Dexter at Dawn

Chapter Eight

by Technomad

For the next few days, Arya and I were at loose ends. She went to school and her fencing lessons, and I went to work. Arya reported that she saw Astor and Cody at school regularly, and they were both visibly unhappy. Arya was able to see this only because she knew both of them so well. On the surface, they were their usual impassive selves.

"A girl eats her lunch with Astor," she told me. "Cody eats his at a different time. Astor reports that she and Cody have not been mistreated. Paul Bennett's girlfriend, Annie Wilkes, helps him take care of them. She tells funny stories about things she's seen as a nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital."

Arya told me a very funny story that Annie had apparently told Astor and Cody. A gangbanger had shown up at the emergency room with bullet wounds, having been dumped and left there by his homies. While they were trying to take care of him, he kept swearing up and down that he had no idea who owned the packets of cocaine, gun, and cell phones that had fallen out of his clothes. "When he was told that he could tell his tale to the nice policemen who had just arrived to speak with him, he jumped up off his gurney and tried to run away, naked, with several IVs trailing behind him." It did sound funny, and I remembered it to pass on to my workmates. Nurses and police have very similar senses of humor. It's a survival mechanism.

Of course, I hadn't forgotten Rita. As soon as I could, I printed out the pictures I'd taken of Arya's fencing tournament, and sent them to Rita. I enclosed some other pictures, of Astor and Cody and Arya at their ordinary activities, and letters from myself and all three children. I wondered what the children wrote, but did not read their letters. They deserved their privacy.

Rita wrote back practically by return mail. "Oh, I was so glad to get your pictures and letters! I wish I could have been there myself, to see Arya getting her award! I'm less lonely with your pictures here. You don't seem to be so far away.

"I'm getting along well with the other women here. Many of them have children, too. We do various things together. I'm teaching some of them to read. They all say it's not their fault they're here, and that they're innocent, but I have my doubts."

I was glad to read that. I knew that a lot of repeat offenders love to con and prey on "new fish." Despite all her spacey affect, and her blindness to what her children and I were, Rita was no fool, nor was she a naif. Years of dealing with Paul Bennett's shenanigans had seen to that.

Speaking of Paul, he did seem to be on his best behavior. Arya and I had discreetly shadowed him, hoping to find evidence that he wasn't fit to be a parent. Unfortunately, he was gainfully employed in a truck repair shop. He appeared to be well-paid for his services. Arya had managed to spend an afternoon in that shop, thanks to her face-changing trick and an obliging work-mate of Rita's who happened to own an ailing truck.

"A girl saw nothing untoward," she reported to me. "Paul Bennett seems to be working hard, and when a girl inquired, his co-workers praised him and said they were lucky to have him there."

This news was not what I had hoped to hear. Disappointed Dexter had hoped to hear that Paul was screwing up by the numbers again, like he'd done before he and Rita came to a parting of the ways. As an (ostensibly) reformed citizen, Paul could put forth a dangerously plausible claim to custody of Astor and Cody if Rita did end up convicted. Even if Rita got out of her present troubles, he could make a case for joint custody.

During all of this, my co-workers had been a great source of strength and support. My bosses were very understanding when I needed variant hours, if only because some of them were single parents themselves themselves. Angel-no-relation, Camilla Figg and the others all made points of visiting us of an evening, often bearing food.

Arya came in for a good deal of attention on these occasions. Everybody praised her achievements in fencing, and her excellent grades in school. Arya accepted their attentions calmly, but with a certain reserve. "A girl learned how to deal with this at Winterfell, before her troubles began," she told me one night. She'd told me enough that I knew that Winterfell was her original home. It was apparently a mighty castle. I had shown her pictures of castles in our world, and she'd said that Winterfell was about as big as the biggest ones I'd shown her.

I hadn't forgotten about getting Paul Bennett out of the picture, not for one second. When I had a chance at work, I scoured through the police records on my computer, looking for anything at all that I could use. At home, safe from the traces put on my work computer, I did the same thing, researching him as thoroughly as I ever had my (or the Dark Passenger's) playmates.

Unfortunately, nothing I found was very useful. There was a lot of stuff from before he'd been sent to prison, but it was old news. He hadn't been out of custody for long enough to get up to much.

His prison record, I had to admit, was exemplary. He'd stayed out of trouble, gone to therapy, taken adult-ed classes, and earned himself a bachelor's degree as well as the certification that had got him work at the truck repair shop. If I hadn't known as much about him as I did, I might have figured that he was a reformed character.

At the thought of Paul Bennett ever really reforming, I could hear the Dark Passenger chuckling to himself.

