“Do you think this is a game? A man has died. So you’d better start talking.” Deanna sat back in the cold, metal chair, exasperated. She rolled her eyes and then stared directly at the detective with a level gaze. He glared right back and she could feel her heart rate beating against the cuffs on her wrists, as she rested them atop her legs. “I’m telling you the truth, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said in a low, steady voice. She puffed her chest up, trying to look more dominant in his eyes. “I’m not buying it, miss. The evidence doesn’t lie. Tell me how the guy was laying in the street just five blocks away from your address, and the only thing on him that ain’t his is a strand of hair. Your hair. Caught him cheating, did you? Couldn’t take it anymore?” She would have smacked the smirk right off the detective if only she had use of her hands. Raising her voice slightly now, she retorted, “I have never seen that man in my life before. And of course he had to have been a cheating boyfriend, right? Everyone loves a crime of passion, some poor girl stuck on a jerk who doesn’t know how to date just one at a time. Please. Not me. What I do, I do alone. I don’t keep a man in my life.” “I gotta tell you, you’re sounding pretty guilty to me, sugar,” the detective replied. Deanna sucked her teeth, rather than blowing a fuse. It was almost as though he were trying to get a rise out of her. She sat silently. “I should have a lawyer with me. I knew that. I don’t know why it didn’t hit me til now,” she thought to herself. The two of them stared each other down as though it were a good old fashioned western stand-off. Finally, the detective broke the silence in one sharp shot. “Explain the hair,” he said. “I want a lawyer.” “Yeah? You’re gonna need one.” The detective stood up, scraping his chair against the cement floor, and strutted out of the room. “God damn it!” Deanna thought to herself. “A hair? Really?” Her long, sleek black hair was normally a source of praise and pride. Now, it lay across a dead man and could possibly cost her her own life. The door opened again and a slender, gray-faced man with a grim mouth and heavy bags under his eyes entered the room, motioning for her to exit. “You got fifteen minutes to use the phone and get your affairs in order, and get yourself a lawyer if that’s what you’re gonna do. Then it’s back into the holding cell for the night.” That night, Deanna lay on the hard bench, flipping from one side to another. If it were a goose-feather mattress she couldn’t have slept any better. She thought about the conversation she’d had on the phone with Lacey, her close friend of many years. She’d asked her to stop by her apartment and check in on her cat Bandit that night. Lacey and her had known each other for years and through all kinds of trouble, they had never judged one another. She was grateful to hear her voice in that unforgiving place. “How are you? How’s Bandit?” she had asked. “He’s good. Climbing all over everything, as usual. I had to knock him off your vanity, he had his paws in your makeup. Thought he was gonna start painting his face for a minute there. Haha. Cutie napped on my lap for a little bit and then I let him outside.” “He’s trouble, just like me. It’s a wonder the street cats don’t go running when he comes their way.” Deanna loved that cat like it were her own flesh and blood. She held back tears, replaying the conversation in her head for comfort, and eventually fell asleep. The next day after an extravagant meal of corn chips and a chocolate candy bar from the vending machine brought to her by a guard, she found herself face to face with the detective again. She was exhausted, and from the looks of him the detective hadn’t slept too well that night either, much less any night probably in the last 20 years. What a profession he had. A public defender had joined Deanna on her side of the table, nodding her head as Deanna filled her in on the conversation from the day before. “With all due respect, ma’am, this woman’s hair was found on the guy’s jacket. He was murdered in cold blood and we’ve got evidence that places her at the scene. The cat’s out of the bag,” the man scowled. “That’s all you’ve got? That proves nothing. No murder weapon, right? You can’t hold my client here against her will.” Deanna shook her head, her eyes heavy, wishing she could rub her temples with her cuffed hands. “The cat’s out of the bag…” she murmured. “Hang on! The cat…. The cat!!! Bandit. Freaking Bandit. That’s got to be it.” The lawyer and the detective both looked at each other, then at Deanna. “You said the hair was found on this guy, right? Laying in the street when he was found? I have a cat who I let out everyday. His name’s Bandit. He probably snagged a piece of my hair in his paw walking around the house before I let him out that day! Oh god, and then he made his way onto a corpse, that’s a gruesome thought… but that, that has to be it!! It just has to be. I don’t recognize the guy from the pictures at all. I’m telling the truth.” The detective sat still, dumbfounded. “You expect me to believe that?” “Check the scene for feline DNA, go on,” the public defender cut in. “We’re done here.” “Bandit…” whispered Deanna. “Always trouble.” Months later, Deanna sat at her window, winding her fingers around Bandit’s tail as he purred in her lap. She shook her short black hair from her face, a flattering bob cut framing it nicely. She recalled that fateful day when feline hair had been discovered on the body upon closer inspection, linking Bandit to the scene of the crime. As the search for the killer resumed, a murder weapon was found soon after, linking the guy’s cousin to the murder. Deanna walked free, much to the detective’s embarrassment. “I still can’t believe you almost sent me to jail, buddy,” she said seriously to the cat. He gave her a playful meow, and seemed almost to shrug as he arched his back, before popping out of the window and disappearing into the night. “Stay out of trouble…” Deanna sighed.