Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge

by Laura Levine

  “How odd,” Bitsy replied. “I didn’t hear from her until the day after Christmas. Elise told me she’d just then heard about Scotty’s will.”

  So much for my trap.

  It looked like Elise hadn’t known about the will, or had been smart enough to keep quiet until the news of her inheritance was official.

  I was just about to write off my little sleuthing excursion as a bust when Bitsy said:

  “So gruesome the way poor Scotty was killed. Elise told me he was bludgeoned to death with a frozen Yule log. One he’d bought half price, because it had the inscription MERRY CHRISTMAS, AUNT HARRIET! written on it.

  “Imagine!” she said, wrinkling her tiny nose in disapproval. “Buying secondhand pastry. Scotty always was a bit on the frugal side,” she added, in the understatement of the millennium.

  And suddenly alarm bells started clanging in my brain.

  There’d been absolutely no mention of the murder weapon in the news. Of that, I was certain. I’d been following the story carefully. And there’d been no mention of dear Aunt Harriet, either.

  How the heck had Elise known about the murder weapon—unless she’d been the one using it?

  Chapter 23

  With Elise back on top of my suspect list, I wasted no time zipping across town to her apartment in Hollywood.

  It wasn’t till I was standing at her intercom, however, that I realized there was no way she was going to buzz me in. Lest you forget, the last time I’d seen her, I’d been passing myself off as her attorney’s fictional assistant.

  So I spent the next fifteen minutes pretending to read the menu in the window of the kabob joint underneath her apartment, until someone finally came out of Elise’s building. Quickly darting over, I managed to slip inside before the door slammed shut.

  After which I rode the graffiti-encrusted elevator up to the second floor and made my way to Elise’s apartment.

  Girding my loins for battle, I knocked on her door.

  “Who is it?” she called out from inside.

  “Um . . . Special delivery,” I replied, making sure to stand clear of her peephole.

  When Elise opened the door, I almost gasped at the sight of her.

  Gone was the frazzled gal I’d met with just two days ago. In her place stood a svelte woman in designer sweats, her blond hair shiny and freshly highlighted, her wrinkles Botoxed to oblivion.

  It looked like someone had gotten an advance on her inheritance.

  “You!” she cried, glaring at me.

  Somehow I sensed she was not about to roll out the welcome mat.

  “A small gift,” I said, holding out a container I’d picked up at the kabob joint. “Some baba ganoush. To apologize for lying to you the other day.”

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?” she said, grabbing the baba ganoush without a syllable of thanks. “I called Scotty’s attorney, and I know you don’t work for him.”

  She stood there, arms clamped firmly across her chest, making no move to ask me in. For which I was actually grateful. Just in case she was the murderer, I was happy to be standing out in the hallway, with easy access to an escape route.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you the other day. You wouldn’t let me in and I had to think of an excuse to talk to you. I was at Scotty’s house the morning he was murdered. I’m a suspect in the case, and I’ve been doing some investigating to clear my name.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?” she snapped. “I already told you I was here all morning long. I have no idea who killed Scotty. So I can’t help you out.”

  Then the dawn came.

  “Unless, of course, you think it was me.”

  A faint flush of irritation suffused her Botoxed cheeks.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “I happened to be speaking to Bitsy Clayton a little while ago and she mentioned that you knew all about the murder weapon—the frozen Yule log with MERRY CHRISTMAS, AUNT HARRIET!’ written on it. I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t help wondering how you knew about it, since there’s been no mention of it whatsoever in the media.”

  I guess she did take it the wrong way, because the look she shot me could’ve punctured a tire.

  “I’ll tell you how I know about it, Sherlock. I called Missy to offer her my condolences. Not on losing Scotty, but on losing his fortune. And to congratulate her on getting out from under his thumb. I never resented Missy for her role in Scotty dumping me. I pitied her for what I knew she’d have to put up with. While we were on the phone, she told me about the murder, how she saw Scotty’s body, and the murder weapon.

  “So that’s how I know about the Yule log with Aunt Harriet’s name on it. Believe me. Or don’t believe me. It’s up to you. That’s all I’ve got to say. In twenty minutes I’ve got to be in Beverly Hills to have my eyebrows shaped.”

  And without any further ado, she slammed the door in my face.

  I rode down the creaky elevator, wondering whether or not to believe her, and wishing I’d kept the baba ganoush.

  * * *

  I’d just pulled up to Casa Van Hooten and was getting out of my Corolla when I saw Lupe coming out of Scotty’s house, a casserole dish in her hands.

  “Guess what, Ms. Jaine!” she cried, hurrying to my side, her face wreathed in smiles. “I got the job with the nice family up the street! I’m starting next week.”

  “Congratulations, Lupe. That’s wonderful!”

  “I’m going to my sister’s to celebrate with homemade tamales.”

  She held out the casserole dish and I took a sniff.

  Yummy with a capital Yum.

  “Here comes my nephew to pick me up.”

  Sure enough, the same young man with the sweet smile who’d picked up Lupe on Christmas Day pulled up in his blue Nissan.

