MURDER on the ROCKS (Allie Griffin Mysteries Book 2) (4 page)

              "Are you going to buy that dress," said Delaney Collins, "or did you just come here to see how everything looks under your chin?"

              They were in J'aime, a high-end clothing boutique in Burlington.

              "I don’t know. Things like this make me look hippy."

              "That's because you have hips."

              Allie shot a look at her friend. "Thanks."

              "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

              Allie put 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 follow the shoe lead."

              Del rolled her eyes. "I stand corrected."

              "Unbelievable. I swear to you I was just about to Google custom-made shoes in Burlington."

              "It's not so unbelievable. We're in Burlington. Where else would this place be if not on Church Street?"

              "True. Then, shall we?"

              "Lead on. You're the detective."

              They entered the shop. A boutique that was even smaller than it looked from the outside. Against the wall, a line of gorgeous shoes sat on display like so many works of art.             

              "Can I help you?"

              The voice belonged to a man, fiftyish, with an all-too-obvious dye job. He had a clean face and soft eyes, and he wiped his hands on a long, stained rag.             

              She held out her hand. "Hi there, I'm Allie Dodgson. I'm a reporter for the Burlington Free Press."

              "Pleased to meet you. You’re a long way from home."

              "Huh?"

              "A little joke. We’re in Burlington."

              She faked a laugh. "Ah yes. Anyway, I'm doing a profile on a resident from Verdenier by the name of Honey Reilly? I heard she was one of your clients."

              "One of my clients? If by 'one of my clients' you mean she kept me in business, that she paid for my son's braces and even contributed in no small part to the addition of a loft on the top of the house which my no-good nephew is now using as his own personal Playboy Mansion, then yes, she was one of my clients."

              Allie and Del exchanged glances. Del slowly turned around to browse a line of pumps on the wall.

              "Right, well then, is there anything you could tell me about her?"

              The man shrugged. "What's there to tell? I'm from Brooklyn originally. Time to time I’d have wealthy clients come in from the city to have shoes made – a pump here, a loafer there – and let me tell you, I never had the business there that this one woman gave me here. Broke my heart when I heard what happened."

              "Oh," said Allie, "then you know."

              "Know? I was thinking of closing the shop for good when I heard. No way I'm going to make that sort of money now that she's gone. No disrespect intended. It's just that that woman was Webster's definition of a helluva loyal customer."

              Allie was nearly exhausted by the man's manner of speech. "Mmm," was all she could say in response.

              "It's all the pity that I rarely ever saw her. Pretty girl too. It’s a shame."

              "Wait," said Allie, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Del had turned around as well. "What do you mean? She had the shoes delivered?"

              "Nah nah, I don’t deliver. She had a guy come and pick them up."

              "What was he like?"

              "Mmm, little guy, maybe five-six, five-eight? Had a face on him like a sour lemon just lost the lottery. You know the face. Like he always had a mouthful of something he didn’t want to swallow. Always wore a black shirt with a sport jacket. Even in summer. Looked like what's his name from the show."

              Allie shook her head.

              The man snapped his fingers. "The show, the black and white show about the creepy family. The Addams Clan."

              "The Addams Family."

              "That’s what I said. He looked like the guy. Gomer."

              "Gomez."

              "Again. Why you have to repeat I'll never know. Looked like him, only shorter I guess."

              "Would you happen to know his name?"

              "Sure. Chaplin. Art Chaplin. No, Chapin! That's it. Art Chapin. Or was it Chaplin? Anyway, it was one of them."

              Allie smiled genuinely. "Well, Mr..."

              "Slivovitz, just like the liquor that tastes like a wall."

              "Mr. Slivovitz, I can’t thank you enough."

              "I trust I'll be reading my name in the paper soon?"

              "That's up to my editors. Bye now."

              Once outside, Del put a hand over her mouth. "Holy run-on sentences, Batman!"

              "I liked him."

              "I liked him too, but oh my."

              "Ok, so we're looking for an Art Chapin/Chaplin."

              "Shall we try Mr. Google?"

              "We can, but it's getting late. I have to get home and give Dinah her shot."

              Del smiled. "Having a diabetic cat sure gets in the way of ace criminal detection, doesn't it?"

              There was no Art Chapin or Art Chaplin or Arthur Chapin or Arthur Chaplin anywhere in Vermont.

              However, she did find an Arthur
Chapman
who lived in Burlington. It made sense. Burlington. Easy access to the shoe store.             

