Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery)

by Laura Levine

  “Falafel is the fast food of the future!” he informed me with pride.

  I sincerely doubted that a deep-fried chickpea patty was going to give Mickey D’s any serious competition, but I smiled and nodded as if I believed him.

  “I’m going to have chicken falafels. Steak falafels. And instead of wrapping them in pita bread, I’m thinking of putting them in waffles. And calling it a Waffle Falafel. How does that sound?”

  Like something destined for a barf bag.

  But of course I did not tell him that. Instead I just forced out a pallid, “Dee-lish.”

  Eventually I managed to escape from his side when I volunteered to sort through the things in Cryptessa’s bedroom.

  Like every other closet in her house, the one in her bedroom was stuffed to the gills. But I was surprised to discover that most of the clothing was beautiful. True, it was decades old, but I could see it had cost a bundle in its day. How sad to think Cryptessa spent her last years in that dreadful ketchup-stained sweat suit when she had all these lovely outfits.

  “Help yourself,” Warren said, creeping up behind me. “If you see anything you like, take it.”

  “Thanks, that’s very kind, but I don’t think so.”

  I was sorely tempted by a chic little black cocktail dress, but Cryptessa had been such an unhappy soul, I was afraid of catching her bad karma.

  While Warren started bagging Cryptessa’s clothing, I nipped over to her night table, still hoping to find a clue. But all I unearthed were some long-expired prescription drugs and a stash of mini vodka bottles.

  “Hurray! Something I can use!” Warren had once again snuck up on me and was now jamming the vodka bottles in his pockets.

  I managed a quick glimpse in Cryptessa’s lingerie drawer (always a favorite hiding place) but found nothing but raggedy panties and more vodka bottles.

  In the top drawer of her dresser, I came across a faded fabric jewelry box. Most of the pieces inside looked like they’d come from the bottom of a Cracker Jack box—junky stuff whose mystery metals had long ago turned green. But lying amid the dross was a shiny gold locket. I turned it over and saw the inscription:

  To Eleanor with Undying Love

  XOXO

  At last, I’d found someone who’d liked Cryptessa. Loved her, actually.

  I was glad she’d had that in her life.

  “Most of it looks like junk to me,” Warren said, peering over my shoulder into the jewelry box. “But I’ll take it to an appraiser just in case.”

  Finished in the bedroom, we hit the kitchen, plowing our way through mismatched dishes, burned pot holders, and drawers stuffed with a colorful assortment of plastic forks.

  I was hoping to get a chance to look through Cryptessa’s desk drawers in the den, but Warren beat me to it, sweeping all her papers into a trash bag.

  “This might be worth something,” he said, pointing to Cryptessa’s old Underwood typewriter. I thought of Emmeline next door and how happy she’d be to have it silenced forever.

  In the hall closet, we found a vintage camera with a telephoto lens, as well as a stack of old I Married a Zombie scripts, which Warren eagerly put aside, hoping to sell them on eBay.

  The scripts, the camera, the jewelry and typewriter—not to mention the mini vodka bottles—those were the items Warren kept.

  Everything else was either bagged for Goodwill or earmarked for the trash. Warren and I made endless trips to the garbage cans out back, hauling Hefty bags bursting with the detritus of Cryptessa’s life, careful not to step in the gardener’s oil slicks.

  By now I was kicking myself for volunteering to help. With Warren practically glued to my side, I hadn’t been able to unearth a single clue. And why the heck was he so reluctant to let me out of his sight anyway? Was he afraid I’d find something connecting him to Cryptessa’s murder?

  We were tossing our last load into the garbage when I saw that Warren was about to get rid of Cryptessa’s scrapbook, along with Bela the Bat.

  “You’re throwing these out?” I asked, remembering how fond she’d been of both mementos of her long-ago career.

  “Yeah,” he shrugged. “Who on earth would want a scrapbook and a moldy old bat?”

  “I’ll take them.”

  “They’re all yours.”

  I cringed at the thought of keeping a stuffed bat in my apartment but didn’t feel right about tossing Bela into the dumpster. Maybe I’d give it to Lance for his birthday. He deserved it, after the way he’d horned in on my dinner with Peter.

