Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

clearly couldn’t find his way toward waiting on the lady who was first on line. “Eight?”
    Crawford steered the cart away from the counter and me out of the store. “Hey, what are we doing?” I asked as he grabbed my elbow and pushed me toward the car, leaving the cart behind.
    “We’re getting out of here, that’s what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re going to Tony’s.”
    My heart sank. Did we need cold cuts that badly? Couldn’t we have pizza instead? The last time I had been to Tony’s, his new wife, Lucia, had hurled an invective at me from the kitchen, suspicious that I wanted in on Tony’s sexagenarian deliciousness. Trust me—I don’t. I’ve got a guy who’s all that and more. Okay, so Crawford doesn’t have unlimited access to Boar’s Head cold cuts, but he’s got a lot of other things going for him. Not being in his sixties is one of them. And being taller than me is the other. Tony is pushing seventy, bald, fat, and short. Sure, he’s loaded, but that’s not going to cut the mustard with me. Lucia can have all two hundred and fifty pounds of him stretched across his five-foot-four frame.
    I had never actually laid eyes on Lucia, but I had incurred her wrath so much that once she had thrown a pot of meatballs at my head from her hiding place in the kitchen. Fortunately, it had missed me but it would have left a mark had it not. Tony seemed terrified of her, too; clearly, she was as dangerous as she seemed. My heart was racing as we pulled up in front of the deli, my hands clammy. Crawford jumped out of the car. This was a man in need of a sandwich. I was still in the car when he pressed his face to the passenger side window and asked, “Are you coming?”
    I wasn’t going to and then I thought about Wilmott’s blog and review of Tony’s deli. It wouldn’t hurt to go in, smile a little at Tony, flash a little boob, and ask some questions about how he felt about the blog. Crawford saw the change in my demeanor and immediately asked what I was up to. I feigned ignorance. “What are you talking about?”
    He threw a look over his shoulder; he didn’t know exactly what I was up to but he knew I was up to something. I followed him into the deli, resisting the urge to shudder when the bell rang over the door, announcing our arrival. That bell always reminded me of Tony and his love for me, along with flying pots of meatballs. I couldn’t help it. Tony looked up at the sound, took in my face, and broke out into a smile so wide I feared his face would crack.
    “Mi amore!” he called, and then realizing he was married to a character from Dante’s Inferno, he dropped his voice. “My love,” he whispered.
    I looked at Crawford, who rolled his eyes.
    “Hi, Tony,” I said, maintaining a decent distance from the counter so that he wouldn’t grab me in a sweaty, cold-cut-smelling embrace. “We need some cold cuts.”
    “You need some cold cuts,” he repeated. “You need some cold cuts! Is that how you greet me after all this time?” He threw his arms open, expecting me to reach over the counter and lean into them.
    I started coughing; there had been a nasty strain of the flu traveling about the county and I begged off, citing some general malaise. “I’m sorry, Tony,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to get you sick.” I fake-sneezed for extra effect.
    He leaned over the counter. “For you?” he asked dramatically. “I would die.”
    And you just might, I thought, if Lucia gets wind of this. I wondered where she was and why I still didn’t have spaghetti sauce all over the front of my shirt; I decided not to tempt fate and kept my voice low. I heard Crawford let out a loud and impatient sigh.
    Tony studied my face. “What happened to you?”
    I went with my old standby: “Long story.”
    He didn’t really accept that as an answer but I wasn’t going to elaborate. He continued to stare at me. And then at Crawford. And then back at me. “Right. So back to the cold cuts,” I said. “Crawford? What would you like?”
    Crawford can’t order a cup of coffee in a fancy coffee shop because he gets too confused by sizes that are listed in other languages and descriptions that aren’t in his lexicon. He still hasn’t figured out that foam is regular old milk all frothed up. But order cold cuts the man can do. He rattled off an array of cold cuts, some of which I had never heard of, but all of which Tony had. Tony set about slicing meat through the big slicer and putting