YOU DO UNDERSTAND IT'S A LONG SHOT? ISAID. Probably we won't find anything at all.

I know that, Deb said.

And we don't actually have any jurisdiction here. We're in Broward. And the Broward guys don't like us, so- For Christ's sake, Dexter, she snapped. You're chattering like a schoolgirl.

Perhaps that was true, although it was very unkind of her to say so. And Deborah, on the other hand, appeared to be a bundle of steely, tightly wrapped nerves. As we turned off the Sawgra.s.s Expressway and drove into the parking lot of the Office Depot Center she bit down harder. I could almost hear her jaw creak. Dirty Harriet, I said to myself, but apparently Deb was eavesdropping.

f.u.c.k off, she said.

I looked from Deborah's granite profile to the arena. For one brief moment, with the early-morning sunlight hitting it just right, it looked like the building was surrounded by a fleet of flying saucers. Of course it was only the outdoor lighting fixtures that sprouted around the arena like oversized steel toadstools. Someone must have told the architect they were distinctive. Youthful and vigorous, too, most likely. And I'm sure they were, in the right light. I did hope they would find the right light sometime soon.

We drove one time around the arena, looking for signs of life. On the second circuit, a battered Toyota pulled up beside one of the doors. The pa.s.senger door was held closed with a loop of rope that ran out the window and around the doorpost. Opening the driver's door as she parked, Deborah was already stepping out of the car while it was still rolling.

Excuse me, sir? she said to the man getting out of the Toyota. He was fifty, a squat guy in ratty green pants and a blue nylon jacket. He glanced at Deb in her uniform and was instantly nervous.

Wha'? he said. I din't do nothin'.

Do you work here, sir?

Shoor. 'Course, why you think I'm here, eight o'clock in the morning?

What's your name, please sir?

He fumbled for his wallet. Steban Rodriguez. I got a ID.

Deborah waved that off. That's not necessary, she said. What are you doing here at this hour, sir?

He shrugged and pushed his wallet back into the pocket. I s'posed to be here earlier most days, but the team is on the road-Vancouver, Ottawa, and L.A. So I get here a little later.

Is anyone else here right now, Steban?

Naw, jus' me. They all sleep late.

What about at night? Is there a guard?

He waved an arm around. The security goes around the parking lot at night, but not too much. I the first one here mos' days.

The first one to go inside, you mean?

Yeah, tha's right, what I say?

I climbed out of the car and leaned across the roof. Are you the guy who drives the Zamboni for the morning skate? I asked him. Deb glanced at me, annoyed. Steban peered at me, taking in my natty Hawaiian shirt and gabardine slacks. Wha' kinda cop you are, ha?

I'm a nerd cop, I said. I just work in the lab.

Ooohhh, shoor, he said, nodding his head as if that made sense.

Do you run the Zamboni, Steban? I repeated.

Yeah, you know. They don' lemme drive her in the games, you know. Tha's for the guys with suits. They like to put a kid, you know. Some celebrity maybe. Ride around and wave, that s.h.i.t. But I get to do it for the morning skate, you know. When the team is in town. I run the Zamboni just the morning, real early. But they on the road now so I come later.

We'd like to take a look inside the arena, Deb said, clearly impatient with me for speaking out of turn. Steban turned back to her, a crafty gleam lighting up half of one eye.

Shoor, he said. You got a warrant?

Deborah blushed. It made a wonderful contrast to the blue of her uniform, but it was possibly not the most effective choice for reinforcing her authority. And because I knew her well, I knew she would realize she had blushed and get mad. Since we did not have a warrant and did not, in fact, have any business here whatsoever that could remotely be considered officially sanctioned, I did not think that getting mad was our best tactical maneuver.

Steban, I said before Deb could say anything regrettable.

Hah?

How long have you worked here?

He shrugged. Since the place open. I work at the old arena two year before that.

So you were working here last week when they found the dead body on the ice?

Steban looked away. Under his tan, his face turned green. He swallowed hard. I never want to see something like that again, man, he said. Never.

I nodded with genuine synthetic sympathy. I really don't blame you, I said. And that's why we're here, Steban.

