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

by Cassie Page

  “About eight years ago, Grace Petri, who started an oil refinery empire, stumbled on Darling Valley. Back then it was still a sleepy little village close to San Francisco, but secluded enough that almost no one knew it was here. It has very little incorporated land and it is surrounded by government property or conservation land trusts. Grace immediately knew what that meant. Nothing left to develop. She and her friends could buy up the few available lots and homesteads, tear down the houses and have their own private universe. The rest of the world wouldn’t be able to follow them like in Silicon Valley and Atherton because once they got started, in the space of less than a year there was no more available land to build on or little bungalow to tear down and turn into a turbo mansion.

  Olivia thought she might have lost Tuesday, but she pushed on. “Plus, they don’t need the likes of Detective Richards and his DVPD. Unlike the Silicon Bills . . . “

  Tuesday interrupted. “They have their own football team?”

  “Silicon Bills, Tuesday. What I call the billionaires who live in Silicon Valley. Those guys have a much harder time keeping their abodes and whereabouts secret. But here, they have their own private security details. Nobody can get close to them because Darling isn’t near anything that attracts the great unwashed. But they are still close enough to the action so that their helicopters can drop them at SFO in ten minutes to board their private jets, or half an hour down the peninsula to meet with Larry Ellison or Bill Gates if he’s in town. That’s why Blackman’s death has the press in a media frenzy. He’s not that important as far as I can tell. I mean, a furniture renovation shop? But his proximity to power has them going wild. He was killed in their back yard. There has to be a story there.”

  Tuesday gave a so what shrug of her shoulders. Outside of Hollywood it took a lot to impress her.

  “You scoff at this place, Tuesday, but up in the foothills where you can’t see them are homes with art collections the Met in New York and the Tate in London would kill to get their hands on. Why do you think I picked this place to set up shop? I’ll be lucky if I can get close to one of the bills. But millionaires? That’s my feeding grounds. The Mills are much more visible—you’ll see them at an auction we’ll go to tomorrow night. It’s all new tech money. They like to show it off. I’ll take you for a drive and show you the pile of sticks one of my clients, Mrs. Gotshalk, calls home. And wait till you see the boutiques on the upper end of Darling Boulevard. Compared to the Bills, whom nobody has access to unless you’re sleeping with one of their PA’s, the Mills are low hanging fruit.”

  Tuesday helped herself to some coffee. “Well why aren’t they throwing any of their ill gotten gains your way?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Olivia said with a mournful droop of her mouth. She pushed a plate of croissants toward Tuesday.

  Tuesday grabbed it and said, “Hon, why are we here in the servant’s quarters? Let’s go downstairs and sit on that gorgeous furniture you have and act like we own the joint.”

  “And spill coffee and crumbs on my period brocade chairs?”

  Heading for the stairs, Tuesday chirped, “You just said yourself, nobody’s buying, so what does it matter? Besides, I’m a grownup. I know how to put a napkin on my lap.”

  Olivia sighed and followed her with her own cup and the container of half and half.

  Olivia directed Tuesday to the two wing chairs in the back that gave them a view of the traffic on the street. She didn’t turn on any of the lights, letting the early sun send a warm glow over the gleaming wood and gilt that filled the showroom. In the dim light, passersby could not see them, however, the two friends had a clear view of two voyeurs pressing their faces against the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the murderer of Angel Row.

  Olivia blew on her coffee to cool it and mused, “I haven’t had this many people interested in my shop since it opened.”

  “All publicity is good publicity.”

  “I know. Cody reminded me of that last night. So why did the janitorial service call yesterday with some lame excuse that they couldn’t come until next week? And the spring water company, ditto. My neighbors aren’t interested in patronizing my business, but they sure are interested in the gossip about me. Later we’ll cruise Darling Boulevard and I’ll introduce you to the locals and pick up some cleaning products and bottled water.”

  Tuesday pointed to two more women mounting the porch and shading their eyes to get a better view of the interior. They shrugged their shoulders at each other and turned away, clearly disappointed. She said, “Too bad we couldn’t drag out another dead body for them. You could charge a viewing fee.”

