Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery) (12 page)

“Of course,” I murmured.

I could just see Emmeline standing at her front window catching the action with a pair of binoculars.

“I honestly thought Helen was going to kill Cryptessa right then and there.
I’ll get you for this
, she told her, shaking her fist.
Just wait. One day you’ll pay for what you did!
”

Well, how do you like that? If one were inclined (and I sure was), one could interpret that as a death threat.

“But Cryptessa just snickered and slammed the door in her face. If only she’d apologized, she might still be alive today.” A pregnant pause to scratch Lana behind her ears. “Although confidentially,” she added, “I can’t help thinking that life will be so much more pleasant without her. You can’t imagine how miserable it’s been having Cryptessa as a neighbor—stealing my chocolates, throwing lemons at Lana. And that godawful typing of hers, at all hours of the day and night. Working on that silly novel of hers.

“Yes,” she sighed, “it’s a tragedy she’s gone, but I can’t say I’ll miss her.”

By now Lana had gotten her fill of love scratches and had ambled under the coffee table where she was hard at work gnawing on a chew toy.

“It must have been terrible for you, though,” I said, coaxing her back to the murder, “witnessing Cryptessa’s death.”

“Oh, yes,” she assured me, biting down on a sugar cookie with gusto. “Just terrible.”

“Did the killer say anything at all before killing her?”

“No, not a thing. Just took aim and stabbed her in the chest.”

“So you couldn’t even hear if it was a man or a woman?”

“No, like I told the police, all I know is, it was someone in an ape suit.”

So much for leads.

“Well, thanks for the cookies,” I said, getting up to go. “They were delicious.”

At which point, Lana started yipping angrily at the sofa.

“Naughty Lana,” Emmeline said, springing up from her chair. “You pushed your chew toy under the sofa again, didn’t you? Now Mommy has to get it out.”

“I’ll get it,” I offered.

The last thing Emmeline needed was to be crawling down on her knees. Not at her age.

I kneeled down in front of the sofa to reach in and get the toy—hoping it wasn’t drenched in dog spit—but it was just out of my grasp.

“Not a problem,” Emmeline said. “This happens all the time.”

And then, with the strength of a sumo wrestler, that little slip of a woman lifted one end of the very heavy sofa so I could grab the toy.

Good heavens. Emmeline Owens was a lot stronger than she looked. Strong enough, certainly, to have rammed that stake in Cryptessa’s heart. But, no. Someone who baked such delicious sugar cookies couldn’t possibly be capable of murder.

Could she?

“Jaine, honey. I’ve got the most exciting news ever!”

I was sitting across from Kandi in the living room of her Westwood condo.

Kandi lives in one of the many New York-style high rises that line Wilshire Boulevard, like Park Avenue with palm trees. On a clear day, you can see the Pacific from her living-room window.

She calls it the condo that
Beanie & The Cockroach
built.

I’d received a call from her late that afternoon summoning me to her place for a pizza dinner, where she promised she’d share a late-breaking news bulletin. She’d refused to breathe a word of her good news, however, until I was settled on her plush chenille sofa, a glass of cabernet in hand, a box of pizza between us.

Her half of the pizza, ordered from one of those upscale Italian restaurants Kandi’s so fond of, was a ghastly combo of arugula and sun-dried tomatoes. Mine, thank heavens, was a gooey mozzarella and barbeque chicken, studded with sweet red onion slices.

She knew me well.

“I’m so excited,” she said, practically bouncing off the ceiling, “I can hardly eat.”

A state of mind I’ve yet to experience.

“I’ve waited long enough,” I said, popping a piece of onion in my mouth. “Are you going to tell me your news before or after I reach menopause?”

“Madame Vruska was right!” She grinned in triumph.

“Madame Vruska?”

“The fortune-teller.”

Ah, yes. The seeress right next to Kandi’s nail salon.

“Remember how she predicted I’d meet my true love in the arts?”

“Vaguely,” I said, tearing myself away from a particularly luscious glob of mozzarella.

“Well,” she beamed, “her prediction came true! I met him!”

Before you go shopping for a wedding present, I should tell you that Kandi, like Lance, meets Mr. Right with the frequency of a public radio pledge drive.

“How nice.” I smiled wanly. “What’s he like?”

