by Laura Levine
When I was finished, she shook her head, aghast.
“You cut yourself out of the Tummy Tamer? Why on earth would you do that? It takes inches off your hips and thighs!”
“Forget the damn Tummy Tamer, Kandi. The cops think I killed Cryptessa.”
“That’s absurd,” she said, dismissing the charge with a wave of her as-yet-uneaten arugula and sun-dried tomato pizza. “And we can prove you didn’t do it.”
“We can?”
“Absolutely!”
“How?” I asked, wondering if she’d had a Sherlock Holmesian burst of insight into the case.
“Madame Vruska, of course. With her amazing psychic gifts, she’ll figure out who the killer is.”
And to show you how desperate I was, for a minute I allowed myself to hope that Kandi was right.
Could Kandi’s fortune teller possibly lead me to the killer?
If not, at least she could grind me a good cup of coffee.
Chapter 12
Bright and early the next morning, while I was still in my robe and jammies, the police showed up with a search warrant.
Soon a team of Beverly Hills’s finest were rifling through my apartment doing their best to re-enact a small tornado. I figured they were looking for the ape suit, which—I gleaned from bits and pieces of scattered cop chat—seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Needless to say, they didn’t find the ape suit in my apartment, but they were treated to the unforgettable sight of my Bottoms Up! undies, which Prozac was thoughtful enough to retrieve from my hamper and drop at their feet.
All in all, a most depressing experience.
And things were about to get worse.
Because no sooner had the cops left than the phone rang.
“Ms. Austen?” A raspy, cigarette-clogged voice came on the line. “This is Estelle Santos calling.”
“Who?”
“Estelle, from Estelle’s Costume Shop. According to my records, you were supposed to return your ape suit yesterday. Any chance you can bring it back this afternoon?”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You see, it’s . . . um . . . missing.”
“Whatever. Accidents happen. Not a problem, hon.”
Gee, she was being awfully sweet about this.
“I’ll just charge your credit card two hundred and sixty-five dollars for a replacement ape suit.”
“Two hundred and sixty-five dollars?”
“It says right on your credit card receipt: If you lose it, you replace it.”
Frantically I rummaged through my purse till I found the credit slip from Estelle’s Costume Shop. There it was in tiny letters at the bottom of the receipt: Any lost costumes to be replaced at customer’s expense.
“Well, enjoy the rest of your day!” And with a raspy chortle, Estelle hung up.
Oh, dear. The last thing my poor anemic credit card needed was another two hundred and sixty-five dollars on its back.
But I did not have time to sit around and stew about mounting credit card debt, because just then the phone rang with yet another piece of poop for my fan.
This time it was Marvin Cooper.
“Hey, Jaine. How’re the Larry Lumbar spots coming?”
I hadn’t touched them in days.
“I’m almost done,” I fibbed.
“Good. Then fax ’em to me by the end of the day, okay?”
“Will do.”
I hung up with a groan. I really had to knuckle down and get to work. And I would. Just as soon as I fortified myself with a nutritious breakfast of Double Stuf Oreos.
I raced to my cupboard in the vain hopes that I’d find a package of the little darlings. But of course I didn’t.
Here at Casa Austen, cookies tend to have a notoriously short life span.
For a brief instant I considered chowing down on leftover Halloween candy. But I could not allow myself to stoop that low. Mainly because, several days ago, I’d tossed said candy in the garbage, determined to be as sylphlike as possible for my grand entrance at Peter’s party.
My cupboards, alas, were depressingly chocolate-free.
And so fifteen minutes later, I was at my local supermarket’s cookie aisle, tossing the coveted Double Stuf Oreos into my basket. While I was there, I decided to pick up some lettuce, apples, and Chunky Monkey.
The lettuce and apples were only for show, of course, to convince the checker I was a sensible eater and not the kind of person who came charging into the market on emergency Double Stuf Oreo runs.
I was heading over to the produce section to pick up my decoy apples when I heard:
“Yoo hoo, Jaine!”
Looking up, I saw Lila Wood chugging my way, her stocky bod jammed into a polyester pantsuit, sensible low heeled pumps clacking on the linoleum.
