Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery) by Laura Levine

decided to start my investigation with the Hurlbutts.
    Hadn’t Mrs. Hurlbutt been the one who raced into Peter’s house with the news of Cryptessa’s murder? What had she been doing outside anyway? Driving a stake in Cryptessa’s heart, perchance?
    After a pit stop at my apartment for a pizza bagel and minced mackerel guts (the mackerel guts were for Prozac—and so was a good chunk of the pizza bagel), I headed across the street and rang the Hurlbutts’ bell.
    Mrs. Hurlbutt came to the door in a turquoise jogging suit, her impossibly red hair sprayed into a stiff Here’s Lucy bob.
    Her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of me.
    “Jaine, what are you doing here? You out on bail?”
    “No, I’m not out on bail. I was never arrested.”
    “But I saw the cops taking you away last night.”
    “They just wanted to ask me a few questions, and then they let me go.”
    “Oh.”
    It was clear from her tone of voice she thought the cops had made a major mistake.
    “Well?” she said, making no move to invite me in.
    “I was hoping I could talk to you and Mr. Hurlbutt for a few minutes.”
    “All right,” she said, grudgingly. “But we were just in the middle of lunch, and I don’t have enough for you.”
    Emily Post, eat your heart out.
    I followed her into her 1970s kitchen with its avocado-green appliances and a dishtowel from the Grand Canyon hanging from the oven door.
    Mr. H. was seated at a table for two in the corner, eating what looked like a most delicious tuna noodle casserole. A huge dish of the stuff sat in the center of the table.
    Mrs. Hurlbutt plopped down across from him, leaving me standing there.
    “Can I get you a seat?” Mr. Hurlbutt had the decency to ask.
    “No, Harold,” Mrs. H. decreed. “She’s just staying a few minutes.”
    I must have been staring at his casserole because Mr. Hurlbutt then asked, “You want some?”
    Mrs. Hurlbutt shot him a withering glare.
    “If we give her some, we won’t have enough for lunch tomorrow, and I want it to last two days.”
    “Really, that’s okay.” I smiled a smile meant exclusively for Mr. Hurlbutt. “I’m fine.”
    “So what did you want to talk about?” Mrs. Hurlbutt asked.
    “Cryptessa’s murder.”
    “If you ask me,” Mrs. Hurlbutt said with a righteous sniff, “it’s karma. Payback for Cryptessa killing my tulips.”
    The scary thing is she meant it. She actually thought that tulip-o-cide was grounds for capital punishment. Which made me wonder once again if Mrs. H. was indeed the killer.
    I suddenly flashed on the day I was cleaning my car and saw Mrs. H. stabbing the slugs in her garden. How ferociously she’d gone at them with her hoe. All because they’d had the temerity to invade her flower bed. Had she gone after Cryptessa in a similar rage?
    “I’m afraid the police think I did it,” I said.
    “Did you?” she asked, with her usual sledgehammer tact.
    “Of course not!”
    “I told you she didn’t do it,” Mr. H. piped up.
    “That’s the trouble with you, Harold. You always think the best of people.”
    “Last night at the party,” I said, wrenching the conversation back on topic, “I left my ape suit on Peter’s bed, and someone else wore it to kill Cryptessa.”
    “So that’s your story, huh?” Mrs. H. smirked, oozing skepticism.
    It was all I could do not to shove that tuna noodle casserole up her wazoo.
    “Anyhow, I was wondering if either of you saw anybody going into the hallway to Peter’s bedroom?”
    “Yes, of course,” Mrs. H. said, scooping up a forkful of casserole. “I saw you. You hightailed it there right after you saddled us with that gasbag Lila Wood. Which I didn’t appreciate one little bit, I don’t mind saying.”
    “Did you see anyone aside from me go down the hallway?”
    “No, it was hard to see much with Lila yapping in my face.”
    “What about you, Mr. Hurlbutt?”
    But Mrs. Hurlbutt cut him off before he could get a word in.
    “Harold, the traitor, ran off to the