  Finally the last piece of trash was tossed and the last Goodwill box was taped shut. My ordeal was over. I felt like I’d just spent the past several hours moonlighting on a Viking slave ship.

  I was beyond exhausted, and so hungry I was ready to eat the wallpaper.

  “Thanks so much for all your help,” Warren said, his bald head glistening with sweat.

  “My pleasure,” I lied.

  “Can I buy you some lunch? I know a great falafel joint over in Westwood.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll grab a bite at home.”

  I left him on the phone, calling a camera store, asking how much he could get for Cryptessa’s vintage camera.

  He sure wasn’t wasting a second cashing in on her estate, was he?

  Chapter 18

  It’s me or the bat!

  I’d just walked in the front door with Bela, and Prozac was having a full-fledged hissy fit. Tail swishing, teeth bared, eyes blazing—the whole enchilada.

  “Don’t be such a drama queen,” I said, shoving Bela out of sight on the top shelf of my hall closet. “There.” I slammed the closet door shut. “You can’t see it anymore. Happy now?”

  Are you mad? Don’t you realize the minute we’re asleep, it’s going to creep out and start sucking our blood?

  She followed me as I headed for the kitchen, practically glued to my heels, yowling with disapproval.

  I refuse to live under the same roof as that moldy creature! I intend to fight this, I tell you! All the way to the Supreme Court if need be. Nothing will stop me! Absolutely nothing! —Hey, is that Luscious Lamb Guts in Savory Sauce?

  It was indeed. In times of kitty crisis, I find lamb guts are often the answer.

  Bela totally forgotten, Prozac was now rubbing against my ankles in a feeding frenzy.

  Don’t be stingy with the savory sauce!

  Seconds later, her little pink nose was buried in lamb guts while I scarfed down extra-chunky peanut butter straight from the jar.

  It’s a toss-up as to which of us inhaled our food faster.

  Having put somewhat of a dent in my hunger, I was heading for the tub to soak my aching muscles when the phone rang.

  Wearily I picked up, and Kandi’s voice came on the line.

  “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

  “Forgotten what?”

  “I knew it. You did forget. Your appointment with Madame Vruska. It’s this afternoon at four o’clock.”

  Damn. It was already after three.

  “Oh, gee,” I moaned. “Do I have to go?”

  “Yes, you have to go. Madame Vruska’s amazing psychic skills will undoubtedly change your life. And besides, I already paid for you in advance.”

  And so instead of soaking in the tub, up to my neck in strawberry-scented bubbles, I spent the next forty minutes grinding my teeth in snarled traffic as I inched out to Madame Vruska’s salon in Culver City.

  The “salon” turned out to be a no-frills storefront on Venice Boulevard. A giant hand in the window advertised RARE INSIGHTS AT “MEDIUM” PRICES.

  I walked into a small anteroom, separated from the main space by a beaded curtain. A cute, freckle-faced blonde in cutoffs, Ugg boots, and an I ♥ THE BEACH sweatshirt was sitting in one of the waiting chairs, reading a copy of Surfing Today.

  How very annoying. I couldn’t believe I’d slogged through all that traffic to be on time for my appointment when Madame V already had someone else waiting to see her.

>   The blonde, whose thick mane of hair was swept up in a ponytail, looked up at me through a fringe of sun-bleached bangs.

  “You Jaine Austen?” she asked, putting her magazine aside.

  “Yes.”

  With that, she got up and held open the beaded curtains.

  “Right this way.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re Madame Vruska?”

  “That’s me!” she grinned. “It’s not my real name, of course. I just think it sounds so much more exotic than Gidget Donovan, don’t you?”

  Gidget?? Leave it to Kandi to find the world’s only Surfer Psychic.

  “Have a seat,” Gidget said, gesturing to a round table in the center of the room.

  I was expecting the place to be dark and dim with dusty thrift shop furniture, but on the contrary, it was clean and modern—with tasteful toile fabric covering the table, pretty floral prints on the wall, and lemon-verbena scented candles scattered throughout the room. All very Gidget Goes to Pottery Barn.

