Swell. So we just found out something we already knew. She got up and headed for the door, not quite as quickly as Dr. Spielman but fast enough that I had to hurry and I didn’t catch up until she was at the door to the parking lot.

Deborah drove rapidly and silently, with her jaw clenched, all the way to the little house on N.W. 4th Street where it had all started. The yellow tape was gone, of course, but Deborah parked haphazardly anyway, cop fashion, and got out of the car. I followed her up the short walkway to the house next door to the one where we had found the human doorstop. Deborah rang the bell, still without speaking, and a moment later it swung open. A middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a tan guayabera shirt looked out at us inquiringly.

We need to speak to Ariel Medina, Deborah said, holding up her badge.

My mother is resting now, he said.

It’s urgent, Deborah said.

The man looked at her, then at me. Just a moment, he said. He closed the door. Deborah stared straight ahead at the door, and I watched her jaw muscles working for a couple of minutes before the man opened the door again and held it wide. Come in, he said.

We followed him into a small dark room crowded with dozens of end tables, each one festooned with religious articles and framed photographs. Ariel, the old lady who had discovered the thing next door and cried on Deb’s shoulder, sat on a large overstuffed sofa with doilies on the arms and across the back. When she saw Deborah she said, Aaahhh, and stood up to give her a hug. Deborah, who really should have been expecting an abrazo from an elderly Cuban lady, stood stiffly for a moment before awkwardly returning the embrace with a few pats on the woman’s back. Deborah backed off as soon as she decently could. Ariel sat back down on the couch and patted the cushion beside her. Deborah sat.

The old lady immediately launched into a very rapid stream of Spanish. I speak some Spanish, and often I can even understand Cuban, but I was getting only one word in ten of Ariel’s harangue. Deborah looked at me helplessly; for whatever quixotic reasons, she had chosen to study French in school, and as far as she was concerned the woman might as well have been speaking ancient Etruscan.

Por favor, Señora, I said. Mi hermana no habla español.