A. A hardware store.

Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. Somewhere in Miami.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. In Episode 5, of Season Four, "Dirty Harry".

The Trinity Killer has a cycle of killing three people in a row. The first victim is a woman killed in a bathtub. The second is a woman who falls to her death. The third victim is a man bludgeoned to death.

In preparation for this final, bludgeoning murder, Trinity goes to a hardware store to buy a hammer.

We see him in the store, asking the clerk for advice on which hammer to buy, before selecting one.

(After using the hammer to kill a man at an office plaza, he uses it in public to put up the frame of a new house, and later gives the murder weapon to Dexter as a gift.)

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. A hardware store. But nowhere near Miami.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. This is really B&B Hardware, at 929 E. Wardlow Road, in north Long Beach.

A small, neighborhood store, you'll find it at the northwest corner of Wardlow and California Avenue.

(In the scene, only the interior of the store is shown.)

The store is just a few blocks west of another location from the same episode: the breakfast cafe where Trinity forces a waitress to re-cook his omelet.

And they shot another scene in the alley on the west side of the hardware store.


[ Update: As of January 2010, Susan Loomis tells me that the hardware store has closed. You'll notice that there was a "Store Closing" banner on the store when I shot the photos below. ]




I shot the photos below in November 2009.






Here is an aerial photo of the store. And here is a map link.

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A.  This was serendipity. I was headed to Long Beach, when I got off the San Diego (405) Freeway at the Long Beach Blvd exit, and ran right into a yellow sign reading "Dexter", tacked to a telephone pole on Wardlow, which I knew meant that they were filming nearby. So I headed east on Wardlow, following the signs. It wasn't hard to spot the crew working at the corner of Wardlow & California.