Maid for Mayhem

  By Bridget Allison

  Copyright 2011 Graysea Publishing

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This book is purely a work of fiction and any resemblance to characters, living or dead is completely coincidental.

  Tweet from @foralark: “Awoke to find three vultures sitting on the fence post. Realizing they were a portent of impending death I shot them.”

  Chapter 1

  Of course, I don’t really shoot birds. I rehabilitate wildlife, as a matter of fact. But I tweet or post most days and it’s amazing how friends I haven’t seen in years feel I’m keeping in touch with them as often as I should. From those brief messages most of my old friends follow my quips and believe I haven’t changed a whit. It appears that I am still the same happy smartass they’ve always known.

  Except for those posts, and errands for my landlord, I was actually spending my first few weeks after I moved to Union County inside my cabin, busy healing and nurturing my inner recluse. For awhile, I made the Unabomber look like a social climber.

  That all changed with my new business venture. My home now bears more of a resemblance to a country convenience store than a refuge and for all the inconvenience that causes at times with people popping in and out at will, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  But when it comes to faceless communication you are always “on,” and sometimes I find myself wishing technology would just stop for a day. I would cut out tragedy for that day as well. People cherish final words, even if they are delivered through the internet or cell phones.

  Of course, if there IS ever a break in tragedy I would certainly like some notice. I never know when I’m getting a day off, and it’s not bloody likely anytime soon with the death rate our area has been experiencing lately.

  Stepping gingerly over my giant schnauzer Mosey, who retired early from a career as a cadaver dog before he came to live with me, I was wondering when my own burnout timeline on death was going to be just as the phone rang.

  “Crisis Cleanup,” I answered, trying for a businesslike tone. It still makes me a little jumpy when I realize at the end of the other line there could be any job from a murder-suicide to an elderly man who has met his end peacefully. I dispatch all physical evidence of their suffering with a standard of professionalism, but I can’t pretend they don’t all leave their own personal stamps on my psyche. I need the work, but it’s nice to hear almost any familiar voice instead of a quavering widow or a shell-shocked family friend of the recently departed.

  “Hey Legs!”

  I relaxed when I heard Jared’s voice on the line. As a deputy with the Sheriff’s department, he often calls to give me details on new jobs I’m likely to get. I’m just cynical enough look upon his helpful attitude with a jaded eye. From his reputation, I gather there is probably an ulterior motive behind his willingness to assist me.

  “I think you have a new referral coming your way soon. And aren’t you scheduled to be at the Howie’s this morning? Get a move on girl!”

  “Why do you persist on calling me “Legs,” who made you my boss, and when have I ever been late?” I inquired coolly. “Is the tape all down from the scene? Everything signed off on for that job in Monroe? I’m not wasting gas to get over there this afternoon and get sent home again ’cause your boys are… premature.”

  He laughed, “Why you always gotta make everything sound dirty? I can’t tell if you choose your words on purpose or if it’s that husky voice of yours.”

  I responded with a grin that I hoped didn’t carry through the airwaves. “Maybe it’s your own wishful thinking. I’m asking a simple enough question, Jared, I can’t control how you react to it.”

  “Well, can you control having a cup of coffee with me before you get started on that job in Myers Park? Henry’s Plain Coffee is on your way to Charlotte. We could grab a cup together since I’m headed to the city too.”

  “I don’t know why you’re heading to Charlotte, but Jared, here is what I can control,” I said grumpily. “Coffee at the Howie scene: You’re buyin’ and bringing it. I take it blonde and sweet.”

  I abruptly hung up just as he was saying “Like my wom—.”

  As I matter of fact, I am blonde, but sweet doesn’t enter into it. I do have empathy, too much to be the therapist I had once planned to be in college. But sometimes when one door closes, glass shatters and a tragedy shimmies over the window sill. That’s where I come in. Shaped by my own traumas, I am — for the time being at least — made for mayhem.

