Mimi knew something was wrong the moment she saw the police cars congregated outside her apartment building. The cops were called to their building almost daily, their neighborhood was one of the roughest in the city, but today it was different somehow. As she got closer, she realized what the difference was. There weren't just black and whites; there were also unmarked cars and a few plainclothes detectives asking questions. One of them, a middle-aged white guy stopped her before she got to the door.

"You live here, Miss?"
"Yeah, I live in 604. What happened here?"

"Looks like someone killed the guy in 105."

"Ramon? Oh man."

"Yeah. And your roommate found him."
"Angel? Where is she?" Mimi was starting to panic a little.

"He's inside. My partner's talking to him now."
"Can I see her?"

"Not until we're through with him. Come over here Miss . . ."
"Marquez, Mimi Marquez."

"Miss Marquez, how well did you know Mr. Dominguez?"
"Not well. He . . . liked to flirt with me, is all."

"And we hear your roommate threatened him with violence."
"Angel? No, Angel wouldn't hurt anyone. She – He was only looking out for me. Ramon would come on to me and Angel would just . . . deter him, that's all."

"How would he 'deter' him?"

"Well, he did threaten to break his wrist once, but it was just a threat. Angel wouldn't hurt anyone unless there was no other way."

"What do you mean 'no other way'?"

"Look, Angel's tough, I'm not going to lie to you about that. She – He can take care of himself, but he's not a violent person. There's no way he killed Ramon, if that's what you're asking."

"And you're sure about that?"

"Absolutely."

"All right, Miss Marquez. I think you can go up to your apartment now. Here's my card, if you think of anything else, please call me. And don't go leaving town, we might need to talk to you some more." He handed her a business card. She didn't bother reading it until she got into the elevator: "Sgt. Lennie Briscoe."

About an hour later, Angel finally appeared in the doorway. She looked exhausted and there was a faint brown smear on her forehead. Mimi ran to her and hugged her.

"You ok, sweetie?"

"Those damn cops. They asked me so many questions I didn't know how to answer them all. All I did was find the guy. He was already dead when I found him. No matter how much I would've liked to, somebody beat me to killing him."
"C'mon, Ang, don't even say things like that."

"Aww, honey, you know I'm just kidding." Angel swept Mimi into a hug.

"I know. But it's not funny. Not now."

"No, you're right. It's not."

Angel set about telling Mimi the whole story: How she came home and found Ramon's door open, and being concerned for him, had to go in to check on him. She had found him, lying dead on his living room floor, three stab wounds to his throat, and called 911 right away.

"I asked the cop why I would call 911 if I were the one who killed him. He said, maybe I wanted to deflect blame from myself. Pssh!" She waved that thought away as if it were the silliest thing she'd ever heard. "Though I might've done it, if only to meet that cute detective who was asking me all those questions. Oooh! That boy was hot!"

"Ang, this could be serious. We have to be careful. If those cops really think you killed him, we could be in a lot of trouble."

"I know Meems, but I didn't do it."
"I know you didn't. Now we've just got to convince the police."

-----

"Mimi? C'mon Meems, wake up."

Mimi groggily opens her eyes to see Angel standing over her, an uncharacteristically serious look on her face. "Ang, wha-?"

"C'mon, sweetie, no time for talking. Get up and get dressed, we need to go down to the police station."

"Both of us? Angel what's going on?"

"I don't know, they just said they needed to talk to us some more. C'mon, get dressed."

As soon as they got to the station, Mimi and Angel were split up. Mimi was put in an interrogation room all by herself, left alone for an hour or so with nothing to do but sit there. Mimi had a tendency to get bored quickly, but today she was too worried about Angel to really get all that bored. She just sat in her little room alone and worried, bouncing her leg nervously. Finally, the detective she'd met yesterday, Detective Briscoe, came in with a younger, black cop. Mimi suspected this was the guy Angel had been talking about. She could see how Angel was attracted to him. He was definitely cute.

"Miss Marquez. It's nice to see you again." Detective Briscoe's attitude was brusque but kind. "This is my partner Detective Green."

"Hi." Mimi said with a nervous smile.

Detective Green nodded but said nothing. Mimi had seen enough cop shows to know that she should not speak until spoken to, so she waited impatiently for one of them to say something. She wanted desperately to know how Angel was, but she was afraid to ask. After what seemed like an eternity, Detective Green spoke up:
"We talked to your roommate. She – He doesn't seem to know of anyone who might've wanted to hurt Mr. Dominguez. We thought you might know a little more."
Mimi relaxed a little. She couldn't help but be amused by Detective Green's little slip-up, but she let it go.

"I can't think of anyone who'd want to hurt Ramon, except maybe . . ." She hadn't realized this was coming out until she'd said it.

"Maybe who?"

"Well, I think he was a junkie. He had a dealer who came around once or twice a week."

"Yeah, we got that much from the toxicology reports. We wondered if you might have a name for us."

"I heard this hooker call him Sam once."

"So you never . . ."
"Nuh-uh, I'm no junkie!"

"Ok, ok, we didn't mean to offend you, Miss Marquez. Do you know anything more about this Sam?"

"No, nothing. Look, I hardly even knew Ramon. All I know is he was a pain in the ass who wanted to get into my pants."

"And you never let him?"
"Hell no!"

"Ok. Thanks for your help, Miss Marquez. I think you can go now."
"What about Angel?"
"He's free to go too. He'll be waiting for you out in the lobby."

Mimi found Angel waiting, just as Detective Green had said, in the lobby. She hugged and kissed her, as if they'd been apart for years, and the two of them walked hand in hand to the subway and went home.

-----

A few weeks later, Mimi read in the newspaper that Samuel Jones had been convicted of the murder of Ramon Dominguez. When the piece appeared in the paper, she had almost forgotten the whole episode. But Angel had not. A few weeks after they left the precinct, Angel had received a letter from the NIH informing her that because she had come into contact with Ramon's blood, she was advised to go in for HIV testing within the next 3-6 months. She never showed the letter to Mimi or told her about it until she knew for sure, more than 3 months later. By then, Mimi's life had changed too. She had found a dealer of her own and begun using heroin. By the time Angel had her HIV results, Mimi was well on her way to becoming a full-time junkie herself.