Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery) (18 page)

Having put somewhat of a dent in my hunger, I was heading for the tub to soak my aching muscles when the phone rang.

Wearily I picked up, and Kandi’s voice came on the line.

“You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“Forgotten what?”

“I knew it. You did forget. Your appointment with Madame Vruska. It’s this afternoon at four o’clock.”

Damn. It was already after three.

“Oh, gee,” I moaned. “Do I have to go?”

“Yes, you have to go. Madame Vruska’s amazing psychic skills will undoubtedly change your life. And besides, I already paid for you in advance.”

And so instead of soaking in the tub, up to my neck in strawberry-scented bubbles, I spent the next forty minutes grinding my teeth in snarled traffic as I inched out to Madame Vruska’s salon in Culver City.

The “salon” turned out to be a no-frills storefront on Venice Boulevard. A giant hand in the window advertised R
ARE
I
NSIGHTS AT
“M
EDIUM
” P
RICES
.

I walked into a small anteroom, separated from the main space by a beaded curtain. A cute, freckle-faced blonde in cutoffs, Ugg boots, and an I ♥
THE
B
EACH
sweatshirt was sitting in one of the waiting chairs, reading a copy of
Surfing Today.

How very annoying. I couldn’t believe I’d slogged through all that traffic to be on time for my appointment when Madame V already had someone else waiting to see her.

The blonde, whose thick mane of hair was swept up in a ponytail, looked up at me through a fringe of sun-bleached bangs.

“You Jaine Austen?” she asked, putting her magazine aside.

“Yes.”

With that, she got up and held open the beaded curtains.

“Right this way.”

“Don’t tell me you’re Madame Vruska?”

“That’s me!” she grinned. “It’s not my real name, of course. I just think it sounds so much more exotic than Gidget Donovan, don’t you?”

Gidget?? Leave it to Kandi to find the world’s only Surfer Psychic.

“Have a seat,” Gidget said, gesturing to a round table in the center of the room.

I was expecting the place to be dark and dim with dusty thrift shop furniture, but on the contrary, it was clean and modern—with tasteful toile fabric covering the table, pretty floral prints on the wall, and lemon-verbena scented candles scattered throughout the room. All very Gidget Goes to Pottery Barn.

“Cappuccino?” she asked, pointing to an espresso maker in the corner.

“No, thanks, I’m fine.”

“Well, then, let’s get down to business,” she said, sitting across from me.

Between us on the table was a round glass thingie, which I could only assume was a crystal ball.

Gidget ignored the ball, however, and held out her hands.

“Let’s see that palm of yours.”

I gave her my palm, wishing that I’d had time to at least take a shower. My fingernails were embarrassingly grubby.

“Excuse my nails. I was just helping somebody clean out his house. But I guess you already knew that. Haha!”

She wasn’t laughing.

“If you don’t take this seriously,” she said with a bit of a pout, “it’s not going to work.”

I tried my best to plaster a solemn look on my face.

Somewhat mollified, she stared down into my palm.

“I can see you’ve been eating peanut butter.”

“You can?”

“Yes, you’ve got a blob of the stuff on the cuff of your sweatshirt.”

And indeed, I looked down and saw a smear of peanut butter on my cuff.

I can’t take me anywhere.

“Now for my actual reading,” she said, examining the wrinkles in my palm, her brow furrowed in concentration. “I see you are under a cloud of suspicion. You are a suspect in a murder case.”

“Did Kandi tell you that?”

“She may have mentioned something along those lines,” Gidget conceded, “but I can also see it in your palm. Along with some melted chocolate.”

Okay, so I ate some Hershey’s Kisses with my peanut butter.

“Hold on!” She dropped my palm and clutched the crystal ball, gazing into its depths. “Someone is coming through to me. Yes, yes!” she said, squinting through her bangs. “I see the woman who died.”

“Cryptessa?”

“She dresses badly. Sort of like you.”

Well! Of all the nerve.

“She’s wearing a sweat suit. It’s got a stain on it. Not peanut butter. Something red. Maybe barbeque sauce. Or ketchup.”

