Death of the Office Witch

by Marlys Millhiser

  You always think of yourself as a decent person. How can you be so callous?

  Charlie was beginning to feel guilty, and when she reached home to find a note that Libby was spending the night at Lori’s, she decided to emulate the office janitorial service and get a head start on a grueling weekend. Maybe she could clear time to do some reading on Sunday.

  By eleven that night Charlie collapsed in the breakfast nook with a peanut butter sandwich, a glass of milk, and the L.A. Times. But the house was pretty clean, and the week’s wash had a good start. She’d always insisted Libby help with the household chores, but her daughter increasingly arranged to be gone when they needed doing. And if Charlie wasn’t there to crack the whip and work alongside, Libby was useless. Which is exactly what Charlie had done to her own mother at this age. But that did not make it right.

  Libby’s cat landed square in the middle of the world news, narrowly missing the half-empty glass of milk. When Charlie looked up startled, Tuxedo met her nose to nose. Then he meowed. Then he stared.

  “Do you want to go out?” I’ve been talking to ghosts, might as well talk to animals. Charlie got up and walked to the door. Tuxedo got up and walked to his food dish. “Did she not feed you? I thought you’d eaten before I got home.” Tuxedo wound himself in and out and between and around Charlie’s ankles, rubbing his neck and his jaws on her legs.

  “I told the two of you the deal was that she feed you and change the litter box and all that, or you couldn’t stay. I’m planning on getting rid of you anyway.”

  The cat had been a starving stray kitten Libby brought home once when Charlie was out of town and which she’d been unable to dislodge on her return. Now he was a large, sleek houseplant eater who delighted in keeping Charlie up nights. Charlie looked in the cupboards but could find no cat food. She finally dumped some Cheerios and pieces of bread crust in his dish and poured the rest of her milk over them, he set to, able to carry on a rattling purr and slurping noises at the same time.

  The house full of fleas all summer, kitty immunizations that cost more than Libby’s, stinky litter box—Charlie let him out when he went to the door. Maybe he’d get run over tonight, and she wouldn’t have to deal with getting rid of him tomorrow.

  Charlie could remember Edwina complaining about having to care for Bowzer the Schnauzer, a stray dog that followed Charlie home from school one day and stayed to die of old age after she’d left home. Charlie had promised to care for Bowzer if her parents would let him stay, just as Libby had.

  “Don’t let Libby be like me,” she told the goddamned cat when she found him out in the alley and brought him in where it was safe before she went to bed. “We both know she might not be at Lori’s tonight. She might be out doing something we don’t even want to think about.” The animal had moaned warning and hissed when she picked him up in the alley, but let himself be carried inside without biting her. He was all black except for his chest and stomach and four white paws.

  “If we call and she’s there, she’ll never forgive us for not trusting her. She could be out riding in a car with some drunk teenager and we could get a telephone call that she was horribly killed in a wreck. No, they’d come and knock at the door.”

  If Tuxedo wrapped himself around her head that night, she didn’t know it. She woke up feeling guilty that she hadn’t lain awake to worry.

  But at least no one had come to the door to inform her of a death in the family. Charlie put another load in the washer and drove to Von’s for groceries. When she got back, Libby was still not home, so she grabbed some garden gloves, a rake, and clippers and headed for the front yard.

  It was immaculate.

  Charlie stood stupidly holding open the security grate that guarded the front door with her heel so it wouldn’t close on her. She’d meant to prop it with something, but she stood there surveying her domain, tools in hand. Her domain was probably twelve feet square if you didn’t count the parking. And now it looked just like her neighbors’.

  Charlie heard the music before she heard the gunning motor, but not by much. She knew Libby was home even before she saw the shiny new Jetta pull up to the curb, where it disgorged the girls and then squealed off again. Charlie counted three boys and a surfboard still inside.

  “Who was that?” Charlie sounded exactly like Edwina.

  “Just some guys. They gave us a ride.” Libby tried to push past Charlie, who stood her ground. “We’re starved. You been to the store yet?”

  How old are they? Have you really been at Lori’s? Were her folks home? But Charlie said, “Libby … did you clean up the yard?”

