Yeah. Sure.

I sat down in my chair and didn't speak. Deb likes to unload on me. That's what family is for. Why were you so anxious to talk to me?

They're shutting me out, she said. She opened my doughnut bag and looked inside.

What did you expect? I said. You know how LaGuerta feels about you.

She pulled the cruller out of the bag and savaged it.

I expect, she said, mouth full, to be in on this. Like the captain said.

You don't have any seniority, I said. Or any political smarts.

She crumpled the bag and threw it at my head. She missed. G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Dexter, she said. You know d.a.m.ned well I deserve to be in Homicide. Instead of- She snapped her bra strap and waved a hand at her skimpy costume. This bulls.h.i.t.

I nodded. Although on you it looks good, I said.

She made an awful face: rage and disgust competing for s.p.a.ce. I hate this, she said. I can't do this much longer or I swear, I'll go nuts.

It's a little soon for me to have the whole thing figured out, Deb.

s.h.i.t, she said. Whatever else you could say about police work, it was ruining Deborah's vocabulary. She gave me a cold, hard cop-look, the first I'd ever had from her. It was Harry's look, the same eyes, same feeling of looking right through you to the truth. Don't bulls.h.i.t me, Dex, she said. All you have to do half the time is see the body, and you know who did it. I never asked you how you do that, but if you have any hunches on this one, I want 'em. She kicked out savagely and put a small dent in my metal desk. G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I want out of this stupid outfit.

And we'd all love to see that, Morgan, came a deep and phony voice from behind her in the doorway. I looked up. Vince Masuoka was smiling in at us.

You wouldn't know what to do, Vince, Deb told him.

He smiled bigger, that bright, fake, textbook smile. Why don't we try it and find out?

In your dreams, Vince, Debbie said, slumping into a pout that I hadn't seen since she was twelve.

Vince nodded at the crumpled white bag on my desk. Itwas your turn, goody. What'd you bring me? Where is it?

Sorry, Vince, I said. Debbie ate your cruller.

I wish, he said, with his sharp, imitation leer. Then I could eat her jelly roll. You owe me a big doughnut, Dex, he said.

The only big one you'll ever have, Deborah said.

It's not the size of the doughnut, it's the skill of the baker, Vince told her.

Please, I said. You two are going to sprain a frontal lobe. It's too early to be this clever.

Ah-ha, Vince said, with his terrible fake laugh. Ah-ha ha-ha. See you later. He winked. Don't forget my doughnut. And he wandered away to his microscope down the hall.

So what have you figured out? Deb asked me.

Deb believed that every now and then I got hunches. She had reason to believe. Usually my inspired guesses had to do with the brutal whackos who liked to hack up some poor slob every few weeks just for the h.e.l.l of it. Several times Deborah had seen me put a quick and clean finger on something that n.o.body else knew was there. She had never said anything, but my sister is a d.a.m.ned good cop, and so she has suspected me of something for quite a while. She doesn't know what, but she knows there is something wrong there and it bothers the h.e.l.l out of her every now and then, because she does, after all, love me. The last living thing on the earth that does love me. This is not self-pity but the coldest, clearest self-knowledge. I am unlovable. Following Harry's plan, I have tried to involve myself in other people, in relationships, and even-in my sillier moments-in love. But it doesn't work. Something in me is broken or missing, and sooner or later the other person catches me Acting, or one of Those Nights comes along.

I can't even keep pets. Animals hate me. I bought a dog once; it barked and howled-atme -in a nonstop no-mind fury for two days before I had to get rid of it. I tried a turtle. I touched it once and it wouldn't come out of its sh.e.l.l again, and after a few days of that it died. Rather than see me or have me touch it again, it died.

Nothing else loves me, or ever will. Not even-especially-me. I know what I am and that is not a thing to love. I am alone in the world, all alone, but for Deborah. Except, of course, for the Thing inside, who does not come out to play too often. And does not actually play with me but must have somebody else.

So as much as I can, I care about her, dear Deborah. It is probably not love, but I would rather she were happy.

And she sat there, dear Deborah, looking unhappy. My family. Staring at me and not knowing what to say, but coming closer to saying it than ever before.

Well, I said, actually- Iknew it! YouDO have something!

Don't interrupt my trance, Deborah. I'm in touch with the spirit realm.

Spit it out, she said.

It's the interrupted cut, Deb. The left leg.

What about it?

LaGuerta thinks the killer was discovered. Got nervous, didn't finish.

Deborah nodded. She had me asking hookers last night if they saw anything. Somebody must have.

Oh, not you, too, I said. Think, Deborah. If he was interrupted-too scared to finish- The wrapping, she blurted. He still spent a lot of time wrapping the body, cleaning up. She looked surprised. s.h.i.t.After he was interrupted?

I clapped my hands and beamed at her. Bravo, Miss Marple.

Then it doesn't make sense.

