Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery) (2 page)

I opened it to find Cryptessa standing there, eyes blazing, her shoe-polish hair standing out in angry spikes.

“You killed him. Now you have to help me bury him.”

“Pardon me?”

“I need you to dig a hole for Van Helsing’s grave. I can’t do it. Not with my bad back.”

“Of course, of course. I’d be more than happy to.”

I wouldn’t have been so damn happy if I’d known what was in store for me.

I followed Cryptessa to her backyard, a landscaping nightmare with ancient patio furniture, spider-infested bushes, and a ragged patch of dying weeds posing as a lawn.

“Watch out for the oil slicks,” she warned, too late, as I stepped in a puddle of black goo. “Gardener’s damn lawnmower keeps leaking.”

I looked down in dismay at the new pair of Reeboks I’d just taken out of the box that morning. They’d never be white again.

Cryptessa had chosen a shady spot under a hulking magnolia tree for Van Helsing’s final resting place.

“Start digging,” she said, handing me a rusty shovel.

The soil, clearly not having been watered in the last two decades, was like cement, and before long I was gushing sweat. Not happy with a shallow grave, Cryptessa made me dig at least three feet below the surface. When at last the grave had been dug to her satisfaction, she barked, “Wait here!”

And then she disappeared into the house.

I stood leaning on my shovel for a good fifteen minutes before she finally came sailing back out again in a long, black, moth-eaten dress, with matching veil—stolen no doubt from the wardrobe department of
I Married a Zombie
. In her hand she carried the “coffin”—a Payless shoe box, lined in pink Kleenex, Van Helsing’s stiff little body nestled in the folds.

Then, gazing into his beady eye with all the pathos of a failed sitcom actress, she began singing:

The way you held your beak
The way you sang off key
The way you used to shriek
No, no, they can’t take that away from me

The way your wings just flopped
The way you chirped “twee twee”
The way your poops just popped
No, no, they can’t take that away from me

Wiping a tear from her eye, she put the lid on Van Helsing’s coffin and slowly lowered him into the grave. I had no doubt that somewhere out there the Gershwin brothers were rolling over in theirs. Then, as Cryptessa hummed “Taps,” I filled in the earth.

At last, my ordeal was over. Or so I thought.

“As long as you’re here,” Cryptessa said, “would you mind planting these for me?”

She pointed to a bed of bright pink petunias by her fence.

“I’d do it myself,” she said with a long-suffering smile, “but my back is killing me.”

So is mine, lady
, was what I felt like saying.

But, still feeling guilty about Van Helsing, I picked up the shovel and started digging.

I spent the next half hour on my hands and knees, jamming petunias and potting mix into the concrete soil. Cryptessa stood over me, much as I imagine Simon Legree must have done down on the plantation, barking orders and hollering at me not to bruise the leaves.

Finally, when every petunia had been planted, she released me from captivity. My fingernails cracked and filled with dirt, my Reeboks stained black, I trudged back to my apartment, cursing Cryptessa every step of the way.

My mood took a slight turn for the cheerier, however, when I got to my duplex and found an absolute cutie pie of a guy ringing my doorbell.

“Oh, hello,” he said when he saw me coming up the path.

“I’m Peter Connor. I just moved in up the street and dropped by to say hi.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

Indeed it was. There was something about this guy’s smile that radiated kindness. And I badly needed a dose of the stuff. I was still licking my wounds from yet another failed relationship with a guy named Darryl who I’d met up in central California. He’d been driving down to see me on weekends, bunking with an old college buddy of his. Before long, love blossomed, and Darryl proposed marriage. Not to me, I’m afraid. But to his old college buddy, a pert redhead named Tatiana.

So when I saw Peter standing there that day, smiling that sweet smile and looking like the kind of guy who would never fall in love with his old college buddy, my heart melted just a tad.

Now he held out his hand to shake mine, and I suddenly remembered my filthy fingernails. And sweaty armpits. And heaven only knew what my hair must have looked like. I’m guessing Early Bride of Frankenstein.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” I said. “I’ve just been gardening and I’m afraid I’m a mess.”

“You look fine to me.”

