboy on.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hood said with a sarcastic little salute. Chambers watched him just long enough to make Hood squirm, before he started talking again.

  “All right,” he said. “Sergeant Morgan has the lead here in the Miami area. Anything points somewhere else, bring it to me first.” Deborah nodded.

  “Questions,” Chambers said, looking around the room. Nobody said anything. “Okay,” he said. “Sergeant Morgan is going to give you a summary of what we know so far.”

  Deborah stood up and walked over to where Chambers stood, and he sat down, yielding the floor to her. Debs cleared her throat and started on her summary. It was painful to watch; she is not a good public speaker, and aside from that she is extremely self-conscious. It seems to me that she has always felt ill at ease in the body of a beautiful woman, since she has a personality more suited to Dirty Harry, and she hates to have people looking at her. So for anyone who really cared about her, which was probably limited to me at the moment, it was an uncomfortable experience to see her stumble over words, repeatedly clear her throat, and lunge at cop-talk clichés as if she were drowning.

  Still, everything has to end sometime, no matter how unpleasant it is, and after a long and nerve-racking interlude Debs finished up and said, “Questions?” And then she blushed and looked at Chambers, as if he would be upset that she had used his line.

  Detective Weems raised a finger. “What you want us to do in the Everglades?” he said in a remarkably soft and high-pitched voice.

  Deborah cleared her throat. Again. “Just, you know,” she said, “put the word out. If anybody sees something out there, if these guys try to throw, you know, another party. Or if there’s an old one we don’t know about yet, a place that maybe there’s some evidence on the site we could find.” And she cleared her throat. I wondered if I should offer her a cough drop.

  Luckily for Deborah’s image as a two-fisted investigator, Chambers decided that enough was enough. He stood up before Deborah actually melted, and said, “All right. You all know what to do. The only thing I want to add is, keep your mouth shut. The press is having too much fun with this already, and I don’t want to give them anything else to kick around. Got it?”

  Everybody nodded, even Deborah.

  “All right,” Chambers said. “Let’s go get the bad guys.”

  The meeting broke up to the sound of squeaking chairs, shuffling feet, and cop chatter, as everyone sitting stood up and formed into little conversation groups with those already standing—except for Major Nelson of the Highway Patrol, who just jammed his hat onto his closely cropped head and marched out the door as if the “Colonel Bogey March” was playing. The huge man from the tribal police, Weems, sauntered over to talk to Chambers, and Special Agent Recht sat by herself and looked around the room, quietly disapproving. Hood caught her eye and shook his head.

  “Shit,” he said. “I fucking hate the Fibbies.”

  “I bet that worries them,” Alvarez said.

  “Hey, Morgan, seriously,” Hood said. “Is there some way we can twist that federal bitch’s tail?”

  “Sure,” said Debs, in a tone of voice so reasonable that it could only mean trouble for somebody. “You can find the fucking girl, catch the fucking killer, and do your fucking job so she doesn’t have an excuse to do it for you.” She showed him some teeth; it was not a smile, although possibly Bobby Acosta might have thought so. “Think you can do that, Richard?”

  Hood looked at her for a moment and then just shook his head. “Shit,” he said.

  “Hey, how about that, you were right,” Alvarez said. “And she got more balls than you, too.”

  “Shit,” Hood said again, and, clearly looking for an easy target to win back a few points, he said, “What about you, Deke?”

  “What’s that?” Deke said.

  “What are you doing?” Hood said.

  Deke shrugged. “Oh, you know,” he said. “Captain wants me to stick with, uh, Morgan here.”

  “Wow,” Alvarez said. “Really dangerous.”

  “We’re partners,” Deke said, looking slightly hurt.

  “You be careful, Deke,” Hood said. “Morgan is pretty hard on her partners.”

  “Yeah, she kind of loses ’em now and then,” Alvarez said.

  “You two assholes want me to hold your hand all the way to the DMV database?” Deborah said. “Or can you get your head out of your ass long enough to find it by yourself?”

  Hood stood up and said, “On my way, boss,” and headed for the door, and Alvarez followed. “Watch your back, Deke,” he said as he left.

  Deke watched them go with a slight frown, and as the door closed behind them he said, “Why they gotta bust my chops? ’Cause I’m the new guy, or what?” Deborah ignored him, and he turned to me. “I mean, what? What’d I do? Huh?”

  I had no answer for him other than the obvious, which was that cops are like all other pack animals—they pick on any member of the herd that seems different or shows weakness. With his absurd good looks and somewhat limited mental abilities, Deke was both, and therefore an obvious target. Still, it seemed like a tough idea to get across without a lot of unpleasantness and groping for small words, so I just gave Deke a reassuring smile. “I’m sure they’ll ease up when they see what you can do,” I told him.

