Salt and Blood 2/25
Chapter 2
Everything was calm. I liked that. Only the soft whisper from the plastic covering everything and the harsh breathing around the gag of my victim. Looked like Cecelia Wright had woken up.
Bank assistant, mother of two, church goer on Sundays.
I positioned the pictures of Bill and Clarissa Taylor on the shelf where she could see them. This was their house. After its owners' death it was for sale. The perfect place for my needs.
"Look at them." She flinched away from me as far as she could on my table and her eyes flickered from me to the pictures and back. She knew exactly why she was here. I removed the gag and she spitted at me.
"They used me." Caught between screaming and crying. Like that was an excuse. "They used me, my access to the bank, and then, when they got the money, they dropped me."
I knew that. Figured it out over the last few days. Bill and Clarissa got all the money and when Cecilia wanted her fair share they just laughed, dared her to go to the police. Instead she shot them, even managed to fool the police into believing it had been murder suicide, and left with the money. Didn't fool me. I noticed the odd blood splatters. But the case had been closed and why bothering with the authorities if I could handle this myself?
I pressed my finger on her forehead, leaning in till I could smell her sweat and fear.
"You killed them." I whispered into her ear. "For the money."
When she started to babble about her two kids I gagged her again.
"Do you really think your children want a mother who has killed two people?" I reached for the scalpel and her eyes grew wide. She screamed behind the gag while I collected blood for my trophy.
I exchanged the scalpel for the knife, ready to kill, when my phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. Rita.
"Hey." Came her voice warm and soft out of the speaker.
"Hey." I answered with one hand over Cecelia's mouth.
"Will you be home for dinner?" She asked and in the background I could hear Cody asking: "Is Dexter coming?" Excitement in his voice and I thought I could hear Astor too.
Would they want me still being around if they knew that I've killed way more than two people? If they knew about the darkness inside me?
Under my hand Cecilia tried to scream.
"I'm kinda in the middle of something." Could Rita hear the crackle of the plastic? The muffled noises from Cecelia? "But I'll be there as soon as I can."
I ended the call and wrapped my hands around the handle of the knife.
"Sorry, no time to waste." With that I sank the blade into Cecilia's chest, blood found its way through the layers of plastic and something like peace settled in my body and mind. I exhaled slowly, enjoying the moment as long as I could before I had to clean up. As always it was over way too soon and I had to take out the garbage. Quickly but thoroughly I packed everything into five garbage bags and after one last glance around to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything I left the house where Bill and Clarissa Taylor had been murdered.
Being out on the water at night had something peaceful, too. Looking out to the ocean I could pretend to be alone. The only human being on the planet. No need to hide who I was, nobody to see behind my mask. Just me, the boat and the ocean. And Cecelia Wright in plastic bags.
I dumped her into the water, confident that the golf stream would carry her away till she was decomposed completely.
I arrived at Rita's place - over the last few month it had become home more and more - a little late for dinner but Rita had kept something for me in the oven so it was still warm.
I came in from the dark and lonely place I'd been to, the place I was used to, to find myself over the head in this warm and light place. Confronted with people asking about my day, people who cared about me. I was overwhelmed.
It didn't matter how often I stayed at Rita's the love she and the kids showed towards me was baffling every single time. By now I knew how to dance this. I knew to ask about school and about what Astor and Cody had done over the day. I knew to be impressed by good grates and to nod knowingly when there had been a fight with a friend. I was good at pretending.
And after the kids were in bed me and Rita sat on the couch, my arm around her shoulder and she leaning into me. That complete trust was another thing. Didn't she sense that there was something wrong with me? That there was a darkness inside me? Apparently not. We had talked about that once and she couldn't see it. To her I was normal, just an average guy.
I stroke her hair while we watched some TV and my mind wandered back to Cecelia. The peace I had felt right after the killing was fading away quickly. I should keep my eyes open for the next one.
"A penny for your thoughts." Rita turned her head and kissed me.
Better not, was my first thought.
"I'm thinking that I'm a very lucky man." I said instead and it sounded more cliché than anything else to me but she smiled at me. I'd heard that line in a movie but whatever works, right?
"And I'm a very lucky woman." She replied and snuggled closer till she sat in my lap, her arms around my neck. "And maybe it's time for the lucky man to get the lucky woman upstairs."
Okay, I'm not that good with allusions and all the hidden communication but even I got that one. We made it upstairs without waking the kids.
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Early the next morning work called.
"Sorry, gotta go." I had to announce at the breakfast table.
