TWENTY-TWO
THE NEXT DAY WAS FRIDAY, AND OUT OF NOTHING MORE than pure reflex I lurched upright in bed at seven o’clock. But as consciousness flooded in to my brain, unpleasant reality came back in with it, and I remembered that I had nowhere to go and no reason to get up: I was suspended from work while a man who didn’t like me investigated me for the murder of somebody I hadn’t had sex with and hadn’t even killed, and my only appeal lay through someone who absolutely hated me—Sergeant Doakes. It was the kind of near-perfect trap we would all love to see a comic book villain wedged into, but I could not see the justice of cramming Dashing Dexter into it. I mean, I know I am not without my little flaws, but really; why me?
I tried to look at the bright side: At least Hood had not persuaded the powers-that-be to suspend my pay, too. That might be important if Rita really did find us a new house; I would need every penny. And here I was at home, saving even more money by not using gas, or buying lunch; lucky me! In fact, if I thought about it the right way, it was almost like having an extra vacation—except for the possibility that this little holiday might end with me in jail, or dead. Or even both.
Still, here I was, suspended, and at the moment there seemed to be very little I could do about it, so there was no reason for me to leap out of bed and fret. And if I had been the logical and rational creature that I often like to think I am, I would have seen that even this unhappy situation had a very real upside—I didn’t have to get up!—and I would have gone right back to sleep. But for some reason, I found that I could not; at my first memory of what had happened yesterday, sleep had run screaming from the room, and in spite of the fact that I lay there frowning and threat
ening it for several minutes, it would not come back.
So I lay stubbornly in bed and listened to the sounds of morning at Dexter’s house. The sounds had not changed, even though it was summer and school was out. The kids were enrolled in a day-care program at the park where they went for after-school care during the school year, and Rita still had to be at work at the regular time, so the morning program had not changed. I could hear Rita in the kitchen; the smells wafting down the hall told me she was making scrambled eggs with cheese, and cinnamon toast on the side. She called Cody and Astor to come and get it twice before I finally admitted that I was not going back to sleep, and I slumped into my place at the kitchen table just as Cody was finishing his breakfast. Lily Anne was in her high chair, creating a magnificent apple-sauce mural across its tray and her face. Astor sat with her arms crossed, apparently more interested in scowling than eating.
“Good morning, Dexter,” Rita said, thumping a cup of coffee down in front of me. “Cody had seconds, so I have to make— Astor, honey, you have to eat something.” She went briskly back to the stove and began cracking eggs into the pan.
“I can’t eat,” Astor hissed. “It gets stuck on my braces.” She said the word with enough venom to drop an elephant, and she bared the bright silver bands so we could all share her horror at the hideous disfigurement.
“Well, you still have to eat,” Rita said, stirring the eggs. “I’ll get you some yogurt, or you can—”
“I hate yogurt,” Astor said.
“You liked it yesterday,” Rita said.
“Ooohhhh,” Astor said through clenched teeth. She slammed her elbows onto the table and leaned angrily onto them. “I’ll eat the eggs,” she said, as if she was nobly agreeing to do something vile and dangerous.
“Wonderful,” Rita said, and Lily Anne tapped her spoon on the tray with sisterly encouragement.
Breakfast ended and led to the shouting, slamming, foot-stomping ritual of teeth-and-hair brushing, dressing, and finding socks, changing Lily Anne and packing her bag for the day, and finally, with five separate slams of the front door, they got all the way out to the car, Rita and Astor still arguing about whether pink socks went with a red shirt. Astor’s voice faded into the distance, I heard the car doors thunk shut, and suddenly the house was unnaturally quiet.
I got up and turned off the coffee machine, pouring the last of the brew into my cup. I sat back down and sipped it, wondering why I bothered; there was no reason for me to be awake and alert. I had all the leisure time a man could want—I was suspended from work, and being stalked by somebody who thought he was turning himself into me. And if he somehow missed me, I was still under investigation for a murder I hadn’t committed. Considering how many I had gotten away with, that was probably very ironic. I tried a hollow, mocking laugh at myself, but it sounded too spooky in the sudden silence of the empty house. So I slurped coffee and concentrated on self-pity for a while. It came surprisingly easily; I really was the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice, and it was a simple matter for me to feel wounded, martyred, betrayed by the very system I had served so long and well.
Luckily, my native wit trickled back in before I began to sing country songs, and I turned my thoughts toward finding a way out of my predicament. But in spite of the fact that I finished the coffee—my third cup of the morning, too—I couldn’t seem to kick my brain out of the glutinous sludge of misery it had fallen into. I was reasonably sure that Hood could not find anything and make it stick to me; there was nothing there to find. But I also knew that he was very anxious to solve Camilla’s murder—both so that he would look good to the department and the press and, just as importantly, so he could make Deborah look bad. And if I added in the uncomfortable fact that he was obviously aided and abetted by Sergeant Doakes and his toxic tunnel vision, I had to conclude that the outlook was far from rosy. I didn’t really believe they would manufacture evidence merely in order to frame me, but on the other hand—why wouldn’t they? It had happened before, even with an investigating officer who had a whole lot less on the line.
