by Laura Levine
As I told Lance, I’d pretty much ruled out Peter’s friends and coworkers as suspects. Which left the small band of neighbors who’d shown up at the Halloween party. All of them had grudges against the former sitcom zombie. All of them had witnessed my blowup with her at Peter’s housewarming. And all of them had access to my ape suit.
So which one of them decided to take advantage of my fight with Cryptessa to frame me for her murder?
I decided to start my investigation with the Hurlbutts.
Hadn’t Mrs. Hurlbutt been the one who raced into Peter’s house with the news of Cryptessa’s murder? What had she been doing outside anyway? Driving a stake in Cryptessa’s heart, perchance?
After a pit stop at my apartment for a pizza bagel and minced mackerel guts (the mackerel guts were for Prozac—and so was a good chunk of the pizza bagel), I headed across the street and rang the Hurlbutts’ bell.
Mrs. Hurlbutt came to the door in a turquoise jogging suit, her impossibly red hair sprayed into a stiff Here’s Lucy bob.
Her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of me.
“Jaine, what are you doing here? You out on bail?”
“No, I’m not out on bail. I was never arrested.”
“But I saw the cops taking you away last night.”
“They just wanted to ask me a few questions, and then they let me go.”
“Oh.”
It was clear from her tone of voice she thought the cops had made a major mistake.
“Well?” she said, making no move to invite me in.
“I was hoping I could talk to you and Mr. Hurlbutt for a few minutes.”
“All right,” she said, grudgingly. “But we were just in the middle of lunch, and I don’t have enough for you.”
Emily Post, eat your heart out.
I followed her into her 1970s kitchen with its avocado-green appliances and a dishtowel from the Grand Canyon hanging from the oven door.
Mr. H. was seated at a table for two in the corner, eating what looked like a most delicious tuna noodle casserole. A huge dish of the stuff sat in the center of the table.
Mrs. Hurlbutt plopped down across from him, leaving me standing there.
“Can I get you a seat?” Mr. Hurlbutt had the decency to ask.
“No, Harold,” Mrs. H. decreed. “She’s just staying a few minutes.”
I must have been staring at his casserole because Mr. Hurlbutt then asked, “You want some?”
Mrs. Hurlbutt shot him a withering glare.
“If we give her some, we won’t have enough for lunch tomorrow, and I want it to last two days.”
“Really, that’s okay.” I smiled a smile meant exclusively for Mr. Hurlbutt. “I’m fine.”
“So what did you want to talk about?” Mrs. Hurlbutt asked.
“Cryptessa’s murder.”
“If you ask me,” Mrs. Hurlbutt said with a righteous sniff, “it’s karma. Payback for Cryptessa killing my tulips.”
The scary thing is she meant it. She actually thought that tulip-o-cide was grounds for capital punishment. Which made me wonder once again if Mrs. H. was indeed the killer.
I suddenly flashed on the day I was cleaning my car and saw Mrs. H. stabbing the slugs in her garden. How ferociously she’d gone at them with her hoe. All because they’d had the temerity to invade her flower bed. Had she gone after Cryptessa in a similar rage?
“I’m afraid the police think I did it,” I said.
“Did you?” she asked, with her usual sledgehammer tact.
“Of course not!”
“I told you she didn’t do it,” Mr. H. piped up.
“That’s the trouble with you, Harold. You always think the best of people.”
“Last night at the party,” I said, wrenching the conversation back on topic, “I left my ape suit on Peter’s bed, and someone else wore it to kill Cryptessa.”
“So that’s your story, huh?” Mrs. H. smirked, oozing skepticism.
It was all I could do not to shove that tuna noodle casserole up her wazoo.
“Anyhow, I was wondering if either of you saw anybody going into the hallway to Peter’s bedroom?”
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. H. said, scooping up a forkful of casserole. “I saw you. You hightailed it there right after you saddled us with that gasbag Lila Wood. Which I didn’t appreciate one little bit, I don’t mind saying.”
“Did you see anyone aside from me go down the hallway?”
“No, it was hard to see much with Lila yapping in my face.”
