Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

like what he had to say.

Twenty-Five
     
    My first tip-off that things weren’t going to be normal when I entered my house were the Crime TV production trucks parked at the curb. I drove up the driveway to the garage and parked the car, my hands gripping the steering wheel and my heart racing. I decided that if Max was inside the house, I was going to wring her neck. Then, I was going to mix myself a nice dry vodka martini.
    First things first.
    I went in through the back door; the house was a beehive of activity, and packed to the gills with strangers. I took in the three Crime TV crew members sitting at my kitchen table, devouring a pepperoni pizza. One, a young hipster-looking guy with long hair, threw a piece to Trixie, who happily jumped in the air to catch it in her mouth.
    “Hey, chief,” I said, grabbing the dog by the collar and pulling her away from the pizza. “I’ll call you at midnight when she’s throwing up pepperoni.”
    “Who are you?” hipster kid asked, shoving another slice of pizza into his mouth.
    “Just the owner of the house,” I said. I put the dog in the powder room in the hallway and walked into the living room where a bevy of Hooters waitresses had convened. I tripped over a large cable that transversed the area between the kitchen and the front door. There were lights, cameras, and microphones littered everywhere, and a technician on the stairs leading up to my second floor recording my every move. I slapped the camera out of his hand as if I were Sean Penn coming out of the Ivy in Hollywood. Max was in the living room holding court, instructing them on the next case, it seemed, while they sat in rapt attention. I was momentarily blinded by the preponderance of enormous breasts but managed not to appear gobsmacked. Or so I thought.
    “We’ll do a stakeout in front of the cheater’s house,” Max said. “Oh, hi, Alison!” she said, noticing me in the archway leading into the living room. “Everyone, this is Alison Bergeron, my best friend in the whole world and maybe the smartest person I know.”
    Flattery will get you nowhere. “Hi, everyone. Now get out.”
    Max was mid-sentence, giving the waitress/private investigators their next assignment, when she realized that hell hath no fury like a sexually frustrated college professor. She looked over at me. “Excuse me?”
    “Out.”
    “We’re having a meeting,” she explained in her usual clueless fashion.
    “I can see that,” I said, using my supercilious polite tone. “But this is my house and I need to eat. And drink. And do some work. And generally live the life that I work so hard to have.”
    Max snorted. “We’ll only be five more minutes.” She seemed genuinely put out.
    “No, you’ll be gone now.” I took in the doe-eyed stares of the Hooters gals, Queen among them. I pointed at her. “You can stay.”
    Max strode toward me, Tinker Bell in five-hundred-dollar shoes. “A word, please?”
    We stood in the hallway, the camera guy training his lens on us. I turned my back on him, blocking his view. “What the hell is this?” I hissed.
    “This is our preproduction meeting,” Max said, as if it were the most apparent thing in the entire world. “We decided to have it here instead at the office because Queen has a lot of homework and a test to study for.”
    “Don’t you think you should have asked me first?”
    Max considered this and then made a decision. “No.”
    “No?”
    “Queen lives here so it’s kind of like her house and I didn’t think you’d mind.”
    The cameraman was inches from my face and I gently pushed him away. “You were wrong. I’m going to take the dog for a walk. You have ten minutes to get everyone out of here. Got it?”
    Max’s look was a cross between sad and angry but she nodded her head dutifully. “Fine. We’ll be gone in fifteen minutes.”
    “Ten.” I turned and opened the powder room door, liberating a very grateful Trixie.
    “I don’t know if—”
    “Ten!” I called back over my shoulder as I hooked Trixie’s leash onto her collar and went out the back door into the blissful calm of my backyard. Good God, I thought, as I crossed the lawn and walked down the driveway, Trixie setting the pace. As a result, I was being dragged more than walking of my own accord. Nevertheless, I was relieved to be out of the house and on a quiet street in a suburban neighborhood and away from the prying eyes, and pendulous breasts, of a bunch of Hooters waitresses.