MURDER on the ROCKS (Allie Griffin Mysteries Book 2) (2 page)

              "I gave you top shelf. No jug of double X for Allie Griffin."

              "Dougie my man, you're a big sweet lug. I can’t finish this. I have to drive." She pointed to the cash she left for him. "Aren’t you gonna take that?"

              He brought his hand up in a flourish and traced his jaw. "Your smile is enough."

              "Ohhh, now really! I owe you one."

              "No you don't," he said.

              "Then I'll be seeing you then." She slung her bag over her shoulder and pointed at him. "Get some Fresca in this joint."

              He smiled and pointed back.

              "
Ou est ma chatte
?" she said upon entering her house. A quote from
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
was always a syllable away on her tongue, although these days it was merely out of habit rather than out of any desire to celebrate her favorite book. She'd had a bit much of it from the murder she found herself in the midst of not more than two months before.

              Dinah the cat came galumphing out, all meows and purrs.

              "Baby cat, we met a funny little fellow and his off-putting wife today. What do you think of that?"

              Dinah responded with a meow that more likely came out of an empty belly rather than any cognitive assessment of her human's inquiry.

              "Yep, he sure was. You want food?"

              The cat responded accordingly.

              "Ok, food coming up. And then you get to have a shot."

              Having a diabetic cat was a chore at times. But it gave Allie Griffin something to care about and attend to. And it gave her a chance to care for a living thing outside of herself, and she needed that. Dinah was the best thing that had ever happened to her since her husband, Tom, passed away.

              But something else had crept into her life recently and made itself known.

              For the last two months, in the wake of the murder she herself had helped solve, Allie felt her mind stagnating. She'd turned to logic puzzles, which helped a little. But she found that what she really needed was the stimulation of helping real people.

              She looked at Bennett Reilly's card, thought about the encounter and its unsettling undertones, and then tossed it aside. She wasn't ready to get involved in some stranger's life like this.

              It wasn't until one week later. Exactly one week. One week of milling about, planning her next book club; another week of not being able to shake the restless feeling, the need for mental stimulation. Even a dive into one of her beloved books was not diversion enough. No, Allie Griffin needed people. Real, live people with real problems. It was when a friend in need solicited advice that she felt most alive, useful...
herself
.

              She dialed the number on the card. Bennett picked up, "Hi, can I— I can’t talk now. I don’t even know why I picked up the phone." His voice was trembling.

              "Uh, ok. Is everything ok?"

              "No... My wife... I can’t..."

              And hung up.

              She felt an old, familiar feeling stirring inside her. A thing she'd not felt for at least two months now. Every nerve was on edge. She went into her contacts and found the number of the Flamingos Bar.
Got to remember to change that name
, she thought.

              "
Yello?
"

              "Dougie? It's Allie Griffin."

              "
Well, well! Hello there!
"

              "Hi. Listen. Do you know where the Reillys live by any chance?"

              "
They lived in this nice place right up on Castle Avenue. Beautiful place, with these high ceilings. I never been there, but Reilly used to come in and show me pictures. The guys hated when he did that. They sweated it out during the day and went home to these leaky, paneled refrigerators in rundown developments, and meanwhile The Clipboard went home to a mansion. Well maybe Karma got him – or else one of the quarrymen tossed a lit cigarette in the wrong direction while driving by – I'm not incinerating anything here, I'm just saying some of these guys get to talking when they come into my place and knock back a few. At any rate, he and the missus got a big, meaty settlement out of it and bought one of those houses in the new development by the creek. You know those developments where they got eight or ten mansions to a block, and each one has a yard that couldn’t support a rabbit even if it hadn’t been mowed for a month? They live in one of those
."

              "Oh my, Douglas. Thank you."

              "
Douglas. I like that. You can call me that from now on. Only you, Miss Griffin
."

              "Allie. Goodbye, Douglas."

              She drove around the area the bartender had told her about. It was exactly the way he described it. Here on the northwest side of Verdenier, someone in his or her infinite wisdom had decided to take a tiny swatch of land by the mouth of Wayne's Creek and develop it into a neighborhood crammed to the bursting point with McMansions. The road wound left and right, and the houses all turned from one another as if ashamed to be seen on that street.

              She drove slowly, unsure of what she was looking for. Something had taken ahold of Bennett Reilly, some urgent matter that was obviously causing him a great deal of stress. There didn’t seem to be anything here. But this was better than staying home with a diabetic cat.

              Lights. Red and blue. Flashing.

              A police car sat across the street, blocking passersby.

              She slowed and rolled down the window.

              A flashlight in her eye said, "Ma'am, do you live here?"

              "No, I was looking for a friend's house?"

              "Which house, ma'am?"

              "The Reillys?"

              "Ok, could you do us a favor and just pull over to the side of the road, please, ma'am?"

              She did as the cop asked. He radioed someone that there was a woman looking for the Reilly house. And he came by and told her to wait so someone could come down and ask her a couple of questions. She waited until a car sidled slowly down the winding road to meet her. A silhouette walked toward her.

