Dexter by Design (Dexter 4)

But whoever else he might be, Alex Doncevic was not the name on the list Deborah and I had been investigating. She had knocked on that door to find someone named Brandon Weiss—

—and been stabbed by someone else altogether, who had panicked into attempted murder and flight at the mere sight of her badge?

Dexter does not demand that life must always unfold in a reasonable manner. After all, I live here, and I know that logic does not. But this made no sense at all, unless I accepted the idea that if you knock on doors at random in Miami, one out of three people who answer is prepared to kill you. While this idea had its own very great charm, it did not really seem terribly likely.

And on top of that, at the moment why he did it was not as important as the fact that Doncevic had stabbed Deborah. But why that should cause a gathering of this magnitude, I had no idea. Matthews, Cappuccio, Salguero—these people did not get together for coffee every day.

So I knew that something unpleasant was happening, and that whatever I said was going to affect it, but since I didn’t know what “it” was, I didn’t know what to say to make things better. There was just too much information that did not add up to anything, and even my giant brain could not quite cope. I cleared my throat, hoping it would give me a little time, but it was over in just a few seconds and they were all still looking at me.

“Well,” I said again. “Um, the beginning? You mean, um …”

“You went to interview Mr. Doncevic,” Cappuccio said.

“No, um—not really.”

“Not really,” said Simeon, as if one of us must not know what the words meant. “What does that mean, ‘not really’?”

“We went to interview someone named Brandon Weiss,” I said. “Doncevic answered the door.”

Cappuccio nodded. “What did he say when Sergeant Morgan identified herself?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Simeon glanced at Cappuccio and said, “Stonewalling,” in a very loud whisper. She waved it off.

“Mr. Morgan,” she said, and glanced down at the file in front of her. “Dexter.” She gave me a very small facial twitch that she probably thought was a warm smile. “You’re not under oath here, and you’re not in any kind of trouble. We just need to know what happened, leading up to the stabbing.”

“I understand,” I said. “But I was in the car.”

Simeon sat up almost at attention. “In the car,” he said. “Not at the door with Sergeant Morgan.”

“That’s right.”

“So you didn’t hear what was said—or not said,” he said, raising one eyebrow high enough that it might almost pass for a tiny toupee on that shiny bald head.

“That’s right.”

Cappuccio leaned in and said. “But you said in your statement that Sergeant Morgan showed her badge.”

“Yes,” I said. “I saw her.”

“And he was sitting in the car, HOW far away?” Simeon said. “Do you know what I could do with that in court?”

Matthews cleared his throat. “Let’s not, um—court is not, uh, we don’t have to assume this will end in court,” he said.

“I was a lot closer when he tried to stab me,” I said, hoping to be a little helpful.

But Simeon waved that off. “Self-defense,” he said. “If she failed to properly identify herself as an officer of the law, he had every right to defend himself!”

“She showed her badge, I’m sure of it,” I said.

“You CAN’T be sure—not from fifty feet away!” Simeon said.

“I saw it,” I said, and I hoped I didn’t sound petulant. “Besides, Deborah would never forget that—she’s known the correct procedure since she could walk.”

Simeon waved a very large index finger at me. “And that’s another thing I really don’t like here—exactly what is your relationship to Sergeant Morgan?”

“She’s my sister,” I said.