“Yes, I saw it,” I said into the receiver. “Jesus,” said Deborah on the other end. “I think I'm going to be sick.” “Well, I won't mop your fevered brow, sis. There's work to be done.” “Jesus,” she repeated. Then, “What work?” “Tell me,” I asked her. “Are you in ill odor, sis?” “I'm tired, Dexter. And I'm more pissed off than I've ever been in my life. What's that in English?”

“I'm asking if you are in what Dad would have called the doghouse. Is your name mud in the department? Has your professional reputation been muddied, damaged, sullied, colored, rendered questionable?”

“Between LaGuerta's backstabbing and the Einstein thing? My professional reputation is shit,” she said with more sourness than I would have thought possible in someone so young. “Good. It's important that you don't have anything to lose.” She snorted. “Glad I could help. 'Cause I'm there, Dexter. If I sink any lower in the department, I'll be making coffee for community relations. Where is this going, Dex?”

I closed my eyes and leaned all the way back in my chair. “You are going to go on record—with the captain and the department itself—as believing that Daryll Earl is the wrong man and that another murder is going to take place. You will present a couple of compelling reasons culled from your investigation, and you will be the laughingstock of Miami Metro for a little while.”

“I already am,” she said. “No big deal. But is there some reason for this?”

I shook my head. It was sometimes hard for me to believe she could be so naïve. “Sister dearest,” I said, “you don't truly believe Daryll Earl is guilty, do you?”
She didn't answer. I could hear her breathing and it occurred to me that she must be tired, too, every bit as tired as I was, but without the jolt of energy I got from being certain I was right. “Deb?”

“The guy confessed, Dexter,” she said at last, and I heard the utter fatigue in her voice. “I don't—I've been wrong before, even when— I mean, but he confessed. Doesn't that, that . . . Shit. Maybe we should just let it go, Dex.”