Boxed Set: Darling Valley Cozy Mystery Series featuring amateur female sleuth Olivia M. Granville

by Cassie Page

  The officer just said, “Watch your head,” as she steered Tuesday into the squad car.

  Johnson frog-walked Olivia behind them, but, Brooks, to his credit, intervened before Olivia joined Tuesday in the police car. He pulled JR aside and Olivia heard him advise, “Don’t press charges yet. Maybe she has a good reason for being here. Let the police figure it out.”

  Olivia lost it at that point. She yelled across the grass, “Yes, I have good reason to be here. His father killed Jocelyn. We heard him confess it. Arrest them, not us.”

  “Likely story,” JR said. “The woman is deranged. She’ll say anything. A woman scorned and all that. Now she’s stalking us.”

  Johnson whispered in Olivia’s ear, “Come quietly, Miss Granville. This isn’t looking good for you.”

  Awful Arlo had listened in to each conversation, then waved goodbye to JR and Melissa. “See you, guys,” and ran off, presumably to put his scoop online. To Olivia, he looked even sleazier in person than he did in his blog photo.

  Olivia told Cody that despite JR Payne not pressing charges, Johnson still wanted to question them about their trespassing adventure. “So he brought us in, anyway.”

  She finished her story to Cody’s back as he went hunting in the cupboard for the dried hot pepper flakes he liked to douse on his pizza.

  “Johnson harassed us a bit, but he couldn’t hold us. I think JR figured the police would lose interest in investigating my claims about his father if they simply let me go. After all, it sounds pretty outrageous, doesn’t it? Who’d believe Jocelyn’s husband killed her after the way he doted on her and then collapsed when Matt told him she was dead.”

  Cody found the pepper flakes and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. “Anyone,” he said offering it to his friends.

  “Not a beer drinker,” Tuesday answered, still simmering about being caught almost naked on camera by Awful Arlo.

  “Water for me,” said Olivia.

  Cody tucked his beer under his arm and retrieved two bottles of spring water. “Something to consider though. The jealous husband bit. What did Matt say when you showed up in handcuffs?”

  “Thank goodness he wasn’t there.”

  After grilling Olivia and Tuesday, Johnson drove the guilty parties back to the scene of the crime so Olivia could retrieve her truck, a sullen, awkward ride. On the way home, Tuesday tried to reach Clipper for some TLC after her huge embarrassment, but she got his voicemail, adding insult to injury.

  By now, Tuesday had changed into a pair of tie-dyed painters coveralls rolled up at the ankles and wrists and unbuttoned to her navel, a ballpark mustard yellow cami underneath for modesty’s sake and a long Indian sequined scarf cinching in the coarse denim at her waist.

  “Nothing to come back and bite me,” she explained as she modeled her outfit for Olivia and Cody. Chandelier earrings with cartoon kittens grazed her shoulders.

  Cody said, “Looks like a cat fight when you move your head around.”

  She waved him off, checked herself in a small mirror, then gave her reflection a satisfied smile before sticking the compact back in her bag.

  Olivia had moved to the sink with a bouquet of roses from Brooks. She’d found them propped against the front door on the porch when she and Tuesday returned home.

  She explained to Cody, “They’re from a new florist in Darling Valley who doesn’t know to leave my deliveries by the back door. I was so mad at Detective Johnson and JR Payne, I didn’t see them at first. If Tuesday hadn’t spotted them, they would have wilted in the afternoon sun.”

  “That Brooks moves fast,” Tuesday said disgustedly to the flowers. Then she continued describing her embarrassing scene to Cody.

  “Luckily I always wear my best scanties when I’m going out. Imagine if I’d been caught in cotton from a bargain basement.”

  The last was a friendly dig at Cody who had no qualms about admitting that he purchased his unmentionables at the local CVS drugstore in bargain packs of three.

  “Yeah,” he retorted. “Betty Boop is some fashion statement.”

  “Be nice,” Olivia said, holding up the huge, expensive bouquet, “and tell me if I should keep these.” She meant the roses from Brooks.

  She did not reveal the contents of his note. “Talk to me. Please.”