  ***

  My first stop, David and Jayne Howie’s, was a luxurious mansion and the check I would be receiving from Jayne would be top-notch too. My job was in the library, cleaning up after David’s fatal and self-inflicted gunshot wound.

  Afterward I would mail the key back on the off-chance someone saw me retrieve it from underneath an ornate sundial. My phone call would send the family scurrying back from their “cottage” on Edisto and gradually they would peer, then step, into a room where the only trace of a suicide would be in their memories or imagination.

  That is my guarantee, the verbalized compact to the stunned, shaken or indifferent clients. And it is a treaty between me and the departed as I erase their final moments and attempt to shroud them in the dignity they may never have had in life.

  Having lost someone to suicide, I know the survivors never stand a chance. It is personal, and the survivors cannot help but take it personally. In a flash it is done. No matter what the reasons and how little it had to do with you, it is a card from the afterlife you receive daily, as if to say: “Your love was not enough to anchor me to this world of pain.”

  Although I didn’t know Jayne Howie, I felt for her. There would always be whispers. People would think she should have seen it coming. You don’t always see it coming. You can’t always stop it when you do.

  Imagination is my enemy in this job, so I tried to shake it off as I briskly grabbed my bag. As soon as I entered the code and passed through the gate I proceeded through another one into the back yard. I laid my supplies on a wrought iron table and began putting on my suit.

  I don’t change out of modesty. The coveralls and boots go snugly over my streetwear. But it makes me less of a target for the prying neighbors who saunter by and then purposely bear down on me to ask questions about the “deed.” I don’t have any answers for them. I’m just the sweeper, the lone cleanup crew, the woman who can swab the deck of the bereaved’s listing ship.

  I zipped up, turned around and practically jumped back out of my suit from sheer surprise. Jared chuckled and handed me the container of Henry’s Plain Coffee.

  He looked me up and down. In spite of the fact that the coveralls generally make me feel androgynous, my cheeks grew hot as readily as if he had caught me coming out of the shower.

  “Thanks,” I said shortly, setting it down the verdigris table.

  He took a careful sip from his own steaming cup to hide a grin. “So, blonde and sweet?”

  “Yes,” I said mockingly, looking him up and down just as he had sized me up earlier, and in my appraisal attempted to convey I wasn’t on the breakfast menu. I had to stop my perusal pretty quickly. Jared is one mouthwatering man.

  At 6’2” with gray eyes and wavy blonde hair, Jared is the star of the fantasies of just about every able-bodied woman in Union County. Rumor has it that he has been fulfilling those fantasies pretty steadily since he was a teenager. I try to keep my distance for a number of reasons, and one of them is just that. I had never been a notch on a belt to anyone, and I wasn’t about to start with the local Lothario.

  Despite my determination, I was imagining what his bare, probably tanned chest might look like when he waved his hand in front of my face. “Legs? Are you okay? You look flushed. You’re not going to faint, are you?”

  Embarrassed, I quickly turned my back to him as I slipped on my other boot.

  “How long do you think this one is going to take?” he asked nonchalantly.

  As I straightened up I could tell he had moved closer behind me. I could practically feel his breath on my neck.

  “Jared, if you stand any closer I’ll have to get a pregnancy test,” I said mildly, taking a step away before I turned around.

  “Trust me, if you ever have to have one of those tests on my account, the cause is going to be more memorable than this,” he laughed, and gave a nod to the Howie home. “It’s a pretty bad one, huh?” he asked with uncharacteristic sympathy.

  “Looks like it, from the pictures the Mecklenburg Sheriff's office emailed me, but it’s just the one room. Hey, you’re only on one county’s payroll last time I checked. You need to get in there for some reason?”

  “No. I’m up here because they found the body of a woman from Union County who was dumped in a vacant house downtown. I came up to meet the family for identification. They’re old friends. I think the owner of that house got one of your business cards, so you’re bound to get that job too. All the deputies up here carry them. You must be connected — they give them out like party favors.”

