Dexter at Dawn
Chapter 9
by Technomad
We settled into a routine while waiting for Rita's first court appearance. Astor and Cody returned on weekends, and we would sometimes be able to fly up to Charleston for a quick visit with Rita, but during the week, it was just me and Arya. Arya was no trouble at all, and we jogged along splendidly. I'd take her to school and drop her off, go to work, and either pick her up myself after school or have Deb do it because I was tied up at a crime scene. Deb was happy to help, and Arya was perfectly willing to let her help.
At one point, Arya was visited by a woman from Child Protective Services, who insisted on speaking to Arya alone, without me present. I knew she was sniffing around for any excuse she could find to place Arya somewhere else. With the eternal panic over pedophiles, the idea of Arya living alone with me set their mental alarms ringing.
Arya submitted to the interview with good grace. I had warned her that well-meaning people would try to get an excuse to remove her from our household. The interview took place in our living room. Meanwhile, I busied myself with my computer in the back of the house.
I had just started researching a particularly interesting potential playmate when Arya appeared with the CPS lady behind her. I turned off the screen and turned to see what the news was.
"Well, Mr. Morgan, I can see no reasons to re-house Miss Stark," the CPS woman said. The word "unfortunately" was not spoken, but I heard it in her tone of voice. She didn't approve of our current situation. "Miss Stark says she has been well-treated here. Her school reports are excellent, and you've apparently enrolled her in a sports program, which she says she enjoys very much. She says she wishes to remain here. So that's what we'll do." She got her purse and left.
Arya came over to me. "That woman asked a girl many questions. She kept asking if you had peeked on a girl when she was dressing or in the bath. She wanted to know if you had ever touched a girl in ways that you shouldn't, or come into a girl's bedroom at night and done things." She flashed a rare real smile. "A girl did not think it wise to demonstrate that she is not defenseless." Suddenly a knife appeared in her hand. Her Dark Passenger appeared, looking out through her eyes, as my own Passenger gave it a comradely greeting.
"I'm glad to hear that you like it here, Arya," I said, feeling the knot in my stomach untie itself. While I do not have human feelings, I had got used to Arya. And with Rita gone, and Astor and Cody only around on the weekends, I found that I valued the companionship that Arya offered. I knew that Astor would miss Arya very much if Arya were forced to leave our household. Arya herself had already been uprooted several times, and I did not like the idea of that happening again. Harry Morgan had given me a stable, secure childhood, and doing the same for Arya...and Astor and Cody...was the only way I could "pay it forward." I hoped I could do as well by Astor, Arya and Cody as Harry had done by me.
"What are you doing, Dexter?" Arya asked. "Is this for work?"
Since I had been frank with Arya about my hobby, even more than I had been with Astor and Cody when we had a chance to talk privately, I told her the truth. "I'm doing research on a potential playmate."
"Oh. May a girl see?" I turned the computer screen back on, and Arya came and leaned over my sholder to read it. "Oh. This is a bad person, Dexter! Not as bad as some a girl knew in her former home, but bad enough."
As always, Arya was a mistress of understatement. My potential playmate-to-be had killed several people. Some of them were gangland trash...no big loss, in other words, and not the sort of thing that I would normally take an interest in...but he'd also done for his sister, his brother-in-law, and their children. That murder had let him slide on charges of child molestation and rape, brought by his sister. He'd been alibied by some of his scumbag associates, who swore that he'd been playing pool with them in one of their basements when that murder went down. There was no way of contradicting their testimony, so the police had had to let him go.
I'd heard Deb talking about him, and mentioning several times how much she'd like to find evidence to send him straight to Old Sparky. But her hands, and the hands of the courts, were tied.
The court of the Dark Passenger, on the other hand, runs on very different rules. The standards are less strict than in the courts of law, and there is no appeal from the Dark Passenger's verdict. I could feel the Passenger, all but begging me to put this man at the front of my list of playmates. I thought that was an excellent idea.
So did Arya, when I put it to her. "Perhaps we should go take a look at where this person lives?" she asked. "In Braavos, at the House of Black and White, we did not strike until we had learned all about a potential target that we could. The more we knew, the more successful we were."
