“I mean, really! It took you that long to piece that together? You must be some damn good detective.” Lillian, my lawyer, is really laying into these cops. I’m really glad Éclair recommended her –and not just because I wound up having a threesome with her and her wife, but she is a kick ass lawyer.

I got called down to the station while I as at lunch with Sylvia, so she’s here by my side as well. I had immediately called Lillian; my last brush with the local police had not been particularly friendly. They had arrested me, suspecting me as the one who had assaulted Eddie. They had even had the audacity to say that I had hurt Eddie because Eddie had been the one to have poisoned my supplements –that was still an ongoing investigation in and of itself. They had called me down to the station to talk and fill me in on their most recent theory. They believe that whoever attacked Eddie was likely the same person who poisoned my supplements and that Eddie had likely caught the culprit or confronted him.

“I could have told you that,” I say, joining in on Lillian’s tirade.

Lillian crosses her arms as she stares down the two detectives. “My client has suffered public backlash thanks to your little accusation. His company has already suffered tremendous financial loss due to rumors circulated by the media. We are already battling a lawsuit –and although it can’t hold any water now that you geniuses have determined that it was sabotage and not the fault of my client, it is still causing his business tremendous trouble as you can imagine. I would really hate to have a counter-suit on hand here against your department for deprivation of character.”

The head officer nervously tugs at his shirt collar. “No, no, we wouldn’t want that. I assure you, all charges are being dropped and record of his arrest is being thrown out the window.”

“That certainly does not make that lovely mugshot the media got a hold of go away, now does it?” Lillian hisses. “Now, I believe Mr. Mont is willing to put all of this craziness behind him if you all can start doing yours jobs and find out who the hell is behind all of this mess!”

The officer sits down at the table across from me. I don’t care for being back in the interrogation room, but at least this time I’m not being accused of attempted murder. “That’s why we are all here, now isn’t it?” he says and turns on a tape recorder and opens up a notebook. “I’d like to speak with you about your company.” He waves at the younger officer and tells him to go get some coffee for everyone. “We have ruled you out as a suspect, James, so there is no reason to be worried.”

“That’s a load of shit.” Lillian says as she plops down in the empty seat beside me. “You and I both know that in the back of your head you are still hoping you can pin this on my client. So cut the whole nice cop routine, and let’s get down to business and try to find the real assailant, shall we?”

I wind up spending the next two hours talking to this stupid cop about my life. I talk about just about every person I know and lay out all of my dirty laundry –telling him about anyone who might possibly have a motive to do me wrong, and it’s just my luck that I have to have Sylvia sitting next to me listening to my life story unfold. It’s not like I’m going to kick her out of here after she has been so supportive, but we wind up talking about stuff I would have preferred her not to know. Like crazy ex-girlfriends, even crazier men whose girlfriends I’ve been with, business associates, company competitors, and even old employees. He asks me about stuff they found when running through my paperwork at Shattered Inc. as well as anything they found during my background checks. By the time the interview is over, I’m fairly confident that we are nowhere closer in discovering who hurt Eddie.