Scrub-a-dub Dead

Book 0: Charlotte LaRue Mystery

by Barbara Colley

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

While cleaning rooms at the New Orleans Jazzy Hotel as a favor for a friend,. professional maid Charlotte LaRue stumbles upon the dead body of a young woman, which leads her to the Red Scarf Sorority, a group of socially elite women in their forties with a penchant for murder.

Release date: January 1, 2007

Publisher: Kensington

Print pages: 288

Sample

The water was rising. It was in her house, already waist high and still inching higher.

Trapped.

She was trapped like a rat on a sinking ship. She should have left like the others. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Too late now. She’d waited too long.

Get higher.

The attic. Get up in the attic. Surely the water won’t get as high as the attic…

With a gasp, Charlotte LaRue sat straight up in bed, her heart pounding like a jackhammer. In spite of the air-conditioner running on high to counter the outside heat and humidity, her pajama top was damp with sweat.

A nightmare. Calm down, it was just a nightmare. You’re safe. You’re high and dry.

Charlotte sighed and glanced at the bedside clock. Six A.M. Almost time to get up anyway. With a shake of her head, she reached over and shut off the alarm that she’d set for six-thirty, then climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

It had been a while since she’d had the nightmare, but with the one-year anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita fast approaching, everyone in New Orleans was on edge wondering what the odds were that yet another catastrophic storm could hit.

Strange. The whole nightmare thing was strange, especially since she hadn’t even been in the city when the levees broke. Unlike so many others who had chosen to stay or couldn’t get out during Katrina, she and most of her family had left well in advance. She shuddered. How horrible it must have been for those who had no transportation, who had no way of leaving.

But the fact remained that she had left. So why would she be having the nightmare at all?

Second-hand trauma, they called it. “And TV,” she muttered as she squeezed toothpaste onto her toothbrush. She had sat glued to the television almost 24/7 and watched the horrors of the aftermath of the storm…the levees breaking…the water rising…people wading through armpit-high water…people trapped on their roofs for days without food or water…the daring helicopter rescues…

With a shudder, Charlotte recapped the toothpaste. No time to dwell on it now. If she didn’t get a move on, she was going to be late. And one thing she didn’t want was to be late for this particular job.

Charlotte brushed her teeth then rinsed her mouth and toothbrush. Cleaning hotel rooms was not her favorite type of work. Years ago when she’d started Maid-for-a-Day, she’d made the decision that her cleaning service would be strictly domestic. But her old friend Carrie Rogers had called in a favor and asked for Charlotte’s help.

Unlike Charlotte, Carrie ran a commercial cleaning service, and Carrie was shorthanded. In spite of Charlotte’s own hectic schedule, there was no way she could refuse, especially after Carrie had so generously offered Charlotte and her family the use of her country home during the Katrina evacuation. If not for Carrie’s generosity, they would have ended up in a shelter, or worse, camping out and sleeping in their cars.

After turning on the shower, Charlotte took off her pajamas and slipped a shower cap over her hair. Though Carrie’s country home had been small, it was a soothing oasis in a world gone crazy. Nestled in the midst of a forest of pine trees and located a mere twenty miles from the small town 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, the woman was almost a dead ringer for the comedian Joan Rivers. Couldn’t be Joan Rivers though. The voice was all wrong and this woman was probably in her mid-to-late forties. “Ah—ma’am, I was just—”

“I said to get out!”

“I’m the maid,” Charlotte said evenly.

“I don’t care who you are. I put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign. And that means keep out!”

Charlotte’s gaze slid to the doorknob. Clear as day, the DO NOT DISTURB sign was hanging on the inside of the door, not on the outside. Temptation to point out that the sign was on the wrong side of the door was strong, but Charlotte resisted.

The customer is always right, her voice of reason argued.

Even when they’re obviously rude or crazy or downright wrong? she argued back. But Charlotte already knew the answer. Biting her tongue, she quickly gathered her cleaning supplies. And though the words almost choked her, through clenched teeth she said, “Sorry, ma’am,” as she marched out of the room and firmly closed the door behind her.

To Charlotte’s surprise several women had gathered in the hallway by the cleaning supply cart. It was obvious from the distressed expressions on their faces that they had heard the woman’s outburst. It was also obvious that the small group were members of the Red Scarf Sorority since each woman wore a bright red scarf tied loosely around her neck.

One of the women stepped forward. Her face was flushed and she was wringing her hands. “Sorry about that.” She tilted her head toward the room. “But please don’t take offense. Tessa—that’s the woman inside—well, she’s just upset right now.”

Upset? In Charlotte’s opinion, rude was a more apt description, but she summoned a smile and simply nodded.

“If you’ll wait a moment,” the woman continued, “I’ll persuade her to let you finish cleaning the room.”

Before Charlotte could object, the woman walked past her, knocked lightly on the door, and then opened it.

“Tessa, it’s Mary Lou.” Without waiting to be invited inside, Mary Lou motioned for the other women to follow her.