              The door opened and there stood a man of about five foot five, graying mustache, graying temples, and a face like a deflated soccer ball. Save for the mustache, he didn’t look a thing like Gomez Addams.

              "Yeah?" said the man. He sounded as if he'd had a thirty-year relationship with the same cigarette, and that they no longer got along.

              "Hi. Arthur Chapman?"

              "Yeah."

              "Hi, my name is Allie Griffin. Can I come in and talk to you for a minute?"

              "What's this about?"

              "It's about someone you knew. Honey Reilly? Unfortunately she was murdered a week ago and I wanted to know if you could answer some questions about her."

              What little color was left in the man's face had drained from it. "Who are you?"

              "Allie Grif—"

              "No. Who
are
you? You a cop?"

              "No, I'm a private citizen."

              "How do you know Honey?"

              "I didn’t really know her. But I know her husband, only slightly."

              The graying man chewed on the inside of his cheek. "No. I'm not going to talk about Honey Reilly. Sorry."

              He was about to close the door when Allie held up her hand. "Mr. Chapman!"

              He stopped mid-close.

              "I can see for whatever reason you don’t want to talk about this woman, and I'm fine with that. If you have secrets, I'm not interested in those. But I need your help. I know you delivered some shoes for her. If you don’t want to talk to me, ok. But I'm going to have to talk to
someone
."

              He chewed his cheek some more and breathed heavily through his nose. "I'll give you five minutes. Come in."

              Art Chapman's home was built for a man who was five foot five and alone. The house was small and everything seemed within arm's reach of everything else. A three-person couch dominated the room – which looked to be the only room in the house
–
though she knew, logically, there had to be others. A crocheted blanket draped over the top of it looked like it may have seen some rough times at one point but was enjoying happy, if humdrum, retirement now. An easy chair sat brooding in the corner of the room, a bit too close to the couch, and in fact looked as though it hated the couch and had backed up away from it as far as it could without taking down a wall or two. The impression in the seat told the whole story. It was obviously Arthur Chapman's favorite spot in the house.

              He plopped into this very chair and she sat on the couch, careful not to slide back too far. She felt the broken corpse of a spring dig uncomfortably into her leg and shifted awkwardly as she spoke and he watched.

              "Mr. Chapman–, can I call you Arthur?"

              "Art."

              "Art. Now, I know you delivered shoes to Ms. Reilly. Could you tell me how that worked?"

              "It worked by means of a fuel injection system in an internal combustion engine. The force from combustion moves pistons and these help drive the engine."

              She stopped shifting in her seat and stared at him. Then she smiled sweetly. "Art. You are a thorough pain in the fundament, you know that? Can you please just level with me? I got nothing to go on here and I can really use your help."

              "If you're not a cop, then what are you?"

              She closed her eyes to remain calm, and then opened them slowly. "I'm Allie Griffin from Verdenier. I've been in the news recently. I helped solve the murder of a Verdenier woman a couple of months ago. And now I've been asked to help out here."

              "Asked by whom?"

              "By a friend."

              He sighed through his nose. "You are an attractive young woman and that's why I'm going to continue talking to you." He leaned forward. "Does that make you uncomfortable?"

              "A little. Does it make you uncomfortable that if I catch you undressing me with your eyes, I'm going to poke them Three Stooges-style?"

              He leaned back, a bright smile growing on his face. "I met Honey Reilly at one of the Mardi Gras parades we have here. It was a long time ago. Maybe ten years. I can’t remember, I'm sorry. We were all standing there, shivering. It was a nasty season. You live in Vermont long?"

              "Most of my life."

              "Well then you know Mardi Gras here ain't like it is in New Orleans. All those people exposing themselves. You try exposing yourself here and you may not be able to get what you exposed back in again. Anyway, everyone was huddled close together watching the parade and catching those beads. All of a sudden, one of the floats broke down right in front of us. The car just crapped out right then and there and came to a sudden stop. The whole parade had this Mother Goose theme going on and this broken down float was all about Little Bo Peep. So it stops. Now it'd only been going, what, two miles an hour? If it was three I'll eat my hat. But two miles an hour was enough, cuz when that baby stopped, Little Bo Peep herself took a tumble over the fake wooden fence they'd built for her to lean on. And she had one of those crooks that shepherds use and that got caught on a sheep's behind. Did I mention all the sheep were real people dressed up as sheep?"

              "You didn’t mention that."

              "Well they were. So Little Bo Peep actually falls off the float and is dangling there by the crook which is hooked into a sheep's behind. I ran up there. I don’t know why I ran up there. I just did. You do crazy things in a crisis."

