Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

sweat.
    Fran Voigt, Etheridge’s gal Friday, was typing at her computer when I arrived on the fourth floor, her back to me. Fran is one of those people with eyes in the back of her head. Without turning around, she said, “Hi, Alison. They’re waiting for you.”
    They? Who was “they”? I didn’t have to wait long because I opened the heavy wooden doors leading to Etheridge’s office and was confronted by the president himself, and a short, baby-faced man in a Roman collar and with a thick shock of perfectly coiffed black hair, artfully arranged into a semipompadour. This wasn’t going to be good. I stopped short. “Good morning,” I said.
    Etheridge waved me into one of the guest chairs in front of his desk. “Alison, good morning.” He gestured to the priest standing beside the other guest chair. “Let me introduce you to Father Dwyer.”
    I shook hands with Dwyer, noticing instantly that he had hands as smooth as a baby’s bottom. This was a guy not accustomed to hard labor, that was certain. “Nice to meet you, Father,” I said, still not sure what the purpose of this meeting was or who this chubby little mystery priest was.
    “Likewise, Alison. I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said.
    Once again, that couldn’t be good.
    We sat down in the guest chairs and Etheridge began his spiel. “Alison, I’ve invited you here to meet Father Dwyer because he will be replacing Father McManus as chaplain of the university.”
    “You did? He will?” was all I could get out.
    “I told Father Dwyer about your special relationship with Father McManus—”
    “We’re friends!” I protested, turning to Dwyer. “We’re friends,” I said more calmly. “We’re just good friends,” I threw in for good measure in a whispered tone.
    Dwyer nodded at me in probably the same way that he would nod at a patient in a mental hospital who had told him he had just seen the Holy Trinity.
    Etheridge stood, indicating the end of the meeting. “I hope you’ll do everything in your power to make Father Dwyer feel at home.”
    “Of course I will.” Was he really that concerned that I wouldn’t? Etheridge really did think I was kind of a sociopathic lunatic if he thought I wouldn’t be nice to the new priest. I had a modicum of class. And I was afraid of going to hell.
    Father Dwyer smiled serenely. “I’ll be making a few changes to the liturgy in the coming weeks and the faculty will be apprised of what those might be.”
    I felt the hair go up on the back of my neck. “Changes?”
    Dwyer clasped his hands in front of him. “Small things. Little changes.”
    “Like what?” I asked, my smile insincere and frozen on my face.
    Dwyer bared his teeth in a facsimile of a smile. “Well, for one, we’ll be having a daily rosary.”
    Okay … that didn’t sound terrible. I like the Blessed Virgin as well as the next lapsed Catholic. She’s a mother, something I hoped to be someday before all of my eggs dried up. And the rosary is always a good excuse if you’re putting something off, e.g., I’ll grade these papers after I say the rosary.
    “We’ll also be offering a Latin mass once a week. For our more tradition-minded students,” he said.
    I couldn’t think of one student I had who would attend a Latin mass but didn’t think now was the right time to offer up that little nugget of information. I looked at Dwyer who seemed like he wanted to add something else, but couldn’t.
    He hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, almost prompting me to prod him to “spit it out.” I wisely kept my mouth shut. “We’ll be changing the demographic of the altar-serving population.”
    I tried to diagram that sentence in my head but was having a hard time. I managed a “Huh?” instead.
    “We’ll be doing away with female altar servers.”
    That one was hard to stomach. I looked at Etheridge. “Does Sister Mary know about this?” Mary might be a pain in the ass when it came to being my boss, but she was a feminist of the first order. And the altar-serving program was hers alone; she coordinated the whole thing and used it as a way to reevangelize students, and in particular, female students, who may have become lapsed in their faith. She wasn’t a convent pusher by any stretch of the imagination and I had lived through many convent pushers during my time here at St. Thomas. She just felt strongly that it was a way of involving young women in their faith and in the liturgy. Her program had other aspects but