He snorted. “If they let us take a couple of those free beers,” he said. “They’re really cold.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
He jerked his head toward the body. “It’s that new kind, the label turns blue when it’s cold,” he said. He wiped his arm across his forehead. “It’s gotta be over ninety out here, and that beer would taste great right now.”
“Sure,” I said, looking at the improbable shoes on the body. “And then we could go dancing.”
“Hey,” he said. “You want to? When we’re done?”
“No,” I said. “Where’s Deborah?”
He nodded to his left. “Over there,” he said. “Talking to the woman who found it.”
I walked over to where Debs was interviewing a hysterical Hispanic woman who was crying into her hands and shaking her head at the same time, which struck me as a very difficult thing to do, like rubbing your belly and patting your head. But she was doing it quite well, and for some reason Deborah was not impressed with the woman’s wonderful coordination.
“Arabelle,” Debs was saying. “Arabelle, please listen to me.” Arabelle was not listening, and I didn’t think my sister’s vocal tone of combined anger and authority was well calculated to win over anyone—especially not someone who looked like she had been sent over from a casting office to play the part of a cleaning woman with no green card. Deborah glared at me as I approached, as if it was my fault that she was intimidating Arabelle, so I decided to help.
It is not that I think Debs is incompetent—she is very good at her job; it’s in her blood, after all. And the idea that to know me is to love me is one that has never crossed the shadowed threshold of my mind. Just the opposite, in fact. But Arabelle was so upset, it was clear that she was not filled with the thrill of discovery. She was instead several steps over the edge into hysteria, and talking to hysterical people, like so much of ordinary human interaction, takes no particular empathy or liking for people, happily for Dark and Dismal Dexter. It was all technique, a craft and not an art, and that put it squarely inside the expertise of anyone who has studied and copied human behavior. Smile in the right places, nod your head, pretend to listen—I had mastered it ages ago.
“Arabelle,” I said in a soothing voice and with the proper Central American accent, and she stopped shaking her head for a moment. “Arabelle, necitamos descubrir este monstre.” I looked over at Debs, and said, “It is a monster that did this, right?” and she snapped her chin up and down in a nod of agreement.
“Digame, por favor,” I said soothingly, and Arabelle very gratifyingly lowered one hand from her face.
“Sí?”she said shyly, and I marveled once again at the power of my totally smarmy synthetic charm. And in two languages, too.
“En inglés?” I said with a really good fake smile. “Por qué mi hermana no habla español,” I said, nodding at Deborah. I was sure that referring to Debs as “my sister,” rather than “the authority figure with a gun who wants to send you back to El Salvador after she has seen you beaten and raped,” would help to open her up a little bit. “Do you speak English?”
“Lee-tell beet,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “Tell my sister what you saw.” And I took a step back, only to find that Arabelle had shot out a hand and clamped it onto my arm.
“You no go?” she said shyly.
“I stay here,” I said. She looked at me searchingly for a moment. I don’t have any idea what she was looking for, but she apparently thought she saw it. She let go of my arm, dropped both hands to clasp them in front of her, and faced Deborah, standing almost at attention.
I looked at Deborah, too, and found her staring at me with a look of disbelief on her face. “Jesus,” she said. “She trusts you and not me?”
“She can tell that my heart is pure,” I said.
“Pure what?” Debs said, and she shook her head. “Jesus. If she only knew.”
I had to admit there was some truth in my sister’s ironic observation. She had only recently discovered what I am, and to say that she was not quite comfortable with it was a bit of an understatement. Still, it had all been sanctioned and set up by her father, Saint Harry, and even in death his was not an authority that Debs would question—nor would I, for that matter. But her tone of voice was a little sharp for someone who was counting on me for help, and it stung just a little. “If you like,” I said, “I can leave and let you do this alone.”
“No!” said Arabelle, and once again her hand flew over and attached itself to my arm. “You say that you stay,” she said, accusation and near panic in her voice.
I raised an eyebrow at Deborah.
She shrugged. “Yeah,” she said. “You stay.”
I patted Arabelle’s hand and pried it off me. “I’ll be right here,” I said, adding, “Yo espero aquí,” with another completely artificial smile that for some reason seemed to reassure her. She looked into my eyes, smiled back, took a deep breath, and faced Debs.
“Tell me,” Debs said to Arabelle.
“I get here same hour, like every time,” she said.
“What hour is that?” Deborah asked.
Arabelle shrugged. “Five o’clock,” she said. “Threes time a week now, because is close en julio, but they wan keep it clean. No coke-roachess.” She looked at me and I nodded; coke-roachess bad.