And I have to say, the feeling was mutual.

As noted before, Peter was one primo cutie pie: slim yet muscular, with a shock of thick sandy hair, soft brown eyes, and—just beneath that sweet smile—the most amazing cleft in his chin.

I happen to find chin clefts immensely attractive. It was all I could do not to run my finger along his. But of course I didn’t. I knew the rules. I knew how to play it cool.

“Anyhow,” he said, shooting me a winning grin, “I’m throwing a little housewarming party, and I was hoping you could stop by.”

“I’d love it. Absolutely. I’ll be there! For sure!”

So much for playing it cool.

“Sunday at about three o’clock?”

“Can’t wait!” I gushed.

“See you then,” he said, heading down the path.

I sailed into my apartment on cloud nine. True, the whole Van Helsing funeral thing had been a bit of a downer. But on the upside, it looked like I had just met a potential soul mate.

Ah, yes, I thought as I trotted off to the shower. Things were definitely looking up.

How wrong I was.

Dead wrong.

Chapter 2

A
fter a good twenty minutes in the shower, scrubbing away the dirt from my grave-digging duties, I was about to reach for a towel when I heard a disembodied voice call out:

“Hurry up and get dressed, Jaine.”

No, I do not have a haunted bathroom.

I do, however, have a neighbor with X-ray hearing. His name is Lance Venable, and the man can hear toilets flushing in Pomona. Lance is a great guy, but for some reason he considers the paper-thin walls that separate our apartments a mere formality, never hesitating to barge in on my life when the spirit moves him.

“Get a move on, lazybones,” he now instructed me. “I’ll be over in five minutes.”

And indeed five minutes later he came bursting through my front door, clad in the designer togs he wears for his job as a shoe salesman at Neiman Marcus.

“Fabulous news!” he gushed, his blond curls quivering with excitement. “I’ve met the man of my dreams!”

I stifled a yawn. You should know that Lance meets the man of his dreams about as often as he gets his roots done.

But I wasn’t about to burst his bubble. I was in a most benevolent mood, having just met the man of my dreams myself.

“What a coincidence,” I started to say. “Why, just a little while ago—”

“You won’t believe how wonderful he is,” Lance said, plopping down on my sofa and grabbing a Snickers from the bag on the coffee table. “So warm and friendly. The minute I met him, I felt like we’d known each other in a former life. There was something about him, a certain aura . . .”

I nodded, on autopilot, still fighting that yawn. These paeans of his could go on forever. I watched as he unwrapped his Snickers, marveling at his ability to chow down on chocolate and still maintain his sylphlike figure. I’m guessing his secret is the ninety-seven hours a week he spends at the gym.

“And he’s so good-looking,” Lance was blathering. “Tall and lanky, with a fabulous smile and the most amazing cleft in his chin.”

Whoa, Nelly!

“Cleft in his chin?” I piped up.

“Yes. Isn’t that heavenly?”

“Yeah, swell. Look, your dreamboat doesn’t happen to be Peter Connor, does it? The guy who just moved in up the street?”

“My God, Jaine. You’re positively psychic! Isn’t it fabulous? The man of my dreams—just five houses away! What’s wrong? You look like you just swallowed a lemon.”

“For your information,” I said, the merest hint of frost in my voice, “Peter Connor happens to be
my
dream man.”

“Oh, please,” Lance said with a dismissive wave. “Peter couldn’t possibly be interested in you.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Aside from all the obvious reasons,” he said, shooting a none-too-subtle glance at my thighs, “Peter happens to be gay.”

“Oh, really? How can you be so sure?”

“My gaydar,” he boasted, his perfectly toned pecs swelling with pride, “is infallible.”

In Lance’s world, any guy who isn’t surgically attached to a woman is gay. Really. According to Lance, notable gays of history have included Napoleon, Trotsky, and Homer Simpson.

“Peter didn’t seem the least bit gay when I was talking to him a little while ago,” I said. “On the contrary, I got the distinct impression he was flirting with me.”

