Jeffry Lindsay - Dexter in the Dark

“Five hundred dollars a plate,” I said.

Her head snapped around to face me again. “Jesus fuck,” she said. “For what?”

I shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell me, and he wouldn’t lower the price.”

“Five hundred dollars a plate ?” she said.

“It is a little high, isn’t it? Or should I say, it was .”

Deborah chewed on her lip for a long moment without blinking, and then she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from Camilla. I could still see one small foot sticking out of the kitchen door where the dear departed had met his untimely end, but Deborah led me away from it and over to the far end of the room.

“Dexter,” she said, “promise me you didn’t kill this guy.”

As I have mentioned before, I do not have real emotions. I have practiced long and hard to react the way human beings would react in almost every possible situation-but this one caught me by surprise. What is the correct facial expression for being accused of murder by your sister? Shock? Anger? Disbelief? As far as I knew, this wasn’t covered in any of the textbooks.

“Deborah,” I said. Not tremendously clever, but it was all I could think of.

“Because you don’t get a free pass with me,” she said. “Not for something like this.”

“I would never,” I said. “This is not…” I shook my head, and it really seemed so unfair. First the Dark Passenger left me, and now my sister and my wits had apparently fled, too. All the rats were swimming away as the good ship Dexter slid slowly under the waves.

I took a deep breath and tried to organize the crew to bail out a little. Deborah was the only person on earth who knew what I really was, and even though she was still getting used to the idea, I had thought she understood the very careful boundaries set up by Harry, and understood, too, that I would never cross them. Apparently I was wrong. “Deborah,” I said. “Why would I-”

“Cut the crap,” she snapped. “We both know you could have done it. You were here at the right time. And you have a pretty good motive, to get out of paying him like fifty grand. It’s either that or I believe some guy in jail did it.”

Because I am an artificial human, I am also extremely clearheaded most of the time, uncluttered by emotions. But I felt as if I was trying to see through quicksand. On the one hand, I was surprised and a little disappointed that she thought I might have done something this sloppy. On the other hand, I wanted to reassure her that I hadn’t. And I wanted to say that if I had done this, she would never have found out about it, but that didn’t seem quite diplomatic. So I took another deep breath and settled for, “I promise.”

My sister looked at me long and hard. “Really,” I said.

She finally nodded. “All right,” she said. “You better be telling me the truth.”

“I am,” I said. “I didn’t do this.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Then who did?”

It really isn’t fair, is it? I mean, this whole life thing. Here I was, still defending myself from an accusation of murder-from my own foster flesh and blood!-and at the same time being asked to solve the crime. I had to admire the mental agility that allowed Deborah to perform that kind of cerebral tumbling act, but I also had to wish she would direct her creative thinking at somebody else.

“I don’t know who did this,” I said. “And I don’t-I’m not getting any, um, ideas about it.”

She stared at me very hard indeed. “Why should I believe that, either?” she said.

“Deborah,” I said, and I hesitated. Was this the time to tell her about the Dark Passenger and its present absence? There was a very uncomfortable series of sensations sloshing through me, somewhat like the onset of the flu. Could these be emotions, pounding at the defenseless coastline of Dexter, like huge tidal waves of toxic sludge? If so, it was no wonder humans were such miserable creatures. This was an awful experience.

“Listen, Deborah,” I said again, trying to think of a way to start.

“I am listening, for Christ’s sake,” she said. “But you’re not saying anything.”

“It’s hard to say,” I said. “I’ve never said it before.”

“This would be a great time to start.”

“I, uh-I have this thing inside me,” I said, aware that I sounded like a complete idiot and feeling a strange heat rising into my cheeks.

“What do you mean,” she demanded. “You’ve got cancer?”

“No, no, it’s-I hear, um-It tells me things,” I said. For some reason I had to look away from Deborah. There was a photograph of a naked man’s torso on the wall; I looked back to Deborah.

“Jesus,” she said. “You mean you hear voices? Jesus Christ, Dex.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not like hearing voices. Not exactly.”

“Well then what the fuck?” she said.

I had to look at the naked torso again, and then blow out a large breath before I could look back at Deborah. “When I get one of my hunches about, you know. At a crime scene,” I said. “It’s because this…thing is telling me.” Deborah’s face was frozen over, completely immobile, as if she was listening to a confession of terrible deeds; which she was, of course.

“So it tells you, what?” she said. “Hey, somebody who thinks he’s Batman did this.”

“Kind of,” I said. “Just, you know. The little hints I used to get.”

“Used to get,” she said.

I really had to look away again. “It’s gone, Deborah,” I said. “Something about all this Moloch stuff scared it away. That’s never happened before.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time, and I saw no reason to say it for her.

“Did you ever tell Dad about this voice?” she said at last.

“I didn’t have to,” I said. “He already knew.”

“And now your voices are gone,” she said.

“Just one voice.”

“And that’s why you’re not telling me anything about all this.”

“Yes.”

Deborah ground her teeth together loud enough for me to hear them. Then she released a large breath without unlocking her jaw. “Either you’re lying to me because you did this,” she hissed at me, “or you’re telling the truth and you’re a fucking psycho.”

“Debs-”

“Which one do you think I want to believe, Dexter? Huh? Which one?”

I don’t believe I have felt real anger since I was an adolescent, and it may be that even then I was not able to feel the real thing. But with the Dark Passenger gone and me slipping down the slope into genuine humanity, all the old barriers between me and normal life were fading, and I felt something now that must have been very close to the real thing. “Deborah,” I said, “if you don’t trust me and you want to think I did this, then I don’t give a rat’s ass which one you believe.”

She glared at me, and for the very first time, I glared back.

Finally she spoke. “I still have to report this,” she said. “Officially, you can’t come anywhere near this for now.”

“Nothing would make me happier,” I said. She stared at me for a moment longer, then made her mouth very small and returned to Camilla Figg. I watched her back for a moment, and then headed for the door.

There was really no point in hanging around, especially since I had been told, officially and unofficially, that I was not welcome. It would be nice to say that my feelings were hurt, but surprisingly, I was still too angry to feel miffed. And in truth, I have always been so shocked that anyone could really like me that it was almost a relief to see Deborah taking a sensible attitude for once.

It was all good all the time for Dexter, but for some reason, it didn’t really feel like a very large victory as I headed for the door and exile.