LITMIR.BIZ

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the door, I’ll get to work.”

      Mimi gave her a curious look, and then, with a whatever shrug, she pointed toward the back door beneath the portico. “You can go in that way. That door isn’t locked, and there’s a key in the dead bolt on the inside of the front door.”

      With a nod and eager to get away from the awful smell of the flowers, Charlotte forced a quick smile, did an about-face, and gladly headed for the portico.

      As Charlotte approached the terrace, the stench of the flowers still lingered in her nostrils, and unbidden, Bitsy Duhe’s warning about Mary Lou Adams came to mind. Watch out for that woman. She’s not someone you want to cross.

      Charlotte reached inside her apron pocket and pulled out a tissue. She could hardly wait to get inside and blow her nose, and the moment she closed the door behind her, she did so. It helped, but a bit of the stench still lingered. She wadded the tissue and shoved it back inside her pocket. As far as Charlotte was concerned, Mimi’s little feud was just plain ridiculous. Regardless of what Sally Lawson had or had not done to the silly tree, Charlotte didn’t think it justified what Mimi was doing. Besides, there were always two sides to an argument, two sides to every story, weren’t there?

      So what was Sally Lawson’s side?

      Chapter 2

      The back door of Mimi Adams’s house opened into a short hallway leading to the kitchen. And what a marvelous kitchen it was, Charlotte thought, as she took a quick inventory of the top-of-the-line appliances, the granite countertops, and the oak plank floor. In spite of the dirty dishes sitting in the sink, the Viking stovetop being splattered with grease, and the floor needing a good wax job, she decided that whoever had planned and decorated the room had been a genius of design. Though modern in every respect, the room still retained an ambiance in keeping with the era of the house.

      As in most of the Garden District homes built in the 1800s, the ceiling heights were a good fourteen feet. As Charlotte made her way to the front entrance hall, she caught her breath when she saw the elaborate plasterwork, the hand-painted ceiling, and the brass and crystal chandelier that hung from an intricately carved medallion. Antique tables with petticoat mirrors and chairs flanked the walls, and every detail of the decor looked to be authentic and had been beautifully preserved.

      “Gorgeous, just simply gorgeous,” she whispered. It was going to be a real delight and a challenge to keep the old house clean.

      Once Charlotte had retrieved her supply carrier and vacuum cleaner from the front porch, she took her lunch bag into the kitchen and placed it on the counter. Then, she inspected the house from top to bottom, just to get an idea of what needed to be done.

      Downstairs contained a huge double parlor. Across the wide entrance hall opposite the parlor were a small library and a grand dining room. The kitchen; a laundry room; and a small, more modern family room were located along the back of the ground floor. A half bath was tucked beneath the grand staircase, and at the top of the stairs was a central hall that opened to five bedroom suites, each suite containing its own private bath.

      Though somewhat orderly, the house needed a thorough cleaning, and the more Charlotte explored, the more curious she grew about the Adams family. As a maid, she often saw things that others missed, and she learned things about the people she worked for from cleaning up after them.

      Mimi was a die-hard garden enthusiast and a stickler for authenticity, Charlotte decided, as she straightened a stack of preservation and gardening magazines addressed to Mimi in the library. Also, a vast array of books on the same subjects filled the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves opposite an antique desk. And, of course, there were the well-manicured grounds, the various plants inside and outside of the house, and the greenhouse in the backyard.

      Mimi’s husband, Gordon, was another matter, though. The designer suits in the master suite closet indicated that he liked nice clothes, and the expensive brand of men’s cologne on the dresser also suggested that he liked to be well groomed. But other than the suits and cologne, and several miniature car reproductions done in pewter and displayed in the family room, there was nothing else to indicate that he even lived there. No golf clubs, no hunting paraphernalia, nothing that gave her a clue as to his interest or his hobbies…if he had any. Was it possible that the man had no interest or hobbies outside of his car dealerships? Strange…strange indeed.

      Usually Charlotte worked her way from the upstairs on down, but since the second floor was in pretty good shape, she decided that today she would strip the beds first, and she’d start cleaning on the ground floor while the sheets were washing.

      After Charlotte put the sheets in to wash, she tackled the kitchen. Once she’d loaded the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and finished everything except the floor, she quickly dusted and straightened the rest of the downstairs rooms, saving the double parlor for last.

      Before she began cleaning the parlor, she transferred the sheets from the washer to the dryer. In the corner of the laundry room she spotted a small stepladder that she decided would be just the right height for dusting the mirror in the parlor.

      With the help of the ladder, Charlotte was able to give the gilt and lacquered mid-nineteenth-century mirror frame above the fireplace mantel a really good cleaning. After she wiped down the frame, she Windexed the mirror. Then she gave her attention to the Italian marble mantelpiece.

      The mantelpiece was lined with an array of small framed photos that she assumed were of the Adams children. The different photos showed a progression of age, the earliest being baby pictures, the latest being graduation pictures, and each one was in desperate need of a good cleaning.

      Because of the way the photos were arranged and as best as Charlotte could tell, Mimi and her husband had two children, a boy and a girl. Both were sun-bleached blondes, and in all of the pictures the girl was knockout beautiful and the boy was truly handsome. Going by the most recent-looking photos and judging from the decor in two of the bedrooms that she’d inspected earlier, she figured that both children were probably away at college.

      Charlotte finished dusting the last photograph, and set it back on the mantelpiece. Then she dusted and straightened the rest of the room.

      The most time-consuming chore was waxing the hardwood floors. Though doing so was hard on her knees and required application by hand, Charlotte still preferred using a paste wax to the liquid kind. She had waxed all of the downstairs rooms except for the double parlor, when the stiffness in her knees along with the shooting pains up her thighs dictated that it was time for a short break.

      In the parlor, she picked up the stepladder, and with intentions of getting herself a nice tall glass of water first, then putting away the ladder and checking on the sheets in the dryer, she headed for the kitchen. She had just poured the water and was taking a long drink when she heard the back door open.

      Mimi entered the kitchen first and was followed by another woman who looked to be a few years younger than Mimi. Though the other woman was almost as tall and slim as Mimi, she was the complete opposite in appearance with her long blond hair, fair skin, and turquoise-blue eyes.

      “It’s hot as blue blazes out there,” Mimi complained, as she walked straight to the sink, scrubbed and rinsed her hands, then yanked off a paper towel from the towel rack. She dried her hands, and, as she delicately blotted her face, she motioned toward the woman who had come in with her. “Charlotte, this is my good friend, June Bryant. June lives three houses down on the other side of the street.”

      Charlotte smiled at the other woman and placed her glass inside the dishwasher.

      “Nice to meet you, Charlotte,” June said.

      “Same here,” Charlotte responded, as she closed and locked the dishwasher door.

      Mimi motioned at the stepladder propped against the cabinet. “I see you found the ladder.” She glanced around the kitchen. “And I see you’ve been really busy. The kitchen looks marvelous, especially the floor.”

      “Thank you,” Charlotte said. “Except for the floor in the front parlor, I’ve finished most

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