J E F F L I N D S A Y
“Excuse me, Detective,” I said. “I think we have a situation here.” I’d always wanted to say that, but it didn’t seem to impress Coulter.
“A situation. You been watching CSI or something?”
“Burdett is a federal agent,” I said. “You have to call Captain Matthews right away and tell him.”
“I have to,” Coulter said.
“This is connected to something we’re not supposed to touch,” I said. “They came down from Washington and told the captain to back off.”
Coulter took a swig from his bottle. “And did the captain back off?”
“Like a rabbit in reverse,” I said.
Coulter turned and looked at Burdett’s body. “A fed,” he said. He took one more swig as he stared at the severed head and limbs. Then he shook his head. “Those guys always come apart under pressure.” He looked back out the window and pulled out his cell phone.
Deborah got to the scene just as Angel-no-relation was putting his kit back in the van, which was three minutes before Captain Matthews. I don’t mean to seem critical of the captain. To be perfectly fair, Debs didn’t have to put on a fresh spray of Aramis, and he did, and redoing the knot in his tie must have taken some time, too. Just moments behind Matthews came a car I had come to know as well as my own; a maroon Ford Taurus, piloted by Sergeant Doakes. “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” I said cheerfully. Officer Snyder looked at me like I had suggested we dance naked, but Coulter just pushed his index finger into the mouth of his soda bottle and let it dangle as he walked away to meet the captain.
Deborah had been looking the scene over from the outside D E A R LY D E V O T E D D E X T E R
1 5 3
and directing Snyder’s partner to move the perimeter tape back a little. By the time she finally walked over to talk to me, I had reached a startling conclusion. It had started as an exercise in ironic whimsy, but it grew into something that I couldn’t argue with, as much as I tried. I stepped over to Coulter’s expensive window and stared out, leaning on the wall and looking hard at the idea. For some reason, the Dark Passenger found the notion hugely amusing and began whispering frightful counterpoint. And finally, feeling like I was selling nuclear secrets to the Taliban, I realized it was all we could do. “Deborah,” I said as she stalked over to where I stood by the window, “the cavalry isn’t coming this time.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” she said.
“We are all there is, and we are not enough.”
She pushed a lock of hair away from her face and blew out a deep breath. “What have I been saying?”
“But you didn’t take the next step, Sis. Since we are not enough, we need help, somebody who knows something about this—”
“For Christ’s sake, Dexter! We’ve been feeding people like that to this guy!”
“Which means the only remaining candidate at the moment is Sergeant Doakes,” I said.
It might not be fair to say that her jaw dropped. But she did stare at me with h
er mouth open before turning to look at Doakes, where he stood beside Burdett’s body, talking to Captain Matthews.
“Sergeant Doakes,” I repeated. “Formerly Sergeant Doakes.
Of the Special Forces. On detached service in El Salvador.”
She looked back at me, and then at Doakes again.
“Deborah,” I said, “if we want to find Kyle, we need to 1 5 4
J E F F L I N D S A Y
know more about this. We need to know the names on Kyle’s list and we need to know what kind of team it was and why all this is happening. And Doakes is the only one I can think of who knows any of it.”
“Doakes wants you dead,” she said.
“No working situation is ever ideal,” I said with my best smile of cheerful perseverance. “And I think he wants this to go away as badly as Kyle does.”
“Probably not as much as Kyle,” Deborah said. “Not as much as I do, either.”