Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

brakes so as not to run the light. I sat a little straighter in my seat while waiting for the light to change and tried to bring my breathing back to normal. From the driver’s side window of the car I glanced at the cars lined up along Main Street next to the shops and restaurants. One car caught my eye and I looked closer.
    Oh, hello, Ginny Miller.
    Ginny stared back at me from the safety of her Subaru Outback and gave me a half smile that was basically indistinguishable from the snarl she usually wore. The only giveaway was that her lips turned up slightly at the corners. I gave her a little smile back and kept my eyes on the light, wondering why she was parked on the street across from the Unitarian church. What did she care if Carter Wilmott was being buried? The fact that he was being buried at all was because her husband couldn’t keep his ham-hock hands to himself. Surely she wouldn’t want to be seen within ten blocks of the place, but there she was, hiding in plain sight, and watching everyone come out of the church.
    Rather than using common sense and going back home to hide from news cameras and overzealous reporters, I chose the nontraditional route. That included pulling an illegal U-turn in the center of town, in full view of Detective Madden, and following Ginny Miller to her final destination.
    Which happened to be the Stop & Shop, a fortunate choice because I was out of milk.
    I followed Ginny into the store with her completely unaware that I was tailing her. We meandered through the aisles, her picking up an item here or there and throwing it into her shopping cart, me keeping a safe distance while riffling through my bag for coupons. I was here, wasn’t I? Might as well get some shopping done. I stuffed a package of English muffins under my arm and continued toward the spice and “international foods” aisle, which was only international because of its selection of Goya bean products.
    I rounded the aisle thinking that fajitas might make a tasty dinner, singing along to the Muzak version of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” and ran right into Ginny, who was lurking around the corner from where I had been. I slammed into her solid torso—had we been playing basketball, I clearly would have been charged with an offensive foul—and dropped my English muffins.
    “Want to tell me why you’re following me?” she hissed while smiling at an elderly female shopper who was angling her cart past us, running over my toes in the process.
    “Want to tell me why you were spying on Carter Wilmott’s funeral?” I asked, stooping down to retrieve my breakfast muffins and rub my sore toes.
    “None of your business,” she said.
    “It just seems weird,” I said. What was even weirder was that she was clad, once again, in her gym wear. I realized I had never seen this woman in any material other than spandex except for that one time she was in scrubs. Wasn’t she a nurse? Wouldn’t common sense dictate that she would be in scrubs more than occasionally?
    “Why? You were there. That’s pretty weird when you think about it.”
    I chewed on that. I knew that it was, obviously. But I would never admit that to Ginny Miller.
    Ginny moved her cart a bit. “Are we done here?”
    “I wish we were, Ginny, but I’d also like to know what you were doing on Carter’s boat.” I handed the same elderly lady who had run over my toes a can of black beans from a high shelf. She didn’t say “thank you” which I thought was extremely rude.
    “Once again,” Ginny said, pointing at me, “same question for you.”
    “I was looking for something.”
    “Yeah? Well, me too.” She started down the aisle, passing the elderly lady now reaching up for a can of garbanzo beans and perilously close to bringing down the GOYA? OH BOYA sign. I hurried after Ginny, grabbing the beans and throwing them in the lady’s cart. I had a hard time keeping up with the yoga-pant-clad Ginny, who made haste down the aisle and into the main area of the store by the checkout lines. I skidded to a stop at the end of the aisle and called to Ginny. The old lady, now exhibiting remarkable agility, plowed into my rear end with her cart. I burst forward from the aisle into the middle of the store. “And you owe me an apology for pushing me into the river!”
    The din of the grocery store evaporated into thin air and I realized that we now had about sixty pairs of eyes on us, from the elderly shoppers who had come in the minivan from