Dexter Is Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

letting his face relax into its more natural uncomprehending scowl. “I need to know what your lawyer said,” he says again.
    “Better ask him,” I say, helpfully adding, “his name is Bernie.”
    Before Anderson can do any more than drum his fingers on the tabletop, the door opens. “Time’s up,” Lazlo says. “Prisoner has to go.”
    “I’m not done with him,” Anderson says without looking up.
    “Yes, you are,” Lazlo says firmly.
    “Who says?”
    “I do,” says a new voice, and now Anderson looks up.
    A woman steps out from behind Lazlo. She is tall, African American, and good-looking in a severe way. She is also wearing a uniform, and her uniform spells trouble for Anderson, because it quite clearly says she is a captain, and she is looking directly at Detective Anderson with an expression that falls far short of friendly cooperation. “I don’t know what you think you’re pulling here, Detective,” she says, “but you’re done. Get out.” Anderson opens his mouth to say something, and the captain steps closer. “Now,” she says quietly, and Anderson closes his mouth so fast I can hear his teeth click. He stands up, looks at me, and I smile. Anderson very obligingly turns red again, and then turns away and stalks out through the door that Lazlo is holding so politely open for him.
    I am on the verge of thanking the captain, perhaps offering her a hearty handshake—even a hug—when she turns steely brown eyes on me, her expression leaving no doubt at all that no profession of gratitude on my part, however sincere, would be welcome, and a hug is quite clearly out of the picture.
    The captain turns away, facing Lazlo. “I don’t need any paperwork this time,” she says, and Lazlo heaves a sigh of relief. “But if that dickhead comes back, I want to know about it.”
    “Okay, Captain,” Lazlo says. She nods and stalks out the door, which Lazlo holds even more politely for her.
    When she has vanished around a turn in the corridor, Lazlo looks at me and says, “Let’s go, Dex.”
    I stand up. “I think I should say thank-you…?” I say, rather tentatively.
    Lazlo shakes his head. “Forget it,” he says. “I didn’t do it for you. Can’t fucking
stand
an asshole cop. Come on,” he finishes seamlessly, and with his hand on my elbow, I totter along: down the hall, into the elevator, up to nine, through the airlock, and back once more to the tiny world of my cell. The door closes behind me with absolute certainty and I am Dexter the Chrononaut again, spinning silently through endless empty time in my little steel-and-concrete capsule.
    I stretch out on my bunk, but this time I do not nap. This time I have Things to ponder. And ponder I do.
    First and most interesting: Thanks to the captain, I now knew that Anderson was “up to something.” This was highly significant. I had known, of course, that he was cutting corners—many of them quite savagely. And I had been sure he was shading the truth, shaping the evidence, coloring events. All these things are Standard Issue, part and parcel of regular Shoddy Police Work, which was, after all, the only kind Anderson could do.
    But if he was “up to something” in any official way—and the captain had hinted that he was—then perhaps there was some small and exploitable opening for Dexter to wiggle at, expand, turn into a doorway to freedom.
    I added that to what dear Bernie, my lawyer, had said: The paperwork wasn’t right. Instead of viewing that with alarm, as evidence that they could keep me here forever, I began to look at it as more ammunition in my anti-Anderson salvo. He had committed hanky-panky with
paperwork,
and if something in the System is committed to paper, it becomes transubstantiated into a Sacred Relic. To violate any official and therefore consecrated paperwork was a Cardinal Sin, and it could well result in Anderson’s utter ruin.
If
I could prove it—and get the right person to see it. A big “if,” but a vital