Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery)

by Laura Levine

  I lifted my ape head to wave at Peter, who was decked out in tight jeans and a T-shirt, a sign around his neck reading NUDIST ON STRIKE.

  What a clever way of wearing a costume without wearing a costume. Why the heck didn’t I think of something like that?

  “Hey, Jaine!” he said, spotting me. “So glad you could make it. Great costume!”

  “I picked it out!” Lance had the nerve to say.

  I hoped he choked on his martini olive.

  “But getting back to Proust,” Lance went on, blocking me from Peter’s view, “I just love the way he wrote about Madeleine. She was such an interesting character.”

  A madeleine is a lemon cookie, you twit, I felt like saying.

  But of course, I did not help him out with that useful tidbit of info.

  Instead I put on my ape head and wandered aimlessly for a while, reeking of mothballs, the designated party pariah.

  I stopped to look at some of Peter’s photos on an end table, hoping to get a clue about his sexuality. My heart sank when I saw him grinning into the camera, his arm slung around the shoulders of another guy. Then it soared when I saw another picture of him with a woman. Then it sank again when I realized she was an amazingly attractive woman.

  Oh, well. Time to lift my spirits with some chow. And some spirits.

  I headed for the buffet table in Peter’s dining room, where Cryptessa’s maid Rosita was busy replenishing a platter of cold cuts.

  “Hi, there,” I said, lifting up my ape head. “I didn’t realize you worked for Mr. Connor.”

  “He just hired me for tonight. Please don’t tell Cryptessa,” she said, her eyes darting about in fear, as if she expected Cryptessa to pop up from behind Peter’s china cabinet. “She’d have a hissy fit if she found out.”

  “It doesn’t take much to get her hissy, does it?” I asked.

  “No.” She shook her head ruefully. “I’m afraid not.” Then, remembering her duties, she added, “Have some cold cuts. They’re delicious.”

  She didn’t have to ask me twice.

  I rustled up a corned beef and Swiss on rye, a wee bit o’ chardonnay, and a Bloodshot Eyeball Cookie for dessert.

  If I couldn’t have fun with Peter, I might as well have fun with some corned beef.

  I found a secluded seat in the corner, and with my ape head nestled on the floor beside me, I was just about to chow down when I heard—

  “Jaine, honey!” It was Lila Wood, the neighborhood politico. “How wonderful to see you!”

  At last. Someone who didn’t mind the smell of mothballs.

  It was not my company Lila sought, however, when she plopped down on the seat next to me, but rather the opportunity to go over her campaign platform. In excruciating detail. Before I knew it, she was rambling on about what a fantastic job she’d do as president of the Neighborhood Council, reminding me how hard she’d fought for the sanctity of our neighborhood and what a fearless leader she’d been in the battle to keep a rapacious real estate developer named Ralph Mancuso from putting up a mini-mall at the end of our block.

  “Mancuso must be stopped!” she cried, thrusting some flyers into my hand.

  Which wasn’t easy to do, considering I was holding a corned beef sandwich at the time. But somehow she managed.

  “If he had his way, there’d be a yogurt parlor on every corner of Los Angeles.”

  Frankly, a yogurt parlor on every corner seemed like a pretty good idea to me, but I kept on nodding as if I agreed with her.

  She continued blathering away about Evil Ralph Mancuso as I polished off my sandwich and Bloodshot Eyeball Cookie.

  Through it all, the woman showed no signs of shutting up.

  There’s only so much a person can hear about corruption in the Beverly Hills Planning Commission before she goes stark raving bananas.

  “Oh, look,” I said in an effort to save my sanity. “The Hurlbutts! They told me earlier they wanted to talk to you.”

  “They did?” she said, perking up.

  I bet my bottom Pop-Tart she didn’t hear that very often.

  “Well, if you’ll excuse me—”

  God, yes!

  “—I’ll just run over and have a chat with them.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief as she bore down on the unsuspecting Hurlbutts.

  At the last minute, they saw her coming and tried to make a run for it, but with the skill of a seasoned politico, Lila backed them into a corner and launched into her campaign speech.

