Dexter at Dawn

Chapter 16

by Technomad

Over the next few days, life went on much as it had before Paul Bennett had tried to get Astor and Cody back. I dropped the children off at school, went off to my job, and picked them up at the end of the day. The crime scenes I was called to were routine, with nothing about them to make them memorable. I could feel the Dark Passenger all but yawning in the back of my mind. I reminded it that this was Miami, and something interesting would come along.

Sure enough, something interesting came along. There'd been a massive shootout at a drug dealer's fancy mansion, and all of us forensics guys were needed to make sense of what had happened. I couldn't see why we were bothering. To my mind, cocaine cowboys blowing each other away was nothing to worry about, unless innocent civilians got in their line of fire.

When we got there I could see I had my work more than cut out for me. There were bodies everywhere, most of them torn by bullets, and blood all over the place. I looked at the surroundings. They were like what most cocaine cowboys build: gaudy and overdone. There was a fountain in the middle of the big room I stood in, with a globe over it still saying in glowing letters: "The World is Yours."

I got out my gear and began to work. I could tell that this was going to be a long, dreary job, and I called the Sulas. Charlene Sula answered.

"Why, Dexter Morgan! What's happening in your life?"

"I'm at a crime scene, Charlene. I may be late...the scene's pretty spectacular. Could you pick up the kids at school and take them to your place?" I'd had to do this a couple of times before, and the school knew that it was all right to let the children go with the Sulas. Their status as parents of a schoolmate eased things enormously.

"Why, of course, Dexter! We understand about your work! Is this anything you can tell us about?"

"You should see it all on the evening news. Even for Miami, this was a big one." At that point, Angel-no-relation called me over to talk to me, and I had to put my phone away.

We were looking at the body of the guy who had apparently owned the house we were in. He'd been torn by bullets and fallen into his own fountain, but somehow, he was still breathing, even if just barely. Deb, beside me, shook her head.

"I don't know if this is this guy's unlucky day, or his lucky day, Dex," Deb commented, as the paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher and loaded him aboard for a trip to Jackson Memorial. She looked around. "He was apparently all alone, but my God, he put up one hell of a fight!"

I had to agree. The bodies of his assailants were strewn all around, torn by bullets or some kind of explosive. He'd been alone, but he'd made the other side really work to bring him down. I thought that if he'd been around in World War II, Iwo Jima would have been a walkover.

Finally, after midnight, the work was done and the Powers that Were let us all go home. I called the Sulas to tell them I was done with work.

"Why, Dexter! We were worried about you! No need to worry about the children! Astor, Arya and Cody are staying the night here, and we'll take them to school tomorrow! They've been perfect angels! Do you want to stop by and see them before going to bed?"

I did. Monster though I may be, I was concerned about my three little predators, and wanted to reassure myself that they were safe. Even though I knew the Sulas were quite trustworthy, something wouldn't let me rest until I had seen the children for myself.

When I got to the Sulas' residence, Charlene let me in. "Shh. The rest of the family's asleep, but I stayed up until I heard from you." Walking as silently as I do when coming up on a playmate, she led me to where the children were.

Astor, Arya and Caroline were all asleep in one room, cuddled up on a bed together. Charlene sighed. "Aw, aren't they sweet?" I had to agree. I took out my phone, and after I'd silently got approval from Charlene, took a picture. I knew Rita would want to see this.

Then we went to see Cody. He was in a bunk bed with Caroline's little brother. Unsurprisingly for Cody, he had a bed to himself. While he got along with Caroline's brother Calvin, he had a difficult time relating to other children in general. I took another picture and got out of there. For some reason, my vision was blurry and I had to sit in my car for a little while before driving home to my lonely bed.

The next day, I made sure to call Rita to tell her what was going on. She was delighted to find that the Sulas had been so helpful. "I'm so glad to hear that...you said you got pictures? I'll want to see them...I miss my babies so much!" She let out a sob. "I've got to go...they're starting the trial up...do keep in touch!" As I hung up, I renewed my vow to find out who had framed Rita and get him under my knives, the Code of Harry be damned.

The amount of paperwork I had to do on that massacre I'd been summoned to kept me virtuously occupied all day long. Deb also had a lot of work to do, so for a chance, she left me alone and didn't summon me to work what she thinks is my mystic voodoo to tell her who did some sick savage crime. It was a peaceful day, all in all, and I was almost sorry when it came time to go pick up the junior predators from school.

"I'm glad that the Sulas were willing to step up to the plate," Deb remarked. "One problem with this job is that you can be called in on awfully short notice."

"Remember how Harry always had to leave in the middle of things when they called him in?" I asked. I could remember family dinners and other occasions interrrupted by a call from the station, asking him to come to work due to some emergency or other.

