Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

and took in the titles of some of the books on the shelves in my office.
    “Lots of Joyce,” he remarked.
    “I’m a Joyce scholar,” I said, resisting the urge to add “you idiot.” But I was feeling generous and figured that the hundreds of volumes related to the Irish author were not a dead giveaway.
    Dwyer surveyed my office, his eyes landing on a bumper sticker that was taped to the side of my filing cabinet: “If God was a woman, the world would have been created in two days and everything would have matched.” The expression on his face told me that he didn’t think it was funny. I decided not to tell him that it had been given to me by his predecessor, Kevin. He brought his eyes back to me, looking at me as if I had a huge piece of spinach in my teeth.
    Just to be sure, I ran my tongue across my teeth. All good there. “What can I do for you, Father?”
    “Nothing, really. I just wanted to meet with you and get to know you a little bit. I’m meeting with all the faculty members individually to see what role, if any, they can play in the liturgical events here at St. Thomas.”
    I held my hands up. “Whoa, there. Count me out. I’m not that good a Catholic to be involved in ‘liturgical events,’ ” I said, giving him the old air quotes. I wasn’t even sure what a liturgical event was. Did he mean Mass? If so, why didn’t he just say that? Oh, right. He was a tool. I was meeting a lot of them lately.
    He didn’t look surprised. “That’s another reason for my visit.” I didn’t respond. I already knew that I’d be in trouble for (a) not going to church and (b) admitting it in front of the overzealous school chaplain. With Kevin, it was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. With Dwyer, obviously, it was going to be much different. “It would be in the best interest of our students if they could witness, firsthand, the reevangelization of our faculty.”
    Since many of the faculty members were already nuns, I could only surmise that he was talking about me. And Dorothy Koppell, biology teacher and my next-door office neighbor and a devoted practitioner of Wicca. Oh, and of course, Rabbi Schneckstein, who was a part-time faculty member in the religious studies department. But he wasn’t going to get Koppell and Schneckstein, so I was a reasonable target. I held his gaze. “What exactly are you asking me to do, Father?”
    He was clear. “Go to Mass regularly. Attend Holy Day of Obligation Masses on campus when school is in session. Volunteer with our campus God Squad.”
    I held up a hand and ticked a finger off for each request. Going to Mass regularly was a choice I had yet to make and I wasn’t going to have him dictate how often I would go. Same for Holy Days of Obligation. As for volunteering with the God Squad, spending thirty or so hours a week with teens and young adults was about all I could handle realistically. They were also an extremely conservative organization given to protesting things on campus that I supported wholeheartedly, like the Gay-Lesbian-Transgender Alliance. It seemed obvious: having me volunteer with the God Squad wouldn’t be a good fit; was I the only person who thought so? I gave him a stern stare. “No. No. And no.” Fortunately, his response was muted by the ringing of my office phone. I looked down and saw that it was a call from Westchester County based on the area code that flashed on my caller ID. I picked up the phone and asked the caller to hang on without bothering to find out who it was. I put my hand over the receiver and asked Father Dwyer if we were done.
    “No, we’re not done,” he said.
    “Actually, we are,” I said, and opened the office door. “If you’ll excuse me? I have to take this call.”
    Yes, I was going to burn in hell. But be pushed around by some puppet of Etheridge’s? That wasn’t going to happen. I sat back down behind my desk and picked up the phone. “Thank you for holding. This is Dr. Bergeron.”
    “Alison? This is Mac.”
    I had been expecting that the caller was a student who had yet to arrive at school but who had a question about the curriculum. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be having more contact with the county medical examiner. It had been my fervent hope and wish that I would never hear from him again, despite the fact that I found him charming. “Hello, Mac. What can I do for you?” A call from the ME never signaled good news, in my experience.
    “This is highly