Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery) (15 page)

When every square inch of the floor had been zapped clean, she snapped on rubber gloves and began scrubbing my bathroom till it twinkled. I don’t know how she did it, but she even got rid of those ghastly lime deposits on my shower door.

Having worked her magic in the bathroom, she headed for the kitchen.

“
Dios mio
,” she said, running her finger along the range. “This is the first time I’ve ever had to dust a stove.”

“I don’t use it very much,” I confessed, shamefaced. “Don’t even bother cleaning the oven. It hasn’t been on in years. I just use it to dry my undies in emergencies.”

I hung around the kitchen, hoping to start a conversation, but Rosita studiously ignored me as she scoured down the counters.

When at last she was through, my apartment sparkled like a diamond.

I only wished I could afford this on a regular basis. Heck, I wished I could afford it just this once.

I wrote her a check for fifty dollars, wincing with every decimal.

Snapping off her rubber gloves, she pocketed my check and called out, “Come on, Jennifer. We’ve got to go.”

Jennifer, who’d finished her homework and was now sitting on the couch petting Prozac, looked up wistfully.

“Mom, I want a cat.”

Prozac took time out from purring to shoot me a demanding glare.

And I want a kid. Somebody to pet me when you’re busy with your silly writing assignments.

“Cats are not all they’re cracked up to be,” I said, lobbing Prozac a snippy look of my own.

Then with a bright smile, I turned to Rosita. “You must be hungry after all that work. I insist that you and Jennifer stay for a snack.”

“No, no,” Rosita said. “We’ve got to get going.”

“Wait.” I dashed into the kitchen and seconds later came out holding my bait. “I’ve got Double Stuf Oreos.”

“Please, Mom,” Jennifer pleaded.

“Well, okay,” Rosita said. “It’s really very kind of you, Ms. Austen.”

Wasting no time, I brought some cookies on a plate to Jennifer.

“Why don’t you eat them in the bedroom with Prozac and watch TV?” I said, gunning for some alone time with Rosita.

“Can I, Mom?” Jennifer asked.

“Okay, sure. But don’t get any crumbs on the bedspread,” she called out as Jennifer scampered off.

I put some more cookies on a plate for Rosita and me in the dining room. A far cry from my usual straight-from-the-bag approach. I even boiled water for tea in my freshly polished teakettle.

“Jennifer’s such an adorable kid,” I said.

And I meant it.

“She’s smart, too.” Rosita nodded with pride. “She’s going to go to college. Someday she’s going to be somebody. No cleaning houses for her.”

At that moment, hearing all the love and pride in her voice, I fervently hoped Rosita wasn’t the killer. She seemed way too nice for homicide.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t rule her out. Not without questioning her.

“So,” I said casually, “have you lined up a new job to fill Cryptessa’s days?”

“Oh, yes,” Rosita nodded. “A very sweet lady in Westwood.”

“What a nice change, huh?”

“I’ll say. Why I stayed with Ms. Eleanor as long as I did, I’ll never know. I suppose I was afraid I wouldn’t find anything else. If I’d known how easy it was going to be, I would have left her a long time ago.”

“I bet she was impossible to work for.”

“You have no idea.”

“I heard she accused you of taking some money from her dresser.”

“Has Mrs. Hurlbutt been talking again?” she said with an angry snap of her Oreo. “What a gossip.”

Amen to that.

“Ms. Eleanor was always accusing me of stealing from her. Just like she accused the gardener of dumping motor oil in her backyard and accused the IRS of spying on her. The woman was loco! And that ten dollars she left out on her dresser? I never touched it. She probably took it herself and forgot all about it.”

“Weren’t you afraid when she threatened to report you to the police?”

“No,” she said with a defiant tilt of her chin, “I wasn’t afraid. I knew she’d never go through with it. I told her if she tried it, she’d be sorry. She’d never get another cleaning lady to put up with her nonsense.”

So that’s what Rosita meant when she warned Cryptessa she’d be sorry if she went to the police. Maybe it wasn’t a death threat but merely a warning that Cryptessa would never find anyone to replace her.

I wanted to believe Rosita was innocent.

But who knew? Maybe behind that defiant chin, she’d been scared silly that Cryptessa would report her to the authorities and shatter her world to pieces.