  “No way. Jesus did it. Looks great, doesn’t it?”

  Lori waved and giggled a greeting, and somehow the girls were inside and Charlie was still standing there holding the rake, her foot against the security grate.

  She took one last look at her perfectly spruced-up property and followed them into the kitchen, where they’d already turned the radio to blast, found the donuts, and were pouring milk. Lori was everything Libby wasn’t. She was short, plump in a pretty way, bouncy with a regular waterfall of dark, wavy hair. Her expression was persistently jovial.

  They took their food to the breakfast nook, and when Charlie switched off the radio, both looked up as if astonished to find her home.

  “Jesus cleaned up our front yard?”

  “Yeah. When I got here after school yesterday, he had it all done, so I let him in and he did the patio plants.” Libby dunked her donut in the milk and opened the morning paper to the comics.

  “Libby—”

  “Mom, don’t make a big deal out of this, too, okay? Everybody in Long Beach but us has a gardener.”

  “Jesus wants to be our gardener?”

  “We’ve got a gardener,” Lori helped out. “And so does everybody on our street.”

  “Yeah, he goes by and sees our yard’s a mess and figures we don’t have a gardener. He’s coming this afternoon to get paid. Mom, even Maggie’s got a gardener. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Maggie doesn’t have a daughter to provide for. She can afford—”

  “Oh sure, blame that on me, too. Everything is my fault. Even the fucking yard. Just because of my existence, right? Well, wrong, lady, my existence is the one thing that’s not my fault.” Libby stormed out the back door.

  “I think it’s pronounced ‘Hey-zeus,’” Lori said meekly.

  When the gardener arrived, Charlie took one look at him and said, “Jesus.”

  “Hey-zeus.” He was probably somewhere in his late teens. He sizzled. He smoked. He smoldered in that dark, stunning, macho Mexican manner that says, “I’m a tolerant man. If she behaves herself and makes me happy and begs hard enough, even a pale little gringa can have my baby.” And that sultry, languid, devastating gaze was locked on Charlie Greene’s nubile daughter.

  12

  If you turned a hose on that guy, all of Belmont Shore would go up in steam.” Charlie sat in Maggie’s kitchen over a glass of wine as her neighbor tossed a chicken salad. “Jesus.”

  “Hey-zeus.” Maggie refilled Charlie’s glass and opened the oven door. The room swelled with the comforting aroma of toasting garlic bread. “You got Libby on the pill?”

  “Says they make her swollen and fat. Won’t take them.”

  “She has a point,” Maggie conceded, and divided the feast between them. It was Saturday night, and Libby was baby-sitting.

  “Says she doesn’t need them anyway. Says they don’t protect you from AIDS or herpes and other social diseases—thank you very much, Mrs. Hefty—Wilson High’s sex and nutrition guru.” Charlie paused to taste what was between her teeth. “What is the dressing on this? It’s marvelous.”

  “Honey and mustard and cashews and Maggie Stutzman’s oh-so-special herbs.” Maggie was a displaced homemaker, displaced in that she was an attorney instead of a happy housewife. “But, Charlie, you can eat it all, because I gave you half of mine.” She passed the basket of garlic bread. “So it’s only h
alf to begin with.”

  Maggie Stutzman was about ten years older than Charlie, with jet-black hair and pale, fragile-looking skin. She was growing too beefy through the butt and hated it. Without planning to, she was also growing into a specialist, handling Workers’ Compensation cases, and she hated that, too. She resented the limitations that came with stereotyping, and the lack of variety. But it was the irrepressible gleam of fun and mischief in her green eyes that had attracted Charlie to begin with, and thank God it still flashed when all the other emotions didn’t crowd it out.

  “What do people like me do without people like you?” Charlie asked with a sigh over coffee.

  “They get married. Now fill me in on the murder or pay good money for your dinner.”

  They jabbered on half the night until Maggie brought out the popcorn and the brandy.

  On marriage—given the right opportunity, Maggie said she would marry in a minute. “I envy you Libby, Charlie.”

  “I’ll give her to you, and all the bills and all the guilt that goes with her. You’re such a fake, Stutzman. You wouldn’t put up with some demanding guy just to have a kid. Wait, I’ve got it, have Libby set you up with Ed Esterhazie.”

