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

by Cassie Page

  Richards waved her statement away. “Oh, we know all about that. Hard to keep that kind of thing quiet in a small town.”

  Olivia didn’t know specifically what he was referring to, but she decided she was off the hook about stealing the CD and reporting what she and Tuesday and heard on it.

  “I think that’s it, Ms. Granville and Miss Tuesday. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”

  Olivia and Tuesday got up to leave, then Olivia stopped. “Detective, can I take down the crime scene tape.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry. We’re not finished here.”

  “How about my shoes?”

  His face was impassive. “Have a nice day.”

  Finally, Olivia got some Internet love. By six o’clock the cable news blog texted that there was a break in the case. Olivia called for Tuesday to come into the den. “Hurry!”

  Then she flipped on the TV. The cable station’s newest anchor, all fifteen inches of blond hair, half-inch of makeup and killer biceps shown to advantage in the requisite sleeveless dress female TV news personnel wore these days, was announcing that doctor to the billionaires, Ross Caldwell, was being held for questioning. Details not yet available. The program buzzed with speculations as to why the doctor was implicated, none of them correct. At 6:27 the station flashed huge Breaking News banners across the screen. The blond shared a split screen with a young man standing in front of an official-looking building that Olivia knew for sure was a fake set. “What do you have for us, Trevor.

  The field reporter, with looks that would qualify for People Magazine’s Worlds Sexiest Man issue, announced that, “Behind me, Aurora, in bucolic Darling Valley’s city hall, the deceased’s wife, Grace Blackman, was being arraigned for the murder of her husband, former Silicon Valley venture capitalist and reputed Darling Valley drug smuggler.

  “Shocking, Trevor. What do we know?”

  Olivia flicked off the TV. “The only thing that’s real in that segment is the drug smuggling. Darling Valley’s city hall doesn’t look like a 1960’s communist apartment block. Blackman was never a venture capitalist, but a high level financial officer. Briefly. The wife’s name is Greta not Grace and the hair, boobs and teeth are fake.”

  Tuesday said, “On which one?”

  Olivia said, “Both. And this station is number one in the ratings?”

  A few minutes later she turned the TV back on to a local station. There was a shot outside the Police Department. Olivia recognized Officer Ridley looking out through the lobby window at a reporter interviewing Detective Richards.”

  “There’s not a lot I can tell you at this moment, Jay. We have a person of interest that we are questioning. But I do want to thank the great citizens of Darling Valley for their unbelievable cooperation during this investigation. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  Richards ducked back into the police station through the door that Officer Ridley held open.

  The reporter stared into the camera. “KTZV, your number one place for news in Darling Valley, has learned that one of the citizens who was particularly helpful to the police in this case was our own Ms. Violet Granville, along with her partner, Miss Tuesday. We don’t have a last name for Miss Tuesday. Ms. Granville, I’m sure you all know, is the owner of Granville’s Antiques on the west side of town.”

  Olivia threw the remote at the TV and shouted into the plasma screen. “VIOLET? GRANVILLE”S ANTIQUES? I’M ON THE NORTH SIDE OF TOWN YOU IDIOT. AND TUESDAY IS NOT MY PARTNER.”

  Tuesday picked up the remote. “But it’s nice to know that finally Darling Valley is claiming you as its own.”

  Later, after Tuesday opened a Pinot Grigio and they toasted the end of Olivia’s nightmare, Olivia remembered her towels in the dryer. Tuesday was heating water for tea. “No reading,” she promised, “just a cuppa.”

  Olivia shouted, “I’ll be right back, “and she ran down the stairs. Before opening the door that led down to the laundry and Mrs. Harmon’s inside door, she stopped at her desk. It had been what, four, five days since the grisly discovery in her armoire? It seemed like a lifetime. She decided that she and Tuesday would order pizza from the Italian place with the brick oven and super thin crusts as good as Mozza’s and have a quiet night. There was nothing more she could do. It wouldn’t take long to finish up labeling the furniture for the sale, and tomorrow she would corral Cody, he had been noticeably absent since yesterday, and they would arrange the showroom and plan what they would put out on the lawn. She would sell her soul to the devil if necessary, but she was determined to convince Richards to remove the crime scene tape, still flapping on the front porch, if only for the duration of the sale.

