Read Third Degree (A Murder 101 Mystery) for Free Online

his beer quickly. “I’ve got to go.”
    I had advance warning that he’d be leaving but I was still disappointed. His girls were at the pool party and needed to be picked up so that they could spend the night with him in the city as they did every Saturday night. “See you tomorrow?” We had left my concern about the future of Beans, Beans back by the police station and hadn’t discussed it again.
    He nodded before leaning in and giving me a kiss. He studied the black eye. “Got any frozen peas?” He thought for a moment and reconsidered that request; I had iced the eye when I had first arrived home but had tired of the sensation on my face and the feeling of melting ice. “Of course you don’t. Want to hold a frozen bottle of vodka against your eye? Because that’s the only item in your freezer.”
    “You’ve got that right,” I said. “I’ll be fine. It’s a black eye. No big deal.”
    But it was a big deal, which I found out when I was awakened after being asleep for only about a half hour. I turned and looked at the clock and saw that it was just past midnight and my face was throbbing, pain emanating from my nose up to my forehead and reaching around to the back of my head as if my whole cranium were encased in a vise. I sat up and didn’t know which part of my face to rub first to relieve the ache, so I decided to go into the bathroom, rummage around in the cabinet for anything stronger than an Advil, and chase it with a big glass of water. I had had a prescription for Vicodin at one time but I enjoyed the opiate so much that I had decided to flush the remainder down the toilet, a decision I came to rue at that moment. I settled on three aspirin and a half dose of NyQuil to help me sleep.
    An hour later, after taking another, full dose of NyQuil, I was still wide awake, staring at the shadow pattern the tree branches outside my window were making on my ceiling. I looked around the room, Trixie sleeping peacefully on the floor beside me, and spied my briefcase, my laptop resting on top of it. I got out of bed, trying not to wake the dog, who opened one eye and regarded me warily. When she saw that I only had word processing in mind, she went back to sleep.
    I crawled back into bed with my laptop. A year earlier, Max had implored me to get a wireless router, even though I’m a cheapskate at heart and couldn’t stomach the expense of what seemed, at the time, to be a useless purchase. I usually sit at my desk when I do work, so why I had to be mobile with my laptop confounded me. Tonight, I thanked her, because I could get back under the covers, look up every fact I wanted about Carter Wilmott, and not have to sit in the steaming heat of the guest bedroom where I kept my desktop. I opened the computer and turned it on, listening to Trixie’s noisy exhalations as I waited for it to warm up. I was searching the Internet for Carter facts before she had snored four times.
    I started by reading the latest entries on the blog. Wilmott had a cadre of regular posters: HappyVillager201; Old Timer; Coffee Lover; BadgeGal; the prolific Wonder Woman. And the intellectual FancyPantz who could quote sections of the village building code with alarming accuracy and ease. That was someone I wanted to meet. He also had his fair share of detractors, led by RepubVoter and his sidekick, MuchAdo. These two were vociferous in their rants about Wilmott’s political leanings, and being as the village was in the hands of a Democratic majority at the moment, they were none too happy about anything. Conversely, posters such as Crazee About Cats, Straight A, and Law School Val were completely in love with him and his unabashed support of the village mayor and trustees. It was like an online Dodge City, with a post by Wilmott, and then a multitude of comments, some referencing earlier comments on a post or even comments on earlier posts; these people clearly had a history.
    I scrolled through various posts and accessed the