Love Can Be Murder

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 quite terrifying.
    "Here." Warner handed her a paper cup of strong coffee that scalded her tongue, and, unfortunately, she still didn't wake up as she'd hoped, to find Angora asleep in the twin bed next to her in Nell's guest room. Carl was dead. No, worse—Carl was murdered.
    A rap on the window caught her attention, and when she saw Capistrano's mug peering in, her heart lifted crazily. She hated to admit it, but there was something reassuring about having the big lug around.
    "Is that your boyfriend?" Jaffey asked.
    "Acquaintance," she corrected.
    He gestured for Capistrano to come in and the men introduced themselves. Capistrano flashed his badge, for professional courtesy, she assumed. He was a good head taller than anyone in the room. And he looked remarkably put together to have rolled out of bed fifteen minutes ago. She didn't want to think about how she looked.
    "You look like hell," he said.
    "Nice to see you, too."
    "Has she been charged?" he asked the room in general.
    "Not yet," Jaffey said.
    Capistrano walked around to lean on the wall facing her. "What happened?" he asked Jaffey.
    But Warner took the lead. "Paper boy noticed Seger's door was open this morning around five o'clock, and went to investigate. Found him dead in the library, strangled by a scarf that belongs to your girlfriend here."
    Roxann pursed her mouth. "Except I don't know how it got there. Was I wearing it last night when we"—she frowned—"said goodbye?" The cops gave each other knowing looks that infuriated her.
    "I don't remember," Capistrano said. "I wasn't looking at the scarf."
    How did he do that? Make it seem as if there was something between them? In fact, why the devil had she even called him ?
    He looked back to Warner. "The scarf is purely circumstantial evidence anyway. What else do you have?"
    "Mud on her jeans," he said, pointing. "And a pair of running shoes, caked with dried mud."
    Capistrano looked back to her with a raised eyebrow.
    "I... couldn't sleep last night, so I went jogging."
    "Where?" Jaffey asked.
    She closed her eyes. "To Dr. Seger's house and back."
    Capistrano averted his gaze.
    "That's