Armoires and Arsenic: A Darling Valley Cozy Mystery with Women Sleuths Olivia M. Granville and Tuesday (A Darling Valley Mystery)

by Cassie Page

  “I have valuable inventory, Detective. You know the people who live here. They want the best. I am able to give it to them. That is, if you would let me conduct my business.”

  Richards threw his Bic on top of his yellow pad. “I’m sorry, but we can’t release the chest until the crime lab is finished with it. And probably not even then. It is evidence in a murder case.”

  He looked at Olivia’s shocked face and apologized. “I’m sorry but that’s the way it is. It’s out of my hands. Let’s move on, shall we? Now what was Mr. White’s relationship with the deceased?”

  “Well, it was not something we ever discussed. I know he went to school with Mr. Blackman’s children, though I’m not sure if they were in the same year. Cody is very sociable. He knows everyone in town.”

  “And what time did you first see him this morning?”

  “About ten minutes after seven. He was supposed to show up at six. In fact, I never asked him why he was late, but that’s Cody. Gets the job done, but on his schedule sometimes. He drove up, I helped him unload the truck, and we found, well, you know what we found.”

  Richards made another note then scowled at her. “You’re sure you didn’t make an early morning trip to Blackman’s to help him load that chest in the truck? Or help Cody stuff it with Mr. Blackman’s body?”

  Olivia all but levitated out of her seat. “Are you kidding me? You’re accusing Cody and me? Detective, I’m going to sue you for defamation of character. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Why would I load a dead man into an armoire and drive him back to my place. Wouldn’t I dump him in the lake or something if I did it?”

  “Good story to take suspicion off you. Why would you have done it and then put the body in your own furniture? A ruse? Unless something happened on the way to the lake and you had to improvise? You’d be surprised at the stories guilty people come up with to avoid suspicion.”

  Olivia just stared at Richards, not knowing how to answer. How could eyes that sexy turn so hard? Finally she said, “But I’m not guilty.”

  Richards persisted. “Who was with Mr. White? How do we know he didn’t act alone, put the body into your chest and deliver it and act all innocent and I don’t know how it got there?”

  If the situation were not so dire, Olivia would have laughed at Richards’ tuneless imitation of a young, clueless kid.

  “Okay, Miss Granville. I think I have enough for now. I can let you get back to work with the caveat that you not leave town, at least not without letting me know.”

  “Yes, you’ve already told me that.”

  Richards nodded and gave her a cold smile. “Call any time if you think of anything that might help us. Oh, and by the way. Was your tenant any help in giving you an alibi for your whereabouts last night and this morning?”

  Olivia had an odd feeling of dread at the mention of Mrs. Harmon that she couldn’t identify. “No, as I said, her unit is soundproofed. She heard nothing.” A body in her armoire, a liar in her house. What was next?

  “Well, that will be all. Thanks for your time, Miss Granville. You can go now.”

  “Um, my Jimmy Choos?”

  “Your what?”

  Didn’t this guy know anything? After all, there was a Shoe Candy on Darling Boulevard. “My shoes. And how did you know I owned a pair? Or are they part of the Darling Valley uniform? Jimmy Choos and prison blues?”

  Richards didn’t respond, just said, “I’ll call you later and give you the status.”

  Olivia grabbed her purse and stood up. “What do you mean by the status? What could you possibly want with my shoes?”

  She thought she saw a faint smile crack through his police demeanor, but he didn’t answer.

  “And one more thing. How come,” she held up her fingers for an air quote, “armoires and arsenic is all over the internet? With the name of my shop attached? While the body is still in my back yard?”

  Richards scratched his stubble and Olivia wondered what he had been doing last night that he hadn’t shaved this morning. “First of all,” he explained, “the case is still under investigation. We are pursuing several leads.

  “Second of all, as I’m sure you know, the press will print anything that will attract readers, whether or not it has any bearing on the facts. That guy that showed up when we were investigating had a lookiloo into the truck and put up a post that said it was arsenic because there was no blood. A fair guess, but only a guess.”

  Olivia said, “Oh, so it wasn’t arsenic that poisoned Mr. Blackman, is that what you’re saying?”

