the little blue chiffon number back on the rack. "Listen, you're gonna kill me. I didn’t come here to shop for dresses."
"Painfully obvious by the way you're not buying anything."
"No, seriously." She stared at Del, biting her bottom lip.
"Oh no. What happened?"
"Don’t freak out."
"That usually means freak out."
"Seriously. Someone's been murdered."
"Who?"
"You don’t know her. The name's Honey Reilly. It's a little complicated, but I need to follow up on a lead that Frank gave me."
"You and the sergeant, uh..." She cocked her eyebrows in a certain way that made Allie instantly recognize the code.
"No!"
Del laughed mischievously. "I was gonna say, murder leads make for awkward pillow talk. Listen, I have a suggestion, and believe me you don’t have to take it at all, but maybe this time you oughta stay out of official police business, whaddaya say?"
She moved to the rack of clearance items. Who was she kidding? At least these prices were close to her range. "No, Frank gave me the go-ahead. He says the chief wants him to back off this one for some reason and he doesn't trust the motive."
"I'm just getting visions of the two of us wandering through someone's house illegally again while soaked with gin."
She was referring, of course, to their almost-totally botched escapade during the Tori Cardinal Affair, as they'd taken to calling it, wherein a mere lapse in judgment as to the strength of a bar shelf almost cost Allie the entire case.
"I can’t afford any of these," she said, throwing the hangar back with a huff. "Walk with me. I'll tell you a little about it."
They strolled down Church Street, with its cobblestones and its earthy-crunchy boutiques and various small shops and eateries, paying only casual attention to the plethora of goods displayed in the storefront windows. The story was a sordid one, and tended to command the attention.
She knew she could trust Del Collins. The two had become quite close after sharing the experience of investigating the murder of Victoria Cardinal two months before.
She told her the whole story as she knew it. From her chance meeting with Bennett Reilly in the bar, to Frank Beauchenne's advice to follow the shoe lead, to her and Bennett's conversation in his living room and Bennett's resultant revelations.
"I've got a funny feeling about him," said Allie. "Like he knows more about this than he's letting on."
"In what way?"
"Like as far as his personal feelings about it are concerned. He's a little too concerned with facts and not enough about how he feels, yet how he feels comes out in, say, interesting ways."
"Do tell," said Del, taking Allie's arm in hers.
"Well, he said this strange thing about money in Verdenier. How it used to be a nice town where 'things like this' never happened, until the money started coming in. Then it struck me. By referring to money, he was including his wife. In other words, he was indirectly blaming Honey for what eventually happened to her. I find that odd." She suddenly stopped. "Oh. This must be the place!"
They'd stopped in front of a store with the lofty name of "Olympia.” On the window was a sign that read "Custom shoes made on the premises."
"This is Frank's shoe place?"
"Bennett's wife's, yes. Frank was the one who told me to