That struck me as very well thought-out. "Let's go, then, Arya." Soon we were in the car, heading through Miami's deadly traffic to the area where our playmate-to-be lived. After several routine close calls and brushes with an untimely death, we were in the neighborhood.
It was an area that the Miami Chamber of Commerce would never want out-of-state tourists to even know about. The houses were run-down and untidy, with toys and trash strewn everywhere. Nearly every other house had at least one half-disassembled car in the driveway, up on cinder blocks. The people gave us the stink-eye as we drove on by, since my car, although by no means new or classic, stood out in this area like a sore thumb. "They think we're police," I told Arya.
"A girl thinks that with a different car, and possibly different clothes, we would not be noticed. Do you know where you could lay hands on the sort of car they drive here?"
I thought about it as we drove out, back to neighborhoods where we weren't so obviously not from there. "I'd have to think about that, Arya, but that'd be a good idea. I don't know how I'd explain another car, though. We've got Rita's car and my car already, and Rita and I are the only two drivers in the family." Astor, Arya and Cody were all too young to drive.
"Let us think about this. The playmate does not seem to be going anywhere." With that thought, we headed back home. When we got there, Arya busied herself in the kitchen. "Rita taught a girl some things," she said, and I left her to it. I went back to my computer, researching places that sold cheap used cars. There were quite a few of them for sale in Miami. With my knowledge of the city and its environs, I could pinpoint where they were, and eliminate ones that were in really questionable neighborhoods. I did not want to be mugged. There were areas of Miami where I'd be an instant target, if only for standing out conspicuously from the local population.
After a while, I noticed some very good smells were coming from the kitchen. Arya came in and announced: "A girl has cooked dinner. A girl knows it's not as good as Rita's cooking, but a girl hopes you like it."
I was surprised to see that Arya had cooked dinner perfectly competently. It was simple food, but more than enough to keep Dexter from hunger pangs, and I enjoyed it. "How did you learn to do that, Arya? Did they teach you that back where you came from?"
"A girl was once a nobleman's daughter, and expected to marry a nobleman. A nobleman's wife is expected to run a household, and must know how to cook, sew, and do a thousand and one other things to keep things going." Arya gave me another of her rare real smiles. "A girl wishes that her mother, her sister, and her old teacher Septa Mordane were here. They'd be amazed at how much of what they tried to teach a girl actually stuck."
"I'm sure they'd be very proud of you. Shall we clean up? Rita would hate to see her kitchen and dining area all messy." Shortly, we were occupied with cleaning the dishes enough to put them into the dishwasher, and putting things back in order in the kitchen. I hated the thought of poor Rita being freed, coming home, and finding her lovely home a mess.
When I called Rita, I told her about Arya's exploits in the kitchen. "Oh! That's wonderful! She was so interested when I showed her our stove, microwave and refrigerator! She said that her family always had to cook over open fires!"
"Yes, from what she's said, where she came from they're still in the Middle Ages. One reason she loves it here is that it doesn't stink. She says she got so used to the stink she didn't notice it, but she did notice when it was gone."
"I'm so glad we took her in!" Then Rita changed the subject. "Is there any chance of bailing me out of here?"
"The bail bondsmen want the house as collateral, and since you live here in Miami, you're considered enough of a flight risk that the bail would be very high. I don't know if we could raise enough. The house is in your name, so you'd have to sign off on a mortgage on it, and it's already mortgaged, so I'm not sure how much we could get."
"Oh, dear! I never thought of that!" She paused for a moment. "Perhaps I should ask some of the other women in here. We're all great friends now, and get along splendidly. Some of them are teaching me tricks for how to make this place more bearable, and I'm helping some of them with adult education courses."
"Excellent! Do any of them know the people who testified that you'd been involved with the drug trade?" Unlike me, Rita's a "people person" and can make friends with just about anybody. I do think that if she met Satan, she'd find something nice to say about him and soon have him as one of her new friends.
"Not so far, but I am trying. They all think that the charges against me are ridiculous." She gulped for a second, then changed the subject. "How are the children doing?"
