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.