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

by Cassie Page

Before she made it to the end of the driveway, Olivia playing deaf, was starting the engine.

  In the rear view mirror, she saw Detective Johnson pull up behind her, the cadre of paparazzi pulling up. They had caught the scent of Brooks Baker.

  “What can I do for you, detective,” she asked when he came to her side window.

  “Miss Granville, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.”

  He pulled handcuffs out of his pocket. “I hope I won’t need to use these.”

  Oh god. What kind of miscalculation had she made in sending Brooks and his media team packing?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Hands Behind Your Back

  Olivia, handcuffed in the back seat, insisted Johnson explain her arrest. But he remained silent on the way to the police station. Once there, he led Olivia past Officer Ridley’s desk, where the woman watched her argue with Johnson halfway down the corridor and into the cafeteria. There, at the end of a long Formica conference table, two of the officers Olivia recognized from the investigation at her house were trading jokes on their coffee break. She heard, “So the horse says to the bartender,” but the scrape of her chair on the cement floor as Johnson pulled it out for her obliterated the punch line.

  Johnson undid the handcuffs. She rubbed her wrists and said, “These were not necessary.”

  “I could have had you for resisting arrest.”

  “MY NEIGHBORS WERE WATCHING!”

  “Calm down and sit down.” She chose option number two.

  The officers did not acknowledge her. Johnson said, “Coffee? Water?” He looked down at the officers and added, “Champagne?” They sniggered into their coffee mugs and gave Johnson a thumbs up.

  Olivia was curt. “No thank you, but an explanation as to what I am doing here is in order.”

  Johnson said, “Cool your jets, ma’am. I’ll be right back,” and left the room.

  Twenty minutes later he returned and sank into a chair opposite Olivia. “Do you know the penalty for filing a false police report?”

  “No. Why would I need to?”

  Johnson pulled a sheet of paper out of his breast pocket and shoved it across the table at her. “That your signature?”

  Olivia read the beginning of the first theft report stating her netsuke had gone missing. “Yes, that’s my signature.”

  Johnson reached into his coat pocket and retrieved another folded sheet of paper. He set it on the table. “Do you know what this is?”

  Olivia put as much hostility into her voice as she could muster. “I assume it is the report of the theft of my Imari bowl.”

  He reached into his other pocket and Olivia said, “If you are retrieving the theft report of my flashlight, don’t bother. Yes, I filed it and it has my signature on it.”

  She heard one of the police officers whisper bingo, and his partner guffaw.

  Johnson said, “That’s what I need to establish ma’am. That you filed these reports.”

  “And the point is, officer?”

  “Detective, ma’am. Detective Johnson.”

  “Detective.”

  “Ma’am, in the State of California the penalty for knowingly and willfully filing a false police report carries jail time. The stakes are higher when you add filing a false insurance claim.”

  “But I haven’t filed an insurance claim. I’m depending upon your department to find the culprit.”

  “Miss Granville, I’m just saying that if you were to file an insurance claim . . . “

  “But I didn’t. Why would I do that? Those items had tremendous sentimental value. I made every effort to find them . . .” Olivia was warming up to her argument, but Johnson stopped her.

  “I’m sure you did. But we have a situation here. A body is discovered on your property dead under suspicious circumstances. You file robbery reports. Three robbery reports. In three days. Your business is in danger of going under. Wouldn’t it be convenient to recoup some of your losses through the insurance company?”

  “That’s laughable. If I were to receive reimbursement from the insurance company for those items it wouldn’t even pay for my utilities bill.”

  “So maybe you were just starting out. Testing the waters, so to speak.”

  Olivia thumped the table. “Detective, I resent this. My integrity has never been questioned. Under any circumstances.”

  Johnson was abrupt. “There’s always a first time. Look, we got this situation. The night before last night we had officers watching your house from dusk to dawn. Nobody, I repeat, not one person was seen going in or out of your premises during that time, except you and Miss, uh, you know, your guest.”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Yeah. And then yesterday you report another theft. So what I don’t understand is, if we had eyeballs on your house, and nobody went in or out, how could somebody sneak in and steal your stuff?”

