Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

hidden in my underwear drawer so that I couldn’t gaze at it every day and night when I was in my bedroom. Crawford hadn’t mentioned its absence and I hadn’t brought it up. I knew I had to make a decision—and fast—and I figured I would eventually acquiesce, but was acquiescence an acceptable response to a marriage proposal from a man I truly loved? Maybe I’d be more excited after I acquiesced.
    I decided that I couldn’t handle this on my own, so I decided to find Kevin the first chance I got and dump it all on him. He was my best friend and a priest; who would be a better dumpee?
    I managed to get to school, and park without incident. The back steps would be another story so I sat in the car and went through my messenger bag to see what I could leave on the passenger seat and lighten my load for the day. I had rewrapped my wrist that morning and had done a pretty good job. It was immobile and didn’t hurt as much as it had the night before. My elbow was a little scraped up and my eye was more bluish purple than black. Things were looking up. Sort of.
    I had a half hour or so until I needed to meet my first freshman of the day and decided that I would run up to Kevin’s residence, on the top floor of the dorm outside of which I park my car. I needed to get his opinion on my latest tale of woe. I had lived in this dorm for six weeks the previous semester and the smell of floor polish and teen spirit still lingered in my nose. I signed in with the resident director whom the dean of housing had thankfully hired to replace me and told him that I would be heading up to see Fr. McManus on the top floor. The new resident director, a young man who seemed really gung ho, sent me up and went back to reading his school manual as I waited for the hundred-year-old elevator to make its way down the shaft and to the first floor. When it arrived, I boarded it and pulled the gate closed, praying the entire time that it would take me to the sixth floor without incident.
    I reached the top floor after a far longer journey than I should have had to endure and hung a right toward Kevin’s one-bedroom suite with the spectacular view. I reached the doorway and noticed that his name plate— FATHER KEVIN MCMANUS —was gone. All that remained was an unvarnished rectangle that had been covered by the brass-plated sign for the last several years. I knocked on the door, even though it was slightly ajar, and waited a few seconds. No answer. I pushed the door open and called Kevin’s name, hearing only silence.
    As the door swung open, and the panoramic view of the campus greeted me from the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the suite, it became obvious that no one would return my greeting.
    The rooms were empty.

Eleven
     
    My heart was racing by the time I reached the bottom floor of the dorm, having decided the stairs would be quicker than the ancient and quixotic elevator. I had called Kevin’s cell several times while standing inside his barren residence, each call going directly to voice mail. The sound of his voice on the message made me even more frantic. When I finally reached the lobby floor, the new resident director, a young, buff, and extremely handsome African-American man, stared at me as I skidded toward the desk, obviously hoping I’d stop myself before having to use the desk as a landing pad.
    “Where’s Father McManus?” I asked, out of breath and feeling as though I were going to have a heart attack.
    His face told me that he couldn’t conjure Kevin’s identity up immediately, but after a few seconds he seemed to recall the school chaplain. He laid down his reading material, the college rules and regulations handbook that all freshman received—and promptly discarded—and left it open on the desk. I noticed that he was reading the section entitled “Why Are We a Dry Campus?” with great interest. If he got the answer to that question, I sure wanted to know what it was, because right now? I needed a drink bad. I thought the head of the modern language department kept a bottle of Chambord in his desk drawer, and if he did, I was going to head down there immediately after finding Kevin.
    “Have you seen him?”
    “Not today.”
    “Did a moving van come around either last night or this morning?”
    “Oh! So that’s what woke me up!” he exclaimed, slapping his forehead with his hand. “I looked out the window and saw a white van, but I didn’t know what it was for.”
    I took a deep