Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

room and it had been cleaned out and how his cell phone kept going to voice mail. Crawford took this all in, watching me intently as I related the details of the story.
    “Where do you think he is?” he asked.
    I threw my hands up. “Not a clue. But the last thing he said to me was that he was going to Etheridge’s office to talk about something and he wasn’t sure what it was.”
    Crawford drummed his fingers on the tabletop. I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I was overjoyed when he said, “Let me do a little poking around.”
    “Thank you!” I said, and lunged across the table to kiss him, taking down my soda, his, and the bread basket with one fell swoop. The soda all went in his direction, soaking him from the solar plexus to his shoes, and several rolls ended up in his lap.
    He stood. “I guess I won’t be going back to work,” he said, and sauntered off toward the men’s room.

Twelve
     
    Crawford went home after we ate our dinner, despite the fact that his pants were soaked with Diet Coke. Although he was scheduled to go back to work, he took what is mysteriously called “lost time,” a term that the NYPD employs yet which I don’t understand. However, I realized that term could have accurately described my marriage to my ex-husband. Maybe instead of describing myself as “previously married” I could just say that I had taken some “lost time.”
    Now I was nervous that the marriage issue hadn’t come up. Crawford hadn’t touched on it once and that made me think that he was done with the whole discussion, a development troubling and annoying in its own way.
    I got in my car and saw that Max was calling.
    “You don’t take what I do seriously,” she said.
    “Yes I do,” I said as patiently as I could. This was a conversation that we had every so often and that usually ended up with me sitting in a Crime TV conference room watching the pilot of the latest reality show that Max had conjured up.
    “No you don’t.” Her voice was more high-pitched than usual. “Fred just told me what you call my new show.”
    Uh-oh. “He did?”
    “Yeah. ‘Dicks with Tits’? Ring a bell?” she asked. “Nice.”
    I needed to have a word with Crawford. I had told him that in complete confidentiality. I know he thought it was funny but he had used supremely bad judgment if he believed that telling Fred was a good idea. Didn’t he know that pillow talk was not to be repeated? “I was just kidding, Max.”
    “I don’t make fun of what you do.”
    How could you? Being a college professor really doesn’t lend itself to comedy. But being the head of a cable television station that airs such scintillating and highbrow programs as Juliet McKeever: Paranormal Crime Solver and The Ten Most Sexually Depraved Court Cases did. I did feel bad that I had upset her. Which is how I ended up sitting in a white, unmarked production van across from a very expensive high-rise apartment building on the West Side of Manhattan, watching some Hooters waitresses case the joint. The inside of the van smelled like stale coffee and body odor, both of which I attributed to the remote-camera guy, Jerry, who was the only other person in the van besides me and Max. I had drawn the short straw, so to speak, and had to sit closest to Jerry, who kept his eyes on the monitor on which I could see three young women strutting their stuff up and down the street in front of the building.
    “Shouldn’t they be more undercover?” I asked, taking in the tank tops that were stretched thin across the three young ladies’ ample bosoms.
    “Do I tell you how to teach?” Max asked. She swiveled in her chair and checked out another monitor that was trained on the inside of the building. “Jerry! There he is,” she said.
    A tall, distinguished-looking man of about sixty strode from the elevators toward the doorman’s desk and outside onto the street. The three Hooters waitresses—excuse me, “private investigators”—snapped to attention and got into various stances that indicated their readiness to take down this unassuming-looking man who had not a clue that he was about to be pounced on by three young women.
    “I’ve got him, Max,” Jerry said, fiddling with the knobs on his console.
    I tried to yawn with my mouth closed but was unsuccessful. Max shot me a look. “Are we keeping you up?”
    “No,” I said. “It’s just that I have a lot of work to do when I get home.”
    “Let’s just get this scene and then I’ll