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drug.”
    Miranda McGowan’s upraised arm was arrested in motion. She lowered it slowly. “By Jay?”
    George shrugged and turned up the volume just as the local newswoman addressed a question about her relationship with the recently deceased Jay Burgess. “He and I were friends.”
    “I’ll bet,” Miranda remarked as she moved from her dressing table to the end of the unmade bed and sat down.
    “Shh!”
    “Don’t shush me.”
    “Will you just shut up and listen?”
    George remained standing, the remote control in his hand, his attention riveted on the plasma screen and the close-up of Britt Shelley as she averred that she had no memory of the events immediately preceding Jay’s death. “I have a vague recollection of entering his town house with him. Nothing beyond that.”
    “Are you accusing Jay Burgess of giving you the date rape drug?” a reporter asked.
    “No. But I believe that someone did. My experience matches that of other women who have been given them.” George turned and looked at his wife. She shifted her gaze away from the TV and locked eyes with him, but neither said anything.
    George turned back to the set in time to hear Britt Shelley’s lawyer reply to a question. The man held his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. As a former policeman, George knew the gesture was a dead giveaway of uneasiness. The man was about to either hedge on something he was unsure of or blatantly lie.
    “Ms. Shelley has submitted a urine specimen to be tested for these various substances. However, they disappear from the system relatively quickly. Depending on which drug Ms. Shelley was given, it’s possible that too much time has elapsed for it to be detected.”
    A reporter in the front row said, “So you can’t prove that she was given one of these date rape drugs.”
    “I can’t comment until I know the result of the urinalysis.”
    “Regrettably, I did everything wrong,” Britt Shelley interjected, much to the consternation of her lawyer, who frowned at her.
    He jumped in before she could say more. “Ms. Shelley didn’t at first realize that she’d been victimized. Had she, she wouldn’t have showered, wouldn’t have used the bathroom until after she’d submitted a specimen for testing.”
    “In other words,” Miranda said, “she’s making claims she can’t prove.”
    Without turning, George waved at her to be quiet.
    “No, I don’t have any idea what caused Jay Burgess’s death,” Britt Shelley was saying in reply to another reporter’s question. “He’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which he’d been told was terminal. It’s assumed his death is cancer related, but an autopsy will be conducted—”
    “Do you know when?”
    “That’s a question for the medical examiner. I hope sooner rather than later. I want an explanation for Jay’s death, just as everyone else does.”
    “Do the police suspect foul play?”
    Before Britt Shelley could respond, her attorney whispered something in her ear, and she nodded at him. “That’s all I have to say at this time.”
    “Are the police—”
    “Did you and Burgess—”
    “What did you drink at The Wheelhouse?”
    The reporters continued to shout questions at her and her lawyer as they retreated from the podium.
    “Turn it off.”
    George did as Miranda asked. In the instant silence, ice cubes rattled in his glass as he took a drink of his Bloody Mary. “How many does that make so far today?” Miranda asked.
    “You care?”
    “You’re damn right I care!” she fired back. “I care because you’ve been drunk ever since we got the news.”
    “Jay was my friend. Drinking is part of my grieving process.”
    “It doesn’t look good.”
    “To who?”
    “To anybody who happens to be interested and is paying attention,” she said, angrily emphasizing each word.
    “Everybody is interested and paying attention. Jay’s dying is news. He was a hero.”
    “So were you.”
    He stared down into his glass for several