He frowned. Wha' you mean?

I glanced at Deb to make sure she wasn't drawing a weapon or anything. She glared at me with tight-lipped disapproval and tapped her foot, but she didn't say anything.

Steban, I said, moving a little closer to the man and making my voice as confidential and manly as I could, we think there's a chance that when you open those doors this morning, you might find the same kind of thing waiting for you.

s.h.i.t! he exploded. I don' want nothin' to do with that.

Of course you don't.

Me cago en diezwith that s.h.i.t, he said.

Exactly, I agreed. So why not let us take a peek first? Just to be sure.

He gaped at me for a moment, then at Deborah, who was still scowling-a very striking look for her, nicely set off by her uniform.

I could get in trouble, he said. Lose my job.

I smiled with authentic-looking sympathy. Or you could go inside and find a stack of chopped-up arms and legs all by yourself. A lot more of them this time.

s.h.i.t, he said again. I get in trouble, lose my job, huh? Why I should do that, huh?

How about civic duty?

Come on, man, he said. Don't f.u.c.k with me. What do you care about if I lose my job?

He did not actually hold out his hand, which I thought was very genteel, but it was clear that he hoped for a small present to insulate him against the possible loss of his job. Very reasonable, considering that this was Miami. But all I had was $5, and I really needed to get a cruller and a cup of coffee. So I just nodded with manly understanding.

You're right, I said. We hoped you wouldn't have to see all the body parts-did I say there were quite a few this time? But I certainly don't want you to lose your job. Sorry to bother you, Steban. Have a nice day! I smiled at Deborah. Let's go, Officer. We should get back to the other scene and search for the fingers.

Deborah was still scowling, but at least she had the native wit to play along. She opened her car door as I cheerfully waved to Steban and climbed in.

Wait! Steban called. I glanced at him with an expression of polite interest. I swear to G.o.d, I don' wanna find that s.h.i.t ever again, he said. He looked at me for a moment, perhaps hoping I would loosen up and hand him a fistful of Krugerands, but as I said, that cruller was weighing heavily on my mind and I did not relent. Steban licked his lips, then turned away quickly and jammed a key into the lock of the large double door. Go 'head. I wait out here.

If you're sure- I said.

Come on, man, what you want from me? Go 'head!

I stood up and smiled at Deborah. He's sure, I said. She just shook her head at me, a strange combination of little-sister exasperation and cop sour humor. She walked around the car and led the way in through the door and I followed.

Inside, the arena was cool and dark, which shouldn't have surprised me. It was, after all, a hockey rink early in the morning. No doubt Steban knew where the light switch was, but he had not offered to tell us. Deb unsnapped the large flashlight from her belt and swung the beam around the ice. I held my breath as the light picked out one goalie's net, then the other. She swept back around the perimeter one time, slowly, pausing once or twice, then back to me.

Nothing, she said. Jack s.h.i.t.

You sound disappointed.

She snorted at me and headed back out. I stayed in the middle of the rink, feeling the cool radiate up off the ice, and thinking my happy thoughts. Or, more precisely, not quitemy happy thoughts.

Because as Deb turned to go out I heard a small voice from somewhere over my shoulder; a cool and dry chuckle, a familiar feather touch just under the threshold of hearing. And as dear Deborah departed, I stood motionless there on the ice, closed my eyes and listened to what my ancient friend had to say. It was not much-just a sub-whisper, a hint of unvocal, but I listened. I heard him chuckle and mutter soft and terrible things in one ear, while the other ear let me know that Deborah had told Steban to come in and turn on the lights. Which moments later he did, as the small off-voice whisper rose in a sudden crescendo of rattling jolly humor and good-natured horror.

What is it?I asked politely. My only answer was a surge of hungry amus.e.m.e.nt. I had no idea what it meant. But I was not greatly surprised when the screaming started.

Steban was really terrible at screaming. It was a hoa.r.s.e, strangled grunting that sounded more like he was being violently sick than anything else. The man brought no sense of music to the job.

