Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

One
     
    Meeting your boyfriend’s parents for the first time shouldn’t involve wearing bathing suits.
    Is it just me or should that be a hard and fast rule?
    My best friend, Max, didn’t agree. Anytime she gets to wear a bikini is a good day. But she’s a size two with six-pack abs. Me? I like to think that at five ten I resemble one of those hard-bodied beach volleyball players, but in actuality, I’m less gazelle and more stork. With a potbelly.
    I was headed to meet my boyfriend’s clan, the Crawfords. And frankly, I’m a little uncomfortable, at my age, with the “boyfriend” designation; sounds a little juvenile to me but I hadn’t come up with anything better. This soiree was being hosted by Bobby’s brother, Jimmy, whom I had met under less than ideal circumstances—let’s just say that it was an “unfortunate incarceration” and he’s a really good lawyer—and his wife, Mary Pat, and I had been told that it would take place around the swimming pool. And that Mary Pat had a “banging body,” according to her husband, who was completely in her thrall. Hence, my dilemma.
    Max said that I needed to get a sarong.
    I spoke slowly. “But that would mean that I would have to go to Bali and I don’t have time for that. We need to be there by two.”
    “They sell sarongs in America,” she reminded me.
    “Yes, but that would mean I would have to go to a mall, and in case you didn’t hear me, we need to be there by two.” Anyway, I was still in bed, talking to Max on the phone.
    “I wish you had told me sooner. I would have lent you one of mine.” I didn’t ask why she had a sarong—or more than one, for that matter—nor did I remind her that I outweighed her by fifty pounds and would look stupid with her sarong tied around one leg. “As fascinating as this problem is, I have to go. The Hooters waitresses are threatening to strike if I don’t give them a real case to work on.”
    Max is the head of a cable network called Crime TV and is working on a reality show that combines Hooters waitresses and private investigation. (Don’t say it. I already know.) I had no idea how that was considered “entertainment” but Max had the golden touch and every reality show she produced was a ratings blockbuster. She was considered something akin to lightning in a bottle in the world of reality television combined with crime, so who was I to judge? I’m a college professor who teaches creative writing to disaffected college freshmen, along with a few upper-level courses to juniors and seniors, and Max thinks that it’s a miracle I can stay awake while giving lectures to my classes, which I take as more of an insult to my teaching ability than to the attention span of my students. I like my job, even if when I use a three-syllable word, the students look at me with the same quizzical look my dog gives me when I say anything besides her name and the word “cocktails.”
    I had described the show to Crawford, and his eyebrows rose. “You’ve got to admit,” he said, his cheeks turning slightly red at the thought, “there’s something to be said for women with big boobs in bikini tops following philandering husbands around.” And then, because he’d spent his formative years as an altar boy and knew that he was going to hell for saying “boobs” in mixed company, he wisely shut up. And probably did a silent Act of Contrition.
    My eyes lighted on the cherry Ring Pop sitting on my nightstand that was, ostensibly, my engagement ring. It had all happened so fast; we had just left City Hall after Max and her husband, Fred, had gotten married—and Crawford had sprung a proposal on me, shocking me with his spontaneity. Crawford’s not a spontaneous guy; everything he does is thought out and measured, wood burning in that gorgeous head of his. But this was completely out of the blue and I hadn’t really given him an answer. The pool party and the meeting of the entire family, though? That made me think that he assumed that I had said “yes.” I probably would at some point, but for right now, I was on the fence. Everything was great between us. But having been married to a serial philanderer, who was now six feet under, I was a little gun-shy. It was going to take me a while to sort this whole thing out.
    After staring at the Ring Pop for an inordinately long period of time, I went back to staring at my old bathing suit. I chided myself for not having done what most normal people would do in