by Cassie Page
Jesse emerged from the back office as they were leaving and threaded though the crowd leaning into the counter trying to decide between ocean-caught salmon and halibut. He called loudly enough so that Olivia heard him over the din and pulled on Tuesday’s arm to wait. He shouted into Olivia’s ear over the crush of customers. “So sorry, Olivia. I heard about that tragedy at your place.”
Jesse wasn’t a friend, exactly, but part of his business model was to be nice to everyone, because, he once told her, you never knew who would turn out to be a valuable contact and that included Olivia. She wasn’t sure that was a compliment, but chalked up his tactless observation to youth. When the shop was slow, he’d pass a little time of day with her while she picked up a slice of the day’s catch.
Olivia mouthed, “It’s a nightmare,” so as not to attract any more attention than she already was. Several of the locals were nudging each other and nodding knowingly in her direction. She wasn’t sure if Tuesday with her gaudy dress and jacket or herself with her mantel of scandal attracted the looks this morning.
Jesse leaned over again and in a stage whisper said, “I guess you couldn’t avoid the newcomer’s curse after all.”
Olivia did a double take, not sure she heard correctly.
“What newcomer’s curse?”
But Jesse’s assistant motioned to him that he was needed behind the counter. “Have a good day, ladies,” he said, and pushed through the line of regulars to tend to business.
“Did you hear that,” Olivia said as she signed her credit card receipt and stuck the oysters into her market bag.
Tuesday said, “No, what? I was checking out the cutie deveining prawns. Did you see that butt?”
Olivia said, “You’re unbelievable,” then outside in the gray morning, Olivia told her what Jesse had said. She pointed to a hardware shop across the street. “Next stop,” and they dodged the lazy morning traffic to get to the Darling Hardware’s front door.
Tuesday shook her head, sending her feathers swinging violently. “You had to have misheard him. That’s just too daytime soap opera.”
Olivia reiterated. “I did NOT mishear him.”
Tuesday said, “It probably means to be accepted in this town you have to walk on fire.”
“Uh, I think that’s what I’ve been doing, sista. But what would that have to do with murder?”
Darling’s sold high-end kitchen equipment, expensive Japanese cutlery and displayed wine glasses on glass shelves that gleamed like crystal. It was the only hardware store that Olivia knew of that advertized in The New Yorker. The routine nuts and bolts were hidden somewhere in the back.
Greg Regan, the owner, knew Olivia because of her renovation and had supplied her crew with rented floor sanders and dozens of cans of paint over the last several months. Of all the shops on Darling Boulevard, this was most familiar to her.
“High, Greg,” she said. “I need to stock up on spring water for my dispenser today. If I come by later with my truck, can you help me load it up?”
“Sure thing, Olivia. If I’m busy, just ask for Jake.” Olivia knew Jake. He was a friend of Cody’s.
“Heard what happened over at your place. Sure was a shocker.”
“You can say that again. I don’t know when I’ll get over being stunned.”
Greg was grinning at Tuesday like a cat eying a mouse, so Olivia introduced them. He shook her hand and said. “Is that pink hair found in nature?”
Tuesday smiled at his lame attempt to put the make on her. Olivia reached into her purse for her wallet so she could pay for the water delivery and get them out of there.
Greg, oblivious to the thud with which his pickup line landed, continued to grin at Tuesday. Then he said to Olivia, “I guess you just can’t skirt that newcomer curse.”
Olivia jerked her head up. “What do you mean, newcomer’s curse? That’s the second time I’ve heard about it this morning. What is the newcomer’s curse, Greg?”
Just then the phone rang and someone in the back asked Greg a question about a stock item. He gave Olivia her receipt and excused himself.
On the way out into the street again, Tuesday said, “They are just trying to spook you, honeybun. Don’t pay attention.”
“But I do feel cursed, Tues. I mean, sending a dead body to me? It almost sounds like voodoo.”
Tuesday changed the subject by mocking Greg and his laugh. “Duh, that color pink found in nature? Ahuh ahuh.”
