Dexter at Dawn, Chapter Six
by Technomad
I made several frantic phone calls, then I was out of the office faster than I'd have gone if it were on fire. When my superiors learned what was wrong, they were very understanding. "Go on, Dexter! This is an emergency! We'll cover for you!" As I tore out of the parking lot, I reflected that I really did have a good bunch of co-workers. Better than a monster like me could be said to deserve.
When I got to the school, there was a standoff in progress. One of my phone calls had been to Deb's cell, and she'd come hot-foot, siren screaming and lights flashing, which she normally didn't like to do. Deb was standing toe-to-toe with Paul Bennett. The two sheriff's deputies that had accompanied Paul were standing back, clearly unhappy. A little ways away, Astor and Cody were watching, holding hands. That told me how upset and unhappy they were.
"Let me see those legal papers, asshole!" Deb was snarling. Paul handed over the papers, and she made a point of scrutinizing them carefully. "It says here that due to their mother's detention in jail in Charleston, you, as their closest relative, have been granted custody of Astor and Cody Bennett." She scowled. "I don't think I can do anything about this." Then she gave Paul a glare that should have left him dead on the pavement.
"What sort of place do you have?" I asked. "Can you house and feed a couple of kids? Can you get them to school reliably?" In the course of my work and my hobby alike, I had seen too many children forced to live in conditions that would have brought the ASPCA out, horse, foot and artillery, if they had been inflicted on animals. I also knew enough about Paul Bennett to not trust him one inch.
"Yeah, I've got an apartment. It's not far from here. You and your...sister…" spitting out the word "sister" as though it tasted filthy, "can come and look at it if you want!"
"We'll just do that," Deb growled. "Come along, Astor, Cody! You can ride with me. Dex, do you want to ride with me or drive yourself?"
"I'll come with you, Deb," I answered. When Deborah was in that mood, wise people trembled and obeyed. Astor and Cody scrambled into the back of her cruiser as I got in on the passenger seat. Paul went to his car and pulled out, and we followed him to where he was staying. The deputies followed behind our strange little procession.
Much to my disappointment, Paul's apartment was not at all inadequate for the needs of a single man with two children. It was light, airy and surprisingly spacious, and neatly kept. More neatly than I had lived when I had lived alone, I had to admit to myself.
Deb prowled around, peering at everything like a sergeant inspecting the barracks. "Well, I can't find anything illegal," she finally had to allow. "Will you let Astor and Cody at least get their clothes?"
"Do we have to stay with him, Aunt Sergeant?" Astor asked. "We remember what he was like before!"
Paul looked indignant. "Hey! I've changed! I kicked drugs completely! I'd never hurt anybody!"
For some reason, this failed to reassure me. Most people took me at face value, as a mild-mannered blood-spatter expert working for the Miami-Dade police department. Deb knew better, as did Cody and Astor, but they had all, so far, kept their mouths shut on that subject. None of them wanted to see me as a permanent guest of the great State of Florida, or given a seat of honor in Old Sparky.
"Is it going to be just you and the kids?" Deb asked. She was trying to find some way to put a stick in his wheel spokes.
"No. I've got a girlfriend. She's a nurse. She works at Jackson Memorial Hospital." That, at least, was a point in his favor. I had known quite a few nurses. While some were bad, like my first human playmate, most of them were fiercely dedicated to their calling. I figured that, at least, if Paul reverted to his old habits, his girlfriend would be likely to protect Astor and Cody. She'd also know just who to call for help if that was necessary.
Deb sighed. "Well, Astor, Cody, looks like you're going to have a different address for a while. At least till we can get the lawyers to work on this," with an evil smile directed at Paul. "I know some very good lawyers who'll love to get their teeth into this situation."
` "Can we go home long enough to get our clothes, at least?" Astor asked.
"Yeah. I'll take you there. Dex?" At the sound of my name, I looked away from Paul. I'd been mentally measuring him for a coffin. Deb looked at me directly. She knows me well enough to have a pretty good idea what I was thinking. And I think this time she didn't blame me one little bit.
