Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

died, she just cares that she’s closed a homicide.” She stood and walked into the kitchen. She picked up the arsenic rock that I had hastily placed on the counter as far from me as I could. “I know you’ve got a reputation for being a bit of a busybody—” I took offense at that characterization and started to protest. She held up a hand to silence me. “But you find things out. And I know you know Lydia.”
    Not in the way you’d think, I wanted to tell her, but I wisely kept my mouth shut.
    “And your boyfriend is a cop. He can find things out, too.”
    “Leave him out of this. He’s not going to help you, Ginny. He doesn’t know you from a hole in the wall.” I poured coffee into each mug and handed them to each of my guests—and I use that term loosely—now all clustered in the kitchen. I took a sip, burned my lip, and cursed a blue streak in my head. This day just keeps getting better and better, I thought.
    Queen spoke up. “I’m a private investigator.”
    “Yeah! She’s a private investigator!” Max agreed.
    Ginny looked Queen up and down, a mild expression of disdain crossing her face. “Of course you are, honey.”
    Queen shook her head. “No, really. I am.”
    Max launched into her pitch about the show. I decided to keep to myself my name for it lest I incur the wrath of Max again and find myself stuck in a fetid-smelling van. Ginny looked at me. “They’re kidding, right?”
    “I wish they were,” I said.
    Ginny looked back at Queen. “How much do you charge?”
    Queen seemed never to have considered this question and didn’t want to get the answer wrong. “One thousand dollars a day plus expenses.”
    Ginny sighed. “I can’t afford you.”
    “Okay, fifty dollars a day. No expenses.”
    Max clapped her hands together as if she had just brokered a deal between Israel and Palestine. “It’s settled!”
    I clanged my mug down on the counter to get their attention, coffee sloshing out onto the floor, my jeans, and Ginny, who was standing closest to me. “No it’s not. Queen, thank you for your generous offer of support, but Ginny needs to figure this out on her own. And Max, we still have some unfinished business, so if you’d both excuse us for a second …” I waved a hand toward the back door and motioned to Ginny that it was time to go.
    “Help me,” Ginny said one last time, her hand on the doorknob. “My husband is a good man. He just let his temper get the best of him. He’s not a killer, either on purpose or accidentally. He’ll never make it in jail,” she added.
    I felt for her but I really didn’t know what I could do and told her so. “Go before the rain starts again,” I said gently.
    “I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” she said. “More than anyone should ever make. And I have no excuses. I would just like to make some of this up to George. He’s a good man,” she repeated, and I was inclined to believe her. And then she played her hand completely. “You know, I knew your mother.”
    My heart leaped into my mouth.
    “She was a patient on my floor, wasn’t she?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. Was she?” I said. This was a conversation I certainly didn’t want to have.
    “I thought your name sounded familiar. And then I remembered. A beautiful lady, inside and out.” She looked up at the sky, as I did many a night, thinking that I could feel her presence from above. “We took good care of her, Alison. I’m sorry there wasn’t a better outcome.” When I didn’t respond, she stepped out into the backyard, just outside of the door. “I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said before pulling the door closed behind her.
    Max waited until she saw Ginny pass by the kitchen window before offering her interpretation of events. She wisely skipped over the last part of the story because even Max, the least self-aware and perceptive person I have ever met, could tell that one push and the whole house of cards that were my emotions would come tumbling down. “Well, he might be a ‘good man’ but that dude is going to jail. Then, Mrs. Miller can carry on all she wants with whomever she wants.”
    “That’s a real change of tune,” I said, my voice sounding thick from the tears backed up in my throat.
    “Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” Max said.
    I stared into my coffee cup. Girl had a point.

Twenty-Four
     
    I awoke the next morning and entered the kitchen to find a fresh-faced, athletic-looking African-American woman who