Omigosh. I never told Kandi about Cryptessa’s stained sweat suit. And it wasn’t in the papers. Maybe Gidget really did have psychic powers.

“Can you tell me who killed Cryptessa?” I asked eagerly.

“No, but maybe Cryptessa can.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s try contacting her.”

I expected her to dim the lights and hold hands, séance-style, or maybe shout into the crystal ball. But she did nothing of the sort. Instead she took out what looked like a cell phone from her pocket.

“What’s that?”

“A Soul Phone. Picked it up at a paranormal convention I went to in Aspen a couple of weeks ago. It’s a conduit to the Other Side. It lets you text the dead.”

“Text the dead?” I blinked in disbelief. She had to be kidding. My faith in her shot back down to zero.

“Do you know the deceased’s birth date?”

“No.”

“How about her address?”

Oozing skepticism, I gave her Cryptessa’s address, which she typed on her silly Soul Phone.

Then she put the contraption down on the table and held her hand over it, her eyes squeezed shut.

“I’ve got a connection!”

I refrained from asking if there were roaming charges in hell.

“Is this Cryptessa?” she called out.

After a beat of silence, her eyes sprang open. Underneath her freckles, her face was flushed with excitement.

“Yes! She’s saying yes!” Then, calling out into the ether, “What have you got to say to Jaine Austen?”

With her hands on the phone and her eyes shut, she sat waiting for an answer from the Other Side. I was about to get up and put an end to this nonsense when Gidget announced:

“She forgives you for what you did to Van somebody. Van Johnson? Van Halen? Vivian Vance?”

A chill ran down my spine. She was talking about Van Helsing. And I’d never mentioned the parakeet’s name to Kandi.

“What else does she say?” I asked, now gripping the table with white knuckles.

“She wants you to take care of someone. Berna? Bertha?”

“Bela??”

“That’s it! Bela. Take care of Bela.”

I couldn’t help myself. I was impressed.

“This is important, Gidget. Ask her who killed her.”

Omigosh. Any minute now, Kandi’s Surfer Psychic would be solving the case!

“Who killed you, Cryptessa? Who killed you?”

We both sat there, waiting with bated breath. But then, shoulders slumped, Gidget shook her ponytail in defeat.

“Damn it. I’m losing her.”

“Oh, no,” I groaned.

So much for answers from the great beyond.

Gidget urged me not to give up hope.

“Now that a connection has been made,” she said, “we might even be able to get her to cross over from the Other Side and materialize in human form.”

I left Madame Vruska aka Gidget in a state of confusion, my mind abuzz with questions. Had she really made contact with Cryptessa? Or had she dug up all that information about Bela and Van Helsing on the Internet? Maybe a fan site devoted to Cryptessa trivia.

Was my surfer psychic legit, or was the voice on the other end of her “Soul Phone” just a dial tone?

Chapter 19

T
he minute I got home, I headed straight for the tub and spent the next blissful hour up to my neck in those longed-for strawberry-scented bubbles. By now I had given up trying to decide whether or not to put my trust into Gidget, the Surfer Psychic, and was concentrating on the far more momentous decision of whether to order Chinese or pizza for dinner.

Chinese won.

Dredging myself from the tub, I threw on my robe and called my neighborhood Chinese takeout place, The Mandarin Kitchen.

“Hey, Barry,” I said to the owner when he picked up. “It’s me. Jaine.”

Yes, I’m on a first-name basis with my Chinese takeout guy. And with my pizza delivery guy, too, if you must know.

“What’ll it be?” he asked. “The usual?”

“The usual,” I confirmed.

Which—in case you ever want to have me and Prozac over for dinner—happens to be wonton soup, chicken pot stickers, and shrimp with lobster sauce (Prozac’s favorite).

I was on the living room sofa, nursing a glass of chardonnay and waiting for my chow to show up, when I happened to notice Cryptessa’s scrapbook on the coffee table where I’d left it earlier that day.