“His name is Steve and he’s a podiatrist at the Santa Monica Foot and Ankle Institute.”

“Wait a minute. How is a podiatrist an artist?”

“Madame Vruska didn’t actually say he’d be an artist. All she said was that I’d meet him
in the arts
. And I did. I met him in the parking lot of the county art museum. Even though, technically, Steve wasn’t going to the museum. He was just parking his car there while he grabbed a burger at the restaurant across the street. But the thing is, we did meet in the arts. Right?”

“Right.”

I was not about to be the one to bust her bubble. Life would take care of that soon enough.

“I’m telling you, Madame Vruska is sheer genius. Which is why I’ve set up an appointment for you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You need some guidance to get your life on track. And don’t worry. It’s my treat.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, but I don’t want guidance from someone who sees the future in a cup of Lipton’s.”

“Madame Vruska doesn’t read tea leaves,” she said, sniffing in disdain. “She reads coffee grounds.”

“Oh. Coffee grounds. That makes all the difference.”

She failed to detect my irony.

“Really, Kandi, it’s very sweet of you, but I don’t want to—”

“Enough!” She held up a hand. “You’re going. I insist! Say yes,” she commanded, grabbing the pizza box, “or you don’t get any more pizza.”

“I’m not going to see Madame Vruska, and if you think you can bribe me with a piece of pizza, you’re sadly mistaken.”

And if you believe I really said that, go straight to the back of the class and put on your dunce cap.

“Okay, okay, I’ll go,” were the words you should’ve guessed I uttered.

Kandi smiled, satisfied, and released the pizza from captivity.

“Now enough about me,” she said. “How did everything work out at Peter’s Halloween party? Did you make a big impression in your Tummy Tamer?”

“Oh, I made a big impression, all right. Not on Peter, but on the Beverly Hills Police Department.”

“What on earth happened?”

And I told her all about it. How Lance double-crossed me and rented me an ape suit instead of my flapper outfit and how I got trapped in the Tummy Tamer and left my ape suit on the bed and how the killer wore it to stab Cryptessa and how the cops thought I did it because Cryptessa was suing me in small claims court for the death of her parakeet.

When I was finished, she shook her head, aghast.

“You cut yourself out of the Tummy Tamer? Why on earth would you do that? It takes inches off your hips and thighs!”

“Forget the damn Tummy Tamer, Kandi. The cops think I killed Cryptessa.”

“That’s absurd,” she said, dismissing the charge with a wave of her as-yet-uneaten arugula and sun-dried tomato pizza. “And we can prove you didn’t do it.”

“We can?”

“Absolutely!”

“How?” I asked, wondering if she’d had a Sherlock Holmesian burst of insight into the case.

“Madame Vruska, of course. With her amazing psychic gifts, she’ll figure out who the killer is.”

And to show you how desperate I was, for a minute I allowed myself to hope that Kandi was right.

Could Kandi’s fortune teller possibly lead me to the killer?

If not, at least she could grind me a good cup of coffee.

Chapter 12

B
right and early the next morning, while I was still in my robe and jammies, the police showed up with a search warrant.

Soon a team of Beverly Hills’s finest were rifling through my apartment doing their best to re-enact a small tornado. I figured they were looking for the ape suit, which—I gleaned from bits and pieces of scattered cop chat—seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Needless to say, they didn’t find the ape suit in my apartment, but they were treated to the unforgettable sight of my
Bottoms Up!
undies, which Prozac was thoughtful enough to retrieve from my hamper and drop at their feet.

All in all, a most depressing experience.

And things were about to get worse.

Because no sooner had the cops left than the phone rang.

“Ms. Austen?” A raspy, cigarette-clogged voice came on the line. “This is Estelle Santos calling.”

“Who?”

“Estelle, from Estelle’s Costume Shop. According to my records, you were supposed to return your ape suit yesterday. Any chance you can bring it back this afternoon?”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You see, it’s . . . um . . . missing.”

“Whatever. Accidents happen. Not a problem, hon.”

Gee, she was being awfully sweet about this.

“I’ll just charge your credit card two hundred and sixty-five dollars for a replacement ape suit.”

“Two hundred and sixty-five dollars?”

“It says right on your credit card receipt: If you lose it, you replace it.”

