Dexter by Design (Dexter 4)

No, this was very flattering, but I was not really prepared to become a living icon of twenty-first-century art. With all possible reluctance, I would have to extend my regrets and decline the honor.

And how?

It was a fair question, after all. The pictures told me what Weiss wanted to do—but they told me nothing about how far along his plans were, or when he wanted to do it, or even where—

But wait a minute: they did tell me where. I turned to the last picture again, the one that showed the whole lunatic project in brightly colored detail. The drawing of the building that served as a projection screen was very specific and looked familiar—and the two rows of royal palms I had seen somewhere before, I was quite sure. Someplace I had actually been, too; but where and when? I stared at the picture and let my giant brain whirl. I had been there in the not-too-distant past. Perhaps only a year or so before I got married?

And with that one word, married, I remembered. It had been just about a year and a half ago. Rita’s friend from work, Anna, had gotten married. It had been a lavish and remarkably expensive wedding, owing to the bride’s family’s wealth, and Rita and I had attended the reception at a ridiculously posh old hotel called The Breakers in Palm Beach. The building pictured here was unmistakably the front of The Breakers.

Wonderful; now I knew exactly where Weiss planned to set up this noble Dexter-ama. So what did I do with that knowledge? I couldn’t very well stake out the hotel night and day for the next three months and wait for Weiss to show up with the first load of bodies. But I also couldn’t afford to do nothing. Sooner or later he would either set it up or—or was it possible that this was another trap of some kind, intended only to draw me away to Palm Beach while Weiss did something else down here in Dade County?

But that was silly; he hadn’t planned to limp away over the horizon with a pencil in his leg and the imprint of a small fist in his crotch, leaving his drawings behind. This was his plan, for better or worse—and I had to believe it was for worse, at least as far as my reputation was concerned. So the only remaining question was: When did he plan to do it? The only answer I could come up with was “soon,” and that really didn’t seem specific enough.

There was really no other way—I would have to take some time off from work and wait at the hotel. That meant leaving Rita and the kids alone and I didn’t like that, but I could not see anything else to do. Weiss had been moving very fast, from one idea to the next, and I thought he would most likely concentrate on this one project and act quickly. It was a huge gamble, but it was certainly worth it if I could stop him from projecting a giant image of me onto the front of The Breakers.

All right; I would do it. When Weiss began in Palm Beach, I would be there waiting for him. And with that settled, I flipped open the notebook for one last look at handsome Comic-Book Dexter. But before I could really sink into a self-admiring trance, a car pulled up next to mine and a man get out.

It was Coulter.

TWENTY-EIGHT

DETECTIVE COULTER CAME AROUND THE REAR END OF his car and paused, looked at me, and then went back to the driver’s side of his car and disappeared for a moment. I used the time to slip the notebook under my seat, and Coulter popped right back up and again came around the tail end of the car, this time with his two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew dangling from the end of his index finger. He leaned his backside against his car, looked at me, and took a large sip of soda. Then he wiped his mouth on the back of his arm.

“You weren’t in your office,” he said.

“No, I wasn’t,” I said. After all, here I was.

“So when the call comes on the radio, it’s your wife, I look in to tell you,” he said, and he shrugged. “You’re not there. You’re here already, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer, which was just as well, since I didn’t have one. Instead, he took another swig from his soda bottle, wiped his mouth again, and said, “Same school where we got that Scout leader guy, too, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“But you were already here when it happened?” he said, trying to look innocently surprised. “How’d that happen, anyway?”

I was very sure that telling Coulter I’d had a hunch would not make him want to shake my hand and congratulate me. So launching myself off my legendary wit once again, I heard myself saying, “I thought I’d come down and surprise Rita and the kids.”

Coulter nodded as if he found that very believable. “Surprise ’em,” he said. “Guess somebody else beat you to it.”

“Yes,” I said carefully. “It certainly looks like it.”

He took another long pull on the soda bottle, but this time he didn’t wipe his mouth; he just turned and stared back at the main road where the tow truck was now hauling away Weiss’s car. “You got any idea who that might have been that did this to your wife and kids?” he said without looking back at me.

“No,” I said. “I guess I just assumed it was, you know. An accident?”

“Huh,” he said, and now he was staring at me. “An accident. Jeez, I hadn’t even thought of that one. ’Cause, you know. It’s the same school where that Cub Scout guy was killed. And also it’s you here again. So, hey. An accident. Really? You think?”

“I… I just—why wouldn’t it be?” I have practiced a lifetime, and my expression of surprise was certainly a very good one, but Coulter didn’t look terribly convinced.

“This guy Donkeywit,” he said.

“Doncevic,” I said.

“Whatever.” He shrugged. “Looks like he’s disappeared. You know anything about that?”

“Why would I know about that?” I said, putting as much astonishment on my face as I could.

“Just skipped bail, run away from his boyfriend, and disappeared,” he said. “Why would he do that?”

“I really don’t know,” I said.