She shoved again. “Except that it was something,” she snarled. “You found him.”

“Actually, I'm not sure,” I said. “I think he found me.”

“Quit being clever,” she said, and I spread my hands to show how impossible that would be. “You promised, goddamn you.”

I did not remember making any kind of promise that might cover calling her in the middle of the night and telling her my dreams, but this didn't seem like a very politic thing to say, so I didn't. “I'm sorry, Deb,” I said instead. “I really didn't think it would pan out. It was just a… a hunch, really.” I was certainly not going to attempt any explanation of the parapsychology involved, even with Deb. Or perhaps especially not with her. But another thought hit me. I lowered my voice. “Maybe you could help me a little. What am I supposed to tell them if they ever decide to ask what I was doing driving around down there at four AM?”

“Has LaGuerta interviewed you yet?”

“Exhaustively,” I said, fighting down a shudder.

Deb made a disgusted face. “And she didn't ask.” It was not a question.

“I'm sure the detective has a great deal on her mind,” I said. I did not add that apparently some of it was me. “But sooner or later, somebody will ask.” I looked over to where she was Directing the Operation. “Probably Sergeant Doakes,” I said with real dread.

She nodded. “He's a decent cop. If he could just lose some attitude.”

“Attitude may be all he is,” I said. “But he doesn't like me for some reason. He'll ask anything if he thinks it will make me squirm.”

“So tell him the truth,” Deborah said deadpan. “But first, tell it to me.” And she poked me again in the same spot.

“Please, Deb,” I said. “You know how easily I bruise.”

“I don't know,” she said. “But I feel like finding out.”

“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.

THE 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.

Not possible, of course not. And now I couldn't help thinking about it. The mirror was there for some very important reason. These were not garbage bags to him. As he had now proved so elegantly with this hockey-rink setting, presentation was an important part of what he was doing. He would not be casual in any detail. And because of that, I began to think about what the mirror might mean. I had to believe that, as improvised as it might be, putting it in with the body parts was exceedingly deliberate. And I had the further feeling, burbling up from somewhere behind my lungs, that this was a very careful, very private message.

To me?

If not me, then whom? The rest of the act was speaking to the world at large: See what I am. See what we all are. See what I am doing about it. A truck's mirror wasn't part of the statement. Segmenting the body, draining the blood-this was necessary and elegant. But the mirror-and especially if it turned out to be from the truck that I had chased-that was different. Elegant, yes; but what did it say about the way things really are? Nothing. It was added on for some other purpose, and that purpose had to be a new and different kind of statement. I could feel the electricity of the thought surging through me. If it was from that truck, it could only be meant for me.

But what did it mean?

“What the hell is that about?” Deb said beside me. “A mirror. Why?”

“I don't know,” I said, still feeling its power throb through me. “But I will bet you dinner at Joe's Stone Crabs that it came from the refrigerator truck.”

“No bet,” she said. “But at least it settles one important question.”

I looked at her, startled. Could she really have made some intuitive jump that I had missed? “What question, sis?”

She nodded at the cluster of management-level cops still squabbling at the edges of the rink. “Jurisdiction. This one is ours. Come on.”

On the surface, Detective LaGuerta was not impressed with this new piece of evidence. Perhaps she was hiding a deep and abiding concern for the symbolism of the mirror and all it implied under a carefully crafted façade of indifference. Either that or she really was dumb as a box of rocks. She was still standing with Doakes. To his credit, he looked troubled, but maybe his face had simply gotten tired from its perpetual mean glare and he was trying something new.

“Morgan,” LaGuerta said to Deb, “I didn't recognize you with clothes on.”

“I guess it's possible to miss a lot of obvious things, Detective,” Deb said before I could stop her.

“It is,” LaGuerta said. “That's why some of us never make detective.” It was a complete and effortless victory, and LaGuerta didn't even wait to see the shot go home. She turned away from Deb and spoke to Doakes. “Find out who has keys to the arena. Who could get in here whenever they wanted.”