Armoires and Arsenic by Cassie Page Read Free Book Online Page B

quickly Mrs. Harmon put two and two together and got murder. No slouch she. But why wasn’t she shocked or upset? This seemed to merely be an inconvenience for her. An occasion for Olivia to bother her by knocking on her door.
    Olivia heard the phone ring in her office upstairs. “Mrs. Harmon, I’ll get to the point. Did you by any chance hear anything coming from the showroom or my office or even my loft last night or this morning?”
    “No, I can’t say that I did. You know my apartment is soundproofed. I can only hear noise coming from upstairs if I am out in the hall, as you are now.”
    “Yes, that’s what I thought. Well, I won’t bother you any more. Thank you, but if you think of something, would you let me know?” Olivia gave a little laugh. “My don’t I sound like a TV crime show?”
    Mrs. Harmon looked puzzled and started to close her door. Olivia said, “Oh, by the way, how was your dinner with your nephew?”
    She knew it was a mean shot. She had been downstairs working in her office and showroom last night and would have heard the nephew’s car drive up and the brass knocker on Mrs. Nichol’s front door announce his arrival.
    Mrs. Harmon gave her a cool smile. “We had a lovely time, thank you for asking.”
    Olivia excused herself and ran back upstairs, but the caller had hung up. She was amused by Mrs. Harmon’s answer. Of course she would hide the fact that she had been here by herself last night after lying about meeting her nephew. People, Olivia thought wryly. Would she ever figure them out?
     
    She checked her messages and saw that Detective Richards had called. “Miss Granville,” he said curtly on the voicemail, “would you please bring with you a pair of shoes when you come in this afternoon? We are interested in a specific brand, Jimmy Choo. They style number is,” and Olivia’s mouth dropped when he described the treat she bought for herself upon arriving from LA and suffering her first pangs of homesickness, her last dose of retail therapy. Sling back pumps in a red and yellow striped silk with a two-inch platform. He left no explanation. How he could sound so certain that she owned a pair? Was he stalking her closet?
    Olivia stared at the cradle as if it might give a reason for the odd request, or an explanation for Richards’ continuing rudeness. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

Chapter Eight: Gimme Jimmy Choos
    Olivia edged her pickup into one of the three parking spaces in front of the Darling Valley Police Department, located at the unfashionable end of Darling Boulevard, a short strip mall with a dry cleaner, pharmacy and ATM for the bank she used. A moment later, Cody steered a Harley Davidson into the space next to her. She greeted Cody and cocked an eye the machine.
    “My brother’s,” he explained. “But only for the afternoon.” He pointed to the Jimmy Choo box under her arm. “What’s with the dogs?”
    Olivia held the shoes up like a trophy and said, “Got me.” She explained that Richards had requested them.
    Cody winked at her and said, “Bet he learned the Cinderella move at Scotland Yard. If you don’t fess up,” now he slipped into Al Pacino in Sea of Love, “you’re never gonna see these babies again.”
    Olivia grinned, gave him a two-fingered upside down V salute with a hip-hop dip, then nodded toward the small parking lot. “They don’t do a lot of business, do they? I didn’t realize I had something in common with DVPD.”
    Inside, a chunky female officer in a midnight blue police uniform with a visible fresh coffee stain down her front sat at a desk. On it, an old console computer, a desk phone with a few buttons along the bottom, vintage 1970, and a Coffee and Chatter cup smudged with lipstick were lined up to form a barrier between her and the criminal element of Darling Valley that might burst in through the front door.
    Like most businesses in DV, the police did their sleuthing in a renovated and repurposed old home, this one a