Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery)

by Laura Levine

  Oops, wait. That’s what I do, isn’t it?

  But at least I started out my investigation with a dead body. The closest Daddy got to a corpse was that Fang-tastic Dracula out on his lawn.

  I checked out my parents’ e-mails the next morning, shuddering at the thought of Daddy breaking into Lydia Pinkus’s town house. I had no idea what Lydia had been doing with that duffel bag the other night, but I sincerely doubted she’d been toting around a murder weapon.

  Shoving Daddy to the dusty corner of my brain reserved for root canals and Tummy Tamers, I decided to buckle down and get to work on Bernie the Bedbug.

  I’d meant to tackle Bernie last night, but you know how it is with work assignments: one minute you’re sitting in front of your computer, clear-eyed and brimming with determination, and the next you’re sprawled in bed with your cat on your stomach, sucking down a carton of Chunky Monkey and watching re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond.

  But now, armed with a steaming cup of Folgers, I was up for the job. At this stage of the game, I was an old pro at mattress-dwelling insects, and so a scant five hours later (I took a few Raymond breaks) I finished the spots with Bernie’s immortal last words: “Holy Innersprings! It’s Mattress King! I’m doomed!”

  (Hey, I never said I was Shakespeare.)

  I’d just faxed them off to Marvin when the UPS guy came knocking on my front door with a package. A glance at the return address told me it was my replacement Buddha.

  Eagerly I tore it open, digging out my treasure from the Styrofoam peanuts.

  My face froze in dismay at the sight of the thing.

  It was nothing like the one I’d ordered. A snow-white cherub with wide blue eyes, it looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy in a kimono.

  I quickly dashed off an irate note to the e-tailer who’d sold it to me. He replied that he’d already sold the figurine I’d ordered and took the liberty of sending me this one because it was “practically identical” to my original choice.

  I informed him in no uncertain terms that he needed to get his eyes examined and demanded a refund. After which I bid the doughboy a fond farewell and packed him back up in his peanuts.

  Then I slumped down on my sofa with a sigh.

  Maybe I should just tell Peter the truth and fess up that I’d broken his Buddha. No, it was bad enough I’d gotten brownie stains all over his rug. I couldn’t possibly own up to this blunder, too.

  I may have lost the Peter Wars, but Peter was still my neighbor, one who might possibly publish my Great American Novel someday, if I ever got around to writing it, and I didn’t want him to think I was a complete nitwit.

  So I went back online, determined to find a genuine replacement.

  At first my Web search yielded nada. But then Lady Luck, who up till then had clearly been vacationing in the Bahamas, made a surprise re-entrance into my life. On the umpteenth page of Google listings, I came across what looked like an exact replica of the Buddha I’d decapitated.

  Even better, it was right here in Los Angeles, at an antique shop over in West Hollywood.

  Like a flash, I was on the phone with Gary of Gary’s Fine Antiques, confirming that he did indeed have a genuine Limoges Buddha figurine just like the one I’d broken.

  Gary assured me his Buddha did not bear the slightest resemblance to the Pillsbury Doughboy, and I told him to hold on to it for dear life.

  “Whatever you do,” I told him, “don’t sell it. My name is Jaine Austen and I’ll be right over!”

  Seconds later, I was zooming out the door.

  I stopped zooming, however, when I hit Olympic Boulevard, which was clogged worse than the toilets on yesterday’s condo tour.

  Teeth grinding, I inched along in traffic until I eventually made it to Gary’s shop on a tiny street in West Hollywood. After pulling into the narrow parking lot at the side of the shop, I leaped out of my car, rushing past a sleek brunette reeking of money and designer perfume.

  Gary’s Fine Antiques turned out to be a dusty joint crammed with what I suspected were not actual antiques but upscale thrift shop offerings.

  “Are you Gary?” I asked a pale bespectacled guy behind the counter.

  “That’s me,” he nodded.

  “I’m Jaine Austen, the woman who called about the Buddha.”

  “Sorry,” he said with a careless shrug. “I just sold it to another lady.”

  “But I told you to hold it for me.”