"I'll take Astor and Cody back to your house to get some of their stuff. You'd better head back to the school. They're about to let out, and Arya will need to be picked up!"
I'd forgotten Arya completely! "I'm on my way!" I snapped, and tore out of there like the Devil was on my tail.
After a drive across Miami that would have scared the Road Warrior, I pulled up outside the school just as the students were beginning to leave. In a minute, Arya saw me and came running to the car.
"Dexter! They came and took Astor and Cody away!"
"I know. Astor called me at work and I came. I got ahold of Deb and had her come too."
"Was she able to do anything?" Arya climbed in and fastened her seat belt. When I'd shown her a few pictures of car accidents where people hadn't had their belts on, she had caught on to why they were worn very quickly.
"No, I'm afraid not. Paul Bennett was able to get a judge to sign papers granting him temporary custody of Astor and Cody, since he is their biological father and I haven't adopted them. With Rita in jail, the judge saw Paul as the logical person to take care of them."
"A girl sees," Arya said, "but a girl does not understand. A girl has heard enough about Mr. Paul Bennett to think that judge lacks judgement." A shadow passed over her face, and I knew she was remembering things from her former life. "A girl remembers judges like that."
When we got home and went on in, the house seemed bleak and empty. No Rita in the kitchen making heavenly odors with her cooking, no Astor, no Cody...even though the children were very quiet, one knew that they were about in various ways. Astor often grumbled about her homework, and I would find myself helping her wrap her mind around it. That would remind me of my younger days, when I was just a fledgling monster, barely beginning to understand that I was, and always would be, different from others.
Arya and I busied ourselves making a lonely dinner for two, as I braced myself for a call to Charleston. I didn't know if the South Carolina authorities would notify Rita about this new development, but in case they didn't, I knew my duty.
When I was able to get through to her, Rita went into Jitter Critical, just as I had been afraid she would. "Oh, my God! Dexter, you've got to...I can't imagine how that court...my poor children….do something! Get them back!"
"Deb and I are both on the job, Rita," I assured her, hoping to calm her down. "Deb knows some very good lawyers and I'm sure we'll be able to get this decision reversed. Paul sprang this on us without much if any warning."
"Oh, thank God! I don't know what I'd do without you, Dexter! I was blessed when you came into my life!"
If she'd only known what I was, she would have said that my arrival had been a curse, but I didn't disillusion her. In her situation, she needed all the support and comfort she could get, and if keeping my little secrets kept her on an even keel, that was a sacrifice I could willingly make. If nothing else, I'd grown accustomed to Rita and would miss her, insofar as a creature like myself can miss people.
Rita asked to speak to Arya, and I called her to the phone. I'd been startled when I found out that she'd never spoken on a telephone or even, apparently, heard of such a device, when I'd first known her, but by that time she took the apparatus completely in stride. For someone from what appeared to be a literally medieval society, she had adapted to modern Miami very quickly. That argued that her story about long homeless wanderings after her noble family's fall from grace was nothing but the truth.
"Rita? Yes, this is a girl. A girl is perfectly all right. The authorities did not touch a girl, since Paul Bennett…" she spat that name like it tasted foul in her mouth… "had no claim on a girl. A girl misses you very much and hopes you are soon out of your troubles and back home where you belong." A pause, then: "A girl is doing well in school. A girl is healthy and happy here. Dexter and a girl are getting along very well. Yes, here is Dexter." And she handed the phone back to me.
I took the phone. "Rita? Yes, Arya's perfectly all right. Sound and healthy, not a scratch on her. We've enrolled her in fencing classes, and she seems to enjoy them very much."
"Oh, what a wonderful idea! Tell her I hope to be there to watch her when she gets into her first matches! Oh, dear...the time on this call's about up! Keep me posted!" And with that, she hung up.