What’s more, I couldn’t help noticing that all the while she’d been talking, Rosita had been scratching her arm. Just like I’d been scratching my arm for the past several days. Now I saw she had an ugly rash just below her elbow. Just like mine.

She saw me staring at it.

“I just tried a new brand of rubber gloves,” she said with a nervous smile. “Must be allergic to something in them.”

Maybe.

Or maybe, just maybe, she got the rash from wearing an itchy ape suit.

Chapter 16

T
he next day dawned bright and, inside my apartment, squeaky clean. Rosita may or may not have been a killer, but she was one heck of a house cleaner. In the early morning sun, my apartment positively sparkled.

I walked around, touching dust-free surfaces, plumping already-plump pillows, and gazing at my reflection in my high-gloss tea kettle.

I should have been a nervous wreck, of course. Lest you forgot, tonight was the night Peter was showing up for dinner. But somehow my freshly cleaned apartment gave me confidence. Surely I could whip up a simple dinner for two, I thought as I nuked my morning bagel and sloshed some Hearty Halibut Innards into a bowl for Prozac.

After breakfast (during which I was careful not to spill even the weensiest crumb on my gleaming hardwood floors), I wrote out my grocery list, then got dressed and headed over to the supermarket.

“Hi, doll!” A greasy biker dude, parked atop a monster cycle, gave me a broad wink as I got out of my car in the parking lot. “Nice wheels.”

Following his gaze, I realized I still had that silly plastic skeleton skull clamped to my grill. I made a mental note to get rid of it ASAP. If there was one thing my eyesore of a Corolla could not afford, it was another eyesore.

“Wanna go for a spin?” Mr. Greasy asked, patting his cycle.

Not without a hazmat suit.

“Maybe some other time,” I said, skittering away.

Inside the market, I strolled the aisles with a spring in my step, wheeling my cart past other efficient early morning shoppers, Andy Williams crooning “Moon River” in the background.

With my shopping list as my guide, I picked up the ingredients for my meat loaf and salad, as well as a fabulous loaf of crusty French bread and some yummy sesame crackers for my cheese-and-crackers hors d’oeuvres.

It was when I strolled over to the cheese display that I saw the answer to my culinary prayers: a great big beautiful cheese ball, studded with pecans. I’d been meaning to pick up a chunk of Havarti, but the minute I laid my eyes on that cheese ball, all thoughts of Havarti flew out the window. How festive a cheese ball would be instead, surrounded by a fan of crackers.

Yes, nothing says fine dining like a pecan-studded hunk of cheese. It would take my modest little meat loaf dinner and turn it into a meal to remember!

True, it was a tad pricey, but what the heck. I wanted to make a good impression on Peter. I tossed it in my cart and headed for the checkout counter, imagining many such shopping trips in the future, me cooking intimate cheese ball dinners for two, Peter aglow with admiration.

After paying for my groceries, I made a pit stop at the nearest Mrs. Fields for some of my “homemade” brownies, then headed back home.

As much as I would’ve liked to, I couldn’t spend all day fantasizing about future dinners with Peter. I still had to finish that Danny Dustmite campaign. So once I put my groceries away, I hunkered down at my computer to hammer out some commercials. When Danny had finally bitten the dust, I sent the spots off to Marvin.

By now it was 3:00 p.m. and I still had scads of time left before Peter showed up at seven.

I spent a good hour of it online, learning how to fold a napkin into a swan.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. But after about fourteen tries, I’m proud to say I finally managed to create two lovely swan napkins.

I then proceeded to clear all my office paraphernalia from my dining room and set the table, using my good “Water-fjord” dishes (a Home Shopping Club gift from my mother, complete service for four, only $59.99). The swan napkins made quite an elegant touch, I thought as I placed them carefully on the Waterfjords.

Then, the moment of truth. I headed into the kitchen to start cooking.

As I began assembling the ingredients for my Goof-Proof Meatloaf, Prozac wandered in from the living room. She saw me standing at the counter in cooking mode and blinked in amazement.

Just FYI. That boxy thing with the knobs is called an “oven.”