“What about you, Mr. Hurlbutt?”
But Mrs. Hurlbutt cut him off before he could get a word in.
“Harold, the traitor, ran off to the buffet and left me stranded with Lila. Said he’d be right back with some cold cuts, but that was the last I saw of him until after Cryptessa was murdered.”
Very interesting. So the Hurlbutts had been separated. Which meant that either one of them could have slipped away to kill Cryptessa.
“I told you I got caught up in a conversation with Matt Moore,” Mr. Hurlbutt said, blushing a deep red. “And no,” he added, turning to me, “I didn’t see anyone go down the hallway. Aside from you, that is.”
“Can you two think of anyone—other than me—who might have killed Cryptessa?”
“If I had to guess,” Mrs. Hurlbutt said, “I’d say Emmeline Owens. She hated Cryptessa with a passion, ever since Cryptessa threw that lemon at her dog.”
“But Emmeline couldn’t have done it,” Mr. Hurlbutt said.
“She wasn’t even at Peter’s party. How would she have gotten hold of Jaine’s ape suit?”
“Oh, Harold. You’re so naïve. Who’s to say the killer was even wearing an ape suit?”
Mrs. H. was right of course. We only had Emmeline’s word for that. For all we knew, Emmeline could have made up that whole ape suit story to save her own fanny.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Hurlbutt, nodding, “the killer could very well be Emmeline Owens. Isn’t that right, Harold?”
She turned and shot him a look of such steely intensity I thought she’d drill a hole through his skull.
“Right, dear,” Mr. H. nodded, squirming in his seat. Beads of sweat had broken out along his brow, and glancing down, I saw he’d torn his paper napkin into tiny shreds.
Mr. Hurlbutt was clearly not a happy camper.
Was it because he knew Cryptessa’s killer was his own wife?
Or, worse, because he’d done the dirty deed himself?
Chapter 11
I had a hard time believing Emmeline was the killer—mainly because she weighed about ninety-two pounds soaking wet. I doubted she had the strength to open a pickle jar, let alone plunge a stake in Cryptessa’s heart.
And yet Cryptessa had hurled a lethal lemon at her beloved Lana Turner. Surely that might be a motive for murder. What’s more, I remembered how furious Emmeline had been when she’d accused Cryptessa of eating her birthday chocolates. She certainly seemed ready to kill her then.
So I decided to pop by her house and question her. At the very least, maybe I could pick up some leads.
Unlike Mrs. Hurlbutt, Emmeline welcomed me with open arms.
“Why, Jaine! How lovely to see you!”
She stood there in the doorway, a china doll in a gingham Capri set, her silvery hair framing her face in a Dutch bob.
“What perfect timing!” she cried. “I just took a batch of sugar cookies from the oven.”
Indeed I could smell the heavenly aroma of vanilla wafting through the house.
She led the way to her living room, a white wicker-and-chintz affair, replete with tiny footstools and silk flowers sprouting from teapots—all very Tea Time at Laura Ashley’s.
Dominating the room was a large oil portrait hanging over the fireplace. In it, a much younger Emmeline sat alongside a handsome Tyrone Poweresque man.
“That’s me and my dear, departed husband, Xavier,” Emmeline said, following my gaze.
“You make a beautiful coupl
e.”
“Thank you,” she said, her eyes lingering on her handsome husband. “Xavier was the love of my life.”
At which point, the ball of white fur that had been snoring on the sofa sprang to attention and gave a petulant yip.
“Aside from you, Lana, darling!” Emmeline hastened to assure her bichon. “You’re the love of my life, too.”
Having mollified Lana, she turned her attention back to me.
“Make yourself comfortable, Jaine,” she said, waving me to a hibiscus-covered armchair, “while I fix us some tea.”
“Let me help.”
“No, no. You just stay here and make friends with Lana Turner.”
With that, she picked up the dog and dumped it in my lap.
“Don’t worry,” she trilled as she trotted off. “She hardly ever bites.”
Alone with the dog, I smiled feebly.
Lana growled in return, baring a set of rather frightening little fangs.