The more I thought about it, the more worried I got. Hood had his own agenda, and I was tailor-made for the starring role. And Doakes had been looking for a way to make me legally guilty of something for a very long time—almost anything would do, as long as it ended with Dexter in the Dumpster. There was no reason for either of them to discard a perfectly good opportunity to put me in the slammer just because it was fiction. I could even see the path their reasoning would take: Dexter was guilty of something; we can’t prove it but we are certain of it. But if we cut a few corners here and there, we can make this thing fit him, and put him where he really belongs anyway—in the pokey for a very long time. No real harm is done, and society is much better for it—why, indeed, not?
It was perfect Bent-cop Logic, and the only question was whether Hood and Doakes were bent enough to follow it and make up a few small details that would convince a jury of my guilt. Were they both so twisted and so determined to get me that they would go through with it? I thought about the synchronized display of dental work they had shown in my office, the truly vicious glee they so clearly felt at having me in their clutches, and a cold and acrid lump grew in my stomach and murmured, Of course they would.
So I spent the first half of the day slouching around the house, trying out nearly every chair in the place, to see if perhaps a glimmer of hope might flare up if only I could find the right piece of furniture. None of them seemed to work better than any other. The chairs in the kitchen didn’t do a thing to stimulate my cerebral process, and neither did the easy chair by the TV. Even the couch was a mental dead zone. I could not drive away the image of Hood and Doakes pronouncing my doom with such joy, their teeth gleaming with identical feral smiles, which matched perfectly the tone of my Shadow’s last note. Everyone seemed to be showing me their teeth, and I could not come up with a single thought that might help me shut their jaws or wiggle off their hooks. I was trapped, and there was not a piece of furniture in the world that could get me out of it.
I spent the rest of the day fretting, wondering what I would say to Rita and Debs when Hood and Doakes finally came for me. It would be hard on Rita, of course—but what about Deborah? She knew what I was, and knew I deserved whatever punishment I got. Would that make it easier for her to accept? And how would my arrest affect her career? It can’t be easy for a homicide cop to have a brother in the slammer for murder. People would certainly talk, and the things they said would not be kind.
And what about Lily Anne? What terrible damage would it do to such a bright and sensitive child, growing up with a famous monster for a father? What if it pushed her off the edge and into a life on the Dark Side, along with Cody and Astor? How could I live with the knowledge that I had destroyed such a potentially beautiful life?
It was far too much for any human being to bear, and I was very glad that I wasn’t one. It was hard enough dealing with my own colossal irritation and frustration—I am sure that if I’d had normal emotions I would have torn my hair, wailed, and gnashed my teeth, all of which were probably counterproductive.
Not that a single thing I did that day produced anything of value, either. I couldn’t even come up with a decent farewell speech to give in the courtroom, after the jury pronounced me Guilty on All Counts, as they certainly would. What could I possibly say? “It is a far, far darker thing I have done—and loved every minute of it.”
I made a sandwich for lunch. There were no leftovers in the refrigerator, and no cold cuts. There was also no bread left, except for two half-stale heels, so I ended up with the perfect meal to fit this day: a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich on stale bread crusts. And because it is so important to match the beverage to the meal, I washed it down with tap water, relishing the succulent chlorine bouquet.
After lunch I tried to watch television, but I found that even with two-thirds of my brain focused on fretting about my coming demise, the remaining third of my intellect was a littl
e too smart to put up with the bright and brainless daytime drivel on all the channels. I turned off the set and just sat on the couch, letting one tense and miserable thought chase another, until finally, at half past five, the front door burst open and Astor stormed in, flung her backpack on the floor, and rushed to her room. She was followed by Cody, who actually noticed me and nodded, and then Rita, carrying Lily Anne.
“Oh,” Rita said, “I’m so glad you didn’t— Could you take the baby, please? She needs a fresh diaper.”
I took Lily Anne away from Rita and held her, wondering again if this was the last time. Lily Anne seemed to sense my mood, and tried very hard to cheer me up by poking me in the eye and then gurgling with amusement. I had to admit it was very clever, and I very nearly smiled as I took her down the hall to the changing table with one eye half-closed and leaking tears.
But even Lily Anne’s sly wit and cheerful antics were not enough to make me forget that my head was in the noose, and some very eager hands were pulling it closed around my throat.
TWENTY-THREE