Jeff Lindsay - Double Dexter

But to go from this theoretical awareness of foreclosure into the very real idea of taking personal advantage of it took a moment of adjustment. I liked living where we were, and I had already given up my comfy little apartment to do so. Moving again would be difficult and uncomfortable and inconvenient, and there was no guarantee at all that we would end up someplace better, especially with a house that had been abandoned in despair and anger. There might be holes kicked in the roof, and wiring ripped out and at the very least, wouldn t there be bad karma to deal with?

But once again, Lily Anne proved that she saw things a little more clearly and shrewdly than her dunderheaded father. As I wrestled with all the concepts of foreclosure and moving and personal inconvenience, she cut right to the heart of the matter with an insight that was sharp and compelling. She bounced three times on her powerful little legs and said, Da. Da da da. And for emphasis, she reached out and pulled on my earlobe.

I looked at my little girl, and I came to a decision. You re right, I told her. You deserve your own room. I turned to Rita to tell her what I had decided, but she had leaned back against the edge of the table and closed her eyes again, and her head was swaying gently, her mouth open and her hands clasped in her lap.

Rita? I said.

She jerked upright and her eyes popped open wide. Oh! she said. Oh, my God, you scared me.

I m sorry, I said. About the house?

Yes, she said, and she frowned. Brian says Oh, I hope you don t mind, she said, and she looked a little bit guilty. I talked to him first? Because, you know, his job. She fluttered a hand again and it bumped against the edge of the table. Ouch, she said.

Yes, I said, with soothing encouragement.

You talked to Brian. That s good.

It is good, she said. He Is Good. He knows really what ups. Wha s up. With houses. Right now, I mean. Yes, he does.

He s going to help us, she said. Find, find

Find a house, I said.

Rita shook her head slowly and then closed her eyes. I waited, but nothing happened. I m sorry, she said at last, very softly. I think I need to go lie down. She got up from the bench; the empty wineglass fell to the ground and the stem snapped off, but Rita didn t notice. She stood there, swayed for a moment, and then meandered back into the house.

Well, then, I said to Lily Anne. I guess we re moving.

Lily Anne bounced. Da, she said firmly.

I stood up and carried her into the house to make a telephone call; it looked like it was pizza night after all.

The next morning when I got in to work, there was a lab report from the medical examiner s office waiting on my desk. I glanced through it briefly and then, when I saw what it was, I sat down and read it with real interest. The report gave the results of the autopsy on Officer Gunther, and if you threw out all the technical jargon, it said several significant things. First, blood pooling in the tissue indicated that he had been lying facedown for several hours after death interesting, since he had been faceup when his body was found by the Torch of Friendship. It probably meant our psycho had killed Gunther in the late afternoon, then left him stashed all alone somewhere until dark. Sometime in the night he had recovered his sense of camaraderie and moved the body to the Torch of Friendship.

There were several pages detailing the massive trauma to Gunther s assorted organs and limbs, adding up to the same picture we d gotten from Klein. The report did not speculate, of course; that would have been unprofessional and possibly a little too helpful. But it did state that the damage had been caused by an object that was probably made of steel and possessed a smooth, oblong striking surface about the size of a playing card, which sounded like some kind of large hammer to me.

Once again, the condition of the internal organs confirmed what the exterior tissue indicated: The killer had worked very hard to keep Gunther alive as long as possible, while carefully breaking every conceivable bone with deliberate and vicious force. It didn t seem like a very pleasant way to die, but then, on reflection, I couldn t think of a single way to die that was pleasant certainly nothing I had ever tried. Not that I d really looked for anything of the kind; where would the fun be in a pleasant death?

I flipped through the report until I came to a page that had been highlighted with fluorescent yellow marker. It listed the contents of Gunther s stomach, and half of the list had been colored in a solid bright yellow, almost certainly by Deborah. I read it and I didn t need the highlighting to find the significant part. Among the other nasty things swimming around in his guts, Gunther had eaten something containing cornmeal, iceberg lettuce, ground beef, and several spices, chief among them chili powder and cumin.

In other words, his last meal had been a taco, just like it had been for Klein. For both their sakes, I hoped they were really good tacos.

I had barely finished reading the report when my desk telephone rang, and using my vast and all-seeing psychic powers I determined that it was probably my sister calling. I picked up the receiver anyway and said, Morgan.

Did you read the coroner s report? Deborah demanded.

Just finished it, I said.

Stay put, she said. I ll be right there.

Two minutes later she walked into my office carrying her own copy of the report. What did you think? she said, sliding into a chair and waving the pages.

I don t like his prose style, I said.

And the plot seems very familiar.

Don t be an asshole, she said. I got a briefing in a half hour, and I need to have something to say to everybody.

I looked at my sister with some little annoyance. I knew very well that even though she could face down an angry and well-armed mob of cocaine cowboys, or bully around large thuglike cops twice her size, she fell to pieces when she had to speak in front of any group containing more than two people. That was fine, even a little bit endearing, since it was rather nice to see her humbled from time to time. But somehow, her terrible stage fright had become my problem, and I always ended up writing the script for her presentations a completely thankless job, since she fell apart anyway, no matter how many great lines I wrote for her.

But here she was; she had come all the way down to my office for once, and she was asking nicely, for her, so I really had to help out, no matter how much I resented the idea. Well, I said, thinking out loud. So it fits the same pattern, all the bones broken, and the tacos.

I got that, she snapped. Come on, Dex.

The interval between kills is interesting, I said. Two weeks.

She blinked and stared at me for a moment. Does that mean something? she said.

Absolutely, I said.

What? she said eagerly.

I don t have a clue, I said, and before she could lean over and hit me I added, But the differences must mean something, too.

Yeah, I know, she said thoughtfully. Gunther s in uniform; Klein is a detective. He gets left in his vehicle; Gunther gets dumped by the goddamned Torch. By boat, for Christ s sake. Why?

More important, I said, why does the other stuff stay the same? She looked at me oddly. I mean, yeah, the MO stays the same. And they re both cops. But why these two specific cops? What is it about the two of them that fit the killer s pattern of need?

Debs shook her head impatiently. I don t really give a shit about the psychological stuff, she said. I need to catch this psycho motherfucker.

I could have said that the best way to catch a psycho motherfucker is by understanding what makes him a psycho motherfucker, but I doubted that Deborah would be very receptive to that message right now. Besides, it wasn t really true. Based on my years of experience in the business, the best way to catch a killer is by getting lucky. Of course, you don t say that out loud, especially if you re talking to the evening news. You have to look serious and mention patient and thorough detective work. So I just said, What about the boat?