Dexter in the Dark (Dexter 3)

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to find somebody to watch the kids.”

Deborah ground her teeth together. Then she glanced at the big cop and read his name tag. “Suchinsky,” she said. “Watch the fucking kids.”

“Aw, come on, Sarge,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”

“Stick with the kids, goddamn it,” she said. “You might learn something. Dexter—get on the goddamn boat, now!”

I turned meekly and hurried for the goddamn boat. Deborah strode past me and was already seated when I jumped on, and the cop driving the boat headed for one of the smaller islands, weaving between the anchored sailboats.

There are several small islands on the outside of Dinner Key Marina that provide protection from wind and wave, one of the things that makes it such a good anchorage. Of course, it’s only good under ordinary circumstances, as the islands themselves proved. They were littered with broken boats and other maritime junk deposited by the many recent hurricanes, and every now and then a squatter would set up housekeeping, building a shack from shattered boat parts.

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JEFF LINDSAY

The island we headed for was one of the smaller ones. Half of a forty-foot sports fisherman lay on the beach at a crazy angle, and the pine trees inland of the beach were hung with chunks of Styro-foam, tattered cloth, and wispy shreds of plastic sheeting and garbage bags. Other than that, it was just the way the Native Americans had left it, a peaceful little chunk of land covered with Aus-tralian pines, condoms, and beer cans.

Except, of course, for Kurt Wagner’s body, which had most likely been left by someone other than Native Americans. It was lying in the center of the island in a small clearing, and like the others, it had been arranged in a formal pose, with the arms folded across the chest and the legs pressed together. The body was headless and unclothed, charred from being burned, very much like the others—except that this time there had been a small addition. Around the neck was a leather string holding a pewter medallion about the size of an egg. I leaned closer to look; it was a bull’s head.

Once again I felt a strange twinge in the emptiness, as if some part of me were recognizing that this was significant, but didn’t know why or how to express it—not alone, not without the Passenger.

Vince Masuoka was squatting next to the body examining a cig-arette butt and Deborah knelt down beside him. I circled them one time, looking at it from all angles: Still Life with Cops. I was hoping, I suppose, that I would find a small but significant clue. Perhaps the killer’s driver’s license, or a signed confession. But there was nothing of the kind, nothing but sand, pockmarked from countless feet and the wind.

I went down on one knee beside Deborah. “You looked for the tattoo, right?” I asked her.

“First thing,” Vince said. He extended a rubber-gloved hand and lifted the body slightly. There it was, half covered with sand but still visible, only the upper edge of it cut off and left, presumably, with the missing head.

“It’s him,” Deborah said. “The tattoo, his car is at the marina—it’s him, Dexter. And I wish I knew what

the hell that tattoo meant.”

“It’s Aramaic,” I said.

“How the fuck would you know that?” Deborah said.

DEXTER IN THE DARK

251

“My research,” I said, and I squatted down next to the body.

“Look.” I picked a small pine twig out of the sand and pointed with it. Part of the first letter was missing, cut off along with the head, but the rest was plainly visible and matched my language lesson.

“There’s the M, what’s left of it. And the L, and the K.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Deborah demanded.

“Moloch,” I said, feeling a small irrational chill just saying the word here in the bright sunshine. I tried to shake it off, but a feeling of uneasiness stayed behind. “Aramaic has no vowels. So MLK

spells Moloch.”

“Or milk,” Deborah said.

“Really, Debs, if you think our killer would tattoo milk on his neck, you need a nap.”

“But if Wagner is Moloch, who killed him?”

“Wagner kills the others,” I said, trying very hard to sound thoughtful and confident at the same time, a difficult task. “And then, um . . .”