by Cassie Page
Olivia couldn’t tell if Johnson was happy or disappointed with that news. He just said, “Can you tell us where you were last night? Say from ten p.m. to this morning?”
Olivia took a deep breath then spoke carefully. “I was home. Finalizing the arrangements for Charles Bacon’s engagement party.”
“Was anybody with you? Did you talk to anyone?”
“I had a long call with Rebecca DuMaine about the music.”
Johnson was trying to keep up with her on the electronic notepad. Spell that name please.”
Olivia did, then explained, “She’s the singer with the Dave Miller Trio that will perform at the party. We were choosing some songs.”
“You have a phone number? Address?”
She snapped, “Down on the Peninsula someplace. It’s on their website. Look it up.”
Johnson didn’t bat an eye. “And what time was that? That you were talking to this,” he checked his note, “Rebecca.”
She couldn’t look at Matt, but felt his eyes drilling deep into her, searching for a weakness, the interrogation technique he’d once described to her. Now she wished she didn’t know quite so much about his work habits.
“Eight o’clock I think.” Should she ask for a lawyer, she wondered? That would stop this questioning on a dime. She couldn’t decide but warned herself to choose her words carefully.
“Yes, eight. I remember because she was trying to get her kids into bed and she told them they could stay up another fifteen minutes until we finished up. I heard her tell them, ‘When the clock says eight-fifteen I will be off the phone and I want you two in bed.’ We said goodbye at eight-thirty. We laughed that they had gotten away with an extra fifteen minutes of playtime.”
Apparently Johnson didn’t think the story was all that cute. He just said, “So what did you do afterwards?”
“I stayed at my desk. Matt was at a meeting so I had a bite to eat in my office while I worked. Went to bed at ten-thirty and fell asleep watching reruns of Saturday Night Live. Matt picked me up for breakfast this morning.”
Johnson said, “Cell phone? You could have made the call from like, anywhere?”
“No. My office phone. A landline. You can check that.”
Johnson made a note. “So nobody saw you? You didn’t put out the garbage and wave to a neighbor? Anything like that?”
Olivia challenged him. “No. No one can say I stayed home and did NOT figure out where Jocelyn Payne was, kidnap her, slip past Xavier’s very high tech, state of the art security system, get her drunk on champagne, drag her or force her upstairs, hack the safe, kill her, drape her in diamonds and then leave without being noticed. No, I have no alibi that will prove I didn’t do any of that.”
Johnson’s face betrayed nothing. “How do you know she was drunk on champagne?”
The interview was not helping them to bond.
Matt interrupted. “Olivia, did you leave your phone anyplace where someone might have picked it up and used it in the past few weeks?”
She raised her eyebrows, an are you kidding expression. “Of course not. Cody doesn’t even use it. My life is wedded to that phone. I never let it out of my sight. I even put it in the bathroom when I shower so I don’t miss a call from a client while I’m getting dressed.”
She was going to say to Matt, you know that, but decided it was TMI for Johnson.
Instead she asked, “Did you retrieve the champagne glasses from the second floor? Were there fingerprints?”
Johnson was still doing the talking. “We just got the glasses. The lab is doing an analysis but no obvious prints. But you’re going too far afield. Let’s just stick to my questions.”
“Someone’s prints have to be on them,” she insisted. “Whoever put them there is your killer. The glasses didn’t teleport themselves upstairs from Xavier’s kitchen. I know that worksite. My guys don’t hang around sipping champagne on their afternoon breaks.”
Johnson didn’t react to her sarcasm. “Let us worry about the glasses.”
“What about the champagne bottle? Should be prints there.”
Matt looked up. “We didn’t retrieve a champagne bottle. How do you know she drank champagne? The glasses could just belong to Xavier.”
“And he hides them under coveralls? Xavier found the bottle. He said your people took it.”
Matt made a note. Then to Johnson, “Check that out with forensics.”
Olivia asked, “Have you talked to Xavier about the missing earring?”
“Yes, we know about that.”
“Have you found it?”
