Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery) (24 page)

By the time she’d landed her very first part (as that corpse in
Hawaii Five-O
), Mr. Hurlbutt was out like a light, snoring to beat the band.

“God, he’s so lucky,” Kyle sighed. “I wish I could sleep through this slop.”

Indeed, it was all a royal snoozefest. But then everything took a turn for the interesting when, after trashing all three of her ex-husbands, Cryptessa started talking about “the one true love of my life.”

She clasped her hands and put them over her heart, very Lillian Gish in
Birth of a Nation.

No wonder she hadn’t worked more often.

“Ours was a love that had to be kept secret,” she said, looking wistfully into the camera. “But now that we’re both gone, I can tell the world about the man who meant everything to me, who loved me with all his heart.”

“That had to have been one nutty dude,” muttered Kyle.

“Yes,” Cryptessa said, “now I can tell the world about my own true love—my Xavier.”

I sat up with a start.

Xavier? Where had I heard that name before? And then I remembered. Emmeline Owens’s husband was named Xavier, wasn’t he?

Then, as if in answer to my question, Cryptessa held up a framed eight-by-ten glossy of the same elegant gent I’d seen in the oil painting over Emmeline’s fireplace.

And suddenly I flashed back on the locket I’d found in Cryptessa’s jewelry box. What had it said?

To Eleanor, with Undying Love
XOXO

At the time, I just assumed XOXO stood for kisses and hugs. But now I realized that it meant a kiss and a hug from Xavier Owens!

Good heavens! Cryptessa had been having an affair with Emmeline’s beloved husband! Had Emmeline found out about it? After years of suffering in silence, had she finally plunged a stake in the heart of the woman who had been boffing her husband?

By now the video had come to an end.

Cryptessa had bid us all a weepy farewell, and we adjourned to the alcove with the tinkling fountain to offer Warren our condolences.

A small buffet of wine and falafel balls had been set up to feed the mourners. A placard on the table informed us that the chow we were eating was “Catered by Falafel Land.”

The tourists were chomping down eagerly.

“What yummy dumplings!” Mom exclaimed as she and Dad debated whether to go to Universal Studios or Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

“Why can’t we go back home to Toledo?” Kyle whined. “I hate L.A. All I got to see was this crummy Munster lady and some stupid tar pits.”

Behind them, the three fans were taking pictures of themselves with Cryptessa’s urn. And next to me, Mrs. Hurlbutt was reading Mr. Hurlbutt the riot act for falling asleep during the service.

“Honestly, Harold. I can’t take you anywhere anymore.”

“Is that a promise?” he grumbled.

Off to the side of the buffet table, Matt and Kevin Moore were chatting earnestly with Warren. I was glad to see that at least some people were actually there to pay their condolences.

I stepped up to nab a falafel just in time to hear Matt say, “So let us know what you think, Warren. We’re ready to buy your aunt’s house whenever you give us the word. In fact, I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a contract.

“As you can see,” he added, handing Warren a sheaf of papers, “it’s a most generous offer.”

So much for condolences.

“We’re even waiving our usual broker’s fee,” Kevin chimed in.

At which point, she glanced around and saw me standing there. If I thought she was going to welcome me with jolly hellos, I was sadly mistaken.

I’d seen friendlier looks on cranky pit bulls.

She must’ve still been ticked off at me for not buying that condo.

When she and Matt had finished their sales pitch and walked off, I stepped up to Warren.

“I’m so sorry, Warren,” I said.

“For what?”

“Your loss.”

“Right,” he said, remembering his role as the grieving relative.

“She’s gone on to a better place,” he intoned solemnly, a line I was confident he’d picked up from
Mourning for Dummies
.

“It’s so nice of you to drop by, Jaine. I certainly hope you’ll come visit me at the grand opening of my new Falafel Land franchise.”

And with that, he actually handed me a flyer for the grand opening.

Oh, Lordy. Even Cryptessa didn’t deserve this.

I grabbed another falafel for the road and made my way outside.

As long as I was there, I decided to take a look around the Cemetery to the Stars. But as I wandered among the gravestones, I didn’t do much stargazing. I couldn’t stop thinking about Cryptessa’s bombshell about her affair with Xavier Owens. Had Emmeline found out about it and killed Cryptessa in a crazed act of revenge? Did she lie to the police and tell them the killer was wearing an ape suit to frame me for the murder?