Olivia apologized for him. “He’s a nice guy. Just trying to be friendly. Greg grew up here before DV made the map. He doesn’t have the polish of those that rushed in to capitalize on wealth and privilege. But he has the savvy. He’s done all right for himself considering his grandfather started the store to cater to oystermen, back when it was Regan’s Hardware and Dry Goods. I mean, this place is a little conservative compared to what you’re used to in LA. We don’t get many pink heads.”
“No kidding, Marian the Librarian,” she said, giving Olivia’s cashmere twin set and pencil skirt a disapproving once over.
“Tuesday, this outfit cost . . . “
Tuesday stopped her. “Don’t give me that fancy label gar-baj. When are you going to learn that high-end stores sell conformity, not style? You gotta let me dress you, my gorgeous but so out of touch baby girl.”
Olivia stopped in her tracks and turned to Tuesday. “If I let you dress me I’d get arrested for badly impersonating Lady Gaga.”
“Yes, sweetheart. My point exactly. You’d have that one in your inside pocket.”
They linked arms after that and window-shopped their way down the street, admiring diamond rings and other goodies in Xavier’s, designer purses and boots in Shoe Candy. They stopped to ogle wedding dresses in a small boutique, which was so exclusive, celebrity brides were known to come from Paris and New York to have the designer create a one of a kind gown. Olivia momentarily forgot about the rumored curse when Brooks appeared in front of her, the night before she was supposed to wear her own white confection and walk down the aisle. Brooks telling her he needed space. Space for crying out loud. Couldn’t he have come up with something original? She shivered as if to throw off the memory and rushed into a brief history of Darling Valley. Tuesday gave her a where did this come from look, but listened anyway.
“It was named after Captain Darling, over a hundred and fifty years ago,” she explained. “He made a killing selling eggs from the Farrallon Islands during the gold rush.”
In fact, the canon Darling had set up on one of the bird rookeries he raided, and which he used to repel poachers on his unofficial claim, accounted eventually for the extinction of several species of sea birds. Today it stood in the middle of the park in the center of town.
Tuesday scrunched up her face. “Eggs? Canon? What?”
Olivia explained that eggs provided the main source of protein to the influx of actual gold diggers after nuggets were found at Sutter’s Mill. Before 1850 San Francisco was a barren outpost ill prepared to feed the thousands who came searching for instant wealth. Darling was a sea captain, distantly related to his namesake in South Africa, but one of the first to capitalize on the free protein sitting twenty miles off shore on the Farrallon Islands, rocky outcrops where millions of birds nested year round. He sold the eggs to the bar keeps and hotels for $.50 each and the buyers sold them to the hungry miners for a buck, beginning the tradition of entrepreneurship that continued today, peopling Darling now with tech titans and venture capital giants that Olivia targeted when she came up with her plan to place her interior design business smack in the middle of the wealthiest town in the country. Mostly philanthropists now, they and their wives, and in increasing numbers, husbands, competed with each other to see who could build the grandest palace to show off their wealth, much like the robber barons of Newport in the 1800’s. It was Olivia’s plan to decorate these shacks.
At the end of the history lesson they found themselves standing in front of a display window full of Chanel bags, Gucci sho
es and Tiffany lookalikes made of chocolate, marzipan and royal icing. Tuesday stretched her neck and saw the sign overhead, The Salted Caramel.
“Heavenly cream puff, Olivia. Look at those cakes and cookies. This is better than the Cooking Channel. I thought pastries were extravagant in Beverly Hills. This is unbelievable. I could take that Chanel bag home and put it on the table in the Tea Room and somebody would steal it thinking it was the real thing.”
“So there are a few commercial items you covet.”
“Accessories, girlfriend,” she said, hiking up her rented Hermes Birkin. The right bag or shoe will make any old rag look good.”
Tuesday had a friend who brokered expensive handbags for rent so the owners could afford to pay for their indulgences.
