“Detective Coulter got here before me” I said.
Recht nodded. “That's what the guy on the door says” she said, and the fact that she had asked about that was not terribly comforting, so I decided that a few careful dance steps might be called for.
“Detective Coulter” I said carefully, as if fighting for control and I have to admit that the rasp remaining in my voice from the noose was very effective —“He got here first. Before I could... I think he —he gave his life to save Rita.” I thought that sniffling might be overkill so I held back, but even I was impressed with the sound of the manly emotion in my voice.
Alas, Special Agent Recht was not. She looked again at Coulter's body, and at Weiss's, and then at me. “Mr Morgan” she said, and there was official doubt in her voice. But then she just shook her head and turned away.
In a sane and well-ordered universe, any ruling deity would have said that was enough for one day. But things being what they are, it was not, because I turned around to leave and bumped directly into Israel Salguero.
“Detective Coulter is dead?” he asked, sliding a step back without blinking.
“Yes” I said. “Urn, before I got here.” Salguero nodded. “Yes” he said. “That's what the witnesses said.” On the one hand, it was very good news that the witnesses said that, but on the other, it was very bad that he had already asked them, since it meant his first concern was: Where was Dexter when the bodies began to fall? And so, thinking that some grand, emotional flummery might save the day, I looked away and said, I should have been here.”
There was such a long silence from Salguero that I finally had to turn back and look at him, if only to make sure he had not drawn his weapon and pointed it at my head. Happily for Dexter's Dome, he had not. Instead, he was just looking at me with his completely detached and emotionless gaze. I think it is probably a very good thing that you were not here” he said at last. “Good for you, and your sister, and the memory of your father.”
“Urn...?” I said, and it is a testament to Salguero's savvy that he knew exactly what I meant.
“Apart from these gallery-goers, there are now no witnesses...” He paused and gave me a look very much like what you might see if cobras ever learn to smile. “No surviving witnesses” he said, “to anything that happened, in any of these... circumstances.” He made a slight movement of his shoulders that was probably a shrug. “And so...” He did not finish the sentence, letting it dangle so it might mean, “and so I will kill you myself” or, “and so I will simply arrest you” or even, “and so that's the end of it.” He watched me for a moment and then repeated, “And so,” this time so that it sounded like a question. Then he nodded and turned away, leaving me with the image of his bright and lidless gaze burned into my retina.
And so.
That was, happily, just about the last of it. There was a minor bit of excitement provided by the stylish lady from the front of the crowd, who turned out to be Dr Elaine Donazetti, a very important figure in the world of contemporary art. She pushed her way through the perimeter and began taking Polaroids, and had to be restrained and led away from the bodies. But she used the pictures and some of the video tape Weiss had made and published a series of illustrated articles that made Weiss semi-famous with the people who like that sort of thing. So, at least he got his last request for pictures. It's nice when things work out, isn't it?
Detective Coulter was just as lucky. Department gossip told me that he had been passed over for promotion, twice, and I suppose he thought he could jump-start his career by making a dramatic arrest single-handed. And it worked! The department decided it needed some good publicity out of this whole dreadful mess, and Coulter was all they had to work with. So he was promoted posthumously for his heroism in single-handedly almost saving Rita.
Of course, I went to Coulter's funeral. I love the ceremony, the ritual, the outpouring of all that rigid emotion, and it gave me a chance to practice some of my favorite facial expressions —solemnity, noble grief, and compassion, all rarely used and in need of a workout.
The whole department was there, in uniform, even Deborah.
She looked very pale in her blue uniform, but after all, Coulter had been her partner, at least on paper, and honor demanded that she attend. The hospital fussed, but she was close enough to being released anyway that they didn't stop her from going. She did not cry, of course —she had never been nearly as good at hypocrisy as I was. But she looked properly solemn when they lowered the coffin into the ground, and I did my best to make the same kind of face.
I thought I did it rather well, too —but Sergeant Doakes did not agree. I saw him glaring at me from the ranks, as if he thought I had personally strangled Coulter, which was absurd; I had never strangled anyone. I mean, a little noose play now and then, but all in good fun —I don't like that kind of personal contact, and a knife is so much cleaner. Of course, I had been very pleased to see Coulter pronounced dead and Dexter therefore off the hook, but I'd had nothing at all to do with it. As I said, it's just nice when things work out, isn't it?
Life staggered back onto its feet and lurched into its old routines once again. I went to work, Cody and Astor went to school, and two days after Coulter's funeral Rita went to a doctor's appointment.
That night after she tucked the children in she settled down beside me on the couch, put her head on my shoulder and pried the remote control out of my hands. She turned the TV off and sighed a few times, and finally, when I was mystified beyond endurance, I said, “Is something wrong?”
“No” she said. “Not wrong at all. I mean, I don't think so. If you don't, um, think so.”
“Why would I think so?” I said.
I don't know” she said, and she sighed again. “It's just, you know, we never talked about it, and now...”
“Now what?” I said. It was really too much; after all I had gone through, to have to endure this kind of circular non-conversation, and I could feel my irritation level rising rapidly.
“Now, just” she said. “The doctor says I'm all right.”
“Oh” I said. “That's good.”
She shook her head. “In spite of” she said. “You know.”
I didn't know, and it didn't seem fair that she expected me to know, and I said so. And after a great deal of throat-clearing and stammering, when she finally told me, I found that I lost the power of speech just as she had, and the only thing I could manage to say was the punchline of a very old joke that I knew was not the right thing to say, but I could not stop it and it came out anyway, and as if from a great distance, I heard Dexter's voice calling out: You're going to have a WHAT?!
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