Johnson started in again. “Let us do the questioning if you don’t mind. So what’s your relationship with the deceased?”
“Purely professional. I remodeled her closet eight or ten months ago. Maybe sooner. I’d have to check my invoices to pin down the dates. I was at her house a few times, met her husband once or twice. Nothing unusual. Since then I’ve run into her around town on occasion. That’s it.”
Johnson looked at Matt. “Miss Granville, why would you suspect Mrs. Payne and Detective Richards were, um, friends?”
Olivia kept her eyes down. “I didn’t. I didn’t know they knew one another. I still don’t. I don’t think they do, or did.”
Johnson pressed on, allowing no emotion to slip through his steely gaze. “So why would you accuse her of, shall we say, socializing with him?”
Now she glared hard at Johnson. “I take that to mean you believe I sent those texts. Well I didn’t. You know people can hack into all kinds of systems these days. Kids do it. Kindergarteners can do it. I don’t know.”
Johnson wagged his head, considering this. “So you’re suggesting a first grader got into your phone and just happened to pick out the number of the deceased from your contact list and fabricate a text about her and your boyfriend? Is that what you think happened?”
She shot him a chilly smile. “I believe you’re the detective here. You get paid big bucks for figuring out things like that.”
Matt said, “Olivia, hackers can get into your phone and read your texts. They can’t get in and send messages from your phone without actually having it in their hands.”
She slumped over in frustration. “Can’t you check my phone and see if someone has been messing with it?”
“Olivia,” he said apologetically, “we aren’t the FBI. We don’t have those kinds of resources, if that were even possible and I don’t know if it is. DVPD’s technology is a step above Morse code and carrier pigeons.”
“Then I’ll pay for it,” she said, pleading now. “Who do I call?”
Matt shrugged.
There was silence for a moment, then Matt said, “Could those texts have been a joke? Like you and the deceased had an ongoing joke about one of the workers or something. You know, referring to him as your man? One of those things that looks worse on paper than it really is.”
Olivia knew he was breaking the rules here, leading her to confess something that wasn’t true. He was offering her a way out, probably code for I don’t want us to be here, either.”
But Olivia would not lie. Not even for Matt. “I’m not going to say I did something that I didn’t do.”
There was the finality, the stubbornness that Matt well knew. He slid down in his chair. Olivia had no clue as to what was rolling around inside his brooding head.
Johnson’s turn again. “So Miss Granville. You ever been in trouble with the law before?”
She’d had it. “Is this where I say if you aren’t going to charge me with something then I’m leaving? Because that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
She grabbed her things, preparing to leave.
Matt said, “We have everything we need. You’re free to go.”
Johnson added, “But don’t leave town.”
Olivia rolled her eyes, rising from her seat dramatically. “Oh please. Detective, you’ve been watching too much Law and Order.”
As she opened the door to leave, she caught a glimpse
of Matt. He looked as sad as she felt.
Chapter Eleven: Special Delivery
Late in the afternoon the showroom bell tinkled quaintly, announcing that Olivia had a visitor downstairs. She welcomed the interruption of the dark gloom that had followed her home after her visit to the police station. She was in the kitchen trying to cheer herself up with a cup of rooibos tea and the stale White Chocolate Chip and Pistachio cookie left over from lunch with Matt.
In her current mood, she could have polished off a quart of ice cream, but when she scanned the freezer and found the container empty except for a spoonful, she guessed it had been Cody’s afternoon snack. He was off assisting a client with a wine cellar installation, no sound came from Mrs. Harmon’s apartment and the house was as still as a stone. She had gotten comfy in capri tights and a tee shirt.
To be sure it was not a drop-in customer that she didn’t have the energy for right then, she waited for a second ring to signal someone actually needed to see her. The ring became insistent. She said a few choice words as she raced barefoot down the stairs and into the showroom shouting, “Coming. Coming for crying out loud.”
A smiling delivery guy with a peaches and cream complexion she wished she could give to Carrie, held Xavier’s lush jade plant. Olivia stared at him, perplexed. “This is for me?”
