It didn’t seem like a really good idea to tell her that I already had checked him out quite thoroughly, far beyond the boundaries of normal police routine, so I just nodded in agreement.
T H I R T Y - F O U R
There was not a great deal more worth seeing on the little island. Vince and the other forensic nerds would spot anything else worth the trouble, and our presence would only hamper them. Deborah was impatient and wanted to rush back to the mainland to intimidate suspects. So we walked to the beach and boarded the police launch for the short trip back across the harbor to the dock. I felt a little better when I climbed onto the dock and walked back to the parking lot.
I didn’t see Cody and Astor, so I went over to Officer Low Forehead. “The kids are in the car,” he told me before I could speak.
“They wanted to play cops and robbers with me, and I didn’t sign up for day care.”
Apparently he was convinced that his line about day care was so sidesplittingly funny that it was worth repeating, so rather than risk having him say it again, I simply nodded, thanked him, and went over to Deborah’s car. Cody and Astor were not visible until I was practically on top of the car, and for a moment I wondered which car they were in. But then I saw them, crouching down in the backseat, looking at me with very wide eyes. I tried to open DEXTER IN THE DARK
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the door, but it was locked. “Can I come in?” I called through the glass.
Cody fumbled with the lock, and then swung the door open.
“What’s up?” I asked them.
“We saw the scary guy,” Astor said.
At first I had no idea what she meant by that, and so I really couldn’t say why I felt the sweat start rolling down my back. “What do you mean, the scary guy?” I said. “You mean that policeman over there?”
“Dex-terrr,” Astor said. “Not dumb, scary. Like when we saw the heads.”
“The same scary guy?”
They exchanged another look, and Cody shrugged. “Kind of,”
Astor said.
“He saw my shadow,” Cody said in his soft, husky voice.
It was good to hear the boy open up like this, and even better, now I knew why the sweat was running down my back. He had said something about his shadow before, and I had ignored it. Now it was time to listen. I climbed into the backseat with them.
“How do you know he saw your shadow, Cody?”
“He said so,” Astor said. “And Cody could see his.”
Cody nodded, without taking his eyes off my face, looking at me with his usual guarded expression that showed nothing. And yet I could tell that he trusted me to take care of whatever this was.
I wished I could share his optimism.
“When you say your shadow,” I asked him carefully, “do you mean the one on the ground that the sun makes?”
Cody shook his head.
“You have another shadow besides that,” I said.
Cody looked at me like I had asked him if was wearing pants, but he nodded. “Inside,” he said. “Like you used to have.”
I sat back against the seat and pretended to breathe. “Inside shadow.” It was a perfect description—elegant, economical, and accurate. And to add that I used to have one gave it a poignancy which I found quite moving.
Of course, being moved really serves no useful purpose, and I 256
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usually manage to avoid it. In this case, I mentally shook myself and wondered what had happened to the proud towers of Castle Dexter, once so lofty and festooned with silk banners of pure reason. I remembered very well that I used to be smart, and yet here I was ignoring something important, ignoring it for far too long. Because the question was not what was Cody talking about. The real puzzle was why I had failed to understand him before.