Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

“Stu’s my friend, believe it or not. We have a weekly tennis game. I don’t think I can forgive her for trying to ruin his reputation.”
    Kathy was very invested in Stu’s reputation and it was obviously a subject she felt passionately about. I changed the subject to the rescheduling of Jimmy Crawford’s pool party and got their input on the appropriate dress for the meet and greet with all of the Crawfords, which would happen eventually. Jane—who suggested that I wear a sundress—was more helpful than Kathy, who suggested wearing a bathing suit under a terry-cloth cover-up.
    “Thank you,” I said. “You have been little to no help at all. First of all, I don’t own a sundress, and second, I would no sooner be caught dead in a terry-cloth cover-up than a tube top. But thank you for your input.”
    They left after the second bottle of wine was finished and all that was left of the cheese and cracker platter was the rind of the Jarlsberg that I had served. I cleaned up and, seeing that it was just a little before five, decided that I would go over to Lydia’s to thank her for setting Queen up in what was a very nice guesthouse with a hint of a river view outside of the bedroom window.
    Let bygones be bygones.
    I drove over to the Wilmotts and bypassed the house, opting to park in front of Queen’s little guest cottage so I could check in with her to see if she needed anything. She was already in possession of the futon from my guest room, until she was able to buy a bed, and a set of old china from my mother’s family that I didn’t think I’d ever part with but whose pattern I hated nonetheless. I figured my mother wouldn’t mind; giving the china to Queen was what my colleague Rabbi Schneckstein would call a “mitzvah.” The house was a miniature replica of the big Wilmott Colonial, down to the boxes filled with flowers that hung in front of the leaded windows. Queen opened the door. When she saw me, she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the small living room.
    I objected loudly to being manhandled and she put her hand over my mouth. “Be quiet,” she said. “Hear me out.”
    With the exception of Crawford, I wasn’t used to looking up at someone. But I looked up into her dark eyes and did what she asked: I heard her out.

Thirty-Five
     
    I don’t lie.
    But I’m really good at keeping secrets.
    Heck, I’ve got a head full of secrets and, most times, I can forget about them and live in a world where none of the details of those secrets ever happened or would ever come to light. Remember, Max is my best friend—my sister, really—and has been for a very long time. If I didn’t keep many of the facets of her interesting and complicated life a secret, she’d be in a heap of trouble with a lot of people. My secret-keeping began when we were first friends, back at St. Thomas, back when I was an impressionable kid who toed the line but was in thrall to my new friend, one who lived life on the edge.
    To me, keeping a secret is way different than out-and-out lying, but it was a slippery moral slope and I knew that.
    Max’s inability to walk the straight and narrow path and her clinging to her patented brand of extraordinarily bad judgment started long before we were adults, which will come as no surprise to anyone. Fueled by liquor, her judgment goes from extraordinarily bad to unconscionable and that’s how I found myself stuffing her alcohol-soaked body into a closet one December night at St. Thomas when we were both still teenagers, me concocting an alibi for her as she slept off one of the worst drunks I had ever witnessed.
    The police were not amused. Nor was the Guatemalan cab driver who wailed about his cabina over and over until Sister Marguerite Durand—aka Sister Billy Martin for her striking resemblance to the Yankees manager of the 1970s—was roused from her holy slumber on the fourth floor and came down to the first floor to see what all of the commotion was about. The commotion concerned the driver, who had left his cab running as he ran into the building to use the men’s room on the first floor, and his missing vehicle. As the resident assistant on duty, I was doing my best to take charge of the situation but was doing a fair to middling job at best.
    The last time I had trembled like that was when I had food poisoning and a hundred and four fever. I prayed that Max, in the coat closet right inside the front door of the building, didn’t wake up before Sister