Why hadn’t Xavier given her the plant when she was in his shop earlier? More to the point, why was he giving it to her in the first place?
“Mrs. Harmon?” the kid said.
Olivia saw past him to the vintage and battered VW bug at the curb. Did anyone even drive those anymore? It was almost old enough to be in Charles Bacon’s antique car collection.
“No, she’s my tenant. Around the side and halfway up the driveway. You’ll see her front door on the right, but I’m not sure if she’s home.”
Polite to a fault, the boy all but tipped his hat and turned to follow her directions. Maybe it wasn’t Xavier’s plant, though she recognized the pot. She called after him. “What florist are you from?”
“Oh, no florist ma’am. I’m Xavier’s neighbor. He hires me for odd jobs like deliveries and pickups.”
So it was Xavier’s plant. “I see. Well, lucky Mrs. Harmon.”
Back upstairs on her couch with only her cold tea and cookie crumbs to comfort her, she texted Tuesday for her ETA. Tuesday instantly messaged back that she couldn’t get a convenient flight and was driving. She would arrive by early evening. Olivia called Victor’s to order take out delivered for their dinner. She spent the rest of the late afternoon wondering how many more puzzles this day could present. Stress often made her sleepy. She drifted off before coming up with a number.
Tuesday rolled into the driveway after dark, sitting on her horn. Half awake, she had dozed off again after Pete from Victor’s Pizza arrived with the dinner order, she jumped up at the sound of the horn and flew down the stairs. The screen door slammed behind her as she ran into the yard, completely forgetting that it was one of Mrs. Harmon’s gripes. “It rattles my pictures, that door.”
It was one of Mrs. Harmon’s exaggerations, but Olivia still tried to be considerate, a losing proposition when her dearest friend had just driven up, an hour later than promised. Olivia raced to meet the car. Under bright moonlight and faint starlight they hugged and hugged. When they pulled away from each other Olivia got a good look at Tuesday’s shock of brilliant green hair.
She said, “Hmmm. Afraid we wouldn’t be able to see you in the dark?”
Tuesday made a face that Olivia ignored, then they hugged again. “Come on,” Olivia said, “let’s get your stuff upstairs and we can talk.”
It took three trips to get all of Tuesday’s belongings up the steep stairs and into the guest bedroom. Because she drove and had the luxury of a large trunk and back seat, Tuesday had packed as usual, as though she were staying through to the next millennium.
They settled in the kitchen while Olivia warmed up the eggplant Parmesan they both loved. She put the small combo pizza in the refrigerator in case they got the midnight munchies. She hustled to get the meal on the table.”
“Tues, I can’t thank you enough for coming on such short notice. I can’t face this alone and Matt is all but lost to me. Maybe for good.”
“You don’t mean that.” Tuesday knew her way around Olivia’s kitchen by now and grabbed plates and silverware, stopping once to do a quick yoga pose, the Sun Salutation, to stretch out the kinks from the long drive. “Matt’s just playing detective,” she said on the way up from the floor. “He doesn’t think you did it.”
Olivia got the food on the table in a hurry and the two friends helped themselves. Olivia couldn’t concentrate on eating, though. She kept putting her fork down to talk out her dreadful day and her fears about Matt. “I can’t decide if I’m more angry that he thinks I murdered that woman, or more sad.”
A mouth full of pasta and mozzarella cheese prevented Tuesday from answering. A loud slam of the door downstairs startled them.
“OMG? You home?” Without waiting for an answer, Olivia’s roommate was bounding up the stairs.
Tuesday put her fork down to clap her hands. “My boy, Cody. The trip is now worthwhile.”
Olivia shouted, “C’mon up. Tuesday’s here and I’ve got Victor’s.” Then to Tuesday, “What am I? Chopped liver?”
Before Cody reached the kitchen, Tuesday whispered, “He’s still here? Hasn’t the boy heard of apartments that you can live in all by yourself?”
Olivia shushed her before Cody strode in with a twelve-pack of bottled water. He dropped it at his feet and gave Tuesday a bear hug, pulling her out of her chair.
