Death Tidies Up Page 7

  Though Charlotte agreed with Janet about Ricco Martinez, it was a strict policy of hers never to discuss her employees or clients, but before she had a chance to steer the conversation in a different direction, Cheré added her two cents worth.

  “What a louse,” she said. “If you ask me, good riddance to bad rubbish.” Cheré made a face. “I always figured he was the criminal type, but stealing artifacts from a graveyard—” She shuddered. “I say they should have let him rot in jail—him and all those antique collectors who sold the stuff, as well.”

  “I heard poor Nadia had to borrow money to bail him out,” Emily added. She turned to Charlotte. “Is that true? Come on, Charlotte. If anybody knows, you do.”

  “Yeah, Charlotte, do tell,” Janet urged.

  Charlotte sighed. “Ladies, ladies, ladies.” She shook her head. “I think that’s enough gossip for one morning. It’s time to get down to business.”

  Though they groaned in protest, the women finally settled for quietly sipping their coffee while Charlotte spent several minutes briefly outlining what needed to be done in each apartment.

  “There’s a lot of sawdust and dirt that’s been tracked in,” she finally concluded, “so I brought along extra vacuum cleaner bags. And I think working as teams would be best.” She nodded at Cheré. “You and Janet will be a team, and Emily and I will work together.”

  Charlotte caught the sly look that passed between Janet and Cheré, but she ignored it. Though Emily was dependable and thorough doing her job, the middle-aged woman was also slow and tended to get distracted easily. Both Cheré and Janet knew that Charlotte had teamed herself up with Emily on purpose, to keep her on track.

  “There are four apartments—two up and two down,” Charlotte explained. “Emily and I will work downstairs, and you two will be upstairs. And if we get a move on, I’m hoping we can finish up today. I really don’t like working on Sundays.”

  Cheré laughed. “I think that’s a hint, ladies. Just Charlotte’s way of saying we need to work our butts off.”

  Janet gave a dramatic sigh. “Well, Harry will be relieved. I promised the kids a trip to the zoo tomorrow, and he was really dreading having to take them by himself.” She suddenly grinned. “Last time he took them, he made the mistake of making faces at one of the monkeys.” She snickered. “The monkey retaliated though. He spit at him, and there my darling husband was, with this big glob of who knows what all over the front of his shirt.”

  “Oh, gross,” Cheré squealed.

  Emily groaned, then added, “I could have gone all day without hearing that.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Well I wouldn’t want poor Harry to get stuck going to the zoo again, so let’s get to work, ladies.”

  While the three other women unloaded the cleaning supplies from Charlotte’s van, she packed up the thermos and stuffed the used cups inside a trash bag.

  One of the things that Charlotte liked about her employees was that they all shared her appreciation for the beauty of the elegant old homes they cleaned. As they entered the back hallway, each woman in turn ooh’d and aah’d over the superb workmanship that had gone into the renovation as they divided up the cleaning supplies.

  Once Janet and Cheré were armed with their supply carriers, they headed up the stairs.

  When they were about midway up, Cheré shouted down, “Hey, Charlotte, did you know there’s a deep gouge on the sixth step?”

  Charlotte smiled. Of the three women, she wasn’t surprised that Cheré had been the one to notice the flaw. But she also figured Cheré was using it as an excuse to issue her own warning to the would-be intruder, just in case he’d been stupid enough to hang around.

  “I saw it last night,” Charlotte told her, just as loudly. “It’s on my list of things to bring to Mr. Roussel’s attention.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte could see that Emily was looking at her oddly.

  “What’s with all the shouting?” Emily asked. “Geez, you’d think you both suddenly went deaf or something.”

  Charlotte just smiled. “Echoes,” she explained. “Big old empty houses always echo and sound louder.”

  Charlotte could tell that Emily wasn’t buying her excuse, but when Charlotte didn’t offer any other explanation, Emily simply shrugged and picked up her supply carrier. “Where do you want me to start?” she asked.

