Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

this roommate thing wouldn’t be so bad after all.
    I poured myself a glass of wine, kicked off my pumps, and settled in to watch television, relishing the quiet. I flicked through the channels, settling on the local news station, News47 Westchester, knowing that the weather report would be coming up. I don’t know why but I’m obsessed with the following day’s weather. Generally, News47 Westchester’s meteorologist is wrong, and I’m usually not dressed appropriately as a result, but I always check. Someday, he’ll get it right and I won’t be wearing suede boots when the next monsoon hits.
    With the exception of DPW chiefs who kill local bloggers, not too much goes on in the county. You have your usual drug busts, DUIs, and shady politicians, but as counties around New York go, it’s generally a pretty safe place to live. That’s why when something exciting happens, all hell breaks loose.
    And hell was busting out all over.
    I sat up when the “Breaking News” banner blasted onto the screen. Although overused as a notice, sometimes it represented really good, juicy, happening news. And today’s interruption didn’t disappoint. For when the banner rolled off the screen in a haze of red and purple, the News47 Westchester station colors, there was a woman, standing on the ledge of the highest part of the Tappan Zee Bridge, her hand gripping one of the iron beams that held the bridge together and aloft. I leaned in closer. Traffic was stopped in both directions and everyone from the bridge crew to the state police was gathered on both the north- and southbound lanes. The woman stayed on the ledge, her balance surprisingly good, as the wind whipped around her on her lofty perch.
    The commentator was giving us viewers a blow-by-blow account of what had happened up until this moment. The woman had been driving in the northbound lane until she had suddenly pulled her car over in the right lane, causing a twelve-car accident, and climbed to the railing of the bridge where she had stood for the past hour, apparently contemplating her next move. Her next move seemed obvious to me: she was going to jump as soon as she got the courage. As usual with stories like this, I wondered what had her so distraught that she felt this was her only way out. I had been in many dark emotional places in my life but ending it all had never occurred to me.
    The commentator was just about to throw the report back to the studio when the woman did just what I expected she would: she threw her arms out wide and executed a perfect swan dive, a beautiful sight if only the ending hadn’t been preordained tragic. I grabbed my chest, horrified, and let out a strangled sound because as I watched this surreal and heartbreaking event unfold, I realized that I knew the woman.
    And I knew why she had jumped.

Twenty-Seven
     
    I was still staring at the television set when Queen, Kevin, and Trixie returned. I don’t know why I was so upset; I hadn’t known Ginny Miller well, but the shock of seeing her plunge to her death from the Tappan Zee Bridge was one of the more terrible things I had seen in my lifetime. News47 Westchester was going to have a lot of angry viewers; their viewership, for the most part, didn’t tune in to see women fly off the railing of the bridge and into the choppy Hudson River. They tuned in to see crappy meteorologists give incorrect weather reports.
    I had left the television on so I knew that although the state police had sent a police boat to the scene when Ginny was discovered on the bridge to hopefully fish her from the drink if she did jump, it had been an unnecessary measure. Because Ginny, she with all of her bad luck, had missed the river completely and jumped directly onto an old piling sticking out of the water, essentially breaking every bone in her body upon impact. She was dead instantly. Or so said the trembling News47 Westchester commentator, a young Hispanic woman who looked like she was suddenly considering a career change.
    Trixie rushed over and licked my face. She was used to seeing me upset, but not like this. I’m usually hopping mad, not sobbing into a polyester-covered pillow. Queen and Kevin were alarmed, but after watching television for a few minutes, they ascertained what had happened. Kevin didn’t know many of the details about the Carter Wilmott murder and Queen didn’t know any. After gathering my wits about me and calming down, I filled them in.
    Queen, not Kevin, made the sign