But if so, whatever happened to the ape suit? The cops never did find it, and if the killer wasn’t wearing it, why on earth would anyone take it?

These were the questions flitting through my brain when I came across an open grave—a deep cavity in the ground, freshly dug, awaiting its new tenant.

Little did I realize that new tenant was about to be me.

Because just then I felt a powerful shove in my back. Before I knew it, I was hurtling into the muddy abyss.

I landed with a thud, my heart pounding. And looked up just in time to see the iconic pink soles of a pair of Christian Louboutins beating a hasty retreat.

Chapter 27

G
ood heavens. Kevin Moore had just shoved me into an open grave! And she had not been alone. Alongside her Louboutins, I’d seen the supple leather of Matt Moore’s Gucci loafers.

For a minute I just sat there in a stupor.

But that all ended when I saw a hideous black spider crawling across the arm of my sweater.

Aaack! I had to get out of there—now!

Springing to action, I tried to claw my way up to freedom. But the grave was at least six feet deep, and I couldn’t get a toehold in the crumbly dirt walls.

Oh, God. What if they closed the cemetery and I was stuck there all night? I tried not to think of all the other creepy crawlies I’d be bunking with.

I screamed for help, but all I heard was silence in return.

I told myself not to panic. I’d simply use my cell phone to call 911. But the contents of my purse had scattered in the fall, and I groaned to see my phone lying near a rock, shattered in two, dead as a doornail.

Time to go back to Plan A: Screaming at the top of my lungs.

Which I proceeded to do with gusto, all the while my mind spinning with questions.

Why had Matt and Kevin pushed me into the grave? It couldn’t be because I didn’t buy a condo. That was ridiculous. If every looky-loo in L.A. got shoved into an open grave, there’d be no more space for dead people. No, it had to be more than that.

Something told me I’d just gotten a love tap from Cryptessa’s killers.

But why would Matt and Kevin want to kill Cryptessa? They were practically the only ones on the block who didn’t hate her. In fact, Matt had even helped Cryptessa doing yard work, planting rosebushes. No small act of kindness.

I thought back to my own day doing slave labor in Cryptessa’s backyard, hacking through her cement-like soil in the broiling sun and ruining my Reeboks in the oil slicks from her gardener’s lawnmower.

Then suddenly I had a wild idea. What if Cryptessa had been wrong about those oil slicks? What if they weren’t from the gardener’s lawn mower? What if it was real oil? The kind that turns Arabs into zillionaires. Lots of oil had been discovered in Southern California over the years. Why, there was an oil rig right behind the grounds of Beverly Hills High.

What if Matt and Kevin realized Cryptessa had oil on her property and killed her to get their hands on it? Either one of them could have slipped into my ape suit at the party. And they each had the other to give themselves alibis.

No wonder they’d been so eager to buy Cryptessa’s house!

And no wonder Kevin had been giving me the evil eye at the buffet table. The day we’d gone condo hunting, hadn’t I rambled on about ruining my sneakers with the oil from Cryptessa’s backyard? The minute I’d opened my mouth about the oil, I’d put myself in jeopardy. The last thing the Moores wanted was for me to put two and two together and come up with a motive for murder.

By now I was convinced Matt and Kevin were the killers. True, just this morning I thought Lila had done the dirty deed, and fifteen minutes ago I was ready to arrest Emmeline. But Lila and Emmeline hadn’t just shoved me into a grave, had they?

My thoughts were interrupted just then by the sound of footsteps approaching. Oh, Lord. What if it was Matt and Kevin, coming to finish me off for good?

Relief flooded my body as I looked up and saw a round-faced Hispanic worker peering down at me.

“You okay, lady?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Just get me out of here, please!”

Minutes later, he was back with a ladder, which he lowered down into the grave. Eagerly I clambered to freedom.

“You want to call a doctor?” asked the worker, a darling man whose name, according to his work shirt, was Cesar. “Check for broken bones?”

“No, I’m fine. Really.” And I was. At times like these, my extra pounds come in quite handy.

“Okay. I’ll just take you to the boss’s office,” Cesar said, ushering me to his golf cart.

