“It is if it’s her blood,” Recht said.
“Excuse—If I … Officer?” the fidgeting woman said, fluttering the piece of paper.
Deborah held her glare on Recht for a moment, then turned to face the woman. “Yes, Mrs. Aldovar,” she said, and I looked at the woman with interest. If she was the missing girl’s mother, it would explain the eccentric hand movements.
“This could … I … I found it,” Mrs. Aldovar said, and both of her hands went up helplessly for a moment. Then the right one fell to her side, leaving the left in the air with the sheet of paper.
“You found what, ma’am?” Deborah said, already looking back at Recht as if she might lunge forward and grab the paper.
“This is … You said to look, um … medical report,” she said, and she twitched the piece of paper. “I found it. With Samantha’s blood type.”
Deborah made a wonderful move that looked like she had been playing professional basketball her whole life. She stepped between the woman and the feds and got her backside directly in front of Recht, effectively screening her out from any chance of seeing the paper, all while reaching out and plucking the paper politely from Mrs. Aldovar’s hand. “Thank you, ma’am,” she said, running a finger down the page. After only a few seconds she looked up and glared at me.
“You said type O,” she said.
“That’s right,” I said.
She flipped the page with a fingertip. “This says AB positive.”
“Let me see that,” Recht demanded, trying to lurch forward and get at the paper, but Deborah’s NBA butt-block was too much for her.
“What the fuck, Dexter,” Deborah said accusingly, as if it were my fault the two blood types were different.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not at all sure what I was apologizing for, but quite certain from her tone of voice that I should.
“This girl, Samantha—she has AB-positive blood,” she said. “Who has type O?”
“Lots of people,” I reassured her. “It’s very common.”
“Are you saying—” Mrs. Aldovar tried to say, but Deborah plowed on.
“This is no help,” Debs said. “If it’s not her blood in there, then … who the hell flings somebody else’s blood on the wall?”
“A kidnapper,” Special Agent Recht said. “Trying to cover his tracks.”
Deborah turned and looked at her, and the expression on her face was truly wonderful to see. With just a few rearranged facial muscles and one small raised eyebrow, Debs managed to say, How is it possible that someone this stupid can tie her own shoes and walk among us?
“Tell me,” Deborah said, looking her over with disbelief, “is ‘special agent’ kind of like ‘special education’?” Deborah’s new partner, Deke, give a vacuous syllable of laughter, and Recht blushed.
“Let me see that paper,” Recht said again.
“You went to college, didn’t you?” Deborah went on, very conversationally. “And that fancy FBI school in Quantico.”
“Officer Morgan,” Recht said sternly, but Deborah waved the paper at her.
“It’s Sergeant Morgan,” she said. “And I need you to get your people off my crime scene.”
“I have jurisdiction with kidnapping—” Recht started to say, but Deborah was gaining steam now and cut her off without any real effort.
“Do you want to tell me that the kidnapper threw that much of his own blood on the wall, and was still strong enough to take away a struggling teenager?” she said. “Or did he bring some blood in a mayonnaise jar and say, ‘Splat, you’re coming with me’?” Deborah shook her head slightly and added a small smirk. “Because I can’t see that either way, Special Agent.” She paused, and she was on such a roll that Recht apparently didn’t dare speak. “What I see,” Deborah said, “is a girl pranking us and faking her own kidnapping. And if you have evidence that this is anything else, now is the time to whip it out.”
“Whip it out,” Deke said with a goofy chuckle, but nobody apparently noticed except me.
“You know very well—” Recht began, but once again she was interrupted—this time by Deborah’s new partner, Deke.
“Hey,” he said, and we all turned to look at him.
Deke nodded at the floor. “The lady fainted,” he said, and we all turned to look where he had nodded.