Jeff Lindsay - Double Dexter

Fuck it, Dex, she snapped. You know I can t do that kind of crap. They want me to smile at the camera and tell the whole fucking world how great I am, and I never could do that shit and you know it.

I did know it, but I also knew that she would have to try again, which meant she was probably in for a couple of rough days. But before I could think of something really smart to say on the subject, Nicholas began to bounce again and say, Ba ba ba ba! Deborah looked at him with a tired smile and then back at me. Anyway, I d better get my little buddy to bed. Thanks for picking him up, Dex.

Dexter s Day Care, I said. We never close.

I ll see you at work, she said. Thanks again. And then she turned for the door. I had to open it for her, since she only had one good arm and that was full of Nicholas. Thanks, she said again a third time in less than a minute, which was certainly a record for her.

Deborah trudged to her car, looking as tired as I had ever seen her, and I watched as Duarte climbed out from behind the wheel and opened the back door for her. She fumbled Nicholas into a car seat, and Duarte held the passenger door as she got in. Then he closed it, nodded to me, and climbed in behind the wheel.

I watched as they drove away. The whole world thought Debs was wonderful right now because they believed she had caught a dangerous killer, and all she wanted was to get on with catching the next one. I wished she could learn to exploit a moment like this, but I knew she never would. She was tough and smart and efficient, but she would never learn to lie with a straight face, which was a real killer for any career.

I also had a niggling little feeling that at some point in the next few days she would need a little PR skill, and since she didn t have any, that would make it a case for the public relations firm of Dexter and Dexter, Spin Doctors to the Stars.

Naturally it always ended up being my problem, no matter how much it actually wasn t. I sighed, watched as Deborah s car disappeared around the corner, and then I locked the door and went to bed.

The media frenzy that Deborah s big arrest generated was bigger than anyone had anticipated, and for the next few days Deborah was a very reluctant rock star. She was deluged with requests for interviews and photographs, and even in the relative security of police headquarters she was not safe from people stopping her to tell her how wonderful she was. Of course, being Deborah, the attention did not please her. She turned down all the invitations from the media, and she tried very hard to disengage herself from the workplace well-wishers without showing them any actual hostility. She didn t always succeed, but that was all right. It made the other cops think that, on top of being spectacular, she was modest, gruff, and impatient with bullshit which was actually true, for the most part and it added even more luster to the growing Morgan Legend.

And somehow, some of the shine even reflected onto me. I had helped Deborah solve her cases often enough, usually with my special insight into things as they really are wicked, and quite happily so and just as often I had been beaten, bullied, and battered in the process. Never once in all those times had I ever received so much as a casual pat of thanks on my bruised back but now, the one time I had done absolutely nothing, I began to get credit. I had three requests for interviews from reporters who had suddenly come to believe that blood spatter was fascinating, and I was invited to submit an article to the Forensic Examiner.

I turned down the interviews, of course I had worked very hard to keep my face out of public view and saw no reason to change now. But the attention continued; people stopped me to say nice things, shake my hand, and tell me what a good job I had done. And it was true enough; I usually do a very good job I just hadn t done it this time. But suddenly I was the target of far too much unwelcome attention. It was disconcerting, even annoying, and I found myself flinching when the phone rang, ducking as the door opened, and even chanting the classic mantra of the clueless: Why me?

Tragically, it was Vince Masuoka who finally answered that lame question. Grasshopper, he said, shaking his head wisely, on the morning when he overheard me turning down Miami Hoy for the third time. When temple bell rings, crane must fly.

Yes, and one apple every eight hours keeps three doctors away, I said. So what?

So, he said, with a sly semismile, what did you expect?

I looked at him and he smirked back; he seemed to have some actual point in mind, as much as he ever did, so I gave him a more or less serious answer. What I expect, I said, is to be ignored and unrecognized, laboring on in solitude at my unique level of unmatchable excellence.

He shook his head. Then you gotta get a new agent, he said. Because your face is all over the blogosphere.

My what is where? I said.

Lookit, Vince said. He scrabbled at the keyboard of his laptop for a moment, and then turned the screen to face me.

It s you, Dexter, he said. A superman shot. Very studly.

I looked at the screen and had a moment of almost hallucinogenic disorientation. The computer showed a Web site with a red and dripping headline that said, Miami Murder. And under that was a photo of a male model in a heroic pose in front of the Torch of Friendship at the scene where Officer Gunther s body had been discovered. The model looked commanding, brilliant, and sexy and he also looked an awful lot like me. In fact, to my astonishment, it was me, just as Vince had said. I was standing beside Deborah and pointing toward the waterfront, and she had an expression of eager compliance on her face. I had no idea how someone had managed to capture the two of us frozen in these completely uncharacteristic expressions, and somehow make me look so very studly in the process but there it was. And even worse, the caption to the picture said, Dexter Morgan the real brains in the Cop-Hammer case!

It s a really popular blog, Vince said.

I can t believe you haven t seen this, cause everybody else in the world has.

And this is why everybody suddenly thinks I m interesting? I said.

Vince nodded at me. Unless you have a hit single I didn t know about?

I blinked and looked at the picture again, hoping to find that it had gone away, but it hadn t. And as I looked I felt my stomach churn with something that was very close to fear. Because there was my face and my name and even my job all together in one convenient package, and the first thought that popped into my brain was not, Oh, boy, I look studly. Instead it instantly gave a shape to the anonymous unease I had been feeling, and it looked like this:

What if my unknown Witness saw the pictures? My name was right there with my face, along with my job practically everything but my shoe size. Even if he had not traced my license plate or tracked me before, this would give him everything he needed. This was not even a matter of putting two and two together; it was looking at four. I swallowed, which was not as easy as it should have been, since my mouth was suddenly dry, and I realized that Vince was staring at me with a strange look on his face. I searched for something witty and forceful to say and finally settled on, Oh. Um shit.

Vince shook his head and looked very serious. Too bad you re not still single, he said. This would so get you laid.

It seemed more likely that it would so get me arrested and executed. I had always been very careful to avoid publicity of any kind; it was far better for someone with my recreational tendencies to stay anonymous as much as possible, and until now I had managed to keep my face out of public view. But here it was, apparently splashed across the blogosphere, and there was nothing I could do except hope that my Witness was not a reader of the Miami Murder blog. If my picture had really spread as much as Vince said, maybe I should also hope he lived under a rock and a rock without an Internet connection at that. There was no way to cover myself; this was public nudity, pure and simple. Worse still, there was absolutely no way out; I just had to wait for all the attention to go away when things calmed down.