MURDER on the ROCKS (Allie Griffin Mysteries Book 2) by Leslie Leigh Page B

time of the Iran-Contra affair. Remember? With Ollie North and all that? It was a protest against that whole thing. Honey marched in it, right down Church Street, holding a picket sign she’d painted with paint she lifted from a hardware store owned by a conservative business owner. So there she was, marching peacefully, and right there in the middle of it all someone throws a rock at one of the demonstrators. As you can imagine, things suddenly got a little hairy. The crowd was able to subdue the guy – it was Burlington after all and the crowd wasn't exactly on his side — but Honey got scared and started to run. But she was wearing this long hemp scarf and while she ran it started to fall and the back of her sandal got tangled in the knit. Some of the marchers behind her tumbled over her, and all this time she's trying to free her sandal and stand up. All of a sudden a hand reaches in and picks off the scarf in one swoop, then takes her arm and helps her stand. And this guy who helped her whisks her away. He's an older guy, and he seems like a nice guy, obviously not a lecher or anything. So they go and sit in an ice cream place and they have sundaes, and he tells her all about his life. How he was in Vietnam and he was underground deploying bombs, and that when he got back he'd had a nervous breakdown because he never knew who he was bombing, if it was little kids or whatever. And they bonded there over ice cream. And they became close. He became like an uncle. Helped her straighten out her life. She never forgot him."
                  When he stopped, there was a heavy silence in the room.
                  "Anyway," he said, "that's it."
                  "Incredible," Allie said. "So where does this guy live?"
                  Bennett gave a chuckle. "I'm afraid you'll have to ask the probate office. We kinda lost track of him over the past couple of years."
                  "Hmm." She bit her bottom lip. Then, noticing the shelf of old books on the wall, she got up and walked over to them, inspecting the spines. "You get these at a thrift store?"
                  "No, those came from an antique store."
                  "You bought them?"
                  "Honey. I never bought anything on those trips. I was there to accompany her."
                  "Sorry. I guess I'm sort of a book nerd."
                  "You're very pretty for a book nerd," he said. "If you don’t mind me saying."
                  "I don't mind. But I'm no different than any other book nerd. We tend to be pretty," she said with a wink.
                  "Well, I suppose I've wasted your time. I've a great deal of work to do. I hope you don't mind."
                  "Not at all."

12.
     
                  The Creek Falls’ lunch special was prosciutto and fig spread on a baguette with arugula and asiago cheese. Allie and Del looked at each other when the waiter told them of it, and they nodded wide-eyed at each other, and then at the waiter, and there was nothing more said on the matter, except for, "peach iced tea."
                  Once he left, and once Allie was able to control the saliva that had previously been flowing prodigiously, she leaned over and said, "I think he was coming on to me."
                  "The waiter?"             
                  "No," said Allie, "Reilly!"
                  "Get out."
                  "Told me I'm pretty for a book nerd."
                  "I hate him."
                  "Me too. There's something fishy about him. I want to say I don’t trust him. His wife's body is barely cold and he's flirting? Oh, and then there's the Sam Weller story."
                  "What's the Sam Weller story?"
                  "Sam Weller is named as one of the