Jeff Lindsay - Double Dexter

Oh, dear, Brian said. There was a mistake?

It sure looks like it from here, I said.

Oh, well, Brian said. Qu ser.

Astor nudged me again. Dex-ter, come on, she said.

I have to go, I told Brian.

I d love to know what I did, he said.

Call me later?

If I can, I told him. I put away the phone and turned to face Cody and Astor. Now, I said, you two go wait in the hall.

But, Dexter, Astor said, we didn t get to see anything, not really.

Too bad, I said firmly. You can t go any closer until the police are done.

Not fair, Cody said, with a major-league pout.

Tough. This is what I do for a living, I told him meaning crime scene work, of course, and not the actual crime. We have to leave the room without touching anything and go call the police.

We just wanna look; we won t touch anything, Astor said.

No, I said, pushing them toward the door.

Wait in the hall. I ll just be a minute.

They didn t like it, not at all, but they went, trying all the way to get one more look at the thing on the foldout sofa. But I hustled them into the hall and shut the door and went to take a closer look of my own.

No one would ever have called Hood a handsome man, but as he was now he was positively repulsive. His tongue stuck out between the broken teeth, and the eye that wasn t hanging out of the socket had gone red. This had clearly been the result of one tremendously powerful blow, and I didn t think Hood had suffered for very long, which didn t seem fair.

I knelt down beside the bed and looked underneath. There were no hastily dropped keys or monogrammed handkerchiefs to tell me who had done this, but they weren t needed. I knew who had done it. But I still needed to know how. On the far side of the bed I saw something, and I went around to the other side and poked it out just far enough so I could see it. It was a large souvenir pirate hat, the kind with the black rubber eye patch molded onto it so it hangs down the front. Stuffed inside was a red bandanna. Even without touching it, I could see blood on the bandanna. A disguise for Hood? Probably to cover the wounds long enough to get him into the hotel.

I stood up and, just to be thorough, I went into the bedroom to see if anything was amiss. But everything looked fine no one was lurking in the closet, Rita s suitcase seemed undisturbed, and even my laptop was still sitting on the desk, apparently untouched. When I thought about it, that seemed a little odd. After all, Crowley boasted about his mastery of computer lore; why hadn t he taken two minutes to look at my computer and learn my secrets?

And from somewhere deep inside Dexter s Dungeon there came a soft flex of wings and a gently whispered answer:

Because he didn t need to.

I blinked. It was a painfully simple answer, and it made me feel stupider than I could ever remember feeling.

He didn t need to learn my secrets.

He already knew them.

He had stayed a step ahead of me because he had already hacked into my hard drive, and every time I powered on to find his address or read my e-mail or make a hotel reservation, he was there with me. There were plenty of programs that could do that. The only question was how he had put it on my hard drive. I tried to remember if I had left my computer alone anyplace but home or work I hadn t. I never would. But, of course, you didn t need to touch a computer to hack into it. With the right worm, wi-fi would work fine. And with that thought I remembered sitting in front of my computer and opening an e-mail pitching the new Web site Tropical Blood. There had been a burst of fancy flash graphics and then a slow crawl of blood perfect for distracting me for just a moment while the program wormed onto my hard drive and started telling Crowley everything about me.

It made sense; I was sure I was right, and with two minutes on the computer I could know for sure but a rapid pounding came on the door, followed by Astor s muffled, anxious voice calling my name. I turned away from my computer. It didn t matter. Even without finding Crowley s worm, I knew it was there. Nothing else was possible.

The knocking came again, and I opened the door and went out into the hall. The two of them tried to peer around me and see Hood s body, but I pulled the door closed.

We just wanted one last look, Astor said.

No, I said. And that s another thing. You have to pretend to be grossed out and scared. So people think you re just ordinary kids.

Scared? Astor demanded. Scared of what?

Scared of a dead body, and thinking that a killer was right here in your hotel room.

It s a suite, she said.

So put on your frightened faces for the cops, I said, and I got us all into the elevator. Luckily, there was a mirror in the elevator, and all the way down to the lobby they practiced looking scared. Neither one of them was completely convincing it really does take years of practice but I hoped nobody would notice.

I have been at hundreds of crime scenes in my career, and many of them were in hotels, so I was quite well aware that the management, generally speaking, does not consider dead bodies in the rooms a major selling point. They prefer to keep such things quiet, and in the spirit of polite cooperation, I went to the front desk and asked to see the manager.

The desk clerk was a nice-looking African-American woman. She smiled with genuine sympathy and said, Of course, sir. Is there a problem?

There s a dead body in our suite, Astor said.

Hush, I told her.

The desk clerk s smile twitched and then faded as she looked from me to Astor. Are you sure about that, young lady? she asked Astor.

I put a restraining hand on Astor. I m afraid so, I told the clerk.

She just gaped for several seconds. Oh, my God, she said at last. I mean She cleared her throat and then made a very visible effort to pull her official clerk face back together. Wait right here, she said formally, and then she thought again and added, I mean please come with me?

We followed her through the doorway behind the desk and waited while she called the manager. The manager arrived, and we waited some more while he called the police. And then we waited even longer while the police and local forensics team went up to our suite. A woman arrived and stared at us while she talked to the clerk. She seemed to be about forty-five, with graying hair, and loose skin hanging from her neck like crepe paper. She looked like she had been one of the party girls who came to Key West and hung out in the bars, until one day she woke up and realized the party was over and she had to get a real job. It didn t seem to agree with her; she had a look of permanent disappointment etched onto her face, like there was a bad taste on her tongue and she couldn t get rid of it.

After a quick and quiet conversation with the desk clerk she came over and spoke to me. Mr. Morgan? she said formally, and I recognized the tone right away. Her next words proved that I was right. I m Detective Blanton, she said.

I need to ask you a few questions.

Of course, I said.

First I d like to make sure your children are okay? she said, and without waiting for an answer from me she crouched down beside Cody and Astor. Hi, she said to them, in a tone of voice usually reserved for clever puppies or human idiots. My name is Detective Shari. Can you talk about what you saw upstairs in your room?

It s a suite, Astor said. And anyway, we didn t get to see hardly anything because Dexter made us leave the room before we could really look at it.

Blanton blinked with her mouth hanging open. This was clearly not quite the reaction she d been expecting. I see, she said, and she looked up at me.

They re very frightened, I said, putting a little emphasis on the word so they would remember that they were scared.