Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery)

by Laura Levine

  “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.”

  Now anger flashed in her eyes. “But Cryptessa, the nosy witch, had been spying on us! Can you believe the nerve of that woman? Standing outside my apartment and taking our picture with a telephoto lens!”

  I could believe it, all right.

  “She said it was a disgrace the way I was carrying on and that it was her civic duty to tell my parents. I thought I’d die. My parents didn’t even let me date until I was eighteen. Can you imagine what would happen if they found out I was a call girl? My mom would literally have a heart attack.”

  She wrung the hem of her cardigan, frantic at the very thought.

  “She even threatened to post the picture on Facebook. Or as she called it, ‘Face Page.’ My life would have been ruined!”

  “Lucky for you,” I said, “somebody bumped her off when they did.”

  “Wait a minute!” she gasped. “You’re not implying I had anything to do with her murder, are you?”

  “Sort of.”

  And indeed I was. After all, Amy had the perfect motive for killing Cryptessa.

  “You’ve got to believe me,” Amy cried. “I never went near her. I’m terrified to cheat on a test, let alone kill somebody.”

  She sat there huddled in her cardigan, a waif in fishnet stockings, and I had to admit she looked the picture of innocence.

  “Omigosh!” she said, checking her watch. “My eight o’clock client should be here any minute. You’ve really got to go.”

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  I left her in the living room, fluffing her hair and applying lip gloss.

  Outside at the curb, a dapper silver-haired guy was getting out of his Mercedes, a bottle of champagne in hand.

  “Lovely night,” he said, nodding to me.

  I watched him stroll up the path to Amy’s front door, my mind still boggled at the thought of Amy working her way through college as a call girl.

  Honestly, hadn’t the girl ever heard of student loans?

  Chapter 20

  Later that night, I was cuddled in bed with Prozac, watching Gloria Swanson and William Holden in Sunset Boulevard. Well, Prozac was watching (she has a thing for William Holden), but my mind was wandering, flooded with images of waiflike Amy Chang thrusting a DO NOT TRESPASS sign in Cryptessa’s heart.

  I was lying back against the pillows, wondering if maybe Mr. Hurlbutt had been in on the action, when I suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of my front door opening.

  I bolted up in bed.

  Someone was breaking into my apartment!

  I told myself not to panic. Maybe it was Lance, using the key he knows I keep under my flowerpot. But why would he be barging in like this? Why wouldn’t he just knock?

  “Lance? Is that you?”

  But there was no answer. Just the sound of footsteps in my living room.

  Omigod! It was a burglar. Or worse, the killer!

  What if Amy was an accomplished lock-picker, as well as collegiate call girl, and had broken into my apartment to shut me up forever?

  Once again, I told myself not to panic. Surely I could take on teensy-weensy size 0 Amy. But what if it wasn’t Amy? What if she’d sent Mr. Hurlbutt to bump me off? Or what if it was the two of them? I’d never be able to fight both of them at once.

  Now the footsteps were in the hallway, getting closer and closer.

  I couldn’t just sit there. I had to do something!

  I reached over to the phone on my night table and, with trembling fingers, punched in 911.

  And with lightning efficiency, they put me on hold.

  Damn L.A. and its municipal budget cuts.

  I dropped the phone and raced to the closet where I crouched in the corner behind some old boots. Which unfortunately left most of my body still exposed. So I frantically pulled my chenille robe from a hook and draped it over me, hoping I could pass myself off as a pile of unwashed laundry.

  At which point I heard someone stomping into the bedroom.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  I recognized the voice. But couldn’t believe my ears. No, it simply couldn’t be.

  The next thing I knew, the closet door was being jerked open.

  “There you are!”

  I sat there, frozen, as my robe was ripped off me, and looked up to see a wild-eyed woman in a ketchup-stained sweat suit.

  Holy Moses! It was Cryptessa!

  Eyes blazing with fury, she held a molting Bela in her arms. “This is your idea of taking care of Bela?” she screeched, holding out the bat. “Sticking him in a stuffy closet?

  “You poor darling,” she cooed to the critter. “Mommy’s here now, and everything’s going to be all right.”

  Then she turned back to where I was still huddled behind my boots. “You’re supposed to be guarding Bela with your life. Don’t you realize what a treasure he is?”

  I’m afraid all I could do at that juncture was gulp in reply. So amazed was I to see Cryptessa alive and well in my bedroom, I seemed to have lost my powers of speech.

  “I thought you were dead,” I finally managed to croak.

  “Not to my legions of fans,” she sniffed. “To them, my memory will live on forever.”

  “Your memory? Does that mean you are dead?”

  “I prefer to think of it as skeletally challenged,” she said, perching down on the corner of my bed with Bela in her lap.

  Omigosh. Was I actually talking to a ghost?

