Meanwhile...

Many years later...(thank you, Wanda)

As always, thank you for the reviews that are slowly helping me to remember what the hell is going on in my own story! (*ahem* Nicole) In response, Dexter was being sarcastic when explaining the Skinner murders. I know he was the one who killed him :) But you're right, he's a Sergeant...a lot to remember! Hopefully, I'll be more thorough in future chapters. Speaking of which...

Caballero Rivero Woodlawn

Palm South Jones

Forest Lawn Parks

David Memorial Park

Eastern Sunset Memorial

Van Orsdel Mortuaries Inc.

Heritage and Lineage Funeral Home

Stephens and Sons Funeral Home

Ferdinand Funeral Homes and Crematory

Dexter's Designer Departures

Numbness. Apart from the incessant click-clacking of my dexterous finger tips on the keyboard, researching the various local mortuaries in Miami, the only sensation I felt – not akin to my anemic coronary gland, was the entire numbness of my ass. I was given the most important task, albeit outside of my job description, of detecting similarities and corollaries between otherwise discordant parts. One might assume this kind of work would be better appropriated for, let's say, a detective. But while a mystery is hardly the worst hobby I could engage myself in, I could see the distance between the Miami police department's hankering and undeserving mandibles, and my main course closing at an uncomfortably fast rate. Sure, I would love to find my ass perched in other places, perhaps just within the narrow shadows of the Gravedigger's front porch, but I had a job to do and no convincing reason not to. I suppose I could play the bereaved card again, but leaving again would arouse too much suspicion while wild card Quinn was still a beaming question mark. Also, I've found recently that using the widow excuse only reminded me more of Rita. My Rita.

No.

I'd rather my attention lay within the bosom of the Gravedigger, or more precisely, my knife – my pointy baton. 'Play your part,' I could hear Harry advise in his warm, comforting tone, 'play it, and find your patience rewarded.' I couldn't deny him his accuracy, but he wasn't in my position. He was never confronted by the profound nature of Dexter's Dilemma. Still, with him and his comforting tone, my confidence has never been shaken. So I remained chaired there, calmly sitting, staring into the monitor. My ass, benumbed. Hell, I might have fallen asleep had I not floated my consciousness into the occupation of an altogether different Dexter. Like a Dexter who might spend near half his entire life surrounded by limp, decaying cadavers cocooned within their metal and wooden sarcophagi. They lay within like an organic Polaroid, slowly degrading and defacing over time. Eventually, everyone is inducted into the skeleton crew. It's up to us to decide how we relate to them – how we, as living organisms, accept the finality of such a cramped space and the totality of it.

Perhaps, I could be one of the many who use this archaic tradition to bid my farewells. Or, perhaps, I could prepare the bodies for the ceremonies themselves. I'd say I have the fucking resume for it. Picture it. I'd be that someone who helped families and friends see their loved ones to the afterlife six feet under, rather than save such a precious and personal moment for myself. I never thought much of funerals; the ceremony. The pageantry. People gathered to remember the life of someone they barely knew. I imagine such individuals standing at their doorways, holding their flimsy plastic grocery bags with their favorite store's logo plastered on the front, hanging from one arm, and the other feebly fumbling with their keys and the doorknob simultaneously, while suddenly noticing a lonely envelope strewn on the floor of their entryway. Do they take the time to kneel and manage a recovery of the envelope? Do they walk past? I like to think, those who took the time to kneel found themselves at the ceremony, under some pointless obligation brought on by the act of such an unnecessary kneel. It must have taken effort. Indeed, an effort not soon forgotten. And so they huddle, oblivious to one another, all with humorless fashion sense, around the dead body of a person many never knew and few wish they hadn't.

The numbness was not for naught. In fact, it was the complete opposite. That this Gravedigger was exhuming the bodies of those recently deceased (and others not so) hardly left me clueless to the possibility this monster may be a mortician. It was on the minds of every officer in Miami Metro. Hell, it was the reason my darling sister granted him such a moniker. But Amelia was as recent a cadaver as one could hope for, and boy did it whittle down the possibilities to one in a fucking hurry. As with every murder, Amelia's case files provided notations dictating where the coroner's office shipped her body to. In this case, Eastern Sunset Memorial was highlighted among the rabble.

For some reason, this name was both familiar and unsettling. No matter.