  “But Detective Richards said surveillance would start last night.”

  “Well that’s what he said. But it started the night before last night. So what do you have to say to that? Catch you by surprise?”

  A shock of fear humbled Olivia. “Detective, please. I don’t know how to prove my innocence, but I swear to you, my things were stolen. I had nothing to do with their disappearance. Give me a lie detector test. Take my fingerprints. Do . . . all the police things you do to catch criminals and prove a person’s innocence.”

  Johnson’s cell phone rang. “Yeah? Uh huh? Okay.” He snapped the phone shut and gestured to the two other officers. “Outside.”

  Olivia could hear loud voices and was sure one of them belonged to Richards. After a few moments, Johnson came back into the cafeteria. “You can go. I’ll have one of the officers give you a ride home.”

  “That’s it?

  “You want to stay I can find a cell for you.”

  “No, thank you. And I’ll walk, detective. I don’t need my neighbors seeing me in a police car again.”

  She made a point of glaring at his belly. Plus, exercise is good for you.”

  Olivia hurried out of the room and found Richards in deep conversation with the two officers, who appeared to be defending themselves against some charge. She heard him say, “You don’t do that without my . . . ”

  As she reached the end of the corridor and headed for freedom, she said icily, “Trouble in paradise, detective?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Heist

  “Don’t you love Della Robbia?”

  “Della what?”

  Olivia and Tuesday stood in the business end of Blackman Restoration, the front area containing the money pieces. The gilt mirrors, Napoleon campaign chests, Della Robbia water features.

  Olivia explained. “Smart marketing to have a showroom like this. It convinces clients that Blackman seals the deal when it comes to restoring their treasures.”

  They looked around but couldn’t see anyone in the shop. This was Olivia’s third trip to Blackman’s so she knew the layout. In the back Sabrina and Blackman had divided a storeroom into two small offices, each with a view to the workroom. There, out of sight of customers, a small team of woodworkers stripped finishes, sanded tabletops and replaced pieces of trim so exact the owner couldn’t tell the difference between the replacement and the original. This acclaimed attention to detail had sold Olivia on Blackman’s when she realized she needed work done on her pieces.

  Olivia called out hello as a table with heavily carved legs caught her eye. “Nice copy. You’d almost say it was a Grinling Gibbons, except British museums and churches own all the surviving pieces. If you want to see a choice Gibbons collection, you must go to Petworth House.”

  Tuesday was checking her outfit in a ceiling high distressed painted mirror that had Olivia coveted since her first visit to the shop. Tuesday pursed her lips like a naughty 1920’s flapper. “Ooo, honey. Petworth House.”

  Then she went back to admiring the clown suit effect of her super short balloon-like top with Day-Glo polka dots in various colors and sizes over faux leopard leggi
ngs and studded and zipped wood, aluminum and macramé six-inch platform sandals with retractable rollerblades that Olivia had said when she unpacked them were smokin' hot. If you were going for the orthopedic appliance look. She’d said, “You could hook a ladder on the side to get you up to the top bunk.”

  Today Tuesday had slicked her hair back with enough bobby pins to build a miniature space ship. Satisfied with the Emmet Kelly look, she said, “How you can tell one piece of squiggles from another is beyond me,” referring to the ornate spray of birds, flowers, shells and cherubs on the table legs. “But I’ll take your word for it. If you say the dude rocks, the dude rocks.”

  Olivia slipped into her docent mode and explained that in 17th century London, Gibbons set the bar for carved renderings of the natural disorder of flora and fauna, adorned, of course, with his signature cherubs. She was finishing up her story about Gibbons’ habit of including a peapod in all of his carvings, left open to reveal baby peas if he had been paid for the commission, and closed if he had not, when Roger walked into the showroom covered in sawdust.