Frantically I rummaged through my purse till I found the credit slip from Estelle’s Costume Shop. There it was in tiny letters at the bottom of the receipt:
Any lost costumes to be replaced at customer’s expense.

“Well, enjoy the rest of your day!” And with a raspy chortle, Estelle hung up.

Oh, dear. The last thing my poor anemic credit card needed was another two hundred and sixty-five dollars on its back.

But I did not have time to sit around and stew about mounting credit card debt, because just then the phone rang with yet another piece of poop for my fan.

This time it was Marvin Cooper.

“Hey, Jaine. How’re the Larry Lumbar spots coming?”

I hadn’t touched them in days.

“I’m almost done,” I fibbed.

“Good. Then fax ’em to me by the end of the day, okay?”

“Will do.”

I hung up with a groan. I really had to knuckle down and get to work. And I would. Just as soon as I fortified myself with a nutritious breakfast of Double Stuf Oreos.

I raced to my cupboard in the vain hopes that I’d find a package of the little darlings. But of course I didn’t.

Here at Casa Austen, cookies tend to have a notoriously short life span.

For a brief instant I considered chowing down on leftover Halloween candy. But I could not allow myself to stoop that low. Mainly because, several days ago, I’d tossed said candy in the garbage, determined to be as sylphlike as possible for my grand entrance at Peter’s party.

My cupboards, alas, were depressingly chocolate-free.

And so fifteen minutes later, I was at my local supermarket’s cookie aisle, tossing the coveted Double Stuf Oreos into my basket. While I was there, I decided to pick up some lettuce, apples, and Chunky Monkey.

The lettuce and apples were only for show, of course, to convince the checker I was a sensible eater and not the kind of person who came charging into the market on emergency Double Stuf Oreo runs.

I was heading over to the produce section to pick up my decoy apples when I heard:

“Yoo hoo, Jaine!”

Looking up, I saw Lila Wood chugging my way, her stocky bod jammed into a polyester pantsuit, sensible low heeled pumps clacking on the linoleum.

Her cart, I saw, was stocked with low-fat cottage cheese and Healthy Choice dinners. Tucked away in a corner was what she’d really come for: a quart of fudge ripple ice cream.

“So glad to see you’re out of jail!” she trilled.

Damn that Mrs. Hurlbutt and her big mouth.

“Did they actually book you and take your mug shot?” Lila asked breathlessly. “You don’t have a criminal record, do you?”

“No, Lila. I was never arrested. And I haven’t been charged with a thing.”

“How wonderful!” she beamed. “So you can still vote?”

“Of course I can still vote.”

“Great. Then I’ll count on your support in the neighborhood council election. Remember: A Vote for Wood is a Vote for Good!”

With that she whipped out a flyer from her purse and shoved it in my hand.

“Here’s some vital information about the unscrupulous developer who wants to build that dreadful mini-mall at the end of the street. Rumor has it he’s going to rent out space to a tattoo parlor!”

I glanced down at the flyer and saw a grainy photo of a round-faced bald guy, under the headline: R
ALPH
M
ANCUSO,
B
UILDER
W
ITHOUT
A C
ONSCIENCE
!

“Here’s some pictures of Mancuso’s other properties,” Lila said, shoving another piece of paper in my hand. “You can see for yourself what terrible buildings he puts up. Never properly maintained, always a blight on the neighborhood! We have to stop him before he ruins our block!”

“Of course,” I said, tsking as if I cared.

As eager as I was to dig into my Oreos, I decided to take advantage of my meeting with Lila to question her about the murder.

“Speaking of bad things happening in the neighborhood,” I said when her monologue about the Evils of Ralph Mancuso finally ran out of steam, “what a tragedy about poor Cryptessa, huh?”

She shot me a skeptical look. “I wouldn’t go that far, dear. Unfortunate, maybe. Tragic, not so much. After all, the woman’s house was a trip to trashy town. All it needed was a car parked on the front lawn.”

“Still,” I persisted, “her death was quite a shock.”

“Oh, yes. I just hope our property values don’t go down, what with a murder on the block.”

Quite the sensitive soul, wasn’t she?

“Did you happen to notice anyone leaving Peter’s party around the time of the murder?” I asked, wrenching the conversation away from property values.