It wasn't much of a stretch to start connecting the dots. In fact, everything felt too easy. Every exhumed body from the Ice Truck Killer to the Skinner's tableaus were from Eastern Sunset Memorial. The immediate question thereafter would naturally be, 'why wasn't this looked into before?' The connection is obvious. However, in most of the circumstances, bodies were moved from various labs out of district to Eastern Sunset for familial reasons. Three of which, actually, were shipped over state lines. One of the poor mother fuckers was actually killed in Afghanistan. Still, each breadcrumb led to the same manifest, assuming you could find the fucking things. Initially, I admit, this would sound like common sense. But most often, lab techs designate their data input to clerks or temps who don't necessarily care for accuracy. Poor wages and working conditions don't lend themselves to the pursuit of perfection. As a result, typical public records laden with numerical errancies make following any such breadcrumbs pointless. I can't tell you how many times bodies have been lost due to this – how many caskets are buried empty. However, I decided not to follow the public records. I did what I do best; I followed the blood work. The accuracy is measured by the machines that are calibrated to demand perfection. The human element is effectively ignored. I almost feel like I'm talking about myself. Anyway, it's unlikely that the typical detective would consider this, mostly due to the fact that this was hardly Homicide's jurisdiction, but also because there are literally hundreds of mortuaries in Miami. A tangled web of thorns? Yes, but clumsy in the eyes of this monster. Sloppy work for such a hopeful expert. On second thought...why?

Why would someone so obviously clever allow himself so little room to breathe? Why not steal bodies from other memorials in the area at the very least? But most importantly, why use Amelia's body, the most recent murder, in the penultimate tableau? The sharp money is that the Gravedigger is well aware of Trinity and his slew of depravities. It's also a shot, albeit a long one, that a detective might put in the work I just did in the narrowing of a specific mortuary. Was I missing something?

From the outside of the lab's window, I could see Sergeant Batista signaling to me. He stood at the threshold of the briefing room. It was clear he needed me to help add to the most current findings of Miami Homicide's most un-homicide case to date. I had no choice but to answer the call.

Entering the briefing room calls to surface the same feelings every time: unease, anxiety, pressure, and anticipation. In the room, stood the usual suspects - all of them, including the elusive Quinn.

Angel began, "Dex, thank you for joining us. Could you shut the door?" When master calls, his dog listens. "As you all know, we didn't call you in here to look for some piece of shit with a god complex. To our knowledge, the man we're looking for hasn't killed anyway, much less opened a bag of peanuts without uttering an obscenity. But here we are, 'cause this pendejo's stirring shit up from the past," Quinn raised his hand, "and while it may not exactly constitute a murder, the chief himself would like results. Too much media flak on this one, boys." Quinn put his hand down. I couldn't be sure, but I could have sworn, for a moment, he glanced in my direction. "I know what you're thinking, and at first I didn't buy into all this shit, either. At the departmental level, I still don't, but you can't argue that some sick shit's going on..." It's true. As Angel continued, I'd hoped adding validation to my sister's claims would only fan the flame of doubt. But it only fueled the impatience of others. Though, the more I thought on it, the more I realized the Gravedigger hadn't killed anyone. Not yet, anyway. And as far as I knew, this person would never show so much as a blip on Harry's radar. So why did I want him so bad? Why did I feel he deserved the same justice as Peter Olshanksy? Why did I care? Why did the Dark Passenger froth so fervently? "Morgan?" Angel continued.

I cleared my throat before the other Morgan began, "I'd like to echo the sentiment; some sick shit's going on. But I'd like to raise you another one." Quinn groaned. "Fuck you very much," back to Deborah, the professional, "not too long ago, my brother and I made a second run through of Amelia's house. Everything seemed clean on the first go-round, right? Not a hair in the fiber. Not a stain on the corner, apart from the fucking blood on the wall. But after Amelia's body was found on the bank, I couldn't fucking shake something. It was like a bad case of fleas..."

"Jesus fuck, Lieutenant, do we need to hear this again?"

LaGuerta responded, "Quinn!"

"She's only going to reiterate the same tired second-killer bullshit from before. Think about it, what are the odds this person is the same as this Gravedigger?"

"When she's done, detective," LaGuerta began, "you may have your time. Considering you rushed Sergeant Batista into this meeting, I'd like to think you'd show your fellow officers a modicum of respect." Quinn respectfully, and as asshole-ey as possible, backed off. No one, not even Quinn, acts so brazen without an ace up his sleeve. 'You've been gone a while, Quinny. What earthly tales have you unearthed?'

My sister continued, "as I was saying, I couldn't help but shake the feeling we'd missed something. So I went back. I didn't find anything new in the house, but..." Deborah gestured toward Masuka, who readily gave her a plastic bag with a hardened clay mold ensnared within. Why Masuka? Why didn't she come to me? Was the mark of ineptitude I wore so effective Deborah couldn't depend on me for a simple imprint? My reputation as a Nightshade Chameleon precedes even myself. "At the base of the bushes outlining the backyard, I discovered footprints where the soil was most wet. The very same prints led up the fucking fence and over the top where the slightest amount of dirt was found scuffed at the edge. Fuckin' a, right?"