  They had planned this visit intending merely to case the joint. They assumed Olivia could distract a sales person with some blather about making an appointment with Sabrina to discuss the invoices for her pieces still in possession of the DVPD, while Tuesday skulked around figuring out how to access the safe. Cody had told Olivia that she would likely find Sabrina at her desk from 10 am to noon and they timed their visit for 9:15 am to be sure her office would be vacant.

  Roger introduced himself, not aware that both women recognized him from the altercation at the country club. He began with a dull-witted apology. “Sorry, but nobody’s here. Just me.”

  Olivia and Tuesday each shook his hand but did not identify themselves.

  From his slack-jawed, glazed-eye expression, Olivia half expected him to stick his thumb in his mouth and say, duh. Where was the fire she saw as he pummeled Young Master Gotshalk and drove out of the parking lot raging at Cody? Was he high? Or suffering the mother of all hangovers?

  Olivia began questioning Roger about Sabrina’s schedule and his opinion on how long it would take for Blackman’s to repair a table leg with a crack down the center. As soon as Tuesday heard Roger say he was home alone, she slipped into the workroom. Several minutes later she re-emerged to find Olivia and Roger deep in a discussion about the difficulty of sealing wood to protect it from insects. Olivia saw Tuesday give her the thumbs up, and she cut Roger off.

  “Thanks for your time. I’ll just call Sabrina for an appointment.”

  Back in the car, Tuesday explained the heist. First, she spotted Sabrina’s office from a framed photo on her desk feeding wedding cake to her groom. Tiptoeing inside, Tuesday could see the far wall with the antique map of London over the desk, just as Elgin had described it. Though her mission was merely reconnoitering, she decided to seize the moment. She slipped her hand under the desk drawer and found the key taped there, peeled it carefully to preserve some sticky so she could replace it, then slid the map aside. There it was, the safe begging her to open it. She inserted the key into the lock, quietly opened the door and found a bonanza.

  The safe contained several small boxes and two documents in bank folders. The labels identified the partnership agreement between Sabrina and Blackman and the side agreement Elgin had described. To be certain it was the correct document, Tuesday checked the witness signature and bingo: Elgin Fastner’s scrawl. She photographed the one page agreement and, as she slid it back into place, noticed a CD with a post it: JB re mny lndring. Without thinking, Tuesday stuck it in her purse, covered her tracks and rejoined Olivia.

  Olivia exploded. “YOU STOLE IT? That wasn’t the plan! Do you know what we can get for breaking and entering?” She felt a chill as she realized it was déjà vu all over again. Detective Johnson had threatened her with almost the same words.

  Flustered now, Tuesday’s hands started to shake. “I know, I know. But it was there and, well, I didn’t think. Look, if it was that easy to lift it, it will be that easy to put it back. Let’s just see what’s on this and then we’ll decide what to do.”

  “No. I don’t want anything to do with it. Turn around. We are going to put it back. Now, before Sabrina comes to work.”

  Tuesday turned practical. She waved the CD at Olivia and said, “In for a penny, in for a pound. If that post it says money laundering, then you need to hear this.”

  Olivia relented and slipped the CD into the slot while Tuesday turned onto Darling Boulevard to return home. The silky smooth mechanism of the Mercedes swallowed the disc soundlessly. In a snap, sounds of an argument flooded the car. Olivia recognized Sabrina shouting at a man she addressed as John. She was angry; he was loud. Olivia leaned in to listen, trying to determine something about the man’s character from his voice.

  Sabrina was on the warpath. “John, don’t lie to me. You’re smuggling drugs and I don’t know what all. Don’t you see how that is putting me in jeopardy?”

  Footsteps, the male voice walking closer to Sabrina. “You stick to managing the business and keep your nose out of mine.”

  Sabrina again. “Now I know why you want to focus on imports from Asia. You’re hiding heroin in the furniture shipments. Are you out of your mind? How long before customs sniffs you out? And then what?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I should have known what kind of man you are. After all, you cheat on your wife.”

  “Well, it hasn’t bothered you all these months.”

