That’s what the police are for, right? Minnow didn’t smile back, when the man did. He reached into the car, and pulled out a battery, and lay the camera down on the front of the car. Minnow stared as he pulled one out, like he was gutting a deer, and replaced it with another. The cops weren’t there to protect people. They were there to watch them, to judge them, and find a reason to lock them up away from the outside world and throw away the key. That’s what the Prophet said. He’d been to jail. He didn’t like to talk about it much, but the Kevinians all knew. She realised she hadn’t replied for a few seconds, so she said, “The police are here to watch people.” And she just stopped herself from saying That’s what the Prophet says. This man was a cop. He didn’t deserve to know that.
Instead she stood in silence, watching as the man closed the open back of the camera. When he mentioned the press conference, she shook her head, stiltedly. “I’m not going to the press conference,” she said. She knew, without checking with the Deacons, that they would have gone back to the clearing by then. It wasn’t safe to be away from Charlie’s land for this long. Already, she felt like this was the longest conversation she’d had with a Gentile in months. But that was what the Prophet had told them to do. Gather information, and report back.
And she seemed to be doing well, because the stranger said he looked for patterns, and pressed a button on the camera, and suddenly, Minnow could see photographs of a body, lying on the forest floor, surrounded by blood. She blinked at it. The man pointed at the blood stains, the splashes of red, and the large pool of it, and he explained what it meant. As he spoke, she frowned, taking the information in. She could feel it soaking in, the way the Prophet’s teachings did. Learning. But, unlike when she learnt from the Prophet, she could see what this cop was talking about for herself, and put it together. When he said it raised more questions, she looked up quickly. “Questions like what?” she asked. “She died there, so someone killed her there.” She looked down at the photograph again, and she spotted something.
“But the blood…” she said, slowly. “It doesn’t look like someone slit her throat.” She raised her hand, and drew her finger across her own throat, gently. “When you slit a deer’s throat, the blood goes psh –” She gestured a spray out of her neck, spreading her fingertips like a starfish. “And it flies out onto the floor. But that’s not what this looks like.” She tilted her head to the side a little, like an inquisitive dog, and then blinked and realised how close she was to the Gentile – so close that she could smell him. She stepped back quickly, and wiped her hands on the skirt of her dress without thinking. What would the Deacons say, if they’d seen? But she looked their way, and they were still talking to the officers. She let out a slow sigh of relief.
Dexter raised a brow. “I... guess you’ve got a point,” he said. “But only people who’ve done bad things. Trust me, they don’t get paid enough to watch everyone all the time,” he said, with a casual grin. He didn’t think she’d return it. It didn’t seem like she smiled much. He wondered which was worse. A plethora of fake smiles or an honest lack of them?
Maybe there wasn’t much of a difference.
“Okay,” he said. “Well, uh...” He followed her gaze towards the two men she’d come with. “If you give me your name and contact information, I might be able to get back to you when I know more,” he offered. He couldn’t help but wonder about her, about her situation. There was something very strange there -- but was it his curiosity or the Dark Passenger’s that had been piqued?
He didn’t really have the authority to make such an offer, or to show her the pictures, but he wanted to gauge her reaction. Wanted to know more about her, to understand what was happening here. (As much as he could understand. He was, after all, just a monster.) “Does it?” he prompted. “Just because she died here, that doesn’t mean she was attacked here.” But she barely seemed to hear him, she was deep in thought. He nodded as she spoke again. His mind filled in the red splashes to her pantomime. “Exactly,” he breathed.
Dexter blinked when she stepped back. Right, he thought. Standing that close, it wasn’t normal. Except for couples, and that was something Dexter was not ready to attempt just yet. “You’re smart,” he said, after an awkward moment. “You ever think about a job with the police? We could always use more forensic techs.”
