We stepped in. A suffocating cloud of sickly sweet incense rolled over me, and I could tell that my inner enhancement had begun with a complete overhaul of my lungs. Through the smoke I could dimly see a large yellow silk banner hung along one wall that stated WE ARE ALL ONE. It did not say one of what. A recording played softly, the sound of someone who seemed to be fighting off an overdose of downers by occasionally ringing a series of small bells. A waterfall murmured in the background and I am sure that my spirit would have soared, if only I had one. Since I didn’t, I found the whole thing just a bit irritating.

But of course, we weren’t here for pleasure, or even inner enhancement. And Sergeant Sister was, of course, all business all the time. She marched over to the counter, where there stood a middle-aged woman wearing a full-length tie-dyed dress that seemed to be made out of old crepe paper. Her graying hair radiated out from her head in a kind of random mess, and she was frowning. Of course, it may have been a beatific frown of enlightenment.

“Can I help you?” she said, in a gravelly voice that seemed to suggest we were beyond help.

Deborah held up her badge. Before she could say anything the woman reached over and plucked it from her hand.

“All right, Sergeant Morgan,” the woman said, tossing the badge on the counter. “It seems to be genuine.”

“Couldn’t you just read her aura and tell that?” I suggested. Neither of them seemed ready to give that remark any of the appreciation it deserved, so I shrugged and listened as Deborah began her grueling interrogation.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions, please,” Deborah said, leaning forward to scoop up her badge.

“About what?” the woman demanded. She frowned even harder, and Deborah frowned back, and it began to look like we were in for a good old-fashioned country frown-off, with the winner getting free Botox treatments to freeze her face into a permanent scowl.

“There have been some murders,” Deborah said, and the woman shrugged.

“What’s that got to do with me?” she asked.

I applauded her reasoning, but after all, I did have to play for my own team now and then.

“It’s because we are all one,” I said. “That’s the basis of all police work.”

She swiveled her frown to me and blinked at me in a very aggressive way. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded. “Lemme see your badge.”

“I’m her backup,” I said. “In case she’s attacked by bad karma.”

The woman snorted, but at least she didn’t shoot me. “Cops in this town,” she said, “are swimming in bad karma. I was at the FTAA rally, and I know what you people are like.”

“Maybe we are,” Deborah said, “but the other side is even worse, so could you just answer a few questions?”

The woman looked back at Deborah, still frowning, and shrugged. “Okay, I guess,” she said. “But I don’t see how I can help. And I call my lawyer if you get out of line.”

“Fine,” Deborah said. “We’re looking for a lead on somebody who might be connected to a local alternative religious group that has a thing for bulls.”

For a second I thought the woman was almost going to smile, but she caught herself just in time. “Bulls? Jesus, who doesn’t have a thing for bulls. Goes all the way back to Sumer, Crete, all those old cradle-of-civilization places. Lots of people have worshipped them. I mean, aside from the huge cocks, they’re very powerful.”

If the woman thought she was going to embarrass Deborah, she didn’t know as much about Miami cops as she thought she did. My sister didn’t even blink. “Do you know of any group in particular that might be local?” Debs said.

“I dunno,” she said. “What kind of group?”

“Candomblé?” I said, briefly grateful to Vince for supplying a word. “Palo Mayombe? Or even Wicca.”

“The Spanish stuff, you gotta go over to Eleggua on Eighth Street. I wouldn’t know about that. We sell some stuff to the Wicca people, but I’m not gonna tell you about it without a warrant. Anyway, they don’t do bulls.” She snorted. “They just stand around in the Everglades naked, waiting for their power to come.”

“Is there anybody else?” Debs insisted.

The woman just shook her head. “I dunno. I mean, I know about most of the groups in town, and nothing like that I can think of.” She shrugged. “Maybe the Druids, they got a spring event coming up. They used to do human sacrifice.”

Deborah frowned even more intensely. “When was that?” she said.

This time the woman actually did smile, just a little, with one corner of her mouth. “About two thousand years ago. You’re a little late on that one, Sherlock.”

“Is there anything else you can think of that might help?” Deborah asked.

The woman shook her head. “Help with what? There might be some psycho loser out there who read Aleister Crowley and lives on a dairy farm. How would I know?”

Deborah looked at her for a moment, as if trying to decide if she had been offensive enough to arrest, and then apparently decided against it. “Thank you for your time,” she said, and she flipped her business card on the counter. “If you think of anything that might be helpful, please give me a call.”

“Yeah, sure,” the woman said, without even glancing at the card. Deborah glared at her for a moment longer and then stalked out of the door. The woman stared at me and I smiled.

“I really like vegetables,” I said. Then I gave the woman the peace sign and followed my sister out.

“That was a stupid idea,” Deborah said as we walked rapidly back to her car.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” I said. And it was quite true, I wouldn’t say it. Of course, it really was a stupid idea, but to say so would have been to invite one of Debs’s vicious arm punches. “If nothing else, we eliminated a few possibilities.”

“Sure,” she said sourly. “We know it probably wasn’t a bunch of naked fruits, unless they did it two thousand years ago.”

She did have a point, but I see it as my job in life to help all those around me maintain a positive attitude. “It’s still progress,” I said. “Shall we check out the place on Eighth Street? I’ll translate for you.” In spite of being a Miami native, Debs had whimsically insisted on studying French in school, and she could barely order lunch in Spanish.

She shook her head. “Waste of time,” she said. “I’ll tell Angel to ask around, but it won’t go anywhere.”

And she was right. Angel came back late that afternoon with a very nice candle that had a prayer to St. Jude on it in Spanish, but other than that his trip to the place on Eighth Street was a waste of time, just as Debs had predicted.

We were left with nothing, except two bodies, no heads, and a very bad feeling.

That was about to change.

T HE NEXT DAY PASSED UNEVENTFULLY AND WE GOT NO closer to any kind of hint about the two murders at the university. And life being the kind of lopsided, grotesque affair that it is, Deborah blamed our lack of progress on me. She was still convinced that I had special magical powers and had used them to see straight into the dark heart of the killings, and that I was keeping vital information from her for petty personal reasons.

Very flattering, but totally untrue. The only insight I had into the matter was that something about it had scared the Dark Passenger, and I did not want that to happen again. I decided to stay away from the case, and since there was almost no blood work involved, that should have been easy in a logical and well-ordered universe.

But alas, we do not live in any such place. Our universe is ruled by random whim, inhabited by people who laugh at logic. At the moment, the chief of these was my sister. Late the following morning she cornered me in my little cubbyhole and dragged me away to lunch with her boyfriend, Kyle Chutsky. I had no real objections to Chutsky, other than his permanent attitude of knowing the real truth about everything. Aside from that, he was just as pleasant and amiable as a cold killer can be, and it would have been hypocritical for me to object to his personality on those grounds. And since he seemed to make my sister happy, I did not object on any other grounds, either.