Ralph Phillips was reputed to be a barracuda in piranha’s clothing. He’d put several large companies out of business in the years I’d been married to Neil and he loved to regale us with stories of what a large chunk he took out of each adversary. I figured Mr. Kline had been fortunate he hadn’t met up with my mother-in-law instead. At least this way he still had both his testes.
“I guess we should make an effort to find the rest of the tour,” Sylvia said.
Mr. Kline—Doug as he insisted we call him—smiled and extracted a ring of keys from his pocket. “You ladies wouldn’t want to run off before you satisfy your curiosity.” The twist of his lips appeared more dark and frightening than amused, and I gulped as I remembered the old adage about curiosity killing the cat.
“Really, it’s fine,” I said, but he held open the door, and my feet propelled me forward, Sylvia a beat behind me. Apparently, the cats were too dumb to live.
Sylvia stepped through the doorway first, her blonde hair shimmering in the artificial light from a few bright wall sconces. A large oak desk stood sentinel in front of an enormous bay window. Moonlight poured in and cast eerie shadows over the stone flooring. That’s where normality ended.
The room would have been perfectly set in a feudal castle, complete with a giant stone fireplace and a bearskin rug draped on the stone hearth. Sylvia gulped. She’d noted the head was still attached. Sylvia is a vegan as well as an animal rights activist, and I understood it took a great deal of self-restraint to hold back the tirade on cruelty to animals. My attention remained fixed on cruelty of another sort.
“Is that an Iron Maiden?” I wasn’t referring to a member of the notorious British metal band.
Doug stepped toward the object in question and opened one of the wardrobe-like doors, allowing us to see the lethal metal spikes on the inside.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” He reached out and lovingly stroked the lifeless face.
The closest I had ever come to seeing one of these things was at Bruce Wayne’s house as a secret entrance to his bat cave. I’d studied some medieval history and found it disturbingly ironic that a hero like Batman hid his lair beneath a trap door originally designed to efficiently dispose of torture victims.
“What is an Iron Maiden?” Sylvia’s gaze stayed fixed on the snarling bear head.
I looked to our host, hoping he would field that one. My throat was completely dry, and I began sweating like an old Chris Farley skit.
Doug snapped his fingers, and Sylvia’s gaze darted from the rug to him. “That is an Iron Maiden. To be precise, that is a replica of the Iron Maiden from Nuremberg castle which was destroyed in WWII during the air raids.”
Doug locked stare for stare with me. “It is said that the condemned criminals in Nuremberg would pass through seven rooms with seven doors before confronting this anthropomorphic death chamber.” He giggled. “It’s actually quite brilliant as far as psychological maneuvering. You confront the face of serenity before entering the wardrobe and having the knives skewer your eyes, shoulders, arms, chest, belly, bladder, buttocks, and legs. No wonder more than a few prisoners confessed when faced with her form.”
My hand roamed subconsciously over all of the body parts he had described.
“Would you like to go inside?” Vincent Price’s long lost brother asked me.
“Um, I’ll pass on that. Thanks.” I took a step back out of self-preservation, cravenly putting Sylvia between myself and the madman.
Doug Kline’s full throated chortle wrapped around me like a python, and I winced as a shaft of moonlight caught the serene expression on the face of the Madonna.
“It’s only a mock up, my dear.” Kline reached forward and flicked one of the spikes. To my surprise, it wobbled. “You see, the ‘spikes’ are actually made of rubber. The only affliction one would suffer in here would be a severe case of claustrophobia.” He laughed again, like it was perfectly normal to enjoy something which induced so much terror and pain.
I looked around, hoping to see something, anything, which would take my mind off of the disturbing fascination our host showed with horrific death. No such luck, since the alcoves in the wall held an assortment of other metal, wood, and leather objects that I’d previously only seen in textbook sketches of the Inquisition.
Doug closed the wardrobe door and bypassed Sylvia to stand next to me. “You must think me strange, surrounding myself with implements of torture.”
Oddly enough, strange hadn’t even entered my head. Psychotic, unbalanced, on a holiday from Bedlam on the other hand….
“The purpose of this room is to constantly remind me of the duality of human nature. Think of the pure genius it took to create all this. The hours spent designing each item until it could inflict the ultimate amount of pain. Now, think of what might have been achieved centuries earlier if these minds had been put to a more constructive use. Man may have had automobiles in the eighteenth century, and today we could possess molecular transporters like on Star Trek. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”
Well I was boggled, sure as shootin’. Doug Kline stared at me; the deep charcoal ring around his pale blue irises held me hypnotized. He’s a vampire! My mind screamed. Run before he has you in his power!
“There you are!”
My hero to the rescue! I turned. Neil and a painfully slim woman swathed in a crimson wrap dress stood in the doorway. A gold turban adorned her head, so I couldn’t be sure of her hair color. She might be bald, for all I knew. Her face was wrinkle free, but her eyes held a pinched look. I estimated her age somewhere between thirty-five and ninety. She reminded me of a constipated version of Mrs. Howell from Gilligan’s Island.
