“Theo,” I said, loudly, firmly. “That’s how he introduced himself. Theo Jameson.”

He wrote the name down. “Got his number?”

“Yes.” I leaned over, took my phone from my bag, read the number to him.

Vaughn wrote it down, closed his folder again. “So if I call this Theodore guy, he’ll tell me he was at your house that night?”

“Yes, he’s in Mexico right now. Some place that doesn’t have cell service. But I believe he’ll be back shortly.”

“Huh. Interesting timing.”

I gritted my teeth. I’d had enough. “You should also be looking for the guy Jane went home with that night. Mick.” He wasn’t writing it down.

“Last name?” he said.

I exhaled. “I don’t know his last name. I saw him at Jane’s memorial for a second, then he disappeared.”

“He disappeared.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe anything coming from my mouth.

“Look, Detective,” Maggie said, “my client wanted to come here and be open about her whereabouts, and Jane’s, on Friday night. But I’d like to know why Friday night is so important. This woman was killed on Monday night.”

“I’ll tell you why I’m asking her questions about Friday. Because I think she’s lying to me about it.”

“I’m not!” I couldn’t keep my cool. I pounded a fist on the table. “Give me a lie detector test or something!”

“Great. Let’s do that.”

“Izzy,” Maggie barked, putting a hand out and sending me a warning look. “You are not taking a polygraph.”

“Why not?”

“Yeah,” Vaughn said with a cool smile. “Why not?”

“Detective Vaughn knows as well as I do,” Maggie said, “that there are false positives with polygraphs and false negatives, which is why they’re not admissible. They only create more problems. I think it’s time to leave.”

“I don’t want to leave,” I said. “I want to hash this out. Now.” I’d never been the patient type and there was no way I was leaving now and walking around the city, knowing a cop thought I was lying, thought maybe I had something to do with Jane’s death.

Maggie gave a grunt. “Detective, if you continue to be aggressive, we’re out of here. I can promise you that. I don’t usually tell you guys how to do your job, but I think you should be concentrating on Monday. On the day Jane was killed.”

“Let’s do that.” He gestured with his head at me. “Where were you that day, before the Trial TV party?”

“I told you this Monday night. I told a bunch of other cops, too.”

“That’s right, you did tell me.” He made a show of looking at some notes, but I could tell from his eyes he wasn’t reading them. “You went home that afternoon after you left the station, right?”

“Right,” I said, annoyed. Then I checked myself. He was riling me up. He was hoping I’d get riled up enough that I’d say something stupid. But I knew that trick. I’d used it when I took depositions of people. “Right,” I said again, in an almost bored tone now. “I went home. I cleaned up my place and did a few things around my house. Then I got ready for the party.”

“You call anybody that afternoon?”

I thought about it. “No.”

“You e-mail anybody?”

“No. I was exhausted from my first day at Trial TV. I didn’t even turn on my home computer.”

“You got any neighbors who you maybe talked to?”

The other condo owners in my building were guys who worked until late every day. “No,” I answered. “But I texted Jane from the Latin place. A bunch of times.”

“You texted her saying you were there. Doesn’t mean you were.”

“I saw Tommy Daley at the party.”

Vaughn didn’t even blink. “Yep. He says he saw you. For about ten seconds. No one else remembers seeing you at the restaurant or the gallery. Sounds to me like you ran in and ran out of the party so you’d have an alibi. But that still leaves you a lot of time. More than enough.”

My nerves started to fray. I sent Maggie an anxious look.

“Got a weapon?” Maggie asked.

He turned to her. “Excuse me?”

“Got a murder weapon?”

“Yeah. She was choked with her scarf. No prints on it.”

“She was beaten, too, right? On the head? You find the weapon that did that?”

Vaughn looked uncomfortable for the first time that day. He scratched the side of his head. “Not yet.”

“Got a time of death?”

“Sometime between three and six p.m. on Monday. Same time that your client has no alibi.”

“Uh-huh.” Maggie closed the legal pad on the table in front of her. “Got any more questions, Detective?” she said.

He looked at her with a mildly amused expression. “I’ve got a lot. Because from what we can tell, from all the evidence we collected and the fact that there was no sign of a chase, a fight or a struggle, Jane Augustine was probably killed by someone she knew. The only thing that shows she might have fought back at the last minute was the stuff scattered all over the floor near her body.”

“What stuff?” Maggie asked.

He looked pointedly at me. “Your client’s lipstick, her credit cards, her checkbook-stuff she had in her purse that went flying when Jane realized what was happening and fought back.”

“I dropped my purse when I was trying to call for help!” I said. “After I found her lying there…”

Vaughn directed his gaze back at Maggie and continued on in a calm voice. “From what your client tells us about the scene and from what we found, Jane let someone into the house. Probably, from her positioning, she turned her back to someone because she trusted that person.”

“If you believe my client’s recollections about the scene, why didn’t you believe her when she says she didn’t do it?”

“Wait,” I interrupted, remembering something. “Jane told me on Monday that she was getting together with a friend before the party.”

Vaughn glanced at me. “Sure. That friend was you.”

“No, earlier. Like in the afternoon.”

Again, his attention went back to Maggie. “It seems to me that your girl here-” he jerked his head at me “-was one of the last people to see Jane that day, certainly the last person to talk to her in detail, and she was the person that Jane had made plans with before the party. She was very close with Jane that weekend. And that means that she had the opportunity and the means and hey, would you look at that? She just happens to land in Augustine’s anchor chair the next day.” He grinned and held up his hands. “Sounds like motive to me.”

I was trembling inside. I wanted to scream, Shut up! That’s crazy!

Maggie stood. “We’re done.”

“You’re pulling her out?”

“I’m pulling her.” She looked pointedly at me, and I got to my feet.

Vaughn gave Maggie a cold smile. “Sure, take her out. Doesn’t matter to me. Because I’m real sure you’ll be bringing her back sometime soon.” He stood along with her. “By the way, that little deal you struck with someone at headquarters in order to keep us quiet about the person of interest thing? It’s over.”