I’m happy to report that I managed to assemble the meat loaf without mishap. My Goof-Proof recipe had not let me down. It was every bit as easy as it had claimed to be. When it was all neatly patted down into my brand new meatloaf pan, I put it in the oven. Then I quickly assembled the salad. I’d cheated and bought prewashed lettuce, which I just dumped in a bowl, along with some cherry tomatoes and store-bought croutons. Later I’d toss it with some creamy Caesar dressing. After cutting my French baguette in half lengthwise, I slathered on some butter I’d softened in the microwave. Then I wrapped the whole thing in tin foil and put it aside, to be slipped into the oven about ten minutes before serving. Finally, I got the cheese ball out from the fridge and left it out on the counter so it could warm to room temperature.

Things were going so well, I felt like I was ready for my own show on the Food Network.

Really, I had to try this cooking thing more often, I thought as I trotted off to reward myself with a nice relaxing soak in the tub.

Ten minutes later, I was up to my neck in strawberry-scented bubbles, lost in a most delicious daydream of my life as Mrs. Peter Connor, with me whipping up gourmet meals in our chef-quality kitchen, and Peter in the den, editing my Great American Novel.

I spent a good half hour soaking in fantasyland. Finally, when all my strawberry-scented bubbles had popped and I had won the Pulitzer Prize, I dredged myself out of the tub and slipped into my robe.

Before I got dressed, I decided to zip into the kitchen to check on my meat loaf.

But the minute I set foot in the living room, I froze in my tracks. There, all over my freshly vacuumed floors, was a trail of sticky white goo. On closer inspection, I saw it was cheese! Accompanied by shards of pecans.

Oh, hell. I’d left the cheese ball out on the kitchen counter, never dreaming Prozac would be interested in it. After all, Prozac doesn’t care for cheese. Or nuts.

But, alas, I had forgotten that she loves
balls
.

At which point she came barreling out from behind the curtains, nudging what was left of the cheese ball. With one final swat of her paw, she sent it skidding across the room, where it landed at my feet.

Touchdown!

Oh, for heaven’s sake! I grabbed the ball, now deeply cratered with Prozac’s paw prints, missing most of its nuts, and coated with the few puffs of dust that had managed to escape Rosita’s vacuuming.

Racing into the kitchen, I frantically scraped away the craters and dust till it was clean again, then reshaped it into a ball. By now it was the size of a Ping-Pong ball, but it was all I had and I was sticking with it.

Bereft of pecans, I rolled it in some smashed-up crackers and—voilà—the world’s first Mini-Cracker Ball.

Taking no chances, I stowed it in the fridge, away from Prozac’s calamitous clutches.

Then, as Prozac daintily licked her paws clean, I scurried around on my hands and knees, mopping up nuts and cheese from my floor.

All as I can say is thank heavens I have hardwood.

I was standing there, surveying the room, looking for any cheese blobs I might have missed, when I glanced over at my dining table and groaned to see that my beautiful swan napkins had been mauled to within an inch of their lives, their mangled corpses lying limply on my Waterfjords.

“Prozac!” I screeched. “Look what you’ve done!”

She gazed up at me, quite proud of herself.

I know. Aren’t they great?

I tried to restore them to their former swanlike glory, but it was hopeless. Unfortunately they were the last of my cloth napkins, so I took two bargain paper napkins and tossed them on the table, folded in half, cafeteria style.

So much for setting a beautiful table.

By now I had less than ten minutes to get dressed before Peter showed up. I dashed into my bedroom, tossing on my elastic-waist skinny jeans, a black silk blouse, and fabulous tan suede boots I got half off at Nordstrom’s annual shoe sale. With no time to blow out my mop of curls to silken perfection, I corralled them into a messy ponytail.

Makeup? A luxury I could only dream of.

Because at that minute, there was a knock on door. Oh, hell. Peter was here. Three minutes early!

And I was just about to answer it when I suddenly realized I didn’t smell anything cooking. Shouldn’t my apartment be filled with the yummy aroma of meat loaf?

Quickly, I dashed into the kitchen and opened the oven door. To my horror, I saw that the meatloaf was still ice cold, totally uncooked.

Oh, hell. Cancel that gig on the Food Network. I’d forgotten to turn on the oven!

No need to panic. I’d just bump up the temperature so it would cook faster. It would give Peter and me more time to linger over our wine and cracker ball.

Taking a deep breath and forcing myself to be calm, I made my way to the front door and opened it.

Peter was standing there, looking très adorable in khakis and a baby blue oxford shirt.