  On Libby’s cat—Charlie was taking him to the animal shelter first thing tomorrow, no matter what.

  “Saw you unloading bags from Von’s this morning,” Maggie said. “Buy any cat food?”

  “Well yeah, I guess I did. Just habit … I’ll take it to the shelter, too.”

  “You’re such a fake, Greene. Tomorrow’s Sunday, and the shelter will be closed, and you know Tuxedo will live to be twenty sleeping on your bed, curled around your head. Under that tough exterior, you know what you are? Mush.”

  On Maggie’s latest case—“Same-o, same-o. John got screwed, Allied Sheet Metal got screwed. Only winner was the insurance company.”

  “I don’t understand—if John lost, why didn’t his employer win?”

  “John did not get compensation for most of his hospitalization, but Allied Sheet Metal still paid the same premiums. And the insurance company didn’t have to pay up because they got off on a technicality. Allied pays through the nose to insure its workers. It’s the system, Charlie, it’s all dicked-up. It was meant to protect the employee, but it’s bleeding the employer dry and enriching the insurance company. It’s wrong, but the way the system works the judge had no choice. Her hands were tied.”

  “She?”

  “Yeah, Workmans’ Comp is just another of the frustrating boring household drudgeries of the legal profession. Pays like shit, too.”

  On Libby and money—“Well, what do you expect when her mom brings home champagne and buffalo steak to celebrate? This is supposed to teach a kid to be economical?”

  “That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever even bought a bottle of champagne.”

  “And you buy Dom Perignon.”

  “It was a special celebration, Maggie. We’re talking Phantom of the Alpine Tunnel for God’s sake.”

  “I know you say it was a best-seller, but Charlie I never heard of that book.”

  “You too, huh?” Charlie reached for the brandy bottle but Maggie grabbed it away.

  “Not until you bring me up to date on the murder, Greene.”

  “Aw come on, who cares about a friggin’ murder?”

  “Everybody. Now give.”

  Charlie started in on the story of her frustrating Friday and didn’t get halfway through before Maggie grabbed a sofa pillow and doubled over it like she had menstrual cramps.

  “Memorial séance and dance? Stop, I hurt. Oh Hey-zeus.”

  Charlie was launched well into marvelous Marvin’s treading air over Gloria’s effects and had Maggie really pleading for mercy when Libby strutted in with a squirming Tuxedo. “Caught this creep sneaking up on a mockingbird. Figured Mrs. Beesom’d have a nerd attack.” Libby pretended to take in the room and the situation and scowled. “You girls boozing it up again? You know you can be heard all the way to the beach, don’t you?”

  Maggie pulled Charlie’s daughter down on the sofa and put the popcorn bowl on her lap. “You gotta hear this. Your mom should be a stand-up comic.”

  Charlie’s personal camera shot her a close-up of Charlie the stand-up comic continuing her sit-down monologue while the voice-over explained how aware she was of Maggie’s warm soft undemanding living room and friendship. Cut to Libby breaking up when Charlie explained how everybody thought Charlie Greene, the experienced amateur detective and natural psychic, ought to take time out of a busy work schedule to solve a puzzling murder case for the Beverly Hills Police Department.

  “You know, I just noticed how nobody really close to me thinks I can do this, and everybody who isn’t thinks I can. Always interesting to find out who has confidence in you.”

  “Oh sure, Mom, right. Like in Oregon when you practically got yourself arrested for murder? Charlie Greene, the Great Detective.”

  “I am stung,” Charlie said, only half kidding by now. The goddamned cat chose that moment to barf all over Maggie’s coffee table. “That does it. Next weekend that animal goes to the shelter in search of a new home. And we’ll just see about that great detective business, too.”

  Tuxedo stopped washing his puss long enough to give her a look of utter contempt. Her daughter and best friend broke up into new paroxysms of hilarity. Something wrong with the script here.