              "Crisis?"

              "Well, yeah, of course it was. What if that were you up there on that float? Wouldn’t you consider it a crisis?"

              "I guess."

              "Well then stop interrupting me and let me finish. So I run up there and Little Bo Peep is screaming. And some of the sheep had fallen too, but not off the truck. They went over –
wwhoop –
like dominoes. Anyway I said to Bo Peep, 'let go, I gotcha', and she did and I helped her down. She was mortified. I asked her if she was alright and she said yes. And then I saw that she was dressed as Bo Peep, you know, with the little dress? So I gave her my coat and walked her over to a coffee shop. It was called Groundlings and it ain't there anymore. There's a card store there now I think. Anyway, some other guys helped push the float to the side so the parade could continue and me and Bo Peep sat down and had coffee. She was the prettiest thing I'd seen in a long time. And I fell in love with her right there over five cups of coffee and a piece of rhubarb pie. She told me her name was Honey and I thought it figured. Then she told me she was married. And I said well that's too bad. She said her husband wasn't there and he was rarely there. I said ahhh and paid the check and said goodbye to her. But the arrow had struck. And I ached for her but never did a thing about it except deliver shoes for her."

              Allie swallowed hard and licked her lips. "So," she said softly, "how did that come about?"

              "Oh well, that wasn't the last time I saw her. She and her husband lived in Burlington and I ran into them here and there. Always stopped and said hi. And she always gave me a wink and a smile. Then one day I ran into her when her husband wasn't around. She said she was moving to Verdenier. She wanted to keep in touch with me. I asked why. She said she felt comfortable with me. Ever since that day in the coffee shop, she said. And she said she thought of me often. And she said a few other things that I swear were come-ons. Well, I couldn’t get involved with a married woman. It's just something I don’t do. But she asked for my phone number and I gave it to her."

              "Why?"

              "Because love makes you act irrationally, that's why. She called me a few times and we talked about all sorts of stuff. She said her husband was a little pipsqueak but he made a ton of money and that suited her. But she wanted companionship. And she got it wherever she could find it. I hated listening to that, but I loved the sound of her voice and can I tell you, I sweated like a teenager whenever I saw her number pop up on that screen. One day she said she found a shoe place up here and asked me if I wouldn’t mind delivering the shoes to her once she'd placed her order. See, this would give us an excuse to see each other. And it did. I tortured myself by bringing her the shoes, and she'd give me a giant hug and we'd talk a bit. We had a few things in common. Mostly we just saw eye to eye on the basic philosophies of life that everyone has. Like I said, we never did anything. So that was that. Then one day I stopped delivering her shoes. And last week I looked up her name in the Google search and found out she died."

              "I'm sorry, Mr. Chapman."

              "What happened to Art?"

              "Art. Why had you stopped delivering her shoes?"

              He started to rise. "That, I'm afraid, is a story for another time. And speaking of time, ours is way up."

              "Well, you can’t just leave it at that."

              "Who says I can’t?"

              She stood up to meet his eye. "I do. You don’t just stop doing something like that, a man in the position you were in emotionally, unless something happened."

              "I was caught. That was it. I was threatened and I never came around again."

              "Threatened by whom?"

              "Ahhhh, the plot thickens, doesn’t it? Well, my dear, if you really must know, I was also paid to stay away and keep quiet. Ms. Griffin, I can tell you that the person who both threatened and paid me off is not who you think it is so no further questions of yours should revolve around that person. I can also tell you that the money and the threats worked and so I will not answer a single question more from you about the entire matter. However, seeing as how I'm an old bachelor who is still in shock and pining away for the love of his life, I can tell you that I wish to see matters taken care of. And so I will tell you where to look next. Excuse me."

              He walked to a coat closet next to the couch that seemed as though it was meant to be hidden in plain sight. He dug around for a bit, and then emerged with something in his hand.

              "It's a curious thing how life works sometimes. The threats were delivered to me verbally, with much intimidation. The money was delivered to me in a paper bag by the same party or
parties
. Inside the bag, at the very bottom, was this."

              He handed her an old student ring.

              Allie read the inscription on the inside. "RPJ Ethan Allen High School." She turned the ring around. "1968. Whose is this?"

              He shrugged. "Like I said, nothing more on the matter. I'll take that ring back, please. And I'm afraid our time is up."

              He followed her to the door. And when she walked out, feeling as though someone had just dumped a bucket of cold water on her, she heard Art Chapman speak softly from the depths of his soul: "I really hope you get him."