  Then I remembered what Gidget had said—that once a connection had been made to the Other Side, it was possible for the not-so-dearly-departed to materialize in human form. Could my Surfer Psychic have been right? Was I looking smack dab at the ghost of Cryptessa Muldoon?

  Gingerly I crept out of the closet and sat across from her on my bedspread.

  “I guess you could say that I’ve passed on to that great Sound Stage in the Sky. Which is not all it’s cracked up to be, let me tell you. For one thing, they don’t have TiVo. Or bagels. Or reruns of I Married a Zombie.”

 
I tsked in sympathy, wondering if my hand would go through her if I reached out to touch her.

  “That’s what I hear, anyway,” she said. “I haven’t actually made it to heaven yet. They won’t let me in until I take an anger management course. Did you ever hear of anything so silly? Me? With anger issues?—Hey, get your crummy paws off my bat, you little monster!” she hollered at Prozac, who was scratching at Bela’s fur.

  “But what are you doing here?” I asked, my mind still grappling with the idea of a ghost on my bedspread.

  “I keep getting messages on my Soul Phone from some gal named Gidget that I’m supposed to get in touch with you. So here I am.”

  Wow, I really had to get myself one of those Soul Phones. Just as soon as I paid my Verizon bill.

  “Well? Whaddaya want?” Cryptessa asked impatiently.

  This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for. I was about to find out exactly who murdered Cryptessa Muldoon.

  “I need to know who killed you.”

  “Oh, that rat! It was—”

  And just as she was about to tell me who the killer was and solve the whole darn mystery, a phone started ringing. She reached into the pocket of her sweatpants and whipped out her Soul Phone.

  “Yeah?” she growled into the device. “Oh, okay.” A smile lit her face. “I’ll be right up.

  “Gotta run,” she said to me, jumping off the bed. “There’s a sing-along on Cloud 237. Bet you never knew I could sing, did you? One of my many underappreciated talents. I was once the second understudy in the southwest touring company of Mame.”

  “How lovely,” I said. “But changing the subject just a tad, who killed you?”

  I wasn’t about to find out. Because by now she’d started fading away.

  “Just remember,” she called out faintly, “to take care of Bela!”

  “But I need to know who the murderer is!”

  It was too late; she’d disappeared into the ether. All that was left was her Soul Phone, which had now starting ringing again. I tried to answer it, but it just kept ringing. Over and over again. Until finally I woke up and realized what you probably realized several pages ago—that it was all just a dream.

  All except for the sound of my phone, which was jangling away on my nightstand.

  Groggily I picked it up.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me,” a perky voice replied. “Kevin Moore. Sorry to call so late, but I wanted to let you know I’ve lined up some fantastic properties for you to see.”

  Oh, hell. I’d forgotten all about my tiny fib about wanting to buy a condo.

  “How about I pick you up tomorrow at one o’clock and we’ll go house hunting?”

  “Gee, tomorrow’s an awfully busy day.”

  “I promise it won’t take long. And I did spend a lot of time lining up those listings.”

  Some people sure know how to play the guilt card.

  “Okay, fine,” I sighed. “See you tomorrow.”

  After brushing my teeth and doing my nightly beauty regimen (splashing some cold water on my face), I climbed back into bed and looked over at the spot where Cryptessa had been sitting in my dream.

  How odd. There was an impression on the bed, as if someone really had been sitting there. That was nuts. I’d probably left it myself earlier that night when I sat down to kick off my sneakers. But a chill ran up my spine as I now noticed something else: a small clump of fur. I reached across and picked it up. It was stiff and gray, not at all like Prozac’s fur. No, it was bat fur. Bela’s fur, to be precise.

  But how on earth had it gotten on my bedspread?

  I told myself there had to be a logical explanation.

  I probably got some on my clothing when I brought the bat home earlier that day.

  That had to be it.

  I mean, my meeting with Cryptessa was just a dream.

  Wasn’t it?

  Chapter 21

  When I woke up the next morning, I half expected to see Cryptessa perched on the edge of my bed.

  She wasn’t, of course. And I told myself quite sternly that she’d never been there, that her appearance last night was a nothing but a vivid dream, brought on no doubt by the Double Stuf Oreos I’d eaten before climbing into bed.

  Just to reassure myself, I checked the hall closet and was relieved to find Bela the bat exactly where I’d left it, no signs whatsoever of having been moved.

  Surely the bat fur I’d found on my bed came from my own clothing. The ancient stuffed critter was molting like crazy and undoubtedly left a trail of fur on whoever picked it up.

  “There are no ghosts in this apartment,” I said to Prozac, dishing her breakfast into her bowl. “Except maybe the ghosts of some dead mackerels.”

  She looked up from where she was weaving between my ankles in her usual feeding frenzy.

