Murder is a Girl's Best Friend by Amanda Matetsky Read Free Book Online

into the coffee shop and grab a sandwich to take upstairs, but I didn’t dare take the time. If Pomeroy got back to the office before I did, I’d be in big trouble. And if he saw me eating lunch at my desk during working hours—or, as he liked to put it, “working- class hours”—he’d blow his top.
    “So you’re definitely going to help me, right?” Terry said, anxiously tugging me over to a secluded corner of the lobby, beyond the bank of partitioned telephones and directories, behind the huge, tinsel-draped Christmas tree. “You’ll find out everything you can about Judy’s murder?” His azure eyes were gleaming with expectation.
    “Against my better judgment, yes,” I said. “But don’t expect any miracles. I’m just a woman who writes about crime. I’m no Sherlock Holmes. And I’m no Miss Marple either!”
    “Who?”
    “Never mind,” I said, heart sinking at the thought of the danger and disappointments that no doubt lay ahead. “It’s just that I don’t want you to get your hopes up too high. I could fail in the end, you know. To tell the truth, I don’t even know where to start .”
    “Here!” Terry said, shoving the Thom McAn shoebox into my hands. “Start with this. Maybe you can trace the diamonds to a certain jeweler, and then find out who bought them, or stole them. And there’s some other stuff in this box, too—a couple of photographs, the address of the building where my sister lived, Mrs. Londergan’s apartment number and phone number, the names and address of Judy’s former roommates.”
    “Did Judy have a personal calendar or an address book?”
    “Yes, but the police took them into evidence before I got here. I never even got a look them. All I can give you is the stuff in this shoebox—things that should be of help.”
    Suddenly, my nerves went haywire. And a flood of adrenaline shot through my veins. “But what about you?!! ” I said (okay, shrieked ). “ You’d be the most help of all! Why do you have to go back to Pittsburgh today? Why can’t you stay here for a while—at least give me a chance to talk to you some more about Judy and learn everything I can about her life, and,” I added sadly, “her death. I can’t do this all by myself, Terry. I need you. Please don’t go!” In case you haven’t noticed, I wasn’t quite ready to be left to my own devices.
    “I’ve already given you the most important information,” Terry insisted. “And we can always talk to each other on the phone. And besides,” he added, “you don’t have to work on this alone. Get the other agents at the magazine to help you. This could be a major story, and it’s a Daring Detective exclusive! They’ll be chomping at the bit to get in on the investigation.”
    Other agents at the magazine? Boy, did he have the wrong idea! (Along, I should add, with the rest of the detective magazine-reading public.)
    “You don’t understand,” I told him. “There are no agents at Daring Detective . Just writers and artists and editors. And there aren’t any big investigations going on either. Practically all the stories we publish are nothing but clip jobs. They’re written in-house and rehashed from assorted newspaper and magazine articles that are already in print.” I wasn’t exaggerating, either. To the best of my knowledge, the only exclusive, firsthand story Daring Detective had ever published had been the one about the Babs Comstock murder. My story.
    “But you’ve got a police consultant on staff!” Terry argued. “A real homicide detective. What’s his name? . . . Street! Detective Dan Street. There’s a picture of him and a write-up about his career in every issue. Can’t you get him to help you?”
    Terry looked so hopeful I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth: that the DD police consultant job was just a sham; that Dan Street didn’t actually work for the magazine, but was merely paid a small retainer for the use of his name and photo just to make the