  “Listen, hon. If I held everything for everybody who said they’d stop by and never showed, this would be a warehouse and not an antique store. So unless you give me your credit card number over the phone, it’s up for grabs.”

  Damn!

  I guess he could tell by the string of colorful curses I was muttering just how upset I was.

  “Maybe the other lady will sell it to you. If you hurry, you can catch her. She’s probably still in the parking lot.”

  I raced outside just in time to see the sleek brunette driving off in a hunter green Jaguar.

  I waved at her frantically, but she was yakking on her Bluetooth and, totally oblivious to my antics, just kept going. Lord only knew where I’d find another Buddha, and I was determined to get my hands on this one. Jumping back into my Corolla, I started to follow her.

  It turned out Ms. Jaguar was quite the kamikaze driver, weaving in and out of traffic with the ease of a Hollywood stuntman.

  My idea of speeding is going 56 in a 55 mile zone, but I screwed up my courage and tried my best to keep up with her, coming perilously close to several fender benders in the process. At one rather harrowing point, I was almost rear-ended by a beige Camry behind me.

  It was when we were driving north on Doheny that I caught a lucky break. Ms. Jaguar was stopped at a red light and, cutting in front of an irate Jeep driver, I managed to pull up beside her. Immediately I started honking my horn, gesturing for her to pull over. But that irritating woman was still yakking on her phone, still oblivious.

  We continued this crazy car chase for a few miles until we were on Sunset Boulevard, driving out toward the ocean.

  For a while I’d managed to stick right behind her, but now she was several cars ahead of me. As we headed west, I saw her turning right on Mandeville Canyon, a very tony enclave of town, favored by people with multiple brokerage accounts.

  Speeding for all I was worth, I followed her up the winding canyon road until I saw the Jaguar pull into a huge gated estate.

  By the time I got there, the gates had swung shut and Ms. Jaguar was heading up the path to her front door.

  Then, in the distance, I heard the sounds of sirens wailing. Oh, rats. I hoped it wasn’t the cops out to arrest me for speeding.

  I rang the buzzer on the gate, but there was no answer.

  That was ridiculous. I knew Ms. Jaguar was home. I just saw her walk into the house.

  I rang the buzzer again. Still no reply.

  By now the sounds of the sirens were coming closer. I wondered if someone here in The Land of the Rich was having a medical emergency.

  I was about to ring the buzzer for the third time when suddenly what seemed like a whole platoon of police and private security cars came bombing up the hill and screeched to a halt around my Corolla.

  “Don’t move!” shouted one of the cops, a tanned tree trunk of a man. “Or we’ll shoot!”

  Holy Moses. What the heck was this all about?

  “Hey, I know I was speeding, but this is America. We don’t shoot people for that.”

  “We’ve got a report that you’ve been terrorizing the resident of this house,” the tree trunk said.

  “Me? No, I was just trying to buy her Buddha.”

  “Her what?”

  I calmly and rationally explained how I had been following Ms. Jaguar in the hopes of buying her Buddha figurine.

  Okay, so maybe I wasn’t so calm. Or rational. Maybe I babbled just a tad. To the best of my recollection, what I said went something like this:

  “It all started when
I decapitated Peter’s Buddha, trying to cut myself out of my Tummy Tamer, and sent away for a replacement from eBay but when it showed up this morning it was the Pillsbury Doughboy so I raced out to Gary’s Fine Antiques, only to discover that Gary had already sold it to Ms. Jaguar even though I expressly told him to hold it for me, which is why I’ll never be going back there again, and surely you can understand that I had to follow the Jaguar and get the Buddha so Peter could publish my Great American Novel.”

  Eventually the cops were able to make sense of my story.

  “So you followed this lady home,” the tree trunk said, “hoping to buy her figurine.”

  “Right. But I don’t understand why she called the police. I don’t exactly look dangerous, do I?”

  “No, but your car does.”

  He gestured to my Corolla.

  And then I saw it. That damn Halloween skull! It was still clamped to the front of my car. I never did get around to taking it off. What’s worse, in my bumpy car chase, somehow the skull’s eyes had started blinking rather maniacally.