  Tuesday said, “Yellow and pink roses? No way you’re gonna toss them. Pretend they’re from someone else. Not the fault of the flowers that the givee is such a jerk.”

  Olivia said, “Brooks is the giv-ER,” then went hunting for a vase in her linen closet down the hall. When the flowers were arranged and sitting on the kitchen table, the three friends waited for Pete to arrive with their order from Victor’s.

  Despite the drama at the Payne’s house, Olivia needed Cody to fill her in on the work he had done for clients that day. He assured her he had delivered some furniture, mailed an antique jewelry box to a woman in Palm Springs and photographed the faulty hardware on drapery rods in a client’s bedroom.

  Cody concluded his report with some advice. “If I had to live with it, I wouldn’t notice that one end of the rod hung lower by an eighth of an inch. But since it’s for a paying customer, I think you’ll have to replace it.”

  Olivia gave him a thumbs up absently and made some notes on her iPad.

  Tuesday filled in a slight lag in the conversation by adding a few more details of her humiliation at the hands of Olivia when she was snagged by the Beautiful B’s. “Seriously, Cody. Would you keep her as your BFF if she asked you to strip down to your tightey whiteys in public?”

  He flexed his biceps. “And pass up a chance to show off this god-like body to my fans?”

  There was nothing left to talk about except the urgent topic of conversation on everyone’s mind. What did the revelations at the Payne’s house mean?

  Olivia tried to be practical.

  “Maybe this isn’t a smoking gun. There could be a simple explanation for what JR said. He could have meant that somehow his father drove Jocelyn to break into Xavier’s and get drunk on his champagne and try on diamonds. He didn’t say that his father actually pulled the trigger. So to speak. I know she wasn’t shot but, you know.”

  “So what did the guy say?” Cody asked as he peeled the label from his beer. “Word for word.”

  Olivia recited confidently, “Daddy did it. That’s not the same thing as daddy is the killer.”

  Tuesday waved her hands. “OMG! No. What he said, was, ‘Our father killed her.’ Word for word.”

  Cody stretched his hands between them before they got into a brawl over semantics. “Hey, play nice, now. How could the father have done it? He was in San Diego.”

  Olivia waved this away. “He has his own jet. He could have flown up here, done the deed and been back in his hotel room before breakfast. The grieving husband routine could just be an act. Or, he could have hired someone.”

  Cody said, “True. But there’s a more important problem. How does JR know who killed his stepmother?”

  “Yeah,” Tuesday said. “Did the old man confess it? Did the son witness it? And does this eliminate the other suspects?”

  Olivia retrieved her computer and opened to the list she had started earlier. She began a new page and typed Crime-solving 101. She created three columns, one each for Suspects, Motive, Opportunity.

  “Obviously there are more things to consider,” Olivia said, “but let’s start with Column A and Column B. Who are our prime suspects? I nominate Michelangelo and Roger.”

  Tuesday said, “Are you discounting what we heard the son say about his father?”

  “No, but what I’ve learned from Matt is that everybody is a suspect until they can prove they were out of the country or attending their own funeral.”

  She typed in the two names and added their motives. Jealousy for Michelangelo and fear of jealous wife for Roger. She hesitated at Opportunity. “We have to know more, but from what I’ve heard and seen on Xavier’s video, she made herself available to men. Next?”


  Cody said hesitantly, “Xavier?”

  Olivia cringed. “I guess we should follow our rule and include everybody. It would explain how she got into the shop, but seriously? He’d kill the golden goose? Okay,” she said and added his name. “Can anyone think of a motive?”

  A resounding silence before Tuesday tentatively offered, “Jocelyn had something on him?”

  Cody said, “What? He was stealing from himself?”

  Olivia compromised. “Okay, we’ll leave his name and see if we come up with a motive later. But don’t either of you ever tell him that I put his name on this list or I’ll murder you myself.”

  “Agreed,” said Cody, who knew Xavier mostly as a soccer adversary in the occasional Sunday pickup game.

  Olivia next typed, Roger’s wife. “Anybody know her first name?” she asked. When there was no answer she wrote, jealousy in the motive column.

  “I guess that’s a no brainer,” Tuesday surmised.