I know,” Olivia said, biting her tongue to stop one more whine about how edible accessories would be all she could afford if her fortunes didn’t change. She feared she was becoming a broken record. “Would you believe one of my clients, Mrs. Gotshalk, has a Chanel diamond encrusted evening bag worth a quarter of a mill?”
Tuesday did a double take.
“That’s nothing. Listen to this. An oil sheik has a house up there.” Olivia tilted her head toward the surrounding hills that masked the truly outrageous mansions. “He bought his wife a handbag from The House of Mouawad in Dubai. Two and half million.”
“No!”
“That’s what money will buy. Off topic. It’s early for me. I usually don’t indulge in chocolate before noon, but the baker here trained in Paris with Pierre Hermes. Dodie Greenspan orders from here. No kidding. Let’s treat ourselves.”
“You don’t have to twist my arm, girlfriend. And it’s Dorie Greenspan. I thought you knew chocolate, Ollie.”
“Whatever. I can’t be the world’s foremost authority on everything, you know.” Olivia pushed open the glass door and Tuesday’s good cheer mingled with the intoxicating scents of chocolate, coffee and cinnamon.
“Oh good,” Olivia said, pointing to a petite blond behind the counter, a porcelain doll of a girl except for cruelly bad skin. “Carrie is working today. She actually speaks to me like a real person and not an alien from space. She’s a sweetie. She has it bad for Cody, but he doesn’t even know she exists. Poor thing.”
While they waited on a short line, Olivia told Tuesday that, after Carrie found out she was from Hollywood, she asked Olivia if she knew anyone famous. Olivia revealed that she had decorated a bathroom for one of the Twilight stars. Carrie had faked a swoon, then became a fan of Olivia’s from that moment on.
Tuesday said, “But if this is such a hot place to live, doesn’t she get to see famous people all the time?”
“I don’t think teenagers are turned on by venture capitalists.”
Soon Carrie batted her glorious long-lashed eyes at them. “Hey, girl,” she drawled seductively at Olivia. “How ya doin'? Gonna get down and dirty with something gooey and gorgeous today?” She beamed a crooked-toothed smile at them, sweeping her hand over the counter as though she were a QVC presenter showing off Joan River’s jewelry.
Olivia laughed, her first genuine guffaw since the discovery of the body. She silently thanked Carrie, a nineteen year old too impressed with Olivia’s familiarity with Hollywood stars to snub her, and plagued with bad skin and teeth that unfairly prevented her own celebrity.
Tuesday said, “I’ll have that chocolate bomb,” and pointed to a heart-shaped confection of chocolate, mousse, whipped cream and raspberries.
Olivia ordered her favorite macaroons, which were said to be identical to Ladoure’s in Paris. “And we’ll have two coffees, Carrie. Thanks.”
Olivia and Tuesday settled themselves at a table back from the window to avoid the gawkers they had passed on the sidewalk. Carrie brought their order. Before she could walk away, Olivia tugged on her sleeve.
“Carrie, can I ask you something personal, well, not really personal, but something that seems to be a secret in town?”
Carrie looked over her shoulder at the crowded shop filled with customers clattering their forks and spoons and licking up crumbs off The Salted Caramel’s pink plates. “Yeah,” she said tentatively. “What?”
She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Is it about the murder? If you don’t mind me asking? I mean like everybody’s heard about it.” She kinked her eyebrows up. “Armoires and arsenic? Who doesn’t want to talk about that?”
“Tell me about it,” Olivia said returning a valley girl eye roll. “I’ve been hearing about something called the newcomer’s curse. Do you know what that is?”
Carrie shook her head. “No, no, no. Olivia, you don’t want to go there. Ugh. Nobody talks about that.”
But Olivia insisted. “Carrie, something terrible has happened to me. Well, it’s worse for Mr. Blackman, of course, and his wife. I can’t stop thinking about what she’s going through. But it’s coming down on my head, too. Please. Tell me.”
Carrie put her hands on the table to be able to lean over and speak low. “It seems like whenever somebody new comes to Darling Valley, somebody else gets killed.”
