A cheap shot. But it missed. LaGuerta waved a hand airily. “They are only putas,” she said, looking hard at Deb's cleavage, so very prominent in her hooker suit. “Just hookers. The important thing here is to keep the press from getting hysterical.” She shook her head slowly, as if in disbelief, and looked up. “Considering what you can do with gravity, that should be easy.” And she winked at me and strolled off, over toward the perimeter, where Captain Matthews was talking with great dignity to Jerry Gonzalez from Channel 7.

“Bitch,” Deborah said.

“I'm sorry, Debs. Would you prefer me to say, We'll show her? Or should I go with I told you so?”

She glared at me. “Goddamn it, Dexter,” she said. “I really want to be the one to find this guy.”

And as I thought about that no blood at all-

So did I. I really wanted to find him, too.

I TOOK MY BOAT OUT THAT NIGHT AFTER WORK, TO get away from Deb's questions and to sort through what I was feeling. Feeling. Me, feeling. What a concept.

I nosed my Whaler slowly out the canal, thinking nothing, a perfect Zen state, moving at idle speed past the large houses, all separated from each other by high hedges and chain-link fences. I threw an automatic big wave and bright smile to all the neighbors out in their yards that grew neatly up to the canal's seawall. Kids playing on the manicured grass. Mom and Dad barbecuing, or lounging, or polishing the barbed wire, hawkeyes on the kids. I waved to everybody. Some of them even waved back. They knew me, had seen me go by before, always cheerful, a big hello for everybody. He was such a nice man. Very friendly. I can't believe he did those horrible things…

I opened up the throttle when I cleared the canal, heading out the channel and then southeast, toward Cape Florida. The wind in my face and the taste of the salt spray helped clear my head, made me feel clean and a little fresher. I found it a great deal easier to think. Part of it was the calm and peace of the water. And another part was that in the best tradition of Miami watercraft, most of the other boaters seemed to be trying to kill me. I found that very relaxing. I was right at home. This is my country; these are my people.

All day long at work I'd gotten little forensic updates. Around lunchtime the story broke national. The lid was coming off the hooker murders after the “grisly discovery” at the Cacique Motel. Channel 7 had done a masterful job of presenting all the hysterical horror of body parts in a Dumpster without actually saying anything about them. As Detective LaGuerta had shrewdly observed, these were only hookers; but once public pressure started to rise from the media, they might as well be senator's daughters. And so the department began to gear up for a long spell of defensive maneuvering, knowing exactly what kind of heartrending twaddle would be coming from the brave and fearless foot soldiers of the fifth estate.

Deb had stayed at the scene until the captain began to worry about authorizing too much overtime, and then she'd been sent home. She started calling me at two in the afternoon to hear what I'd discovered, which was very little. They'd found no traces of anything at the motel. There were so many tire tracks in the parking lot that none were distinct. No prints or traces in the Dumpster, on the bags, or on the body parts. Everything USDA inspection clean.

The one big clue of the day was the left leg. As Angel had noticed, the right leg had been sectioned into several neat pieces, cut at the hip, knee, and ankle. But the left leg was not. It was a mere two sections, neatly wrapped. Aha, said Detective LaGuerta, lady genius. Somebody had interrupted the killer, surprised him, startled him so he did not finish the cut. He panicked when he was seen. And she directed all her effort at finding that witness.

There was one small problem with LaGuerta's theory of interruption. A tiny little thing, perhaps splitting hairs, but-the entire body had still been meticulously cleaned and wrapped, presumably after it had been cut up. And then it had been transported carefully to the Dumpster, apparently with enough time and focus for the killer to make no mistakes and leave no traces. Either nobody pointed this out to LaGuerta or-wonder of wonders!-could it be that nobody else had noticed? Possible; so much of police work is routine, fitting details into patterns. And if the pattern was brand new, the investigation could seem like three blind men examining an elephant with a microscope.

But since I was neither blind nor hampered by routine, it had seemed far more likely to me that the killer was simply unsatisfied. Plenty of time to work, but-this was the fifth murder in the same pattern. Was it getting boring, simply chopping up the body? Was Our Boy searching for something else, something different? Some new direction, an untried twist?

I could almost feel his frustration. To have come so far, all the way to the end, sectioning the leftovers for gift wrapping. And then the sudden realization: This isn't it. Something is just not right. Coitus interruptus.

It wasn't fulfilling him this way anymore. He needed a different approach. He was trying to express something, and hadn't found his vocabulary yet. And in my personal opinion-I mean, if it was me-this would make him very frustrated. And very likely to look further for the answer.

Soon.

But let LaGuerta look for a witness. There would be none. This was a cold, careful monster, and absolutely fascinating to me. And what should I do about that fascination? I was not sure, so I had retreated to my boat to think.

A Donzi cut across my bow at seventy miles per hour, only inches away. I waved happily and returned to the present. I was approaching Stiltsville, the mostly abandoned collection of old stilt homes in the water near Cape Florida. I nosed into a big circle, going nowhere, and let my thoughts move back into that same slow arc.

What would I do? I needed to decide now, before I got too helpful for Deborah. I could help her solve this, absolutely, no one better. Nobody else was even moving in the right direction. But did I want to help? Did I want this killer arrested? Or did I want to find him and stop him myself? Beyond this-oh, nagging little thought-did I even want him to stop?

What would I do?

To my right I could just see Elliott Key in the last light of the day. And as always, I remembered my camping trip there with Harry Morgan. My foster father. The Good Cop.

You're different, Dexter.

Yes, Harry, I certainly am.

But you can learn to control that difference and use it constructively.

All right, Harry. If you think I should. How?

And he told me.

There is no starry sky anywhere like the starry sky in South Florida when you are fourteen and camping out with Dad. Even if he's only your foster dad. And even if the sight of all those stars merely fills you with a kind of satisfaction, emotion being out of the question. You don't feel it. That's part of the reason you're here.

The fire has died down and the stars are exceedingly bright and foster dear old dad has been quiet for some time, taking small sips on the old-fashioned hip flask he has pulled from the outside flap of his pack. And he's not very good at this, not like so many other cops, not really a drinker. But it's empty now, and it's time for him to say his piece if he's ever going to say it.

“You're different, Dexter,” he says.

I look away from the brightness of the stars. Around the small and sandy clearing the last glow of the fire is making shadows. Some of them trickle across Harry's face. He looks strange to me, like I've never seen him before. Determined, unhappy, a little dazed. “What do you mean, Dad?”