I opened my eyes. It was impossible to concentrate under these circ.u.mstances, and anyway there was nothing more to hear. The whispering had stopped when the screaming began. After all, the screams said it all, didn't they? And so I opened my eyes just in time to see Steban catapult out of the little closet at the far end of the arena and vault onto the rink. He went clattering across the ice, slipping and sliding and moaning hoa.r.s.ely in Spanish and finally hurling headlong into the boards. He scrabbled up and skittered toward the door, grunting with horror. A small splotch of blood smeared the ice where he had fallen.

Deborah came quickly through the door, her gun drawn, and Steban clawed past her, stumbling out into the light of day. What is it? Deborah said, holding her weapon ready.

I tilted my head, hearing one last echo of the final dry chuckle, and now, with the grunting horror still ringing in my ears, I understood.

I believe Steban has found something, I said.

CHAPTER 22

POLICE POLITICS, ASIHAD TRIED SO HARD TO impress on Deborah, was a slippery and many-tentacled thing. And when you brought together two law enforcement organizations that really didn't care for each other, mutual operations tended to go very slowly, very much by the book, and with a good deal of foot-dragging, excuse-making, and veiled insults and threats. All great fun to watch, of course, but it did draw out the proceedings just a trifle more than necessary. Consequently it was several hours after Steban's dreadful yodeling exhibition before the jurisdictional squabbling was straightened out and our team actually began to examine the happy little surprise our new friend Steban had discovered when he opened the closet door.

During that time Deborah stood off to one side for the most part, working very hard at controlling her impatience but not terribly hard at hiding it. Captain Matthews arrived with Detective LaGuerta in tow. They shook hands with their Broward County counterparts, Captain Moon and Detective McClellan. There was a lot of barely polite sparring, which boiled down to this: Matthews was reasonably certain that the discovery of six arms and six legs in Broward was part of his department's investigation of three heads lacking the same pieces in Miami-Dade. He stated, in terms that were far too friendly and simple, that it seemed a bit farfetched to think that he would find three heads without bodies, and then three totally different bodies without heads would turn up here.

Moon and McClellan, with equal logic, pointed out that people found heads in Miami all the time, but in Broward it was a little more unusual, and so maybe they took it a bit more seriously, and anyway there was no way to know for sure they were connected until some preliminary work had been done, which clearly ought to be done by them, since it was in their jurisdiction. Of course they would cheerfully pa.s.s on the results.

And of course that was unacceptable to Matthews. He explained carefully that the Broward people didn't know what to look for and might miss something or destroy a piece of key evidence. Not, of course, through incompetence or stupidity; Matthews was quite sure the Broward people were perfectly competent, considering.

This was naturally not taken in a cheerful spirit of cooperation by Moon, who observed with a little bit of feeling that this seemed to imply that his department was full of second-rate morons. By this point Captain Matthews was mad enough to reply much too politely, oh, no, not second-rate at all. I'm sure it would have ended in a fistfight if the gentleman from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had not arrived to referee.

The FDLE is a sort of state-level FBI. They have jurisdiction anywhere in the state at any time, and unlike the feds they are respected by most of the local cops. The officer in question was a man of average height and build with a shaved head and a close-cropped beard. He didn't really seem out of the ordinary to me, but when he stepped between the two much larger police captains they instantly shut up and took a step back. In short order he had things settled down and organized and we got quickly back to being the neat and well-ordered scene of a multiple homicide.

The man from FDLE had ruled that it was Miami-Dade's investigation unless and until tissue samples proved the body parts here and the heads down there were unrelated. In practical and immediate terms, this meant that Captain Matthews got to have his picture taken first by the mob of reporters already cl.u.s.tering outside.

Angel-no-relation arrived and went to work. I was not at all sure what to make of it, and I don't mean the jurisdictional squabbling. No, I was far more concerned with the event itself, which had left me with a great deal to think about-not merely the fact of the killings and the redistribution of the meat, which was piquant enough. But I had of course managed to sneak a peak into Steban's little closet of horrors earlier, before the troops arrived-can you blame me, really? I had only wanted to sample the carnage and try to understand why my dear unknown business a.s.sociate had chosen to stack the leftovers there; truly, just a quick look-see.