“Nice doggie!” I simpered, wondering if rabies shots were as painful as people said.
Then, to my surprise, she rolled over in my lap and offered me her belly.
Tentatively I reached down to pet her, hoping I wasn’t about to lose a finger or two. I needn’t have worried. With the first stroke, she gave a moan of doggie ecstasy.
It took Emmeline a good ten minutes to rustle up that tea, every second of which I spent stroking Lana. If I dared to stop, she bared her teeth and growled at me most unpleasantly, Cujo with a hair bow.
At last, just as carpal tunnel syndrome was about to set in, Emmeline came trotting back with the tea and cookies and swooped Lana from my lap, relieving me of belly rub duty.
“Have a cookie, dear!” she urged, nodding at a plate of golden, sugar-dusted cookies.
I was more than happy to oblige.
One luscious, buttery bite and my aching wrist was quickly forgotten.
I happily chomped it down and reached for another.
It felt good to break away from chocolate for a change and give other calories a chance to frolic on my hips.
I was having such a good time ingesting empty calories that I almost forgot why I’d stopped by. Until Emmeline, smiling brightly, said:
“So you’re out of jail already! I knew you couldn’t have killed Cryptessa.”
I did not bother to correct her. Clearly Mrs. H. had been working overtime, spreading the word about my “arrest” to anyone with half an earlobe.
“If you ask me,” Emmeline said, feeding a morsel of cookie to Lana, “the killer is Helen Hurlbutt.”
I wisely refrained from mentioning that Mrs. Hurlbutt had just been saying the same thing about her.
“Helen went absolutely crazy when she thought Cryptessa poisoned her tulips. Came tearing over to her house, screaming bloody murder. I couldn’t help overhearing, of course.”
“Of course,” I murmured.
I could just see Emmeline standing at her front window catching the action with a pair of binoculars.
“I honestly thought Helen was going to kill Cryptessa right then and there. I’ll get you for this, she told her, shaking her fist. Just wait. One day you’ll pay for what you did!”
Well, how do you like that? If one were inclined (and I sure was), one could interpret that as a death threat.
“But Cryptessa just snickered and slammed the door in her face. If only she’d apologized, she might still be alive today.” A pregnant pause to scratch Lana behind her ears. “Although confidentially,” she added, “I can’t help thinking that life will be so much more pleasant without her. You can’t imagine how miserable it’s been having Cryptessa as a neighbor—stealing my chocolates, throwing lemons at Lana. And that godawful typing of hers, at all hours of the day and night. Working on that silly novel of hers.
“Yes,” she sighed, “it’s a tragedy she’s gone, but I can’t say I’ll miss her.”
By now Lana had gotten her fill of love scratches and had ambled under the coffee table where she was hard at work gnawing on a chew toy.
“It must have been terrible for you, though,” I said, coaxing her back to the murder, “witnessing Cryptessa’s death.”
“Oh, yes,” she assured me, biting down on a sugar cookie with gusto. “Just terrible.”
“Did the killer say anything at all before killing her?”
“No, not a thing. Just took aim and stabbed her in the chest.”
“So you couldn’t even hear if it was a man or a woman?”
“No, like I told the police, all I know is, it was someone in an ape suit.”
So much for leads.
“Well, thanks for the cookies,” I said, getting up to go. “They were delicious.”
At which point, Lana started yipping angrily at the sofa.
“Naughty Lana,” Emmeline said, springing up from her chair. “You pushed your chew toy under the sofa again, didn’t you? Now Mommy has to get it out.”
“I’ll get it,” I offered.
The last thing Emmeline needed was to be crawling down on her knees. Not at her age.
I kneeled down in front of the sofa to reach in and get the toy—hoping it wasn’t drenched in dog spit—but it was just out of my grasp.
“Not a problem,” Emmeline said. “This happens all the time.”
And then, with the strength of a sumo wrestler, that little slip of a woman lifted one end of the very heavy sofa so I could grab the toy.
