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"Well, shit," sighed the marshal as he stood casting a long shadow over the gore splattering the stucco walls in the Miami beach house. He stretched, tweaking his back to the side and ran a paw through his unruly locks before resetting his hat low over his troubled eyes. Tracking the asshole Tommy Bucks was proving to be harder than he thought. The smell of Cuban cigars and fancy champagne still hung heavy in the tropical heat. Raylan's took in the scene, mentally sniffing the air like a bloodhound picking up a scent. He looked over the mutilated body of a lowly Miami gun thug who'd been hacked to death with some sharp implement, presumably a machete, studying the tiny droplets of life painting the ceiling and walls and stone tile. His calloused fingers absently drummed on the grip of his Glock, thumb flicking at the holster strap.
"Didn't know homicide was in the marshal's purview," laughed a gorilla-like Hispanic with the local PD from beneath his stylish trilby fedora.
Raylan turned his steely gaze on the detective, the intensity of his stare slightly unsettling the hardened Sergeant. "It's not except when the murderer is a wanted fugitive," he snapped as he mused the man's Hawaiian shirt and badge draped around his thick neck. "I thought I'd drop in and see if the shit-bag left any evidence that'll tell me where he's headed next. He's probably already on a raft floating to some tiny mosquito infested island, like Tahiti," he sneered with a glimmer of dry wit, his face melting into a frown, his long, reedy arm extended out to the local officer. "Raylan Givens. Pleased to make your acquaintance Sergeant..." his thick Kentucky drawl inflecting the statement into a question before trailing off into anticipatory silence. He was sorry for being so short with this officer, but every second he wasted here on niceties and procedure was a second longer Bucks had to breathe.
"Angel Batista," said the brawny detective returning a firm handshake with a jingle of gold chains on his wrist and a sideways glance. His eyes browsed the marshal's crazy garb- jeans over scuffed cowboy boots with a sports coat and thin tie. Being a head gear aficionado himself, he took his time studying the off-white businessman's stetson which topped the lanky, languid lawman. "I wouldn't worry too much. We've got the best forensics team here in Miami. If this sick fuck left anything behind, my team'll find it. Blood splatter guy is on his way. Fucking amazing, you'll see."
A grin spread across the marshal's face when Sergeant Batista said his name, Ahn-hell. Variety, he thought to himself, is the spice of life. People here are different than those back in the hollers. Sometimes these ones are harder to read. He couldn't tell if that glint in his eye was hostility from being intruded on by an outsider or pride that his guys would somehow extrapolate a map, with all of Bucks' intentions scribbled on the back and lead the marshal right to his guy from a little arterial spurt and fibers. Still, it may have taken Aunt Helen to teach him to order food at fancy restaurants and how to talk to girls, but before she died, his momma taught him to be polite. So he curled his lips into his most charming smile, little crinkles forming in the corners of his eyes, clapped his hand on the sergeant's shoulder and thanked him genuinely.
His hand shot to his holster reflexively and his eyes to the front door as it flew open and an attractive young woman strode inside arguing with someone on her cell phone. She was tall and thin, dress shirt sloppily tucked into her dress suit, long chestnut hair hanging limply around her natural face. Marshal Givens pegged her for a beat cop from her appearance and the state-issued weapon strapped to her hip.
"Well, I hope to fuck so, Dex," she protested into her cell, eyes darting around the room and settling on the cowboy wearing white in the midst of the crimson sea of gore. "I don't care where you are right now, just hurry the fuck up. We've got fucking guts all over this place and we need you." She hung up the phone with considerable disgust written on her face and strode confidently towards the unknown lawman. "Lieutenant Debra Morgan, Miami Metro Homicide," she said to the stranger, who blinked back at her and looked amused. Without waiting for him to introduce himself, she turned to her sergeant and said "What the fuck are the feds doing here? This asshole mob thug in WITSEC or some shit? Figures, fucking shit-bag worm working a deal." The look of warning that crossed the sergeant's face as he studied his shoelaces closely caused Morgan to momentarily shrink. She turned her face back toward the tall stranger, fucking eyes only now noting the shiny star and service weapon strapped to his belt.
"Sorry," she said lamely, to the marshal's quizzical soft expression. "Sometimes my fucking mouth gets me into pretty deep shit before I can think myself out of speaking. I didn't mean anything by it. No offense, okay?"
"None taken, Lieutenant," Givens said to the back of her head as she walked away from him. Any momentary insecurity she displayed vanished behind her critical face as she worked the scene, notepad in hand, conferring with the officers dusting and walking the grid. This was a woman in her element. Though she lacked finesse, she was clearly doggedly persistent, with a strong attention to detail and a good cop.
He wandered the beach house, gazing at the god-awful contemporary abstract paintings and ruminating on the foul-mouthed lady cop as his boot heels scuffed along the beautiful marble tiles. He made his way to the dining room, noting a lovely mahogany buffet. It was not unlike the one Winona received as a wedding gift from her rich aunt and uncle. He remembered how out of place it looked in their tiny Lexington matrimonial apartment. He smiled when he recalled how she glowed with pride as she loaded it with cheap china and her grandmothers silver. Meandering to the kitchen and looking into the fridge, he replayed the last conversation they'd had. He had come here to Miami for this job, she was supposed to follow after the house sold. She'd called him to say she wasn't coming. It was crushing, much more so than he'd ever let on. His thoughts were interrupted by a loud, stilted laugh breaking the thick silence of the crime scene, echoing through the expansive beach house. He stood up from where he was situated at the kitchen table, preserving the scene in the living room, frosty commandeered beer in hand and leaned through the doorway, looking towards the source. Two men wearing Tyvek suits and booties were poking at the pale disarticulated limb laid near the couch with a probe. The laugh was emanating from the shorter of the two, an Asian fella making faces and obscene gestures. Raylan figured he was making a crude joke about something sexual by the look on the other forensic guy's face. He looked mighty uncomfortable. Raylan maneuvered himself a little closer to hear what they were hypothesizing. The foul-mouthed lieutenant popped out from behind the door jam and thrust two paper booties at the cowboy marshal. He begrudgingly slipped them over his ostrich skin boots and stepped into the bloody living room.