  A few seconds of silence passed before Sabrina spoke again. “Who else did you cheat on? Those rare lamps you were accused of switching . . .you did it, didn’t you? Does Greta know? Oh, knowing the kind of shit storm she can throw, I bet you’ve kept this quiet, haven’t you? Or does she know? And you’re sharing your stash with her? If this gets out you’re not taking me down. I won’t cover for you this time. Not like at Silicon Biotech.”

  Voices in the background signaled someone had entered the room and the conversation switched to a business discussion about how much to charge for refinishing a dining table. Olivia ejected the CD and stared wordlessly at Tuesday.

  Tuesday was the first to gather her wits about her. “This is dynamite, Honeybun. Let’s make a copy at home and slip this back into the safe. If we hurry we can get her done by ten. Isn’t that when Sabrina’s due in her office?”

  Olivia was flummoxed. “But what are we going to do with the information? If we show this to anyone, we’re guilty of theft. I can’t risk that. And what really does it prove about his murder? I don’t see how this clears me or fingers anyone else.”

  “Let’s figure that out after we copy it and return it. But the first thing that comes to my mind is a motive for Sabrina.”

  Later, after the switch, Olivia poured ice tea for both of them and unwrapped cheese for their lunch. She washed grapes and strawberries to calm herself down and arranged them artfully around the cheese, her designer genes operating on autopilot. The two settled at the kitchen table, still an uncomfortable spot for Olivia where she could see the crime tape whiffle in the light afternoon breeze.

  Olivia peeled back the wrapping on a Brie she had left to soften on the counter before they left for Blackman’s. “We have to figure this out. So what do we know?”

  Tuesday accepted a hefty slice and helped herself to a chunk of sour dough. “Well the widow is pretty darn good at shedding crocodile tears.”

  Olivia nodded. “Yeah, she’s got that act sealed and delivered. Seems to have the doctor fooled, too.” She snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. I have to make a follow up appointment with him.”

  Tuesday popped a ripe strawberry into her mouth. “I thought you said you were feeling fine.”

  “I am, but he said to come back for a checkup no matter what.”

  Tuesday groaned. “That means I’ll have to listen to another puffer fish lecture.”

  “What are you talking about? Puffer fis
h?”

  “You know, those special fish in his tank. The ones he keeps separate from the others. The Scribble Scrabbles or something. They are a variety of puffer fish. The receptionist said he has a matched pair in his aquarium at home. He’s breeding them or something.”

  “Puffer fish? You mean the poisonous ones? Tuesday, remember that guy who dropped dead in that Japanese restaurant?”

  “In West Hollywood? Oh yeah, the one they shut down when the Health Department said they hadn’t prepared the fish properly. I’m not sure they were even supposed to serve it because it is so deadly.”

  “That’s the one. And, Tuesday, that’s it.”

  “What’s it, Nancy Drew? You’ve lost me.”

  “Let me spell this out and see if it makes sense. We have a dead man but nobody can find the cause of death. Greta’s doctor thinks it’s a heart attack after some kind of altercation and that’s why he gets stuffed in the armoire. Can’t figure out why he would be sent to me, yet, but let’s keep going. There are three other suspicious deaths. One is called an out and out heart attack, the others have no obvious cause of death. Hence, the curse.”

  “Yeah, but where does the girl with a broken neck from a so-called fall down the stairs come in?”

  Olivia drained her tea. “I’m working on my feet here, Tues. Just stay with me. Mr. Harmon and the shirt duo. Three deaths. All called heart attacks in certified healthy people.”

  “Okay, I’m waiting for the punch line.”

  “All of them have a connection to Blackman. All of them claimed that Blackman cheated them. The girl is an outlier, unless we can tie her into this mess.”

  Tuesday tilted her head skeptically. “Okay. But the three who might have a motive for killing Blackman are, and isn’t this just too inconvenient for words, very dead. And if Blackman slipped them some puffer fish, which is what you are suggesting if I’m getting your drift, he is also very dead.”

  Olivia stood up. “Grrrrrrrr. Why isn’t this easy? Want some ice cream? Salted Caramel Fudge from Paymoor’s or Massimo’s Limoncello?”