Jeff Lindsay - Double Dexter

We re looking, she said. But, shit, do you know how many boats there are in Miami even if you only count the legally registered ones?

It won t be his. It was probably stolen in the last week, I said helpfully.

Deborah snorted. Almost as many, she said.

Shit, Dexter, I got all the obvious stuff covered. I need an actual idea here, not more dumb-ass chatter.

It was true that I had not been in the best of moods lately, but it seemed to me that she was moving rapidly past the boundaries of how to speak when begging someone else for help. I opened my mouth to make a crushing remark and then, out of nowhere, an actual idea hit me.

Oh, I said.

What, she said.

You don t want to find a stolen boat, I said.

The fuck I don t, she said. I know he wouldn t be stupid enough to use his own boat, even if he had one. He stole one.

I looked at her and shook my head patiently. Debs, that s obvious, I said, and I admit I might have been smirking slightly. But then it s also obvious that he wouldn t hang on to that boat afterward. So you don t look for a stolen boat; you look for

A found boat! she said, and she clapped her hands together. Right! A boat that was abandoned somewhere for no reason.

It had to be somewhere he had a car stashed, I said. Or even better, someplace he could steal a car.

Goddamn it, that s more like it, Debs said. There can t be more than one place in town where a boat turned up and a car got stolen the same night.

A quick and simple computer search to cross-reference it, I said, and the moment the words were out of my mouth I wanted to jam them back in and slide under my desk, because Deborah knew almost as much about using a computer as she did about ballroom dancing. I, on the other hand, must modestly admit to something verging on expertise in that area, and so anytime the word computer came up in conversation, my sister automatically made it my problem. And sure enough, she bounced to her feet and whacked me playfully on the arm.

That s great, Dex, she said. How long will it take you?

I looked around the room quickly, but Debs was standing between me and the door, and there was no emergency exit. So I turned to my computer and went to work. Deborah jiggled around anxiously like she was jogging in place, which made it very hard to concentrate, until finally I said, Debs, please. I can t work with you vibrating like that.

Well, shit, she said, but at least she stopped hopping up and down and perched on the edge of a chair instead. But three seconds later, she started rapidly tapping her foot on the floor. Clearly there was no way to keep her still, short of flinging her out the door or finding what she wanted. Since she had a gun and I didn t, flinging was too chancy, so with a heavy and pointed sigh I went back to my search.

Less than ten minutes later, I had it. Here we go, I said, and before I got out the final syllable Deborah was at my elbow, leaning in anxiously to see the screen. The pastor of St. John s Church on Miami Beach reported his car stolen this morning. And he s got a new twenty-one-foot Sea Fox at his dock.

A fucking church? Deborah said. On the Beach, for God s sake? How did he get the boat in there?

I pulled up a map on-screen and pointed. See, the church is right here, by this canal, and the parking lot is on the water. I ran my finger along the canal from the church and out into the bay. Ten minutes across the water to Bayfront Park and the Torch.

Deborah stared for a moment, then shook her head. It doesn t make any fucking sense at all, she said.

It does to him, I said.

Well, shit, she said. I d better get Duarte and get out there. And then she straightened up and ran for the door without a single word of thanks for my arduous eight minutes of labor. I admit I was a bit surprised not that my very own sister had failed to display gratitude, of course. That would be too much to expect. But normally she would have dragged a reluctant Dexter along with her for backup, leaving her partner to count paper clips. But this time it was Dutiful Dexter left behind, and Debs had gone to find her new French-speaking partner, Duarte. I supposed that meant she liked working with him, or maybe she was just being more careful with her partners now. Her last two had been killed on the job while working a case with her, and I d heard more than one cop muttering that it was very bad luck to work with Sergeant Morgan, since she was obviously some kind of black widow or something.

Whatever the case, there was really nothing to complain about. Debs was actually doing things the way she was supposed to for once, working with her official partner instead of her unofficial brother. And that was fine with me, because it truly was dangerous to hang around with her when she was at work; I had scar tissue to prove it. And it wasn t my job to run around in the big, bad world dodging slings and arrows and, apparently, hammers. I didn t need the adrenaline; I had real work to do. So I just sat and felt unappreciated for a few minutes, and then went back to doing it.

Just after lunch, I was in the lab with Vince Masuoka when Deborah rushed in and dumped a large hammer on the counter in front of me. I guessed from the loud thump that it weighed about three pounds. It was in a big plastic evidence bag, and a film of condensation had formed on the inside surface of the bag, but I could still see that it was not an ordinary carpenter s hammer, and it did not quite look like a sledgehammer, either. The head was round and blunt at both ends, and it had a yellow, well-worn wooden handle.

All right, Vince said, peering in over Deborah s shoulder. I always wanted to get hammered with you.

Go piss up a stick, Debs said. It was not up to her usual high standards in a put-down, but she said it with considerable conviction, and Vince scuttled away quickly to the far corner of the lab, where his laptop sat on a counter. Alex found it, Deborah said, nodding at Duarte as he trickled in the door. It was lying in the parking lot at that church, St. John s.

Why would he drop his hammer? I said, poking carefully at the plastic bag to see better.

Right here, Debs said, and I could hear barely suppressed excitement in her voice. She pointed through the plastic to a spot on the handle, just above where the yellow color was partially faded away from use. Lookit, she said. It s cracked a little bit.

I bent over and looked. On the worn wooden handle, just barely visible through the misted bag, was a hairline crack. Wonderful, I said. Maybe he cut himself.

Why is that wonderful? Duarte said. I mean, I d like to see the guy hurt, but a little cut? So what?

I looked at Duarte and very briefly wondered if some malignant personnel computer always assigned to Debs a partner with the lowest possible IQ. If he cut his hand, I said, carefully choosing one-syllable words, there might be some blood. So we can get a DNA match.

Oh, yeah, sure, he said.

Come on, Dex, Deborah said. See what you can get from it.

I pulled on gloves and took the hammer out of its bag, placing it carefully on the counter. Unusual kind of hammer, isn t it? I said.

It s called a club hammer, Vince said, and I looked at him. He was still sitting on the far side of the room, hunched over his laptop. He pointed to an image on the screen.

Club hammer, he repeated.

I Googled.

Very appropriate, I said. I leaned over the handle of the hammer in question and carefully sprayed on some Bluestar. It would reveal any trace of blood, no matter how small. With any luck, there might be just enough for me to get a blood type or DNA sample.

They use it for demolition, mostly, Vince went on. You know, like knocking out walls and things?

I think I remember what demolition means, I said.

Cut the shit, Deborah said through her teeth.