Wiped Out (20 page)

C
harlotte folded the Monday
Times-Picayune
and took it into the laundry room, where she kept a basket to collect the papers for recycling. A week had passed since June's arrest, and for a change, there had been nothing new in the newspaper about the scandal surrounding Mimi Adams's murder or about June Bryant.

When Charlotte reentered the kitchen, she glanced at the clock on the microwave. Since it was only seven, in all likelihood, Gordon wouldn't have left for work yet. Charlotte tapped her foot impatiently. What to do…what to do…

She stared at the telephone on the cabinet. Using the excuse of an ongoing family crisis, she'd called and canceled work on Friday, but over the weekend she'd decided that canceling on Gordon yet again was simply delaying the inevitable. Knowing what she knew about Gordon, there was just no way she could continue working for him.

Though nothing could be proven and there was no evidence that he'd had a part in poisoning Mimi, in Charlotte's opinion, his affair with June made him just as morally guilty. By continuing his affair with June, he'd given her false hope and he'd encouraged her to think that if Mimi were out of the way, she would have a future with him.

Charlotte didn't believe in chance. For the most part, she believed that everything happened for a reason. And she'd thought long and hard about her circumstances. First, Marian had moved, leaving her Wednesday slot open, and now this. Was it possible that this was a sign, a sign that maybe it was time for her to finally retire? Then again, the Wednesday slot had already been filled by Sandra Wellington, and, of course, she still had Bitsy for the Tuesday slot. Without Gordon, though, she'd have Thursdays through Mondays off.

Was it possible that she was getting a sneak preview of things to come, a time when she wouldn't have to go to work at all? Charlotte didn't know the answer, and she was tired of trying to figure it out. But for now, she still had unfinished business to take care of.

With a resigned sigh, she walked over to the phone and dialed the Adams's number. The phone rang four times, and then the answering machine kicked in.

Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Thank you, thank you,” as she listened to the recorded greeting. Resigning the job didn't bother her, but she had truly dreaded having to personally talk to Gordon. It was the coward's way out, and she knew she should be ashamed, but this way was oh-so much easier.

Charlotte opened her eyes just as the beep sounded in her ear. “Hi, Gordon,” she said. “This is Charlotte LaRue. I'm sorry for not giving you more notice, but I won't be able to continue working for you. According to my records, you still owe me for two days' work. If you would just mail my final check to my post office box address, I would appreciate it.”

The moment she hung up the phone, it was as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders. Though it felt a bit strange not having to get dressed and rush off to work, it was kind of a nice feeling—no hurrying, no following a strict schedule, and no having to face a dirty mess made by other people. Maybe she would take a nice leisurely walk around the block for a change, and maybe she would finally have time to begin painting her house inside and out, a project that she'd been thinking about for some time.

It was midmorning and Charlotte had just walked into the kitchen to check on the pot of beef stew that she was cooking when the phone rang.

She reached for the new portable phone she'd recently purchased and pressed the TALK button. “Maid-for-a-Day, Charlotte speaking.”

“Today's the day, Charlotte. Davy and I are expecting them any minute now.”

Charlotte smiled. “Oh, Maddie, that's wonderful,” she said, as a warm feeling spread within. Cradling the phone receiver between her chin and her shoulder, she reached for a wooden spoon and stirred the pot of beef stew.

It had been almost a week since little Danielle had been born, and though she had been small and had had breathing difficulties in the beginning, she'd survived with flying colors.

“Miracles still happen,” Madeline continued more soberly. “Lots of prayers went up for that baby girl.” A moment passed, and then suddenly she giggled. “Want to hear something funny? Before the doctor signed the release forms, he told Daniel that he'd weighed her with a wet diaper on and she made the weight cut with half an ounce to spare.”

Charlotte laughed. “I can't wait to get my hands on that little doll.”

“Well, you'll have to stand in line. And, by the way, you are still bringing over their dinner, aren't you?”

“It's almost done.” Charlotte tapped the wooden spoon against the top of the pot, then turned off the burner. “Beef stew, biscuits, and a salad.”

“Yum yum, that sounds wonderful.”

“Just as soon as the stew cools, I'll bring everything over.”

“Thanks, Charlotte. We'll be waiting.”

“See you then. Bye.” Charlotte clicked off the receiver and placed it on the countertop, then began cleaning up the mess she'd made while preparing the stew. She'd just loaded the last dirty dish into the dishwasher when the phone rang again.