  Olivia shook her head. “Don’t Tues, I’m still in a state of shock.”

  Tuesday finished her coffee and gave a dainty swipe of her mouth with her paper napkin and brushed non-existent crumbs from her palm and swept them onto the plate for Olivia’s benefit. “Let’s not be all gloomy and gloppy. Give me a tour of this place. Let me see what you’ve acquired since you left LA.”

  Olivia started with a Louie XIV chest, dripping with carved wood and inlaid ivory. Even Tuesday, who didn’t know an end table from a worktable and cleverly decorated her studio with vintage Goodwill, fairly swooned.

  “This is my prize, my baby. I will hate to see it go, but I’ll be sure it finds a good home.” Olivia’s sadness cracked through her bravado.

  Tuesday gave it a once over. “And how much do you want for it?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  Tuesday did a double take. “Twenty nine hundred? That’s a nice piece of change. What’s that, 50% markup?”

  Olivia scoffed. “Nooooo, my dear. That’s twenty-nine thousand.” She canted her head forward and drew out the thouuuusand for emphasis.

  Tuesday let loose with some purple language, then said. “Holy coffee table, girlfriend. I knew you dealt in pricey goods when you worked for Griffiths and Graham, but you never told me you were this upscale.”

  Olivia rested her head against the secretaire, remembering the scary days after she quit her job and had made an offer on the house. “I was afraid to. If I crashed it would be more humiliating. What kind of a decorator can’t sell the best to the people who want the best and have the money to pay for it? But now that seems to be the position I’m in. I’ve had a few low-end projects, but seriously? I haven’t been able to get these people to budge. And now? With a murder in my shop? I don’t see how I can come back from this. It kept me awake all night.”

  Tuesday wrapped her Pucci-draped arms around Olivia. “Look sweetie, you’re not there yet. Finish the tour and let’s get out of here for a bit until you open the door for your non-existent business.”

  So Olivia showed her the Napoleon chest that the seller swore had actually been in the Emperor’s camp tent. And the handmade leather club chair that Clark Gable had once owned—verified by a photo of the actor sitting in it staring lovingly at Carole Lombard. Next the twin lamps made from ebony and a pair of beautifully twisted antelope horns that rumor had it, Hemingway himself had shot.

  “Olivia! You have some serious goods here.”

  “I know. And if this sale doesn’t pull me out of the hole this weekend, they will end up on the auction block.”

  Tuesday slammed her fist into her palm. “We’re going to do something about that. And I’m not going home until we do!”

  “Okay,” said Olivia. “I like the sound of that. I don’t know what we can do, but you’re right. Let’s get out of here for a bit. So what if there is dust on the library stairs. Who’s going to see it? Let’s go. Oh, but first I want to show you the little treasures that arrived yesterday. My netsuke.”

  They threaded their way around the silk-shaded floor lamps and carved dining chairs to the Duchess’s table. “They aren’t worth that much,” Olivia explained over her shoulder, “but sometimes a little gem of an accessory can attract a customer to the expensive table it sits on. Over here.”

  When they got to the table, Olivia’s eyes
widened. “Where are they?”

  Tuesday drew her Cleopatra eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”

  “I set these on the table yesterday morning before Cody arrived. Now they’re gone.”

  Tuesday tried to be helpful. “Maybe they got swept onto the floor. You know how people are when they browse through a shop. They can be so careless with things that don’t belong to them.”

  “I didn’t have any customers yesterday. Well,” she said, remembering Charles Bacon. “One, but he didn’t come back this far.”

  She hoped. The table stood next to the French doors, far from the chairs where Olivia and the car collector had sat. He would never have seen them.

  “Unless,” she said, remembering that she had left him alone while she ran to check her calendar. “Nah,” she answered to herself. “How would he have known they were there? And I saw them after he left, didn’t I? Or did I?”

  Tuesday wasn’t putting her mind at ease. “Could someone have come in the day before and cased the joint.”

  “Tuesday, really? Cased the joint? You have to get your head out of film noir.”