Au contraire. If there is plenty of time, but the ritual is not completed properly-and remember, Deb, the ritual is nearly everything-what's the implication?

Why can't you just tell me, for G.o.d's sake? she snapped.

What fun would that be?

She blew out a hard breath. G.o.dd.a.m.n it. All right, Dex. If he wasn't interrupted, but he didn't finish- s.h.i.t. The wrapping-up part was more important than the cutting?

I took pity on her. No, Deb. Think. This is the fifth one, exactly like all the others. Four left legs cut perfectly. And now number five- I shrugged, raised an eyebrow at her.

Aw, s.h.i.t, Dexter. How should I know? Maybe he only needed four left legs. Maybe ... I don't know, I swear to G.o.d. What?

I smiled and shook my head. To me it was so clear. The thrill is gone, Deb. Something just isn't right. It isn't working. Some essential bit of the magic that makes it perfect, isn't there.

I was supposed to figure that out?

Somebody should, don't you think? And so he just sort of dribbles to a stop, looking for inspiration and finding none.

She frowned. So he's done. He won't do this again?

I laughed. Oh my G.o.d, no, Deb. Just the opposite. If you were a priest, and you truly believed in G.o.d but couldn't find the right way to worship him, what would you do?

Keep trying, she said, until I got it right. She stared hard. Jesus. That's what you think? He's going to do it again soon?

It's just a hunch, I said modestly. I could be wrong. But I was sure I was not wrong.

We should be setting up a way to catch him when he does, she said. Not looking for a nonexistent witness. She stood and headed out the door. I'll call later. Bye! And she was gone.

I poked at the white paper bag. There was nothing left inside. Just like me: a clean, crisp outside and nothing at all on the inside.

I folded the bag and placed it in the trash can beside my desk. There was work to do this morning, real official police lab work. I had a long report to type up, accompanying pictures to sort, evidence to file. It was routine stuff, a double homicide that would probably never go to trial, but I like to make sure that whatever I touch is well organized.

Besides, this one had been interesting. The blood spatter had been very difficult to read; between the arterial spurting, the multiple victims-obviously moving around-and the cast-off pattern from what had to be a chain saw, it had been almost impossible to find an impact site. In order to cover the whole room, I'd had to use two bottles of Luminol, which reveals even the faintest of blood spots and is shockingly expensive at $12 a bottle.

I'd actually had to lay out strings to help me figure the primary spatter angles, a technique ancient enough to seem like alchemy. The splat patterns were startling, vivid; there were bright, wild, feral splatters across the walls, furniture, television, towels, bedspreads, curtains-an amazing wild horror of flying blood. Even inMiami you would think someone would have heard something. Two people being hacked up alive with a chain saw, in an elegant and expensive hotel room, and the neighbors simply turned up their TVs.

You may say that dear diligent Dexter gets carried away in his job, but I like to be thorough, and I like to know where all the blood is hiding. The professional reasons for this are obvious, but not quite as important to me as the personal ones. Perhaps someday a psychiatrist retained by the state penal system will help me discover exactly why.

In any case, the body chunks were very cold by the time we got to the scene, and we would probably never find the guy in the size 71/2 handmade Italian loafer. Right-handed and overweight, with a terrific backhand.

But I had persevered and done a very neat piece of work. I don't do my job to catch the bad guys. Why would I want to do that? No, I do my job to make order out of chaos. To force the nasty blood stains to behave properly, and then go away. Others may use my work to catch criminals; that's fine by me, but it doesn't matter.

If I am ever careless enough to be caught, they will say I am a sociopathic monster, a sick and twisted demon who is not even human, and they will probably send me to die in Old Sparky with a smug self-righteous glow. If they ever catch Size 71/2, they will say he is a bad man who went wrong because of social forces he was too unfortunate to resist, and he will go to jail for ten years before they turn him loose with enough money for a suit and a new chain saw.

Every day at work I understand Harry a little better.

CHAPTER 6

FRIDAY NIGHT.DATE NIGHT INMIAMI.ANDbelieve it or not, Date Night for Dexter. Oddly enough, I had found somebody. What, what? Deeply dead Dexter dating debutante doxies? s.e.x among the Undead? Has my need to imitate life gone all the way to faking o.r.g.a.s.ms?

Breathe easy. s.e.x never entered into it. After years of dreadful fumbling and embarra.s.sment trying to look normal, I had finally hooked up with the perfect date.

Rita was almost as badly damaged as I am. Married too young, she had fought to make it work for ten years and two kids. Her charming life mate had a few small problems. First alcohol, then heroin, believe it or not, and finally crack. He beat her, the brute. Broke furniture, screamed, and threw things and made threats. Then raped her. Infected her with some dreadful crack-house diseases. All this on a regular basis, and Rita endured, worked, fought him through rehab twice. Then he went after the kids one night and Rita finally put her foot down.