"Astor, Arya and Cody are all doing well in school. They miss you very much. Arya's got another fencing competition coming up, and she wishes very much that you could come see it." This provoked a torrent of weeping, and then Rita hung up. As I put the phone down, I felt desolate. I don't normally feel that way...monsters don't have human feelings...but I felt bad for Rita. I also felt furious anger at whoever...I suspected Paul Bennett had had a hand in it, but at that time I had no proof...had arranged for her to be arrested at all, much less on such serious charges.
I've been around the police all my life, what with growing up with Harry and working for the Miami police department ever since graduating college, not to mention having Deb for a sister. I'd seen many arrests, and thought little of them, even when they were very rough. A lot of the people cops have to deal with are dangerous, and will often resist arrest violently.
But Rita was nothing like those people. She had no criminal record, and other than what she'd picked up from conversations with me and Deb, no experience with dealing with the justice system. I was afraid that she'd make some sort of mistake or other, and either be harmed by some of the people with whom she was currently locked up, or get herself convicted and sentenced to many years in a state women's prison. I did not want either of those things to happen.
I applied myself to researching the witnesses who had testified against Rita. Unsurprisingly, they lived in South Carolina, mostly in Charleston. This was a serious handicap. If they'd lived in Miami, I could have tracked them down and let the Dark Passenger have its way with them, the Code of Harry be damned. Harry would have understood, I thought. While he was as hard-assed as any other cop about people who'd really committed crimes, he detested the fact that innocents often were convicted.
I was still puzzling about just what to do when it came time for bed. After supervising Arya as much as I could, I went to bed myself. I spent much of the night tossing and turning, trying to come up with a plan to free and exonerate Rita.
Arya told me the next day that she had another fencing tourney coming up. "It is on the weekend, so Astor and Cody can be there, too," she told me. "A girl would be very gratified if you could all come and see her fence. A girl's teacher tells her that she has improved greatly since her first competition, and may well be promoted to 'E' rank. 'E' is the second-lowest fencing rank; 'A' is the highest."
"We'll be there!" I promised her. "I'll see if Deb can come along, too. I bet she'd find the whole thing interesting."
On the Big Night, all of us...Deb, Astor, Cody and me...filed into the gymnasium where the competition was to be held. This time, they were up against another fencing school. The odors and sights took me back to my high school days.
Deb noticed it, too. "All they need is cheerleaders," she muttered in my ear. With her looks and her athletic ability, she could easily have been a cheerleader when we were in school, but she'd rejected all pleas for her to go out for cheerleading with utter scorn. She's never been really comfortable with her beauty, and detests it when men make passes at her instead of complying when she's out on the job.
Madame Duchamp and the head of the other fencing school came out. "Welcome, welcome," Madame Duchamp said. "Tonight, we are pleased to welcome the students and teachers of our esteemed rival, the Hialeah School of Fencing. We expect some interesting competition tonight, and hope that you enjoy watching as much as we do participating!" Everybody applauded, and the bouts began.
The higher-ranked students fenced first, and I could tell that they were very good. I'd have hated to face any of them in a sword-fight with live steel. They'd have had me skewered in short order. All three weapons...sabre, epee and foil...were represented, and I was very interested in the different techniques used for each weapon.
If I were learning fencing in anticipation of getting into a real swordfight, I'd be very interested in the epee and sabre. With the epee, the whole body is a valid target, and "right-of-way" rules do not exist. The sabre is more restricted, but one can use the edge as well as the point. I would want to combine both of them, since I could see the advantages of both styles.
Astor and Cody were also absorbed in the spectacle. Astor had apparently got herself some books on the subject, and was explaining things to Cody, who listened to his sister with total attention in between spectating. Deb leaned closer and said "Astor might like to do this, too."
"Yeah, but right now she's just starting judo. Let's see how well she does with that." We had decided that judo was the martial art Astor should learn, since, unlike kung fu and karate, not to mention more exotic styles like what's called "ninjutsu," it had a central authority which regulated it. You couldn't just rent a storefront, put some mats down, don a costume and call yourself a judo instructor. Since we didn't want Astor subjected to incompetent or even harmful teaching, we had opted for judo.
