Party Crashers

eyes blurred with unexpected tears. "I didn't kill Gary," she murmured. "I'm innocent."
    The woman reached across the table and patted Jolie's arm. "I wish I could say that's going to make my job easier, sweetheart, but it's too early to tell." She sighed. "You're exhausted, so let's get through this real quick-like, so you can go home."
    Jolie gave her a brief background and repeated the conversations she'd had with the police, startling with when she'd first filed the missing persons report to her most recent tête-à-tête with Salyers. Vanderpool wrote furiously, asking questions here and there. Jolie ended with Salyers' announcement that they'd found the murder weapon in her coat pocket.
    "Do you know how the gun might have gotten there?" the woman asked, looking eerily calm for someone defending a murder suspect.
    Jolie shook her head.
    "Have you ever fired a gun?"
    "No."
    "And you have no inkling as to the identity of the woman found in Mr. Hagan's car?"
    "That's right."
    Pam Vanderpool played with her pen, turning it end over end. "Ms. Goodman, if there's anything you haven't been truthful about with the police, I need to know now, so there aren't any surprises."
    Jolie swallowed hard and clasped her hands together. "Well, there's this one little thing."
    Vanderpool squinted. "What?"
    "Wednesday night when I left a party at the High Museum, Gary was waiting in my rental car."
    The woman wet her lips. "And?"
    "And he told me not to go to the police, that if I did, both of our lives would be in danger."
    "Did he say why?"
    "He said that he hadn't killed the woman found in his car, that he'd been set up, but he wouldn't tell me anything other than 'they' were out to get him, and if I went to the police, 'they' might come after me."
    "Why would 'they' come after you?"
    "He said because of an envelope that he'd sent to me. When I told him I hadn't received an envelope, he grew frantic and said 'they' must have intercepted it."
    "Did he say what was in the envelope?"
    "No. He wouldn't answer any of my questions about the dead woman or who he was afraid of. He said the less I knew, the better. He wouldn't even let me see his face."
    "And you didn't report this to the police?"
    She shook her head. "I convinced myself that he hadn't said anything that would help them in their investigation and that I might actually make things worse."
    The woman pursed her lips. "You still haven't received this alleged envelope?"
    "No."
    "Did you see Mr. Hagan again after that?"
    "No, not until...tonight."
    "You didn't see him at the party alive?"
    "No."
    "Okay, well, since you withheld information, no polygraph for you, young lady, but I'm going to try to convince the police that arresting you right now wouldn't be in anyone's best interests."
    Jolie swallowed. "Okay."
    "Is there anything else you'd like to tell me before I call Detective Salyers back in?"
    "I don't have much money to pay you."
    The woman winked. "But Beck does."
    Jolie sat in stunned silence while her prepaid attorney summoned Detective Salyers. "My client wishes to go home."
    Salyers smiled, tapping a rolled sheath of papers against her palm. "We all wish to go home, Ms. Vanderpool, but there's the little matter of a murder."
    Vanderpool crossed her arms. "A man is shot at a party with dozens of people around—no one hears a thing. You're not even sure that the victim was actually shot at the party, are you, Detective?"
    At Salyers' hesitation, hope bloomed in Jolie's chest.
    "We're still waiting for the M.E.'s report," Salyers said. "Meanwhile, we want Ms. Goodman to take a polygraph test."
    "No," Vanderpool said bluntly. "But my client is willing to submit to a gunpowder residue test."
    Jolie's eyes widened. She was?
    Salyers' mouth quirked to the side. "Your client took a swim in a pool. Any gun powder residue on her person or her clothes was washed away."
    Vanderpool lifted her arms. "Then you got nothing."
    "We have the murder weapon in Ms. Goodman's coat pocket."
    "Which anyone at the party could have placed there. Besides, if my client were guilty, why wouldn't she simply have left the party rather than raising an alarm?"
    "Maybe she panicked."
    "Detective," Vanderpool cooed. "Does Ms. Goodman strike you as a cold-blooded murderer?"
    They both swung their heads toward Jolie. Her entire left arm throbbed from the cut in her palm. Her head felt as if it were in a vise. Every cell in her body sagged. If she looked half as pitiful as she felt, Salyers would