Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge

by Laura Levine

  My hand was still tingling from the touch of his fingers, my heart still doing flip-flops over what he’d hinted about me being that special someone in his life.

  Soon I was daydreaming about living a fabulous new life here at the Marina Palms, with a restaurant on the premises and the marina at my feet. I could just see myself as the wife of a respected stockbroker/ philanthropist, going to soigné dinners in slinky black dresses and my one and only pair of Manolo Blahniks (who soon would have lots of baby brother and sister Manolos).

  Gone would be my old haphazard ways. I would be the kind of woman who got her hair styled once a month and her nails done once a week. The kind of woman who wouldn’t dream of keeping a half-eaten Almond Joy at the bottom of her purse. (Not without wrapping it up in a Baggie, anyway.) I’d be organized, on top of my game, networking at Phil’s many business dinners and building up my client list. Instead of toilet bowl ads, I’d be writing for major corporate clients.

  I was lost in a delicious reverie of me accepting a Businesswoman of the Year award when I heard an outburst of squeals coming from the pool. The three little boys were all shrieking with glee as their dad mounted the steps to the diving board.

  Now that he was out of the water, I could see that he was a mountain of a guy, with a gut the size of a beer keg.

  The diving board groaned in protest as he walked to the edge.

  Then he jumped up and down a few times, threatening to break the springs, assumed a diving pose, and plunged into the water.

  Unfortunately, his dive went wildly awry and he landed in a massive belly flop, sending a tsunami of a wave crashing over the edge of the pool, dousing both me and Phil.

  We leaped from our chairs, Phil jumping with surprising agility for a guy with a sprained ankle. And as he jumped, the leg of his sweat pants yanked up.

  I blinked in surprise to see that there were no bandages around his ankle.

  No, the bulky object taking up space under his sweat pants was a black ankle monitor. I recognized it right away. I’d seen plenty like it watching Cops, one of the many insipid reality shows I’d been planning to give up in my new incarnation as Businesswoman of the Year.

  “That’s an ankle monitor!” I cried. “You don’t have a sprained ankle. You didn’t want to leave your condo because you’re under house arrest. You’re a crook!”

  “White collar,” he assured me. “Just a wee bit of insider trading. But I’m sure to get my broker’s license back after my five hundred hours of community service. In the meanwhile, do you think you could loan me forty bucks to cover the cost of lunch?”

  Oh, crud. The man of my dreams was a criminal.

  Even worse, my fries were all wet.

  I was so upset, I could barely finish them.

  Chapter 19

  I drove back to Casa Van Hooten, thoroughly disgusted with Smatch.com. Didn’t they even screen their members?

  In desperate need of solace, I decided to pay a visit to Prozac, longing to hold her in my arms and feel the comforting warmth of her fur against my cheek.

  After parking my car, I took my chances and rang Missy’s doorbell, praying she’d be out on a run or applying for a job as a cocktail waitress somewhere.

  Lupe answered the door in a happy glow. Gone was her maid’s uniform. Instead, she wore a simple black pencil skirt, buttoned cardigan, and conservative stacked heels. Around her neck, a strand of what had to be faux pearls.

  “So nice to see you, Ms. Jaine!” she grinned.

  “You too, Lupe. You look terrific.”

  “Gracias. I’m getting ready for a job interview. Missy can’t afford to keep me on anymore, but she recommended me to a family up the street. I’m going to meet them in a half hour.”

  “That’s wonderful!”

  “The pay is good, with two days off each week, and my own private patio! Say a prayer that I get the job.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  After all the hell Lupe had gone through working for Scotty, the poor thing deserved a break.

  “I’m afraid Missy isn’t here right now. She’s at the gym.”

  Yes!!

  “Actually, I came to see my cat.”

  “Scarlett? I think I saw her wander into Mr. Scotty’s office,” she said, waving to Scotty’s former lair. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to fix my hair and put on my makeup.”

  And as she scooted off down the hall, I made my way to Scotty’s office.

  A shiver ran down my spine as I stood in the doorway, flashing back to the day of the murder and the sight of Scotty’s body slumped over his desk, blood oozing from his freckled scalp.

