Darkly dreaming Dexter

my considerable charm to make her like me. Easier than you might think. Anybody can be charming if they don't mind faking it, saying all the stupid, obvious, nauseating things that a conscience keeps most people from saying. Happily, I don't have a conscience. I say them.

As I approached the little group clustered near the cafe, LaGuerta was interviewing somebody in rapid-fire Spanish. I speak Spanish; I even understand a little Cuban. But I could only get one word in ten from LaGuerta. The Cuban dialect is the despair of the Spanish-speaking world. The whole purpose of Cuban Spanish seems to be to race against an invisible stopwatch and get out as much as possible in three-second bursts without using any consonants.

The trick to following it is to know what the person is going to say before they say it. That tends to contribute to the clannishness non-Cubans sometimes complain about.

The man LaGuerta was grilling was short and broad, dark, with Indio features, and was clearly intimidated by the dialect, the tone, and the badge. He tried not to look at her as he spoke, which seemed to make her speak even faster.

“No, no hay nadie afuera,” he said softly, slowly, looking away. “Todos estan en cafe.” Nobody was outside, they were all in the cafe.

“Donde estabas?” she demanded. Where were you?

The man looked at the bags of body parts and quickly looked away. “Cocina.” The kitchen. “Entonces yo saco la basura.” Then I took out the garbage.

LaGuerta went on; pushing at him verbally, asking the wrong questions in a tone of voice that bullied and demeaned him until he slowly forgot the horror of finding the body parts in the Dumpster, and turned sullen and uncooperative instead.

A true master's touch. Take the key witness and turn him against you. If you can screw up the case in the first few vital hours, it saves time and paperwork later.

She finished with a few threats and sent the man away. “Indio,” she spat, as he lumbered out of earshot.

“It takes all kinds, Detective,” I said. “Even campesinos.” She looked up and ran her eyes over me, slowly, while I stood and wondered why. Had she forgotten what I looked like? But she finished with a big smile. She really did like me, the idiot.

“Hola, Dexter. What brings you here?”

“I heard you were here and couldn't stay away. Please, Detective, when will you marry me?”

She giggled. The other officers within earshot exchanged a glance and then looked away. “I don't buy a shoe until I try it on,” LaGuerta said. “No matter how good the shoe looks.” And while I was sure that was true, it didn't actually explain to me why she stared at me with her tongue between her teeth as she said it. “Now go away, you distracting me. I have serious work here.”

“I can see that,” I said. “Have you caught the killer yet?”

She snorted. “You sound like a reporter. Those assholes will be all over me in another hour.”

“What will you tell them?”

She looked at the bags of body parts and frowned. Not because the sight bothered her. She was seeing her career, trying to phrase her statement to the press.

“It is only a matter of time before the killer makes a mistake and we catch him—”

“Meaning,” I said, “that so far he hasn't made any mistakes, you don't have any clues, and you have to wait for him to kill again before you can do anything?”

She looked at me hard. “I forget. Why do I like you?”

I just shrugged. I didn't have a clue—but then, apparently she didn't either.

“What we got is nada y nada. That Guatemalan,” she made a face at the retreating Indio, “he found the body when he came out with the garbage from the restaurant. He didn't recognize these garbage bags and he opened one up to see if maybe there was something good. And it was the head.”

“Peekaboo,” I said softly.

“Hah?”

“Nothing.”

She looked around, frowning, perhaps hoping a clue would leap out and she could shoot it.

“So that's it. Nobody saw anything, heard anything. Nothing. I have to wait for your fellow nerds to finish up before I know anything.”

“Detective,” said a voice behind us. Captain Matthews strolled up in a cloud of Aramis aftershave, meaning that the reporters would be here very shortly.

“Hello, Captain,” LaGuerta said.

“I've asked Officer Morgan to maintain a peripheral involvement in this case,” he said. LaGuerta flinched. “In her capacity as an undercover operative she has resources in the prostitution community that could assist us in expediting the solution.” The man talked with a thesaurus. Too many years of writing reports.

“Captain, I'm not sure that's necessary,” LaGuerta said.

He winked and put a hand on her shoulder. People management is a skill. “Relax, Detective. She's not going to interfere with your command prerogatives. She'll just check in with you if she has something to report. Witnesses, that sort of thing. Her father was a damn good cop. All right?” His eyes glazed and refocused on something on the other end of the parking lot. I looked. The Channel 7 News van was rolling in. “Excuse me,” Matthews said. He straightened his tie, put on a serious expression, and strolled over toward the van.

“Puta,” LaGuerta said under her breath.

I didn't know if she meant that as a general observation, or was talking about Deb, but I thought it was a good time to slip away, too, before LaGuerta remembered that Officer Puta was my sister.

As I rejoined Deb, Matthews was shaking hands with Jerry Gonzalez from Channel 7. Jerry was the Miami area's leading champion of if-it-bleeds-it-leads journalism. My kind of guy. He was going to be disappointed this time.

I felt a slight quiver pass over my skin. No blood at all.

“Dexter,” Deborah said, still trying to sound like a cop, but I could tell she was excited. “I talked to Captain Matthews. He's going to let me in on this.”

“I heard,” I said. “Be careful.”

She blinked at me. “What are you talking about?”

“LaGuerta,” I said.

Deborah snorted. “Her,” she said.

“Yeah. Her. She doesn't like you, and she doesn't want you on her turf.”

“Tough. She got her orders from the captain.”

“Uh-huh. And she's already spent five minutes figuring out how to get around them. So watch your back, Debs.”

She just shrugged. “What did you find out?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing yet. LaGuerta's already nowhere. But Vince said—” I stopped. Even talking about it seemed too private.

“Vince said what?”

“A small thing, Deb. A detail. Who knows what it means?”

“Nobody will ever know if you don't say it, Dexter.”

“There . . . seems to be no blood left with the body. No blood at all.”

Deborah was quiet for a minute, thinking. Not a reverent pause, not like me. Just thinking. “Okay,” she said at last. “I give up. What does it mean?”

“Too soon to tell,” I said.

“But you think it means something.”

It meant a strange light-headedness. It meant an itch to find out more about this killer. It meant an appreciative chuckle from the Dark Passenger, who should have been quiet so soon after the priest.

But that was all rather tough to explain to Deborah, wasn't it? So I just said, “It might, Deb. Who really knows?”

She looked at me hard for half a moment, then shrugged. “All right,” she said. “Anything else?”

“Oh, a great deal,” I said. “Very nice blade work. The cuts are close to surgical. Unless they find something in