  If Tuesday were not waiting for her upstairs, she would stop and sit at her desk and sketch some ideas she had for the elusive Mr. Bacon’s garage. Should he ever return her calls. As soon as she left the police department after her arrest, she apologized profusely into her phone about missing yet another appointment with Mr. Bacon, without mentioning the reason for her standing him up yet again. But he had not returned her calls. Probably, he had written her off as a flake.

  Working at her desk, this beloved desk that had followed her from college to Manhattan Beach to LA and here to Darling Valley, gave her a sense of security she could not describe. She believed that people should do what they were born to do. And making the world both functional and beautiful is what made her feel whole, human and ultimately at peace. But she had to finish her chore. She owed Tuesday a long soak in her sumptuous, standalone bathtub and a stack of soft, lavender-scented towels.

  The one part of the house that never felt completely hers was the basement and laundry room, in part because it had been renovated to accommodate the unit for Mrs. Harmon before she bought the house. There was no room to put her unique stamp on the space., so she left it as is. Part of this unease was the fear of being discovered there by Mrs. Harmon, childish she knew but a real feeling nevertheless, perhaps connected to the reality that Mrs. Harmon and Darling Valley did not make her feel that she belonged. So she slipped off her shoes so Mrs. Harmon wouldn’t hear her. Barefoot, she opened the door to the basement and continued on down.

  The new appliances were quiet in all respects, and she was sure Mrs. Harmon, should she be in her kitchen, near the door, or just out and out eavesdropping, would not hear her open the dryer door and lift out the cloud of warm, ivory towels. She tiptoed over to the folding table and was making order out of her tangled laundry. She quickly became lost in thought about what the next few days would bring. Possibly a murder indictment against the doctor and a successful sale on the weekend. But then, if this week had taught her anything, it was that things were almost never what they seemed and she should quit thinking she had the future nailed down.

  Deep in thought, a sudden creaking sound made Olivia jump out of her skin. She whipped around, but it was just Mrs. Harmon opening her kitchen door with a bag of trash in her hand. However, when Mrs. Harmon, equally surprised, saw Olivia standing there, she tried to slam her door closed.

  Too late. Olivia saw what she was trying to hide. Simultaneously shocked and furious, she leapt across the five feet of laminate flooring separating them and pushed the door wide open, knocking the old woman unceremoniously into the doorjamb. She marched into the kitchen wildly pointing. “Mrs. Harmon! That’s my Imari bowl on your table!”

  Chapter Thirty-One: Sold

  Olivia handed a Paymoor’s shopping bag full of crime scene tape to Detective Richards in exchange for the box containing her Jimmy Choo shoes.

  “Thank you for keeping these safe.”

  Richards gave a little bow. “My pleasure. But you’d better check them before you sign on the dotted line. We did have to take them out of the box to compare them to the print found at the crime scene.”

  Olivia broke in. “The REAL crime scene, I might add. Not my shop.”

  Richards laughed. “Yes, the scene where Mr. Blackman was killed. By the way, I’m sorry we couldn’t get your arMO
IRE back to in time for the sale. But Forensics is still working on it to make sure we get every bit of evidence we can to put these two away. We don’t want them getting off on technicalities.”

  “That’s the only reason I’m not complaining. Between them they’ve committed four murders. That makes them mass murderers, right?”

  Richards shook his head. “Technically no. Mass murderers kill many in a single event. Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Aurora movie theater massacres. While serial killers act on one victim at a time, usually for the thrill of the kill. Son of Sam and Ted Bundy. Our pair killed for expediency. Not sure what crime writers would call them.”

  Olivia turned up her nose. “Murder as a business skill set? Gawd. Well I thought, when I get the armoire back, kudos to you, by the way for finally getting the name right, I’d have to do an exorcism before I’d be able to sell it. But would you believe I’ve had six offers from collectors of the macabre? One woman offered twice what I hoped I’d get at the sale. So it looks like I’ll have to have an auction for it.”