“My favorite clothes horse,” he said, staring at her hair. “Left over from St. Patrick’s Day? How many suitcases this time? Twenty? Thirty.”
Tuesday put her hands on her hips feigning annoyance. “A girl’s gotta have her threads.”
Cody grinned, “Yeah, but enough to dress the whole west coast?”
Tuesday shook her finger at him. “Be prepared for emergencies, dear boy. One day you’ll thank me.”
She brushed away imaginary lint from his shoulder and turned his ball cap around to the front, riffling his blond curls. “So what is this, tee shirt and jeans set number two or three? You must have lots of room in your closet. Oh yeah, you don’t have a closet. You have a blow up mattress on your employer’s floor.”
Cody allowed a grin to spread across his face. “That I do, Miss Tuesday. And all my clothes fit in my lunch box.”
Tuesday sat down again and picked up fork. “Speaking of lunch or food or something like that, have you snapped up Carrie yet?”
The Salted Caramel’s employee of the century who lost her heart to Cody ages ago in a classic case of he’s just not that into you.
Cody loaded the bottles of water into refrigerator and took one for himself. “Why do you people want to push me onto Carrie? We’re friends, but there’s no relationship thing going on. She treats me like I’m her big brother.”
Tuesday curled her lip. “Have you had your eyes checked lately?”
“Yes, I have. And trust me. We don’t have it going on for each other.”
Olivia reached for another plate from her cupboard. “Don’t make me separate you two. By the way, Tues, sorry to tell you that Carrie is on a cruise with her grandmother. I don’t know if she’ll be back before you leave.”
Tuesday threw up her hands in mock disgust. “Why did I even bother driving up?”
“That’s what we all want to know,” Cody said, ducking when Tuesday swatted him with her napkin.
Laughing, Olivia changed the subject. “Eggplant parm from Victor’s, Cody?”
“Is the sky blue?” he said, unscrewing the cap on a bottle of mineral water.
Since he’d been camping on Olivia’s floor downstairs in the showroom, Cody had kept Olivia’s refrigerator stocked. He replenished not only bottled water, but Olivia’s favorite cheeses, salmon steaks and take out salads from Paymoor�
�s. He’d also regularly tuck ribeyes and half gallons of rich ice cream in her freezer. While he ate some of the goodies himself, today notably the ice cream, Olivia had more food now than the three of them could eat in a week. She wouldn’t take payment for her floor space, so Cody had promised to keep her well fed. There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t take the food back, yet his generosity hadn’t worked off her guilt about not paying him enough. She promised him she’d remedy that if Marguerite Fredericks gave the big renovation job to her instead of Brooks Baker.
Cody unfolded his napkin, looked at their two plates and said, “Slow down you two, wait for me,” then dug into the eggplant.
Tuesday said, “If you’d come in from the playground when you’re called, there’d be seconds left.”
Cody winked at her. “Yes, Mommy.”
Olivia raised her hands, laughing. “Stop. Enough, you two. Haven’t I told you that you don’t share DNA? You don’t have to act like adolescent siblings.”
This was the best she’d felt all day.
Tuesday said, “Then what would we do with ourselves?”
Olivia turned serious. “Give me some TLC.” And out of the blue, tears came. Rivers of them suddenly coursed down her cheeks.
Cody put his fork down. “Whoa. OMG? What? What’s happened? Did I say something?”
Olivia hadn’t talked to Cody since she’d called goodbye into the showroom when she left for breakfast with Matt that morning. He was just waking up then. When he heard about the catastrophe at Xavier’s he’d texted, “What the fudge?” And she’d texted back. “Later.”
Then he’d met friends for a beer after work. She filled him in and his reaction was the same as Tuesday’s. “No blinking way he thinks you did it.”
Olivia kept dabbing at her eyes. The stress of the day had caught up with her and was coming out in watery sobs. “You should have seen her, Cody. I mean she dropped at my feet. It was awful. And then to have my name on the news and the Internet and that awful Arlo.”
Before she could finish her sentence, Tuesday got up and hugged her.