Dexter's Final Cut Read Online Free PDF

humans routinely forge, mostly because I do not actually have human feelings. Even so, I fake it very well; I have survived among people my whole life and I know all of the rituals and tricks of social bonding. None of them worked with Chase, and for some reason I found myself reluctant to keep trying. Something about him was wrong, slightly off, unattractive, and although I could not have said why, I just didn’t like him.
    But I had been commanded to tow him through the stormy waters of my life in forensics, and so tow I must. And I have to admit that at least Chase was diligent. He showed up every morning, almost exactly at the same time I did. Friday morning he even brought in a box of doughnuts. I must have looked surprised, because he smiled at me and said, “That’s what you do, right?”
    “Sometimes I do,” I admitted.
    He nodded. “I asked around about you,” he said. “They all toldme, ‘Dexter does doughnuts.’ ” And he grinned at me as if alliteration was some kind of wonderfully clever form of wit.
    If I had been irritated by him before, now I was positively seething. He had gone beyond mere mockery; now he was “asking around” about me, prying into my character, encouraging everyone around me to unload about all of Dexter’s quirks and peccadilloes. It made me so angry that I could calm myself only by picturing Robert duct-taped to a table, with me standing happily above him clutching a fillet knife. Still, I ate his doughnuts.
    That afternoon provided the only relief I’d had all week. And it seemed only fitting that it came in the form of a homicide.
    Robert and I had just returned from lunch. I had allowed him to persuade me to take him for some Real Cuban Food, and so we’d gone to my favorite place, Café Relampago. The Morgans had been going there for two generations—three now, if you counted the fact that I had taken my baby, Lily Anne. She loved the
maduros
.
    In any case, Robert and I had dined lavishly on
ropa vieja, yuca, maduros
, and, of course,
arroz con frijoles negros
. We had washed it all down with Ironbeer, the Cuban version of Coke, and finished with flan and a barrage of
cafecitas
. Robert had insisted on paying, perhaps trying to buy his way into my affections, so I was in a slightly mellower mood when we returned to our job. But we didn’t get a chance to settle into our chairs to reflect and digest, because as we strolled in, Vince came rushing out clutching the canvas bag that held his kit.
    “Get your stuff,” he said, hurrying past. “We got a wild one.”
    Robert turned to watch him go, and his air of relaxed confidence seemed to drain out and puddle at his feet. “Is that … Does he mean, um—”
    “It’s probably nothing,” I said. “Just a routine machete beheading or something.”
    Chase goggled at me for a moment. Then he turned pale, gulped, and finally nodded. “Okay,” he said.
    I went to fetch my gear, feeling a warm glow of satisfaction at Chase’s obvious distress. As I said, sometimes I am not a very nice person.

THREE
    T HE BODY WAS IN A D UMPSTER IN AN ALLEY ON THE EDGE OF the downtown campus of Miami-Dade Community College. The alley was dark, even in the midday sun, shaded by the surrounding buildings, and it had probably been even darker at night, when some wicked Someone had chosen the spot for his fun and games, most likely for that very reason. Judging by the condition of the body, that had been a very good idea. The things that had been done to what had once been an attractive young woman were best left unseen.
    The Dumpster was at an angle in the back corner of the alley. One side of the lid was propped open, and even from ten feet away you could hear the buzz of the nine billion flies whirling around it in a huge dark cloud. Angel Batista-No-Relation was dusting the outside of the Dumpster for prints. He worked carefully along the top edge, dusting with one hand and waving flies away with the other.
    Vince was on one knee on