  I was free at last. And to celebrate, I went back to the buffet table for just one more Bloodshot Eyeball Cookie.

  (Okay, two more.)

  By now the interior of my ape suit had reached sauna-like proportions.

  I could stand it no longer. I decided to do what I should have done the moment I walked in the party and take the damn thing off.

  So I slipped out of the dining room and down a hallway to Peter’s bedroom. At least, I assumed it was his bedroom from the row of Brooks Brothers suits I was nosy enough to peek at in his closet.

  Wasting no time, I peeled out of my ape suit and tossed it onto Peter’s bed, where several coats had been slung. How wonderful it was to feel the clean, fresh, room-temperature air!

  And yet, although I was thrilled to be released from King Kong’s captivity, I was not a totally happy camper. Lest you forget, I was still wearing my Tummy Tamer, which by now had pretty much cut off all circulation from my belly button down.

  There was no doubt about it. That had to go, too.

  But I couldn’t risk getting undressed here in the bedroom. What if someone showed up to drop off a coat?

  So I headed back out into the hallway in search of a bathroom. I soon found one, across from a room that looked like Peter’s office.

  I slipped inside and, locking the door behind me, took off my jeans.

  Remembering my epic battle getting the Tummy Tamer over my hips, this time I decided to pull it up over my head.

  Major mistake.

  Because no sooner did I try to hoist the Tummy Tamer upward than the damn thing clamped around my chest like the jaws of death, pinning my arms to my sides.

  I twisted and turned, but to no avail.

  I was trapped in a spandex straightjacket, naked below the waist except for a pair of Bottoms Up! panties (a Shopping Channel gift from my mom).

  I considered yelling for help, but I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone—especially Peter—finding me like this.

  My only ray of hope was that my right hand was free. If I could just find a pair of scissors, maybe I could cut my way out.

  Frantically I searched Peter’s cabinets for something sharp, but all I found was an electric razor.

  Then I remembered the office across the hall. Maybe I’d find scissors there.

  So what if I was practically naked from the waist down? I had to make a break for it.

  With my free hand, I opened the bathroom door and peeked out.

  Damn. There was the guy in the Tarzan loincloth, waiting to use the john.

  “What’s going on in there?” he asked, tapping his feet impatiently.

  “Um. Plumbing emergency.”

  “I’ll go tell Peter.”

  “No!” I practically shrieked. “He already knows. You’ll have to use the other bathroom.”

  “What other bathroom?”

  I had no idea if there was another bathroom in the house. But I wasn’t about to let that stop me.

  “Down there.” I pointed vaguely at the other end of the hall.

  And as Tarzan stomped away, I grabbed my jeans and sprinted out into the hallway, praying he wouldn’t turn around and see me.

  Thank heavens, he didn’t.

  I scooted into Peter’s office, which, like his living room, was a sleek, black leather-and-chrome affair. If I hadn’t been trapped in my Tummy Tamer, I’d have been sorely tempted to snoop around for more pictures of would-be lovers, but I had no time for that. Shoving the door shut with my shoulder, I
began my search.

  And for the first time all night, lady luck seemed to be on my side. Inside the very first desk drawer I pulled open was a bright shiny pair of scissors.

  Unfortunately they were the teeny tiny manicure kind. But they were all I could find.

  So slowly, agonizingly, I began snipping my way to freedom. The minutes ticked by like decades as I hacked through the ironlike spandex.

  By now I looked back fondly on the good old days of Lila’s campaign speech.

  At last I had snipped my way to the topmost, tightest band of elastic. A few more hacks, and then finally there was just a smidgeon of Tummy Tamer left.

  This was it. Freedom was just a snip away!

  My fingers stiff from the effort, I snipped my last snip—and sprong! The Tummy Tamer sprang free.

  But to my horror, it sprang clear across the room to Peter’s bookcase.

  My heart sank as I heard the sound of glass breaking.

  Oh, hell.

  I dashed over to the bookcase, where I discovered that the Tummy Tamer had decapitated a porcelain figurine of Buddha. Poor Buddha’s belly was sitting on the shelf, while his head smiled serenely up at me from the carpet.