Astor herself seemed to enjoy it, although she had to depend on Paul Bennett or Deb to take her to her lessons. So far, she was doing well, and her instructor had praised her diligence and willingness to practice.
Out on the piste, the unrated fencers were beginning their matches. I watched them and wondered when Arya would take her turn. Finally, she was announced. Madame Duchamp's voice rang out over the PA system: "And for our next competition, Miss Arya Stark and Miss Caroline Sula!" We applauded along with everybody else as Arya came out to meet her opponent, a very pretty girl about her own age with light-blonde hair. They shook hands, turned, and went to opposite ends of the piste to prepare for the bout. I got out my phone and got ready to take pictures to send to Rita.
Miss Sula was good. Very good indeed. Between my own research, talks with Arya about her sport, and watching these matches, I had soaked up enough information to be able to watch knowledgably. The Hialeah School turned out good fencers. The score between the two schools was fairly close to even. I could see that Arya had her work cut out for her.
She was equal to the task, though. She fended off a flurry of attacks and then went on the offensive herself. She was ferociously aggressive, and fended off Caroline's attacks easily, scoring hit after hit. All that time wandering homeless in that medieval morass she said she'd come from had toughened her considerably. I had come to believe her stories about her old home, and wondered for a second what her parents would have said and thought if they could see her now. I hoped they'd be proud of her. I certainly was.
So were Deb, Cody and Astor. They kept quiet, as etiquette demanded, while the fencing was going on, but I could tell by their body language that they were rooting for Arya as hard as they could. When, at the end of the match, she was declared the winner, they were all smiles.
Caroline Sula was a good sport, and in my opinion, a real lady. She'd been at the sport longer than Arya had, according to the program book, and it had to hurt to lose to a relative newcomer. But she shook Arya's hand and gave us all a brilliant smile.
Afterward, Arya came up to us with Caroline Sula in tow. "A girl wishes you to meet her new family," she told Caroline. "Caroline, this is Deborah Morgan, a girl's aunt sergeant. And this is Dexter Morgan, who found a girl adrift off Miami and took her aboard his boat to bring her safely to shore. This is Astor, and this is Cody. They are a girl's new sister and brother. Everybody, this is Caroline Sula."
Caroline shook hands with all of us. She was even prettier close up, with big green eyes and a porcelain complexion. "Glad to meet all of you. I remember reading online about Arya's arrival in Miami, but never thought I'd get to meet her. She's got real talent! Going up against such as her keeps me sharp and on my toes. I'm looking forward to a re-match one of these days. And...'aunt sergeant?'" She looked at Deb curiously. "Pardon me for asking, but are you in the military?"
Deb shook her head. "No, Caroline. I'm a sergeant in the Miami-Dade police. Astor, here, started calling me 'aunt sergeant,' and Arya picked that up from her."
"Oh. Would you mind if I asked you some questions about police work? I've thought about a career in law enforcement myself, but don't know anybody who has 'been and done,' as they say. At least not recently."
I could see that Deb was quite charmed. Caroline Sula could probably have lured the birds out of the trees if she'd wanted. In a few years, I thought she would wreak havoc among the boys in her school. "Sure, Caroline. Astor's also interested in police work, so maybe you can talk with her, too. Do you think you can join us for dinner?"
"If my mom can come. Let me ask her. Hey, Mom!" A blonde lady, looking very like her lovely daughter, came over and smiled at us. Caroline hastened to make introductions. "Mom, can we go to dinner with the Morgans? I want to ask Sergeant Morgan, here, about law enforcement work. She's on the police force herself."
"Why, certainly, darling, if I can come along!" We hastened to assure her that she was welcome, and were soon deciding on where to go for dinner.
I enjoyed the evening very much, partly from seeing Arya do so well, partly from having Astor and Cody back in the house again for a little while, and partly from meeting Caroline Sula and her mother, Charlene. They were excellent company, and the dinner was wonderful.
But there was also a note of sadness. I couldn't help but imagining Rita as a sad ghost, watching the evening unfold but unable to participate or tell Arya how proud she was of her victory.