Maid for Murder Read Free Page A

that?”
    “Leopards don’t change their spots. That’s how I know. You mark my words, missy. He’s a no-good scoundrel, and what’s worse, he’s smart. And if you weren’t such a nambypamby, you’d see him for what he is.”
    “Mother, stop it!”
    “I won’t stop it. It’s time—past time—you grew a backbone. If you’d had the guts to refuse to marry him in the first place, your father might still be alive today.”
    “That’s not true, and you know it.”
    “Don’t you walk away from me!
    “I’m not listening to any more of this.”
    “Jeanne, you come back here!”
    Charlotte had just finished scrubbing the scuff marks off the bathroom floor made by Clarice’s walker and was mopping the bathroom floor when Jeanne stalked across the bedroom.
    At the hallway door, Jeanne hesitated, then turned toward Charlotte. Tears filled her eyes, and her voice shook with emotion. “Would you please make sure that she gets back to bed okay?”
    Before Charlotte had time to answer, Jeanne fled through the doorway. Seconds later, Charlotte heard a door farther down the hall slam shut.
    “Charlotte!” Clarice called out. “Are you still in there?”
    Charlotte set the mop aside and hurried out onto the gallery. There she found the old lady struggling to get out of her chair. “I’m cold,” she told Charlotte. “I want to go back inside.”
    “Here, let me help you.” Clarice wasn’t much bigger in size than Charlotte, but it was like lifting dead weight. As she struggled to get the old lady to a standing position, she wondered how on earth Jeanne managed day in and day out by herself.
    “I swear, I don’t know what gets into that daughter of mine,” Clarice said as she aimed her walker toward the open French doors. Then, without so much as a please or thank you, she began her arduous journey back inside.
    Charlotte simply shook her head and wondered yet again about the strange relationship between the two women. Why did Jeanne continue to put up with her mother’s rudeness, a rudeness that at times bordered on abuse?
    By the time that Charlotte cleared off the outside table and set the tray on the floor in the hallway, Clarice was entering the bathroom. Except for vacuuming, Charlotte was finishing cleaning Clarice’s suite. Even so, she waited a few minutes before leaving the room just in case Clarice needed more help.
    “Be careful, Miss Clarice,” she told her. “I just mopped that floor, and it might still be a bit damp.”
    Clarice stopped, turned her head, and glared at Charlotte. “I’m not going to mess up the floor, Charlotte. I just want to rinse my teeth.”
    Messing up the floor was the least of Charlotte’s concerns, but she figured trying to explain that she only feared Clarice might slip and fall wouldn’t do a bit of good. The old lady only heard what she wanted to hear.
    Once Clarice was safely back in her bed, Charlotte gathered her supplies and started on the bedroom next to Clarice’s. Within the hour, she’d cleaned all of the bedrooms except the master suite. Since the door to that room was still firmly shut and she hadn’t heard Jeanne come out, she decided she would wait and clean it later.
    After dusting the small tables in the hallway, Charlotte moved to the staircase. The handrail and balusters were fashioned from antique mahogany, but the steps were of oak, sanded and finished to a high gloss.
    It was rumored that when the original owners of the Dubuissons’ house had built it, they had procured the handrail and balusters from a house that was reputed to have been the temporary headquarters for Andrew Jackson when he had defended New Orleans against the British. Just thinking about the historical significance of the staircase gave Charlotte a lot of pleasure, and she took a great deal of pride in the polishing and upkeep of the old wood.
    From her supply carrier, she removed a bottle of lemon oil and a special cloth she used to apply the oil. She also removed a