“Flirting? With you?” This accompanied by a most annoying chorus of giggles. “Jaine, sweetheart,” he said, taking my hands in his, “you know I adore you, but I have to be honest. Peter was probably just being kind. No doubt he took one look at your elastic-waist pants, imagined your lonely Saturday nights with just a cat and a pizza for company, and decided to brighten your day with a little ego boost. It was obviously a charity flirt.”

“A charity flirt?”

Of all the nerve!

I sprang from the sofa, grabbing the bag of Snickers.

“For your information, I do not need charity flirts! That flirt was for real, and I say Peter Connor is straight.”

“Well, I say he’s gay,” Lance snapped.

“I say you’re wrong,” I snapped right back.

“Wanna bet on it?” he asked, a malicious glint in his eye.

“Absolutely. Game’s on.”

“Whoever loses has to buy the winner dinner at the restaurant of his choice.”

“Of
her
choice, you mean.”

“We’ll see who Peter goes out with first,” Lance said.

“Yes, I’ll let you know how it went. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some important work to attend to.”

“Yeah, right,” Lance said, eyeing my bag of Snickers. “Just don’t eat them all in one sitting.”

I was an idiot to make that bet with Lance. For all I knew, Peter Connor marched in the gay pride parade with a tattoo of Judy Garland on his chest. But Lance’s “charity flirt” crack got my dander up.

Now, however, I was having second thoughts. Maybe Lance’s gaydar was right. Maybe Peter was just being friendly with me and I’d misinterpreted it as flirty. He probably flashed his cleft chin to everybody he met, an equal-opportunity cleft flasher.

These were the thoughts flitting through my mind that night as I drove over to meet my friend Kandi for dinner. Kandi Tobolowski and I met years ago at a UCLA screenwriting course, where we bonded over bad vending machine coffee and our mutual dislike for the pompous jerk teaching our class.

Kandi had gone on to a high-paying job as a staff writer on
Beanie & The Cockroach
, a Saturday morning cartoon popular with insect-loving toddlers, while I made my way in the far less lucrative field of freelance advertising, writing copy for clients like Toiletmasters Plumbers (
In a Rush to Flush? Call Toiletmasters!
), Ackerman’s Awnings (
Just a Shade Better
), and Fiedler on the Roof Roofers.

Kandi was already seated when I showed up at Paco’s Tacos, our favorite Mexican restaurant, where the margaritas are to die for and the burritos are the size of cruise missiles. Heading into the dining room, I saw her sitting by the restaurant’s tropical fish tank. I could tell she was upset by the mopey way she was nibbling on a corn chip.

True, Kandi always nibbles at her food—one of the reasons she’s an enviable size six, while I, who have been known to swallow Oreos in a single gulp, am a size none-of-your-business.

But I could tell something was bothering her.

“Hi, honey!” I said, sliding into the seat across from her.

She smiled vaguely in my direction and then turned her attention back to the fish tank.

“Have you ever wished you were a fish?” she asked, staring at the guppies zipping by.

“Not particularly,” I said, grabbing a handful of chips.

“What a life,” she sighed. “Swim a few laps, eat some fish food, watch people get drunk on Jose Cuervo. No heartaches. No aggravations. No disappointments.”

Yes, there was something on her mind, all right.

“Okay, Kandi. What’s the matter? Tell Auntie Jaine.”

“The most depressing news ever. I went out on a blind date last night.”

“So what else is new?”

Kandi happens to be a kamikaze dater, leaving no frog unkissed in her search for her prince charming. The woman has Speed Dated, MatchDotCommed, E-Harmonied, and gone on enough blind dates to qualify for honorary membership in the Braille Institute. So I couldn’t understand why she was so upset.

“He didn’t attack you or anything?” I asked, beginning to get alarmed.

“Oh, no. Leonard was a perfectly pleasant if somewhat boring accountant from Pasadena.”

“Then what was so depressing?”

“From the minute we met,” she said, nibbling another millimeter off her chip, “there was something familiar about him. He said the same about me. And then, when he ordered us blueberry pie for dessert, I remembered how we knew each other. He was my very first blind date when I first moved to L.A. ten years ago. That’s what he ordered ten years ago.”

“Wow, what a coincidence.”