Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

school, sorry that I had any kind of civic or moral compass at all. “Leave the detecting to the detectives,” I muttered to myself as I pulled into my reserved parking spot in the lot behind my building. It was something that I had been told over and over again, yet it had failed to sink into my brain as a reasonable course of action.
    Dottie was reading a bodice ripper when I walked in. “Is that Fabio on the cover?” I asked.
    She turned the book over and looked at the cover. “Maybe.”
    “I always thought he was kind of handsome,” I said. As usual, my friendly attitude toward her made her suspicious and she kept her eyes on me as I collected the mail from my mailbox and shuffled through it while still standing at her desk. “So, how’s Charlie?” I asked.
    She slammed the book down on her desk and gave me a hard look. “Okay, so what is this about? Why are you being so nice to me? And why do you keep asking me about Charlie?”
    It wasn’t the first time I had misread a situation nor would it be the last. What I thought passed for innocent small talk had apparently raised Dottie’s hackles. “It’s nothing. I’m just curious about your relationship and how you keep it fresh after all these months of dating.”
    “Fresh?” She snickered. “What? Are you watching Dr. Phil now?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You don’t talk like that. What gives?”
    I leaned toward her desk and whispered. “Listen. It’s like this. Crawford wants to get married and I’m not sure.”
    She leaned back and crossed her arms, happy to be in the role of relationship therapist. “Well, you were married to that cheating, lying asshole. I could see where you would have some issues.”
    Lady, I own the market on issues, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. I was struck dumb by her perceptiveness. “Right! Issues!”
    “After what you’ve been through, it would be hard to trust anyone.”
    “You’re right again!”
    “I understand what you’re going through.” Satisfied that she had correctly assessed the situation, she picked up her book.
    “Wait!” I said. “What should I do?”
    She gave me the same look I give my most challenged students. “You should marry him. What are you? A moron?”
    Though shocked that she had decided to impugn my character while giving me advice, I decided that she was right, as was Crawford. He wasn’t Ray and I wasn’t making a mistake, and getting married again was a blessing, not the blind cliff jump that I was making it out to be. I knew Crawford whereas I hadn’t really known Ray. Dottie was right. I was a moron.
    It all came down to one thing: I missed my mother. I had already gone through one wedding without her and the thought of going through another one gave me a palpable pain in my heart. Her advice the first time had been off the mark and borderline devastating. By telling me to marry a man I was ambivalent about at best, I know that she was just trying to protect me from a life of loneliness without my parents and without any siblings on whom to rely. It took me a few seconds to imagine what she would think of Crawford and decided that she would probably have been as much in love with him as I was. When I thought about it that way, it all made sense.
    Mentally, at least, I had “closed the deal.” When school was over for the day, I needed to make it official.
    I started for my office, my head in a completely different place than it had been for the last several weeks. Although the pain of my mother’s loss was still there, I felt lighter in spirit. My head did seem like it was in the clouds, which could be the only explanation I had for nearly colliding with Father Dwyer, also on his way to my office. Any feelings of bonhomie that I had based on finally making up my mind were quickly squelched by the sight of our new chubby chaplain. He was dressed in full blacks—jacket, pants, clergy shirt, and black shoes. I rarely saw Kevin dressed like this so it was jarring to see Dwyer in full regalia.
    “Hello, Father. Are you on your way to see me?” I asked. I opened the office door and motioned for him to go in before me.
    “Age before beauty,” he said, chuckling while waiting for me to precede him.
    Okay, what does that mean? “Ladies first” might have been more appropriate under the circumstances, but from the little I knew about this guy, I wasn’t surprised that he found himself more attractive than he found me. He settled into one of my guest chairs