With a frown, she picked up the receiver and pressed the TALK button. “Maid-for-a-Day, Charlotte speaking.”

“Hi, Charlotte, this is Sally Lawson.”

Charlotte's frown deepened. “Hi, Sally.”

“I guess you're wondering why I'm calling.”

Charlotte was wondering, but she figured it would be impolite to just come right out and ask, so she didn't reply.

“I just got a call from Gordon,” she explained. “And he said you'd quit. Not that I blame you, not after what he did, what with carrying on with that June Bryant right under poor Mimi's nose, but since you're not working for him any longer, I was wondering if you might consider working me into your schedule. All I need is one day a week, and any day you choose would be fine with me. And I'd pay you well. I know what Gordon paid you, but I'd be willing to pay…”

As Charlotte listened to Sally quote a price, temptation began to grow. She had liked Sally the first time she'd met her, and she had been truly relieved to find out that her very first impression of the woman had been right on target. Besides, the money that Sally was offering for one day of work was as much as she had made working two days a week for the Adamses.

Was Sally's offer yet another sign, she wondered, a sign that she shouldn't retire just yet after all?

“That's a very generous offer,” Charlotte told her. More than generous, she thought, and before she had time to talk herself out of it, she said, “How about Mondays, say from nine to three-thirty? Mondays are a good day for me.”

Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Barbara Colley's next Charlotte LaRue mystery

 

MARRIED TO THE MOP

 

coming next month in hardcover!

“I
s this Charlotte LaRue with Maid-for-a-Day?”

Charlotte barely suppressed an impatient groan. Why, oh, why had she answered the phone? She should have ignored it, or, at the very least, she should have checked the caller I.D. before answering it.

Besides, today was Sunday, for Pete's sake; she didn't work on Sundays. She figured that if even the good Lord Himself had seen fit to rest one day a week, then who was she to question His wisdom?

But ignoring a ringing phone had never been easy for her. She had always been just a bit superstitious that the very call that she ignored would be an emergency call informing her that something had happened to a member of her family.

So, now that you know it's not, just hang up the receiver.

The temptation was strong, but she just couldn't do it. With an impatient sigh, she finally said, “Yes, this is Charlotte.”

“Charlotte, my name is Emily Rossi, and I need your help.”

Charlotte sighed again and drummed her fingers on the desktop. The one thing she didn't need was another customer. As it was, she had more work than she could handle. Besides, any minute now her family would be coming through the door expecting Sunday lunch, and she still needed to carve the roast and put the food on the table.

Be nice, Charlotte,
her conscience chided.
Hear the woman out. You can always say no.

Charlotte took a deep breath. “What kind of help do you need, Ms. Rossi?”

“Just the general stuff, you know—dusting, vacuuming, mopping.”

Charlotte glanced down at the envelope in front of her on her desk. The return address on the envelope belonged to Cheré Warner, one of her full-time employees. She'd received the envelope Friday, but hadn't opened it yet, and, in fact, had put off opening it, dreading the contents, since she was fairly certain that it contained Cheré's resignation letter.

Charlotte tapped the envelope with her forefinger. Then there was Nadia. In addition to being her nephew Daniel's wife, Nadia was also another full-time employee. Any day now Charlotte expected to get a resignation letter from Nadia as well. Not that Charlotte blamed either of the women for her decision.

Cheré had been slowly but surely working her way through college. She'd graduated from Tulane in December and had been actively seeking other employment that fit her business degree.

Nadia was still on maternity leave, but she'd been dropping hints about staying home with her new baby permanently instead of returning to work. And why not? As a well-respected attorney, Daniel made more than enough money to support his new family.

Charlotte had figured that she and Janet Davis, her only part-time employee, could pinch-hit for a while, filling in for Cheré and Nadia until she found replacements for the two women. Anticipating the resignations, she'd gone ahead and placed an ad in the newspaper in hopes of hiring another full-time employee. As a result, she'd already received several résumés that looked good. Even so, she still had to interview them and…

“Ms. Rossi, I'm really sorry. Right now I'm booked solid and am shorthanded. I just can't take on any new clients.”

A frustrated sound from Emily Rossi whispered through the phone line. “Not even temporary ones?” she asked. “I'm not looking for full-time, permanent help,” she hastened to add. “Only temporary help, just a few days until Jennifer—she's my regular maid—can work again. My friend Bitsy—Bitsy Duhe—says you're the best in the city. She's had a family emergency—Jennifer, not Bitsy—and she isn't sure when she can come back to work.”

