Scrub-a-dub Dead - Barbara Colley A Charlotte LaRue Mystery

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of Minden in the northwest corner of Louisiana, the old house had served her family well for the three weeks they’d stayed there.

      Charlotte sighed, her thoughts returning to the two-week commitment that she’d made to Carrie as she stepped into the warm spray of water and soaped up her washcloth.

      The Jazzy Hotel was just one of Carrie’s many commercial clients. But like with so many other businesses in the city, many of Carrie’s employees had never returned after Katrina, and had, in fact, decided to settle in the towns to which they had evacuated. Out of the three women that Carrie had working at the Jazzy, one could only work half-days, one had to have surgery, and the third one had been caught stealing and had to be fired.

      Working at the Jazzy would make for a tight schedule since most of Charlotte’s regular clients had returned to their homes in the Garden District. But with Dale’s help, she felt sure that she would be able to manage the hotel work for the two weeks Carrie needed her. That the hotel was located nearby on St. Charles Avenue, less than ten minutes from her house, was also a plus.

      Thinking about Dale, Charlotte smiled. What a gem he’d turned out to be. He was dependable, efficient, worked hard, and surprisingly, her clients had wholly accepted the idea of a male maid, especially Bitsy Duhe. Just yesterday, the old lady had called her, raving about Dale. According to Bitsy, Dale had made several suggestions on reorganizing the multitude of kitchen gadgets she’d collected over the years, then dug right in and did it for her without her even asking him.

      As Charlotte drove beneath the green canopy of oaks down St. Charles, she couldn’t help remembering how the avenue had looked during the cleanup after the hurricanes. All of the broken branches covered with dying leaves had been stacked along the avenue on either side like huge walls. Driving through the walls was like driving through a dying forest. Even so, the Garden District, along with the French Quarter, had been fortunate considering the complete devastation of other parts of the city.

      Charlotte shuddered. In other neighborhoods, the streets had been littered with appliances, Sheet-rock, carpet, roof shingles, and various pieces of furniture, all water-soaked and moldy. Then, there were the neighborhoods where nothing but the foundations were left. It had taken months, and the majority of the mess in the Quarter and Garden District had been cleaned up, but like a sore that just wouldn’t heal, the memories still lingered.

      Charlotte flicked on the turn signal, slowed the van, and turned into the driveway of the hotel. Though New Orleans would never be the same as it was before Hurricane Katrina, she still couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. It was home, a place like no other with a unique culture all its own.

      Charlotte parked the van, climbed out, and locked it. As she approached the house, she wondered what it looked like inside now that it had been renovated into a hotel. Even before renovations it had been one of the largest of the old Greek Revival style mansions that fronted St. Charles Avenue. With the add-on of extra rooms to the back of the house, now it was huge.

      In spite of its present size, Charlotte still had her doubts about it qualifying as a real hotel. Without the extra rooms added on, in her opinion it would have made a much better bed and breakfast. On the other hand, she supposed that it was just good business sense to opt for more rooms. More rooms equaled more income.

      Charlotte had been instructed to report to the front desk when she arrived. Glancing around the wide central hallway that had been turned into the hotel lobby, she was pleasantly surprised by what she saw. The owners had kept the original ambiance of the old home. A long mahogany counter topped with marble was trimmed with the same embellished moldings that edged the high ceiling. A turn-of-the century settee, a pier mirror, a rosewood plantation secretary, and several old portraits, along with a misty-looking Drysdale landscape added to the elegance of the space. She wondered if the owners had carried through the same old-world ambiance in the rooms as well.

      “May I help you?”

      Charlotte approached the counter and smiled at the young red-haired woman standing behind it. “I’m Charlotte LaRue. Carrie Rogers sent me.”

      “Oh, hi, Ms. LaRue. I’m Claire Reynolds, the manager. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your being able to help out on such short notice.”

      After a brief rundown of the hotel operations, Claire led the way to the supply room where she showed Charlotte how to fold the washcloths, hand towels, and towels, and demonstrated how to adorn the extra rolls of toilet paper with the decorative bands that carried the hotel logo. After showing her which products she should leave in the bathrooms, she handed Charlotte a list of her assigned rooms.

      When Charlotte entered the first room, an odd twinge of disappointment rippled through her. Except for the high ceilings, there was little to distinguish the renovated room from any other modern hotel room. Even the furniture was contemporary, not at all in keeping with the period of the old house.

      “Too bad,” she murmured. And just one of the many reasons that she preferred cleaning homes. Individual homes had character and history, whereas hotel rooms were, for the most part, all the same.

      Charlotte timed herself on the first two rooms, and after doing a quick mental calculation, she decided that she needed to work faster to be finished by four-thirty. Yet another reason she preferred to clean homes instead, she thought as she entered the third room.

      When she’d made the decision that her cleaning service would be domestic, it had been at the urging of a college professor who had known that Charlotte had no choice but to quit school and go to work after her parents’ death. As a single mother, Charlotte had been faced with making a living for herself and her infant son. Her college professor had suggested that cleaning homes, especially those in the exclusive Garden District, could net quite a bit of money, and she could almost pick and choose her hours to accommodate her little son’s schedule.

      By ten-thirty, she had finished cleaning six of the first-floor rooms. On the second floor, she approached room 201. Noting that there was no DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging on the doorknob, she knocked. “Housekeeping,” she called out. Waiting a couple of minutes, she knocked again. “Housekeeping.”

      Since there was no response, she used the master key she’d been given, and opened the door. Inside, the bedroom didn’t look all that dirty, so she figured it shouldn’t take long to clean.

      A smile pulled at her lips when she picked up a polyester red scarf from the floor near the dresser. As she folded it neatly and placed it back on top of the dresser alongside two other identical scarves, she recalled the conversation she’d had the previous day when Carrie had filled her in on the group staying at the hotel.

      “Most of them will check in either late Thursday or early Friday,” Carrie had told her. “We’re ready for the Thursday bunch, so I need you to start on Friday morning. I think the majority of the group are booked for a week, then a different group is due to arrive the following week.”

      Carrie had gone on to tell her that the first group was from Shreveport and called themselves the Red Scarf Sorority.

      Thinking that Carrie had made a mistake, Charlotte had laughed. “Don’t you mean the Red Hat Society?” she’d asked.

      “Oh, no,” Carrie had replied. “That’s a completely different group. Though the two organizations have the same basic concept, the Sorority group is a bit younger—mostly in their forties—and considers themselves to be more socially elite than the Society group.”

      A flicker of gold caught Charlotte’s eye and she examined the scarf more closely. Embroidered with a fine gold thread in the corner were the tiny initials TM. “Well, now that’s different,” she murmured as she checked each of the other two scarves for the gold initials.

      Suddenly the door burst open. Charlotte jumped and whirled to face the intruder.

      “What are you doing in my room?” the woman yelled. “Get out! Get out now!”

      For a moment Charlotte was stunned speechless. For one thing, she wasn’t used to being screamed at by a client, but even more disconcerting,

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