I was feeling confused and still wasn't ready to put my faith completely in a man. Besides, I was mad enough to want to do this myself. Maybe foolish enough, too, but there it was. All I had to do was figure out how to conduct my investigation. I had called earlier in the day to check on Sarah. My mother said her fever was down and, in a tutu and sparkle shoes, she was tearing up the house, pretending she was a chick superhero. Girls will be girls. We all had dinner together, and later Sarah diligently put sparkle pink nail polish on both her toes and her stuffed Bunny Bear's toes. I asked my mother to stay for some tea and collusion. "Alex, what are you doing?" she asked, when I explained the situation to her. "Just let the police handle it." "Mom," I said, "the police think I did it. Don't you understand?" "But that one detective said he didn't believe you were guilty." "He's not the lead detective on the case," I said. "And besides that, I think he's a little bit of a whacko.