Picking it up, I began leafing through her meager showbiz triumphs. There she was in her cameo from
Hawaii Five-O
. And her supporting role in a paper towel commercial. Another page held a program from her star turn in a dinner theater production of
Hello, Dolly!

Most of the album, not surprisingly, was taken up with photos from
I Married a Zombie
.

In spite of her ghoulish black togs and over-the-top bat wing eyeliner, Cryptessa was beaming in every picture. Never had I seen her so radiant, so alive. Those were her glory days, all right. Too bad they’d lasted only a season.

I was about to snap the book shut when I spotted something peeking out from behind the fabric lining of the back cover. Looking closely, I saw that the seam had been ripped and that a photo had been shoved underneath the lining.

Pulling it out, I gasped in surprise.

It was a snapshot of sweet little Amy Chang sitting on Mr. Hurlbutt’s lap! Clad in nothing but a black lace teddy and fishnet stockings!

I recognized where they were sitting—on the futon in Amy’s living room. But I could tell by a window sash in the foreground that the picture had been shot from outside the house, through Amy’s front window.

And then I remembered Cryptessa’s camera with the telephoto lens. The one Warren and I had found in her hall closet. Good heavens. It looked like Cryptessa had been using it to spy on her neighbors. And what a jackpot she’d hit. Mild-mannered Mr. Hurlbutt, having an affair. With Amy, of all people!

So
he
was the older man who’d called her on the phone this morning. Mr. Honeybun. The one who said he’d stop by at eight tonight.

Well, I sure hoped Amy was in the mood for company.

Because Mr. Hurlbutt wasn’t the only one about to pay her a visit.

At ten of eight, after a delicious Chinese dinner (marred only by Prozac trying to hog all the shrimp in the lobster sauce), I marched across the street and rang Amy’s bell.

“Coming, sweetie!” she called out from inside.

Seconds later, I heard high heels clacking across her hardwood floors.

She opened the door in her teddy/fishnet ensemble, tottering on stiletto heels, her glossy black hair flowing down past her shoulders. She’d assumed a pose straight out of a
Playboy
centerfold, hand on her slim hip, mouth in a sexy pout.

A pout that froze, however, at the sight of
moi
.

“Jaine!” she cried, crossing her arms over her exposed boobage. (Not that there was much to expose.) “I was expecting somebody else.”

“I know exactly who you were expecting.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I know all about your affair with Mr. Hurlbutt.”

“Mr. Hurlbutt?” Her false eyelashes fluttered in surprise. “But I’m not having an affair with Mr. Hurlbutt.”

“Then how do you explain this?” I said, whipping out the photo of Amy on Mr. H.’s lap.

“Oh, that,” she said, eyeing the picture with a sigh. “Come on in, and I’ll tell you.”

I followed her into the living room, averting my gaze from her half-exposed tush, and took a seat on one of her folding chairs. I wanted to keep my distance from the futon; heaven only knew what had gone on there.

“These teddies are so darn flimsy,” she said, pulling on a clunky woolen cardigan. “One of these days, I’m going to catch my death of a cold.”

Swathed in the cardigan, she sat down across from me on her futon.

“So,” I asked. “What’s going on?”

She took a deep breath and plunged in. “The truth is . . . I’ve been working part-time as a call girl.”

Little Amy? A call girl?! You could’ve knocked me over with a fishnet stocking.

“Somehow Mr. Hurlbutt found out about it and made an appointment to see me. I felt sort of funny about it, what with us being neighbors, but he seemed so darn unhappy, I couldn’t say no. He came over for his session, but when the time came to head for the bedroom, he couldn’t go through with it. You can see in the picture how uncomfortable he looks.”

I glanced down at the photo in my hand, and sure enough, now that I took a closer look, I could see Mr. Hurlbutt sat stiff and unsmiling, not at all like a guy who was about to be swinging from the chandeliers.

“I guess he and Mrs. Hurlbutt were having marital problems,” Amy was saying. “And he thought I’d be the answer. But as soon as he got here, he realized what a mistake he’d made. I swear, absolutely nothing happened that night. Mr. Hurlbutt has been nothing to me but a good neighbor.”