Dexter in the Dark (Dexter 3)

Maybe there was something to this whole fatherhood thing after all.

T H I R T Y - T W O

Sun Tzu, a very smart man, in spite of the fact that he has been dead for so long, wrote a book called The Art of War, and one of the many clever observations he made in the book was that every time something awful happens, there’s a way to turn it to your advantage, if you just look at things properly.

This is not New Age California Pollyanna thinking, insisting that if life gives you lemons you can always make Key Lime pie. It is, rather, very practical advice that comes in handy a lot more than you might think.

At the moment, for instance, my problem was how to continue training Cody and Astor in the Harry Way now that they had been busted by their mother. And in looking for a solution I remembered good old Sun Tzu and tried to imagine what he might have done.

Of course, he had been a general, so he probably would have attacked the left flank with cavalry or something, but surely the prin-ciples were the same.

So as I led Cody and Astor to their weeping mother I was beating the bushes in the dark forest of Dexter’s brain for some small partridge of an idea that the old Chinese general might approve of.

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And just as the three of us trickled to a halt in front of sniffling Rita, the idea popped out, and I grabbed it.

“Rita,” I said quietly, “I think I can stop this before it gets out of hand.”

“You heard what— This is already out of hand,” she said, and she paused for a large snuffle.

“I have an idea,” I said. “I want you to bring them down to me at work tomorrow, right after school.”

“But that isn’t— I mean, didn’t it all start because—”

“Did you ever see a TV show called Scared Straight?” I said.

She stared at me for a moment, snuffled again, and looked at the two kids.

And that is why, at three thirty the next afternoon, Cody and Astor were taking turns peering into a microscope in the forensics lab. “That’s a hair?” Astor demanded.

“That’s right,” I said.

“It looks gross!”

“Most of the human body is gross, especially if you look at it under a microscope,” I told her. “Look at the one next to it.”

There was a studious pause, broken only once when Cody yanked on her arm, and she pushed him away and said, “Stop it, Cody.”

“What do you notice?” I asked.

“They don’t look the same,” she said.

“They’re not,” I said. “The first one is yours. The other one is mine.”

She continued to look for a moment, then straightened up from the eyepiece. “You can tell,” she said. “They’re different.”

“It gets better,” I told her. “Cody, give me your shoe.”

Cody very obligingly sat on the floor and pried off his left sneaker. I took it from him and held out a hand. “Come with me,” I said. I helped him to his feet and he followed me, hopping one-footed to the closest countertop. I lifted him onto a stool and held up the shoe so he could see the bottom. “Your shoe,” I said. “Clean or dirty?”

He peered at it carefully. “Clean,” he said.

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JEFF LINDSAY