Dexter's Final Cut (5 page)

The rest of her seemed to be just as thoroughly ravaged; her nipple was missing, apparently chewed away like the ear, and her stomach had been slit open right below the navel. I could see at least three wounds that might have killed her, and a dozen more that would have been horrible enough to make death seem like a good idea.

But before I could take more than one quick glance, I heard a dreadful sound behind me, as if someone was strangling a large animal, and I turned to see Chase backing rapidly away with both hands clamped over his mouth, his face turning pale green almost as fast
as he retreated. With a feeling of real pleasure, I watched him sprint for the perimeter. It was a common reaction to seeing messy death for the first time, but in this case it was very satisfying. It also left me in peace to take a longer look at a more leisurely pace, and I did.

I scanned the body head to toe, marveling at the thoroughness of the devastation, and the Passenger murmured its appreciation. Someone had spent a great deal of time and effort doing this, and although the results were certainly not up to my high artistic standards, they still showed a certain primitive vigor and abandon that were admirable, even infectious. The technique was clumsy, inefficient, even brutal, but it spoke of a wild experimental joy in the work that was a pleasure to see. After all, so very few of us seem to enjoy our jobs nowadays. Whoever did this clearly did enjoy it. Just as clearly—at least to me—the killer was exploring, seeking something he had not quite found, in spite of a very thorough search.

I took one more long, studious look at the whittled-away remains of the young woman, and I did not need the Passenger’s whispered endorsement to agree with Vince. This might be the very first time Our Perp had done this, but it would not be the last. Things being what they were, it would be a very good thing to catch him before he turned too many more young women into fish bait, and that meant it was time for Dexter to push his mighty brain online and get busy. There was real and compelling work to do, and with Chase in exile at the perimeter tape, I was at last free to do it.

But I had done no more than find a relatively clean place to set down my bag when I heard what sounded like a spatter of applause coming from the perimeter. I have been at the scene of hundreds of homicides, both professionally and in pursuit of my hobby, and I have seen and heard many surprising things. I can truthfully say, however, that I had never before heard a mutilated body receive a standing ovation. I turned to look with more than a little curiosity.

Deborah was just ducking under the yellow tape, and for half a second I wondered whether she was somehow finally getting the public appreciation she so richly deserved for her years of hard toil in the service of Justice. But no—a few steps behind my sister, a perfectly tousled golden head bobbed into view, and I realized that the
eager spatter of approval was actually directed at Deborah’s shadow, Jackie Forrest. She paused at the tape to give the crowd a wave of the hand and a dazzling smile, and the people around her pushed forward—not as if they meant to grab her or touch her, but more like they couldn’t help themselves, that there was just something about her that made them move closer.

I watched as Jackie traded words with a few of the eagerly, mindlessly smiling people, and I found it strangely fascinating. What was it about her that acted like catnip on these people? She was famous, yes, but so was Robert, and the crowd’s reaction hadn’t been anything like this. And she was pretty—but I could see at least three women in the crowd around her who were, quite frankly, better-looking. And yet they all surged forward toward Jackie, apparently without knowing why.

I watched as Jackie gave the crowd a few final words, a last smile, and then ducked under the tape and moved toward the Dumpster. They watched her go, unable to take their eyes off her, and I realized that I was no better. Now that I had seen a brainless and drooling crowd staring at a TV actor, I felt compelled to watch her, too. I told myself that I was just trying to understand why the unwashed mob found her so mesmerizing, but myself didn’t seem to believe it.

I finally peeled my eyes away and went to join my sister. Debs was already peering into the Dumpster with a very hard look on her face. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Jesus Fucking Christ.” She shook her head. “You got anything yet?”

“I just got here,” I said.

“Who’s got the lead?” she said, her eyes flicking over the body.

“Anderson,” I told her,

“Shit,” she said. “He couldn’t find his ass with both hands.”

“What is it?” said a husky voice, and Jackie Forrest joined us.