  Charlie had a similar thought Monday morning during Tina Horton’s pitch at CBS. Tina had done a format for the Sun City veterinarian-detective series on speculation, and Charlie had shown it to one of the story editors at ZIA Productions. He’d liked it well enough to take Tina in to pitch it to the vice president in charge of project development, who loved it and took it to a producer at ZIA, and they made an appointment at CBS for Tina to pitch it there. ZIA had made up a fancy, bound presentation booklet and treated Tina to a special atta-girl breakfast before the appointment where they’d pumped up her confidence and self-esteem.

  Tina was one of Charlie’s up-and-comers with a few minor credits to her name but a major off-the-wall imagination. Unfortunately, her professional calluses were still paper-thin, and the least hint of disapproval nearly destroyed her. She’d practically had a nervous breakdown before going in to this pitch.

  “Just remember,” Charlie whispered to her client as they walked into the building, “if he starts squirming after five minutes, wrap fast and get out of there. The day will come when you’ll want to be invited back. But if he starts asking questions and interrupting, it is not meant as an insult or a put-down but a sign of interest—so slow down, pump the hype, relax. You’ve got fifteen minutes, but if he’s interested he’ll give you a half hour or more. And, Tina, your career does not begin or end with this series or this pitch. This is just the beginning, no matter what happens in that conference room.”

  Charlie sure hoped that her words and her smile and her support were convincing to her client, because her own stomach was doing handstands, kneebends, convulsions, and flips.

  Tina Horton was small, bottle blond, thin—all to her advantage in this town, but Carl Shapiro was five minutes late and came in with five CBS yes-men (vice presidents of everything) and a glass of Alka-Seltzer. Tina visibly aged ten years in that five minutes of waiting—not a good thing in this town.

  “Wait, now let me get this straight,” Carl Shapiro said finally. “This woman produced eight children and had a full-time career as a veterinarian. She is now retired and living in Sun City, but all her neighbors have pets who get sick and she’s nice enough to doctor them and in the process is privy to mysterious happenings in Sun City.”

  “And because she is so successful there she gets called into investigations in Phoenix,” Tina added, “out in the desert, across the border, you name it. This woman is not confined to kittens and grandchildren and knitting.”

  “Make her a little bit out of the ordinary if she didn’t like knitting and baking cookies and typewriting, wouldn’t it?” t
he CBS executive said thoughtfully.

  “Oh she doesn’t. She’s not at all stereotypical. She’s a retired career Grandma.”

  “We could be talking Tony Hillerman—there’s got to be Indians out there someplace—Jessica Fletcher, Golden Girls here,” the studio exec said. “Who’d you have in mind for your lady detective?”

  “Someone like Angela Lansbury or Betty White?”

  “Or Ellen Maxwell,” Charlie spoke up for the first time. Ellen was a client of Congdon and Morse.

  “Ellen Maxwell … now there’s a thought,” Carl Shapiro said. “Whatever happened to that old girl?”

  Charlie reflected that Ellen was younger than Carl Shapiro. “Summer stock, commercials …”

  “Not those old lady diaper things, I hope,” the exec’s prominent lip swelled with disgust.

  “No, cornmeal, baking soda, American Express—”

  “Who’s her agent?”

  “Maurice Lavender.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He’s with Congdon and Morse, Carl,” Barry Zahn of ZIA came to Charlie’s aid. “And the desert scenes we can film cheap. The budget on this could come in sweet.”

  “Okay, so who’s the guy?” asked a yes-man when he saw it was safe to express some interest. He had to be all of twenty-three.

  “The guy,” Tina took a beat, “oh the guy. Right. Well, Thora Kay has all these sons, and the youngest is always around to help her out. You know, the strong-guy stuff.”

  CBS had given Tina and ZIA forty-five minutes out of the fifteen allotted, and Charlie hugged her screenwriter in the parking lot. “The strong-guy son stuff was inspired, Tina. You did great.”

  “Awful how natural that question seemed. I’ve been in this town too long, Charlie.”

  13

  Lieutenant Dalrymple had a uniformed officer waiting for Charlie when she returned to the agency. So instead of joining Richard and Dorian for lunch with a New York producer she’d hoped to interest in a manuscript with a similar story line to a picture he’d made some years ago, she rode to the beachfront house in Malibu in a squad car, her stomach rumbling.