No Rest for the Wicked

2. MEMOIRS

Deb can’t look at me without tears welling up. I’m not quite sure why.

Was it because of Lundy? Deb had been fond of him and would have been at his side if Cody and Astor hadn’t been kidnapped.

Was it Doakes? Even if my sister hadn’t always seen eye-to-eye with Dearly Deceased Doakes, she had taken his death hard. Harder than most surpassed – perhaps – only by LaGuerta.

Was it work? New corpses turned up in Miami on a daily basis and since Deb had been assigned to Homicide two of the most heinous serial killers of Miami history had turned out to be people she knew. That would scar anyone.

But that would have to wait.

Passing a poster of Sergeant James Doakes naming him the Bay Harbour Butcher, I walked down a familiar corridor making my way towards the Evidence Locker. On
numerous occasions, the contents of the Evidence Locker have served me in properly enjoying myself on my late-night playmates. And considering I worked in
forensics, I was one of the people who had made the walk down this corridor most times

Today, though, I was on a different kind of mission.

“Hi, Dex!” Padilla said, when I arrived, beaming a not quite chaste smile at me. “Missed me?”

“Emilia,” I said in a mock-shocked voice, “You know you’re the only reason I show up for work in the morning.” She smiled and with our almost-ritualistic greeting of one-another over got down to business.

“I’m going to need to take the prize of the Bay Harbour Butcher case,” I said, trying to sound casual and slightly joking, “the blood slides.”
Padilla frowned. “I’m not comfor–…”

“For the Feds,” I said and pulled out a requisition form, which had been signed along with dozens of other forms by an overworked special agent,
“They’ll probably put it on a display.”

Still wary, but finding no flaw in his reasoning nor in the request for gathering all case-related evidence about the former Sergeant – likely for FBI
crime analysts, but the Federal Bureau had an ability to lose such things in their extensive archives – she relented in handing over the box. It had been
within arms reach, as though it had been moved there; knowing it would return to its rightful owner today.

“It seems wrong somehow,” she admitted as she handed it over with the same carefulness one would handle a poison viper, “our department should keep this.”
I looked at her, arching an eyebrow in what I intended to be a puzzled expression. “Doakes was a killer, walking among us,” she continued, explaining, “and no one noticed. We need to be more careful. Watch out for this sort of thing.”

Paranoia, I thought, but actually she was dangerously close to the truth. “You have to relax, Emilia,” I said, taking the box out of her hand, “Go out an
evening; get something to drink and stop worrying.” I said, giving her a smile before I walked off, my heart pounding.

Clutching the little wooden box, the walk back to my office seemed the longest in my life. I had no reason to worry; the box had been signed out to me under
the authority of the FBI. Still, it felt a dangerous risk to take for a box of trophies.

As I drove home, I kept eying at the glove compartment, where I had hidden my slide collection. It felt as though I had stolen it, even if Dearly Departed
Doakes had originally stolen it from my apartment.

I probably should return the box to its familiar place, making sure it stays hidden. But my latent sentimental side must be showing, because I can’t bring
myself to put it back right now. Rather, I need to remember my old playmates a while.

Running my fingers over the slides, I find the one I’m looking for, an old friend: Gerry Bronson.

Weapon of choice: Diabetic insulin.

Gerry Bronson was a plain, respected and generous man whose spare time was spent caring for the homeless. Dexter never quite understood the need some of his ’colleagues’ felt to do community work in their spare time, when most ordinary people never bothered. It seemed a horribly ineffective way to blend
in, all things considered.

Still, Gerry Bronson had escaped his notice for a long time and Dexter had been beginning to question whether his instincts had failed him. But Gerry was the
only common denominator between a series of deaths; they’d been found in proximity to places he worked, lived, jogged and most anything in between. The
victims had all been young girls, in their late teens or early twenties.

There was always a pattern and it was that pattern that brought him to the attention of the Deadly Demonic Dexter’s deadly urges.

Even if the authorities had closed the cases as accidents, some apparently believed that these young girls suffered heart attacks. Pitiful.

