“I stepped out, locked the door, and turned around. That’s when I saw the Mustang.”

“You didn’t see it before?”

“No. My car is right in front of the door, plus when I step out, I’m already turning back to lock it.”

He asked question after question, nitpicking details, and I answered patiently. I told him how I’d hit the ground when I heard the shot, and showed him the dirt stains on my clothes. That was also when I noticed that I’d skinned the palm of my left hand. I wish someone would explain to me how something I hadn’t even noticed before began stinging like hell the moment I did notice it. I frowned at my palm, and picked at the loosened skin. “I need to wash my hands,” I said, interrupting the endless questions.

Both detectives looked at me with cop eyes. “Not yet,” MacInnes finally said. “I’d like to get this interview finished.”

Okay, fine. I understood. Nicole was dead, we’d had an altercation earlier in the day, and I was the only one there. They had to cover all bases, and on the face of things I was first base, so they were covering me.

I suddenly thought of my cell phone. “Oh, I meant to tell you; I was in the middle of dialing nine-one-one when I heard the shot and hit the dirt, and I dropped my cell phone. I felt around but couldn’t find it. Could you have someone check around my car? It has to be there.”

MacInnes nodded to Vyskosigh, and the officer took himself off, flashlight in hand. He returned just a few moments later with my cell phone, which he gave to Detective MacInnes. “It was lying facedown under the car,” he said.

The detective looked at the little screen on the phone. When you start to make a call, the screen lights up, but it doesn’t stay lit; after thirty seconds or so-and I’m guessing, because, while I might time the arrival of cops, I haven’t yet timed the light on my cell phone-the screen goes dark, but if you’ve actually pressed any numbers, they stay on the screen. Sitting in my well-lit reception area, the numbers would be visible even without the backlighting.

I was tired, I was shaken up, and I was sick at the thought of Nicole being shot basically right in front of me. I wanted them to hurry up and get past first base-me-and move on so I could go somewhere private and cry. So I said, “I know I’m the only one here and all you have is my word that things happened the way I said, but isn’t there something you can do to speed this up? A lie detector test, maybe?” That wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, because I felt as if my heart were trying to run the Kentucky Derby, which is bound to screw up a polygraph. I tried to think of something else to distract the detectives, in case they decided that, yeah, a polygraph administered on the spot might be just the ticket. I don’t know if they do things like that, but I didn’t want to take the chance. Besides, I’ve watched cop shows on television, and I know they have ways of proving if someone has fired a gun. “Or how about one of those thingie tests?”

Detective MacInnes sucked in one cheek, which made his face look lopsided. “ ‘Thingie test’?” he asked in a careful tone of voice.

“You know. On my hands. So you can tell if I’ve fired a gun.”

“Ohhh,” he said knowingly, nodding his head and shooting a quick, quelling glance at his partner, who had made a muffled noise. “That thingie test. You mean for gunpowder residue?”

“That’s it,” I said. Yes, I know they were trying hard not to laugh at me, but sometimes the dumb-blond stereotype has its uses. The less threatening I could appear, the better.

Well, Detective MacInnes took me at my word. A crime scene technician came with a tackle box full of stuff, and did an Instant Shooter I.D. test, rubbing my palms with fiberglass swabs, then putting the swabs in some chemical that was supposed to change colors if I had any gunpowder on my hands. I didn’t. I had expected them to spray my hands with something and hold them under a black light, but when I asked the technician, he said that was old hat. You learn something new every day.

Not that MacInnes and Forester relaxed procedure in any way after that. They kept asking questions-could I see the man’s features, tell what make of car he was driving, and so forth-while my car, the entire building, and adjacent properties were diligently searched, and only after they turned up nothing in the way of wet clothing did they conclude the interview, without even telling me not to leave town.

I knew Nicole had been shot at close range, because I had seen the man standing with her. Since she was lying beside her car at the far end of the parking lot, in the rain, and since I was the only completely dry person there-which was why they had looked for wet clothing, to make certain I hadn’t changed clothes-I therefore had not been out in the rain and couldn’t have done the deed myself. There were no wet prints other than those made by the officers coming in the front door; the back entrance was dry. My shoes were dry. My hands were dirty-indicating I hadn’t washed them-and my clothes were soiled. My cell phone had been under the car, with the 9-1 clearly visible in the window to show I had started to dial 911. In short, what they saw jibed with what I said, which is always a good thing.

I escaped to the bathroom, where I took care of a pressing problem, then washed my hands. The skinned patch on my palm was stinging, so then I went into my office and took out my first-aid kit. I squirted some antibiotic salve on the scrape, then covered it with a giant-size adhesive bandage.

I thought about calling Mom, just in case someone had heard something on their police scanner and called her, which would scare her and Dad to death, but figured it would be smarter to first ask the detectives if making calls was okay. I went to my office door and looked out, but they were busy and I didn’t interrupt.

Frankly, my butt was dragging. I was exhausted. The rain was pouring down and the sound made me even more tired, while the flashing lights outside gave me a headache. The cops looked tired, too, and miserably wet despite their rain gear. The best thing I could do, I decided, was make coffee. What cop didn’t like coffee?

I like flavored coffees, and always kept a variety of flavors in my office for my personal use, but in my experience men aren’t very adventurous when it comes to coffee-at least, southern men aren’t. A man from Seattle might not turn a hair at chocolate-almond-flavored coffee, or raspberry chocolate, but southern men generally want their coffee to taste like coffee and nothing else. I keep a nice, smooth breakfast blend for those with Y chromosomes, so I got it out of my supply cabinet and began scooping it into a paper filter. Then I added a dash of salt, which counteracts the natural bitterness of coffee, and just for good measure added one scoop of my chocolate-almond. That wouldn’t be enough for them to taste, but would give the brew an added mellowness.

My coffeemaker is one of those two-pot Bunn machines that makes an entire pot of coffee in about two minutes flat. No, I haven’t timed it, but I can go pee while it’s making and it’ll be finished when I am, which means it’s pretty damn fast.

I put one pot under the spout and used the other pot to pour in the water. While the coffee was making, I got out a supply of polystyrene coffee cups, creamer, sugar, red plastic stirrers, and arranged them beside the coffeemaker.

Very shortly Detective Forester followed his nose into my office, his sharp gaze noting the coffeemaker as soon as he entered.

“I just made a fresh pot of coffee,” I said as I sipped from my own cup, which was a nice cheerful yellow with the words “FORGIVE YOUR ENEMIES-IT MESSES WITH THEIR HEADS” emblazoned in purple around the bottom. Polystyrene is hell on lipstick, so I always use a real pottery cup-not that I had on any lipstick, but that’s beside the point. “Would you like some?”