  No wonder Ms. Jaguar had been scared.

  The cops told Ms. Jaguar my story and, convinced that I was harmless, she came out to the front gate with the Buddha. I was thrilled to see it was the exact same figurine as the one I broke.

  Taking pity on me, the generous woman let me have it for a mere hundred dollars more than she paid for it.

  I wrote her a check, praying it wouldn’t bounce, and then headed home, my prized Buddha nestled in bubble wrap on the passenger seat.

  It wasn’t until I was heading east on Olympic that I noticed the beige Camry behind me. How odd. It looked like the same Camry that had almost rear-ended me earlier that day. I squinted in my rearview mirror, trying to get a good look at the person behind the wheel.

  Good heavens. It was Mr. Hurlbutt!

  While I’d been busy chasing Ms. Jaguar, had Harold Hurlbutt been following me?

  But that was absurd. There were zillions of beige Camrys all over town. I couldn’t be sure that the one following me now was the same one that had almost rear-ended me.

  Maybe Mr. Hurlbutt had been nowhere near me earlier and was behind me now simply because he lived on the same block I did and happened to be driving home at the same time I was. That had to be it. Chances are, he’d been out at the market, buying groceries for Mrs. Hurlbutt.

  I turned onto my street and parked my car. Seconds later, Mr. Hurlbutt made the turn and pulled up in front of his house.

  I sat locked in my car and watched as he got out of his Camry.

  Not a grocery bag in sight.

  It still didn’t mean he was following me.

  And yet, I couldn’t help but wonder. Now that I knew about the incriminating picture of him and Amy, he had the perfect motive for wanting me out of the way.

  Maybe Mr. Hurlbutt was the one who’d killed Cryptessa.

  And maybe he’d been on my tail today, looking for an opportunity to do the same to me.

  Chapter 24

  Never underestimate the calming powers of a hot bath and a cold chardonnay.

  Honestly, sometimes I think if all the world leaders would just hop in a giant bubble bath with a glass of wine, there’d be peace in our time.

  Early that evening, I was soaking in a mountain of strawberry-scented bubbles, sipping at a glass of chardonnay and thinking how crazy I’d been to worry about Mr. Hurlbutt. If he’d really been tailing me, would he have been foolish enough to stay right behind me where I could see his face in my rearview mirror? Of course not! Mr. Hurlbutt was a mild-mannered milquetoast who couldn’t even talk back to his wife, let alone harm anyone. I’d been absolutely nuts to think otherwise. Clearly my imagination had been on overdrive, but that was all over now. I was calm. I was relaxed. I was—

  Oh, gaaak!

  I bolted up in the tub at the sound of a thunderous pounding at my front door.

  Omigod! It was that demon Mr. Hurlbutt, come to do me in, once and for all!

  So much for the curative powers of bubble baths and wine.

  “Who is it?” I called out in a shaky voice.

  “It’s me!” I breathed a sigh of relief to hear Lance’s voice. “Let me in! It’s a matter of life and death.”

  Good heavens. Was Mr. Hurlbutt trying to kill Lance, too?

  I leaped out of the tub and threw on my robe, leaving a trail of water and bubbles behind me as I raced to open the front door.

  “My God, Lance. What’s wrong?”

  I looked around outside, grateful to see no signs of any would-be assassins lurking in the bushes.

  “I need your advice, hon,” Lance said, breezing into my apartment, carefree as can be, holding out two shirts on hangers for my inspection.

  “Which shirt should I wear on my date with Peter tonight? The celadon check? Or the blue stripe?”

  I could feel my blood pressure soaring.

  “Are you mad?” I snapped. “Getting me out of the tub to look at your shirts? I thought this was a matter of life and death.”

  “Well, it is to me,” he sniffed. “I want to make a good impression on my future soul mate, don’t I?”

  I shot him what I hoped was a withering glare.

  “I do not care what you wear on your date with your future soul mate. And I highly resent your rubbing said date in my face when you know I have the warmies for that very same soul mate. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a hot date with a bubble bath.”

  I turned to stomp off, but he latched on to my elbow.