  Charlotte motioned, indicating they would begin cleaning in the apartment on their left. “Your choice,” she told her as they entered the living room of the apartment. “But I know how the dust gets to you, so why don’t you do the bathroom, and I’ll work on wiping down the walls and cleaning the windows? Then we’ll both tackle the kitchen.”

  Emily nodded. “Thanks, Charlotte. My allergies have been acting up, ever since that front came through night before last.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Charlotte told her, thinking of her own minor allergy irritations.

  For the next half hour, as the women worked, the only sounds that broke through the silence were the rumblings of traffic along the avenue in front of the house and an occasional honking horn.

  Charlotte had almost finished cleaning the last window in the living room when there was a sudden, ear-splitting shriek from upstairs.

  “Charrrrlotte!”

  For a moment, she was too stunned to move as the sound echoed throughout the empty house.

  Not a cry of pain, her mind registered, but terror. It was a cry of sheer terror.

  Chapter Eight

  “Charrrrlotte!”

  Janet, Charlotte thought, her heart pounding. Janet was the one screaming out her name.

  It was the thump-thump of running footsteps above her that finally jerked her into action. Was someone chasing Janet and Cheré? Were they in danger?

  A weapon. She needed a weapon of some sort. Charlotte glanced frantically around the room. Nothing. There was nothing she could use except…her fingers tightened on the spray bottle of ammonia in her hand. Better than nothing.

  Vaguely aware that Emily had bolted from the bathroom, Charlotte dashed out into the hallway and sprinted for the stairs. “You stay down here,” she shouted at Emily.

  Halfway up the staircase, she met the other two women scrambling down.

  “What on earth?” Charlotte cried. “What’s going on?”

  Janet was shivering so hard she could barely talk. Crowded close behind her, Cheré’s face was drained of color, and her dark eyes were wide with horror.

  “D-dead,” Janet stuttered, her voice cracking. “I—I turned on th-the light, and th-there’s a dead man in—in the closet.”

  A dead man…dead… Charlotte’s stomach turned queasy, and she heard Emily utter a startled cry from the foot of the stairs.

  “Okay, okay, hon.” Charlotte squeezed Janet’s arm. “Now just calm down. Are you sure—sure he’s dead?”

  “Well, he’s not moving,” Janet cried. “And—and I don’t th-think he’s breathing.”

  Charlotte squeezed her arm again. “But you don’t know for sure.” Janet shook her head with short, jerky motions.

  Chere shuddered. “He—he looked dead to me,” she whispered.

  “But neither of you felt for a pulse?” One look at the horrified expressions on their faces told her they hadn’t. “No, of course you didn’t.” She took a deep breath, and though she was already pretty sure what the answer would be, she asked anyway. “Which apartment—which one were you cleaning?”

  “The one to the left of the landing,” Cheré told her.

  Charlotte swallowed hard. It was the same one, the one she’d found the food sacks in during her walk-through, the one that had the toothpaste smeared in the bathroom sink. “Which room?”

  “The m—master bedroom,” Janet whispered. “He—he’s in the walk-in closet.”

  Charlotte knew what she had to do. Whether she wanted to or not—and she most definitely did not want to—she was going to have to check it out for herself. What if the man wa
sn’t really dead? What if he was just unconscious and needed help?

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” she told them. “You two join Emily downstairs while I go check. And here—” She handed Janet the bottle of ammonia. “Take this with you.” Then she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and thrust it at Cheré. “You take this and call the police. Be sure and ask for my niece.”

  Cheré took the phone. “But Charlotte!”

  Charlotte shook her head. “It’ll be okay. Just go.” Willing her legs to move, she squeezed past the two women and hurried up the remaining stairs.

  Once she was inside the apartment, though, she hesitated at the door to the master bedroom to catch her breath.

  A sleeping bag was spread out in the middle of the room on the floor. Near the foot of the sleeping bag was an open duffel with clothes spilling out of it, and in the midst of the clothes was a small camera, one of the disposable kind, she noted. And beside the camera were several pictures scattered about.

