my other closely reasoned analytical conclusions so far. If I ruled out the absurd idea that I had done this without knowing it—and I did—then each subsequent explanation became even more unlikely. And so Dexter's summary of the case reads as follows: he is involved somehow, but doesn't even know what that means. I could feel the little wheels in my once-proud brain leaping off their tracks and clattering to the floor. Clang-clang. Whee. Dexter derailed.
Luckily, I was saved from complete collapse by the appearance of dear Deborah. “Come on,” she said brusquely, “we're going upstairs.”
“May I ask why?”
“We're going to talk to the office staff,” she said. “See if they know anything.”
“They must know something if they have an office,” I offered.
She looked at me for a moment, then turned away. “Come on,” she said.
It may have been the commanding tone in her voice, but I went. We walked to the far side of the arena from where I had been sitting and into the lobby. A Broward cop stood beside the elevator there, and just outside the long row of glass doors I could see several more of them standing at a barrier. Deb marched up to the cop at the elevator and said, “I'm Morgan.” He nodded and pushed the up button.
He looked at me with a lack of expression that said a great deal. “I'm Morgan, too,” I told him. He just looked at me, then turned his head away to stare out the glass doors.
There was a muted chime and the elevator arrived. Deborah stalked in and slammed her hand against the button hard enough to make the cop look up at her and the door slid shut.
“Why so glum, sis?” I asked her. “Isn't this what you wanted to do?”
“It's make-work, and everybody knows it,” she snarled.
“But it's detective-type make-work,” I pointed out.
“That bitch LaGuerta stuck her oar in,” she hissed. “As soon as I'm done spinning my wheels here, I have to go back out on hooker duty.”
“Oh, dear. In your little sex suit?”
“In my little sex suit,” she said, and before I could really formulate any magical words of consolation we arrived at the office level and the elevator doors slid open. Deb stalked out and I followed. We soon found the staff lounge, where the office workers had been herded to wait until the full majesty of the law had the time to get around to them. Another Broward cop stood at the door of the lounge, presumably to make certain that none of the staff made a break for the Canadian border. Deborah nodded to the cop at the door and went into the lounge. I trailed behind her without much enthusiasm and let my mind wander over my problem. A moment later I was startled out of my reverie when Deborah jerked her head at me and led a surly, greasy-faced young man with long and awful hair toward the door. I followed again.
She was naturally separating him from the others for questioning, very good police procedure, but to be perfectly honest it did not light a fire in my heart. I knew without knowing why that none of these people had anything meaningful to contribute. Judging from this first specimen, it was probably safe to apply that generalization to his life as well as to this murder. This was just dull routine make-work that had been doled out to Deb because the captain thought she had done something good, but she was still a pest. So he had sent her away with a piece of real detective drudgery to keep her busy and out of sight. And I had been dragged with her because Deb wanted me along. Possibly she wanted to see if my fantastic ESP powers could help determine what these office sheep had eaten for breakfast. One look at this young gentleman's complexion and I was fairly sure he had eaten cold pizza, potato chips, and a liter of Pepsi. It had ruined his complexion and given him an air of vacuous hostility.
Still, I followed along as Mr. Grumpy directed Deborah to a conference room at the back of the building. There was a long oak table with ten black high-backed chairs in the center of the room, and a desk in the corner with a computer and some audio-visual equipment. As Deb and her pimply young friend sat and began trading frowns, I wandered over to the desk. A small bookshelf sat under the window beside the desk. I looked out the window. Almost directly below me I could see the growing crowd of reporters and squad cars that now surrounded the door where we had gone in with Steban.
I looked at the bookshelf, thinking I would clear a small space and lean there, tastefully away from the conversation. There was a stack of manila folders and perched on top of it was a small gray object. It was squarish and looked to be plastic. A black wire ran from the thing over to the back of the computer. I picked it up to move it.
“Hey!” the surly geek said. “Don't mess with the webcam!”
I looked at Deb. She looked at me and I swear I saw her nostrils flair like a racehorse at the starting gate. “The what?” she said quietly.
“I had it focused down on the entrance,” he said. “Now I gotta refocus it. Man, why do you have to mess with my stuff?”
“He said webcam,” I said to Deborah.
“A camera,” she said to me.
“Yes.”
She turned to young Prince Charming. “Is it on?”
He gaped at her, still concentrating on maintaining his righteous frown. “What?”
“The camera,” Deborah said. “Does it work?”
He snorted, and then wiped his nose with a finger. “What do you think, I would get all worked up if it didn't? Two hundred bucks. It totally works.”
I looked out the window where the camera had been pointing as he droned on in his surly grumble. “I got a Web site and everything. Kathouse.com. People can watch the team when they get here and when they leave.”
Deborah drifted over and stood beside me, looking out the window. “It was pointed at the door,” I said.
“Duh,” our happy pal said. “How else are people on my Web site gonna see the team?”
Deborah turned and looked at him. After about five seconds he blushed and dropped his eyes to the table. “Was the camera turned on last night?” she said.
He didn't look up, just mumbled, “Sure. I mean, I guess so.”
Deborah turned to me. Her computer knowledge was confined to knowing enough to fill out standardized traffic reports. She knew I was a little more savvy.
“How do you have it set up?” I asked the top of the young man's head. “Do the images automatically archive?”
This time he looked up. I had used archive as a verb, so I must be okay. “Yeah,” he said. “It refreshes every fifteen seconds and just dumps to the hard drive. I usually erase in the morning.”
Deborah actually clutched my arm hard enough to break the skin. “Did you erase this morning?” she asked him.
He glanced away again. “No,” he said. “You guys came stomping in and yelling and stuff. I didn't even get to check my e-mail.”
Deborah looked at me. “Bingo,” I said.
“Come here,” she said to our unhappy camper.
“Huh?” he said.
“Come here,” she repeated, and he stood up slowly, mouth hanging open, and rubbed his knuckles.
“What,” he said.
“Could you please come over here, sir?” Deborah ordered with truly veteran-cop technique, and he stuttered into motion and came over. “Can we see the pictures from last night, please?”
He gaped at the computer, then at her. “Why?” he said. Ah, the mysteries of human intelligence.
“Because,” Deborah said, very slowly and carefully. “I think you might have taken a picture of the killer.”
He stared at her and blinked, then blushed. “No way,” he said.
“Way,” I told him.
He stared at me, and then at Deb, his jaw hanging open. “Awesome,” he breathed. “No shit? I mean-No, really? I mean—” He blushed even harder.
“Can we look at the pictures?” Deb said. He stood still for a second, then plunged into the chair at the desk and touched the mouse. Immediately the screen came to life, and he began typing and mouse-clicking furiously. “What time should I start?”