"I know. Mom didn't like it when Dad would have to leave like that, but I was always proud of him," Deb said. She looked a little sad as she remembered her father. "I wanted to grow up to make him proud of me, and to be as like him as I could be."

"If he could see you now, Deb, I think he'd be so proud of you he'd be about to burst his buttons," I assured her. And I was telling nothing but the truth. Harry had always been a proud Miami policeman, and to see his daughter following in his footsteps would have gratified him enormously.

She gave me a grateful look. "Thanks, Dex. I know we don't always see eye-to-eye, but I know you've always got my back." Which was also the truth. While I'm no trained policeman, I had found myself in some very scary situations with Deb, and she knew that I'd do my utmost to protect her, just as she would for me.

To get us off this mushy subject, I asked: "Can you imagine how Harry would react to seeing Astor hero-worshiping you?"

At that thought, Deb gave me a gamine grin. "I think that hearing her calling me 'aunt sergeant' would blow his mind a little, but Dad did understand that women have a place on the force. We can go places and do things men can't, and women will often open up to us when they won't talk to guys." Which was also nothing but the truth.

Many times, I had seen traumatized female crime victims. They often wouldn't say a word to male cops, no matter how gentle the cop's manner. But they'd talk freely to a woman. Women cops also had an easier time dealing with children, who were often very frightened of male policemen.

The massacre at the drug lord's mansion kept us all occupied for some time. All of the dead turned out to have extensive criminal records, both in Florida and their native Bolivia, and liaising with the Bolivian police to get them all identified and claimed was a ticklish job at best. While I'm no diplomat, my fluent Spanish came into play repeatedly, as I found myself dragged away from my usual duties to act as an interpreter. Angel-no-relation could also speak the language, but his Spanish was Cuban, and Bolivians often had a lot of trouble following him. I can follow Cuban, but my own spoken Spanish is more generic.

Much to my surprise, the wounded drug lord himself was still alive. All credit goes to Jackson Memorial Hospital. They have more experience with gunshot wounds than many military medical people, because the gangbangers and cocaine dealers in my beloved Miami keep them so well-supplied. He was severely wounded, though, and still unconscious.

I overheard the narcotics boys talking about what to do when he recovered. "We may be able to turn him," one of them speculated. "He won't be happy with the guys who shot him up."

"He won't be happy with us, either" another narc predicted. "We confiscated all his money, his houses, his cars...everything. He won't have a pot to piss in, even when he can piss again."

"One way or another, we can turn that Cuban bastard," the first narc swore. "He's scum. They're all scum."

"They? Do you mean Cubans?" The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees suddenly. Every Cuban in earshot was suddenly listening very intently. I couldn't believe the man's stupidity. Miami's crawling with Cubans, and being bigoted against them would be incredibly stupid, particularly for a policeman. "Accidents" for policemen are very easy to arrange.

"Of course not!" The first narc realized what a mistake he'd nearly made. "I meant druggies. There's not a druggie on Earth with any loyalty to anything or anybody but his next high." At that, the tension level went down to normal, and I sighed with relief. Police work is difficult enough without us at each other's throats.

My little disciples were interested in what I could tell them about my days at work. Unlike Rita, from whom I preferred to keep a lot of the details of my job, they were all but unshockable, and often had cogent things to say.

"A girl thinks this drug baron person was incredibly stupid," Arya remarked, after I'd described the slaughterhouse I'd walked into at his mansion. "In his shoes, a girl would have built a more defensible house, and made sure to have trustworthy guards on duty at all times." A shadow passed over her face as she visibly remembered her home. "Of course, finding trustworthy guards, particularly in that man's line of work, is a problem in and of itself."

"Sloppy," Cody put in. "Sloppy, and overconfident." We all looked at him. For him to speak at all was unusual, and what he'd said was quite cogent and to the point.

"Exactly, Cody," I said, in my role as Didactic Dexter. "When you're sloppy and overconfident, you neglect basic precautions and then...then your enemies can get at you, one way or another."

"Too many of these drug lords think they've got to show off to the world how much money they're making," said Astor. "In their shoes, I'd live very inconspicuously, and be banking the money somewhere safe overseas out of reach of the government or my enemies." She nodded, as though she had made up her mind. "In that line of work, being flashy and conspicuous is like hanging out a sign saying: 'Here I am! Come and get me!' Police and rivals take that as a direct challenge."

"Precisely!" I said proudly. "Which is why I want to train all three of you to be inconspicuous. They say finding a needle in a haystack is hard..."

"Why would one look for a needle in a haystack? A girl thinks that makes no sense," Arya interrupted. "Needles are valuable. A girl's mother and sister kept theirs in safe places and counted them regularly."