  “Oh. Yay?” I said, a little disconcerted. “Anyway, that was nice of you to meet the family in Charlotte.”

  “As much as I would like to take credit for a favorable opinion you might be forced to have of me, it’s also my job,” he said simply. “She was raped and murdered. She’s a native of Union County, so we need to help nab this bastard. Not that Mecklenburg County is all that eager for

our assistance.”

  “I remember when she went missing. They didn't have much hope once they found her car by the side of the road in Monroe. Any closer to catching the guy?”

  “Not a clue. Well, a few we're keeping to ourselves so far. They’re calling him ‘The Choker’ in the press because each of the three victims had a dark circle around their necks. I hate the way the media rushes to give them a moniker, you know? It’s like they’re some comic book villains instead of real monsters.”

  “By the way,” he continued, “you should also know all the victims are blonde like you. You need to be especially careful.” He gave a significant nod to my curly blonde hair, which I was in the process of putting up in a ponytail. “You are alone in empty houses pretty often.”

  “And that’s my business,” I said, reaching for the coffee and taking a sip. “Literally. If you’re going all over the county warning the fair-haired women to beware of this ‘Choker’ guy, you better get back on the road and make the rest of your rounds. Unless there is something else you wanted… Does that murderer have any connection to the Howie family?”

  “No. I’m here because of you.”

  “Looking for a career change?”

  He took another sip, his grey eyes taking me in slowly again. “Nope.”

  “A restraining order?”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “I thought we were talking. Is this a long talk or you want to ask me something?”

  “Both.”

  “Can we do it here?”

  He grinned broadly, “You don’t know how often I've imagined you asking me that very question.”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed.

  “But no,” he said seriously, “if you’re in a rush, I'd rather talk later and somewhere else. You seem to be in a work-mode, and I’m hoping to get your full attention.”

  “Well,” I said, “I hate that you came over here for nothing. I won’t deny I’m intrigued.”

  “I would never call seeing you, even in that get-up, a waste of time, but I’d like to actually talk to you. Not stand in a yard when it’s impossible to get you to focus on me.”

  I fought back a smile, knowing how satisfied it would make him to realize my dazed look earlier had actually been a fleeting daydream about him.

  “You can try to find me after this, but I have two jobs today, remember? Catch me if you can.” Our gazes caught for about a second too long. To cover a speechless moment I put on my mask and gloves, grabbed the coffee, made a toasting “thank you” gesture and stepped inside, firmly shutting the door on Jared.

  FACEBOOK POST: A friend wants me to join her book club, and claims I cannot embarrass her. So, I'll compare Louis L’Amour to "other great French novelists, like, you know, Voltaire?" and I will claim to have autographed copies of the original Aeneid.

  Chapter 2

  As violent death scenes go, this wasn’t bad. Mr. Howie had thoughtfully positioned himself away from his library shelves before pulling the trigger. Those books would have been a bitch to clean without damaging their value. Just the same, I took each one and wiped it down with a dry cloth, checking the shelves diligently as I went along.

  I decided I would have liked Mr. Howie. He had wonderful editions of books I had grown up loving, from John Irving to Ezra Pound, and Sylvia Plath to boot. His library reminded me of my father’s, and I found myself being more careful, methodical and slow. Realizing I was prolonging my time here, enveloped in my own childhood memories, I felt ghoulish and brought myself up short.

  “Snap out of it,” I muttered to myself. Once I finished with the room, I stepped up on a chair to remove draperies that probably cost more than my car. I tossed them into the hall to be cleaned professionally and billed separately. I bundled up the Oriental rug a little uneasily, but I have excellent insurance for any mishaps with owners’ possessions.

  I wiped down all the furniture once more — a point of pride more than necessity. Although I’d been told that David Howie had no health issues that indicated a cause for concern or contamination, I still treat all crisis scenes as though there is a potential for it. Besides, the last thing I want is even the tiniest gruesome reminder that a suicide had taken place here.