  “Well, excuse me. Perhaps someone came in and surveyed the premises and conveyed the information to a colleague who returned the next day and surreptitiously removed the items from said premises. Madam.”

  They laughed, but Olivia dismissed that possibility because she had only unwrapped them yesterday morning. She ran through the rest of the day.

  “Nobody else was in here except for the police. They came in to talk to me in the afternoon for a few minutes before they took off and walked through the front door into my office. But I can’t imagine a cop recognizing potentially valuable netsuke.”

  Olivia remembered the crew of officers and detectives eying the shop and checking price tags when they thought she wasn’t looking, nudging each other with raised eyebrows.

  “And I locked up after they left so no one else was in here.”

  “What about Mrs. Dimwit downstairs.”

  “Tuesday! Be nice. She’d need a key to get in and I had the locks changed during the renovation. And she never comes up here.”

  “Olivia, yesterday was a crazy day. You probably moved them without realizing it. You can get a little spaced out when you’re stressed.”

  “Oh, look who’s talking. You, who had the key to the Tea Room on opening day and left it at Starbucks, then tried to open the shop with their restroom key.”

  “Mistakes happen. I’m just saying. If nobody was in here, they have to be someplace. Let’s get a pendulum.”

  Olivia waved her hands in front of her face. “No, I can’t do that right now, Tues.” The suggestion hit a nerve. Tuesday reading tea leaves was one thing. She always got a positive hit. But these other things Tuesday was into spooked her. Probably because sometimes they hit the mark.

  “Look, babe, this is just to find a lost object. The most common use for a pendulum. We won’t go near your love life. It won’t be like last time. Come on, this is harmless.”

  Olivia was caving, but reluctantly. “None of your stuff is harmless, Tues. Remember the time you read the Tarot for me and my cat died?”

  Tuesday rolled her eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you? The cards didn’t kill your cat. They just foresaw a loss and helped you prepare for it.”

  “Yeah. For three weeks I was walking on eggshells waiting for something awful to happen.”

  “If you’d followed my advice, you would have let go of the reading, but instead you obsessed on it. It was a lesson in detachment. Look at all the stuff you have.” Tuesday swept her arms around to include the showroom and the rest of the house. “Possess it. Don’t let it possess you.”

  “Like you let go of your 20,000 thrift store scarves.” But then, Olivia’s last objection faded. Sometimes it was easier to give in to Tuesday than to fight her. “I’ll get my locket.”

  Tuesday went over the rules for divination with a pendulum, even though Olivia had done this with her dozens of times.

  “Okay. Nobody has touched this locket in the past 24 hours, right?”

  “Check.”

  “Good. We don’t want anyone else’s energy contaminating the answers. Now remember, ask only yes or no questions. If it swings left to right that’s a no answer. Backwards and forwards is a yes. Circular moves mean your higher self knows the answer but won’t reveal it.”

  Olivia never admitted to her friends that she believed in Tuesday’s shenanigans, just that she liked to humor her. Tuesday was her best friend, yet no one else in her circle accepted her. She hadn’t gone to the right school. And those hideous clothes. But Olivia and Tuesday cemented their bond the night they had too much champagne and shared their mother stories. Olivia’s was typical. Her mother was a gold digger and social climber and groomed Olivia to find a rich husband. She insisted her future home contain a separate residence for her in her old age. She saw Olivia’s career leading her to the rich and famous, or at best, the cover of Architectural Digest. She never appreciated her daughter’s talent. Her grandmother was almost as cold but recognized Olivia’s true gifts. Her encouragement balanced the insecurities borne of her mother’s criticism of her looks. Why won’t you do something about that nose? Get a boob job. You make enough money for plastic surgery. Just your luck that men like short girls. Her grandmother, however, preached that there’s only one thing we owe to the world, dear, and that’s the fruit of our gifts. And you have them in abundance.