Her face had healed by now, of course. And broken arms and ribs are routine forMiami physicians. Rita was quite presentable, just what the monster ordered.

The divorce was final, the brute was locked up, and then? Ah, the mysteries of the human mind. Somehow, somewhy, dear Rita had decided to date again. She was quite sure it was the Right Thing to do-but as a result of her frequent battery at the hands of the Man She Loved, she was completely uninterested in s.e.x. Just, maybe, some masculine company for a while.

She had searched for just the right guy: sensitive, gentle, and willing to wait. Quite a long search, of course. She was looking for some imaginary man who cared more about having someone to talk to and see movies with than someone to have s.e.x with, because she was Just Not Ready for That.

Did I say imaginary? Well, yes. Human men are not like that. Most women know this by the time they've had two kids and their first divorce. Poor Rita had married too young and too badly to learn this valuable lesson. And as a by-product of recovering from her awful marriage, instead of realizing that all men are beasts, she had come up with this lovely romantic picture of a perfect gentleman who would wait indefinitely for her to open slowly, like a little flower.

Well. Really. Perhaps such a man existed in Victorian England-when there was a knocking shop on every corner where he could blow off steam between flowery protestations of frictionless love. But not, to my knowledge, in twenty-first-centuryMiami .

And yet-I could imitate all those things perfectly. And I actually wanted to. I had no interest in a s.e.xual relationship. I wanted a disguise; Rita was exactly what I was looking for.

She was, as I say, very presentable. Pet.i.te and pert and s.p.u.n.ky, a slim athletic figure, short blond hair, and blue eyes. She was a fitness fanatic, spending all her off-hours running and biking and so on. In fact, sweating was one of our favorite activities. We had cycled through theEverglades , done 5K runs, and even pumped iron together.

And best of all were her two children. Astor was eight and Cody was five and they were much too quiet. They would be, of course. Children whose parents frequently attempt to kill each other with the furniture tend to be slightly withdrawn. Any child brought up in a horror zone is. But they can be brought out of it eventually-look at me. I had endured nameless and unknown horrors as a child, and yet here I was: a useful citizen, a pillar of the community.

Perhaps that was part of my strange liking for Astor and Cody. Because I did like them, and that made no sense to me. I know what I am and I understand many things about myself. But one of the few character traits that genuinely mystifies me is my att.i.tude toward children.

I like them.

They are important to me. They matter.

I don't understand it, really. I genuinely wouldn't care if every human in the universe were suddenly to expire, with the possible exception of myself and maybe Deborah. Other people are less important to me than lawn furniture. I do not, as the shrinks put it so eloquently, have any sense of the reality of others. And I am not burdened with this realization.

But kids-kids are different.

I had been dating Rita for nearly a year and a half, and in that time I had slowly and deliberately won over Astor and Cody. I was okay. I wouldn't hurt them. I remembered their birthdays, report-card days, holidays. I could come into their house and would do no harm. I could be trusted.

Ironic, really. But true.

Me, the only man they could really trust. Rita thought it was part of my long slow courtship of her. Show her that the kids liked me and who knows? But in fact, they mattered to me more than she did. Maybe it was already too late, but I didn't want to see them grow up to be like me.

This Friday night Astor answered the door. She was wearing a large T-shirt that saidRUG RATS and hung below her knees. Her red hair was pulled back in two pigtails and she had no expression at all on her small still face.

h.e.l.lo Dexter, she said in her too-quiet way. For her, two words were a long conversation.

Good evening, beautiful young lady, I said in my best Lord Mountbatten voice. May I observe that you are looking very lovely this evening?

Okay, she said, holding the door open. He's here, she said over her shoulder to the darkness around the couch.

I stepped past her. Cody was standing behind her, just inside, like he was backing her up, just in case. Cody, I said. I handed him a roll of Necco Wafers. He took them without taking his eyes off me and simply let his hand drop to his side without looking at the candy. He wouldn't open them until I was gone, and then he would split them with his sister.

Dexter? Rita called from the next room.

In here, I said. Can't you teach these children to behave?

No, said Cody softly.

A joke. I stared at him. What next? Would he sing someday? Tap dance in the streets? Address the Democratic National Convention?

Rita rustled in, fastening a hoop earring. She was rather provocative, considering. She wore a practically weightless light blue silk dress that fell to mid-thigh, and of course her very best New Balance cross-training shoes. I'd never before met, or even heard of, a woman who actually wore comfortable shoes on dates. The enchanting creature.

Hey, handsome, Rita said. Let me talk to the sitter and we're out of here. She went into the kitchen, where I heard her going over instructions with the teenage neighbor who did her babysitting. Bedtimes. Homework. TV dos and don'ts. Cell phone number. Emergency number. What to do in case of accidental poisoning or decapitation.

Cody and Astor still stared at me.

Are you going to a movie? Astor asked me.

I nodded. If we can find one that doesn't make us throw up.