Her cart, I saw, was stocked with low-fat cottage cheese and Healthy Choice dinners. Tucked away in a corner was what she’d really come for: a quart of fudge ripple ice cream.
“So glad to see you’re out of jail!” she trilled.
Damn that Mrs. Hurlbutt and her big mouth.
“Did they actually book you and take your mug shot?” Lila asked breathlessly. “You don’t have a criminal record, do you?”
“No, Lila. I was never arrested. And I haven’t been charged with a thing.”
“How wonderful!” she beamed. “So you can still vote?”
“Of course I can still vote.”
“Great. Then I’ll count on your support in the neighborhood council election. Remember: A Vote for Wood is a Vote for Good!”
With that she whipped out a flyer from her purse and shoved it in my hand.
“Here’s some vital information about the unscrupulous developer who wants to build that dreadful mini-mall at the end of the street. Rumor has it he’s going to rent out space to a tattoo parlor!”
I glanced down at the flyer and saw a grainy photo of a round-faced bald guy, under the headline: RALPH MANCUSO, BUILDER WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE!
“Here’s some pictures of Mancuso’s other properties,” Lila said, shoving another piece of paper in my hand. “You can see for yourself what terrible buildings he puts up. Never properly maintained, always a blight on the neighborhood! We have to stop him before he ruins our block!”
“Of course,” I said, tsking as if I cared.
As eager as I was to dig into my Oreos, I decided to take advantage of my meeting with Lila to question her about the murder.
“Speaking of bad things happening in the neighborhood,” I said when her monologue about the Evils of Ralph Mancuso finally ran out of steam, “what a tragedy about poor Cryptessa, huh?”
She shot me a skeptical look. “I wouldn’t go that far, dear. Unfortunate, maybe. Tragic, not so much. After all, the woman’s house was a trip to trashy town. All it needed was a car parked on the front lawn.”
“Still,” I persisted, “her death was quite a shock.”
“Oh, yes. I just hope our property values don’t go down, what with a murder on the block.”
Quite the sensitive soul, wasn’t she?
“Did you happen to notice anyone leaving Peter’s party around the time of the murder?” I asked, wrenching the conversation away from property values.
“I saw you,” she said, “sneaking down the hallway.”
If she expected to get my vote, she certainly wasn’t going about it the right way.
“Aside from me,” I huffed.
“Let me think.” She paused to scratch her head with a stubby finger.
“Now that I think of it, I did see someone leave the party.”
At last! A lead!
“Who?”
“Your neighbor, Lance. Do you think he killed Cryptessa?” she asked, thrilled at the idea.
“No, he was just going out to get some ice. Can you think of anyone else who—”
“Oh, look!” she cried, staring over my shoulder. “It’s the Franklins from around the corner. I really must run and say hello. Don’t forget
! Vote for Lila Wood—And Keep the Bad Out of the Hood!”
With that, she grabbed her cart and charged off to corner the poor, unsuspecting Franklins.
For a fleeting instant, I wondered if Lila could’ve possibly killed Cryptessa in a misguided attempt to beautify our block.
Nah. The woman was a crashing bore, but homicidal? I didn’t think so.
Shoving her to the bottom of my suspect list, I trotted off to get my apples and lettuce—along with some cortisone cream for that itch on my arm. It still hadn’t gone away.
Just another cursed memento of my Halloween from Hell.
Chapter 13
Four hours and a disgraceful number of Oreos later, I put the finishing touches on the Larry Lumbar spots and faxed them off to Marvin.
“Thank heavens that’s over,” I said, leaning back in my chair.
Prozac, who’d spent most of the afternoon curled up next to my computer, her tail occasionally flicking across the keyboard (she likes being part of the creative process), rolled over on her back and gazed up at me lazily.
Yes, now you can devote the rest of the day to rubbing my belly.
“Sorry, Pro,” I said, after giving her belly a couple of half-hearted swipes. “Mommy has to clean the apartment.”
She narrowed her eyes into angry little slits.
It’s always about you, isn’t it?