When Emily Rossi paused, Charlotte frowned. Either the poor woman was on the verge of a nervous breakdown or she was as scatterbrained as Bitsy.

“Sorry,” Emily finally said. “I'm probably not making sense. It's just that I'm at my wits' end, and Bitsy, bless her old heart, assured me that not only were you the best, but you were trustworthy and—and discreet.”

Discreet?
Charlotte had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing out loud. She supposed she should be flattered, and she would have been had the compliment come from anyone but Bitsy. Bitsy Duhe was the worst gossip in all of New Orleans and didn't know the meaning of the word
discreet.

“You see,” Emily continued, “my husband and I are giving a Mardi Gras party Friday night. We thought that would be the best time since the Endymion Parade and Ball is Saturday evening, and of course no one wants to miss Endymion. Of all times for Jennifer to take off, this is the worst. Not that she can help it,” Emily hastened to add. “Believe me, I understand about family emergencies. I've had a few of my own. Anyway, I only need you to come in on Thursday, half a day on Friday before the party, then clean up on Saturday and possibly Sunday after the party. Hopefully Jennifer will be back by the following Monday. And before you say no, I'm prepared to offer you two hundred dollars a day for all four days. Even the half day,” she added.

Charlotte blinked and her breath caught in her lungs. Two hundred dollars a day? Emily Rossi had to be desperate indeed to offer that kind of money. Talk about an offer hard to refuse.

After Charlotte remembered to breathe again, she once more glanced down at the letter on her desk. “Ah, you did say ‘temporary'?”

“Yes, just those four days. Really, just three and a half days,” she added quickly. “Eight hundred total. So, do you think you can do it?”

Charlotte's mind raced.
If,
as she suspected, the letter on the desk was Cheré's resignation and
if
Cheré gave the requisite two weeks notice, then Charlotte figured that she could do it. She'd already resigned herself to the fact that once Cheré left, she'd have to give up her own two days off each week until she could find a replacement. Working for Emily Rossi just meant giving them up earlier than she had planned.

Taking the temporary job would also mean that she'd have to work for almost two weeks straight, but it wouldn't be the first time she'd done so and she was sure it wouldn't be the last. Besides, she could use part of the money to finally buy paint for her house. The outside of the century-old Victorian double was beginning to look a bit shabby, and she'd been intending to repaint it now for the past two years. Any money left over could be added to her retirement account.

“Hello? Ms. LaRue? Are you still there?”

Emily Rossi's words were barely above a whisper, and the desperation in her tone tugged at Charlotte's heart. She'd been desperate a time or two in her life as well and knew how it felt.

“I'm still here, Ms. Rossi.” Charlotte swallowed hard. So much for just saying no. She'd always been a sucker for a sob story.
Yeah, and the money ain't bad either.
Ignoring the irritating voice in her head and telling herself that the money was
not
the only reason she was going to accept the offer, she said, “Okay, Ms. Rossi, what's your address? And what time would you like for me to be there on Thursday?”

“You'll do it? Oh, thank you, thank you! And please, just call me Emily.”

“Okay, Emily, but only if you call me Charlotte. Now, what's that address?”

You're such a hypocrite, Charlotte.
Again Charlotte ignored the pesky voice and scribbled down the address and time. After once again reassuring the poor woman that she would be there on Thursday morning, she hung up the receiver.

Charlotte stared at the small stack of file folders she'd placed on the corner of her desk. Good thing she'd run that help-wanted ad, she decided. Now all she had to do was find a time to interview the prospects she'd chosen from the responses she'd received.

Two hundred dollars a day.
Unbidden, Emily Rossi's offer came to mind again, and Charlotte's gaze slid over to the envelope from Cheré. Ignoring the letter wasn't going to make it go away. With a sigh, Charlotte picked up a letter opener and the envelope, slid the tip of the opener beneath the flap, and ripped it open.

Maybe she was being a bit of a hypocrite about the money, but so what? For more years than Charlotte wanted to count, she had worked in the exclusive, historic Garden District, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in New Orleans. Her regular clients paid her well, but this was the first time that she'd ever been offered that much money just to clean someone's house. With a shake of her head, she pulled out the one-page letter from inside the envelope and began reading.

