Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

actually killed the guy—but I didn’t enjoy being in police stations and I especially didn’t enjoy the harsh glare coming from Detective Madden. I noticed that she was wearing the same navy blue pantsuit that she had had on the first time we had met. Perhaps it was part of a collection of navy blue pantsuits that inhabited her very orderly closet? Or was it just a coincidence? Who knew? Actually, who cared?
    I did, that’s who. When I’m nervous, I focus on things like Detective Madden’s imaginary closet and whether or not she had a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife. And if she thought the coffee at Beans, Beans was as terrible as I did. And if she ate doughnuts with Detective Hardin when I wasn’t around.
    “Well, did you?” she was asking me, breaking directly into my musings about her personal life.
    “Did I what?” I asked, trying to refocus my attention. I sat up a little straighter in my chair. Trixie licked my hand with mucho gusto.
    “Did you notice anything about Mr. Wilmott’s physical appearance prior to his death?” She folded her hands on a file in front of her. Of course she already had a file on the case; she was a terrible dresser but extremely organized.
    I thought back to what had transpired just a few hours previous. “Well, he was red in the face, sweating, and grabbing his throat at one point,” I said. “But I attributed all of that to his having been in a fight.” I picked up the soggy washcloth in front of me that had once held ice for my nose and pressed it against my forehead. It was still cold and a lot damp and did alleviate the pounding behind my eyes for a few seconds.
    She wrote something in her tiny, squiggly penmanship on the pad in front of her. She looked up again, and boy, if she didn’t look just like one of the nuns at St. Thomas. I then set about on a mental journey whereby Detective Madden entered the convent as a young girl, decided she didn’t like it, and left it to pursue a career in law enforcement. Only when she cleared her throat loudly did I snap to again. “How long had you known Mr. Wilmott?”
    “About forty seconds,” I said. We had been through this before. That’s the thing about cops: they like to ask the same question over and over again maybe hoping you’ll crack and tell them something they want to hear instead of something you’ve just made up. I don’t know. It’s a tiresome routine to me.
    She stared at me again. Detective Madden didn’t like me for some reason—maybe it was a leftover feeling from her investigation into my ex-husband’s murder—and was making that painfully obvious during our chat. I looked at the clock behind her head. It was now three hours past the time I was supposed to meet Crawford at my house to go the pool party. I was hoping that he had passed irate and was now worried about my whereabouts.
    “Can I please call my boy … Crawford?” I’m still not comfortable calling him my boyfriend, let alone fiancé. I had been at the stationhouse for three hours now and Detective Madden had been reluctant to let me use the phone. Who did she think I was going to call? And what difference did it make? I had left the house with only enough money to buy coffee and without my cell phone, and now I was at the mercy of a detective with an axe to grind.
    I decided that she didn’t have a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife, nor was she sleeping with Detective Joe Hardin. It’s not a myth that the lack of regular sexual activity makes you grumpy. Just ask Crawford.
    She begrudgingly handed me her cell phone, a fancy-looking operation with a keyboard. My cell phone is the size of a man’s loafer and has an antenna. “Yes, you may call your boy, Crawford.” That was what I had said but not what I had meant, but I let it go. Did I look like someone who used rapspeak to talk about their significant other? I examined the phone and decided that I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to dial it let alone make sure the call went through successfully. I looked at her pleadingly and asked her to dial Crawford’s number; although I had tried, my attempts at dialing had resulted in some vowels, the pound key, and some completely unrelated numbers. She obliged and handed the phone back to me.
    Crawford sounded a bit wary when he answered, clearly not sure who was calling him. “Crawford,” he said.
    “Hi. It’s me.”
    “Where the heck are you? And whose phone is that?” he asked, sounding a little mad