  He shook his head slowly. “How’m I supposed to do anything?” he said, leaning his head toward Debs. “I gotta stick with her like a fuckin’ shadow.”

  He watched me as if I was supposed to supply an answer, so I said, “Well, I’m sure a chance will come up for you to show some initiative.”

  “Initiative,” he said, and for a moment I thought I would have to tell him what that meant. But happily for me, he just shook his head sourly and said, “Shit,” and before we could explore any of the subtleties of that th
ought, Chambers came over and put a hand on Deborah’s shoulder.

  “All right, Morgan,” he said. “You know what you gotta do. Downstairs, ninety minutes.”

  Debs looked at him with an expression that was closer to terror than anything I had ever seen on her face before. “I can’t,” she said. “I mean, I thought you were going to—Can’t you do it?”

  Chambers shook his head with something like malicious glee in his smile. It made him look like a wicked and very deadly elf. “Can’t,” he said. “You’re the lead here. I’m just the coordinator. Your captain wants you to do this.” He patted her shoulder again and moved away.

  “Shit,” Deborah said, and for a moment I felt intense irritation that this was the only word anyone could come up with this morning; and then she ran a hand through her hair and I noticed that her hand was shaking.

  “What is it, Debs?” I said, wondering what on earth could cause my fearless sister to tremble like a fragile leaf in a storm.

  She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Press conference,” she said. “They want me to talk to the press.” And she swallowed and then licked her lips as if everything inside her had just gone completely dry. “Shit,” she said again.

  SEVENTEEN

  ONE OF THE THINGS I FIND MOST REWARDING ABOUT MY job is that there is always a certain amount of variety. Some days I get to use large and expensive machinery to run very modern scientific tests; some days I simply peer into a microscope. And if nothing else, the scenery changes when I go out to crime scenes. Of course, the crimes are all different, too, ranging from the common and vulgar wife slashing to some really quite interesting eviscerations from time to time.

  But in all my vast and varied experience with the department, I had never before been asked to use my scientific training and acumen to prepare my terrified sister for a press conference, and I have to say this was a good thing, because if it had been a regular part of my job, I would have seriously considered quitting forensics and getting a job teaching middle school physical education.

  Deborah dragged me off to her cubicle and immediately burst into a very unattractive cold sweat; she sat down, stood up, paced three steps in each direction, sat down again, and began to squeeze her hands together. And just to add to an already sky-high Irritant Quotient, she began to say, “Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit,” over and over in various volumes and inflections, until I began to think she had lost the power of intelligent speech altogether.

  “Debs,” I said at last, “if that’s your statement, Captain Matthews is going to be very unhappy.”

  “Shit,” she said, and I wondered if I should slap her. “Dexter, Jesus, please, what am I supposed to say?”

  “Anything but ‘shit,’ ” I said.

  She stood up again and walked to the window, still mangling her hands. Every little girl who has ever lived has grown up wanting to be an actress or dancer or some kind of performer—all of them except Deborah. All she ever wanted out of life, even at the tender age of five, was a badge and a gun. And through hard work, dogged intelligence, and really painful arm punches, she had achieved her goal—only to find that in order to keep it, she now had to be an actress. The word “irony” is terribly overused, but still, the situation seemed to call for a bit of wry amusement at the very least.

  But it also called for a certain amount of Dexter’s newfound Lily Anne–born compassion, since I could tell that without my help, my sister was going to prove once and for all that there really was something to the idea of spontaneous combustion. So when I decided that Debs had suffered enough, I got up from my rickety little chair and went to stand beside her. “Debs,” I said. “This is something so easy that Captain Matthews is good at it.”

  I think she almost said “shit” again, but she caught herself and just bit her lip instead. “I can’t do it,” she said. “All those people—and reporters—cameras—I just can’t, Dexter.”

  I was glad to see that she had recovered a little, enough to separate “people” from “reporters,” but clearly I still had work to do. “You can, Deborah,” I told her firmly. “And it will be a lot easier than you think. You may even get to like it.”

  She ground her teeth and I think she would have punched me if she hadn’t been so distracted. “Don’t hold your breath,” she said.

  “It’s easy,” I said again. “We’re going to write out a few short paragraphs, and all you have to do is read them out loud. Just like giving a book report in sixth grade.”

  “I flunked book reports,” she growled.

  “You didn’t have me to help,” I said, with a great deal more confidence than I felt. “Now come on; let’s sit down and write this thing.”

