Jeff Lindsay - Dexter by Design

“If you'd like, I can come back with a subpoena” she said. “And possibly a warrant for obstructing an investigation.” The woman just stared. Then there was a yell from the back room and something large fell over and broke. She jumped a little, then said, “My God. All right, come on” and she vanished through the door again. Deborah breathed out hard, showing a few teeth, and then we followed.

The small woman was already disappearing through a door at the end of the hall, and by the time we caught up with her she was settling into a swivel chair at a conference table. “Sit down” she said, waving at the other chairs with a large black remote control. Without waiting to see if we sat, she pointed the remote at a big flat-screen TV and said, “This came yesterday, but we didn't get around to looking at it until this morning.”

She glanced up at us. “We called right away” she said, perhaps still trembling with fear from Deborah's threat of a warrant. If so, she was controlling her trembles remarkably well.

“What is it?” Deborah said, sliding into a chair. I sat in one next to her as the woman said, “The DVD. Watch.” The TV blinked into life, went through a few wonderfully informative screens asking us to wait or select, and then blurted into life with a high-pitched scream. Beside me, Deborah jumped involuntarily.

The screen lit up and an image jumped into focus: from an unmoving position above, we saw a body lying against a white porcelain background. The eyes were wide and staring and, to someone of my modest experience, obviously dead. Then a figure moved into view and partially blocked the body. We saw only the back, and then the upraised arm holding a power saw. The arm went down and we heard the whine of the blade biting into flesh.

“Jesus Christ” Deborah said.

“It gets worse” said the short woman.

The blade whirred and growled, and we could see the figure in the foreground working hard. Then the saw stopped, the figure dropped it onto the porcelain, reached forward, and pulled a huge heap of terrible gleaming guts out and dropped them where the camera could see them best. And then large white letters appeared on the screen, superimposed on the heap of intestines: THE NEW MIAMI: IT WILL RIP YOUR GUTS OUT.

The picture held for a moment, and then the screen went blank.

“Wait” the woman said, and the screen blinked again, and then new letters glowed to life on the screen: THE NEW MIAMI SPOT #2 Then we were looking at sunrise on a beach. Mellow Latin music played. A wave rolled in on the sand. An early morning jogger trotted into frame, stumbled, and then came to a shocked halt. The camera moved in on the jogger's face as it went from shock to terror.

Then the jogger lurched into a sprint, up away from the water and across the sand toward the street in the distance. The camera moved back to show my old friends, the happy couple we had found disemboweled on the sand at South Beach.

Then a jump cut took us to the first officer on the scene as his face crumpled and he turned away to vomit. Another jump to faces in the crowd of onlookers craning their necks and freezing, and several more faces, coming faster and faster, each expression different, each showing horror in its own way.

Then the screen whirled, and began to show a frozen shot of each face we had seen, lined up in little boxes until the screen was filled with them and looked like a page from a high school yearbook, with a dozen shocked mug shots in three neat rows.

Again the letters glowed into life: THE NEW MIAMI: IT WILL GET TO YOU.

And then the screen went dark.

I could think of almost nothing to say, and a glance at my companions showed that I was not the only one. I thought of criticizing the camera technique just to break the awkward silence —after all, today's audience likes a little more movement in the shot. But the mood in the room didn't really seem conducive to a discussion of film technique, so I stayed quiet. Deborah sat clenching her teeth.

The short woman said nothing, just looked out the window at the beautiful view. Then, finally, she said, “We're assuming there's more.

I mean, the news said there were four bodies, so ...” She shrugged.

I tried to see around her and out the window at whatever was so interesting to her, but saw nothing more than a speed boat coming up Government Cut.

“This got here yesterday?” Deborah said. “In the regular mail?”

“It came in a plain envelope with a Miami postmark” the woman said. “It's on a plain disk just like the ones we have here in the office.

You can get them anywhere —Office Depot, Wal-Mart, whatever.” She said it with such disdain, and with such a lovely expression of true humanity on her face —something between contempt and indifference —that I had to wonder how she could make anyone like anything, let alone make millions of people want to come to a city partially inhabited by someone like her.

And as that thought clattered onto the floor of my brain and echoed across the marble, a small train chugged out of the Dexter Station and onto the tracks. For a moment I just watched the exhaust billow up out of the smoke stack, and then I closed my eyes and climbed on board.

“What?” Deborah demanded. “What have you got?” I shook my head and thought it through one more time. I could hear Deborah's fingers tapping on the table, and then the clatter of the remote as the short woman put it down, and the train finally came up to cruising speed and I opened my eyes. “What if” I said, “somebody wants negative publicity for Miami?”

“You said that already” Deborah snarled, “and it's still stupid.

Who could have a grudge against the whole fucking state?”

“But if it's not against the state?” I said. “What if it's only against the people who promote the state?” I looked pointedly at the short woman.

The?” the short woman said. “Somebody did this to get to me?” I was touched by her modesty and gave her one of my warmest fake smiles. “You, or your agency” I said.

She frowned, as if the idea of someone attacking her agency instead of herself was ridiculous. “Well” she said dubiously.

But Deborah slapped the table and nodded. “That's it” she said. “Now it makes sense. If you fired somebody, and they're pissed off.”

“Especially if they were a little bit off to begin with” I said.

“Which most of these artsy types are anyway” Deborah said. “So somebody loses their job, stews about it for a while, and hits back like this.” She turned to the short woman. “I'll need to see your personnel files.”

The woman opened and closed her mouth a few times and then started shaking her head. I can't let you see our files” she said.

Deborah glared at her for a moment and then, just when I was expecting her to argue, she stood up. I understand” she said. “Come on, Dex.” She headed for the door and I stood to follow.

“What —where are you going?” the woman called out.

“To get a court order. And a warrant” she said, and turned away without waiting for a reply.

I watched as the woman thought she might bluff it out, for a good two and half seconds, and then she jumped up and ran after Debs, calling, “Wait a sec!” And that is how, only a few minutes later, I happened to be sitting in the back room in front of a computer terminal. Beside me at the keyboard was Noel, a preposterously skinny Haitian American man with thick glasses and severe facial scars.

For some reason, whenever there is computer work to do Deborah calls on her brother, Digitally Dominant Dexter. It is true that I am quite accomplished in certain areas of the arcane lore of finding things with a computer, since it has proved very necessary for my small and harmless hobby of tracking down the bad guys who slip through the cracks in the justice system and turning them into a few nice and tidy garbage bags full of spare parts.