And I did feel that some small light touch was in order-if not an actual celebration, then at least an acknowledgment that things were looking up ever so slightly. Perhaps I was merely feeling chipper because I had let off a little steam with my dear friend Jaworski, but in any case I did feel unaccountably good. I even ordered a batido de mamé, a uniquely flavored Cuban milk shake that tastes something like a combination of watermelon, peach, and mango.

Deb, of course, was unable to share my irrational mood. She looked like she had been studying the facial expressions of large fish, dour and droopy in the extreme.

“Please, Deborah,” I begged her, “if you don't stop, your face will be stuck like that. People will take you for a grouper.”

“They're sure not going to take me for a cop,” she said. “Because I won't be one anymore.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “Didn't I promise?”

“Yeah. You also promised that this was going to work. But you didn't say anything about the looks I'd get from Captain Matthews.”

“Oh, Deb,” I said. “He looked at you? I'm so sorry.”

“Fuck you, Dexter. You weren't there, and it's not your life going down the tubes.”

“I told you it was going to be rough for a while, Debs.”

“Well at least you were right about that. According to Matthews, I am this close to being suspended.”

“But he did give you permission to use your free time to look into this a little more?”

She snorted. “He said, ‘I can't stop you, Morgan. But I am very disappointed. And I wonder what your father would have said.'”

“And did you say, ‘My father never would have closed the case with the wrong guy in jail'?”

She looked surprised. “No,” she said. “But I was thinking it. How did you know?”

“But you didn't actually say it, did you, Deborah?”

“No,” she said.

I pushed her glass toward her. “Have some mamé, sis. Things are looking up.”

She looked at me. “You sure you're not just yanking my chain?”

“Never, Deb. How could I?”

“With the greatest of ease.”

“Really, sis. You need to trust me.”

She held my eye for a moment and then looked down. She still hadn't touched her shake, which was a shame. They were very good. “I trust you. But I swear to God I don't know why.” She looked up at me, a strange expression flitting back and forth across her face. “And sometimes I really don't think I should, Dexter.”

I gave her my very best reassuring big-brother smile. “Within the next two or three days something new will turn up. I promise.”

“You can't know that,” she said.

“I know I can't, Deb. But I do know. I really do.”

“So why do you sound so happy about it?”

I wanted to say it was because the idea made me happy. Because the thought of seeing more of the bloodless wonder made me happier than anything else I could think of. But of course, that was not a sentiment Deb could really share with me, so I kept it to myself. “Naturally, I'm just happy for you.”

She snorted. “That's right, I forgot,” she said. But at least she took a sip of her shake.

“Listen,” I said, “either LaGuerta is right-”

“Which means I'm dead and fucked.”

“Or LaGuerta is wrong, and you are alive and virginal. With me so far, sis?”

“Mmm,” she said, remarkably grumpy considering how patient I was being.

“If you were a betting gal, would you bet on LaGuerta being right? About anything?”

“Maybe about fashion,” she said. “She dresses really nice.”

The sandwiches came. The waiter dropped them sourly in the middle of the table without a word and whirled away behind the counter. Still, they were very good sandwiches. I don't know what made them better than all the other medianoches in town, but they were; bread crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, just the right balance of pork and pickle, cheese melted perfectly-pure bliss. I took a big bite. Deborah played with the straw in her shake.

I swallowed. “Debs, if my deadly logic can't cheer you up, and one of Relampago's sandwiches can't cheer you up, then it's too late. You're already dead.”

She looked at me with her grouper face and took a bite of her sandwich. “It's very good,” she said without expression. “See me cheer up?”

The poor thing was not convinced, which was a terrible blow to my ego. But after all, I had fed her on a traditional Morgan family delight. And I had brought her wonderful news, even if she didn't recognize it as such. If all this had not actually made her smile-well, really. I couldn't be expected to do everything.

One other small thing I could do, though, was to feed LaGuerta, too-something not quite as palatable as one of Relampago's sandwiches, though delicious in its own way. And so that afternoon I called on the good detective in her office, a lovely little cubby in the corner of a large room containing half a dozen other little cubbies. Hers, of course, was the most elegant, with several very tasteful photographs of herself with celebrities hanging from the fabric of the partitions. I recognized Gloria Estefan, Madonna, and Jorge Mas Canosa. On the desk, on the far side of a jade-green blotter with a leather frame, stood an elegant green onyx pen holder with a quartz clock in the center.

LaGuerta was on the telephone speaking rapid-fire Spanish when I came in. She glanced up at me without seeing me and looked away. But after a moment, her eyes came back to me. This time she looked me over thoroughly, frowned, and said, “Okay-okay. 'Ta luo,” which was Cuban for hasta luego. She hung up and continued to look at me.

“What have you got for me?” she said finally.

“Glad tidings,” I told her.

“If that means good news, I could use some.”

I hooked a folding chair with my foot and dragged it into her cubby. “There is no possible doubt,” I said, sitting in the folding chair, “that you have the right guy in jail. The murder on Old Cutler was committed by a different hand.”

She just looked at me for a moment. I wondered if it took her that long to process the data and respond. “You can back that up?” she asked me at last. “For sure?”

Of course I could back it up for sure, but I wasn't going to, no matter how good confession might be for the soul. Instead, I dropped the folder onto her desk. “The facts speak for themselves,” I said. “There's absolutely no question about it.” And of course there wasn't any question at all, as only I knew very well. “Look-” I told her, and pulled out a page of carefully selected comparisons I had typed out. “First, this victim is male. All the others were female. This victim was found off Old Cutler. All of McHale's victims were off Tamiami Trail. This victim was found relatively intact, and in the spot where he was killed. McHale's victims were completely chopped up, and they were moved to a different location for disposal.”

I went on, and she listened carefully. The list was a good one. It had taken me several hours to come up with the most obvious, ludicrous, transparently foolish comparisons, and I must say I did a very good job. And LaGuerta did her part wonderfully, too. She bought the whole thing. Of course, she was hearing what she wanted to hear.

“To sum up,” I said, “this new murder has the fingerprint of a revenge killing, probably drug related. The guy in jail did the other murders and they are absolutely, positively, 100 percent finished and over forever. Never happen again. Case closed.” I dropped the folder on her desk and held out my list.

She took the paper from me and looked at it for a long moment. She frowned. Her eyes moved up and down the page a few times. One corner of her lower lip twitched. Then she placed it carefully on her desk under a heavy jade-green stapler.

“Okay,” she said, straightening the stapler so it was perfectly aligned with the edge of her blotter. “Okay. Pretty good. This should help.” She looked at me again with her frown of concentration still stitched in place, and then suddenly smiled. “Okay. Thank you, Dexter.”