  Richards shook his head. “People.”

  “Well,” Olivia said, tucking her beloved JC’s back in the box and signing for them on Richards’ small pad, “we saw on the news last night that you have officially arrested the doctor and widow for murder.”

  “We did. They will be charged later today when the judge arrives back from vacation. She cut it short so we don’t have to hold them over the weekend. The DA wants an arraignment today. She thinks they will try to plead it out. But that’s out of my hands. It was an easy case as these things go.”

  Olivia burst out, “Are you kidding me? This has been the worst week of my life.”

  Richards gave her a wry grin. “I don’t know what to say about that. I can only imagine.”

  His smile calmed Olivia down. “Detective, one more question. Why was Mr. Blackman sent to me?”

  “It’s complicated.” He gestured to the crush of people climbing over her lawn, down her driveway to the Garden Center in back and pushing in and out of the showroom through the porch door. “I think you have enough on your hands with your sale. We can go over all this another time at the station.”

  Olivia had trouble focusing on Richards as Cody and Tuesday were constantly interrupting them with questions about prices and provenance. However, when Tuesday realized to whom Olivia was talking, she backed away and stayed away.

  “Detective, I will end the sale now if necessary to get the answer to that question.”

  Richards shook his head. “Well, okay. You won’t believe this. After the doctor spiked Blackman’s drink with the dried puffer fish toxin, he was the man Roger saw with him that night, he left thinking it would appear that he’d had a heart attack. . . you were right. The doctor got cheated out of a sweet options deal at that biotech company and blamed Blackman for it. Some kind of dirty dealing we haven’t figure out yet. So after he texted the widow that Blackman was dead, she came back for an act of revenge. She had seen Blackman with his partner steaming up the back seat of his car in Hugo’s parking lot when he was supposed to be at a meeting in San Francisco. She couldn’t let it go, even though she knew she was going to have all his drug proceeds to herself. Well, aside from sharing it with the doctor. Yeah, she knew about the drug smuggling. She knew about everything. She knew where he kept the key to his safe deposit box. He had taken his proceeds in diamonds. She wanted to teach Sabrina Chase a lesson and cast suspicion on her at the same time. It wasn’t a very well thought out plan. Late that night she went back to the shop and put her husband into the armoire. The door kept opening so she tied it shut. You’re right. She’s an expert sailor.”

  Olivia saw Mrs. Harmon come walking down the driveway, smiled and waved to her as Richards continued. Olivia waved back, then asked, “But where do I come it? I still don’t get why she sent it to me.”

  “Greta didn’t know the armoire was supposed to go to you. Roger had taped a note for Cody on a pizza delivery flyer. He wasn’t enjoying all of his faculties, if you get my meaning and was sloppy about using the correct delivery form. That Greta would have noticed. But to her it just looked like a pizza delivery flyer or maybe she didn’t even see it. It was late, not much light. Her label, with instructions to deliver it to Sabrina Chase apparently fell off during the night, or sometime before Cody picked arrived. Or maybe Cody knocked it off while he moved it and didn’t see it. At any rate, we found it on the floor. To us it was nothing. Sabrina Chase was an owner. Her name was on everything. So you got it. Bureaucratic mix-up.”

  Olivia’s mouth dropped. “I went through all that because a hophead couldn’t get his act together?”

  Richards said, “Fraid so. If he had put the proper form on the chest in two places as Blackman’s required, this never would have involved you.”

  “Detective, I need a moment to take this in. Wait until I tell Tuesday and Cody.

  Richards looked around to allow Olivia time to absorb the news. “You know, the doctor was furious when he saw on the news that Blackman ended up on your doorstep, so to speak. He rushed over to see if he could have him declared dead of a heart attack. He didn’t want anyone doing any exotic testing and find the puffer fish toxin in his tissue. Blackman never had a heart condition. He made up a phony chart and put another patient’s EKG and lap tests in it. It was his idea for Greta to do the weeping widow act and blame you.”

