“No four-inch switchblade knife?”
“No.”
“Do you recall seeing a switchblade during the attack?”
“No.”
“Okay. So during the tussle you managed to pull out the gun, get your attacker in a bear hug and shoot him through the eye?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I didn’t kill him.”
I paused, squinted, and leaned forward. “You didn’t kill the man you were standing over while holding a gun?”
“No.”
“No?”
“… No.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
13
JAGG
What. The.Hell?
Did I mention my gut instincts were never wrong? I knew something was off from the get-go, but this case already had more curveballs than a urology clinic. I didn’t even know what to call Sunny Harper anymore. A suspect? A witness? A victim?
“What do you mean, you don’t knowwhokilled the man that was dead as a doornail, lying at your feet?”
She cringed at my crass choice of words. I didn’t care. I didn’t like curve balls—or urology clinics for that matter.
“Someone else came up while my attacker and I were fighting. Tried to pull him off me. I was thrown to the ground, two shots rang out, and the next thing I know, my attacker was at my feet. Dead as a doornail as you so eloquently put it. And the other person was gone.”
I stared at her, processing thisinsanenew information.
“You mean to tell me that there is athirdperson involved in this attack?”
“Yes.”
“And that person is the one who killed your attacker?”
“Yes.”
“Not you, though? To reiterate, Miss Harper, you are saying that you didnotkill your attacker?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“But you had a gun in your hand, pointing at your attacker’s head when our witness walked up. How do you explain that?”
“I dropped the gun sometime during the fight. I picked it up after I was pushed to the ground. I kept the gun down, the aim not intended at his head—or at the old man pointing his at mine, for that matter.”
