Third Degree (6 page)

Elaine raised an eyebrow. “I just think it’s weird,” she said cryptically. I decided that Elaine was the sister that they kept locked in the attic; all that time alone had given her a flair for the dramatic. She had probably been constructing this mystery in her head for years after reading the Nancy Drew book
The Secret of the Old Clock.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” I said, “but I just came to say I was sorry.” She pulled at a loose thread hanging from the waistband of her sweat suit and I got nervous. What if she unraveled the thread and her pants fell down? I was getting out of there as quickly as I could. “I’m sorry,” I repeated for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I just wanted to say that.”

But as I walked down the street, I admitted to myself that I hadn’t been there to say I was sorry. I had been there to nose around. Nobody just drops dead for no good reason in a coffee shop. At least I didn’t think so. George Miller, in my opinion, would have to have fists of steel to have killed Carter with one blow. But now, having met the grieving woman in person, I realized that going there was just a horrible, selfish thing to do. I got into my car, gave the news van the finger, and drove back to my house.

The torn screen over my sink indicated Max’s point of entry. She saw me looking at it and offered a weak, “Sorry.” Max has a history of jumping in and out of windows; she’s a regular break-in artist. Given that she’s petite and wiry and has some experience at it, she’d be a perfect second-story man. Fred didn’t look contrite at all considering I knew that he had hoisted her up to the window, in, and over the sink right below it.

I pointed at the screen. “You’re paying for that.” I went to the refrigerator, opened it, and peered inside. Unless I wanted a caper, pickle, and mayonnaise sandwich on stale bread, there was nothing to eat. I looked at the clock; it was twelve-thirty. I had a little breathing room before Crawford appeared. “And you’re getting it fixed today, so I hope you can find a hardware store that’s open.”

“Where were you?” Max asked. “And have you been crying?”

I closed the refrigerator with a loud thud; I wasn’t in the mood to explain. “What do you guys want to eat?” I asked. I pointed at the screen again but was at a loss for words. Surely Fred could have found a better way to gain entrance to the house.

Max and Fred stared at me; it’s the rare occasion that I call them out on their venial sins, but today was one of those times. My meeting with Lydia Wilmott, while seemingly uneventful, had left me rattled. I was mad at myself for having insinuated myself in her life under the pretense of compassion. It was just plain wrong. And I was going to make myself, and everyone around me, pay.

Even the sight of Crawford coming through the front door earlier than I had expected him did nothing to dampen my feelings of shame and self-loathing. He sauntered down the hallway toward the kitchen, took in the faces on the three of us, and whistled through his teeth. “What am I walking into here?”

“What do you want for lunch?” I asked. “These two have gone dumb,” I added, hooking a thumb in Max and Fred’s direction.

Crawford leaned down and let Trixie nuzzle his neck. “Turkey. Ham. Tuna. Whatever.”

“That’s not helpful,” I said. “And what are you doing here so early?”

He gave me a steely look; Crawford does not enjoy crankiness, particularly mine. He turned and walked back down the hall toward the front door. “Let’s start over.” He let himself out, and then back in, calling, “Honey! I’m home!”

I couldn’t help but smile. When he came back into the kitchen, I put my arms around him and buried my head in his chest. “They broke my screen.” I didn’t have to mention that I had seen a man die and subsequently, his dead body, and that was the reason for my sullenness; telling Crawford that would be a little ridiculous. He had probably seen a dozen dead bodies in as many days in the past month.

He looked over my head and saw the damage. “Have I taught you nothing?” he asked Fred. “You’ve got better skills than that.”

“I was hungry,” Fred said. Oh, that explains it.

I asked Crawford to come with me to the grocery store. Before we left, I asked Max to walk the dog. When I saw that she was going to object, citing her hatred of anything on four legs, I shot her a look and pointed at her. “Not a word. The leash is hanging right there,” I said, pointing to the hook that Crawford had installed by the back door.

We went outside and I heard someone call my name. Across the street, my neighbor and friend, Jane Farnsworth, was jogging across her lawn and making her way toward mine. “Alison!” she called, waving as she ran. She joined us on the driveway and caught her breath. “Did you hear what happened?” she asked and then, taking in my appearance, revised her question. “What happened to you?”

