MURDER IN THE MORNING
On weekdays, Charlotte usually only skimmed the headlines of the newspaper before going to work. On Wednesday morning, she had awakened earlier than usual, though, early enough, she decided, for a leisurely cup of coffee and to actually read the newspaper.
In the kitchen, she switched on the coffeepot. On her way through the living room, she stopped long enough to uncover her little parakeet’s cage and then she retrieved the Times-Picayune from the front porch steps.
Once back in the kitchen, she poured herself a cup of coffee. To make sure she allowed enough time to eat breakfast, dress and get to work, she set the kitchen timer for forty-five minutes. Then she settled at the kitchen table with the newspaper and her coffee.
Charlotte read through a good bit of the paper and then came upon the obituary section. Just as she reached to turn the page, one of the pictures caught her eye.
Charlotte gasped and a deep hollow feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as she stared at the picture. “No way,” she whispered. It just wasn’t possible.
Mimi Adams was dead…
Books by Barbara Colley
MAID FOR MURDER
DEATH TIDIES UP
POLISHED OFF
WIPED OUT
MARRIED TO THE MOP
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
A Charlotte LaRue Mystery
WIPED OUT
Barbara Colley
KENSINGTON BOOKS
For April, Charles, and Cristi—
my children.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all who so generously gave me advice and information while I was writing this book: the New Orleans coroner’s office; René Schmit, county agent with the LSU Agricultural Center; my wonderful friends and fellow writers, Rexanne Becnel, Jessica Ferguson, Marie Goodwin, and Karen Young.
I also want to thank Evan Marshall and John Scognamiglio. Their support and advice are invaluable.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 1
Watch out for that woman. She’s not someone you want to cross.
Like a nagging toothache that just wouldn’t go away, Bitsy Duhe’s dire statement about Mary Lou Adams came to mind yet again as Charlotte LaRue drove down Prytania.
Monday morning traffic had slowed to a crawl, and as Charlotte inched along in her van, she found herself growing more frustrated with each passing minute. The traffic jam was bad enough, but what Bitsy had said had haunted her all week…and worried her.
The last thing that Charlotte had wanted was to listen to one client gossiping about another client, especially a brand-new client whom she’d never met except through a phone conversation. She’d always preferred to form her own opinions about the people she cleaned for. And truth be told, Bitsy, bless her old heart, was one of the biggest gossips in New Orleans. Any little tidbit of information was fair grist for Bitsy’s gossip mill.
As usual, though, Bitsy had ignored Charlotte’s attempts to change the subject, and she’d filled her ears with information about Mary Lou and Gordon Adams.
According to Bitsy, Mary Lou was a social butterfly, but a butterfly with the sting of a wasp. As for Gordon Adams, his one obsession in life was becoming even wealthier than he already was. He had not only expanded his car dealerships to include South Louisiana but had ventured into Mississippi as well.
Behind Charlotte a car horn blared and she jumped. “Okay, okay, for Pete’s sake!” She glowered in the rearview mirror at the driver behind her, then eased her van forward. Both of them were going nowhere fast, so she didn’t see what the big deal was about lagging a few feet behind the car in front of her.
Still irritated at being honked at, she ventured a quick glance at the dashboard clock. Five minutes. She drummed her fingers impatiently against the steering wheel. She still had five minutes to get to the Adams’s house before nine.
The line of vehicles in front of her stopped again, and with a groan of frustration, Charlotte craned her neck in an attempt to see past the SUV ahead of her. Half a block down was a side street. If she could just reach the side street, she could get around the traffic jam altogether.
A few minutes later, Charlotte sighed with relief when she finally parked behind an old battered truck alongside the curb in front of the Adams’s house. From the looks of the contents in the bed of the truck, she figured that today was most probably the day for the gardener as well as the maid.
Charlotte glanced at the dashboard clock again. “You’re late,” she grumbled to herself. Just five minutes. So what? her inner voice chided. It’s highly doubtful that Mary Lou Adams is sitting in front of a clock and counting the minutes, Charlotte.
Feeling a bit foolish for worrying so much about the time, Charlotte quickly unloaded her supply carrier and vacuum cleaner from the back of the van.
A black cast-iron fence surrounded the house, and as she let herself in through the ornate gate, she paused a moment to admire the beautifully preserved home and the well-manicured grounds.
The huge house was magnificent, probably built in the late 1800s, she decided. Like many of the old homes in the New Orleans Garden District, she could tell that it had been altered over the years, the end result that the style was a combination of Greek Revival and Victorian. But the landscaping was what really caught her eye. She’d worked in the Garden District for more years than she cared to count, and she’d be willing to rate the grounds of the Adams’s home as one of the most fascinating that she’d seen. It was filled with exotic plants. A couple of the plants she recognized—Tibou-china, the Sago Palm—but there were many more that she didn’t.
Charlotte’s long experience working as a maid exclusively in the Garden District had made her somewhat of an expert on architecture and furnishings, and she was well aware that only someone very wealthy could afford the upkeep on such an extravagant old home.
Mary Lou and Gordon Adams were indeed wealthy. Not only did Gordon Claiborne Adams III own a conglomerate of car dealerships that stretched over the entire state of Louisiana, but according to Bitsy, he came from old New Orleans money as well.
Charlotte