  “Hi, Aunt Lupe!” he said, getting out of the car and planting a kiss on her cheek. “Congratulations on your new job!

  “I see this time you didn’t forget the tamales,” he added, taking the casserole dish.

  “No,” Lupe said. “Today I remembered.”

  Then, turning to me, she explained, “On Christmas Day I was in such a rush to get out of the house, I forgot the tamales I’d made.”

  “We had to turn around and come back to get them,” her nephew added.

  “Well, we’d better get going,” Lupe said. “We’ve got a lot of partying to do!”

  “Nice seeing you again,” her nephew said, lobbing me his sweet smile.

  “Have fun!” I called out as they got in the car.

  It wasn’t until they were halfway down the street that I realized what a bombshell had just exploded at my feet.

  Lupe had returned to the house after I’d run into her on Christmas morning!

  Which meant she could have made a detour to knock off her detested boss.

  Maybe Scotty had caught her sneaking out of the house and forbade her to leave. Maybe he’d once again threatened to turn her family over to La Migra. Maybe, sick and tired of his threats, she’d grabbed the Yule log in a moment of rage and followed him to his office where she bonked him to an early grave.

  I hated the idea of sweet little Lupe as a killer, but suspecting everybody and anybody comes with the territory when you’re a hard-boiled, part-time, semiprofessional PI like moi.

  I was standing there, trying not to think about Lupe stuck behind bars for twenty-five to life, when my cell phone rang.

  At last. Lt. Muntner!

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I have to talk to you about Scotty Parker’s murder.”

  “Go ahead. Talk.”

  “No, I need to see you in person. There’s something I’ve got to show you.”

  Namely, the blotchy red bruise on my shoulder. I wanted him to see what a violent nutcase Marlon Jenkins was.

  “Okay, come on over.”

  He gave me his address, and soon I was back in my Corolla, tooling across town to Lt. Muntner’s office at the LAPD’s Wilshire Station, in
a nuts and bolts blue collar neighborhood several light years away from the posh hills of Bel Air.

  I told the officer at the front desk I was there to see Lt. Muntner, and minutes later, the stoop-shouldered cop came out to greet me in a wrinkled white shirt and loosened polyester tie. Nodding hello, he led me through the detectives’ bullpen to his battered desk with a view of the parking lot.

  But the only view I was interested in was the one of a spectacular pastrami sandwich sitting on his desk, a giant mound of meat crammed into two thick slices of rye, and bursting with Thousand Island dressing. Nearby were a kosher pickle and side of cole slaw.

  It had been hours since my CRB, and I was a tad peckish.

  “Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a molded plastic chair within grabbing distance of the sandwich.

  I guess he could tell by the way I was staring at his pastrami that I was lusting after it.

  “Want some?” he asked, holding out half.

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly.”

  Okay, so I took it. Scarfed it down in a record five bites.

  And I ate his pickle, too, if you must know.

  His heavy-lidded, seen-it-all eyes widened a tad in astonishment. Apparently, they hadn’t seen everything.

  “So how can I help you?” he asked, his fork hovering protectively over his side of cole slaw.

  “I want to talk about Scotty’s killer.”

  “And who might that be?”

  Suddenly I started having doubts. This morning I was certain it was Marlon. But now, I wasn’t so sure. What with Elise knowing all about the murder weapon, she’d become a very viable suspect. And I couldn’t forget about Missy, the merry widow. And Dave, her besotted lover.

  So I began rattling off my list of suspects, leaving out my suspicions about Lupe. (Just in case she wasn’t the killer, I didn’t want to get her family in trouble with the immigration authorities.)

  I felt a tad guilty about ratting on Missy and Dave, after promising I wouldn’t blab about their affair. But, as it turned out, I needn’t have worried.

  “Tell me something I don’t already know,” Lt. Muntner said after my recital. “What do you think we’re doing here, Ms. Austen? Playing Parcheesi? We know all about Missy and Dave. And Marlon’s fight with Scotty. And Elise Parker told us how she’d learned about the murder weapon from Missy.”

  “Well,” I said, smiling weakly, “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

  “Do you have any actual evidence,” the good detective wanted to know, “linking any of these people to the crime?”

  This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, with no small amount of pride, “I have incontrovertible evidence that Marlon Jenkins is a very violent man. Last night he attacked me in the parking lot at Ralphs.”

  Lt. Muntner looked up from his pastrami sandwich. For the first time, he seemed interested in what I was saying.

  “Marlon Jenkins attacked you?”

  “Indeed he did. Just look at this.”

  With that, I took off my blazer, unbuttoned the top button of my blouse, and pulled it back to show him my bruised shoulder.

  He blinked, puzzled.

  “What’s the damning evidence of Marlon’s violence? Your bra strap?”

  I looked down, and realized, much to my embarrassment, that the ugly splotch I’d seen in the bathroom that morning had faded away.

  Oh, for crying out loud. How embarrassing. Here I was with my bra strap exposed in the middle of the Wilshire Station police department, a pastrami-gobbling shoulder flasher.

  “It was red and bruised this morning,” I insisted. “Honest.”