So immediately after Steban had skidded out the door squealing and grunting like a pig choking on a grapefruit, I had skipped eagerly back to the closet to see what had set him off.

The parts were not wrapped carefully this time. Instead, they were laid out on the floor in four groups. And as I looked closer I realized a wonderful thing.

One leg had been laid straight along the left-hand side of the closet. It was a pale, bloodless blue-white, and around the ankle there was even a small gold chain with a heart-shaped trinket. Very cute, really, unspoiled by awful bloodstains; truly elegant work. Two dark arms, equally well cut, had been bent at the elbow and placed alongside the leg, with the elbow pointing away. Right next to this the remaining limbs, all bent at the joint, had been arranged in two large circles.

It took me a moment. I blinked, and suddenly it swam into focus and I had to frown very hard to keep myself from giggling out loud like the schoolgirl Deb had accused me of being.

Because he had arranged the arms and legs in letters, and the letters spelled out a single small word: BOO.

The three torsos were carefully arranged below the BOO in a quarter-circle, making a cute little Halloween smile.

What a scamp.

But even as I admired the playful spirit this prank exposed, I wondered why he had chosen to put the display here, in a closet, instead of out on the ice where it could gain the recognition of a wider audience. It was a very s.p.a.cious closet, granted, but still close quarters, just enough room for the display. So why?

And as I wondered, the outer door of the arena swung open with a clatter-the first of the arriving rescue team, no doubt. And the door crashing wide sent, a moment later, a draft of cool air over the ice and onto my back- The cold air went over my spine and was answered by a flow of warmth moving upward along the same pathway. It ran light-fingered up into the unlit bottom of my consciousness and something changed somewhere deep in the moonless night of my lizard brain and I felt the Dark Pa.s.senger agree violently with something that I did not even hear or understand except that it had to do somehow with the primal urgency of cool air and the walls closing in and an attacking sense of- Rightness. No question about it. Something here was just plain right and made my obscure hitchhiker pleased and excited and satisfied in a way I did not begin to understand. And floating in above all that was the strange notion that this was very familiar. None of it made any sense to me, but there it was. And before I could explore these strange revelations any further I was being urged by a squat young man in a blue uniform to step away and keep my hands in plain sight. No doubt he was the first of the arriving troops, and he was holding his weapon on me in a very convincing way. Since he had only one dark eyebrow running all the way across his face and no apparent forehead, I decided it would be a very good idea to go along with his wishes. He looked to be just the sort of dull-witted brute who might shoot an innocent person-or even me. I stepped away from the closet.

Unfortunately, my retreat revealed the little diorama in the closet, and the young man was suddenly very busy finding someplace to put his breakfast. He made it to a large trash can about ten feet away before commencing his ugly blargging sounds. I stood quite still and waited for him to finish. Nasty habit, hurling half-digested food around like that. So unsanitary. And this was a guardian of public safety, too.

More uniforms trotted in, and soon my simian friend had several buddies sharing the trash can with him. The noise was extremely unpleasant, to say nothing of the smell now wafting my way. But I waited politely for them to finish, since one of the fascinating things about a handgun is that it can be fired almost as well by someone who is throwing up. But one of the uniforms eventually straightened up, wiped his face on his sleeve, and began to question me. I was soon sorted out and pushed over to one side with instructions not to go anywhere or touch anything.

Captain Matthews and Detective LaGuerta had arrived soon after, and when they finally took over the scene I relaxed a bit. But now that I could actually go somewhere and touch something, I simply sat and thought. And the things I thought about were surprisingly troublesome.

Why had the display in the closet seemed familiar?

Unless I was going to return to my idiocy of earlier in the day and persuade myself that I had done this, I was at a loss as to why it should seem so delightfully unsurprising. Of course I hadn't done it. I was already ashamed of the stupidity of that notion. Boo, indeed. It was not even worth taking the time to scoff at the idea. Ridiculous.

So, um-why did it seem familiar?

I sighed and experienced one more new feeling, befuddlement. I simply had no notion of what was going on, except that somehow I was a part of it. This did not seem a terribly helpful revelation, since it matched exactly all my other closely reasoned a.n.a.lytical 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.