  “Weird,” she murmured. For one thing, the sleeping bag and the duffel bag both looked almost brand-new. And expensive. And don’t forget the toothpaste in the sink.

  It was just as she’d suspected, she thought, eyeing the dark green sleeping bag. Someone, probably the man in the closet, had been camping out in the empty house after all.

  With a heavy feeling of dread, Charlotte moved farther into the room. Maybe she’d been wrong about the homeless angle after all. But if the man in the closet wasn’t a homeless person, then who was he? And why had he been camping out in the old house?

  The walk-in closet door was open. A wave of apprehension swept through her as she edged nearer the opening. Any minute she expected to see a hand or foot or some evidence of a body. But there was nothing yet, nothing but an odd-looking, half-smoked cigar that had been ground out into the floor.

  Charlotte took the last two steps that would bring her to the closet door. Swallowing hard, she leaned forward and peeked around the door.

  “Oh, dear Lord,” she whispered, as she reached out and grabbed the door frame to steady herself. The man was in the back corner of the closet, half sitting, half slumped sideways against the wall.

  Though she wasn’t exactly sure what she’d expected, the one thing she hadn’t expected to see was a half-naked man wearing nothing but a purple feathered Mardi Gras mask and boxer shorts.

  A Mardi Gras mask?

  For what seemed like forever, all she could do was stare at the mask. It was a cheap one, the kind sold mostly to tourists, but it wasn’t so much the mask itself that kept her gaze riveted as it was the dried blood along the side of the man’s head.

  The blood and his eyes. She was only about four feet away from him, but under the harsh glare of the closet light she could see that his eyes were wide open, staring out at her from behind the rounded eye slits of the mask. Like huge black holes, the pupils were already fixed and dilated.

  Other than at funerals, she’d never actually seen a dead body, but she’d read enough mystery books and true-crime novels over the years to know the signs of death. She was almost ninety-nine point nine percent sure that the poor man was truly dead.

  With a sinking heart and drawing in a deep breath for courage, Charlotte approached the man. Her eyes still glued to the mask, she leaned over him and touched him near the underside of his jaw, checking for any small sign of life.

  Just as she’d expected, his skin was death cold to her touch, and there was no pulse.

  She frowned. Strange; now that she was closer to him, something about the man seemed almost familiar, as if she’d seen him before. There was something about his build, or maybe it was because of the reddish-brown color of his thick hair.

  For a moment more her hand hovered near the mask. If she could just see his face without the mask….

  The muted sound of a distant siren suddenly broke through the silence. The police were coming…Judith.

  It was then that the reality of the whole situation really hit her. With a cry of horror, Charlotte jerked her hand away and backed quickly toward the closet door. This was not fiction. This was not some murder mystery out of a book. This was the real thing.

  Charlotte kept backing up until she was once again out of the closet and inside the bedroom. Only then did she realize how badly she was trembling. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she hugged them tightly as she stared downward.

  Outside the house, the police siren grew louder. But inside, it was several moments before Charlotte could stop shaking, before she felt more in control.

  She needed to vacate the room, she thought. It was a crime scene, and without thinking, she, along with Cheré and Janet, had already contaminated it. Charlotte winced. Judith would have a conniption fit.

  Then suddenly, Charlotte narrowed her eyes as her vision once again focused. She’d been staring downward without really seeing what she was looking at. And what she’d been staring at was the stack of pictures beside the camera.

  The top photo was a picture of a little girl who looked to be about four years old. It had been taken in an outside setting. Behind the little girl, a white gazebo sat beneath a huge oak. Again, a feeling of familiarity swept through her and niggled at Charlotte’s memory. She’d seen that setting before…but where?

  Think, Charlotte! Think! But it was no use. No matter how hard she tried, she simply couldn’t remember. First the dead man, and now this. What was wrong with her? Lord, maybe she was getting old after all. Or worse. Maybe she was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s?