“You might not want to look,” I said, but she had already pushed past me to stare into the Dumpster. Remembering Chase’s reaction, I braced myself for the inevitable explosion of horror, dismay, and vomit, but Jackie just stared.

“Wow,” she said. “Oh, my
God
.” She glanced at Debs. “Who could do that?”

“A lot of people,” Deborah snarled. “More every day.”

“Wow,” Jackie said again, still looking at the dead girl, and then she frowned. “So what do you do now?”

“Nothing,” Debs said through her teeth. “It’s not my case.”

“Okay, right,” Jackie said with an impatient wave of her hand. “But if it
was
your case, what would you do?”

Deborah turned away from the body and stared at Jackie. After a very long moment, Jackie ripped her gaze away from the thing in the Dumpster and faced my sister. “What?” she said.

“That doesn’t bother you?” Debs said, nodding at the corpse.

Jackie made a face. “Of course it bothers me,” she said, her voice rich with irritation. “But I’m just trying to be, you know. Professional. I mean, doesn’t it bother
you
?”

“It’s my job,” Deborah said.

Jackie nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “And right now it’s
my
job, too. I need to learn about this. I mean, what. You want me to go all girly-girl, and squeal and pass out?”

Deborah studied her for another long moment. Jackie studied her right back. “No,” Debs said at last. “I guess not.”

Jackie nodded. “All right then,” she said. “So if it’s your case, what do you do now?”

Deborah looked at her. Then she nodded. She jerked her head toward me. “Usually, I talk to him,” she said, and Jackie turned her violet eyes on me. I will not say that my knees went weak and wobbly, but I definitely felt like I should bow, straighten my tuxedo, and hand her an orchid.

“Why him?” she said.

“Dexter is forensics,” Deborah said, “and sometimes he gets lucky, finds something that can help me. Also”—she shrugged—“he’s my brother.”

“Your
brother
!” she exclaimed with what looked like real delight. “That’s perfect! So
you’re
the tough cop and
he’s
the nerd! Just like the show!”

“The preferred term is
geek
,” I said. “Although
wonk
will do in a pinch. But never
nerd
.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, and she put a hand on my shoulder. I
could feel the warmth of it right through my shirt. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m sorry.”

“Um,” I said, horribly aware of her warm hand on my shoulder. “Perfectly all right.”

She smiled and took her hand away. “Good,” she said. “So, um, have you found anything that’s, you know. Something that might help?”

In fact, the only thing I had found was a fondness for having her hand on my shoulder, and for some reason that was tremendously irritating. After all, I had gone my entire life without feeling even a small zephyr from the hurricane winds of human lust—why should I start now, with an unobtainable golden-haired goddess? And seriously, I had much more important things to do, many of them involving duct tape and fillet knives. But I fought down my rising crankiness and, in the spirit of cooperation mandated by Captain Matthews, I gave her an answer.

“In the first place,” I said, “you’re supposed to say, ‘What have you got?’ Not, ‘Um, have you found anything?’ ”

Jackie smiled again. “Okay,” she said, and added, “What have you got?”

“Don’t look so happy,” I said. “It’s kind of a casual, short-tempered snarl. Like this.” I set my face in my very best imitation of Deborah’s Cop Face and said, “What have you got.”

Jackie laughed. It was such an infectiously cheerful sound that for a moment I forgot we were standing by a mutilated corpse dumped on a heap of garbage. “Okay,” she said. “So you’re not just a forensics geek; you’re an acting coach, too, huh? All right. How’s this?” And she twisted her face into a cranky-fish mask that actually looked a lot like Deborah’s expression. “What have you got,” she deadpanned. Then she chuckled again, and I felt an answering smile creeping onto my face.

Deborah, however, did not seem to share our good spirits. She scowled even more, and said, “If you two Twinkies are done clowning around, we still got a chopped-up body here.”

“Oh,” Jackie said, immediately looking serious again. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. Of course you’re right.”

Although I couldn’t help thinking that Debs was a little bit of a buzz-kill, I also knew she was right. And in any case, I didn’t like the bizarre human feelings that Jackie was causing in me. So I gave them both a short, very professional nod, and went back to work.

