Free Armoires and Arsenic by Cassie Page

to answer Marcia’s question, that nobody realized that she, Olivia, was due an apology. How had the restoration business allowed this to happen, and why had they involved her?
    She knew why Marcia was ridiculing her. Buying luxury food while she was suspected of murdering her employer’s husband? Should she apologize to Marcia? She didn’t really know the woman. She had come in once when Olivia first opened her shop to check out the new girl in town. Olivia had neutral feelings about her, other than she had abysmal taste in clothes. Who under seventy wore polyester pants with an elastic waistband these days? Apparently 40-somethings in Darling. Personal assistants in LA were chosen because their drab looks made their employers look good. But if they dressed the way Marcia did, they’d get fired. There were standards, after all.
    Marcia worked for Mrs. Blackman, though the widow was not connected to the shop. Cody had explained that the business belonged to her husband and Sabrina Chance. Could Marcia be mixed up in this, maybe have some grudge against her employer’s husband? She made a note to ask Cody about her. If she ever got to see him again. Olivia stared around the store, feeling as though she were being stalked.  The killer could be anywhere.  Was he also shopping for upscale foodstuffs?
    Marcia took the lead in breaking the awkward silence. “I ran into Mrs. Harmon at dinner last night and we chatted a bit. Little did we know what would turn up on her doorstep in just a few hours.”
    Olivia spluttered. “At dinner? Oh, so she did go out with her nephew, after all. Usually I can hear her leaving and entering her apartment. Not that I snoop, it’s just we live in such close proximity. I thought she had stayed home.”
    Olivia felt relieved. An unexpected visit from a relative was a perfectly good excuse for cancelling a dinner date. Far better than being snubbed, as she had assumed.
    Marcia pushed her glasses up on her nose and said, “Nephew? How could Mrs. Harmon have a nephew? She has no siblings.”
    Olivia was not only flustered, she was embarrassed. She hated to look stupid and this mix-up made her look decidedly stupid. Mrs. Harmon was her tenant after all. How could she not know some basic details about her life? To close the awkward silence, Olivia said, “I must have misunderstood.”
    Marcia said, “Hmmm,” in a highly suspicious tone.
    But Olivia had not misunderstood. There was nothing wrong with her hearing or her memory. Mrs. Harmon had knocked on the back door yesterday afternoon where Olivia was toiling in her office and said, “I’m so sorry. My nephew is in town from Boston and has invited me for dinner.”
    What could be clearer than that? And it couldn’t be that Mrs. Harmon was dotty. Yes, she was seventy-four, which Olivia learned from the previous owner of the house by way of explaining why they insisted her tenancy not be changed. “At her age, where would she go? She’s a dear to us and we can’t have her uprooted.”
    But Mrs. Harmon was an example of seventy being the new twenty-five. She never stumbled over her words or repeated herself and on sunny days she did yoga in the back garden with an agility that made Olivia jealous. And elastic waistbands? Never. One reason Olivia was eager to get to know her was to perhaps get a look into her closet, which had to rival her own.
    No, Mrs. Harmon had been clear about why she was asking Olivia for a rain check.
    Marcia said, “I’ll be curious, of course, to find out who did this. Mrs. Blackman is beyond consoling. Her physician has her medicated.”
    Yes, she knew that, though she couldn’t say. Instead she said, “Well, of course, she was the first person I thought of when I discovered who it was. Please give her my condolences, if that’s all right. I mean she may not want to be reminded of me, and the place . . . er the circumstances.” This conversation was getting very hard to navigate.
    Marcia said, “I’ll tell