Ignoring her baleful glare, I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the mess the police had so considerately left in their wake that morning.
Finally, when all was back in order, I settled down on my sofa with a much-deserved glass of chardonnay. As I sat there, sipping (okay, gulping) my wine, my mind kept drifting back to Cryptessa’s murder and what I’d learned so far in my investigation.
Lila had been no help whatsoever. All she cared about was that silly neighborhood council election. But what a surprise about Emmeline, huh? Lifting up her heavy sofa like it was a feather duster. She certainly had the strength to plunge that stake in Cryptessa’s heart. But had she really done it? Had she never forgiven Cryptessa for trying to kill Lana Turner?
And then there were the Hurlbutts. Mrs. Hurlbutt said she and Mr. Hurlbutt lost sight of each other at the Halloween party. Which meant that either one of them could have sneaked off and killed Cryptessa.
Mrs. Hurlbutt was the person I’d like most to see behind bars, but what about Mr. Hurlbutt? He said he’d been chatting with Matt Moore when he left Mrs. Hurlbutt. But I remembered how uncomfortable he looked when he said it.
Maybe it was time to pay a little trip to the Moores and check out his alibi.
I looked at my watch and saw it was after six. With any luck, they’d be home from work.
The Moores’ house, like Cryptessa’s, was a Spanish beauty. But unlike Cryptessa’s, theirs was fastidiously maintained, with fresh paint, gleaming red-tiled roof, and a lawn fertilized to velvety perfection.
I rang the bell and heard the muffled sound of chimes from inside.
Seconds later, Kevin Moore came to the door, still in her biz-gal togs, not a single ash-blond hair out of place.
She looked me up and down, clearly not impressed with what she saw.
“Sorry. We’re not interested in any magazine subscriptions.”
“I’m not selling magazines,” I hastened to explain. “I’m Jaine Austen. Your neighbor from down the street. We met at Peter Connor’s housewarming party.”
Another once-over and recognition set in.
“Oh, right. You’re the renter.”
I looked for signs of neighborly hospitality, but I looked in vain.
Any second now, I’d be feeling the breeze of a door slamming in my face. And something told me Kevin Moore wasn’t about to sit around answering questions about the murder. I had to think of another way to get past that front door.
“I was hoping to have a word with you—”
“Actually now’s not a good time.”
“—about buying a condo.”
Just like that, she morphed from Ice Queen to Miss Congeniality.
“Come in! Come in!” she gushed, all smiles.
I followed her through her foyer to her living room, watching the bright pink soles of her Christian Louboutin shoes clack against her peg-and-groove hardwood floors.
There was a time I would not have known a Louboutin from a lobotomy, but thanks to endless episodes of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, I happen to know what they look like. I also happen to know they cost about a thousand bucks a pop.
Either the Moores were doing a great job in real estate, or they were doing a great job faking it.
“Look who’s here, Matt!” Kevin called out. “Our darling neighbor from down the street. Jean Austen.”
Matt Moore looked up from where he was sitting on a sleek taupe sofa in their Ethan Allen showroom of a living room.
“But I thought you were in jail,” he said.
“No, no,” I assured them. “I’m free as a bird. Absolutely innocent. Had nothing whatsoever to do with Cryptessa’s death.”
He shot me a skeptical look, quickly snatching up a tiny knife from a plate of hors d’oeuvres on the coffee table.
Good heavens. Did he honestly think I was going to stab him with a cheese knife?
“Jean wants to buy a condo!” Kevin announced.
The magic words. Suddenly Matt was all smiles. Who cared if I was a suspected murderer, as long as I could sign the escrow papers?
“Fabulous!” he beamed. “We can get you into a one-bedroom Beverly Hills Adjacent for only four hundred grand!”
Yikes. For four hundred grand, I could buy a city in the Czech Republic.
“And just forty thousand down,” Kevin added.
“Quite the bargain,” I said, not bothering to mention I was about $39,950 short on the required cash.
“Sit down, won’t you?” said Kevin, guiding me to an armchair across from the sofa. “Have some sashimi.”
