He nodded without looking up. “Your sister thinks it’s a Santeria thing.”
“Really,” I said. That possibility had not occurred to me, and I felt a little miffed that it hadn’t. After all, this was Miami; anytime we encountered something that looked like a ritual and involved animal heads, Santeria should have been the first thing all of us thought. An Afro-Cuban religion that combined Yoruba animism DEXTER IN THE DARK
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with Catholicism, Santeria was widespread in Miami. Animal sacrifice and symbolism were common for its devotees, which would explain the bull heads. And although a relatively small number of people actually practiced Santeria, most homes in the city had one or two small saint candles or cowrie-shell necklaces bought at a botanica. The prevailing attitude around town was that even if you didn’t believe in it, it didn’t hurt to pay it some respect.
As I said, it should have occurred to me at once. But my foster sister, now a full sergeant in homicide, had thought of it first, even though I was supposed to be the clever one.
I had been relieved to learn that Deborah was assigned to the case, since it meant that there would be a minimum of bone-numbing stupidity. It would also, I hoped, give her something better to do with her time than she had appeared to have lately. She had been spending all hours of the day and night hovering around her damaged boyfriend, Kyle Chutsky, who had lost one or two minor limbs in his recent encounter with a deranged freelance surgeon who specialized in turning human beings into squealing potatoes—the same villain who had artfully trimmed away so many unnecessary parts from Sergeant Doakes. He had not had the time to finish with Kyle, but Debs had taken the whole thing rather personally and, after fatally shooting the good doctor, she had devoted herself to nursing Chutsky back to vigorous manhood.
I’m sure she had racked up numberless points on the ethical scoreboard, no matter who was keeping track, but in truth all the time off had done her no good with the department, and even worse, poor lonely Dexter had felt keenly the uncalled-for neglect from his only living relative.
So it was very good news all around to have Deborah assigned to the case, and on the far side of the path she was talking to her boss, Captain Matthews, no doubt giving him a little ammunition for his ongoing war with the press, who simply refused to take his picture from his good side.
The press vans were, in fact, already rolling up and spewing out crews to tape background shots of the area. A couple of the local bloodhounds were standing there, solemnly clutching their 38
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microphones and intoning mournful sentences about the tragedy of two lives so brutally ended. As always, I felt reverently grateful to live in a free society, where the press had a sacred right to show footage of dead people on the evening news.
Captain Matthews carefully brushed his alread
y perfect hair with the heel of his hand, clapped Deborah on the shoulder, and marched over to talk to the press. And I marched over to my sister.
She stood where Matthews had left her, watching his back as he began to speak to Rick Sangre, one of the true gurus of if-it-bleeds-it-leads reporting. “Well, Sis,” I said. “Welcome back to the real world.”
She shook her head. “Hip hooray,” she said.
“How is Kyle doing?” I asked her, since my training told me that was the right thing to ask about.
“Physically?” she said. “He’s fine. But he just feels useless all the time. And those assholes in Washington won’t let him go back to work.”
It was difficult for me to judge Chutsky’s ability to get back to work, since no one had ever said exactly what work he did. I knew it was vaguely connected to some part of the government and was also something clandestine, but beyond that I didn’t know. “Well,”
I said, searching for the proper cliché, “I’m sure it just needs some time.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure.” She looked back at the place where the two charred bodies lay. “Anyhow, this is a great way to get my mind off it.”
“The rumor mill tells me you think it’s Santeria,” I said, and her head swiveled rapidly around to face me.
“You think it’s not?” she demanded.
“Oh, no, it might well be,” I said.
“But?” she said sharply.
“No buts at all,” I said.
“Damn it, Dexter,” she said. “What do you know about this?”
And it was probably a fair question. I had been known on occasion to offer a pretty fair guess about some of the more gruesome murders we worked on. I had gained a small reputation for my insight DEXTER IN THE DARK
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into the way the twisted homicidal sickos thought and operated—natural enough, since, unknown to everyone but Deborah, I was a twisted homicidal sicko myself.
But even though Deborah had only recently become aware of my true nature, she had not been shy about taking advantage of it to help her in her work. I didn’t mind; glad to help. What else is family for? And I didn’t really care if my fellow monsters paid their debt to society in Old Sparky—unless, of course, it was somebody I was saving for my own innocent pleasure.