“Long story,” I said.

She stared at the black eye for a few seconds and that reminded me of just how bad I looked. I needed a big pair of sunglasses. “Did you hear about Carter Wilmott?” she asked, starting to cry.

“I did,” I said. “Did you know him?”

She nodded. “Lydia is a friend of mine,” she said. “We met in playgroup when Brendan and her son, Tyler, were two.”

Small town, I thought. Everyone knows everyone. Except for me. I don’t know anyone except for Jane, her two sons, and her partner, Kathy. I had never laid eyes on Carter or Lydia before the past two days. “I just saw Lydia,” I said, and could sense Crawford’s surprise; I knew there would be questions to answer on that front. “I was there when he died.”

Jane grabbed her chest and gasped. “You were?”

“I was. He died quickly,” I assured her, this becoming my mantra. I suspected it wouldn’t be the last time I recited that fact about Carter’s death.

“Lydia is devastated.” She wiped her hands across her eyes. “She hasn’t made arrangements yet. There’s going to be an autopsy. He was as healthy as a horse.” Clearly, Jane didn’t know the exact details of what had happened, the blow to the head, or the fact that Carter was in distress before that happened. She also didn’t mention the car exploding and I wondered if Lydia left that little tidbit out of the conversation. Seemed likely. A lot had happened that day.

“Would you let me know when the arrangements are finalized?” I asked.

Jane seemed a little surprised that I would want that information but she assured me that she would. “I’ll call you later.” She broke down and I put my arms around her, happy to be comforting her and not the one being comforted. I’m in that position far too often and felt as though I were using up all of the good will I had in the comfort bank. When she composed herself, she kissed my cheek and started back toward her house.

Inside the house, I heard Max calling to Trixie. I knew the dog wouldn’t come. She finds Max exhausting and hides under the dining room table every time she’s around. I took that into account when I had asked Max to walk her; it would take at least a half hour to track the dog down and get her on the leash, which would hopefully keep Max occupied during my absence. Leaving Max without a task is akin to giving a toddler a roll of toilet paper: there won’t be too much of a mess but you’ll still have a lot to clean up. “Will there be a murder investigation?” I asked as we walked to the car.

He opened the passenger side door for me. “Sounds like they’ve already got the guy.”

I slid in and waited for him to get into the car. “George Miller.”

“They’ll probably get him on manslaughter. The fight, the big blow to the head, it’s all there.” He looked over at me and could tell that I was dubious. “Whatever you’re thinking, Inspector Clouseau, forget about it. The police will investigate, and hopefully find out, who put the device on the engine, and that person will go away for attempted murder along with George Miller,” he said, stressing “attempted.” “But if you want more information, call my brother, the hotshot lawyer, and have at it.” He backed down the driveway, our conversation obviously over. There’s nothing worse than a hungry Crawford.

He drove us to the Stop & Shop at the corner of Route 9, but thankfully, he didn’t ask me about my visit to Lydia Wilmott’s house. That didn’t mean we wouldn’t be discussing it later. I grabbed a cart and wheeled it inside, happy to be doing something normal and ordinary, like looking at fruit and deciding between potato salad and cole slaw. He followed behind me, admiring the big selection of fruits and vegetables; Crawford lives on the Upper West Side and gets most of his groceries from the Korean grocer two doors down from his apartment. Suburban grocery stores never ceased to amaze him with their size and selection. I turned to hand him a bag of limes but instead found myself staring at Lydia Wilmott, an Hermès kerchief on her head, giant black sunglasses hiding her presumably red, tear-filled eyes. I stuttered out her name, careful not to alert the other shoppers that the newly widowed woman walked among us in the grocery store.

Crawford dropped the kiwi he was holding and waited for an introduction. “Lydia Wilmott, Bobby Crawford,” I said, and she took his hand tentatively. I didn’t go into the whole, “he’s my boyfriend even though we’re too old for that terminology but I haven’t decided whether or not to mess up a good thing by marrying him” spiel.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Crawford said, good former altar boy that he was.

