Dexter by Design (Dexter 4)

“I still don’t know what you mean,” I said. “There isn’t that much of me.”

Deborah slammed the palm of her hand on the steering wheel. “Goddamn it, Dexter, the clever-ass shit doesn’t work for me anymore.”

Have you ever noticed that every now and then you’ll overhear an amazingly clear declarative sentence when you’re out in public, spoken with such force and purpose that you absolutely yearn to know what it means, because it is just so forceful and crystalline? And you want to follow along behind whoever just spoke, even though you don’t know them, just to find out what that sentence means and how it would affect the lives of the people involved?

I felt like that now: I had no idea at all what she was talking about, but I really wanted to know.

Happily for me, she didn’t keep me waiting.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” she said.

“Do what?”

“I am riding around in a car with a guy who has killed what, ten, fifteen people?”

It’s never pleasant to be so grossly underestimated, but it didn’t seem like the politic thing to correct her. “All right,” I said.

“And I am supposed to CATCH people like you, and put them away for good, except you’re my BROTHER!” she said, slamming her hand on the wheel to emphasize each syllable—which she didn’t really need to do, since I heard her very clearly. And I finally understood what all her recent churlishness had been about, although I still had no idea why it had taken until now for her to blow up on the subject.

My sister had only recently found out about my little hobby, and upon reflection, I realized that there were many sound reasons for her to disapprove. Of course there was the act itself, which I freely admit is not for everyone. Add to that the fact that all I was had been sanctioned, even constructed, by her father, Saint Harry of the Blue Suit; Harry, whose clean and shiny path she thought she had been following. And now she had discovered that there was an alternative path, stamped out by those same hallowed feet, and this path went into the dark places in the forest and reveled in them. All she was stood firmly against everything that made up wonderful me, and both of us designed by the same blessed hand. It was rather biblical when you thought about it.

And there was a great deal to what she said, of course, and if I had really been as smart as I think I am, I would have known that at some point we were going to have this conversation, and I would have been ready for it. But I had foolishly assumed that there is nothing in the world as powerful as the status quo, and Deborah had caught me by surprise. Besides, as far as I could see, there had been nothing in the recent past that would trigger this kind of confrontation; where do these things come from?

“I’m sorry, Debs,” I said. “But, uh, what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to stop it,” she said. “I want you to be somebody else.” She looked at me, and her lips twitched, and then she looked away again, out the side window and away beyond U.S. 1 and over the elevated People Mover rails. “I want you … to be the guy I always thought you were.”

I like to think I am more resourceful than most. But at the moment, I might as well have been bound and gagged and tied to the railroad tracks. “Debs,” I said. Not much, but apparently the only shot I had in the chamber.

“GodDAMN it, Dex,” she said, slapping the steering wheel so hard the whole car trembled. “I can’t even talk about it, not even to Kyle. And you—” She slapped the steering wheel again. “How do I even know you’re telling the truth, that Daddy set you up like this?”

It’s probably not accurate to say my feelings were hurt, since I’m pretty sure I don’t have any. But the injustice of the remark really did seem painful. “I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said.

“You lied to me every day of your life that you didn’t tell me what you really are,” she said.

I am as familiar with New Age philosophy and Dr. Phil as the next guy, but there comes a point where reality absolutely has to intrude, and it seemed to me that we had reached it. “All right, Debs,” I said. “And what would you have done if you knew who I really was?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I still don’t know.”

“Well then,” I said.

“But I ought to do something.”

“Why?”

“Because you killed people, goddamn it!” she said.

I shrugged. “I can’t help it,” I said. “And they all really deserved it.”

“It isn’t right!”

“It’s what Dad wanted,” I said.

A group of college-age kids walked past the car and stared at us. One of them said something and they all laughed. Ha ha. See the funny couple fighting. He will sleep on the couch tonight, ha ha.

Except that if I couldn’t persuade Deborah that all was exactly as it should be, world without end, I might very well sleep in a cell tonight.

“Debs,” I said. “Dad set it up this way. He knew what he was doing.”