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and adopted an air of innocent fragility that made me want to kick her.
    “So, does this make you my lawyer now?” Allegra asked, looking at Carl with big doe eyes. I sucked my teeth and Mama cut me a Your-sister-could-be-in-trouble-so-cut-the-crap look.
    “Well, let’s not jump the gun, Allegra, I’ll certainly be present while you give your statement. But I imagine that should take care of it. Once you explain what happened, that should be the end of it. Now, you’ve told me everything, right?” Carl asked. We all looked at Allegra.
    “There’s nothing more to tell. I told you everything that happened,” she said, getting up from the table and putting her water glass in the sink. Carl and Mama seemed satisfied she was telling the truth. I wished I shared their satisfaction. I knew better than anyone how sneaky Allegra can be. I prayed she’d told Carl the truth.
    “Oh, and Kendra,” Carl said, addressing me for the first time since he’d arrived. He must still be a little pissed over me abruptly changing my mind about jumping his bones the night before and sending him home with a boner. But there was no way I was having sex with him with my sister in the next room. Plus, after ogling her, I had a pretty good idea who he’d be thinking about while making love to me. He should be happy I didn’t give him a fat lip to go along with his stiffy.
    “I wouldn’t be surprised if the police contact you and your grandmother for statements since you were both at the auditorium when the murder occurred. You two might want to come down to the station with us and go ahead and talk to them and get it over with.”
    “But we were in the auditorium. We didn’t see a thing,” Mama said.
    “Doesn’t matter. They’re going to want to talk to everyone who was there,” Carl said fixing his tie.
    “And how would they even know we’d attended the ceremony?” I asked. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to the police if I didn’t have to. There was a certain Willow police detective named Trish Harmon who wasn’t a big fan of mine, and the feeling was very much mutual.
    “We had to reserve our tickets for the ceremony, remember, Kendra? I bet our names are on a list. Carl’s right. We need to go on down to the station with him and Allie.” Mama got up and reached for her purse.
    The doorbell rang and we watched as Mama hurried off to answer it. She returned seconds later with a white woman who looked to be in her late twenties. She had short, spiky hair a shade of bright red that couldn’t possibly occur in nature, was rail-thin, and dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt and high-topped tennis shoes. When she spotted Allegra, she instantly smiled, revealing small white, pointy eyeteeth that made her look like a bride of Dracula.
    “There you are,” the woman said, walking over to embrace Allegra. But I noticed Allegra didn’t seem all that pleased to see her visitor.
    “Everyone, this Noelle Delaney, my segment producer at Hollywood Vibe, ” Allegra said, quickly pulling out of the embrace and causing Noelle to give her a curious look. We all exchanged subdued hellos.
    “I’d just checked into my hotel when I heard about what happened to Vivianne DeArmond. It’s all over the news. They said she was murdered. I’ve been trying to call you. Your cell phone must be turned off.”
    “I think I left my phone in my rental,” Allegra mumbled, looking at the floor.
    “Where’s the crew? Out back?” Noelle asked, walking over to the back door and looking out into the empty backyard. I assumed she was talking about Allegra’s camera crew, whom she’d sent back to L.A. Allegra looked panicky and remained silent.
    “Please tell me you got the interview before someone stuck that knife in Ms. DeArmond?” Noelle asked, like it was no big deal, then seeing the shocked looks on all our faces tried to clean it up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so insensitive. I’m just tired. I worked twelve hours