"In there?" I said. I know, a really dumb remark, but honestly, I had just
about run out of the smart ones and I can't be expected to come up with
something good under such circumstances.

She cocked her head to one side and poked her tongue out, letting it run
along her bottom lip; slowly to the left, right, left, and back into her
mouth again. Then she nodded. "You must think I'm stupid," she said. And
of course that thought had crossed my mind fleetingly once or twice, but
it didn't seem politic to say so. "But you got to remember," she went on,
"I'm a full detective, and this is Miami. How do you think I got that,
huh?"

"Your looks?" I asked, giving her a dashing smile. It never hurts to
compliment a woman.

She showed me her lovely set of teeth, even brighter in the high crime
lights that lit up the parking area. "That's good," she said, and she
moved her lips into a strange half smile that hollowed her cheeks and made
her look old. "That's the kind of shit I used to fall for when I thought
you liked me."

"I do like you, Detective," I told her, perhaps a little too eagerly. She
didn't seem to hear me.

"But then you push me on the floor like I'm some kind of pig, and I wonder
what's wrong with me? I got bad breath? And it hits me. It's not me. It's
you. There's something wrong about you."

Of course she was right, but it still hurt to hear her say so. "I don't--
What do you mean?"

She shook her head again. "Sergeant Doakes wants to kill you and he
doesn't even know why. I should've listened to him. Something is wrong
about you. And you're connected to this hooker stuff some way."

"Connected-- What do you mean?"

This time there was an edge of savage glee to the smile she showed me and
the trace of accent snuck back into her voice. "You can save the cute
acting for your lawyer. And maybe a judge. 'Cause I think I got you now."
She looked at me for a long hard moment and her dark eyes glittered. She
looked as inhuman as I am and it made a small shiver run across the back
of my neck. Had I truly underestimated her? Was she really this good?

"And so you followed me?"

More teeth. "That's right, yeah," she said. "Why are you looking around at
the fence? What's in there?"

I am sure that under ordinary circumstances I would have thought of this
before, but I plead duress. It truly didn't occur to me until that very
moment. But when it did, it was like a small and painful light flashing
on. "When did you pick me up? At my house? At what time?"

"Why do you keep changing the subject? Something's in there, huh?"

"Detective, please--this could be very important. When and where did you
start to follow me?"

She studied me for a minute, and I began to realize that I had, in fact,
underestimated her. There was a great deal more to this woman than
political instinct. She really did seem to have something extra. I was
still not convinced that any of it was intelligence, but she did have
patience, and sometimes that was more important than smarts in her line of
work. She was willing to simply wait and watch me and keep repeating her
question until she got an answer. And then she would probably ask the same
question a few more times, wait and watch some more, to see what I would
do. Ordinarily I could outwit her, but I could not possibly outwait her,
not tonight. So I put on my best humble face and repeated myself. "Please,
Detective . . ."

She stuck her tongue out again, and then finally put it away. "Okay," she
said. "When your sister was gone for a few hours and no word where, I
started to think maybe she's up to something. And I know she can't do
anything herself, so where would she go?" She arched an eyebrow at me,
then continued in a triumphant tone. "To your place, that's where! To talk
with you!" She bobbed her head, pleased with her deductive logic. "And so
I think about you for a while. How you're always showing up and looking,
even when you don't have to. How you figure out those serial killers
sometimes, except this one? And then how you fuck me over with that stupid
list, make me look stupid, push me on the fucking floor--" Her face looked
harder, a little older again for a moment. Then she smiled and went on. "I
said something out loud, in my office, and Sergeant Doakes says, `I told
you about him but you don't listen.' And all of a sudden it's your big
handsome face all over the place and it shouldn't be." She shrugged. "So I
went to your place, too."

"When? At what time, did you notice?"

"Naw," she said. "But I'm only there like twenty minutes and then you come
out and play with your faggot Barbie doll and then drive over here."

"Twenty minutes--" So she hadn't been there in time to see who or what had
taken Deborah. And quite probably she was telling the truth and had simply
followed me to see--to see what?

"But why follow me at all?"

She shrugged. "You're connected to this thing. Maybe you didn't do it, I
don't know. But I'm gonna find out. And some of what I find is gonna stick
to you. What's in there, in those boxes? You gonna tell me, or we just
going to stand here all night?"

In her own way, she had put her finger right on it. We could not stand
here all night. We could not, I was sure, stand here much longer at all
before terrible things happened to Deborah. If they hadn't already
happened. We had to go, right now, go find him and stop him. But how did I
do that with LaGuerta along for the ride? I felt like a comet with a tail
I didn't want.

I took a deep breath. Rita had once taken me to a New Age Health Awareness
Workshop which had stressed the importance of deep cleansing breaths. I
took one. I did not feel any cleaner after my breath, but at least it made
my brain whirl into brief action, and I realized I would have to do
something I had rarely done before--tell the truth. LaGuerta was still
staring at me, waiting for an answer.