  Richards answered, “I’m not saying anything. We don’t have the autopsy and tox reports back from the coroner yet. Let me walk you out,” he said, standing up and pushing his chair back with his legs, abruptly ending the interview.

  “I think I’ll wait here until Cody is finished if you don’t mind.”

  “Hmmm. Not a good idea. Mr. White is going to be awhile.”

  Olivia looked up at the ceiling in disgust before she leveled a steely gaze at Richards. “Surely you don’t really think Cody had anything to do with this. What possible reason could he have for killing anybody, much less one of my vendors?”

  “Miss Granville, would it surprise you to know that the DVPD responded to a call at Blackman’s about six months ago? Mr. Blackman called because Mr. White was threatening him. Then he decided not to file charges. Do you know anything about that?”

  Olivia had to sit back down in her chair. “I beg your pardon? No. I find that hard to believe. Cody is a very peace-loving guy. He crumbles if I have to call him on anything. He hates conflict. And sometimes when things get rushed in my shop, I can provoke conflict.”

  Richards said, “Yeah, I bet you can.”

  Olivia ignored him. “He always backs down and apologizes even when I’m being unreasonable. I find that hard to believe. That he would threaten anyone.”

  “Blackman claimed he was harassing his daughter, Jessica.”

  Olivia immediately jumped to Cody’s defense. “How do you know Blackman was telling the truth? It doesn’t sound like the Cody I know.”

  Richards was obviously a master at deflecting questions he had no intention of answering. He walked around his desk and extended his hand. She was still sitting trying to absorb the news about Cody.

  “Thanks for your time, Miss Granville. Once we get all the forensics, we may need to talk to you again. I’ll let you know. You can get back to work now.”

  He snapped his fingers, remembering something, then went back to his desk, opened the middle drawer and shuffled things around. “I know I have a card in here someplace. Oh here.” He handed Olivia a dog-eared business card.

  “Call any time if you think of anything that might help us.”

  Almost the exact same words she had said to Mrs. Harmon. Olivia took the card and stuck it in her purse in a daze. The news about Cody had her heart racing. But she was not so out of it that she didn’t notice that when Richards shook her hand, he held on to it for a beat, and then let it go slowly. When she stood up again, he walked her out to the waiting room. She felt Officer Ridley’s eyes on her back.

  “Thank you, Detective,” she said, then opened the door and walked into the bright morning sunshine, though there was nothing that transpired in his office for which she was grateful.

  Chapter Nine: Paymoors

  On the way home, Olivia stopped at Graymoor’s market, which locals called Paymoor’s because of the high prices for its organic, free range, artisan and imported foodstuffs. Olivia knew the markup on many of these items. In LA, she had pushed a line of caviar, imported olive oil and fruit vinegars from France. Tuesday’d said she could retire on the profits as long as people equated imported and expensive with will this make my butt look important.

  Olivia paused at the display of oysters and prawns in the seafood department, trying to decide if she wanted to bother shucking oysters after the agony of this day. Tuesday may say she’s on a cleanse, but if Olivia didn’t stock up on th
eir favorite goodies, she’d have a grumpy friend to take care of in addition to everything else she had going on.

  Behind her, Olivia heard, “Having a party, Olivia?”

  She turned around and almost ran down Marcia Smart with her shopping cart. Marcia was Mrs. Blackman’s personal assistant.

  Olivia could hardly speak. What was the protocol? Should she offer condolences? Marcia was not related to the deceased. Should she apologize for Mr. Blackman showing up dead in her armoire? Olivia hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, it seemed to her, as she struggled to answer Marcia’s question, that nobody realized that she, Olivia, was due an apology. How had the restoration business allowed this to happen, and why had they involved her?

  She knew why Marcia was ridiculing her. Buying luxury food while she was suspected of murdering her employer’s husband? Should she apologize to Marcia? She didn’t really know the woman. She had come in once when Olivia first opened her shop to check out the new girl in town. Olivia had neutral feelings about her, other than she had abysmal taste in clothes. Who under seventy wore polyester pants with an elastic waistband these days? Apparently 40-somethings in Darling. Personal assistants in LA were chosen because their drab looks made their employers look good. But if they dressed the way Marcia did, they’d get fired. There were standards, after all.