I had only been working at it for a very short time when I heard someone gag and say, “Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God,” and since I was fairly certain Robert had not come back for another peek at the party, I turned to look at Vince to see what had caused that kind of reaction in someone who was usually so unflappable, even in the face of the most extreme carnage.

Vince had dragged a box over to the Dumpster. He was standing on it and very carefully examining the body, but something had frozen him in place, absolutely motionless, half bent into the Dumpster, and I felt a new hiss of interest from the Passenger.

“What is it,” I asked him, fighting to keep the eagerness out of my voice.

“Oh, holy fuck,” he said. “I can’t believe this.”

“Believe what?” I said, more than a little irritated at the way he had to emote his way through a long dramatic buildup instead of simply answering my question.

“Semen,” he said, shaking his head and turning to face me with a look of complete disgust. “There’s semen in the eye socket.”

I blinked; I have to admit that seemed extreme, even to me. “The eye socket? Are you sure?” I said, and it is an indication of how shocked I was that I said something that stupid.

“I’m sure,” he said, turning back to look at the body once more. “It’s actually
in
the fucking eye socket, which means— Oh, Jesus Fucking Christ.”

I stepped over beside him and looked again at the shattered remains of the young woman. She was still dead. Vince had turned her head slightly so the far side of her face was now visible, and although it was just as damaged, her other eye had not been torn out. It was wide-open, staring straight ahead at the improbable death that had come for her. I wondered what she had done to bring this kind of monstrous end to her life. Not that I am parroting the Homicidal Rapist Party Line of,
She deserved it; she had it coming for dressing like that
, and so on. I was quite sure that whoever this young woman
had been, she had done nothing to deliberately provoke anything like this.

But there is always something the victim does unconsciously, some special trigger that brings a Passenger up out of the shadows and into the driver’s seat. Every Monster has his own specific flash point that ignites the Need, and it is almost always different.

And every Monster reacts in his own distinctive way, following a program that provides unique satisfaction, a series of rituals that makes sense only to him and ends in the way it absolutely
must
, no matter how bewildering it may seem to the casual human witness. And when the press and an outraged public recoil in horror and demand a reason, and wail their baffled chorus of, “Why would someone do
that
?” those of us in the know can only smile and say,
Because
. It will never make sense to you, or to anyone else, and it doesn’t need to. It only has to satisfy
Me
, fulfill
My
special fantasy. It is an E ticket to a ride with only one seat,
Mine
, and no one else will ever get to feel this
Me-Only
roller-coaster thrill, the one thing that provides just
Me
with the ultimate in satisfaction, and whether it is slowly and joyously slicing up a carefully selected playmate, or butchering a young woman and filling her empty eye socket with semen, it is always the same solo act with the same conclusion of release, satisfaction, fulfillment.

But this—

I know very well that we all feel sexual urges, to one degree or another, even those of us in the Dark Brotherhood. It may be the most basic and pervasive piece of the human clock; we all tick toward sex. But the hands move at different speeds for all of us, and the thing that sets off the chimes is almost always unique. Even so, this was well outside the range even of my understanding. I could not remember seeing something quite this uniquely lustful.

Semen in the eye socket: a release that was actual as well as metaphorical. What did that mean? Because it always means something. It is always a fundamental symbol in a world of personal meaning, a basic key to understanding who had done this. Semen left on dead bodies is actually very common, and the specific place where it is found is always important. It indicates a desire to control, degrade, conquer that particular spot. So it was quite possible that the killer
had some very special issues with vision, or watching—or it could just as easily be a problem with blue eyes, or contact lenses, or someone winking.

Still, it was a starting point for someone with my special skills—the professional ones—and I pondered it as I worked. It was, after all, an area of real personal interest to me. And additionally, if this had been Deborah’s case, she would almost certainly have demanded some kind of special insight from Sick and Twisted Me. So I thought about it, and although I came up with nothing helpful, at least it passed the time.