  Abruptly outside, the police siren died with a squawk. Then, in the distance, another siren sounded.

  The police had arrived and more were on the way, which meant that even now, Judith could be coming through the front door. With one last searching glance at the photo, Charlotte hurried from the room.

  Downstairs in the front foyer, two uniformed police officers were already questioning Cheré, Janet, and Emily by the time that Charlotte reached the first floor.

  Though Charlotte didn’t recognize the older officer, she was pretty sure she recognized the younger of the two. If she remembered right, his first name was Billy, and though she couldn’t recall his last name, she did recall that he’d been pushy and rude the last time they’d met.

  The last time they’d met…the day she’d learned that Jackson Dubuisson had been murdered….

  A sinking feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as she approached the small group. She nodded a greeting at both of the men; then, ignoring them, she turned to Cheré. “Did you speak to Judith?”

  “Yes, ma’am. She said she was on her way.”

  “Ah, excuse me,” the older office interrupted in a no-non-sense voice that dripped with sarcasm. “But who are you?”

  Before Charlotte could answer, the younger officer spoke up. “It’s okay, Hal,” he told his partner. “She’s Detective Monroe’s aunt.” He turned to Charlotte. “Isn’t that right, ma’am? Aren’t you Judith’s aunt?”

  “Yes—yes, I am,” Charlotte answered. “And your name is Billy—” Still unable to recall his last name, she shrugged.

  “Wilson, ma’am. Billy Wilson.”

  Charlotte felt something tickle the back of her neck, and when she reached up to rub it, she realized she was sweating. “Well, I’d say it was good to see you again, Billy,” she murmured, suddenly distracted by the realization that she was sweating profusely, “but under the circumstances…” How could she be sweating when she felt so cold?

  “I understand, ma’am. And speaking of circumstances, what can you tell us about the situation here?”

  Charlotte began by explaining that her crew had been hired to do the clean-up of the Devilier house, but just as she got to the part where Janet had discovered the dead man, Judith burst in through the doorway. Following close behind her was a man Charlotte didn’t recognize. Must be Judith’s new partner, she thought.

  “Hey, Aunt Charley, are you okay?”

  Was she
okay? Even as Charlotte nodded, she felt her knees go weak. And why, all of a sudden, was it so hot…and stuffy?

  “What’s this about a dead body?”

  Dead body…dead body… Again Charlotte opened her mouth to explain, and again she was interrupted when Louis Thibodeaux barged through the door. Charlotte frowned and felt a sudden chill again. Why was Louis there? He was supposed to be off duty and on his way to the camp.

  Judith glanced his way and voiced the exact same thing Charlotte had been thinking. “Hey, Lou. What are you doing here?”

  But Louis’ dark eyes were boring a hole through Charlotte, and he ignored Judith and her question. “Charlotte? What’s going on?” he demanded. “Who’s dead?”

  Dead…someone’s dead… He was there because he’d been worried about her, Charlotte realized. He must have heard something over his radio about a dead body and thought that she was—

  The room blurred, and it was all that she could do to motion toward the ceiling. “Upstairs,” she whispered, swaying on her feet. “A—a dead man upstairs.”

  Before she knew what was happening, Judith grabbed her on one side and Louis grabbed her on the other. “Whoa now, don’t you pass out on us,” he said.

  Charlotte was horrified. She shook her head. “Never—never passed out in my entire life,” she said. But her voice sounded strangely weak and distant, even to her own ears. In an effort to prove her point, she made a feeble effort to pull away from him, and that’s when the lights went out.

  Chapter Nine

  Charlotte came to with a start. She was flat on the floor and Judith was hovering over her, waving a foul-smelling vial under her nose. She could hear voices murmuring somewhere just behind her…Cheré and Janet. She shoved Judith’s hand away.

  “No—don’t try to get up—not yet,” her niece ordered softly, gently pushing on her shoulder. “You’re still pale, Auntie, so just lie still a moment more. Please,” she added.