Good heavens. Emmeline Owens was a lot stronger than she looked. Strong enough, certainly, to have rammed that stake in Cryptessa’s heart. But, no. Someone who baked such delicious sugar cookies couldn’t possibly be capable of murder.
Could she?
“Jaine, honey. I’ve got the most exciting news ever!”
I was sitting across from Kandi in the living room of her Westwood condo.
Kandi lives in one of the many New York-style high rises that line Wilshire Boulevard, like Park Avenue with palm trees. On a clear day, you can see the Pacific from her living-room window.
She calls it the condo that Beanie & The Cockroach built.
I’d received a call from her late that afternoon summoning me to her place for a pizza dinner, where she promised she’d share a late-breaking news bulletin. She’d refused to breathe a word of her good news, however, until I was settled on her plush chenille sofa, a glass of cabernet in hand, a box of pizza between us.
Her half of the pizza, ordered from one of those upscale Italian restaurants Kandi’s so fond of, was a ghastly combo of arugula and sun-dried tomatoes. Mine, thank heavens, was a gooey mozzarella and barbeque chicken, studded with sweet red onion slices.
She knew me well.
“I’m so excited,” she said, practically bouncing off the ceiling, “I can hardly eat.”
A state of mind I’ve yet to experience.
“I’ve waited long enough,” I said, popping a piece of onion in my mouth. “Are you going to tell me your news before or after I reach menopause?”
“Madame Vruska was right!” She grinned in triumph.
“Madame Vruska?”
“The fortune-teller.”
Ah, yes. The seeress right next to Kandi’s nail salon.
“Remember how she predicted I’d meet my true love in the arts?”
“Vaguely,” I said, tearing myself away from a particularly luscious glob of mozzarella.
“Well,” she beamed, “her prediction came true! I met him!”
Before you go shopping for a wedding present, I should tell you that Kandi, like Lance, meets Mr. Right with the frequency of a public radio pledge drive.
“How nice.” I smiled wanly. “What’s he like?”
“His name is Steve and he’s a podiatrist at the Santa Monica Foot and Ankle Institute.”
“Wait a minute. How is a podiatrist an artist?”
“Madame Vruska didn’t actually say he’d be an artist. All she said was that I’d meet him in the arts. And I did. I met him in the parking lot of the coun
ty art museum. Even though, technically, Steve wasn’t going to the museum. He was just parking his car there while he grabbed a burger at the restaurant across the street. But the thing is, we did meet in the arts. Right?”
“Right.”
I was not about to be the one to bust her bubble. Life would take care of that soon enough.
“I’m telling you, Madame Vruska is sheer genius. Which is why I’ve set up an appointment for you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You need some guidance to get your life on track. And don’t worry. It’s my treat.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, but I don’t want guidance from someone who sees the future in a cup of Lipton’s.”
“Madame Vruska doesn’t read tea leaves,” she said, sniffing in disdain. “She reads coffee grounds.”
“Oh. Coffee grounds. That makes all the difference.”
She failed to detect my irony.
“Really, Kandi, it’s very sweet of you, but I don’t want to—”
“Enough!” She held up a hand. “You’re going. I insist! Say yes,” she commanded, grabbing the pizza box, “or you don’t get any more pizza.”
“I’m not going to see Madame Vruska, and if you think you can bribe me with a piece of pizza, you’re sadly mistaken.”
And if you believe I really said that, go straight to the back of the class and put on your dunce cap.
“Okay, okay, I’ll go,” were the words you should’ve guessed I uttered.
Kandi smiled, satisfied, and released the pizza from captivity.
“Now enough about me,” she said. “How did everything work out at Peter’s Halloween party? Did you make a big impression in your Tummy Tamer?”
“Oh, I made a big impression, all right. Not on Peter, but on the Beverly Hills Police Department.”
“What on earth happened?”
And I told her all about it. How Lance double-crossed me and rented me an ape suit instead of my flapper outfit and how I got trapped in the Tummy Tamer and left my ape suit on the bed and how the killer wore it to stab Cryptessa and how the cops thought I did it because Cryptessa was suing me in small claims court for the death of her parakeet.