Drue looked over at the oven timer, and then at the test strand of her hair, which had already turned an unnatural shade of green with five minutes still left on the timer. If she had any hope of saving her hair, and Hernandez’s case, she needed to get Neesa to get to the point before that timer went off.

“So, you think Herman had something to do with Jaz’s death?”

Neesa set her glass down on the table, sloshing a little wine over the edge. “Think it? Girlfriend, I know it. Say, you got anything to snack on?”

Drue jumped up and found a box of Cheez-Its in the cabinet.

“That’s good,” Neesa said, opening the box and shoving a handful of crackers into her mouth. As she chewed, shards of orange crumbs rained down on her shirtfront. She took another swallow of wine.

“Wow,” Drue said softly. “So, were you there? I mean, what exactly happened?” She emptied the prosecco bottle into Neesa’s glass, silently cursing herself for buying only one bottle.

“I wasn’t there when it happened,” Neesa said. “I mean, maybe if I had been, I coulda done something to stop him, but prob’ly not. He was hella strong for an old dude. By the time I got there, poor Jaz, she was already dead. Nuthin’ I could do about it.”

Drue realized she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled slowly and glanced quickly at her cell phone propped up on the windowsill behind a bottle of dish detergent. She hadn’t mentioned the phone to Hernandez, who would have objected, but she thought of it as insurance.

“You’re saying this Herman guy killed your friend? But why?”

“He said she went crazy, soon as she went in that hotel room and saw him standing there. Told me she picked up a lamp and swung it at him, and it was self-defense. I knew that was bullshit. Jaz couldn’t have hurt him. She wasn’t any bigger than a fly. I think he grabbed her, you know, because he wanted sex, and she said no and probably tried to fight him off.”

Neesa shrugged. “She shoulda just kept on letting him do what he wanted to do and kept her mouth shut. Like I did.”

“When did Herman tell you all this?” Drue asked. She was pushing things now, she knew, but if she could keep the other woman talking, maybe she’d lay out the whole scheme.

“After he’d done it, he called me on the radio and told me I needed to come to that room right quick. Only, he told me to come the back way, so nobody would see me.”

“What was the back way?”