  Never a bastion of neatness, the room looked as if a small tornado had swept through it—drawers open, items strewn across Scotty’s desk, his ancient TV and VCR brushed with traces of fingerprint powder, his computer missing—no doubt carted off to some forensic crime lab.

  Clearly, the police had gone over the scene of the crime with a fine-tooth comb.

  Showing impeccably good taste, they’d opted to ignore Scotty’s magnum opus: Vengeance Is Mine: The Return of Tiny Tim, which still sat on his desk, Prozac napping atop its mountain of unreadable pages.

  As I approached the desk, I gulped to see dried blood staining its surface.

  With no small degree of trepidation, I sat down in Scotty’s squeaky swivel chair, hoping his bad karma (and musty body odor) wouldn’t rub off on me. I reached out for Prozac, who gazed at me through slitted eyes.

  Oh. It’s you again.

  “Prozac, honey!” I cried, nestling her in my arms. “I just had the worst date ever! For once I thought I finally met a decent guy, a stable, responsible man of unassailable ethics and fab abs, and then, poof—out of nowhere—he turned out to be a criminal! With an ankle bracelet!”

  She gave me a solicitous sniff.

  Yeah, right. Whatever. Is that burger I smell on your breath?

  I sat there basking in Prozac’s attention, trying to convince myself it was me she was sniffing and not my Marina Burger breath, when I happened to glance out the window and see Mrs. Sinclair, the neighbor with the elaborate Christmas decorations, pull into her driveway and get out of her car.

  As the silver-haired aristo walked up to her front door, arms laden with Bloomingdale’s shopping bags, I thought back to the day she stormed into Scotty’s office, accusing him of cutting the cords on her Christmas display. I remembered how she’d tossed him her electrician’s bill, demanding that he pay it. And how, totally unfazed, Scotty had reached in his desk drawer and pulled out a manila envelope—with the photo that had turned Mrs. Sinclair’s face ashen.

  Scotty said he had no intention of paying her electrician’s bill. On the contrary. He said she’d be the one making payments to him.

  Scotty had been blackmailing Mrs. Sinclair, of that I was certain. But what on earth was his hold over her?

  I looked around his office, searching for clues. And then it hit me:

  The VCR—the one Scotty used to spy on his neighbors, to make sure their dogs weren’t pooping on his lawn. What if his security camera had captured more than just dogs pooping? What if Scotty had inadvertently captured some damaging footage of Mrs. Sinclair?

  According to the police, the killer had taken the tape in the machine on the day of the murder. But what if there was an earlier tape that Scotty had saved, with incriminating footage of the decorating diva?

  Indeed, there were two other tapes near the VCR, and I wasted no time picking up one of them and shoving it in the machine, watching the results on the ancient black-and-white TV. After what seemed like hours of nothing but passing cars and scampering squirrels, at last I hit pay dirt.

  A Mercedes convertible pulled up in front of Scotty’s house. Mrs. Sinclair was in the passenger seat next to a balding guy behind the wheel. Then the bald guy reached over and wrapped Mrs. Sinclair in his arms. Eventually they pried themselves apart, and Mrs. Sinclair got out of the car, blowing a kiss to the man as he drove off. Aft
er which she headed out of the frame, crossing the street to her own house.

  Was the man in the Mercedes Mrs. Sinclair’s husband, dropping her off en route to another destination?

  Or, more likely, was he her lover?

  Had Scotty taken a screen shot of their torrid embrace and handed it to Mrs. Sinclair that day when she came storming into his office?

  I looked outside and saw two cars parked in the Sinclairs’ driveway. Neither of them was a Mercedes.

  Of course, it was possible there was a Mercedes stowed in the Sinclairs’ garage and the man on Scotty’s security tape was indeed Mrs. Sinclair’s hubby. But what if there was no Mercedes in that garage, and Mrs. Sinclair had been deep in the throes of an illicit affair?

  Desperate to keep the news of her affair from her husband, and unwilling to meet Scotty’s blackmail demands, had Mrs. Sinclair crept across the street on Christmas morning to whack the life out of her rapacious blackmailer?

