Free Murder in Wonderland by Leslie Leigh Page A

building a case around me being responsible for Tori Cardinal's death and that I should be careful."
                  "Did you kill that poor woman?"
                  "No, of course not."
                  "Ok, so what are you worried about?"
                  "They do put innocent people in jail sometimes."
                  He waved his hand. "Statistics are over-exaggerated."
                  She wanted to tell him about June Brody and the corrupt police force, but paranoia stopped her throat.
                  "Ben," she said, rising from the couch, "I want to solve this case. I can do it." She walked over to the piano and thumbed through his stack of sheet music. "It's like this stuff. I can see these notes, thousands of them, but I couldn’t tell you what they mean. But they're all laid out in front of me. Do you know how frustrating that is?"
                  "I think I can imagine."
                  "Ben, what do you think would make someone want to murder Tori Cardinal?"
                  He rose and walked over to her. "You know, I haven't a clue. I understand people not liking her. Personally, I never really had that much of a problem with her. I mean, I have a problem with everybody, and she was no different. Some days she irritated me, and other days, I don’t know, I kind of felt sorry for her."
                  "You did, didn't you? Why?"
                  "Well, maybe it was because she played around with a lot of men. Mostly rich old guys. I think she was terrified of winding up poor. And I think she was a terribly lonely woman with a big empty space inside her where a soul should be. That's gotta be an awful life to live."
                  "You're an incredible individual, you know that?"
                  He chuckled and walked into his tiny-yet-functional kitchen. "Don't let it get around. I have a reputation as a heartless bastard to uphold. Want a glass of water?"
                  "That would be great. Thanks."
                  He rinsed out a glass that was obviously part of a very small collection. Allie knew he lived sparsely, but didn't realize how sparsely until she saw him handle that glass.
                  "People said such horrid things about her. And yes, she deserved much of the insults. But there was a very guarded, secret side to her that showed itself to only a few people. Some of those old guys probably saw a little of it. I'm gay, so of course she was ok showing to me." He winked at her and handed her a glass of water.
                  She drank, feeling it cool and cleanse her slowly on the way down.
                  "She gave June Brody a deck of cards once."
                  "A deck of cards?"
                  "It was so random. We were talking—"
                  Allie's mind rushed along the pages of her favorite book. Wonderland was populated with cards, from the knave of hearts who stole the tarts to the number cards that populated the Queen's palace.
                  "Honey? Did you hear what I said?"
                  "I'm sorry. What was that?"
                  "I said June gave the deck to me."
                  "Wait. Why?"             
                  "She said she didn’t want to keep it. You know, the dead girl's stuff."
                  "Wait. I'm confused. Why did Tori give June a deck of cards?"
                  "She'd ask her to hold onto them. It was on account of her dead husband's will being in the hands of probate and all that and she didn’t want them to touch these cards because they were a collector's item and she wasn't sure how much the deck was worth and so forth. I've seen it happen before. People remove little things. A priceless