Dexter had the silent, unobserved nature of a dedicated hunter and even in the parking lot he wove his way between parked cars like a phantom, stalking his
target. Sliding a needle into Gerry’s neck seemed oddly like poetic justice, even if Dexter hadn’t planned it to be so. This death wasn’t to satisfy his
sense of justice, merely the Hunger of the Dark Passenger. A gasp escaped Gerry’s lips and seemed to echo across the lot, but no one heard and soon Dexter was showing the corpse-to-be into the trunk of the victim’s own stationwagon. ‘Clearly,’ Dexter thought, ‘our dear Gerry is a family man. His wife will be so disappointed,’ he said grinning gleefully.

The Dark Passenger chuckled.

While he was driving towards his destination, an apartment of Gerry’s last victim: Lea Wittenburg, a Dutch exchange-student, studying to become a professor
of theology. She’d met her killer one night jogging when he’d approached her. She hadn’t been interested in the twice-as-old, married man who hit on girls in the middle of the night. If it hadn’t been for the red-haired Forensic Bloodspatter Analyst jogging not-too far behind the Doctor, the girl would’ve no doubt died there. Dexter could see it in Gerry’s eyes, as he passed them.

Dexter was quite sure the Doctor would act one of the following days.

Dexter had been there to watch the Dear Degenerated Doctor do his deadly work, watching from the shadows only 100 meters from the scene of the crime. He had
seen the doctor slide the needle into the back of her neck, the drunken student too inebriated to feel the needle go in. Moments later, she’d noticed the
doctor and given several very unladylike comments about the doctor in her native language. The doctor had been white-knuckled with anger, but Dexter could feel the Doctor’s Dark Passenger satisfaction, as the girl collapsed moments later, dead from the massive injection of insulin in her system.

It had been difficult to prepare the apartment. Not that getting the key had been particularly difficult, considering that the landlord had about eight keys
per apartment, plus a few masters just in case. And since the girl’s family were travelling in from Amsterdam, the apartment had been left untouched for the
time being.

Dr. Bronson’s eyes opened slowly at looked blurrily around the room, his head aching from the powerful tranquilliser pounding through his veins. “Wh–”
he started, but his power of speech left him.

“First, do no harm,” a voice spoke somewhere out-of-sight. Gerry tried sitting up, but found unexpected resistance, as if he’d been tied down... Only,
it couldn’t be rope, it wasn’t cutting into his flesh when he fought against it, merely holding him down mercilessly.

“Who are you?” He asked, his voice coloured with a faint hint of hysteria, “I dema–”

“Demand? In your position?” the voice moved closer towards his field ofvision, lurking in the corner of his eye. The voice, Bronson noticed, sounded coldly amused, “No, tonight you’ll be dancing my merry little tune.” The voice moved into his field of vision; a young – thirty, perhaps – red-haired man, underlining his point by bringing a knife down in an arc, stopping it a hairsbreadth before Bronsons throat.

“Wh-what do you want to know?” Bronson didn’t hide his hysteria this time, as he felt cold, clean steel against his throat.

“Why do you kill?” There was a formality over the question, Gerry noticed.
It wasn’t anger, curiosity or impatience, just clean, cold formality.

“I–”Gerry said and then paused, thinking about what the stranger wanted to hear.

“The truth.”

“I... wanted to,” Gerry said lamely. “And,” he continued, “to see if I could get away with it.”

“Why young girls?” the stranger asked in the same patient, formal voice.

“I get angry sometimes,” Gerry said hesitantly, writhing under the gaze of the stranger.

The stranger smiled and moved to the table. Moments later, Gerry wanted to scream, but the stranger silenced him with a chokehold.

The world turned black, then red.

Then it was gone.

I replaced the slide into its familiar slot. Gerry Bronson had been a very satisfying kill and it had taken a few days before the dear doctor had even been reported missing. By then, I was sure, no one would have remembered Deeply Disturbed Dexter taking his boat from Coral Cove Marina out for a late-night fishing trip.

Sometimes I missed those days. The undeniable sense of purpose and the symbiotic relationship he had with the Dark Passenger.

Now, things were more complicated.

I returned the rosewood box to its hiding place and picked up my keys. Rita and the kids were waiting for me.

Best not keep them waiting.