Olivia and Tuesday looked at each other, too shocked to respond.
Carrie continued. “Everybody tries to keep it quiet. I mean nothing has ever been proved. It’s just, like. Okay, so the first one was this girl who moved to Darling Valley, actually over by what we call meth park now. By the back entrance to the yacht harbor where you yousta could live cheap. But probably not any more. The town is trying to get rid of meth park and build,” she drew air quotes around “expensive houses.” Olivia hid her impatience with information she already knew by taking a bite of her pink macaroon.
“Yeah. I knew DV was trying to stamp out the beginning of a drug trade, but what does that have to do with murders?”
Carrie settled into her tale. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but this girl came from someplace back east. Nobody knew much about her and she never came into the shops here. Probably too pricey for her. Anyway, she’d go to the clubs.” She looked at Tuesday to educate her as well.
“We got a lot of rich kids who need to play. We have three clubs and get good bands coming through. So she’d show up and the guys would buy her drinks. She was a guy magnet, let me tell you. I couldn’t see it myself, but,” and Carrie nodded to Olivia, “ask Cody. He’ll tell you. The guys were all over her. Anyway, before long she made a connection and got a job at Mrs. Gotshalk’s as a housekeeper or something.”
That name brought Mr. Bacon to mind and while Carrie described the girl’s fate, Olivia surreptitiously opened her purse and took a peek at her phone to see if he had texted or left a voicemail. A news alert from the Marin IJ profiled the widow, calling her a competitive sailor, but nothing from the garage guy. She looked up at Carrie with a smile of recognition. “Mrs. Gotshalk! Yes, I know her. She’s been in my shop.”
Olivia remembered Cody’s story about driving to her house. “She has peacocks.”
“That’s the one. Well, after a few months a story went around that something was going on between Mr. Gotshalk and the hot housekeeper and one day there was an accident. She somehow fell down the stairs and broke her neck. Well, you can imagine, lots of talk, but the police said it was an accident and that was that.”
Olivia said, “You mean there were suspicions that Mrs. Gotshalk pushed her? Killed her?”
“She’s a customer here, Olivia. I’m not saying anything more. The police said accident, so accident it was.”
“And that’s it? I mean that’s terrible, but it hardly sounds like curse material.”
Carrie made a show of wiping the table to avoid suspicions of fraternizing with the customers. “Oh that’s not all. There were two more.”
Olivia shook her head like she hadn’t heard. “Two more murders?”
“Judge for yourself.” Carrie rearranged the friends’ silverware while she spoke. “A couple moved in to a shop down the street. Great location, fancy up your pants. They were from England and they made tailor
ed shirts for men. Charged $1,200 a shirt. Can you imagine?”
Olivia and Tuesday looked at each other and nodded their heads. “We’re from LA, Carrie. We can imagine. So what happened?”
“Well, they were making a delivery to Mr. Gotshalk. If you don’t know him . . . ”
“Yes,” said Olivia. And to Tuesday, “My client’s husband. Not a billionaire but close.”
Carrie’s nodded. “Yeah, well, they never arrived.”
Tuesday said, “The shirts?”
Carrie said, “Not the shirts. Not the couple. Their car was found by the lake with the grass all trampled like there had been a scuffle. Nobody could find them. They had a son in college who reported them missing, so they dragged the lake and sure enough, they popped up. I mean literally. Like dead fish. Pardon me. But not even where the police were looking.”
Tuesday leaned in. “What happened to them?”
Carrie shrugged. “Nobody knows. Couldn’t find any cause of death. Maybe they had a fight and pushed each other into the lake. The son said they couldn’t swim. Maybe they made somebody mad. Who knows? But how do two people end up in a lake? It was all over the Internet. Being Darling Valley and all. Eventually it was chalked up to drug violence. They were either innocent victims or making a buy.”
Tuesday said, “Are you counting them as two deaths or is there a third?”
“Yeah. Mrs. Harmon.”
“Wait a minute,” Olivia said. “She’s not dead. She’s living in my house. I saw her yesterday.”