  Marcia worked for Mrs. Blackman, though the widow was not connected to the shop. Cody had explained that the business belonged to her husband and Sabrina Chance. Could Marcia be mixed up in this, maybe have some grudge against her employer’s husband? She made a note to ask Cody about her. If she ever got to see him again. Olivia stared around the store, feeling as though she were being stalked. The killer could be anywhere. Was he also shopping for upscale foodstuffs?

  Marcia took the lead in breaking the awkward silence. “I ran into Mrs. Harmon at dinner last night and we chatted a bit. Little did we know what would turn up on her doorstep in just a few hours.”

  Olivia spluttered. “At dinner? Oh, so she did go out with her nephew, after all. Usually I can hear her leaving and entering her apartment. Not that I snoop, it’s just we live in such close proximity. I thought she had stayed home.”

  Olivia felt relieved. An unexpected visit from a relative was a perfectly good excuse for cancelling a dinner date. Far better than being snubbed, as she had assumed.

  Marcia pushed her glasses up on her nose and said, “Nephew? How could Mrs. Harmon have a nephew? She has no siblings.”

  Olivia was not only flustered, she was embarrassed. She hated to look stupid and this mix-up made her look decidedly stupid. Mrs. Harmon was her tenant after all. How could she not know some basic details about her life? To close the awkward silence, Olivia said, “I must have misunderstood.”

  Marcia said, “Hmmm,” in a highly suspicious tone.

  But Olivia had not misunderstood. There was nothing wrong with her hearing or her memory. Mrs. Harmon had knocked on the back door yesterday afternoon where Olivia was toiling in her office and said, “I’m so sorry. My nephew is in town from Boston and has invited me for dinner.”

  What could be clearer than that? And it couldn’t be that Mrs. Harmon was dotty. Yes, she was seventy-four, which Olivia learned from the previous owner of the house by way of explaining why they insisted her tenancy not be changed. “At her age, where would she go? She’s a dear to us and we can’t have her uprooted.”

  But Mrs. Harmon was an example of seventy being the new twenty-five. She never stumbled over her words or repeated herself and on sunny days she did yoga in the back garden with an agility that made Olivia jealous. And elastic waistbands? Never. One reason Olivia was eager to get to know her was to perhaps get a look into her closet, which had to rival her own.

  No, Mrs. Harmon had been clear about why she was asking Olivia for a rain check.

  Marcia said, “I’ll be curious, of course, to find out who did this. Mrs. Blackman is beyond consoling. Her physician has her medicated.”

  “Well, of course, she was the first person I thought of when I discovered who it was. The body I mean. Please give her my condolences, if that’s all right. I mean she may not want to be reminded of me, and the place . . . er the circumstances.” This conversation was getting very hard to navigate.

  Marcia said, “I’ll tell her if it seems appropriate,” and then wheeled her cart towards the meat department.

  Then, unexpectedly, Marcia turned to her and said, “Oh, by the way. Mrs. Harmon was having dinner with the Blackmans’ daughter. Maybe they were talking about her divorce,” and then Marcia pushed off leaving Olivia open-mouthed and still undecided about the oysters. Jessica was getting a divorce? Jessica was married?

  By the time Olivia made it to the checkout counter with enough high priced convenience foods, take out and champagne to last through the weekend, no less than six DV residents had stopped to chat with her. Women who openly snubbed her were suddenly intensely interested in how the business was going, how the renovations were coming along or suggested that they were way overdue for lunch or tea at the Redmond, the inn that boasted an afternoon tea service to rival the Ritz in San Francisco.

  Two men openly hit on her, but she tossed their business cards in the trashcan in the produce department. As she waited on line with her debit card in her hand, she said under her breath that if all it took was a murder to warm DV up to her, she would have knocked off that icy neighbor across the street when she first unpacked.

  Before pulling out of the parking lot, she checked her phone. The New York Times texted an update that odds were that strychnine had killed Blackman and Tuesday texted Chill the champs!!!!!! She had landed and was heading to Hertz to pick up her Mercedes.