              Her heart jumped a little when she saw the silhouette brighten into the image of Sgt. Frank Beauchenne.

              "Allie?"

              She waved coyly.

              "Allie..." he walked over and leaned in on her window. "Did you tell my guy you were coming here to meet the Reillys?"

              "I was looking for the house, yes."

              "Any particular reason?"

              "I- I guess... I don’t know. I called Bennett a little while ago and—"

              "How long ago?"

              "I don’t know...twenty minutes maybe?"

              The sergeant looked at his watch. "Ok. I guess that was you then. He was in the house with us."

              "Ok. What happened?"

              He stood up, took a deep breath and looked around, then leaned back down again. "Mrs. Reilly was murdered in the house. The husband came home and found her. We've got him up there now."

              "Oh my," she said. "I don’t know what to say."

              "What was the intention of calling him?"

              "Oh, you’re not gonna start being a cop at me now, are you?"

              "Allie, can you just answer the question?"             

              She sighed impatiently. "He'd asked me to."

              "Any particular reason?"             

              "You do like that phrase, don’t you, Frank?"

              He rolled his eyes. "Allie, c'mon."

              "You and I dated a couple of times. Remember? I didn’t call you sergeant over dinner."

              "And we'll date again," said Beauchenne, managing a crooked smile through his gray-flecked stubble. "But you gotta be straight with me now. Why did Bennett Reilly ask you to call him?"

              "He said I might be able to help him with something having to do with his wife. Said it was because he read about me and, I don’t know. I've gotten a couple of crackpot calls since the Cardinal affair. People coming up to me in the supermarket. One lady actually thought I was only able to crack the case because I was a psychic. She wanted me to contact her dead iguana."

              Beauchenne tucked his head down, stifling a laugh."

              "I'm serious!"

              His raised his head up with a toothy smile. "You're a funny lady. But I have to go to work now. We'll be in touch."

              "Oh, I can’t wait. Tomlin?" All she needed was Detective Harry Tomlin getting wind of her presence at another murder site.

              "He's up there. Don’t worry; I'll keep him away from you."

              "Righto."

              He smiled and winked and tipped his hat and went back to his car.

              There was something in that smile of his that could melt Allie Griffin on her coldest night. She turned and began her drive home.

              She caught herself smiling and wondered how long she had been. It was Beauchenne. That damned Beauchenne with his stubbly face and those steely eyes of his. But there was another reason why she felt her senses sharpen and her mind quicken before many nights of sleepless contemplation: once again, a crime needed solving.

– Verdenier Police Department, how may I direct your call?

– Sergeant Frank Beauchenne, please.

– One moment, please

– Beauchenne.

– Frank? It's Allie.

– Yep. What can I do for you?

– I was wondering if you could maybe do your buddy here a favor and answer a question or two about the Reilly murder.

– Nope. Sorry. Not gonna happen.

– Frank.

– (voice lowers)Allie, don’t call me here about this again, ok? I'll talk to you soon.

– Fine.

– (normal voice)That all?

– That's all, Sergeant.

– Right.

(click)

#

              It was a typical Tuesday afternoon at the Walker Street IGA. Allie pushed her cart from aisle to aisle in half a daydream. The Reilly case was gnawing at her. A meeting in the bar conducted in urgent, hushed tones, and then a week later a woman is dead.

              She collected her staples in robotic fashion, playing over the small details of the case, which she knew, when assembled properly, would point her in the direction she should most likely head next. The problem was, there were too few details, and nothing was assembling. It made her restless.

              She reached for Dinah's favorite brand of cat food, a bag of diabetic formula dry food.

              And a man's hand reached for it at the same time.

              She gasped out of her reverie and beheld the smiling face of Sgt. Frank Beauchenne.

              Allie shook her head and returned the smile. "Hi. What are you doing here?"

              "I wanted to apologize for the terse phone conversation."

              "You were in work mode, I get it."

              "Not exactly. Listen." His voice died down to a whisper. "We'll talk about this case, but it will be on my terms, understand?"

              "Yes, sir!"

              "Allie, I'm serious."

              "Ok."

              "You'll need a code word to recognize my communiques. I'll use the word 'swordfish'."

              "Communiques? Code words? What's with all the spy stuff? And where the hell does 'swordfish' come from?"

              "Just take my word that I have need for secrecy. I shouldn’t even be seen talking to you but I'm in a bit of a bind here. I'll explain. And 'swordfish' is from a Marx Brothers movie."

              "Marx Brothers."

              "Right. We all clear?"

              "And how will you contact me?"

              He mulled it over for a moment, and then said resolutely, "You'll know."

              He turned to leave.

              "Oh, Sergeant?" she sang.

              He turned.

              "How the devil did you know where to find me just now?"

              "I followed you."

              Allie Griffin smiled and took the lesson: the simplest answer is usually the correct one.