"It's just an expression, Arya," I explained. "I'm sure you have expressions like that in Westeros. It's a way of describing something that's very hard to find." She nodded understanding, and I went on: "Okay, searching for a needle in a haystack would be very difficult. Particularly without a very powerful electromagnet." I knew Arya would understand what an electromagnet was, since she and Astor were studying them in science class, and I had helped her with her homework. "But imagine searching for a needle that was hidden inside a single stalk of hay!" All three children's eyes went wide as they saw what I meant. "To the eye, and to the hand, at least at first, it looks like every other strand of hay. But inside it is the needle you seek."

"Ah!" I could see light dawning in Arya's eyes, and for a second, wondered what sort of a teacher I might have made. It was a very gratifying feeling. "A girl understands! That is a good expression, Dexter! A girl will remember it!"

"So to stay safe, remember to act like others around you, at least where they can see you." I could see Cody giving me an eloquently mutinous look, and added: "Look, there are a lot more of them than there are of you. Acting like them keeps you from attracting attention you don't want."

"I see," Astor said thoughtfully. She gave Cody a look that said, plain as day, that she'd be having a Talk with her brother as soon as they were alone. They were both veterans of Paul Bennett's mistreatment, and had things in common that they shared with no one else in the world.

Speaking of Paul Bennett, I was still suspicious about his misfortune. I wondered just how good Annie Wilkes was with a firearm, and how well she'd been getting along with dear Paul. I knew that Deb was tight with some of the nurses over at Jackson Memorial, so I asked her to discreetly ask around among them, and get their slant on dear Ms. Wilkes.

Deb thought this was a great idea, and promised to do just that. A couple of days later, she came back to me full of news.

"Annie Wilkes is popular with the nurses she oversees, and they were willing to tell me a lot about her. I know you got a lot of information about her from the Net, but there's nothing like first-hand observation, is there?"

I had to agree with that. In my hobby, I often watched my future playmates, learning their habits and figuring out just how I was going to deal with them. This saves me a lot of trouble and has helped keep me out of the clutches of that old whore, Florida Justice. If I were less meticulous in my observations, I might well have landed in Old Sparky, or at least, ended up as a longtime guest of the great State of Florida.

"However, she's a real control freak. Things have to be exactly just-so, or she goes coldly nuts on whoever's messed things up. To an extent, this is a good thing in a nurse, but a lot of the girls think she takes things a little too far."

"How so?"

"Oh, telling them which cars to buy, how to wear their hair, things like that. It never mattered to me," she said with a gamine grin, "but most women really, really don't like having their hairstyle dictated to them. The ones she's done this to resent the hell out of it, and are beginning to resent her."

I had to agree with Deb's analysis. Rita's more relaxed on the subject of her hair than most women, but I figured that having some superior at her workplace start telling her how to wear it would rub her just the wrong way.

When Deborah left, I sat back in my easy chair and thought. I could think of quite a few scenarios where a control nut like Annie Wilkes might have lost it badly enough to put a bullet or two into Paul Bennett. As far as I could tell, Paul hadn't touched drugs, and I'd seen no reports of him getting violent, but with a martinet like Annie Wilkes apparently was, it wouldn't take anything like that to push her over the edge.

I'd seen people like that before, mostly in my work. Police work has a magnetic attraction for that type, and they often sail through the academy with a shining record. But once on the job, they start showing their real colors, and inevitably are disciplined or even fired for overzealousness. Sergeant Doakes had been inclined that way, although he'd managed to avoid serious trouble with his superiors before his unfortunate run-in with the demented "Doctor Danco" had all but ended his police career.

I wished I could get in and talk with Paul Bennett, to find out what had happened. Unfortunately, he knew me and Deb both, and if he saw us he'd clam up tight. He had no reason (in his own twisted mind) to love us, and I think he sensed that I'd love to invite him for a Dark Dance with the Dark Passenger.

Maybe, I thought, I could get one of my colleagues to question him about just what had gone down? Angel-no-relation would be a good choice...he liked me and thought well of me, and I knew he wasn't too happy about the Rita situation.

The next morning, I went off to work. We were still making sense of what had happened at the cocaine cowboy's place. A shootout that large is unusual even for Miami, and most of us were roped into helping out, one way or another.

"There was enough cocaine in that place to get half of Miami high," one of the federal agents who'd been called in to assist us said. "With him off the streets, the price should go up."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I wanted to know. Ever since Miami had become an epicenter of the cocaine-smuggling trade, shootouts and other murders had become increasingly common. From my point of view, it meant more work for me, but also meant that I wasn't in any danger of being downsized out of the Miami-Dade police department.

"Not good. A higher price means more people will be trying to bring the stuff in, and that'll mean more trouble."

"Maybe they should legalize it?" I asked. I knew that back before about World War I, cocaine had been legal, and had caused no problems that I could identify in the historical record.

The fed looked at me like I'd just confessed all about my hobby. I mentally kicked myself. Without druggies to chase, the DEA would be all out of jobs!