  “Cappuccino?” she asked, pointing to an espresso maker in the corner.

  “No, thanks, I’m fine.”

  “Well, then, let’s get down to business,” she said, sitting across from me.

  Between us on the table was a round glass thingie, which I could only assume was a crystal ball.

  Gidget ignored the ball, however, and held out her hands.

  “Let’s see that palm of yours.”

  I gave her my palm, wishing that I’d had time to at least take a shower. My fingernails were embarrassingly grubby.

  “Excuse my nails. I was just helping somebody clean out his house. But I guess you already knew that. Haha!”

  She wasn’t laughing.

  “If you don’t take this seriously,” she said with a bit of a pout, “it’s not going to work.”

  I tried my best to plaster a solemn look on my face.

  Somewhat mollified, she stared down into my palm.

  “I can see you’ve been eating peanut butter.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes, you’ve got a blob of the stuff on the cuff of your sweatshirt.”

  And indeed, I looked down and saw a smear of peanut butter on my cuff.

  I can’t take me anywhere.

  “Now for my actual reading,” she said, examining the wrinkles in my palm, her brow furrowed in concentration. “I see you are under a cloud of suspicion. You are a suspect in a murder case.”

  “Did Kandi tell you that?”

  “She may have mentioned something along those lines,” Gidget conceded, “but I can also see it in your palm. Along with some melted chocolate.”

  Okay, so I ate some Hershey’s Kisses with my peanut butter.

  “Hold on!” She dropped my palm and clutched the crystal ball, gazing into its depths. “Someone is coming through to me. Yes, yes!” she said, squinting through her bangs. “I see the woman who died.”

  “Cryptessa?”

  “She dresses badly. Sort of like you.”

  Well! Of all the nerve.

  “She’s wearing a sweat suit. It’s got a stain on it. Not peanut butter. Something red. Maybe barbeque sauce. Or ketchup.”

  Omigosh. I never told Kandi about Cryptessa’s stained sweat suit. And it wasn’t in the papers. Maybe Gidget really did have psychic powers.

  “Can you tell me who killed Cryptessa?” I asked eagerly.

  “No, but maybe Cryptessa can.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s try contacting her.”

  I expected her to dim the lights and hold hands, séance-style, or maybe shout into the crystal ball. But she did nothing of the sort. Instead she took out what looked like a cell phone from her pocket.

  “What’s that?”

  “A Soul Phone. Picked it up at a paranormal convention I went to in Aspen a couple of weeks ago. It’s a conduit to the Other Side. It lets you text the dead.”

  “Text the dead?” I blinked in disbelief. She had to be kidding. My faith in her shot back down to zero.

  “Do you know the deceased’s birth date?”

  “No.”

  “How about her address?”

  Oozing skepticism, I gave her Cryptessa’s address, which she typed on her silly Soul Phone.

  Then she put the contraption down on the table and held her hand over it, her eyes squeezed shut.

  “I’ve got a connection!”

  I refrained from asking if there were roaming charges in hell.

  “Is this Cryptessa?” she called out.

  After a beat of silence, her eyes sprang open. Underneath her freckles, her face was flushed with excitement.

  “Yes! She’s saying yes!” Then, calling out into the ether, “What have you got to say to Jaine Austen?”

  With her hands on the phone and her eyes shut, she sat waiting for an answer from the Other Side. I was about to get up and put an end to this nonsense when Gidget announced:

  “She forgives you for what you did to Van somebody. Van Johnson? Van Halen? Vivian Vance?”

  A chill ran down my spine. She was talking about Van Helsing. And I’d never mentioned the parakeet’s name to Kandi.

  “What else does she say?” I asked, now gripping the table with white knuckles.

  “She wants you to take care of someone. Berna? Bertha?”

  “Bela??”

  “That’s it! Bela. Take care of Bela.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I was impressed.

  “This is important, Gidget. Ask her who killed her.”

  Omigosh. Any minute now, Kandi’s Surfer Psychic would be solving the case!

  “Who killed you, Cryptessa? Who killed you?”

  We both sat there, waiting with bated breath. But then, shoulders slumped, Gidget shook her ponytail in defeat.