"Is somebody dead?" Cody asked and Rita shot me a glance. They all knew what I did for work, however, they didn't know what I did in my spare time. One of the first rules Rita had set was no talk about work around the children. She had a similar conversation with Deb and despite me Deb seemed absolutely shocked that Rita even thought she would let details slip. Watching her mouth on the other hand …
We both worked for the police and caught the bad guys that was all the kids needed to know and all Rita wanted to know.
"I haven't even been there how should I now?" Was my answer and I ruffled his hair. I'd seen other people doing it and Cody seemed to like it. I tried it with Astor once and she didn't seem to like it. Maybe because she was older or a girl, I had no idea.
I kissed Rita goodby and wished the kids a nice day at school and then I was in the car. Alone. I took a deep breath. I liked being with them, I really did, but sometimes it seemed hard to breath with them around.
I left those thoughts behind and concentrated on work. There was a crime scene awaiting me.
The scene was already blocked off with onlookers and reporters on one side of the yellow tape and police officers on the other. I spotted Angel and Masuka over something that had to be the body. We were quite in the open, this was the parking lot of a bar. At this early hour it was abandoned, there were only two other cars, maybe leftovers from people who were smart enough to not drink and drive.
On the side I saw Deb and that new guy Quinn questioning an older man. The one who had found the victim? The owner of the bar? Not my department. My department lay on the ground with blood all around.
When I approached Angel filled me in. A young man, late twenties to early thirties, no wallet or anything on him to identify him. Face beaten to pulp so most likely we would have trouble to identify him via dental records as well.
"Beaten to death." Angel said as if that wasn't obvious. "My best guess is a baseball bat. Looks like a robbery to me. The one who did this even took his shoes."
I glanced at the feet of the victim, dirty and bloody socks. Hmm.
"Okay." I looked around taking in the scene. "You're maybe right with the baseball bat, at least it's a blunt weapon for sure, but there had been two attackers. One standing here. BAMM." I made a swinging motion. "Victim tumbles over there. BAMM. Second attacker. Victim drops to his knees. BAMM. Swing to the head. Victim goes down. Then they hit him till he's dead." I stopped for a second replaying the scene in my mind. "Oh, and he lost his shoes before they had beaten him to death."
"I think it's because of a girl." Masuka grinned at me. "Maybe she has a shoe fetish. You know, sniffing men's shoes." I had no idea why somebody would do that but there were a lot of things people did I had no clue why they did them.
"We'll keep that in mind." Angel answered. "But for now I'm going with: He has been robbed, hadn't enough on him to satisfy the robbers and for that got beaten to death."
Masuka shrugged it off as if that was the weird idea. For him it probably was.
"The owner hasn't seen anything." Deb said coming over with Quinn trailing behind her.
"Yeah, he's more concerned about losing customers than the dead body on his doorstep." Quinn added. "And nobody else has seen anything. Apparently nobody knew him either." He nodded towards the victim.
I drove back to the department to have a closer look at the evidence while Deb and Quinn tried to find somebody who could identify the victim.
I searched for answers where I always find answers. The blood. Maybe we had the victim in the system.
Then I studied the pictures from the scene hoping to find something that didn't belong to the victim. If he had managed to defend himself there could be blood or other material from his attackers. But I found nothing. Maybe the coroner had more luck.
Leaning back in my chair I let my mind travel. I should be looking for my next victim.
"Busy?" Deb stuck her head in.
"Not really."
She sneaked in, looking behind her before she closed the door and then sighed in relief.
"You are hiding from somebody?" I guessed.
"Masuka." Was the not surprising answer. "That fucking pervert has asked me for a date."
"And?" My sister war Masuka's wet dream, nothing new about that. And usually Deb could handle him pretty well.
"He wants a fucking double date. Me and him, you and Rita." She clarified. "So if he asks you, you say fucking no."
"Okay." A date with Masuka wasn't on my list of things I had to do before I die, anyway.
"You know where he wants to take us?" Now she looked completely horrified. "A fucking strip bar. That's his idea of a fucking romantic dinner." And she added another "fuck" for good measure.
"Okay, no strip bars with Masuka, got it."
"Thanks, you are the best." She peeked out into the main office area. "Fuck, there he comes."
She bailed out of my room and nearly stumbled into Masuka. He laughed his little laugh but she ignored him.
"Hey, Dexter, what are you doing on Friday?"
Not going to a strip bar with you and the girls.
"I've plans with Rita and the kids."
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