Doug cleared his throat. “Ladies, allow me to present Alessandra Kline, my wife.”
“We’ve met.” Sylvia stepped forward. “Mrs. Kline, this is my friend, Maggie Phillips.”
Mrs. Kline quirked an eyebrow at Neil. “Your wife?” she asked in a disbelieving tone.
I sighed. Her surprise was a very common reaction, and I’d ceased being offended years ago. Really, I had.
Neil smiled and placed a protective arm around my shoulder. “My better half.”
I resisted the urge to elbow him in the side, even though he laid it on a bit thick. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Kline. You have a lovely home.”
Alessandra Kline waved off the compliment. “You should have seen our house on Martha’s Vineyard. It was truly something to behold.” She sighed wistfully. “This place will be passable as soon as I find a reliable cleaning service.”
My eyebrows headed north at the odd comment. The house appeared immaculate, and I have very high standards. I’d been raised in a home where cleanliness meant godliness, and the state of the Kline’s house was piety incarnate.
“Shall we head back to the gathering?” Doug asked, crowding his wife, Neil, and me at the doorway. His jubilation at his little den o’ horrors had evaporated as soon as Neil and Mrs. Kline had joined the scene and he quickly ushered us all out before relocking the seventh circle of hell. Mrs. Kline had yet to remark on her husband’s odd collection, but then again, she might’ve had a shed full of Dalmatian puppies and a new fur coat design out back.
What a pair.
“Who does your cleaning now, Mrs. Kline?” Sylvia asked.
“Oh, some dreadful woman from an agency was sent in. She overlooked the grout in the bathroom tiles, and I swear I can see bacteria forming in the kitchen sink.”
I guess Mrs. Kline had never heard of Lysol.
“You know, Maggie is fastidious about cleaning. Her house puts me to shame every time I visit, and she has two growing boys living there,” Sylvia chirped.
I shot her a death glare behind the Kline’s backs as we descended to the first floor. What was she insinuating?
“Is that right?” Mrs. Kline couldn’t have been less interested if Sylvia had announced that NASCAR was coming to town.
“You’ve been talking about going back to work,
haven’t you, Maggie?” Sylvia sent me a pointed glance.
“Yes, but I really haven’t had time for—”
“How about we kill two birds with one stone here?” Sylvia interrupted.
“I’m going to get us some drinks.” Neil retreated to safer ground. I’d never accuse him of running away, but my husband is no fool. He probably didn’t want to get Sylvia’s blood spattered across his new suit.
I opened my mouth to respond, but my boys chose that moment to tear through a crowd of people, who cursed and spilled their drinks.
“Mom!” Josh squealed as he rushed forward. “She’s chasing us!”
“Who?” I asked. Kenny collided into Josh. I caught them both and actually managed to keep my balance.
“Her!” The boys pointed through the crowd. A beautiful, bare foot redhead in a chic, turquoise silk pants suit raced through the drawing room after my monsters. She carried sling back shoes in one perfectly manicured hand, slowed as she approached us, and seemed oblivious to the stares of the entire gathering. The men’s eyes widened with appreciation, while the women’s narrowed, murderous with disgust and envy.
“Francesca!” Mrs. Kline snapped at the newcomer. “Your behavior is completely inappropriate. What on Earth do you think you are doing?”
Francesca flipped a scarlet tress off her glistening forehead. “Having fun, Sandra. You should try it some time.” She turned her back on a seething Mrs. Kline and smiled at me.
“Francesca Carmichael, but please call me Frannie.” She extended the hand that wasn’t clutching her shoes.
“Maggie Phillips. I’m pleased to meet you, Frannie.”
“Phillips?” Are you related to the beefcake with the stellar glutes?
That would be Neil and his butt. I nodded. “He’s my husband.”
Frannie didn’t look surprised in the slightest, which soothed my battered pride.
“Your boys are adorable. I could eat them up.” She eyed me more closely. “They seem to take after your husband.”
How right she was. “They’re his children from his first marriage.” Don’t ask me why I felt the need to clarify this. I’d raised Kenny from infancy and Josh from diapers, and in every way that counted, the boys belonged to me.
Her smile appeared genuine and made her even more strikingly beautiful.
Here’s the thing about gorgeous people. You can easily separate them into two categories. First, there are the nice ones, who will mingle with us mere mortals without condescension. They’re the types who are beautiful inside and out like a double-layer chocolate cake. Then, there are the attractive people who believe their looks set them apart from the rest of us. I call them the cow pies because the golden brown exterior doesn’t make up for the fact that they’re filled with their own….
“Francesca is my sister,” Mrs. Kline’s disapproving tone cut across my inner monologue.
Sylvia didn’t miss a beat. “Well then, Francesca, you can talk your sister into hiring Maggie here to be her new cleaning service.”
“What!” Conversation dimmed around us, and my outrage took on a banshee-like quality.