  She ground her teeth and squeezed her hands together some more for a few seconds, and she seemed to think about jumping out the window. But it was only the second floor, and the windows were sealed shut, so finally Debs turned away and slumped back into her chair. “All right,” she said through clenched teeth. “Let’s do it.”

  There are only a very few cop clichés that are necessary for saying almost anything to the press. That is one reason, of course, that a talking suit like Captain Matthews could become good enough at it to rise up to his lofty rank based solely on his ability to memorize them all and then put them in the right order when standing in front of a camera. It was really not even a skill, since it took a great deal less ability than the simplest card trick.

  Still, it was a talent Deborah did not have, not even a little, and trying to explain it to her was like describing plaid to a blind person. Altogether it was a nasty and unpleasant interlude, and by the time we headed down to the press conference I was nearly as sweaty and frazzled as my sister. Neither of us felt any better when we saw the standing-room-only crowd of salivating predators waiting for us. For a moment Deborah froze in place, one foot raised in the air. But then, as if somebody had flipped a switch, the reporters turned on her and began their routine of shouting questions and taking pictures, and as I saw Deborah clamp her jaw and frown, I took a deep breath. She’s going to be all right, I thought, and I watched her climb to the podium with something like pride in my creation.

  Of course, that lasted only until she opened her mouth, and after that began one of the most miserable fifteen-minute spells I can remember. Deborah trying to speak to a roomful of cops was profoundly uncomfortable. Deborah trying to make a statement at a press conference was torture so intensely painful that I am quite sure that the men in black hoods who worked for the Inquisition would have shuddered and refused to participate. Deborah stammered, stuttered, stumbled, sweated, and lurched from phrase to carefully polished phrase in a tangled sweat so thorough she looked like she was confessing to child rape, and when she finally finished the prepared statement I had worked on so hard there was stunned silence in the room for several seconds. And then, alas, the reporters smelled blood in the water and leaped on Deborah with a savage frenzy. All that had come before was cupcakes and kitties by comparison, and I watched as Deborah slowly and carefully tied the rope around her own neck and hoisted herself into the air, where she twisted in the wind with agonizing completeness until finally, mercifully, Captain Matthews had suffered enough and stepped forward to say, “No more questions.” He did not quite shove Deborah off the podium, but it was clear that he had to think about it.

  The captain glared forcefully at the assembled lynch mob, as if he could beat them into submission with his manly stare, and they did actually quiet down just a bit. “All right,” he said after a moment. “The, uh, family members.” He put a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat and I wondered if Deborah was contagious. “Mr. and Mrs. Um Aldovar. Would like to make a brief statement.” He nodded and then held out an arm in a half embrace.

  A stunned-looking Mr. Aldovar led his wife up to the microphones. She looked exhausted and several years older, but as they stood there in front of the crowd she visibly gathered herself, pushed away from her husband, and fumbled out a sheet of
paper. And the reporters, bizarrely enough, actually went silent for a moment.

  “To the person or persons who took our little girl,” she began, and then she had to stop for a moment and, just for consistency, clear her throat. “Our Samantha,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of money, but whatever we have or can get, it’s yours. Just please don’t hurt our little girl.… Just …” And that was as far as she could get. She covered her face with her hands and the paper fluttered to the ground. Mr. Aldovar stepped forward and took her into his arms and glared at the crowd as if they knew where Samantha was and refused to tell.

  “She’s a good kid,” he said angrily. “There’s no reason in the world to, to—Please,” he said with a softer tone. “Please just let her go. Whatever it is you want, just please let her go.…” And then his face crumpled and he just turned away. Captain Matthews stepped forward and glared out at the room again.

  “All right,” the captain said. “You all have a picture of the girl. Samantha. We’re asking that you help us get it out there, and, uh—if people see her, you know, citizens. You can call that special task force hotline, which—you have that number, too, in the media. And if we can, uh, circulate the number, and the picture, let’s get this girl back. Alive.” He gave the room his money shot, a determined and virile glare straight into the cameras, and held it for a beat before he said, “Thank you for your help.” And he stood there for a moment longer with his manly jaw clenched, to give the photographers one last good shot of his commanding facial features, and then he said, “All right, that’s it,” and turned away.

  Predictably enough, the room erupted into enormously loud chaos, but Matthews just waved an arm and turned away to say comforting things to the Aldovars, and that really was it. I pushed forward to get to Deborah, collecting and distributing several hard elbows to the ribs along the way. I found my sister standing off to the side, opening and closing her fists. A little bit of color had returned to her cheeks and she looked oddly rumpled, as if somebody had just woken her from a bad dream.