Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

Sorry. Make that “private investigators.”
    Although I tried not to, I replayed the events of the last several days in my mind, spending way too much time on thoughts of my mother and her untimely death at the age of forty-eight. Heck, I wasn’t that far off from that myself. I had managed, for all of these years, to keep those emotions pressed down deep in my subconscious, thinking of her often but only focusing on the good times, when she was a raven-haired beauty with not a care in the world save her awkward, studious daughter and her place in the world. Goddamn Ginny Miller, I thought. As painful as it was to witness Carter Wilmott’s death, it was way harder to sift through the emotional wreckage that was years of repressed grief over the loss of a woman whom I had treasured.
    I didn’t really owe Ginny anything but she had played her trump card and I had fallen for it. How could I not help the woman who had helped my mother pass from this world into the next? And how could I not help a man, George Miller, who was guilty of only a really bad temper but not manslaughter if Ginny’s theory was proved? I had once been suspected of something I hadn’t done and it was a very painful time. The helplessness that I felt then came rushing back to me now and gave me some insight into the hell in which George Miller resided.
    I kept walking, thinking that if I gave myself enough time, I could just walk away from this whole mess completely.
    But I know myself better than that. I couldn’t. And I’m sure that’s what Ginny was banking on. I’m nothing if not completely transparent.
    My heart was heavy as I started back to the house, Trixie having been successful in her mission to mark her territory throughout the entire neighborhood. My feet hurt; I hadn’t changed out of my high heels upon entering the house and I now had a little more sympathy for women who served hot wings and beer in platform shoes while running investigations. These women were to be lauded. I looked for signs of the Crime TV crew, but there were none. The trucks were gone, as was Max’s bright red Mini Cooper. All that was left at the curb was a brown Honda Fit, parked at an angle, its front wheels resting on my lawn.
    I ran up the driveway, the dog dragging me once again, and burst through the back door. Kevin was sitting at the kitchen table with Queen, the two of them deep in conversation. He looked at me with sad eyes.
    “Is there any room at the inn?”

Twenty-Six
     
    Technically, there was no room at the inn, but that didn’t stop me from letting Kevin sleep on the couch. His family didn’t really know what was going on with him so staying with one of them was out of the question for the foreseeable future, and he had overstayed his welcome with his “friend” from the seminary, a person about whom I needed more information. I went to bed, one Hooters waitress in the guest room on the futon, and one almost-defrocked priest in the living room on the couch.
    Any more wayward souls coming into my life and I was moving into Crawford’s, his “personal space” issues be damned. Yes, that’s what a tampon in the medicine cabinet will get you: admonitions about personal space.
    I left the house extra early the next morning, wanting to avoid giant breasts and “innocent until proven guilty” priests. I knew that Crawford had pulled a double shift and called him on the off chance that he might meet me for a coffee before he went home. I could tell, even over the phone, that he was dead tired but he agreed anyway, suggesting a Dunkin’ Donuts midway between campus and his precinct. I was on my third Boston cream doughnut and second cup of coffee when he walked in.
    “What’s so important that it couldn’t wait until the weekend?” he asked, settling his lanky frame into a small Dunkin’ Donuts chair.
    “Well, good morning to you, too!” I said. I realized, as I finished the remainder of my coffee, that I should have stopped at one cup; my heart was racing and I felt like I needed to run a marathon. What did they put in this stuff? Rocket fuel?
    “No, seriously,” he said. “I’m exhausted. What’s going on?”
    I filled him in on my new house guest while I had his attention.
    “You’re running out of room,” he said in his usual cut-to-the-chase way.
    “It’s like a home for wayward waitresses and priests.”
    “They can’t stay.”
    “And I can’t throw them out,” I said.
    His look told me that he thought