  When I checked the base of the figurine, I saw it was a Limoges. Holy Moses. It must have cost a fortune.

  Carefully I balanced Buddha’s head back on his belly and shoved the figurine behind a thesaurus, praying Peter wouldn’t discover it until I’d had a chance to replace it.

  And replace it I would. No way was I going to tell Peter about this unfortunate mishap.

  Shuddering at the thought of how much a replacement Buddha would cost, I quickly donned my jeans and went back out into the hallway, where I promptly bumped into Mr. Tarzan.

  “There’s no other bathroom at the end of the hall,” he informed me, loincloth aquiver.

  “Really?” I replied, all wide-eyed innocence. “I could’ve sworn there was. Anyhow, the plumbing problem’s all fixed.”

  Ignoring his dagger gaze, I strolled back into the living room, whistling casually, affecting an air of “What, me, worry?” nonchalance.

  But I needn’t have bothered. No one was paying the least bit of attention to me.

  All eyes were riveted across the street, where police sirens were wailing.

  I hurried to the window to see what the commotion was all about when Mrs. Hurlbutt came bursting in the front door.

  “Omigod!” she announced with breathless excitement. “Cryptessa Muldoon’s just been murdered!”

  “No!” Mr. Hurlbutt gasped.

  “Yes!” Mrs. Hurlbutt assured him. “Stabbed in the heart with her own DO NOT TRESPASS sign!”

  Chapter 9

  M rs. Hurlbutt’s news triggered a minor stampede out the front door, and I raced across the street with the others to get a glimpse of the crime scene. Sure enough, if I peered over the heads of the rapidly swelling crowd, I could see Cryptessa’s body sprawled in her doorway, the stake from her DO NOT TRESPASS sign protruding from her heart. A pool of blood was already beginning to clot on her sweat suit.

  Emmeline Owens stood nearby in her bathrobe and slippers, her hair in sponge rollers, Lana Turner in her arms.

  “I saw the whole thing, Officer,” she was telling one of the cops on duty, a handsome black dude with muscles the size of small boulders.

  “Someone was banging on Cryptessa’s door, making a perfect racket, and woke Lana from her nap. Isn’t that right, Lana, honey?” She gave the dog a peck on the nose, then held her out to the cop. “You can pet her if you like; she doesn’t mind strangers.”

  “So someone was banging on Ms. Jenkins’s door,” he replied, ignoring her invitation to bond with Lana.

  “I looked out the window and just assumed it was a trick-or-treater. I felt like telling whoever it was they were wasting their time. Cryptessa wouldn’t hand out so much as an apple with a razor blade inside. Would you believe she was the only person on the block who didn’t give a dime when I was collecting for the Heart Association?”

  “Very upsetting, I’m sure. Now getting back to the murder, ma’am?”

  “There’s not much to tell. Cryptessa finally came to the door. But before she could open her mouth to say anything, the killer stabbed her. That part was really awful to watch, wasn’t it, Lana, honey?”

  Lana yawned, clearly not all that traumatized by recent events.

  “Can you tell me anything about what the perpetrator looked like, ma’am?”

  “Not really. All I know is, it was someone in an ape suit.”

  At which point several heads swiveled in my direction.

  Oh, gulp.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before I heard from the police. And sure enough, not an hour after I’d tiptoed home, they came knocking at my door.

  The muscle-bound cop who’d questioned Emmeline showed up with his partner to tell me that the detective in charge of the case was at Cryptessa’s house and wanted to see me.

  As they led me up the street, I saw Mrs. Hurlbutt practically hanging out her front window to catch all the action.

  “They’ve got her in custody!” I heard her shout to Mr. Hurlbutt.

  Oh, well. At least I wasn’t wearing handcuffs.

  Inside Cryptessa’s house, I was ushered into the living room, where a burly redheaded detective was talking on his cell phone.

  I just hoped he wasn’t ordering a warrant for my arrest.