  Olivia continued, “The husband.” She typed in Art Payne but stopped at a motive.

  “Revenge for her cheating?” suggested Tuesday.

  Olivia shook her head. “I never get that one. A spouse is fed up with the ball and chain and offs them? They don’t understand English for divorce?”

  “In LA,” Tuesday said, “you see these murders and elaborate cover-ups to avoid big alimony settlements.”

  Cody dropped his voice an octave. “Who knows what evil lurks . . . “

  “He listens to old time programs on satellite radio when he drives my truck,” Olivia explained.

  Cody ignored her. “But what I don’t get, this guy has so much money that even if she took half, he’s still one of the richest guys around.”

  Olivia educated him. “Unless they had an iron-clad prenup that protected her, she couldn’t take him to the cleaners in California.”

  Cody gave her a quizzical look.

  “The short marriage rule. Look it up. They were married, what, three years? Under ten years, she’s only entitled to support for half the time they were together, about eighteen months in their case. It’s why her first husband didn’t have to pay a bucket load in alimony. So even if they divorced, she wouldn’t have been able to take him to the cleaners. Of course, we don’t know about a prenup, but I doubt Art Payne’s lawyers would have allowed him to remarry without one they drafted in his favor.”

  Tuesday said, “Okay, then. Back to the list. Anybody else?”

  Olivia broke the dead silence. “We’re forgetting the first husband. Tobey Carverman.”

  Tuesday beamed. “I snagged him. Did you hear, Cody?”

  Olivia said as she typed in his name, “Later for the war stories, Tuesday. What’s the motive?”

  Olivia and Tuesday said in unison, “Revenge.”

  Cody asked, “Against who? The wife who conned him or the husband who embarrassed him?”

  Tuesday said, “Both.”

  Olivia saved the document. “Okay. We’ve got,” she counted off the names on her fingers, “five and a half suspects. I can’t believe Xavier did this. He’s been too torn up about Jocelyn and the whole thing, so I’m only giving him half a point.”

  “By the way,” asked Tuesday, “have you heard from the juicy jeweler?” Tuesday had a thing for men with accents. “Didn’t Johnson say he was missing?”

  “Not missing exactly. Just that he was looking for him. Maybe I’ll give him another call and see how he’s doing.”

  Olivia interrupted their brainstorming session to try Xavier again. He came on the line quickly. “Xavier, I’m so happy to catch up with you. Where have you been? Do you know the police have been looking for you?”

  Olivia listened to his explanation and said, “What do you mean you haven’t been anywhere. I’ve called you, the police have called you, Martin hasn’t seen you. Have you been in hiding? After all that’s happened I wouldn’t blame you, but your friends have been concerned.”

  Tuesday and Cody gave one another crooked looks, not understanding what was up with Xavier now.

  Olivia bobbed her head as she listened to him. “Well, of course I believe you. Sure. I’m just glad you’re okay. Yes, we will talk about resuming construction as soon as the police release the site. Take care, my friend. Bye.”

  Picking up on Cody’s old time references, she slid her phone onto the table and said, “What a revolting development this is. He insists he’s been in the shop the whole time and nobody’s called him.”

  “Uh oh,” Tuesday said, pointing to his name on the suspect list. “No way we give him a pass if he’s up to some funny business. He gets a whole point. Not even if he kisses my hand every time he sees me. Though on second thought . . . ”

  Olivia interrupted her. “Seriously folks, I don’t get this. What does Xavier have to hide?”

  The ringing of the back door bell interrupted their ruminations. “That’s Pete with our dinner,” Olivia said. “Let me get my credit card.”

  But Cody jumped up and intercepted her, pulling out his own wallet. “This is on me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Cody was halfway to the stairs so Olivia got up and grabbed some plates and silverware and Tuesday retrieved the napkins in what was becoming their dinnertime routine.

  After a minute, Olivia stopped what she was doing. “Listen. Cody’s talking to someone. He must have invited Pete to come up.”

  “Oh, good,” exclaimed Tuesday gleefully. The delivery guy was one more Darling Valleyite Tuesday had added to her circle.

  But it was not Pete the pizza delivery guy who walked into the kitchen behind Cody.