Lydia stood, straight-backed, her hands gripping the handle of her shopping cart. Her lips were set in a grim horizontal line and she stared at Crawford from behind her very expensive designer sunglasses, ignoring his condolences. “I appreciated your visit this morning, Alison.” She plucked a kiwi from the stack next to Crawford and threw it into her cart. “I had to get out of the house. There are too many people there and I just need to be doing something normal.”

“I understand,” I said. I handed her a bunch of bananas that she was too far away to reach and she thanked me.

She turned to Crawford and addressed him. “What did you say your name was?”

“Crawford,” he said. “Bobby Crawford.”

She nodded slowly. She continued to appraise him from behind her dark glasses, and while I was used to Crawford getting admiring glances from the opposite sex, I sensed that this wasn’t one of those occasions. She was studying him for some other reason, its nature indeterminate to me. “And what is it that you do for a living, Mr. Crawford?”

I didn’t know what that had to do with anything, besides her curiosity, but Crawford answered that he was a police detective. Lydia nodded slowly. “Here?” she asked.

“No. New York City,” he said.

She nodded again, and by the grim set of her mouth, I could tell that she wasn’t impressed. In fact, she seemed disgusted. Maybe she had had a run-in with a cop? Unpaid parking tickets? A jaywalking fine? All I knew was that she was not pleased to meet Crawford, even though she said so as she started off down the apple aisle, careful to avoid the glances of any other shoppers who were rubbernecking with gusto. The Hermès scarf and sunglasses notwithstanding, everyone knew exactly who she was.

Crawford looked at me and mouthed, “What was that?”

I shrugged and went with a full-blown lie. “You’re handsome. You’re going to get looks.” I pushed the cart down the aisle and toward the deli counter, Crawford following behind me.

“That wasn’t what that was,” he said, looking over his shoulder to see where Lydia had gone, but she had disappeared into one of the vast aisles in another part of the store. When he determined that she wasn’t in earshot, he turned back toward the deli counter. “Is it our turn?”

I showed him our number. Nine hundred and seven. The number on the neon counter read “three.” There were four other people ahead of us, waiting for cold cuts. “We’re going to be here a while,” I said.

The deli man approached and moved the number ahead. “Four!”

When no one answered, the woman at the head of the line interrupted. “I have forty-eight,” she said, proffering her ticket.

“Five!”

The man behind her offered his input. “I have ninety.”

“Six!”

Crawford let out a loud exhale.

“Seven!”

I looked at my ticket again. “I have nine hundred and seven,” I offered weakly.

“Eight!” The counter guy was more exasperated than the customers were but clearly couldn’t find his way toward waiting on the lady who was first on line. “Eight?”

Crawford steered the cart away from the counter and me out of the store. “Hey, what are we doing?” I asked as he grabbed my elbow and pushed me toward the car, leaving the cart behind.

“We’re getting out of here, that’s what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re going to Tony’s.”

My heart sank. Did we need cold cuts that badly? Couldn’t we have pizza instead? The last time I had been to Tony’s, his new wife, Lucia, had hurled an invective at me from the kitchen, suspicious that I wanted in on Tony’s sexagenarian deliciousness. Trust me—I don’t. I’ve got a guy who’s all that and more. Okay, so Crawford doesn’t have unlimited access to Boar’s Head cold cuts, but he’s got a lot of other things going for him. Not being in his sixties is one of them. And being taller than me is the other. Tony is pushing seventy, bald, fat, and short. Sure, he’s loaded, but that’s not going to cut the mustard with me. Lucia can have all two hundred and fifty pounds of him stretched across his five-foot-four frame.

I had never actually laid eyes on Lucia, but I had incurred her wrath so much that once she had thrown a pot of meatballs at my head from her hiding place in the kitchen. Fortunately, it had missed me but it would have left a mark had it not. Tony seemed terrified of her, too; clearly, she was as dangerous as she seemed. My heart was racing as we pulled up in front of the deli, my hands clammy. Crawford jumped out of the car. This was a man in need of a sandwich. I was still in the car when he pressed his face to the passenger side window and asked, “Are you coming?”