Jeff Lindsay - Dexter is delicious

Because I was following Deborah, several of them eyed me speculatively, but after many years of diligent maintenance, my disguise was too good for them, and they all decided that I was exactly what I wanted to appear-an absolute nonentity with no answers to anything. And so, relatively unmolested, battered only on the upper arm from Deborah's arm punch, I made it out of the press conference and, with my sister, back to the task force command center on the second floor.

Somewhere along the way, Deke joined us, trickling in behind to lean against the wall. Somebody had set up a coffee machine and Deborah poured some into a Styrofoam cup. She sipped it and made a face. "This is worse than the coffee service stuff," she said.

"We could go for breakfast," I said hopefully.

Debs put down the cup and sat down. "We got too much to do," she said. "What time is it?"

"Eight forty-five," Deke said, and Deborah looked at him sourly, as if he had chosen an unpleasant time. "What," he said. "It is."

The door swung open and Detective Hood came in. "I am so fucking good I scare myself," he said as he swaggered over and slumped into a seat in front of Deborah.

"Scare me, too, Richard," Deborah said. "What have you got?"

Hood pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. "In record time," he said. "Tyler Spanos's 2009 blue convertible Porsche." He flicked a finger at the paper, making a popping sound. "Guy runs a chop shop, he owed me a favor; I cut him a break last year." He shrugged. "It woulda been his third fall, so he called me with this." He flicked the paper again. "It's in a repaint place up at Opa-Locka," he said. "I got a squad car there now, holding the guys were painting it, a couple of Haitians." He tossed the paper on the desk in front of Deborah. "Who's your daddy?" he said.

"Get out there," Debs said. "I want to know who sold it to them, and I don't care how you find out."

Hood gave her a huge meat-eating smile. "Cool," he said. "Sometimes I love this job." He slid up and out of the chair with a surprising grace and was out the door and away, whistling "Here Comes the Sun."

Deborah watched him go and as the door swung closed she said, "Our first break, and that dickhead gets it for me."

"Hey, I dunno, break?" Deke said. "By the time they're painting it, won't be any prints or anything."

Debs looked at him with an expression that would have sent me scurrying under the furniture. "Somebody got stupid, Deke," she said, with a little extra emphasis on the word "stupid." "They should have put the car in a sinkhole, but somebody wanted to make a quick couple of grand, so they sold it. And if we find who sold it to them-"

"We find the girl," Deke said.

Deborah looked at him, and her face looked almost fond. "That's right, Deke," she said. "We find the girl."

"Okay, then," Deke said.

The door swung open again, and Detective Alvarez came in. "You're gonna love this," he said, and Deborah looked at him expectantly.

"You found Bobby Acosta?" she said.

Alvarez shook his head. "The Spanos family is here to see you," he said.

If the man who came through the door first was Mr. Spanos, then Tyler's father was a twenty-eight-year-old bodybuilder with a ponytail and a suspicious bulge under his left arm. That would have meant he fathered Tyler at the age of ten, which seemed to be pushing the envelope, even in Miami. But whoever this man was, he was very serious, and he looked the room over carefully, which included glaring at me and Deke, before he stuck his head back into the hall and nodded.

The next man into the room looked a little bit more like you would hope a teenage girl's father might look. He was middle-aged, relatively short, and a little chubby, with thinning hair and gold-rimmed glasses. His face was sweaty and tired and his mouth hung open as if he had to gasp for breath. He staggered into the room, looked helplessly around for a moment, and then stood in front of Deborah, blinking and breathing heavily.

A woman came hustling in behind him. She was younger and several inches taller, with reddish blond hair and way too much very good jewelry. She was followed by another young bodybuilder, this time with a buzz cut instead of a ponytail. He carried a medium-size aluminum suitcase and he closed the door behind him and leaned against the doorframe. The woman marched over to where Deborah sat, pulled a chair out, and guided Mr. Spanos into it. "Sit down," she said to him. "And close your mouth." Mr. Spanos looked at her, blinked some more, and then let her lever him into the chair by his elbow, although he did not close his mouth.

The woman looked around and found another chair at the conference table, and pulled it over beside Mr. Spanos. She sat, looked at him, and then shook her head before turning her attention to Deborah.

"Sergeant-Morgan?" she said, as if unsure of the name.

"That's right," Deborah said.

The woman looked hard at Deborah for a moment, as if she was hoping my sister would morph into Clint Eastwood. She pursed her lips, took a breath, and said, "I'm Daphne Spanos. Tyler's mother."

Deborah nodded. "I'm very sorry for your loss," she said.

Mr. Spanos sobbed. It was a very wet sound, and it took Deborah by surprise, because she goggled at him as if he had started to sing.

"Stop it," Daphne Spanos said to him. "You have to pull yourself together."

"My little girl," he said, and it was very clear that he was not really pulling himself together quite yet.

"She's my little girl, too, goddamn it," Daphne hissed at him. "Now quit blubbering." Mr. Spanos looked down at his feet and shook his head, but at least he did not make any more wet noises. Instead he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and then sat up as straight as he could and looked at Deborah.

"You're in charge of finding the animals that did this," he said to Debs. "That killed my little girl." And I thought he was going to snivel again, but he clamped his jaw shut tightly, and nothing more came out except a ragged breath.

"It's a task force, Mr. Spanos," she said. "We have a team made up of officers from all the different branches of-"

Mr. Spanos held up his hand and waved it to cut her off. "I don't care about the team," he said. "They said you're in charge. Are you?"

Deborah glanced at Alvarez, who looked away with a suddenly very innocent face. She looked back at Spanos. "That's right," Deborah said.

He stared at her for a long moment. "Why not a man?" he said. "Is this a politically correct thing, they put a woman in charge?"

I could see Alvarez struggling to control himself; Deborah didn't need to struggle. She was used to this, which is not the same thing as saying she liked it. "I am in charge," she said, "because I am the best and I have earned it. If you have a problem with that, too bad."

Spanos looked at her, shook his head. "I don't like this," he said. "It should be a man."

"Mr. Spanos," Deborah said, "if you have something to say, spit it out. If not-I am trying to catch a killer here, and you are wasting my time." She glared at him, and he looked uncertain. He glanced at his wife, who compressed her lips and then nodded, and Spanos turned to Mr. Ponytail. "Clear the room," he said, and Ponytail took a step toward Deke.

"Back off," Deborah barked, and Ponytail froze. "We're not clearing the room," she said. "This is a police station."

"I have something for your ears only," Spanos said. "I want it confidential."

"I'm a cop," Debs said. "You want confidential, get a lawyer."

"No," Spanos said. "This is for you only, for the head of the investigation, not these other guys."

"It doesn't work that way," Debs said.

"Just this once," Spanos said urgently. "It's my little girl."