  “Aw, Jaine. I’m sorry if I seemed insensitive. I didn’t mean to upset you. Really.” He put on his most innocent puppy dog face. “And besides, I came to tell you something you might find interesting.”

  “And what might that be? What cologne you’ve decided to wear?”

  “No, honey. I wanted to tell you that they’re having a memorial service for Cryptessa tomorrow. Eleven a.m. at Hollywoodland Cemetery. I thought you’d want to know about it.”

  He was right. I made a mental note to be there and observe the mourners.

  “I wish I could go myself,” he said, “but I’ll be working.” Then another puppy dog look. “So are you still mad at me?”

  “Yes, I’m still mad at you. But thanks,” I added grudgingly, “for letting me know about the memorial service.”

  “Are you sure you won’t tell me which shirt you like better?” He held up both shirts to his face. “I think the green goes better with my tan, but the blue brings out the blue in my eyes.”

  What the heck? He looked so desperate for my advice, I gave it to him.

  “I like the blue.”

  “Great. Then I’ll go with the green.”

  “What??”

  “C’mon, sweetie. If you like it, it’s got to be the wrong fashion choice.”

  “Lance!”

  I can’t swear to it, but I’m guessing tiny wisps of steam were coming out of my ears.

  “You know what I always say: Moths come to your closet to commit suicide.”

  “Out!” I shrieked! “Out!”

  And off he scooted.

  “I’ll let you know how things go with Peter,” he called out as he sprinted back to his apartment.

  Swallowing my irritation, I stomped back to the tub, but of course, by then it was cold. And I did not have the energy to drain it and start all over again. So I rinsed off in the shower and spent the next ten minutes mopping up the puddles of water I’d left when racing to answer the door.

  Damn that Lance. Crowing about his date with Peter when he knew how much I liked him. And then literally adding insult to injury with his crack about moths coming to my closet to commit suicide.

  When I thought of how he’d barged in on my dinner with Peter, I had a good mind to turn the tables and do the same thing to him. Yes, it would give me great pleasure to pop in on them at that restaurant in Malibu. Oh, how I’d love to see the look on Lance’s face as I drew up a chair at their table and reached for a dinner roll
.

  But, of course, I could never stoop that low. After all, I was an Austen. I had my pride. I had my dignity.

  And for some strange reason, I had my best cashmere sweater in my hand.

  What the heck was it doing there? And why was I putting on makeup? And my good Eileen Fisher slacks? And my one and only pair of Manolo Blahniks?

  Somehow another Austen—one with no pride, no dignity, and a burning thirst for revenge—had taken over my body.

  Which is the only explanation I can offer for why, twenty minutes later, I was dressed to the nines and roaring out to Malibu.

  It was cold and raw in Malibu that night, an icy wind blowing in from the Pacific. Belle Reve’s famed outdoor patio, with its spectacular view of the ocean, was deserted—save for one hardy couple huddled together under a heat lamp.

  I hurried past them and went inside the restaurant, a warm oasis of candlelit tables. Across the room, a fire blazed in a stone fireplace, and over the sound system, Ella Fitzgerald was crooning about love gone wrong.

  I scanned the restaurant but saw no signs of Lance and Peter. Maybe they were still at Peter’s place having cocktails. I could just picture Lance, the little phony, sipping a martini and yakking about his med school days in Heidelberg.

  “May I help you?”

  I looked up to see a gorgeous young thing behind the hostess podium. Impossibly tall and blond, no doubt killing time as a hostess until her first movie role came along.

  “I . . . um . . . I’m waiting for my party to show up.”

  “Do you have reservations?” she asked.

  In fact, I was beginning to have quite a few, wondering if perhaps I’d been a tad hasty in my decision to crash Lance’s date with Peter. But then I thought of Lance getting me out of the tub to look at his stupid shirts, and I got angry all over again.

  “Yes, we have reservations,” I said. “Under the name of Lance Venable. Or Peter Connor. Party of two, but I want to change that to a party of three.”

  She checked the reservations book and shook her fabulous blond head.

  “Sorry, I don’t seem to have anything.”

  “Do you have anything for a Doctor Venable?”