Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

“But you look as beautiful as ever. You have a glow about you. You must be fine.” He leaned over the counter and tried to grab hold of my hand. “You are better?”
    “I’m better, Tony. Thanks,” I said, peering around him to see if the elusive yet angry Lucia was anywhere to be seen. “Can I get an iced coffee, please?”
    He responded the same way he always did when I asked for something. “For you? Anything.” He turned and started to prepare my coffee. “Milk and sugar?”
    “Black,” I said, and looked around the store, deciding to make good use of my time while I was waiting. “Hey, Tony? When was the last time Carter Wilmott was in?”
    He stopped mid-pour and turned back around. He put a finger to his lips. “Do not say his name,” he whispered. “The thought of him makes Lucia very upset.”
    “I’m sure it does,” I said. “Did he come here often?” I thought about how despite the fact that he wrote horrible stuff about Greg and Beans, Beans, he continued to patronize the store. I didn’t think Tony and Lucia were “forgiving souls” like Greg had proclaimed to be, but you never know.
    “I spit on the ground he walked on,” Tony said, and spat on the deli floor to illustrate. “But Lucia? Lucia would have killed him if he had entered the store.”
    That revelation didn’t surprise me. Lucia had wanted to kill me, too, and that was only because she thought I was interested in Tony. “She was that mad, huh?”
    “She hated him,” he said flatly. “But Mrs. Wilmott? That was a different story. She is always welcome every time she comes here. She is a real lady.”
    It didn’t surprise me that Tony had the hots for Lydia, too. He was after almost every woman in town, even my neighbor Jane, who had stopped coming to the deli long ago for fear of being mauled by Tony and his meaty, cold-cut-covered hands. “Mrs. Wilmott comes here?”
    Tony nodded. “At least once a week. She loves Lucia’s chicken cordon bleu.” He smiled at the thought of Lydia. “When the cook’s off, that’s what she gets because she loves it so much.”
    I’m sure she did. Lucia was a complete lunatic but an exceptional cook. If I could stomach coming back here and getting pawed at, I would have to try the chicken cordon bleu. If I played my cards right, I could probably even pass it off as my own to Crawford. I thought about that as I pulled a few dollars from my purse and put them on the counter after Tony handed me my coffee. He looked nervously toward the back of the deli where I guessed Lucia dwelled, and when he saw that the coast was clear, he pushed the money back. “All I need is a kiss,” he said. “No money.”
    “I’m a taken woman,” I said, laughing nervously.
    “Please. Just one kiss,” he pleaded.
    I pushed the money back across the counter. “I can’t, Tony. I’d never be able to explain to my boy … to Crawford.”
    “It will be our secret,” he said.
    I blew Tony a kiss. “That’s as close as it gets,” I said, and hurried from the store, grateful to be back out on the sidewalk, even if it was close to a hundred degrees. It couldn’t have been any hotter or more uncomfortable in the deli than it was outside.
    I drank my coffee and mulled over my severe commitment issues as I maneuvered my car through town and toward the Saw Mill River Parkway. Could anyone blame me for not wanting to rush into marriage after what I had been through? Sure, my days of being married to a serial philanderer were long behind me, but the pain still resonated. And God knows, I hadn’t been in love with Ray when I married him; I knew that I had done it out of some kind of duty to my deceased mother who had made me promise that I wouldn’t die alone. Who would have thought that I’d be the only married woman in America who would indeed die alone, had I stayed with Ray? He was surrounded by a bevy of willing mistresses, yet I slogged away at school and at home, under the delusion that I was happily married to a man I thought I should love. That had been a mistake and delusion of colossal proportions.
    And now I had Mr. Perfect. Sure, he had his shortcomings, not limited to his love of the Cheez Doodle or safe, German-engineered cars (which were now made in Mexico, I wanted to remind him), or his ability to stay incredibly calm under the most stressful of situations (which is extremely annoying, I guarantee you), and yet I was dragging my feet, my Ring Pop engagement ring now safely