  By comparison, Tuesday’s mother kept herself blissfully medicated and determinedly unwed. When she asked her mother at a young age about her father, the answer shocked her so much Tuesday never asked again. Well, he could have been one of three jerks. Maybe five. Whoever he was, you don’t want anything to do with him. They subsisted alternately on food stamps and mysterious infusions of cash that her mother never explained, but Tuesday came to believe were from drug deals. Her goal in life was to rise above all that and saw the occult as a spiritual path. The idea of unseen spirits watching over her got her through the day.

  “Okay,” Olivia asked. “But what’s a yes or no question this time? I want it to tell me where the netsuke are.”

  Tuesday hovered the locket. “Hold it between your thumb and index finger. Be very still. Don’t try to influence its movements and don’t visualize it moving. Let your higher self take over.”

  “Okay, okay. But how do I ask where the things are.”

  Tuesday made soothing motions with her hands, a symphony conductor slowing the tempo. “Ask if the netsukes are close by.”

  Olivia corrected her. “Netsuke. No “s” for plural in Japanese.” Then she obeyed. “Are they close by?”

  “No, Ollie. Name them. You have lots of stuff close by. How is it going to know which you mean?”

  “Well if it can read my mind, wouldn’t it know?”

  Tuesday ignored her. “Do it again.”

  Olivia, despite herself, moved into a zone. She stood very still until the locket hung over her feet still as a stone. Very quietly, she said, “Are my netsuke close by?”

  The two friends studied the locket as if waiting for a genie to appear. It began to make minute movements. They became stronger and in a few seconds indicated yes.

  A big smile erupted on Olivia’s face. “Am I standing next to them? Uh, the netsuke? Am I standing next to the netsuke?”

  The answer was no this time.

  “Am I standing near the netsuke.”

  The pendulum answered with a resounding yes.”

  Excited, now, the friends searched the room, but saw nothing on the tables or the floor near where they stood.

  Tuesday pointed to a clump of furniture by the wall. Olivia protested, “I wasn’t over here yesterday,” but did as she was told. Still nothing.

  Tuesday insisted they do it again. “But remember. Ask about them by name. That’s important.”

  Once more, Olivia stood riveted in place until the locket was still. “Am I near the netsuke?”
she asked

  This time the locket took off like a firecracker, giving an affirmative answer. Again, they scoured the floor and the furniture, two tables, a sideboard and pie chest, but found nothing. Olivia continued moving around the showroom and the pendulum continued to answer that she was near her valuables. The only spot that gave a negative swing was by the front door.

  Tuesday saw that as a triumph. “It’s telling you they didn’t walk out of the showroom.”

  Olivia stuffed the locket into her pocket. “Enough. We’ve been over the whole showroom and it tells me it’s here. But where? Come on. We’ve got errands to do.”

  Tuesday frowned. “It isn’t going to work if you don’t cooperate and believe.”

  Olivia retorted, “If it’s dependent on my believing it’s telling me the truth, then it doesn’t have any power of its own.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Olivia headed up stairs for her purse and jacket. “Come on. I need to make a call to a client, then let’s get out of here.”

  She meant Mr. Bacon, who hadn’t returned the message of apology she’d left yesterday. He didn’t answer his phone this time either, so she left another message suggesting a meeting time later that day. Before they left, she stopped Tuesday.

  “This isn’t hot LA summer, Tues, it’s northern California freeze-your-bohonkus-off-in-the-summer summer. You’ll need a cover-up.”

  When Tuesday returned with a turquoise faux monkey fur wrap, Olivia wished she had kept the weather report to herself.

  Chapter Thirteen: Downtown DV

  They stopped first at The Fresh Fishery that stocked the morning’s catch. Jesse, the owner, trucked it over from Bodega Bay every day, along with a crate of Hog Island oysters. Jesse, a twenty-six year old Harvard biz grad, once explained to Olivia that he ran a computer model of his business and used focus groups to test everything down to the exact faded blue color paint that would lure customers nostalgic for Nantucket Island. It worked. Even at 9:00 am the line for his homemade chowder, which he sold by the quart, was down the street. Rather than waste the morning on line, Olivia suggested they get an early start the next day for chowder, and settle for a dozen oysters for lunch, which Jesse’s assistant shucked and packed in seaweed and lemon quarters and tied up in a plastic bag.