She picked up the plate of hors d’oeuvres from the coffee table and held it out to me. On it, I now saw, were nothing but blobs of slimy raw fish.
“No, thanks,” I gulped. “They look dee-lish, but I just ate.”
“Have some wine, then,” Matt said.
And before I knew it, he was pouring me a glass of a pinot grigio that I’d seen at Costco for twenty-seven bucks a bottle. And if it cost twenty-seven bucks at Costco, heaven only knew how much it cost in real life.
Needless to say, I would have no trouble chugging that stuff down.
“So what are you looking for?” Matt asked.
I was on the verge of saying, “Cryptessa’s killer” when I realized he was talking about the condo I supposedly wanted to buy.
“Let’s see,” I mused. “One bedroom, with a balcony, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, working fireplace.”
As long as I was lying, I might as well lie with stainless steel appliances.
“We’ll get on it right away,” Kevin assured me. “And we’ll call you as soon as we’ve lined up some properties.”
Oh, dear. A sinking sensation came over me as I realized I’d just unleashed a pair of realtors into my life. Once they think they’ve got a potential sale, Los Angeles realtors have been known to cling to their clients like crazed Tummy Tamers.
“Take your time,” I demurred. “There’s no rush. Honest.”
“Oh, no!” Matt said, shooting me a buttery smile. “We’ll get you into that condo by Christmas.”
“Well, it’s been great talking to you, Jean,” Kevin said, starting to get up. “Thanks so much for stopping by.”
My cue to leave. But I couldn’t go. Not yet. Not until I questioned them about the murder.
“Maybe I will have one of these sashimi,” I said, reaching for a slimy pink glob.
“It’s absolutely fabulous,” Matt said.
I took a tiny bite.
Now, I’ve never actually eaten one of Mrs. Hurlbutt’s slugs, but I’m guessing they taste a lo
t like the Moores’ sashimi. With great effort, I managed to swallow.
“Yum!” I smiled weakly.
Then, holding the sashimi aloft as if poised to take another bite, I said, “Such a shame about Cryptessa.”
“A real shame,” Matt echoed.
“She certainly didn’t deserve to die the way she did,” Kevin tsked.
To my surprise, they both seemed to mean it.
“She was an impossible neighbor,” Kevin said, “but she was a human being, after all.”
“Well, almost,” Matt added with a chuckle. “I still can’t believe she cut down our hedges while we were away on vacation.”
I looked for signs of rancor in their eyes, but I saw none.
“Do you have any idea who could have killed her?”
“Not a clue.” Matt shrugged.
“The police seem to think it was someone from Peter’s Halloween party,” Kevin said. “That’s what they said when they came over to ask us some questions.”
“Speaking of Peter’s party,” I piped up, grateful for the opening, “Mr. Hurlbutt mentioned he had a nice chat with Matt that night.”
“Mr. Hurlbutt?” Matt seemed puzzled.
“You know, honey,” Kevin said. “The bald guy with the gossipy wife.”
“Oh, that guy,” Matt said. “No, I didn’t talk with him at the party. Gee, I wonder if they want to sell their house.”
Whoa. If Mr. Hurlbutt hadn’t been chatting with Matt during the time he’d left his wife, what had he been doing?
Slipping into my ape suit, perhaps?
“I guess I’d better be shoving off,” I said, getting up to go.
“Aren’t you going to finish your sashimi?” Kevin asked.
Oh, hell. I was still holding the damn thing.
“No, it’s too good to eat all at once. I’ll save it for later.”
And with that, I hustled out the door, wondering if mild-mannered Mr. Hurlbutt was indeed the killer.
Chapter 14
Okay, so Mr. Hurlbutt had been AWOL for several pivotal minutes at Peter’s party. During which time he could have easily nipped across the street to kill Cryptessa.
But why?
He didn’t seem like the type who’d go ballistic over some dead tulips. Was he acting on orders from his wife? If so, why had he lied to her about chatting with Matt? Why not just say, “Honey, I was across the street killing Cryptessa like you told me to. Now can we get some shrimp puffs at the buffet?”