  “Damn it. I’m losing her.”

  “Oh, no,” I groaned.

  So much for answers from the great beyond.

  Gidget urged me not to give up hope.

  “Now that a connection has been made,” she said, “we might even be able to get her to cross over from the Other Side and materialize in human form.”

  I left Madame Vruska aka Gidget in a state of confusion, my mind abuzz with questions. Had she really made contact with Cryptessa? Or had she dug up all that information about Bela and Van Helsing on the Internet? Maybe a fan site devoted to Cryptessa trivia.

  Was my surfer psychic legit, or was the voice on the other end of her “Soul Phone” just a dial tone?

  Chapter 19

  T he minute I got home, I headed straight for the tub and spent the next blissful hour up to my neck in those longed-for strawberry-scented bubbles. By now I had given up trying to decide whether or not to put my trust into Gidget, the Surfer Psychic, and was concentrating on the far more momentous decision of whether to order Chinese or pizza for dinner.

  Chinese won.

  Dredging myself from the tub, I threw on my robe and called my neighborhood Chinese takeout place, The Mandarin Kitchen.

  “Hey, Barry,” I said to the owner when he picked up. “It’s me. Jaine.”

  Yes, I’m on a first-name basis with my Chinese takeout guy. And with my pizza delivery guy, too, if you must know.

  “What’ll it be?” he asked. “The usual?”

  “The usual,” I confirmed.

  Which—in case you ever want to have me and Prozac over for dinner—happens to be wonton soup, chicken pot stickers, and shrimp with lobster sauce (Prozac’s favorite).

  I was on the living room sofa, nursing a glass of chardonnay and waiting for my chow to show up, when I happened to notice Cryptessa’s scrapbook on the coffee table where I’d left it earlier that day.

  Picking it up, I began leafing through her meager showbiz triumphs. There she was in her cameo from Hawaii Five-O. And her supporting role in a paper towel commercial. Another page held a program from her star turn in a dinner theater production of Hello, Dolly!

  Most of the album, not surprisingly, was taken up
with photos from I Married a Zombie.

  In spite of her ghoulish black togs and over-the-top bat wing eyeliner, Cryptessa was beaming in every picture. Never had I seen her so radiant, so alive. Those were her glory days, all right. Too bad they’d lasted only a season.

  I was about to snap the book shut when I spotted something peeking out from behind the fabric lining of the back cover. Looking closely, I saw that the seam had been ripped and that a photo had been shoved underneath the lining.

  Pulling it out, I gasped in surprise.

  It was a snapshot of sweet little Amy Chang sitting on Mr. Hurlbutt’s lap! Clad in nothing but a black lace teddy and fishnet stockings!

  I recognized where they were sitting—on the futon in Amy’s living room. But I could tell by a window sash in the foreground that the picture had been shot from outside the house, through Amy’s front window.

  And then I remembered Cryptessa’s camera with the telephoto lens. The one Warren and I had found in her hall closet. Good heavens. It looked like Cryptessa had been using it to spy on her neighbors. And what a jackpot she’d hit. Mild-mannered Mr. Hurlbutt, having an affair. With Amy, of all people!

  So he was the older man who’d called her on the phone this morning. Mr. Honeybun. The one who said he’d stop by at eight tonight.

  Well, I sure hoped Amy was in the mood for company.

  Because Mr. Hurlbutt wasn’t the only one about to pay her a visit.

  At ten of eight, after a delicious Chinese dinner (marred only by Prozac trying to hog all the shrimp in the lobster sauce), I marched across the street and rang Amy’s bell.

  “Coming, sweetie!” she called out from inside.

  Seconds later, I heard high heels clacking across her hardwood floors.

  She opened the door in her teddy/fishnet ensemble, tottering on stiletto heels, her glossy black hair flowing down past her shoulders. She’d assumed a pose straight out of a Playboy centerfold, hand on her slim hip, mouth in a sexy pout.

  A pout that froze, however, at the sight of moi.

  “Jaine!” she cried, crossing her arms over her exposed boobage. (Not that there was much to expose.) “I was expecting somebody else.”