I wonder if there's a greeting card to say I'm sorry for wanting to sleep with your husband but nothing happened so no harm done. Or maybe, to be more specific, I still want to sleep with your husband and always will, since I am madly in love with him. I can assure you that is highly unlikely, however, because he turned me down flat after traveling for many hours with his hand on my knee during a secret road trip to your lovely home in Mexico. I am disgusted with myself for leaking any of this to the press, but it was only under extreme duress, and I hope we can still be friends.
I sat in an outer office waiting to face the music with Special Agent Knowles. Her assistant was a scrappy little thing with a close-cropped brush cut who wished she was a boy, judging from her over-sized K.D. Lange suit and skinny tie. I caught her checking me out with a shy, stolen look over her computer monitor. I actually thought this was cute, since she wouldn't have had a chance with me even if she were a boy. I don't have the good taste to like girls that way, although like most of us, sometimes I wish I did. "She's a little busy today, what with everything," she said apologetically. I'm not sure what "everything" meant but was convinced it had to do with me. "I'm Jane, by the way," she added.
I smiled, absently rehearsing my testimony for tomorrow, when I would finally have a chance to look the accused in the eye. If his account was to be believed, I had unknowingly encountered him many times before, as he had regularly visited Rita's house to peep in our windows before stumbling upon her already dead body one night after I left for work. I didn't know if any of that was true, but I did know he was innocent -- at least by the letter of the law. 
There was a lot of rushing around among plain looking people in important suits with tough-to-read faces. "Is there a bomb threat?" I asked Jane. "You really don't know?" she stage whispered, looking around. She was about to let me in on some big news when Agent Knowles opened her door to shoo me in. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Cherry." She'd hardly shut the door when I started spilling my guts. "The whole thing with the love child is a bald-faced lie. I don't even like children."
"Cherry, relax. Whatever went on between you and my husband, really, that's your business. You've probably realized we tend to live separate lives." She took my hands and looked in my eyes, as if presenting him to me like a gift. "Let's just try to be a little quieter about it in the future."I wasn't sure of the appropriate response when a woman gives you her husband. Should somebody sign something? "None of it really matters now that you won't have to testify," she added -- realizing I still hadn't heard. "Dr. Hollister hung himself this morning in his cell."
I had to let that sink in a minute. "He's dead? I don't understand. What does that mean?" "It means it's over." I finally noticed all the colorful flower arrangements scattered about, the bottles of champagne and gourmet cheese baskets wrapped in cellophane. "Personally I don't think this kind of thing is ever cause for a celebration. You never want it to end this way, but sometimes it just does. Try one of those chocolate strawberries," she urged me. "Have you ever seen one that big?" Taking a bite of the swollen red fruit as if answering an order, I couldn't help thinking about poor, dead Strawberry Margarita -- when I was seized by a horrible thought. What if this freak who'd gone to his grave insisting he didn't kill her was telling the truth?
"Rita had all this Femme Nikita kind of spy stuff!" I blurted out. "I don't know who she was keeping tabs on or why, but it wasn't Dr. Hollister. I should have given it to you but I was scared.""I see," she said, pausing to consider this. "Well? Where is it?"
"I gave it to this photographer I know. Goes by the name Attilla. Like the Hun."
"Attila the Hun. I'm sorry, Cherry, are you sure that's even a real person?" "Do I look like a total idiot? Please don't answer that." Determined to get Atti on the line, I felt around inside my purse. What I didn't know was that Atti was busy getting the life beaten out of him by unknown assailants -- after leaving me an incriminating phone message. "I left my cell somewhere," I said, thinking about the last time I saw it. "Lunch. Matt must have picked it up."
"Yes, I heard you and Officer Muñoz were seeing each other."In no rush to recover any so-called new evidence from the dumbest blonde in the bottle, she poured me a glass of champagne. "I'm sure he'll be just as relieved as you to hear this ordeal is pretty much over and done with. Chin-chin."