  Those were the thoughts flitting through my brain when I heard the front door open and Missy call out, “Yoo-hoo, Scarlett! I’m home!”

  Prozac, who had been dozing comfortably in my lap, now sprang to her feet and practically flung herself into Missy’s arms as she showed up in the doorway, looking a bit disheveled in yoga pants and tank top.

  “How’s my precious Scarlett?” Missy cooed, scooping her up.

  Pro gazed up at her adoringly.

  Oh, so lonely without you! Got any snacks?

  “Hi, Jaine,” Missy said, turning to me. “Forgive the way I look. I was just at the gym. I’m a mess.”

  “You look fine,” I assured her.

  This woman could walk through a car wash and come out looking terrific. If she weren’t so sweet, I’d really hate her.

  And yet, I couldn’t forget what Marlon said about seeing her sneaking back into the house the morning of the murder. Was it possible Missy was not nearly as sweet as she seemed, that a cold-blooded killer lurked underneath those yoga togs?

  As she stood there in her tank top, I suddenly became aware of how muscular her arms were. Those biceps of hers looked hard as steel. Certainly strong enough to have delivered a fatal blow to her overbearing husband.

  “I’m so happy you stopped by,” she was saying. “I bet you miss your darling Scarlett.”

  “Her name is Prozac!” were the words I refrained from shouting.

  “Actually, Missy, I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure, but let’s go to the living room. This room gives me the creeps,” she said, eyeing the dried blood on Scotty’s desk. “It’s all too gruesome.”

  Minutes later, I was sitting across from Missy in a thrift shop armchair, she and Prozac cuddled cozily on the sofa.

  “Can I get you something to eat?” Missy offered. “Now that Scotty’s gone we have really nice cookies, not factory seconds.”

  “No, thanks,” I said, for one of the few times in my life turning down empty calories, eager to question my prey.

  “Look, I’ll get straight to the point. Your neighbor Marlon says he saw you sneaking back to the house on Christmas morning when you were supposedly out running.”

  If I expected her to be flustered or caught off guard, I was sadly mistaken.

  “It’s true,” she admitted with a sheepish shrug. “I already told you about me and Dave. We’re in love. I snuck back in the house and tiptoed straight to his room where we spent the next forty-five minutes or so having ex-say.”

  The latter whispered so as not to taint “Scarlett’s” delicate ears.

  “Did you hear anything at all when you were with Dave?” I asked. “Any footsteps? Scotty crying out?”

  “Nope, not a thing. All I heard was the pounding throb of my beating heart.”

  Puh-leese. Spare me the romance novel glop.

  “Dave says he’s going to take care of me now that Scotty’s gone. We’re going to get married and everything. He says I don’t even have to get a job.”

  I found it hard to imagine how Dave was going to support Missy as a struggling law student, but frankly, like R. Butler, I didn’t give a damn.

  Missy was sitting there, caught up in the wonders of her newfound love. Clearly her life was acres better now that Scotty was gone. Even without the money she’d expected to inherit, she was in seventh heaven.

  And once again I couldn’t help wondering if Missy was the killer—taking time out from her frantic dipsy doodle to end her miserable marriage with a frozen Yule log.

  Chapter 20

  I left Missy and Pro smooching on the sofa, cursing the day I ever agreed to let Pro stay with the blond beauty.

  But I couldn’t moon over my unfaithful feline.

  I had another cheating couple to investigate. Namely, Mrs. Sinclair and her cuddle buddy in the Mercedes.

  I needed to get a gander at Mrs. Sinclair’s husband and see if he was the bald guy I’d seen on the security tape.

  What with two cars in the Sinclairs’ driveway, I figured Mr. Sinclair had to be home. So I headed across the street, past the Disneyland extravaganza on their front lawn, and rang their doorbell.

  Mrs. Sinclair came to the door in her Katharine Hepburn slacks, her silver hair perfectly coiffed.

  “May I help you?” she asked, looking me over like a pesky Jehovah’s Witness she couldn’t wait to get rid of.

  “Hi, I’m Jaine Austen. I’m staying across the street at Mrs. Van Hooten’s house.”