I hadn't realized, but my breath stopped. No one other than Quinn was present when I planted the evidence brought to light by my sister. No one should have been. I waited patiently; watching his reactions - his nuances. Did he fidget with his fingers? Did his nostrils flare? Did he scratch his leg? Did he blink uncharacteristically? Did he...anything at all? No. The perfect gentleman, trying to impress the prom queen's father. Is it possible he never suspected me? Could someone be so oblivious? Was that someone me?

"This is a cast molding of the foot print at the base of the fence." Deborah offered the evidence to LaGuerta.

"The second killer. Is that what this is?"

"It's not nothing." Can't argue my sister that solid point.

"It's not. It can't be. That case is closed, detective Morgan. We're here to find out who's digging up bodies and leaving them around for children to find."

"But Lieutenant, tell me it makes sense that Amelia's body is uncovered so soon after her death any other way. This second person - the person who made this foot print, has to be the fucking Gravedigger. And if that's the case, he can be implicated in the murder of all the victims he exhumed."

LaGuerta, heated, "every case has a suspect convicted. Every one, detective."

My sister scoffed, "yeah. Like our brothers and sisters haven't fucking fucked up somewhere and put some poor bastard..."

"And the body from Afghanistan?" LaGuerta was always a step ahead.

"Okay, maybe not that one." My sister conceded, but not readily, "but it's too fucking coincidental to ignore, isn't it?" She was right. The evidence was right in front of her, even if the pieces didn't exactly match, thanks to yours truly. In the end, that's all I wanted from them. A scent to steer her from the tracks. Tracks that held my hand in the direction of the culprit; one mortuary to another...

"Lieutenant, I got a better idea." Quinn stuck his nose where it never belonged.

LaGuerta relaxed a moment, "fine. Let's hear it."

I found myself bracing for the news. While it's true, I never expected much from the brilliant detective Quinn, I was entirely suspicious of his absence lately. I was interested to see if indeed an old dog could learn new tricks. "Thanks." Quinn prepared some paperwork from a manilla folder he kept concealed behind his back, "since I heard over the radio that Amelia's body was rediscovered off the banks in East Havana, I got to thinking how anyone could have known she'd already been dead. Her case was only closed a few short days prior. I know this, because I remember explaining this to the Morgans not that long ago." He flashed a wink at me before continuing. The semblance of a smile growing at the corner of his lips carried the rest of his story, "I tried following the public records, but those are so shot to shit and full of holes, they literally don't do a fucking thing in tracking down any bodies – especially the ones we've been finding from this fucking sick-o. So I decided to look into the major transport companies and their specific manifests, starting with Amelia Gomez." Quinn handed LaGuerta one of the papers from his files, "Sharpe and Sundell carried some macabre around the time the coroner released Amelia's body. One such pound of flesh was our poor Amelia. Of course, her records were shit, too – convenient, right? But her dental records matched with the manifest of only one grave site in Miami." Quinn seemed to pause for a moment. Perhaps for a few claps. I remained unconvinced. He handed over a few more documents to the lieutenant, "wouldn't you know it? Several other bodies never made it to their grave sites. All empty coffins. Every single body we've discovered came from the same fucking place: Eastern Sunset Memorial."

No.

My blood ran white. I couldn't have possibly expected the dim-witted Quinn to take up such an adventure without the allure of pussy or a bag full of money to guide him. If a man like Quinn could surmise this little enigma, I rationalized, maybe the fruit wasn't as ripe. Maybe this Gravedigger wasn't the feast I yearned for. If his cunning, or lack thereof, couldn't save him from the clutches of Miami's weakest gumshoe, how could he slake the thirst of Miami's greatest monster? Then on the other hand, how could he be such a master of mimicry? A talent, to be sure.

"I apologize, Lieutenant. I know we weren't supposed to sacrifice homicide resources for this, but I felt it necessary regardless. I mean, what if he decided to start killing on his own?" This was starting to sound like Deborah's idea.

The Lieutenant pursed her lips after taking a deep breath, "did you come up with a name?"

Quinn handed LaGuerta his files, "Norman Harrison. He's the funeral tech in charge of receiving bodies, recovering them, embalming them, getting them ready for the wakes. All that sick shit."

Angel butt in, "embalming? Hey, Dex. That's the shit you were talking about earlier. The rotten-egg and what-not." To Quinn, "you're saying this Norman Harrison was responsible for injecting each cadaver with embalming fluid?" He still had complications pronouncing 'embalming fluid.' It would have been cute if all of Miami Homicide wasn't dancing all over Darkly Dreaming Dexter's playground.

"I'm saying," Quinn continued, "Norman Harrison is The Gravedigger."