Jeff Lindsay - Dexter is delicious

"I get access," Deborah said sullenly.

"Access," Chambers said. "Not control."

Debs looked at Burris. He shrugged and looked away. "All right," she said.

And so the Battle of the Everglades was over, ending happily for everyone-except, of course, for Dexter the Drudge, because Debs apparently interpreted "access" to mean following me around and peppering me with questions. I was almost finished anyway, but it did not make things easier to have a shadow, especially one like Deborah, who was likely to attack me with one of her agonizing arm punches at any moment if I failed to answer her satisfactorily. I filled her in on what I knew and what I had guessed as I sprayed my Bluestar in a few final spots, looking for any last traces of blood. The spray would reveal even the tiniest hint of blood, down to the smallest droplet, and it did not affect the DNA of the sample.

"What is it?" Deborah demanded. "What did you find?"

"Nothing," I said. "But you're standing on a footprint." She stepped aside guiltily and I got my camera out of my bag. I stood and turned back around, bumping squarely into Deborah. "Debs, please," I said. "I really can't do this with you attached to my hip."

"Fine," she said, and she stalked away to a spot opposite the fire pit.

I had just taken a last picture of the main blood spatter when I heard Deborah calling. "Dex," she said. "Hey, bring your spray over here." I looked over to where she stood. Vince Masuoka was kneeling and taking a sample of something. I got my Bluestar and joined them.

"Spray it right here," Deborah said, and Vince shook his head.

"It's not blood," he said. "It's the wrong color."

I looked down at the spot he was examining. There was a flattened area, as if a heavy object had stood there backed up against a row of vegetation. The leaves were wilted from heat, and on them, as well as at the edge of the depression, there were a few small brown stains. Something had spilled out from some kind of container that had been there.

"Spray it," Deborah said.

I looked at Vince, who shrugged. "I got a clean sample already," he said. "It's not blood."

"All right," I said, and I sprayed a small spot on one of the bushes.

Almost immediately a very faint blue glow was visible. "Not blood," Debs said scornfully. "So what the fuck is that?"

"Shit," Vince mumbled.

"It's not much blood," I said. "The glow is too faint."

"But it's some blood?" Debs demanded.

"Well, yes," I said.

"So it's some other kind of shit, with blood in it," she said.

I looked at Vince. "Well," he said. "I guess so."

Deborah nodded and looked around. "So you got a party," she said. She pointed at the fire pit. "And way over there you got the victim. And way over here on the other side of the party you got this." She glared at Vince. "With blood in it." She turned to me. "So what is it?" she demanded.

I should not have been surprised that this was suddenly my problem, but I was. "Come on, Debs," I said.

"No, you come on," she said. "I need one of your special hunches here."

"I have a special hunch back at the station," Vince said. "His name is Ivan."

"Shut up, dickless," Deborah said. "Come on, Dexter."

Apparently there was nothing for it, so I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and listened…

And almost immediately got a very amused answer from the Passenger. "Punch bowl," I said, snapping my eyes open.

"What?" Deborah said.

"It's the punch bowl," I said. "For the party."

"With human blood in it?" she said.

"Punch?" Vince said. "Jesus' tits, Dex, you're a sick fuck."

"Hey," I said innocently, "I didn't drink any of it."

"You're fucking crazy," Deborah added helpfully.

"Debs, look," I said. "It's away from the fire, and we got this dent in the ground." I knelt next to Vince and pointed to the depression in the dirt. "Something heavy, stuff spilled out to the sides, lots of footprints around it-you don't have to call it punch if that makes you nervous. But it's the beverage."

Deborah stared at the spot I pointed to, looked across the clearing at the fire pit, and then back to the ground at her feet. She shook her head slowly, dropped into a squat beside me, and said, "Punch bowl. Fuck."

"You're a sick fuck," Vince repeated.

"Yeah," Debs said. "But I think he's right." She stood up. "I bet you a dozen doughnuts you find some kind of drug traces in there, too," she said with a very noticeable note of satisfaction.

"I'll check it," Vince said. "I got a good test for ecstasy." He gave her his hideous sex leer and added, "Would you like to take the ecstasy test with me?"

"No, thanks," she said. "You don't have the pencil for it." She turned away before he could try one of his awful comebacks, and I followed. It took me only three steps to realize that something about her was very wrong, and when it registered I stopped dead and turned her to face me.

I looked at my sister with surprise. "Debs," I said. "You're actually smiling."

"Yeah," she said. "Because we just proved that this is my case."

"What do you mean?"

She punched me, hard. It may have been a happy punch for her, but it still hurt me. "Don't be stupid," she said. "Who drinks blood?"

"Ouch," I said. "Bela Lugosi?"

"Him and all the other vampires," she said. "You want me to spell 'vampire' for you?"

"So what-Oh," I said.

"Yeah, oh," she said. "We turn up a vampire wannabe, Bobby Acosta. And now we got a whole fucking vampire frat party. You think that's a coincidence?"

I didn't think so, but my arm hurt too much to say so. "We'll see," I said.

"Yes, we will," she said. "Get your stuff; I'll drive you back."

It was definitely lunchtime when we got back to civilization, but none of the subtle hints I threw out to Debs seemed to register, and she drove straight back to headquarters without pausing, in spite of the fact that Route 41 turns into Calle Ocho, and we could easily have pulled over at a number of excellent Cuban restaurants. Just thinking about them made my stomach growl, and I imagined I could smell the platanos sizzling in the frying pan. But as far as Deborah was concerned, the wheels of justice were already in motion, grinding their inexorable way toward a guilty verdict and a safer world, which apparently meant that Dexter could very well do without lunch for society's sake.

And so it was a very hungry Dexter who made his weary way back to the forensics lab, chivvied every step of the way by his sister's demands for rapid identification of the victim from the Everglades scene. I unpacked my samples and flung myself into my chair, searching for answers to the burning question: Should I drive all the way back to Calle Ocho? Or simply head to Cafe Relampago, which was much closer and had excellent sandwiches?

Like most important questions in life, this one had no easy answer, and I thought hard about the implications. Was it better to eat quickly, or well? If I chose instant gratification, did that make me a weaker person? And why did it have to be Cuban food today? Why not, for example, barbecue?

The moment that thought popped into my head, I began to lose my appetite. The girl in the Everglades had been barbecued, and for some reason that troubled me a great deal. I could not get the pictures out of my mind: the poor girl lashed in place, slowly bleeding out as the flames reached higher, the crowd howling, and the chef dabbing on barbecue sauce. I could almost smell the cooking flesh, and that drove all thoughts of ropa vieja and lunch completely out of my head.

Was this the way life was going to be from now on? How could I do my job if I felt actual human empathy for the victims I saw every day? Worse, how could I stay in a job that came between me and lunch?

It was a terribly sad state of affairs, and I let the self-pity wash over me for a few minutes. Dexter in the Dumps, an absurd figure. I, who had sent dozens of the deserving into the afterlife, was now mourning the loss of one insignificant girl, and merely because whoever killed her had not wasted the meat.