  Olivia flashed on the day she went to his office and lay on his examining table, half naked. She shuddered. “Detective can’t I bring a malpractice suit against him for treating me as his patient while setting me up for murder?”

  Richards gave her a commiserating smile. “Up to you ma’am. Now we just have to figure out what happened to your bowl and other items.”

  Olivia stammered. “Oh, detective. Forgive me. In all the confusion and the sale, well I forgot to notify you that they were in the house all the time after all.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Seriously? But we searched everywhere.”

  “I know. So did I. But there they were all the time,” she crossed her fingers behind her back, “just under my feet.”

  She was not going to involve Mrs. Harmon in any of this. The poor woman was desolate about losing her husband and then the Cooks who had befriended her. She wouldn’t allow herself to warm up to Olivia and then have her go out of business or something and move away. And then when Olivia told her she a customer of Blackman, who had cheated her husband and thereby, as she believed, contributing to his heart attack, she snapped. Her only revenge was to steal her things.

  Olivia thought she had locked her out in the renovation. But Mrs. Harmon knew how to wiggle the door to get any lock to slide open. She grabbed only what she could carry. The pendulum was right. Olivia was standing on her treasures. So was Carrie. Her earrings had fallen out when she delivered cookies to Mrs. Harmon. The tenant found them in her living room, but didn’t know they were Carrie’s. The girl was so excited to get them back, she volunteered to help with the sale.

  Just then, before Richards could quiz her any more, Olivia saw a familiar figure get out of a BMW 751 in a Prada workout suit she recognized from the Neiman’s catalog. It was Tasmania of the lush, cascading hair and sweeping eyelashes waving and rushing over to greet them. Olivia didn’t know what Richards’ girlfriend did for a living, but if she ever asked Olivia for career counseling, she’d tell her to apply to cable TV as a news anchor. Tasmania came up behind Richards and put her arms around his waist. He half turned, drew her close and kissed her forehead.

  Olivia knew Richards was dropping off the shoes today. A good faith gesture considering what she had been through. But Tasmania? What was she doing here? Cody caught a look at Tasmania and hustled over to ask Olivia if there was anything she needed, all the while staring at the beauty. Olivia had no choice but to introduce them.

  “Tasmania, this is my assistant, Cody White. Cody this is Miss Tasmania . . .I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your last name.”

 
; Both Richards and Tasmania gave her an odd look. “Why, Richards, of course. Same as Gurmeet’s.”

  Olivia flushed. “Of course, I’m sorry. This is Detective Richards’ wife.”

  Friggin frig. How could she not have figured out that he was married. Just her luck, though what was she thinking anyway. Both she and Tuesday agreed he was definitely not a MAD man.

  Richards was shaking his head and for once, flashing Olivia a blinding smile. “No, not my wife. My sister.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two: BFF’s

  Olivia tallied up her proceeds while Tuesday started packing. She was taking a six am flight in the morning from SFO to Burbank to make her nine am Monday morning standing appointment with Holley Wood, star of Warner Bros. latest blockbuster about aliens taking over the body of a time-traveling princess. Tuesday had said when she told Olivia, “God’s truth. She showed me her birth certificate. I could slice her in ribbons. She got the name first. But she probably needs all the help she can get. She calls them alients.”

  She zipped up the last of her cases. “Well, I guess that’s it. The only thing left is for you to tell me what’s up with the shoes.”

  Olivia bent over into a downward dog, straightened up into warrior pose and said, “I’ve got to get back into yoga. I have so much tension in my back from all this. The shoes. You won’t believe this.”

  She explained the tortured murder plan and Greta’s foiling what would have been a perfect crime out of jealousy.

  ”Over a man she conspired to murder. That’s some serious crazy. Oh, don’t let me forget my herbs.”

  Olivia said, ”Puleeze don’t forget them.” Then she went on to explain how they nailed the doctor when they found the sliced up puffer fish in his freezer and vials of toxin he had been able to extract.