Free Love You to Death by Melissa Senate

said. “I mean, not lately. But I loved him until he—”

    “Cheated on you with Mary-Kate?”

    I nodded. “When someone you love does something so awful to you, it’s easy to fall out of love. Not so easy to shake the hurt. But that was six months ago. I got over Ted fast.”

    “By dating Mr. Fiddler,” Ben said. “Who then ditched you in L.L. Bean rather than witness a bris.”

    “This is just embarrassing,” I said. “And it’s possible that Mary-Kate killed Ted. Maybe she caught him cheating on her, and she flew into the rage you accused me of f lying into. Maybe Ted dumped her, and she was the spurned woman who killed him. Why isn’t that a plausible theory?” I told him about the f lowers.

    “So perhaps she was angry. Grief affects people in different ways, Abby.”

    “I know all about grief,” I snapped.

    “In any case, Mary-Kate Darling has an airtight alibi for the night of the murder,” he said. “You don’t.”

    “Where was she?” I asked.

    “I can’t discuss that with you, Abby. It wouldn’t be professional, and it’s also not relevant. She’s not a suspect.”

    “Am I?” I asked.

    “You’re a person of interest,” he said.

    “Have you investigated Ted’s other ex-girlfriends?” I asked. “Maybe one of them snapped.”

    “Abby, I can’t talk about the case with you. What I can do is assure you that we are investigating all areas. I’m not focused on you at the expense of other potential suspects.”

    That was a relief.

    “Thanks for the list,” he added, folding Abby’s Romantic Involvements into his breast pocket. “I’ll be in touch.”

    And then he was gone.

     

    “How can I find out what Mary-Kate Darling was doing the night Ted was killed?” I asked Jolie and Rebecca later that night. They’d come over to cheer me up.

    “You do what lawyers do when they need information they can’t just ask for,” Jolie the paralegal said. “You track down the info in newspapers or online. Do a Google search for Mary-Kate. Or just read some of the news articles about Ted’s death. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was interviewed and mentioned what she was doing the night he was killed.”

    Jolie handed me her Portland Daily News. There were two articles about the murder.

In a heartbreaking twist, Ted’s fiancée, Mary-Kate Darling, had been registering for wedding gifts at Crate and Barrel when the murder took place. “I can’t believe I was dithering over china patterns when Ted—” she said, breaking down in tears. “When my beloved Ted was killed,” she finally managed to say amid heart-wrenching sobs.
    How airtight could that alibi be? It wasn’t as if a salesclerk had been mooning over her for two hours. Why couldn’t she have slipped out to commit a little murder and then rushed back to finish choosing salad bowls? Anyone who’d cheat with someone else’s boyfriend at that someone else’s own birthday party was coldhearted enough to be a cold-blooded killer.

     

    I loved Crate and Barrel. Every time I walked into the store, I felt like someone who had a love life. There was something about all those glasses, all those vases and candles and interesting pillows, that said couple living together. It was eight o’clock at night; the store would be closing in an hour, and it was packed. With couples living together. I’d never seen so many guys in a store in my life. Well, except Sharper Image.

    A month into my relationship with Ted I’d gone to Crate and Barrel to find a birthday gift for Opal, and I’d been unable to resist playing registry. There were brides-to-be walking around with their sheets of paper and pens, picking up forks and studying them as though they were the most important aspect of married life.

    I’d picked up a glass and studied it. A bride-to-be had smiled at me. “Ooh, are you thinking of those?”

    “Yes, I think Theodore would love them.”

    She laughed. “Michael would hate these. Way too girly, he’d