  I’m only a little interested in cleaning, which to me is the eradication of signs of life in a mundane world. I can do this job because it is just the opposite, an invitation for life to return by sweeping away dark shadows.

  I bagged and bundled the draperies and struggled with the rug until I had them all in my old wood-paneled Range Rover I’ve christened Bessless (yes, I name my cars) after a Great Aunt. Then I checked the back gate, reset the house alarm and locked the door. I glanced at my Blackberry for my next address and time. I noted I still had two hours before I realized a silver truck had blocked me in the driveway.

  “Damn Ben!” I exclaimed, rushing down the drive and hurling myself into the great warm barrel of my stepbrother’s hug.

  “Have you got Lo-jack on Bessless or something? How is it you can always track me down?”

  He leaned against the truck and looked down at me with amusement. “Well, you left your schedule on your voicemail message. At least I hope that is your voice. Otherwise you have a very gifted stalker with a talent for mimicry. I was thinking of taking you to lunch, but right now you look like a bloody marshmallow. And I don’t mean that in the English sense.”

  Ben’s Mother, one of my many stepmothers, is English and a portion of every year he had spent with her in Dorchester made for an interesting dichotomy of speech and expression.

  I try to stay in contact with all of the extended and almost accidental “steps,” thinking of the younger ones as distant nieces and nephews, but Ben is the lone constant among them.

  Ben was the cliché of my Mr. Right, handsome, gentlemanly, intelligent and ready to talk about, or listen to, anything when it came to me. Sadly, I had met him at our parents’ wedding. Even though we never shared the same home and our parents’ marriage dissolved quickly and amicably, it put this relationship somewhere on the list of forbidden fruit.

  “Ah,” I said, looking down at the suit in frustration. “I get so used to the coveralls I forget to remove them! But a marshmallow? I hope I haven't put on weight.” I smiled.

  “Are we fishing for compliments? Gretchen, if Vogue ever decides to run a story on women in unusual careers, you'’l be their cover girl.”

  “Oh hush, you can't expect me to take your compliments seriously. You're family.”

  “I am certainly not family, but say the word and we can alter that, pun intended,” he said, smiling. “You know the moment I saw you I heard wedding bells.”

  He glanced over at the home behind me.

  “How was it in there?” he asked, indicating the beautiful Howie residence.

  “Quiet,” I replied. “Kind of... calm.”

  “So you’re saying peaceful?” Ben looked startled. “You picked up peaceful from a suicide?”

  “I picked up brains, I wiped up blood.” I parried. “How is your job going?”

  “Ah, pretty much the same morning for me.”

  “Well, venture capitalism is a brutal business,” I smiled.

  “Speaking of the world of high finance, when are you coming back to real work?” Ben asked, with a serious cast to his face that suddenly made him look older than his 32 years.

  I sighed. “Well right now I am getting back to work, after lunch of course. My work.”

  “Ah, your work,” he smiled. He climbed into his truck, signaling me to follow him.

  I slipped off the suit, gloves and boots and threw them in the back seat in a plastic bag. Absently I noted a black vehicle that might have been Jared’s parked across the street.

  With a mental shrug, I followed Ben to Slug's Pub, a strange little hybrid place that attracts an eclectic clientele. I appreciated the choice. Slug’s has a wide menu, and there are just some things I am not ready to eat after a cleaning. After waiting for me to wash up in the ladies; room Ben got the coconut shrimp and a Blue Moon. I ordered water with lemon and a grilled farmer’s cheese sandwich with a side order of fried pickles so good it makes your tongue slap your brain.

  “Still not drinking?” Ben asked curiously.

  Without thinking about it, I reached over and pushed his dark hair back. “Ninety-dollar haircuts and you still can’t keep it away from your eyes,” I chided.

 

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