“The boss’s office?”

“I gotta do that every time I find somebody in an open grave.”

I blinked in amazement.

“You mean, this has happened before?”

“Lots of times. Usually it’s fraternity kids from USC.”

Their parents must be so proud.

After chauffeuring me past a slew of celebrity mausoleums, Cesar pulled up to Hollywoodland’s art deco administration building. I followed him inside and down a thickly carpeted corridor to an office at the end of the hall. The nameplate at the door announced that I was in the hallowed presence of Earl Pomeranz, Chief of Funeral Operations.

A balding, slightly portly gent in an expensive black suit leaped up from his desk to shake my hand.

“Good afternoon,” he said solemnly. “How may we at Hollywoodland meet your needs today? Planning for the future? If so, we’ve got a very attractive plot near the actress who played Ethel Mertz’s cousin on
I Love Lucy
.”

“She’s not here to buy a plot, Mr. Pomeranz,” Cesar pointed out. “She fell into a grave.”

“I didn’t fall. I was pushed.”

Mr. Pomeranz’s mournful smile disappeared, replaced by a look of mild chagrin.

“The grave was clearly roped off,” he pointed out.

Indeed it had been, but the Moores had shoved me right past the flimsy twine that had been strung between wooden gardening posts.

“So if you’re thinking of calling an attorney,” Mr. Pomeranz added, “I can assure you, you have no grounds for a lawsuit. In fact, I have right here a release form that I’d like you to sign, absolving Hollywoodland of any responsibility for bodily harm you may have suffered.”

“I don’t want an attorney. I just want the police.”

“Why on earth would you want the police?”

“I already told you. I didn’t fall in that open grave. I was pushed. The killers were out to get me!”

His eyebrows shot up.

“The killers?”

I calmly explained what happened. Okay, maybe I wasn’t so calm. You know how I tend to babble in times of stress.

“Yes, the killers! Matt and Kevin Moore! Don’t you see? When Matt planted those rosebushes, he must’ve realized there was oil on the property and made an offer on the house, which I’m sure Cryptessa turned down just to be obstinate and besides she’d never want to uproot Bela and Van Helsing, so of course the Moores had to kill her with that Do Not Trespass sign and they must’ve thought I was onto them because they pushed me into the grave and I know for a fact it was them because I saw the pink soles on Kevin’s Christian Louboutins.”

When I was through, Mr. Pomeranz’s jaw was hanging open just a tad.

“Call an ambulance,” he said to Cesar. “I think she may have suffered a concussion.”

“I don’t need an ambulance,” I shouted. “I just need the police.”

I was on the verge of sending Mr. P. to an early grave himself when suddenly the door burst open and Mrs. Hurlbutt came hurrying in, followed by Mr. Hurlbutt and—in answer to my prayers—the police!

“Jaine!” Mrs. Hurlbutt cried. “Are you okay? I saw the Moores shove you into that grave. And I took the liberty of phoning the authorities.”

Thank heavens for the Town Crier! For once I was thrilled she’d been poking her nose into someone else’s business.

Somehow I managed to explain to the cops what happened, and—with Mrs. Hurlbutt backing me up—the Moores were arrested on an assault charge. After which I made my way home, where I found Prozac hard at work clawing a throw pillow.

I was too wiped out to even yell at her.

Glancing over at my answering machine, I saw the light blinking. Wearily, I pressed the PLAY button.

“Jaine, sweetheart!” Marvin Cooper’s voice boomed over the speaker. “Got those Bernie Bedbug scripts, and they’re great. Just great!”

Victory, at last!

“Only one tiny problem.”

Ouch.

“Research tells me everybody loves me as the Mattress King. So I’m going back to eating my crown.”

Grrrr! All that work for nothing! At times like this, I wished I’d listened to my mother and become a dental hygienist.

Disgusted, I peeled off my mud-caked clothing and made a beeline for the bathtub, where I soaked in a chardonnay-enhanced stupor for the next forty-five minutes. When my skin had reached the consistency of stewed prunes, I dredged myself out and slipped into my chenille bathrobe and bunny slippers.

Padding into the living room, I plopped down on the sofa. And as a reward for all my suffering, Prozac was generous enough to climb on my lap and let me rub her belly.