Dexter by Design (Dexter 4)

“And you think it’s me?” I said, beyond irritation now and all the way to openmouthed astonishment. She just stared at me. “Debs, I think somebody put lead in your coffee. Florida is my home—you want me to sing ‘Swanee River’?”

It might not have been the offer to sing that animated her, but whatever it was, she looked at me for another long moment and then jumped up. “Come on, let’s get over there,” she said.

“Me? What about Coulter, your partner?”

“He’s getting coffee, fuck him,” she said. “Besides, I’d rather partner with a warthog. Come on,” she said. For some reason, I did not actually swell with pride at being slightly better than a warthog, but when duty calls, Dexter answers, and I followed her out the door.

EIGHT

THE GREATER MIAMI CONVENTION AND VISITORS’ BUREAU was in a high-rise building on Brickell Avenue, as befitted its status as a Very Important Organization. The full majesty of its purpose was reflected in the view from its windows, which showed a lovely slice of downtown and Government Cut, a swath of Biscayne Bay, and even the nearby arena where the basketball team shows up from time to time for some really dramatic losses. It was a wonderful view, almost a postcard, as if to say, Look—this is Miami: we weren’t kidding.

Very few of the bureau’s employees seemed to be enjoying the view today, however. The office resembled a giant oak-lined bees’ nest that somebody had poked with a stick. There could not have been more than a handful of employees, but they were flitting in and out of doors and up and down the hallway so rapidly it looked like there were hundreds of them in constant motion, like crazed particles in a whirring jar of oil. Deborah stood at the receptionist’s desk for two full minutes—a lifetime, as far as her sense of patience was concerned—before a large woman paused and stared at her.

“What do you want?” the woman demanded.

Debs immediately flashed her badge. “I’m Sergeant Morgan. From the police?”

“Oh my God,” the woman said, “I’ll get Jo Anne,” and disappeared through a door on the right.

Deborah looked at me as if it was my fault and said, “Jesus,” and then the door slammed open again and a small woman with a long nose and a short haircut came barreling out.

“Police?” she said with real outrage in her voice. She looked beyond us and then back to Deborah, looking her up and down. “YOU’RE the police? What, the pinup police?”

Of course Deborah was used to having people challenge her, but usually not quite so brutally. She actually blushed a little before she held up her badge again and said, “Sergeant Morgan. Do you have some information for us?”

“This is no time for politically correct,” the woman said. “I need Dirty Harry, and they send Legally Blonde.”

Deborah’s eyes narrowed and the pretty red flush left her cheeks. “If you’d like, I can charge you with obstructing an investigation.”

The woman just stared. Then there was a yell from the back room and something large fell over and broke. She jumped a little, then said, “My God. All right, come on,” and she vanished through the door again. Deborah breathed out hard, showing a few teeth, and then we followed.

The small woman was already disappearing through a door at the end of the hall, and by the time we caught up with her she was settling into a swivel chair at a conference table. “Sit down,” she said, waving at the other chairs with a large black remote control. Without waiting to see if we sat, she pointed the remote at a big flat-screen TV, and said, “This came yesterday, but we didn’t get around to looking at it until this morning.” She glanced up at us. “We called right away,” she said, perhaps still trembling with fear from Deborah’s threat. If so, she was controlling her trembles remarkably well.

“What is it?” Deborah said, sliding into a chair.

I sat in one next to her and the woman said, “The TV. Lookit.”

The TV blinked into life, went through a few wonderfully informative screens asking us to wait or select, and then blurted into life with a high-pitched scream. Beside me, Deborah jumped involuntarily.

The screen lit up and an image leaped into focus: from an unmoving position above, we saw a body lying against a white porcelain background. The eyes were wide and staring and, to someone of my modest experience, obviously dead. Then a figure moved into view and partially blocked the body. We saw only the back, and then the upraised arm holding a power saw. The arm went down and we heard the whine of the blade biting into flesh.

“Jesus Christ,” Deborah said.

“It gets worse,” said the short woman.

The blade whirred and growled, and we could see the figure in the foreground working hard. Then the saw stopped, the figure dropped it onto the porcelain, reached forward, pulled a huge heap of terrible gleaming guts out, and dropped them where the camera could see them best. And then large white letters appeared on the screen, superimposed on the heap of intestines:

THE NEW MIAMI: IT WILL RIP YOUR GUTS OUT.

The picture held for a moment, and then the screen went blank.

“Wait,” the woman said, and the screen blinked again, and then new letters glowed to life.

THE NEW MIAMI—SPOT #2

Then we were looking at sunrise on a beach. Mellow Latin music played. A wave rolled in on the sand. An early-morning jogger trotted into the frame, stumbled, and then came to a shocked halt. The camera moved in on the jogger’s face as it went from shock to terror. Then the jogger lurched into a sprint, up away from the water and across the sand toward the street in the distance. The camera moved back to show my old friends, the happy couple we had found disemboweled on the sand at South Beach.

Then a jump cut took us to the first officer on the scene as his face crumpled and he turned away to vomit. Another jump to faces in the crowd of onlookers craning their necks and freezing, and several more faces, coming faster and faster, each expression different, each showing horror in its own way.