  “It has to be in DVD mode, honey,” he was saying. “Just press the button that says DVD. The little green one. Then press PLAY, the big red one. Got it? . . . Great.”

  He hung up with a sigh.

  “We’ve had the damn machine for seven years, and my wife still can’t figure out how to play a DVD.”

  Hallelujah! No arrest warrant. I was still a free woman.

  “Come in, come in,” he said, motioning me over to the same seat I sat in when I visited Cryptessa on my condolence call. He sat across from me on a stiff Victorian sofa, while Bela the bat stared down balefully at both of us from his perch on the mantel.

  “Detective Casey,” my interrogator said, showing me his badge with a genial smile.

  I suddenly felt foolish for being so afraid. He seemed like a perfectly pleasant fellow, a chunkier version of the Lucky Charms leprechaun, his pug nose splattered with freckles, his burly bod stuffed into his suit like a freshly packed sausage.

  “I suppose you’ve heard about Ms. Jenkins’s murder,” he said, breaking the interrogational ice.

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Tragedy,” he sighed.

  “A tragedy,” I echoed, trying to look suitably innocent.

  “Such a talented woman,” he tsked.

  Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but I nodded as if I agreed with him.

  “I was a real fan of her show when I was a kid,” he said, his eyes growing soft at the memory. “Never missed an episode.”

  So he was the one.

  “In fact, I had quite a crush on Cryptessa Muldoon. Helped get me through my adolescence.”

  Oh, great. The one person in the world who actually liked Cryptessa had the power to arrest me for her murder.

  “I intend to track down her killer,” he said, a nostalgic fervor burning in his eyes, “if it’s the last thing I do. Which brings me to you.”

  Uh-oh. I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Not one bit.

  “Apparently the killer was wearing an ape suit.”

  “Oh?” I said, as if I hadn’t heard Emmeline blab that bit of info to the world.

  “And from what several witnesses have told us, you were the only one at Mr. Connor’s party in an ape suit.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But I swear I didn’t kill Cryptessa.”

  “You mean some stranger in an ape suit came along and did her in?”

  “That’s possible. But more likely it was someone from the party.”

  “How’s that?” he asked, oozing skepticism.

  “I was so h
ot in my costume, I took it off and left it on Peter’s bed. Anyone at the party could’ve seen it there and put it on.”

  “What time did you take off the ape suit?”

  “At about 8:30.”

  “Ms. Jenkins was killed at a little before nine. Your neighbor, Emmeline Owens, saw the whole thing.”

  Damn that Emmeline. If she hadn’t been such a nosy parker, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.

  “So between 8:30 and nine, I’m assuming plenty of people saw you at the party, chatting in your street clothes.”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was, um, otherwise detained.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The last thing I wanted to do was share the saga of the Tummy Tamer from Hell, but I had no choice.

  “I was trapped in my Tummy Tamer.”

  “Your Tummy Tamer?”

  “It’s a spandex girdle. When I tried to take it off, my arms got jammed inside and I needed to get out, but all I could find in the bathroom was an electric razor so I had to run to Peter’s office in my Bottoms Up! panties and cut myself free with tiny manicure scissors, which took forever.”

  I tend to babble when I’m nervous.

  When I was finished, Detective Casey shook his head, boggled.

  Even Bela the bat seemed to be giving me the fish eye.

  “So let me get this straight. While someone was killing Cryptessa, you were cutting yourself out of a girdle.”

  “Yes,” I nodded, red-faced with embarrassment.

  “Got any proof of that?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” I said, pulling out the remains of the Tummy Tamer from where I’d jammed it into my jeans pocket.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “That little thing was supposed to fit around your hips?”

  “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I plan on reporting these people to the Better Business Bureau for faulty sizing. If I don’t get arrested for murder, that is. Haha.”

  But Detective Casey wasn’t laughing.

  “So nobody saw you during all that time? No one who can corroborate that you were at the party and not across the street killing your neighbor?”

  “Yes!” I cried, remembering Mr. Tarzan. “Someone saw me. One of the other guests at the party. He was waiting to use the bathroom when I first got trapped inside the Tummy Tamer.”