CHAPTER 8

I N THEORY, METRO'S SEVENTY-TWO-HOUR MEETING gives everyone enough time to get somewhere with a case, but is soon enough that the leads are still warm. And so Monday morning, in a conference room on the second floor, the crack crime-fighting team led by the indomitable Detective LaGuerta assembled once again for the seventy-two-hour. I assembled with them. I got some looks, and a few good-hearted remarks from the cops who knew me. Just simple, cheerful wit, like, “Hey, blood boy, where's your squeegee?” Salt of the earth, these people, and soon my Deborah would be one of them. I felt proud and humble to be in the same room.

Unfortunately, these feelings were not shared by all present. “The fuck you doing here?” grunted Sergeant Doakes. He was a very large black man with an injured air of permanent hostility. He had a cold ferocity to him that would certainly come in handy for somebody with my hobby. It was a shame we couldn't be friends. But for some reason he hated all lab techs, and for some additional reason that had always meant especially Dexter. He also held the Metro Dade record for the bench press. So he rated my political smile.

“I just dropped in to listen, Sergeant,” I told him.

“Got no fucking call to be here,” he said. “The fuck outta here.”

“He can stay, Sergeant,” LaGuerta said.

Doakes scowled at her. “The fuck for?”

“I don't want to make anybody unhappy,” I said, edging for the door without any real conviction.

“It's perfectly all right,” LaGuerta said with an actual smile for me. She turned to Doakes. “He can stay,” she repeated.

“Gimme the fucking creeps,” Doakes grumbled. I began to appreciate the man's finer qualities. Of course I gave him the fucking creeps. The only real question was why he was the only one in a room filled with cops who had the insight to get the fucking creeps from my presence.

“Let's get started,” LaGuerta said, cracking her whip gently, leaving no room for doubt that she was in charge. Doakes slouched back in his chair with a last scowl at me.

The first part of the meeting was a matter of routine; reports, political maneuvers, all the little things that make us human. Those of us who are human, anyway. LaGuerta briefed the information officers on what they could and could not release to the press. Things they could release included a new glossy photo of LaGuerta she'd made up for the occasion. It was serious and yet glamorous; intense but refined. You could almost see her making lieutenant in that picture. If only Deborah had that kind of PR smarts.

It took most of an hour before we got around to the actual murders. But finally LaGuerta asked for reports on the progress in finding her mystery witness. Nobody had anything to report. I tried hard to look surprised.

LaGuerta gave the group a frown of command. “Come on, people,” she said. “Somebody needs to find something here.” But nobody did, and there was a pause while the group studied their fingernails, the floor, the acoustic tiles in the ceiling.