Since the last woman who entered didn’t bother closing the door, Charlotte had a full view of the room and its occupants and watched with curiosity as the women formed a tight circle around Tessa.

“Now, honey, we know you’re hurting,” Mary Lou told Tessa. “But remember our creed. We’re here now, and your pain is our pain.”

“Your pain is our pain,” all of the women chanted softly in unison. “We’re here for you,” they continued. “And you’re here for us, and together, we can face anything.”

Each woman took a turn hugging Tessa, and before the last one took her turn, tears welled in Tessa’s eyes and she began to sob. Within seconds, all of the women were crying and muttering words of sympathy.

“Just let it out, honey,” one of the women encouraged.

“Yeah, let it out,” another one chimed in.

“Oh, you guys are-are too-too much,” Tessa cried.

Charlotte simply stared at the group. Oh, brother, she thought, what a crock. Lending sympathy was one thing, but the creed chanting part reminded her of the sister witches on the TV show Charmed chanting one of their spells.

“It-it’s just th-that I saw Lisa,” Tessa sobbed, “and-and we had words.”

“Now just what did that husband-stealing hussy say to you, darling?” Mary Lou asked. “You just give the word and we’ll go pull her hair out by its bleached-blond roots.”

Tessa’s lower lip quivered and fresh tears filled her eyes. “She-she said th-that Frank has asked her to-to marry him.”

“Nooo,” the women objected in unison, shaking their collective heads in disgust.

“No way,” Mary Lou reiterated. “That’s just so totally uncouth. For one thing, he’s old enough to be her father, and for another, he’s still married to you.”

“But, sh-she had a ring and everything,” Tessa cried.

“Oh, phooey,” Mary Lou retorted. “Ring, fling, doesn’t mean a thing.”

Clearly still upset, Tessa shook her head. “I should have stayed in Shreveport. I should never have come to New Orleans in the first place. But-but when I found out that Frank was coming down here on business, I-I hoped that by coming, Frank would see how much I still love him, and now…” Her voice trailed away, and she shrugged.

“That hussy was probably lying through her teeth,” one of the women retorted. “Did you see the ring?”

Tessa frowned thoughtfully, then slowly shook her head. “No, I didn’t, come to think of it.”

“Well, there you go,” the same woman said triumphantly. “Yes sir—lying through her pearly whites.”

Mary Lou placed her arm around Tessa’s waist. “You just hang in there, honey. Frank Morgan might be running the show right now—down here wheeling and dealing and playing the big business man and all—but you just remember that you’re the one who still holds the purse strings. And since you haven’t signed the divorce papers yet, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Once he realizes that, then he’ll come running with his tail tucked between his legs and beg you to take him back.”

Tessa shrugged. “Maybe, but—” She bit her bottom lip and stared at the floor.

Out in the hallway Charlotte frowned. She’d always been a private person, the type who wouldn’t think of airing her personal problems to anyone but possibly her sister Madeline. Even then, she’d think twice. But these women seemed to know a lot of really personal stuff about Tessa. Was it possible that telling all to the whole group was a prerequisite for joining the Red Scarf Sorority? She shuddered. If so, they’d never have to worry about her applying for membership.

Inside the room, Mary Lou reacted to Tessa’s “but” by narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “But what?” she questioned.

Tessa shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Aw, come on now, there’s got to be something else.”

Again Tessa shook her head. “I can’t talk about it. Not now. Not yet,” she whispered.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” one of the women said. “We could always make this Lisa person disappear. Permanently,” she added with a giggle. “We could do it and no one would be the wiser.”

Several of the women snickered.

“I have an even better idea,” another offered. “Let’s make Frank disappear permanently instead.”

“No, no, that’s too easy,” another woman argued. “Besides, Tessa still loves him. What about if we cut his thing off though. Then see how Miss Lisa likes him.”

When the other women howled with laughter, Charlotte decided that she’d heard enough. As far as she was concerned, they were all crazy, but a fun kind of crazy, and though she certainly didn’t agree with their little joke or the invasion of privacy, she found that she was just a wee bit envious of the sisterly camaraderie they seemed to share.

Figuring that no one was going to miss her if she left and also figuring that she’d come back to clean Tessa’s room after lunch, Charlotte grabbed the supply cart.

“Ah, excuse me. Wait a minute.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tessa wave at her. Swallowing her impatience, she paused.

“Don’t leave,” Tessa pleaded.

Suddenly conscious that every eye in the room was staring at her, Charlotte waited as Tessa hurried to the doorway.

“What’s your name?” Tessa asked.

Uh-oh, now what? Maybe she’s going to report you.

Yeah, yeah, I’m shaking in my tennis shoes. Big hairy deal. “My name is Charlotte LaRue,” she said evenly.

“Well, Charlotte, I owe you an apology. I’m really sorry for my earlier outburst. Please come back inside and clean.”

An apology was the . . .