Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery)

surprising, to say the least.
    He boarded The Lydia.
    Not at all what I was expecting, but then again, not sure what I was expecting. I stood on the dock, watching the boat list to and fro, and waited for him to come out.
    While the darkness had brought a drop in temperature, it also brought mosquitoes. Big, giant, nasty, bloodsucking mosquitoes. And I don’t know what it is, but I’m one of those people to whom mosquitoes gravitate. Crawford could be sitting outside wearing a fructose bodysuit and he wouldn’t get one bite. I, on the other hand, am descended upon like an open container of raspberry jelly at a picnic. As soon as I felt the first sting, I knew I was in trouble, but I had invested too much time in this surveillance operation to give up. I was going to see what was happening on board The Lydia if it was the last thing I did. Which, I was afraid to admit, it might have been, if my internal radar was any indication.
    I couldn’t not find out, though. It was too tempting, and too bizarre. The Greg that I had known all of these years as the affable coffee shop owner was different today. And that made me curious.
    I had almost reached the boat when the door to the sleeping quarters opened and Lydia emerged. She took off her sunglasses when she reached the deck, realizing that she no longer needed them. It was pitch-black on the water, with only the lights from town and the small dock lights illuminating her way as she stepped off the boat. I jumped onto a boat closer to the end of the dock, praying that no one else was on board, and got on my stomach so she wouldn’t see me, listening to her high-heeled sandals making a clicking sound on the wood as she got closer and then hit the pavement, making her way back up toward town. When I no longer heard the sound of her footsteps, I got up and returned to the dock, making my way toward The Lydia.
    The boat was running, its engine making a loud clicking sound in idle mode. Greg appeared on the deck just as I stepped onto the boat, scaring both of us. He grabbed his chest. “Dude!”
    “Oh, Greg, you scared me,” I said, acting a little bit. Obviously I knew he was on the boat, but I had no idea that he would appear at that exact moment and scare the bejesus out of me. Surprised? Yes. Scared? No.
    He looked around as if searching for someone else. “What are you doing here?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t see you for over a week and then I see you two times in the same day. What are the chances of that happening?” His demeanor was old Greg: friendly, a little loopy, and nonthreatening. Maybe I had exaggerated the whole exchange in the coffee shop to be more sinister and loaded with innuendo?
    He had a large screwdriver in his hand and I kept my eyes on it. “What are you doing on Lydia’s boat?” I asked.
    He held the screwdriver up and waved it in my direction. “Repairs.”
    “What kind of repairs?”
    “What do you know about boats?”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’d have to have some knowledge of boats to understand exactly what I’m doing,” he said. Although he was wearing a tool belt and could have stored the screwdriver in one of its handy pockets, he kept it in his hand.
    “Why did you wait until dark to come on the boat?”
    “Because Lydia asked me to wait. She wanted to spend some time here. It’s the only place she can go to get away from everything. But the engine needs work and I came to fix it.” He held up the screwdriver again. “What are you doing here, by the way?”
    “Me?” I asked.
    He pointed the screwdriver at me again. “Yeah. You.” Although the screwdriver gave me pause, he was the same old goofy Greg right down to his old Birkenstock sandals, which he wore with white socks.
    I decided not to go with my first choice: I think you wanted to blow Carter Wilmott up and that you had means, motive, and opportunity. I thought that might sound a tad impolite. So I went with my second choice. “Just out for a stroll.”
    “On the dock?”
    “Uh, yeah,” I said, backing up toward the edge of the boat, taking in the appointments of each boat tethered to a slip. None of them, as far as I could see, had a deep gash in their seats, like The Lydia did. I felt vaguely remorseful for bringing Trixie on the boat the week before.
    Greg smiled. “Were you always playing Nancy Drew? Even as a kid?”
    I laughed. “No. This is a recent development.”
    “I can’t believe you thought that I would blow