Notes for this Chapter: Sorry it's so short! There are some lengthier ones coming up.
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Chapter 4
Dexter
I had been looking forward to this crime scene. Edward Hagerman had first appeared on my radar nearly a year ago, when he had briefly come under police scrutiny after what was left of the body of the daughter of a prominent Miami lawyer had been found by a pair of off-duty police officers that liked to do their hiking well off the beaten paths. The chemicals used to break down the remains into near unrecognizeability had been traced back to the lab at which Hagerman worked. Everyone with access to the building had been investigated, but suspicion slid off sleek, silver-haired Mr. Hagerman like water—or, perhaps more appropriately, blood—off a duck. As far as the detectives were concerned, the case had reached a dead end after all their inquiries and searches of the premises had left them empty-handed. While the agitations of the bereaved father kept a token bit of man power devoted to it, the crime had been forced to give way before the other murdered daughters that continually filled the morgues and the Miami PD's desks.
I hadn't forgotten Mr. Hagerman, however. I'd done some investigating of my own at the lab while my day-time colleagues had been busy jumping through legal hoops to get the necessary warrants. That bit of breaking and entering had put even my abilities to the test, and the undisturbed hour in Mr. Hagerman's office I gained from it had not been as fruitful as I'd hoped it would be. The cabinets and drawers full of glass beakers, tubing, and more exotic apparatus unfamiliar even to me had glittered with as much innocuous cleanliness under Luminal as they had under the fluorescent lights. If they had anything to say about the girl's death, I hadn't been able to detect it, and Hagerman's Spartan condo had been nearly as reticent. No weapons, no familiar tools of our trade, no trophies, no blood.
I'd actually felt almost at home as I'd moved from one sparse room to the next, leaving ghostly footprints in the nap of the apparently compulsively vacuumed carpeting. No photos of family or friends, everything impeccably neat, book shelves whose contents didn't venture much outside the narrow span between Gray's Anatomy and the most up to date Merck Index of chemicals. I'd even thought briefly of the connection that would be made between us when he undoubtedly noticed the faint traces of my passage on the floors. Would he be afraid? Merely curious? I'd thought of how easy it would be to leave him a calling card of my visit, as my brother had once left for me.
I didn't act on the fleeting impulse, of course. I was too much a creature of logic for that. But I had come to realize what such affinities usually meant.
And so, while I couldn't kill him under Harry's Code, as it had still been at the time, without absolute proof of his guilt, I'd made a mental note of Mr. Hagerman and done all the necessary background research on him. He'd transferred from company to company, usually moving every five or six years but always working in some sort of lab environment. There was little I could find to connect him to any unsolved murders at his previous locations, but I didn't doubt that he'd been at this even longer than I had. Did he have more kills than me? It didn't matter; I was sure that, relentlessly subjected to my minute examination, he would tip his hand within the year.
For the time being, however, I had filed Mr. Hagerman away and concentrated on other murderers and the pressing issue of the hunt for "The Bay Harbor Butcher." Lately I had been stalking easier prey, like Mr. Peake, that obligingly left bloody murder weapons lying around for any half-skilled serial killing vigilante to find.
I had been starting to find such projects curiously unsatisfying, however. I could have taken Peake down when I was twenty-two. After the intricate games Brian and I had played and, on the heels of that, the evasion of the FBI hunt that had drawn on all of my abilities, I needed something more stimulating. For so long I'd used no measure of success but the Code of Harry. Much of what he'd taught me was still practical, but, now that I was looking at things more clearly and making my own assessments, I could admit that killing killers had always attracted me not only because it helped me keep from getting caught and allowed me to use my "gifts" to clean up my corner of the world a little, but also for the challenge it presented.
I'd known when I started my new box that it was time to explore some new rituals and techniques, although I'd had no specific plans. As my mind had continued to turn back to Mr. Hagerman, however, I'd realized that, when it came to satisfying my urges, the likes of Arnold Peake were to killers of Hagerman's caliber as greasy, fast-food hamburgers were to a sizzling porterhouse. It looked like my tastes were beginning to refine themselves.
And so I'd actually felt a curl of anticipation in my stomach that I hadn't experienced since the Ice Truck Killer was on the loose when word had come in that another body with an MO matching that of the lawyer's daughter had turned up only a few miles from the other dump site. Hagerman had become either lazy or overconfident in his old age. There probably wouldn't be any blood, but I'd find a way to insinuate myself into the investigation. I was sure Mr. Hagerman would be on my table shortly.