Jeff Lindsay - Dexter's Final Cut

We were in the lab once more, and I was looking into the microscope, where I had just found some very interesting similarities between tissue samples from two different crime scenes. I straightened up, turned around, and there was Chase, frowning thoughtfully, with one hand massaging the top of his head and the other covering his mouth. And before I could ask him why on earth he was making such a ridiculous gesture, I realized that I was doing exactly the same thing.

I dropped my hands. “Why are you doing that?” I said, keeping most of the irritation out of my voice.

Chase dropped his hands, too, and smiled, a cocky little smile of triumph. “That’s what you do,” he said. “When you find something significant. You do that with your hands.” He did it again briefly, one hand on his head and the other over his mouth. “You do that,” he said, letting his hands fall away, “and then you stand there and look really thoughtful.” And he made a half-frowning face that said quite clearly, I am being really thoughtful . “Like that,” he said.

I suppose I might well have been doing that and many other things my entire professional life without knowing it. There are very few mirrors in a forensics lab to show me what I looked like as I worked, and frankly I preferred it that way. We all have unconscious patterns of behavior, and I have always thought mine were just a little bit more restrained and logical than those exhibited by the mere mortals surrounding me.

But here was Chase, showing me quite clearly that my mannerisms were just as ridiculous as anyone else’s. It was unbelievably infuriating to have him copy me right back at me, and it still didn’t explain the most important part of the question. “Why do you have to do it, too?” I said.

He shook his head, one quick jerk to the side, as if I was the one asking stupid questions. “I’m learning you,” he said. “For my character.”

“Couldn’t you learn Vince instead?” I said, and even to me I sounded peevish.

Chase shook his head. “My character isn’t gay,” he said quite seriously.

By the end of work on Thursday, I was very willing to become gay myself if it meant that Chase would stop copying me. I watched him as he aped everything I did, each small unconscious tic, and I learned that I slurped my coffee, washed my hands too long, and stared at the ceiling pursing my lips when I was talking on the phone. I have never had any problems with my self-esteem; I like Dexter very much, just the way he is. But as Chase’s performing-monkey act went on and on, I discovered that even the healthiest self-image can erode under a barrage of constant, solemn mockery.

I did my best to soldier on. I told myself that I was following orders, and this was all part of the job and I really had no choice in the matter, but it didn’t help. Every time I turned around, there was a mirror image of whatever I was doing, but with a neat mustache and a perfect haircut. Worse than that, every now and then I would turn and see him simply staring at me, with an otherworldly expression of abstract longing on his face that I could not decipher.

The days wore on and his presence became more and more exasperating. It was bad enough to have him following, watching, copying me-but even setting all that aside, I found it impossible to like Robert Chase. I admit that I rarely manage to achieve the kind of warm personal bond that humans routinely forge, mostly because I do not actually have human feelings. Even so, I fake it very well; I have survived among people my whole life and I know all of the rituals and tricks of social bonding. None of them worked with Chase, and for some reason I found myself reluctant to keep trying. Something about him was wrong, slightly off, unattractive, and although I could not have said why, I just didn’t like him.

But I had been commanded to tow him through the stormy waters of my life in forensics, and so tow I must. And I have to admit that at least Chase was diligent. He showed up every morning, almost exactly at the same time I did. Friday morning he even brought in a box of doughnuts. I must have looked surprised, because he smiled at me and said, “That’s what you do, right?”

“Sometimes I do,” I admitted.

He nodded. “I asked around about you,” he said. “They all told me, ‘Dexter does doughnuts.’ ” And he grinned at me as if alliteration was some kind of wonderfully clever form of wit.

If I had been irritated by him before, now I was positively seething. He had gone beyond mere mockery; now he was “asking around” about me, prying into my character, encouraging everyone around me to unload about all of Dexter’s quirks and peccadilloes. It made me so angry that I could calm myself only by picturing Robert duct-taped to a table, with me standing happily above him clutching a fillet knife. Still, I ate his doughnuts.

That afternoon provided the only relief I’d had all week. And it seemed only fitting that it came in the form of a homicide.

Robert and I had just returned from lunch. I had allowed him to persuade me to take him for some Real Cuban Food, and so we’d gone to my favorite place, Café Relampago. The Morgans had been going there for two generations-three now, if you counted the fact that I had taken my baby, Lily Anne. She loved the maduros .

In any case, Robert and I had dined lavishly on ropa vieja, yuca, maduros , and, of course, arroz con frijoles negros . We had washed it all down with Ironbeer, the Cuban version of Coke, and finished with flan and a barrage of cafecitas . Robert had insisted on paying, perhaps trying to buy his way into my affections, so I was in a slightly mellower mood when we returned to our job. But we didn’t get a chance to settle into our chairs to reflect and digest, because as we strolled in, Vince came rushing out clutching the canvas bag that held his kit.

“Get your stuff,” he said, hurrying past. “We got a wild one.”

Robert turned to watch him go, and his air of relaxed confidence seemed to drain out and puddle at his feet. “Is that … Does he mean, um-”

“It’s probably nothing,” I said. “Just a routine machete beheading or something.”

Chase goggled at me for a moment. Then he turned pale, gulped, and finally nodded. “Okay,” he said.

I went to fetch my gear, feeling a warm glow of satisfaction at Chase’s obvious distress. As I said, sometimes I am not a very nice person.

The body was in a dumpster in an alley on the edge of the downtown campus of Miami-Dade Community College. The alley was dark, even in the midday sun, shaded by the surrounding buildings, and it had probably been even darker at night, when some wicked Someone had chosen the spot for his fun and games, most likely for that very reason. Judging by the condition of the body, that had been a very good idea. The things that had been done to what had once been an attractive young woman were best left unseen.

The Dumpster was at an angle in the back corner of the alley. One side of the lid was propped open, and even from ten feet away you could hear the buzz of the nine billion flies whirling around it in a huge dark cloud. Angel Batista-No-Relation was dusting the outside of the Dumpster for prints. He worked carefully along the top edge, dusting with one hand and waving flies away with the other.

Vince was on one knee on the near side, beside the Dumpster, where some of the sloppier garbage had spilled over onto the pavement. He was gingerly sifting through the filthy glop with his rubber-gloved fingers. He didn’t look happy. “Jesus,” he said to me without looking up. “I can’t breathe.”

“Breathing is overrated,” I told him. “Find anything?”