  “Would you care to press charges?” he asked. “Take out a restraining order? Call in the National Guard, perhaps?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster under his barrage of sarcasm. “I guess it’s time for me to be running along.”

  “Not so fast,” he said, holding up a finger. “Before you go, there’s one suspect we haven’t discussed.”

  “And that would be . . . ?”

  “You. The person found at the scene of the crime.”

  “You can’t seriously think I killed Scotty. Don’t tell me you actually dug up a plausible motive for me to murder him.”

  “No,” he admitted. “Not yet.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “But we have been informed that you’ve been running around town passing yourself off as a close friend of Constance Van Hooten and a legal assistant at the firm of Briskin, Todd, Washton, and Carmichael. Neither of which, I gather, is true.”

  “Okay, so I told a few fibs,” I confessed. “I was just trying to gather some facts in an effort to clear my name.”

  “As I told you before, Ms. Austen,” he said, “we here at the LAPD are trained professionals. We know what we’re doing. Just leave the fact-gathering to us.”

  “Absolutely,” I promised, fibbing yet again. “Will do.”

  And with that I got up and walked out of the bullpen, past all the detectives who’d no doubt been ogling my bra strap—my head held high, my spine erect, my tush stained with Thousand Island dressing.

  * * *

  Lance came storming home that night, his jaw clenched tight, his blond curls aquiver.

  “Most annoying news,” he snapped.

  “What happened?” I asked. “They ran out of tuna niçoise at the cafeteria? Some other salesman stole one of your customers? Your tanning parlor got shut down by the vice squad again?”

  “No, I got a phone call from Connie Van Hooten.”

  Oh, hell. I braced myself for what I knew was coming next.

  “Apparently, you’ve been running around telling everyone you and she are BFFs.”

  “That’s not true. I only told two people.”

  “Well, that’s two people too many. Connie didn’t like it. Not one bit.”

  “Gosh, Lance. I’m so sorry if I’ve done anything to compromise your relationship with her. I know what an important customer she is. Honestly, I feel awful. Just awful!”

  “Can the drama,” he said, waving aside my apologies. “Everything’s okay. As usual, Uncle Lance saved the day. I told her you were bipolar and were having trouble with your meds.”

  “Bipolar??”

  “And that you’re under a lot of pressure because you’d recently lost both your parents in a parasailing accident.”

  “A parasailing accident??”

  “And that you’re a direct descendant of a relative of the real Jane Austen.”

  “A direct descendant of a relative of the real Jane Austen??”

  “What—is there an echo in here? Why do you keep repeating everything I’m saying? The point is, I smoothed over troubled waters. All you have to do is send Connie an heirloom copy of Pride and Prejudice signed by the real Jane Austen.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

  “Just order an old copy on eBay, Google Jane Austen’s signature, and trace it onto the book. She’ll never know the difference.

  “But really, Jaine,” he added, without the faintest hint of irony, “you’ve got to stop telling such outrageous lies!”

  YOU’VE GOT MAIL!

  To: Jausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: The Devil’s Spawn

  Hi, sweetheart!

  Just back from an exciting morning in Grand Turk. Saw the spot where John Glenn’s space capsule splashed back down to earth, toured a historic lighthouse, and went shopping in a genuine salt museum, where I bought the most divine bath salts that smell just like the sea! Finally, we toured Cockburn Town, a charming village loaded with Victorian and early 20th-century architecture. Reminded me of our Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald New Year’s Eve costumes. How much fun it will be to step back in time! Can’t wait to see Daddy in his puffy knickerbocker pants. I’ve been having the most impossible time getting him to try them on, but sooner o
r later, he’s got to give in.

  Back on board ship, we ate a late lunch at the buffet, where Daddy pointed out a redheaded little boy, called him The Devil’s Spawn. Honestly, I don’t know what gets into your father. The boy looked perfectly innocent to me.

  Off to another one of Lydia’s fascinating lectures: Christmas traditions in Norway!

  XOXO,

  Mom

  To: Jausten

  From: DaddyO

  Subject: No Puffy Pants for the Iron Man!

  Hi, Lambchop—

  Stopped off at Grand Turk today. Saw a bunch of old houses and bought some salt.

  Mom’s been nagging me to try on my Scott Fitzgerald costume. I keep putting it off. Just the sight of those baggy pants makes me want to upchuck. No way is Iron Man Hank Austen about to appear in public in puffy pants.

  Great lunch at the buffet. Had an “everything” omelet (mushrooms, ham, tomatoes, bacon, and cheese), plus a chocolate éclair for dessert. The Brat was there, and wouldn’t you know, with Mom at my side, he behaved like a perfect angel.

  Mom’s gone to hear Lydia blather on about Christmas in Norway, and I’m headed to the deck for a nice relaxing snooze.

  Love ’n hugs from,

  DaddyO

  To: Jausten

  From: DaddyO

  Subject: Ultimate Revenge!

  Well, Lambchop—I’m happy to report that The Brat finally got his comeuppance!

  It all started as I was stretched out on a secluded deck chair, slipping off into a soothing doze. Then suddenly I was jolted awake by a loud banging noise on the wall right next to me.