The two of them crowded together and stared at the book, flipping through the ten or so pages I had put together to show them that, yes indeed, I really can tell all that. It was carefully arranged to make forensics look just a tiny bit more all-seeing and all-powerful than the Wizard of Oz, of course. And to be fair, we really can do most of what I showed them. It never actually seems to do much good in catching any bad guys, but why should I tell them that and spoil a magical afternoon?

"Look back in the microscope," I told them after a few minutes. "See what else you can find." They did so, very eagerly, and seemed quite happy at it for a while.
When they finally looked up at me I gave them a cheerful smile and said, "All this from a clean shoe." I closed the book and watched the two of them think about this. "And that's just using the microscope," I said, nodding around the room at the many gleaming machines. "Think what we can figure out if we use all the fancy stuff."

"Yeah, but we could go barefoot," Astor said. I nodded as if what she had said made sense. "Yes, you could," I said. "And then I could do something like this-give me your hand."

Astor eyed me for a few seconds as if she was afraid I would cut her arm off, but then she held it out slowly. I held it and, using a fingernail clipper from my pocket, I scraped under her fingernails. "Wait until you see what you have here," I said.

"But I washed my hands," Astor said. "Doesn't matter," I told her. I put the small specks of stuff onto another glass slide and fixed it to the microscope. "Now then," I said. CLUMP. It really is a bit melodramatic to say that we all froze, but there it is-we did. They both looked up at me and I looked back at them and we all forgot to breathe. CLUMP. The sound was getting closer and it was very hard to remember that we were in police headquarters and perfectly safe.

"Dexter," Astor said in a slightly quavery voice. "We are in police headquarters," I said. "We're perfectly safe." CLUMP.

It stopped, very close. The hair went up on the back of my neck and I turned toward the door as it swung slowly open.

Sergeant Doakes. He stood there in the doorway, glaring, which seemed to have become his permanent expression. "You," he said, and the sound was nearly as unsettling as his appearance as it rolled out of his tongue-less mouth.

"Why yes, it is me," I said. "Good of you to remember."