Just as she had thought, Cheré was giving notice, but only one week's notice. According to the letter, she'd been hired by an accounting firm in Atlanta and would be reporting to work in two weeks. When Charlotte read the last two lines of the neatly typed letter, her throat grew tight and tears blurred her vision.

Though Charlotte had often thought of Cheré as family, until now she had never realized that the bright, energetic young woman had considered her family as well.

Outside, a car door slammed.

Charlotte's gaze flew to the window. “Oh, no,” she whispered. They were here and she wasn't ready. Charlotte dropped the letter and hurried to the front window. Peeking out of the window, all she saw though was her neighbor across the street.

“Whew! False alarm, Sweety Boy,” Charlotte told the little green parakeet inside the birdcage next to the window.

The parakeet squawked and chirped as he sidled over to the edge of the cage. Charlotte smiled. “Yeah, yeah, what do you care, you little scamp?”

Turning away from the cage, she hurried back to the kitchen. For years she and her sister, Madeline, had taken turns hosting the family for lunch after church services on Sunday morning; it was a tradition that they had started when their children were young, and surprisingly enough, even now that their children were all adults, everyone usually showed up.

The family was growing by leaps and bounds, she thought with a smile as she grabbed two hot pads. From the oven she removed the huge roast she'd baked earlier that morning before she went to church, and carried it over to the kitchen cabinet. With her son, Hank's recent marriage to Carol, her nephew Daniel's marriage to Nadia, and her niece Judith's ongoing relationship with Billy Wilson, an NOPD patrolman, not to mention Daniel and Nadia's two little ones, her sister, Madeline, and herself, the body count was up to ten.

Charlotte gingerly peeled back the foil from the steaming roast. Using an electric knife, she began slicing it. Everyone in the family had a partner now, everyone but Madeline…and everyone but her.

Unbidden, bittersweet memories of the past tugged at her emotions. She'd been engaged once, but thanks to Vietnam, the love of her life had not come home alive. But she'd had one night with him, the night before he'd left, and she would forever be grateful for it. Without that one night she wouldn't have the precious gift of her son, Hank, who had proved to be the joy of her life.

A commotion at the front door jerked Charlotte back to the present.

“Mom?” a deep voice called out.

“Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” Charlotte murmured. And from the sounds of things, everyone else was following close behind.

“In the kitchen, son,” she called out.

 

Minutes later, the women were scurrying around setting out the food on the kitchen table buffet-style. From the living room, Charlotte could hear the rumble of male voices where the men had congregated. Charlotte would have loved to be a fly on the wall to hear what they were talking about.

With Hank being a doctor, Daniel a lawyer, and Billy a policeman, Charlotte couldn't help but wonder just what the three men had in common to talk about.

Then she heard the distinct sound of the television, and she rolled her eyes when she recognized the voice of a well-known sports announcer followed by the roar of a crowd.

Of course. What else? She had all but forgotten that today was Super Bowl Sunday. Too bad the New Orleans Saints hadn't made it to the Super Bowl, she thought. At least this year they had made it to the playoffs though, but only by the skin of their teeth.

At that moment Nadia's four-year-old son, Davy, burst into the kitchen. “Aunt Chardy! Mommy! Daddy Danol says I can eat in the living room with the guys and watch football.”

Charlotte smiled at the little boy. “Of course you can, honey. After all, you're one of the guys too.”

Nadia laughed as she swung baby Daniella, the newest member of the family, up onto her shoulder to burp her. “Guess that means us girls have to stay holed up in the kitchen.”

“Mommy! Girls don't play football.”

Nadia smiled at her little son indulgently.

Judith walked over to Davy and knelt down in front of him. “Girls may not play football,” she said tapping him on the nose with her forefinger, “but this girl likes to watch it.”

Davy placed his hands on his hips and frowned. “Aunt Jude, I know you a police 'tective, but Daddy Danol says it's a guy thing.”

Judith laughed. “That's
de
-tective, you little scamp, but even girls like football too,” she said as she stood.

The little boy puffed up his chest. “Daddy Danol says one day I can play football too.”

“Humph! We'll see about that,” Nadia and Madeline said at the same time. Then everyone laughed, and even though Charlotte was sure that Davy didn't quite understand why they were laughing, he laughed too.

Nadia smiled at her little son. “Sweetheart, I think Aunt Chardy is ready for everyone to come into the kitchen for blessings and lunch. Would you like to go tell the guys it's time to eat?”

Davy's face brightened, and with an excited yelp he ran out of the kitchen.