The next time we went to Charleston, Astor and Cody were along. It was a weekend, so they were back home. We wouldn't be seeing Ms. Taliaferro, of course. But I knew Astor and Cody very much wanted to see their mother. And Rita, although she seemed to be adjusting to jail life with remarkable aplomb, longed and longed to see the children she had borne.

Sure enough, when Rita caught sight of Astor and Cody, she burst into tears. Astor was tearing up, too, and Cody's usual blank expression was gone. Rita hurriedly reassured her children: "These are happy tears, Astor, Cody. I'm so very glad to see you again!" Then she spotted Arya, standing back beside me and looking a little left-out. "Oh, dear! Arya, Dexter, I didn't mean to exclude you! It's just that I haven't seen Astor and Cody in so long!"

"A girl understands perfectly," Arya said, with a rather strange look on her face. As Astor filled her mother in on what she'd been doing since they saw each other last, Arya muttered in my ear: "A girl will explain when we have privacy. The walls have ears, here." I nodded, agreeing completely. I knew that we were being monitored every second we were in there.

Finally, Astor ran out of news. For such a quiet girl, she could talk a lot when she was so minded. Having reassured herself about her babies, Rita focused on Arya and me. "Oh! Dexter! Arya! I didn't mean to leave you out! How have you been?"

"A girl has been doing well. Here is a girl's latest report card." Arya pressed her school report up to the glass that separated us from Rita, so that Rita could see it clearly.

"Oh, how wonderful!" Arya had pulled down nearly all perfect grades, and her teachers' remarks about her behavior praised her to the skies for her politeness, ladylike behavior and cooperative attitude.

When she had read her teachers' comments, Arya herself had been hugely amused. "A girl wishes her first teacher, Septa Mordane, and a girl's big sister, Sansa Stark, could see these," she had said, laughing. "They would never believe it!"

From what she said, Arya's older sister was very different from her. Sansa was apparently very pretty, demure, and good at all "ladylike" pursuits...singing, needlework, and so on. Arya had apparently been a huge contrast, being uninterested in ladylike pursuits. Arya had loved climbing trees, riding horseback and all outdoor pursuits. The sisters had not got on well. "A girl misses her sister," Arya had confided once, "but a girl is much better friends with Astor than she ever was with Sansa."

One evening, we were sitting around the living room with Deb. We had been out to a place called Casa Mazatlan, enjoying a huge Mexican buffet. Arya had never had Mexican food, and it had been a pleasure to see her enjoying it.

Deb and I had also been well fed and all seemed well in Dexter's world. I had noticed that Arya had warmed considerably to Deb since Deb had given Arya her sword. Previously, while Arya had always been perfectly polite to Deb, there had been a certain distance.

Out of nowhere, Arya began talking. "A girl remembers the time she thought she was going to be reunited with her mother and oldest brother, Robb,. A girl had been on her travels for a while, with various companions. At first, a girl had been traveling with a company of recruits for the Night's Watch." She was staring into space, lost in her memories. Deb and I were both very quiet.

She had mentioned the Night's Watch before. They were a sort of "legion of the lost" whose job it was to guard the huge wall that Arya said separated her homeland from the wild folk of the north. I didn't put much store in her accounts of the size of that wall, but Arya admitted that she had never seen it herself.

"If a girl could not make it to Winterfell, her other plan was to get to the Wall. A girl's older half-brother, Jon Snow, was there. He was always close to a girl. He gave a girl her Needle. But a girl was repeatedly sidetracked. After many adventures and much peril, a girl and Sandor Clegane got in sight of the Twins." At our puzzled expressions, she explained: "The Twins are two conjoined castles incorporating a great bridge, the only one over the Green Fork of the Trident River. Its owners, House Frey, have become very wealthy because they decide who crosses the Green Fork, and can charge crossers what they please. Anybody else who tried to set up a ferry service, or build another bridge, would find that the Freys would prevent him."

"Sounds like a sweet setup," Deborah remarked. "And you say you knew your mother and brother were there?"

"A girl's uncle, Edmure Tully, was to marry one of Lord Walder Frey's many daughters. Lord Walder has many, many children. He is on his eighth wife, and he's over ninety himself." Deb's eyes went wide, and so did mine. Even Henry VIII hadn't done that!

My Dark Passenger whispered that anybody who went through wives at that rate might well have been helping them to the Great Beyond, and could well deserve a place on my "future playmates" list. I made a mental note. Not that I expected or wanted to end up in Westeros...it sounded like a medieval hellhole, even without the multi-sided civil war Arya spoke of...but if I did, I'd have no lack of potential playmates.

"A girl, and Sandor Clegane, had come to the Twins because we had heard of this wedding. But before we could make ourselves known, a girl's kin were ambushed and slaughtered."

