Death Tidies Up by Barbara Colley Read Free Book Online Page A

bow, he continued. “A museum? Or the symphony? Or perhaps the opera?” He suddenly smirked. “If we had an opera, that is,” he added.
    The whole thing had happened in a matter of moments, and Charlotte was still trying to recover from the shock of it all. He’d asked her out before, and she suspected that he already knew that her answer would always be no. He simply wasn’t her type. Still, he asked every time he saw her.
    Gathering her wits about her, she forced a saccharine smile. “Thanks for asking, but no thanks. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
    He slapped his hand over his chest in an overly dramatic gesture. “Oh,” he groaned. “You wound me deeply, fair lady.”
    â€œYeah, right!” she retorted, unable to suppress the sarcastic rejoinder. “Sam Roberts, you’re about as full of baloney as they come.” The man was incorrigible and outrageous to boot. “Now—if you’ll excuse me—I have places to go and things to do.”
    Sam threw back his head and roared with laughter. “That’s what I like about you, Charlotte. You say what you mean and mean what you say—but here, let me get that door for you.”
    With one hand he opened the door of the van, and with his other hand, he made a wide sweeping arc. “Your carriage awaits, milady.”
    Charlotte stiffened, not sure of what to expect next, but she wasted no time climbing inside the van. To her relief, Sam simply shut the door.
    â€œYou take care now, Miss Charlotte,” he told her, with a mock salute. “See ya next time.”
    Not if I see you first, Charlotte thought as she drove away.
    Â 
    Though Charlotte had good intentions, it was almost six before she finally pulled into the small parking lot behind the Devilier house. When she’d arrived for her hair appointment, Valerie was still busy with another customer and she’d had to wait a precious twenty minutes for her turn. Then she’d gotten stuck in a traffic jam, thanks to a malfunctioning traffic light and the usual Friday five o’clock rush of commuters trying to get a jump start on the weekend.
    The parking area behind the Devilier house took up about half of the back property, and Charlotte estimated that it was just large enough to accommodate eight to ten vehicles.
    The other half of the backyard had been turned into a small garden area, an oasis landscaped with azaleas, sweet olive, small palms, and night-blooming jasmine.
    At the edge of the parking lot was a magnificent live oak that had to be at least a hundred years old judging from its size alone. The oak offered shade both to the parking lot and to the garden.
    As Charlotte admired the old oak, she wondered if the tree was a member of the exclusive Live Oak Society. It always made her smile when she thought about the unusual club where membership requirements were based on the age and size of the oak, and dues consisted of forty-five acorns a year.
    â€œNowhere but New Orleans,” she murmured.
    Charlotte’s smile faded. Time was a-wasting. It was already twilight, and soon the twilight would fade into darkness. For safety’s sake, Charlotte didn’t like the idea of being caught all alone in the big old empty house after dark.
    Vince Roussel, the owner of the construction company in charge of the renovation, had given her a master key. With the house key firmly in one hand and her car keys in the other, she locked the van and hurried to the back entrance of the house.
    Thank goodness enough light poured in through the fanlight above the door for her to see, Charlotte thought as she stepped into the back hallway. Roussel had assured her that the electricity and the water would be turned on by the time her crew came in for the cleanup, but the moment she was inside, she tested the light switches just to make sure. Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief when lights in the dim entrance hall came