Got Your Number

recent troubling conversations with Angora raced through her head, along with her father's revelation that their great-aunt was schizophrenic. Angora had admitted that Carl had choked her—could she have killed him in self-defense? It was too much for Roxann's shell-shocked brain to process at the moment.
    "Don't say a word, Angora," she warned. "Not until you've spoken with a lawyer."
    One of the cops angled his head. "You might want to call one for yourself, Ms. Beadleman."
    She frowned. "Why?"
    "Because Dr. Seger was strangled with a lime-green scarf. Sound familiar?"

Chapter Twenty

    "HELLO?"
    She'd obviously awakened Capistrano from a dead sleep. "Um, hi. This is Roxann. Beadleman."
    He grunted and sheets rustled in the background. "Did Cape show up?"
    "No. At least not that I know of."
    He sighed in relief. "Did you change your mind about something?"
    The drowsy amusement in his voice irritated her—the man thought she was calling to invite herself over for a little early-morning tryst? "No, Detective, I didn't change my mind about anything." She winced and forced the words from her throat. "I n-need your help."
    His rusty laugh rumbled over the line. "Oh, now you need my help. What is it—car trouble? Low on cash?"
    "Carl Seger was murdered last night. I'm at the police station."
    More sheet rustling. "What? Are you a suspect?"
    "He was strangled with my scarf. Will you come?" She counted to three, prepared for him to tell her he didn't want to get involved.
    "I'm already there."
    The resolute click was comforting—the man was an arrogant ass, but right now, with four police officers staring at her, she needed an arrogant ass who was on her side.
    "Was that your lawyer?" one of them asked. Detective Warner, she recalled. Good cop.
    "I don't need a lawyer," she told him. "Where's my cousin?"
    "In the next room," another officer said—Jaffey, bad cop. "Bawling her eyes out."
    "Can I go to her?"
    "Why, so you can synch up your stories?"
    She frowned. "No, because she's scared out of her wits."
    "She should be." He leaned forward, his eyes menacing. "Both of you should be."
    Roxann chewed on her lip, trying not to think about Carl lying dead with her scarf around his neck—it was simply too incredible. "I have nothing to hide, but I want to wait until my friend—er, acquaintance arrives. He's a police detective from Biloxi."
    "And can he give you an alibi?"
    "I was with him for some of the evening, yes."
    "Boyfriend?"
    "No." She and Jaffey held a staring contest, and he finally looked away. She prayed that Angora would keep her mouth shut until the lawyer Nell recommended arrived. Angora had forbidden her to call Dee, and she'd relented—for now. But she had a bad, bad feeling that Angora was going to need as much defense as Jackson and Dee Ryder could afford.
    "Cup of coffee?" Warner asked.
    "Yes, thank you." Actually, scotch sounded better, but she needed to keep her wits about her if she was going to figure out what had happened to her scarf. Her initial reaction that the scarf found at the scene couldn't be hers was quickly refuted by the fact that she couldn't find it, and that the "weapon" matched a confiscated receipt for the lime-green scarf she'd purchased when they stopped outside Baton Rouge. Not the kind of thing she normally bought, but the filmy piece of silk had caught her eye and Angora commented that it looked nice against her hair.
    One estrogenic impulse, and look where it had gotten her.
    Now she couldn't even remember if she'd been wearing it last night when she changed clothes. Nell seemed sure she was still wearing it at the restaurant, but maybe she'd lost it afterward, while fussing and feuding with Capistrano?
    She craned her neck to see if she could catch a glimpse of Angora, but the view from the interrogation room was limited—windows from the waist up on one wall only. The remaining walls were padded with the same low-nap gray carpet that was on the floor—either perps regularly flung themselves around the room, or the cops did it for them.
    The chair was as uncomfortable as possible, naturally. Molded plastic. The overhead lighting was intense and unflattering, the wooden table was bolted to the floor. A pad of paper and a pencil lay nearby, just in case she felt compelled to confess, she assumed. The bizarre urge to laugh seized her, but she covered her mouth with her hand and swallowed hard. The entire atmosphere had a strange, cartoonish quality. Quite remarkable, and