Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

body, but her eyes had been covered with sunglasses so I wasn’t sure if they were red-rimmed from crying. Maybe she had been in shock. Or maybe her blog posts covered a more serious problem, which was that while she was crazy about him, he wasn’t crazy about her. But after seeing both of them for the first time yesterday, it wasn’t hard to tell that he had gotten quite a good deal. The lady was a looker and Carter … not so much. If I were Carter—and right now, I was very glad that I wasn’t—I would have been thrilled to be married to such a gorgeous woman.
    I took a circuitous route to the Wilmotts’, driving through town to take a gander at the spot where this whole mess began. Beans, Beans was closed up tight, but Greg had a sign on the door indicating that he would be open for business the next morning. There was still some yellow crime scene tape flapping in the wind, particularly around the area where the car had blown up. I shuddered when I thought about the damage that the explosion could have wrought and thanked God that nobody had been killed.
    After my side trip, I arrived at the Wilmotts’ considerable Colonial, high on a hill, with a panoramic view of the Hudson River, and was let in by someone I later came to find out was Lydia’s sister, Elaine, who didn’t offer an introduction. The house was a beehive of activity; it seemed that every member of Lydia’s extended family had come to be with her during her time of mourning; they seemed to be scattered throughout the immense house, and I could hear conversations going on all around me in muffled tones.
    After what I had read on the blog and from what I could gather from being in the house, there were two children but they were college aged and presumably away at school, somewhere I’d be in the next few days. Pictures of them—a boy and a girl—dotted every wall and flat surface that I could see from my vantage point in the foyer. I wondered where they were and how long it would take them to get back. I stood awkwardly in the doorway explaining to the sister that I was a fellow villager and that I had been present when Carter had died. I wanted to pay my respects. But I must have been a sight, the giant bruised eye and all.
    Elaine, as she grudgingly offered after I asked, was a dour-looking middle-aged woman with a sparse sprinkling of mousy brown hair atop her head, clad completely in blue cotton sweats that did nothing to accentuate any good aspects of the doughy body beneath. She regarded me with suspicion for a few minutes and rightfully so: outside their beautiful house on their very quiet street was a news van from our local Westchester station, News47 Westchester, and a reporter just dying to get inside the house. Apparently, a man dying as precipitously as Carter was a story of major interest to the county residents.
    As soon as Elaine was convinced of my good intentions, she ushered me into the house and back to the kitchen, where a grief-stricken Lydia Wilmott stood, washing a large glass pitcher at the sink. From where she stood, Lydia had a full view of the river, stretching out beyond the treetops in her backyard, but she clearly didn’t notice it at that moment. I wondered if she ever did. I knew that if I lived there, I would stare at it every day, the beauty of the river being something I never tired of. The house was tastefully decorated in period 1920s furnishings and light fixtures and would be exactly the kind of house I would love to live in, if I had three million dollars lying around. Lydia continued washing the pitcher, avoiding my gaze, her eyes fixated on the water rushing out of the faucet and down into the drain. Elaine explained to her who I was and why I had come.
    “Are you feeling better?” I asked, thinking that she had hit the ground pretty hard when she had fainted the day before.
    “I’m fine,” she said. “Thank you for asking.”
    “I am very, very sorry about your husband’s passing,” I said, moving the potted plant that I had brought closer to the counter where she stood. I placed the condolence card underneath the plant. “You can read that later,” I said unnecessarily.
    Elaine, who was close in age to Lydia but not as attractive, lurked around the corner of the kitchen, either trying to eavesdrop or make sure her sister was holding up, considering who I was and my relation to her husband. Lydia didn’t speak but continued to wash the pitcher, which was already clean by my