"By their enemies?" asked Deb. Arya had told us more than enough for us to know that the Starks had many enemies.

"No. By the Freys." Arya's face twisted into a mask of pure hatred. "The Freys welcomed a girl's kin into their home as guests, gave them food...and murdered them."

She went on in a detached monotone, giving us frightful details. "They cut a girl's brother's head off his shoulders after he was dead and sewed the head of his wolf on it in its place. They cut a girl's mother's throat as she begged for the life of her son. They pulled a girl's uncle out of his wedding bed and threw him into a dungeon. They killed a girl's family's retainers and supporters."

I may be a monster with no human feelings, but I was shocked nearly senseless. This was a level of depravity such as even Disgusted Dexter had never thought to encounter. I had read enough to know that hospitality was sacred everywhere, and there was no crime more reprehended than killing one's guest or host. The Freys as a whole suddenly achieved a very prominent place on my "potential playmates" list. That is, if Dexter ever visited Westeros.

I could see that Deborah was just as horrified as I was. "I really wish those people were here," Deb said. "My friends on the force and I would love to extend some warm Miami-Dade police hospitality to them."

"A girl wishes that she could grant your desire, Deborah," Arya said. "A girl only told this story once since she came here. She told it to Astor and Cody, one night when the adults were doing something else."

"How did they react?" I asked.

"Very like you. Before a girl left her own world, a girl heard that the Freys' name was mud from one end of Westeros to the other, and that other than their very few allies, nobody would willingly associate with them. Even their allies considered Frey lives to be utterly expendable."

"And serves them right!" said Deb.

Rita was due to come up for her preliminary hearing soon. Along with her employers, Astor, Cody and I traveled north to Charleston to testify and lend Rita all the emotional support we could. Arya wanted to come, but it was decided that she'd stay with Deb for a few days. "A girl can handle this," she remarked, seeing Deb's rather spartan living quarters. "A girl lived far worse on her travels in Westeros." She looked up at Deb and gave her a rare smile. "Perhaps Deborah can come along and watch a girl's fencing lesson?"

"I'd love to!" Deb said, smiling back at Arya. I was glad to see that those two were beginning to bond. Who knew? Astor was already planning to become a policewoman, and eventually a tough sergeant like Deborah was. Maybe Arya would be infected with the same ambition!

In Charleston, the children and I stayed at the same place we'd been at the other times we'd been up. By this time, just as I had predicted, we'd flown so regularly that the people on the airline recognized us. They welcomed Astor and Cody, and made sure we all were comfortable. While it was a short flight in a puddle-jumper, I appreciated the thought. I remembered when Rita and I had flown to Paris for our honeymoon, and what an ordeal that had been.

Rita, of course, was delighted to see us all. When she was led into the courtroom, she waved to us, only to be sternly reprimanded by one of the bailiffs. She sat down in the defendant's chair, but I could tell she was aching to turn and gaze her fill on her family.

At least the judge was not "Hardcore" Hamilton. That judge was apparently on another case, and this was being heard by a different judge.

The judge first asked the prosecution to state its case. The prosecution brought forth a sheaf of documents, mostly affadavits from people I'd never heard of, who insisted that Rita was an important link in a drug-distribution chain that reached all across the American South.

The judge listened to these solemnly, along with testimony from a couple of people whom Disbelieving Dexter wouldn't have believed if they said water was wet. Then it was our side's turn.

Ms. Taliaferro called Rita's employer to the stand. He swore, under oath, that Rita'd not been out of Miami, save for her honeymoon in Paris, for quite some time. He went on to say that she'd worked for him for years, and he'd never seen any sign that she was involved with drugs. "In fact, Your Honor," he said, "my client is, if anything, very much against drugs. She saw what drugs did to her first husband."

Then Astor took the stand. I'd told her to try to show some emotion, and she did her best, pleading with the judge to release her mother. "I need my mother, Your Honor! I need my mother at home! A girl needs her mother!" For a second, I was reminded ineluctably of Arya, and wondered what she was doing. She'd have found the whole procedure here quite interesting.

When Cody took the stand, his Vulcan-like composure never faltered. "I really would like Mom to be back home," he told the judge. "Dexter does his best, and it's a good best, but it's not like having Mom there. Without her, there's a Mom-shaped hole in my life."

I had high hopes that the judge would be moved by all this, but after some deliberation, he bound Rita over for trial. The trial would be in a month or two, and until then, unless we could raise bail somehow, Rita would stay in jail in Charleston.

As they led her out, Rita gave us another look of pure longing that made me feel things I had never thought to feel. I wanted to get the people who'd made this happen under my knives, Code of Harry or no Code of Harry. And I knew that Astor and Cody felt just the same way.