  Tuesday took one look at the visitor, grabbed Cody’s arm and said, “Buddy, methinks we have to go on a mission to find another vase.”

  Cody said, “She keeps vases in the hall closet.” He raised his hand for a high five. “Hey, broski, wassup?” In his eagerness to chat with his friend, he did not see the shock on Olivia’s face.

  Tuesday pulled on him and headed for the stairs. “I said come ON. I think there’s one that is the perfect size. In. The. Garage.”

  Cody pointed to her and said in all seriousness, “Do I have to go out in public with you looking like that?”

  She all but pushed him down the stairs, leaving Olivia accepting a second bouquet of roses, these from Matt.

  Chapter Twenty-Six: I Just Came To Say I’m Sorry

  Olivia stood stiffly holding the flowers at arms length. For a moment neither she nor Matt said anything, then Olivia broke the awkward silence and pointed to a chair at the table. “Sit. I’ll find a vase for these.”

  Matt moved toward her. “Olivia, please . . . ”

  She stopped him from coming closer. “Matt. Give me a minute. This has been a shocker of a day. You’re the last person I was expecting. Let me put these in water.”

  “Take your time,” he said. He pulled out a chair and sank his long frame onto the hard seat. He watched Olivia put the flowers in the sink, and then head down the hall for another container. When she returned, Matt pointed to the yellow and pink bouquet already arranged on the table.

  “Is today your day for flowers?”

  Olivia said, “They’re from Brooks Baker,” but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted bringing up his name.

  Narrowing his eyes, Matt studied the roses. “Oh, has he come calling? He doesn’t waste any time making his move, does he?”

  Olivia’s back stiffened. “It’s not like that. Why would you think that? You know how I feel about him. I don’t know why he sent the flowers.”

  Deciding not to further inflame the situation, she did not say what she was thinking. It’s none of your business anymore who sends me flowers.

  Matt sneered. “Because that’s what cads do to make up for their bad behavior.”

  Olivia arranged the flowers in the slim Wedgewood cut glass vase that had belonged to her grandmother. She pointed it at him. “Oh, is that what these are all about?”

  Matt
held up his hands in a truce. “Okay. I deserved that. But I read about him trash talking about you on the news. How dare he? Where did that come from?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t want to know. My instinct was to toss his flowers, but Tuesday talked me out of wasting perfectly good roses. It’s not their fault a jerk picked them out. They were on the porch when we got home. I suppose Johnson told you about our adventure this afternoon.”

  Matt nodded.

  “Then why are you here with roses? Aren’t you afraid to be seen with me these days?”

  Olivia noted the dark circles under his eyes, which she expected would sag over the years like his grandfather’s. On his dresser he had a photo of a very English-looking gentleman with a stern countenance and bags under his eyes. He had his arm around the waist of his beautiful Indian wife. Matt had told her his grandparents were very close, yet his grandfather did not crack a smile in the picture. While Matt had his father’s good looks, Matt’s eyes always showed tension and fatigue like his English ancestor’s.

  “Olivia, this sounds like such a cliché, but it’s true. I don’t know what kind of static was going through my head that made me listen to my lawyer, but I was wrong. I was a jerk, actually. And I did argue against it when he said we should not have any contact. But he finally convinced me by saying it was a temporary measure that would save my career and also be good for you.”

  Olivia recalled Marguerite Fredericks telling her the same thing, but she was not ready to let him off the hook.

  She set Matt’s roses on the table near Brooks’s bouquet, which Olivia was happy to note were right under his nose, twisting the knife a bit.

  “So why have you changed your mind about me,” she asked. “Have you figured out how and why Jocelyn died and know I had nothing to do with it?” She remained standing by the island, a safe distance from him.

  “I’ve always known you had nothing to do with her death. How could I think otherwise? If it hadn’t been for my job I would have been right by your side. I just knew the conflict of interest thing would be terrible for you. I’m not sure my lawyer didn’t give me good advice. But I hate myself for dropping that bomb on you without warning, without calling you and working out a plan. I should have made sure you understood what was behind the radio silence. I didn’t handle this well. I didn’t think it through to see the damage it would do to us.”