Arya gave me a look. I could see her Dark Passenger, looking out through her eyes. If I'd not been aware that she meant me no harm, I'd have been worried. The things she had told me in confidence about her wanderings in her old home made me quite sure that she was nearly, if not quite, as lethal as I was, or as any killer in Miami.
"A girl wonders if it would be a good idea to pay Paul Bennett a visit some night," she said, her tone as casual as though she were discussing what to do about dinner.
"Not a good idea, Arya," I told her. "At least not until you've got a lot more skills. And doing anything to him with Astor and Cody on his premises might get them in trouble. Until we've got Rita safe and sound at home, we've got to go cautiously."
"A girl could at least scout out the area," she said.
"I don't think that's a good idea, either, Arya," I had to explain. "Paul's seen you, and I'm sure he'd remember you. People tend to remember girls who slice them with knives."
"Ah, but would Paul Bennett remember...this?" She seemed to turn away for a second, and when she turned back, she was completely unrecognizable. She had a completely different face. I was completely flabbergasted.
"Arya! How...how in the world did you do that?"
She turned away again, and when she turned back, she was the same old familiar Arya Stark. "A girl learned much and more at the House of Black and White, in Braavos. A girl learned the secret of becoming faceless. A girl can change her face completely at will, which has come in handy sometimes."
"I would think it would!" I could see all sorts of uses for that sort of skill in my hobby. "Fo you think you could teach me?"
Arya looked pensive. "A girl is not sure, but a girl would be willing to try."
Just then, my stomach rumbled. "I don't mean to change the subject, but what do you want to do about dinner?" I didn't have the heart to cook anything. "What do you think of Italian food?"
Arya gave me a rare smile. "Food is a girl's favorite thing to eat, and a girl has not met any food here she did not like. Let a girl get changed into different clothes, and a girl would be happy to be introduced to Italian food."
Over spaghetti bolognaise, washed down with soda for both of us, we avoided the subjects of Paul Bennett, face-changing, Astor and Cody's problems, and other such upsetting things. "A girl likes it here, Dexter," Arya assured me. "A girl enjoys her studies, and her fencing class."
"I'm glad you like it here with us, Arya," I told her. "I think Deb likes you, too. Maybe some day you can ride along with her. She never knows what the day will bring."
But that reminded us of the ones who were not there, and it cast a pall over the rest of the dinner. For all that the spaghetti was delicious, we ate in silence and left quickly, leaving a generous tip.
The lawyers we'd found put up a ferocious fight in court when the hearing was held, pointing out Paul Bennett's previous record of drug and domestic abuse alike. "Putting these children in his care would be insane!" our main lawyer, a fellow called Carter, shouted. "This man isn't fit to raise children!"
"I'd like to call the court's attention to these psychiatric reports," Paul's lawyer, a woman whose name I hadn't caught, said. "They clearly show that my client's a changed man. His conduct in custody has been exemplary, and he's gainfully employed. With his wife in jail on drug charges, and facing prison time, he's the obvious person to take custody of his children."
Beside me, I could feel Deb starting to steam. I put my hand on her arm to calm her down. At least Astor and Cody were not present. It was a school day and they were both at school, waiting for word on how this would end.
The legal clapper-clawing went on for hours. At the end, a compromise was reached. Like most compromises, it satisfied nobody. But everybody got some of what they wanted.
Cody and Astor would stay with their father during the week, but return to their home over the weekends. As long as Rita stayed in custody, this would continue. When (if) she was released and cleared of charges, the case would be revisited.
I'd spent years dealing with the morass of Florida Justice, as well as avoiding it in the pursuit of my hobby. This idiotic decision was par for the course. Since it was Tuesday, Paul collected Cody and Astor, and I had to steel myself to ignore their pleading looks in my direction as he herded them out.
Afterward, Deb and I went to Cafe Relampango. Rose, our usual waitress, was there, and surly as ever. For once, I refrained from teasing her, much to Deb's relief. We got our food, and only after we'd broken our fast did we speak of the case.
"Dex, I'm having a hard time believing this! Paul Bennett has a track record that would shame a gangsta, and here he is, waltzing out of prison and getting custody of his children!"