  “I know who you are,” she replied, with nary a trace of a smile. “I saw you that day in Scotty’s office when I came to give him my electrician’s bill. You’re Connie Van Hooten’s house sitter.”

  “Actually, Connie and I are very close friends.”

  “Really?”

  She shot me a look of utter disbelief, as if there was no way on God’s green earth a woman like Connie Van Hooten would be pals with the likes of moi.

  Thank heavens I was still in my Eileen Fisher top, and not my CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS T-shirt.

  “Oh, yes,” I said, lying with abandon. “Connie and I have been friends ever since we met on the board of St. John’s Hospital.”

  I’d seen a letter addressed to Connie from the board of directors of St. John’s, so I tossed out that whopper.

  “What is it I can do for you?” Mrs. Sinclair asked, still making no move to invite me in.

  And I had to get in if I expected to get a gander at Mr. Sinclair.

  Time for another weensie fib.

  “Connie told me what a marvelous job you’ve done decorating your house.”

  “Did she?” At last, a chink in her armor. A faint smile managed to work its way to her lips. “How nice of her. Of course it’s been a few years, but I think it’s held up very well.”

  “Actually, I’m thinking of making some changes to my own home.” (As if. The only thing I’d planned on changing in my apartment was the toilet paper.) “And I was wondering if I could have a tiny peek at what you’ve done. For inspiration, you know.”

  She hesitated a beat, but eventually house pride won out.

  “Of course,” she said, at last stepping back from the doorway and ushering me inside. “Let’s start with the living room.”

  I followed her into a living room awash in floral prints and coordinating stripes, dotted with priceless antique gewgaws. Very Bel Air Meets the Cotswolds.

  I made lots of appropriate oohs and aahs.

  “This is perfect! Just the look I was going for!”

  If I had the hundred grand it would undoubtedly take to put it together.

  But the pièce de résistance in the room, the thing I most wanted to see, was Mr. Sinclair.

  And there he was, sitting in an armchair, reading something on his iPad. A tall man, with a hawklike nose and—most important—a full mane of thick silver hair.

  Definitely not the bald guy in the blackmail picture.

  Whoever Mrs. Sinclair had been embracing that day, it hadn’t been her hubby.

  Clearly the grand dame of
Bel Air had been having an affair.

  “Evan, this is Jaine Austen. She’s a good friend of Connie Van Hooten’s. Jaine, my husband, Evan.”

  “How nice to meet you,” Mr. Sinclair said, ever the gentleman, getting out of his chair to shake my hand.

  “I’m showing her our remodel. Connie told her what a wonderful job we’d done.”

  “You have marvelous taste!” I exclaimed, continuing to slather on the compliments with a trowel. “And I love your Christmas decorations. They’re absolutely breathtaking!”

  “They’ve been featured in Sunset magazine,” Mr. Sinclair beamed.

  “Come, Jaine,” Mrs. Sinclair said. “I’ll show you the kitchen. You’re going to love the island.

  “I’ll get some wine and hors d’oeuvres, hon,” she called to her husband as we headed off.

  “Thank you, darling,” he replied, beaming her a loving smile. “You’re the best.”

  If he only knew.

  I trotted after Mrs. Sinclair into her gargantuan kitchen, practically a carbon copy of Mrs. Van Hooten’s. I’m guessing all one-percenters have massive islands, stainless steel appliances, and subzero refrigerators.

  Now that I had her alone, I needed to question her about the incriminating footage I’d found on Scotty’s VCR.

  But I had to be careful and ease my way in.

  “What a shame about Scotty, huh?” I said, as she removed a plate of depressingly low-calorie crudités from her fridge.

  “Not really,” she said, selecting a bottle of wine from her built-in wine cooler. “As you probably could tell the day I stopped by his office, I detested the man. A most disagreeable fellow. By the way, what were you doing there that day?”

  “Oh, um, Scotty hired me to help him with a script he was writing. I’m a screenwriter. TV and movies.”

  One more lie, and I’d be struck by lightning.

  “Scotty hired you?” Mrs. Sinclair blinked in surprise. “He was paying you real money? Not the Monopoly kind?”