Murder in Wonderland Read Online Free Page B

mumbled something about her lawyer, all while looking at her phone, and then..." Her dark eyes were staring down at the body. "My God," she said.
                  She overheard Del on the phone. " ... collapsed... convulsions... stopped..."
                  Ben looked up, defeated, tears in his eyes. "I don't know what to do. I think she's dead."
                  "They're on their way," said Del. "Ben?"
                  He looked up at his partner in crime, tears now streaming down his face. "I don't know what to do."
                  Allie leaned down. "Are you sure?"
                  In leaning down, she noticed something. This type of thing had happened before to her: Noticing a mundane detail in a scene, a slice of life, a bit of decoration that would otherwise go unnoticed. She sometimes felt as if she were put on this earth to notice these things, for no one else would. And so it happened again when, leaning down, she glanced over and saw Tori Cardinal's cellphone still lit up, frozen in the midst of an outgoing text message. The words, "croquet mallet" had been typed there. It was like when the clocks stopped on the Titanic, she thought.
                  There was the moment that lasted an eternity as Ben confirmed the unthinkable, and Allie offered her hand to him and helped him up, and everyone and everything was quiet.
                  "Everyone just stay calm," Allie said. "Maybe we should all go outside and wait.
                  She thought for a moment of covering up the body, but all she had was the tablecloth. Allie Griffin was a better person than that.
    #
     
                  If there was one thing Allie was grateful for, it was that there was no sign of Detective Harry Tomlin.
                  Everyone in Verdenier knew Detective Tomlin. The Verdenier Police Department had been short one detective, and although he'd pulled in quite a bit of revenue in the form of tickets for everything ranging from dirty license plates to doing 35 in a 25, there were countless complaints of harassment with his name on them sitting on Chief Dupond's desk. When, during the town's annual Mayday parade, Sgt. Tomlin told the Verdenier mayor's wife to "move that shapeless body of yours back onto the curb," there followed a weeklong bargaining session, with Chief Dupond fighting to retain the troublemaker on his payroll and the mayor's wife fighting to get Tomlin banished to the nearest leper colony. But some good deed done by Tomlin long ago in his youth had evidently pleased the gods, and they favored him with an elegant solution: the Verdenier Police Department's only detective came down with a case of shingles, went on temporary leave, then bought a boat and opted for early retirement. In the meantime, the chief stripped Tomlin of his sergeant's rank, which appeased the mayor's wife; transferred him to detective, which appeased the good and bad people of Verdenier; and brought in a new sergeant from a neighboring county.
                  This latter fellow, a graying, tired-eyed individual by the name of Beauchenne, was on the scene.
                  "Ok," the sergeant said, exhaling the word more than speaking it. "Who here was present when the woman collapsed and started? Everyone here?"
                  "I was in the kitchen when it happened," said Allie, feeling as though those words fell heavily in the room.
                  "Ok, well, we’ll need a statement nonetheless."
                  Beauchenne removed his hat and stroked his salt and pepper hair. "It's going to be ok. Everyone just relax and it'll all be over soon enough."
                  They gave their statements, and Allie watched as the coroner's men wheeled a dead woman out of her home.
                  There were no words for her to offer her guests. They bid