"It's partly my fault, Deb," I told her, as she scowled at her sandwich. "I should have adopted Cody and Astor as my own immediately after Rita and I got married, but it didn't seem that important. Paul was in prison and looked likely to stay there until the children were grown."
"Don't blame yourself, Dex," Deb said. She reached over and took my hand, which startled me. While we were raised as siblings, we've never been very demonstrative toward each other. I've gone into some scary situations with Deb, and we know we can count on each other, but we've never been touchy-feely. "You couldn't foresee this, any more than anybody else."
"I wonder how he managed to get out of prison?" I took a bite of my sandwich. "I saw the list of charges against him, and with all that, he should have stayed behind bars."
"I think he had something to do with Rita's misfortune," Deb said. She bit into her own sandwich as though it were Paul Bennett's neck. "I mean, come on! He was mixed up with drugs before getting sent away. He gets out, and Rita gets drugs planted on her in a way that ensures that, if convicted, she's going to spend years in prison?" She snorted. "If that's a coincidence, I'm the Queen of Romania!"
I smiled to myself. Deb's not much of a literature buff, but one of her old partners had been, and she'd picked up some quotes and things like that from him. She would surprise me every so often by some literary reference, like this one, to Dorothy Parker. Even though she's my sister in all but blood, and closer to me than nearly anybody, she does have unexpected depths.
It was getting on toward time for school to be out, and I had to be there to pick Arya up. Deb also had to get back to work, so we paid for our meals and left. Rose looked after us with a slightly puzzled expression. She'd known us for years, and knew that something was very wrong when I wouldn't banter with her.
When I picked up Arya, she had some news of her own. "A girl has been invited to participate in her first fencing match," she told me, once she'd climbed in and buckled herself in. "A girl needs your permission to participate."
"That shouldn't be a problem, Arya," I assured her. "I suppose I have to sign some sort of paper?"
"A girl was told that it will be in the mail today. A girl would also like to know how the hearing went."
"Not as good as I'd have liked, and not as bad as I'd feared. Cody and Astor will be back home on weekends, but staying with Paul Bennett during the week. They'll still be in school with you, so you'll see them during the week. Keep an eye on them, and if you see anything wrong, tell me or Deb as soon as you see us."
"A girl will do that," Arya said solemnly. "A girl wishes she could do more to help."
"If I can think of ways you can help, Arya, I'll surely tell you. In the meantime, let's get home." With that, I pulled out into the usual hellish Miami traffic, taking myself and Arya home.
The fencing match was like a lot of other sporting events I'd attended, in high school and college, when I was still learning to pass as a normal human. There was a crowd of parents and other spectators being herded into bleachers, and I took my place among them, with Deb, Astor and Cody. On the main floor, there were dozens of young people in fencing gear, all but indistinguishable when they had their masks on.
Madame Duchamp announced: "Welcome to the Duchamp Academy of Fencing competition! Today we have a wide variety of competitors, in foil, epee and sabre. We hope you will enjoy seeing them in action!" And with that, the matches began.
I couldn't quite figure out the rules. Again and again, I saw people who'd clearly scored have those scores disallowed due to something called "right of way." I made a mental note to ask Arya just what that meant.
When Arya's name was announced, competing with another beginner named Susan White, I sat up and paid close attention. I noticed other people perking up and taking an interest as well. While Arya was by no means a celebrity, she had been in the news and people remembered her.
Arya easily dominated her opponent. Her footwork was unlike what the others had been doing, but extremely effective, and she was fast and ruthless. I could see enough to know that in a real fight with real blades, she'd be a very dangerous opponent.
At the end, even though she'd had a lot of her hits disqualified for various reasons, she was announced as the winner. By the end of the evening, she was at the top of the beginners' division, and summoned forward to accept a prize of an engraved plaque.
While I'd enjoyed seeing my protegee competing, I wished Rita could have been there, too. I knew she'd be very interested in hearing all about it the next time we talked.