  A slight smile broke the grim line of Olivia’s mouth. There was nothing more appealing right now than a glass of champagne with Tuesday, especially when she got home and found the card of Mr. Black, the garage man, stuck in her front door. “Did I make a mistake? 2 pm, right?”

  She looked at her watch and let loose with many expletives. Three-thirty. How could she have forgotten their appointment? Inside, she checked her office voicemail. Sabrina called back to say that, of course, she wanted a donation and reminded Olivia that the auction was tomorrow night, not tonight. She wasn’t going to penalize her charity over this tragedy. And did Olivia know why Detective Richards wanted her Jimmy Choo shoes? Olivia apologized into the phone for messing up the date. Her excuse-- too much fareekin crime news for one day.

  Chapter Ten: A Vision of Tuesday

  Tuesday was a vision in black and white. Stripes, polka dots, zebras, plaids and a 1968 hallucinogenic geometric nightmare adorned her blouse, sweater, skirt, petticoat, scarves, shawls and Paris-themed apron. Each floaty and fighting for attention.

  “Apron?” Olivia said when she ran down the walk to jump on her friend. “Who wears aprons anymore? Even to cook?”

  Tuesday howled. “You know me. I love Paris,” she sang, twirling like a whirling dervish as she showed off her outfit.

  It wasn’t until after the marathon hug and many cheek and air kisses that Olivia noticed the pink hair. But that wasn’t a surprise. Tuesday rainbowed her locks regularly. It had been a purple Mohawk when they’d kissed goodbye.

  “Come in, come in,” Olivia said, grabbing some of Tuesday’s luggage, enough for a six-month getaway to Europe.

  Tuesday made the appropriate cooing noises about the beautiful space and extravagant pieces for sale. Her first act was to head to the kitchen with a carryon and line up a new age pharmacy worth of herbs, teas, plus various remedies and cleanses. She said what Olivia already knew, “I can’t go anywhere without my stash.”

  Later, on the white couch that Tuesday claimed because it was the perfect backdrop for her two-toned look, she drained her first glass of champs, held it out to Olivia for a refill and said, “So? Details please?”

  Olivia obliged her with the Veuve Cliquot and said, “Tues, if I knew the answer to your questions, I’d take over Detective Rich
ards’ job. I don’t know, I don’t know, and, let’s see. There’s one more thing. Oh, yes. I don’t know.”

  That took care of Tuesday’s bugging her about who killed Mr. Blackman, why and what on earth was he doing in your armoire, girl child?

  Olivia leaned back in her leather club chair and shrugged her shoulders. “Can I make you some tea so you‘ll tell me?”

  “I’m off duty, Devil Diva, at least for today.” Olivia grinned and cut a diva-ish pose. She loved the affectionate names Tuesday called her. Once she accused her, “You call me sweet buns and babykins because you can’t remember my name.”

  Right now, Tuesday had her attention no matter what she called her.

  “You don’t have to be clairvoyant to know you had better do some sleuthing of your own to find out why this detective dude is after your hide. And what does he have on Cody? An argument six months ago? What’s that about? Does he think Cody is carrying a grudge? And what do the Blackman’s have against you?”

  Olivia put up her hand to stop the rush of Tuesday’s questions. “If I knew, don’t you think I’d give you an exclusive?”

  Tuesday frowned, her pink Afro dipping over her forehead. “What I don’t understand is why poison the guy? I mean, if they were trying to cover it up to make it look like a death from natural causes? I mean, why else would you use poison? And like, with forensics these days? Don’t they like watch CSI? Who even does poison anymore? So why stuff him in the armoire and tie it up so it is obviously a murder? I mean, what’s up with that, Ollie Mollie?”

  Olivia gave her a wide-eyed are you kidding me look. “You’re asking me to get into the mind of a killer? I don’t even step on ants.”

  Tuesday gave her a two thumbs up. “And that’s why you’re my girl.”

  Olivia bowed her head in thanks, then continued. “And another thing. Strychnine? Isn’t that easily detectable? I know arsenic is cumulative. You have to give many doses over time, right Tues?”

  Tuesday guffawed. “Like I should know? Do I look like Lucretia Borgia? Hmm, come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind glamming it up with some jewels and velvet. But later for that. Seriously, why are you under suspicion? I don’t get it.”