"Dex, Masuka, this is Marshal Givens. He's here 'cause this asshole worked for a fugitive he's after. Marshal, here, thinks Bucks—that's the fugitive—got tired of this fucking flunky ruffling feathers everywhere he goes and hired some local leg-breakers to solve the problem. What's the evidence telling you? Marshal thinks maybe there are some clues about where his perp is headed."
Masuka shook Raylan's hand and set about detailing how the evidence showed it was not professionals, how the cuts showed at least three different machete wielding maniacs and that the poor asshole thug was alive and awake for the first few body parts, then likely passed out before expiring.
Dexter watched the cowboy as Masuka pulled out all the gory details looking for the familiar 'moral' response to torture. He felt what could be described as curiosity as that look never crossed the face beneath that ridiculous hat. Odd. His eyes danced around the carnage and his jaw muscled twitched as he listened carefully to every word Masuka said, seemingly filing it away, organizing it, creating a picture in his mind from the tidbits of information. A smart, calculating and angry man this marshal. Curious. Masuka said there was no indication as to where Bucks was headed and that they'd found no finger prints, no fibers, nothing to link anyone to this crime. They still had some tests to run for DNA.
They weren't going to find any DNA belonging to anyone but the vic, either. Dexter knew this for a fact. He had been busy when Deb called. He was out boating, and dumping garbage bags containing the remains of the machete wielders. He'd waited for them to dispatch this no good piece of shit before plunging a hypodermic full of M-99 into each of their jugulars in turn. He'd cleaned the scene before stacking them like firewood in the back of his SUV to cart them off to his plastic lined kill room. He'd been stalking these guys for a while now. They were low level criminals working for the mob. More importantly to Dex and his dark passenger, they were killers. They had hacked up a family a few months ago. They and their boss Bucks had gotten off many times on technicalities and having friends on the payroll. They were all deserving of the table and of riding the current out to sea never to be seen again. He had a little bit more research to do before he took out Bucks. As much as he craved the hunt and slicing into that assholes pocked cheek, Harry's code needed to be followed if he was to keep out of prison.
He watched as the cowboy's eyes darkened like the Miami sky before a hurricane at the disappointing news. He growled through clenched teeth at Vince. His face stayed deceptively calm even though the anger raged in his eyes and threatened to boil out from under his skin. He turned to face Dex, eyes boring a hole into his thoughts. A tiny dark passenger peered out from the cowboy's pupil, waiving. It was saying 'hello, can I come out and play?'. Fascinating.
"Don't supposed the blood says anything useful to you, either," the marshal said as calmly as ordering dinner, as he looked the analyst over critically. Could he see Dexter's secret as clearly as Dex could see his? It sent a little shiver down Dexter's spine. Not since Doakes had Dex felt so perilously close to being outed. He stuffed the feeling down to his gut and smiled coolly at the cowboy marshal before telling him the story he'd created about what transpired here. Dex was confident in his abilities to manufacture feeling, shape-shift, camouflage and hide in plain sight. This cop felt something off, but he had no idea. Cowboy might be good, but he's not that good.
Raylan thought this guy was odd. He was strangely quiet, strangely calm, strangely creepy. He'd met plenty of weird crime scene techs. They're always captivated by the monstrous, at home in the macabre. He analyzed the techs eyes and mannerisms as he spelled out the language of blood. He explained what the fine mist on the ceiling meant, what the globs now congealed in the grout showed, how the three left the home through the front door at their leisure. Something was making his neck hair stand up. It wasn't setting right. It bugged him. Raylan forced himself to focus on what the creepy analyst was saying, hoping to add to his mental map leading to Tommy Bucks. Let it go, Raylan, he thought. Getting Bucks and making him pay for what he did to that man in Nicaragua was all that mattered. He wasn't going to glean anything new from this crime scene. It was time to look elsewhere. He thought about CI's he could squeeze for insight. He was in the mood for a good beat down.
After the cowboy marshal graciously thanked and shook hands with each person he spoke to, he tipped his hat to the Lieutenant and walked out the front door into the blazing sun. Deb stood with her pen in her mouth staring at the silhouette of the hard, lean lawman in the door before he closed it behind himself. Dex hoped she wasn't getting the hots for this guy. That's all he needed- another doggedly persistent lawman with a hard-on for him snooping around, keeping him under a microscope. She did have a pretty good track record of losing boyfriends to bloody deaths, though, he thought and smiled a little to reveal his teeth on edge.
With the evidence preserved and filed, reports finalized and on Deb's desk, Dex went home for the night. He browsed the database for information about Bucks, evidence to unequivocally prove he had killed and gotten away. After an hour or so he gave up for the night and flicked on the news. That cowboy marshal had shot and killed Tommy Bucks in a restaurant a few hours after he'd sauntered out of the beach house. He was there on TV, wearing the same white suit and stetson, being screamed at by his supervisors. The camera focused on Givens' face in the distance while a PR person droned into the microphone. Dex could read Cowboy Marshal Givens lips. He was telling his very angry boss Bucks pulled first. We both justify our kills, don't we, Marshal. We have a code. Though he was annoyed that Givens saved Bucks from his table, Dex was intrigued by the thought of another Avenging Angel's dark passenger cleaning up the seedy trash of Miami in the glowing light of day. Behind a badge and right in front of the cameras no less. Fascinating.