THIRTY-FIVE
THE PARK WHERE CODY AND ASTOR WENT AFTER school each day was only a few minutes from our house, but it was the far side of town from my office, and so it was a bit more than twenty minutes before I finally got there. Since it was rush-hour traffic, I suppose you could say it was lucky that I got there at all. But I had plenty of time to reflect on what might be happening to Rita, and I found to my surprise that I actually hoped she was all right. I was just starting to get used to her. I liked having her cooking every night, and certainly I could not manage both kids on a full-time basis and still have the freedom to blossom in my chosen career—not yet, not for a few more years, when they had both been trained.
So I hoped that Coulter had taken reliable backup, and that they would have Weiss tucked away and Rita secured, perhaps sipping coffee and wrapped in a blanket, like on television.
But that brought up an interesting point, one that filled the rest of my otherwise pleasant drive through the homicidal homeward-bound crowd with genuine worry. Suppose they did have Weiss all safely cuffed and Mirandized? What would happen when they started to ask him questions? Things like, why did you do it? And more importantly, why did you do it to Dexter? What if he had the very poor taste to answer them truthfully? So far he had showed an appalling willingness to tell everyone all about me, and although I am not particularly shy, I would rather keep my real accomplishments hidden from the public eye.
And if Coulter added the things Weiss might blather to what he already suspected from seeing the video, things might get very unhappy in Dexterville.
It would have been a much better thing if I had been able to confront Weiss by myself—settle things amicably, mano a mano—or possibly cuchilla a cuchilla—and solve the problem of Weiss’s urge to communicate by feeding my Passenger. But I’d had no real choice in the matter—Coulter had been there and heard it, and I’d had to go along. After all, I was a law-abiding citizen—I really was, technically speaking; I mean, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, right?
And it was looking more and more like it would come down to a court of law, starring Dexter in an orange jumpsuit and leg irons, which I could not look forward to at all—orange is a very bad color for me. And of course being accused of murder would really be a major roadblock to my true happiness. I don’t have any illusions about our legal system; I see it on the job every day, and I am quite sure that I could beat it, unless they actually catch me in the act, on film, in front of a bus filled with U.S. senators and nuns. But even an open accusation would put me under the kind of scrutiny that would spell an end to my playtime activities, even if I was found to be completely innocent. Just look at poor O.J.; in his last years of freedom he couldn’t even play golf anymore without someone accusing him of something.
But what could I do about it? My options were very limited. I could either let Weiss talk, in which case I was in trouble, or stop him from talking—in which case, exact same result. There was no way around it. Dexter was in deep, and the tide was rising.
It was therefore a very thoughtful Dexter who finally pulled up at the community hall at the park. Good Old Megan was still there, holding Cody and Astor by the hand, and hopping from one foot to the other in her anxiety to be rid of them and off into the exciting world of accounting class. They all seemed happy to see me, in their own individual ways, which was so gratifying that I forgot all about Weiss for three or four full seconds.
“Mr. Morgan?” Megan said. “I really gotta go.” And I was so stunned to hear her complete a sentence that was not a question, I merely nodded and pried Cody and Astor’s hands from hers. She skittered away to a small beat-up Chevy and raced off into the evening traffic.
“Where’s Mom?” Astor demanded.
I am sure there is a caring and sensitive and very human way to tell children that their mother is in the clutches of a homicidal monster, but I did not know what it was, so I said, “That bad guy has her. The one that crashed into your car.”
“The one I got with a pencil?” Cody asked me.
“That’s right,” I said.
“I hit him in the crotch,” Astor said.
“You should have hit him harder,” I said. “He’s got your mom.”
She made a face at me that showed she was deeply disappointed in my dorkiness. “Are we going to go get her?”
“We’re going to help,” I said. “The police are there now.”
They both looked at me like I was crazy. “The police?!” Astor said. “You sent the police?!”
“I had to come get you two,” I said, surprised to find myself on the defensive all of a sudden.
“So you’re going to let this guy GO, and he’ll just go to JAIL?” she demanded.
“I had to,” I said, and sudden
ly I felt like I really was in court and I had already lost. “One of the cops found out, and I had to come get you.”
They exchanged one of their silent but very meaningful looks, and then Cody looked away. “Are you taking us with you now?” Astor asked.
“Uh,” I said, and it really didn’t seem fair to have first Coulter and now Astor reduce honey-tongued Dashing Dexter to monosyllabic idiocy in the same day, but there it was. Things being what they were—exceedingly unpleasant and uncertain—I had not really thought this through. But of course I could not take them with me to corner Weiss. I knew that his whole performance was aimed at me, and it would not really start until I got there, if he could help it; I could not be certain that Coulter had him cornered, and it would be far too dangerous.
And as if she heard me thinking it, Astor said, “We already beat him once.”
“He wasn’t expecting anything from you then,” I said. “This time he will be.”
“This time we’ll have more than a pencil,” Astor said, and the cool ferocity she said it with absolutely warmed my heart—but it was still out of the question.
“No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”
Cody muttered, “Promise,” and Astor rolled her eyes in an epic fashion and blew out a matching breath. “You keep saying we can’t do anything,” she said. “Not until you teach us. And we say go ahead and teach us, and we don’t do anything. And now when we have a chance to really learn something real, you say it’s too dangerous.”