“Is it true that this same neighbor who owns Cheerio, owns a few pigs?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
I nodded as everything started coming together in a most horrible way.
“This was her pig, wasn’t it?” I asked. Suddenly I felt extremely bad. Yes, her dog went psycho, but the neighbor bungled her knee and now one of her pigs was dead and headless in our house.
“We’re going to go check on that,” she said matter-of-factly. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t hold any grudges.”
“Grudges?”
She didn’t say anything. She let out a sigh from the corner of her mouth and kept her eyes focused on mine, waiting for me to figure it out.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You think I went and murdered my neighbor’s pig. Her huge honking pig? Dragged it over here, diced it open, chopped off its head and stuck it under my sink? Because her dog tried to attack me?”
“Stranger things have happened, Miss Palomino.”
I was nearly speechless. I put my hand to my chest and tried to smother the rage.
“I’m sorry, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here. This has nothing to do with teaching her a lesson, this is about teaching my family a lesson. Teaching me a lesson.”
The officer frowned at me. “Who said anything about teaching someone a lesson?”
I paused.
Her eyes squinted at me. “Where were you last night?
Were you out?”
I rol ed my eyes. I couldn’t believe the way this was going. Why did my mom even bring that whole thing up about the dog? What did that have to do with anything?
“Yes, I was out.”
“With who?”
“A friend.”
“When did you get home?”
“3 a.m.,” I replied warily. “I’m sorry, but am I under investigation now?”
Monroe sighed and brought out her note pad. She scribbled something down as she talked, but I was too far away to see what it was. “I’m just doing my job and trying to piece together a timeline for when this could have happened. Obviously, no one in your family saw anything, but we won’t know for sure until your father gets back.”
My father. That was not going to be pretty.