  Hurry it up, will ya? I can’t wait all day. I’ve got important body parts to scratch.

  After scarfing down my own breakfast (a cinnamon raisin bagel nuked to perfection), I was determined to focus my attention here among the living and have a little chat with the newest addition to my suspect list, Mr. Harold Hurlbutt.

  For all I knew, Cryptessa had shown him the incriminating photo of him and Amy, and he’d killed her to shut her up.

  I ambled over to the Hurlbutts’ house and, in a stroke of luck, found Mr. Hurlbutt working out front, repairing the fence separating his property from Amy’s duplex.

  How symbolic, I thought as I watched him hammer nails into the cedar planks, that he was hard at work enforcing the barrier between the two of them.

  “Hi, there,” I said.

  His face fell at the sight of me. “I was waiting for you to show up,” he sighed. “Amy told me you found the picture.”

  He was facing me now, and I could see he was wearing a sweatshirt that said, I’M THE BOSS. MY WIFE SAID I COULD BE.

  He glanced at his house, probably to make sure Mrs. Hurlbutt wasn’t watching. Then he lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Look, Mrs. Hurlbutt and I had been going through a pretty bad patch, and I guess I went a little crazy. But I swear on a stack of Bibles, nothing went on between me and Amy.”

  “I believe you.”

  And I did. But that still didn’t mean he didn’t knock off Cryptessa to shut her up.

  “As much as Helen drives me crazy at times, I love her very much, and I couldn’t bring myself to cheat on her. End of story.”

  He picked up his hammer and whammed a nail into the fence as if to drive home his point.

  “But Cryptessa didn’t see it that way,” he said, hammering with gusto. “She threatened to show the picture to Helen. I had to pay her five hundred dollars to keep her mouth shut. Then she asked me for another five hundred. She would’ve kept on blackmailing me for the rest of my life.”

  “But don’t you see, Mr. Hurlbutt? That gives you a perfect motive for wanting to kill her.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” he blinked, seemingly shocked at the thought. “I hated the old bat. But I’d never kill her.”

  “Then where were you the night of Peter’s Halloween party when you left your wife? You told me you were talking with Matt Moore. But he said he never spoke with you.”

  “I was talking to Amy,” he confessed with a sigh. “I tried to convince her to give up her extracurricular ‘job.’ She’s such a sweet kid; it’s a shame to see her selling herself like that.”

  Just then we heard the sound of a screen door banging. Mr. Hurlbutt quickly resumed pounding the fence as Mrs. Hurlbutt came out on the lawn with a plate of fresh-baked corn muffins.

  My salivary glands, napping after their recent bout with my cinnamon raisin bagel, sprang into action.

  “Hi, Mrs. Hurlbutt!” I chirped.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she snapped, ever the gracious hostess. “What are you doing here?”

  Mr. Hurlbutt shot me a pleading look.

  “Um . . . I was just wondering if you guys are having trouble with your mail. My delivery
has been awful lately.”

  “Ours is just fine.”

  Mr. Hurlbutt smiled at me gratefully.

  “Here, Harold.” Mrs. Hurlbutt held out the plate. “I brought you some corn muffins.”

  I waited for her to offer me one, but I waited in vain.

  “I guess I should be trotting along,” I said, eyeing the plate hungrily.

  “Oh, go ahead,” Mrs. Hurlbutt grunted, following my gaze. “Take one.”

  “If you insist.” I grabbed a muffin before she could change her mind. “Bye now.”

  I started back across the street, and when I got to the other side, I turned around and saw Mrs. Hurlbutt giving Mr. Hurlbutt a peck on the cheek. He squeezed her hand in return.

  In spite of their problems, it looked like they really did love each other.

  The million dollar question was: Had Mr. Hurlbutt killed for that love?

  Chapter 22

  Okay, class. Time for today’s real estate lesson. In most parts of the country, $400,000 will get you a really beautiful condo—granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors, walk-in closets—the works.

  In West Los Angeles, $400,000 will get you granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors, and walk-in closets.

  The rest of the condo, however, will cost you another $400,000.

  I was about to discover the wildly overpriced West Los Angeles real estate market when Kevin Moore picked me up later that day in her shiny new BMW convertible.

  “Wait’ll you see the first place,” she gushed as I got in the car. “It’s got a fabulous ocean view!”

  At that point, I was a property virgin, not fluent in real estate speak, and actually believed her.

  We took off in the convertible, Kevin’s blunt-cut blond bob miraculously not moving an inch in the wind. I, on the other hand, was a walking Brillo pad by the time we showed up at a distinctly seedy, semi-industrial section of Santa Monica, where graffiti sprouted like mushrooms on the building walls.

  Kevin pulled into the parking area of what looked like a former Motel 6—a flimsy two-story stucco affair, painted an appalling shade of doggie doo brown.