“It won't happen again,” I promised. “It was just one of those 3 AM inspirations, Deborah. What would you have said if I had called you about it, and then it turned out to be nothing?”

“But it didn't. It turned out to be something,” she said with another push.

“I really didn't think it would. And I would have felt stupid dragging you in on it.”

“Imagine how I would have felt if he had killed you,” she said.

It took me by surprise. I couldn't even begin to imagine how she would have felt. Regret? Disappointment? Anger? That sort of thing is way beyond me, I'm afraid. So I just repeated, “I'm sorry, Deb.” And then, because I am the kind of cheerful Pollyanna who always finds the bright side, I added, “But at least the refrigerated truck was there.”

She blinked at me. “The truck was where?” she said.

“Oh, Deb,” I said. “They didn't tell you?”

She hit me even harder in the same place. “Goddamn it, Dexter,” she hissed. “What about the truck?”

“It was there, Deb,” I said, somewhat embarrassed by her nakedly emotional reaction—and also, of course, by the fact that a good-looking woman was beating the crap out of me. “He was driving a refrigerated truck. When he threw the head.”

She grabbed my arms and stared at me. “The fuck you say,” she finally said.

“The fuck I do.”

“Jesus—!” she said, staring off into space and no doubt seeing her promotion floating there somewhere above my head. And she was probably going to go on but at that moment Angel-no-relation lifted his voice over the echoing din of the arena. “Detective?” he called, looking over at LaGuerta. It was a strange, unconscious sound, the half-strangled cry of a man who never makes loud noises in public, and something about it brought instant quiet to the room. The tone was part shock and part triumph—I found something important but oh-my-God. All eyes turned to Angel and he nodded down at the crouching bald man who was slowly, carefully, removing something from the top package.

The man finally pulled the thing out, fumbled, and dropped it, and it skittered across the ice. He reached for it and slipped, sliding after the brightly gleaming thing from the package until they both came to rest against the boards. Hand shaking, Angel grabbed for it, got it and held it up for all of us to see. The sudden quiet in the building was awe inspiring, breathtaking, beautiful, like the overwhelming crash of applause at the unveiling of any work of genius.

It was the rearview mirror from the truck.

CHAPTER 11

T HE GREAT BLANKET OF STUNNED SILENCE LASTED for only a moment. Then the buzz of talk in

the arena took on a new note as people strained to see, to explain, to speculate.

A mirror. What the hell did it mean?

Good question. In spite of feeling so very moved by the thing, I didn't have any immediate theories about what it meant. Sometimes great art is like that. It affects you and you can't say why. Was it deep symbolism? A cryptic message? A wrenching plea for help and understanding? Impossible to say, and to me, not the most important thing at first. I just wanted to breathe it in. Let others worry about how it had gotten there. After all, maybe it had just fallen off and he had decided to throw it away in the nearest handy garbage bag.