“Actually, I think that is a terrific idea,” Francesca said as if she hadn’t heard me. For all I knew, my outrage had hit that pitch reserved for dog whistles so perhaps she hadn’t.
Mrs. Kline eyeballed me with that same expression Neil had when picking out major appliances: concern for efficiency overridden by boredom.
“Sylvie, could I speak to you for a moment, over there?” I jerked my head toward an unoccupied corner. Good thing she hadn’t started this when we stood in Mr. Kline’s office because I felt the need for a torture device or two.
“Come on, Maggie, this place needs a little livening up.” Frannie tossed back her head and gave Mrs. Kline a knowing look. “Sandra, you know you will never be satisfied with that cleaning service because they can’t get here until after ten and they won’t work weekends. Maggie here is perfect. She could be, like, on call for you.”
I sputtered at the indignity. An on call cleaning lady? What the hell was that? A maid? A freaking business degree in hand, and these people wanted me to scrub their toilets?
“You know, Francesca, you should really settle your own affairs before nosing into mine,” Mrs. Kline said a little too sweetly.
“Truly, Sandra, I have no interest in your affairs.” The double entendre hung in the air, punctuated by Frannie’s arched eyebrow. We were in a seriously hot passive-aggressive kill zone, and I looked frantically around for Neil and the kids, hoping to make my excuses and leave this mental institution before someone showed up with the straightjackets and decided I fit right in.
Mrs. Kline had taken over my irate sputtering, and I wondered if a vein throbbed between my eyes when I did that. Her anger overruled her Botox treatments, and I thought I saw some fine lines.
“My dear, is something wrong?” Doug Kline put a hand on his wife’s shoulder, and she snapped her mouth closed. Her gaze shot Scud missiles at Frannie before turning to me.
“Be here Thursday at nine sharp.”
Chapter Two
“I won’t do it Sylvia; I won’t be some plebeian servant to Mr. Nut-ball and Mrs. Stick-wedged-so-far-up-her-ass-it-tickles-her-esophagus.” I shook the sweatshirt I was folding so it made a vicious crack and knocked a lampshade off kilter.
Sylvia straightened the shade without comment. The early afternoon calm of my house, sans boys or Neil, contrasted my chaotic mood.
“I mean it, Sylvie, I’m not going.”
“All right,” Sylvia said.
“What do you mean all right? How can I possibly blow them off after that scene last night? I have to go; you made damn sure of that.”
“Then go.” Mother Teresa couldn’t have been more serene. That’s what five hours of yoga a day will get you.
“I can’t go! I have to make lunch for the boys and put them on the bus, and Neil works a full day on Thursday, so I have to pick them up after school and take them to karate.”
“Make their lunch the night before and get them up before you leave. They’re old enough to get themselves on the bus, and you’ll be right up the road if they need you for anything. And you’ll be done in plenty of time to pick them up for karate.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you? Well answer this: why did you do it? Why did you throw me to the wolves like this? And not just the wolves, but the starving rabid wolves!” I had given up on the laundry and used my hands to illustrate my anger.
“I can see why you were voted most dramatic in your senior class.”
“So can a blind man, but that isn’t an answer.”
“You need something beyond this house, Maggie.”
I took one of those calming yoga breaths, but it ended up as more of a wheeze. “I have you and Eric. I have my family. Look, I appreciate what it is you’re trying to accomplish here, but I’m not in danger of Empty Nest Syndrome anytime soon.”
“Face facts, Maggie, you’re bored and depressed.” If there had been any sympathy in her voice I might have strangled her with Neil’s jock strap. Sylvia remained calm, as if stating fact, a slim, blonde, all-knowing Buddha trying to better mankind. And it appeared she was starting with me. Neil sometimes takes a similar approach, and it drives me friggin’ bananas. There’s nothing worse than seeing the craziness in a calm person as they ask for something completely ridiculous and then to have them look at you as if you’re a shovel shy of a tool shed.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” I warned Sylvia in my most lucid voice.
“You’re overreacting,” Mahatma Gandhi informed me.
I clenched my jaw. “I do not overreact!” That was a flat out lie. I make time in my day to overreact. Overreacting keeps my head from exploding.
I picked up the laundry basket and stomped down the hall to my bedroom, hoping Sylvia took the hint. Even though I’d only known her for six months, Sylvia was the kind of friend I really appreciated. She didn’t create u
nnecessary drama, like some of the navy wives I’d known. (I know what you’re thinking, that I admitted to overreacting on a regular basis, but that is necessary drama. Remember the whole exploding cranium bit.) She always told me her opinion, even at the risk of my feelings. If I looked truly horrible in a new outfit, Sylvia would tell me, without hesitation or spectacle. She lets me know where I stand, and I usually appreciated it.
But not this time.
I still felt shanghaied from the night before. Bad enough everyone on the street had seen Mrs. Kline begrudgingly offer me a job I didn’t want it to look like she was doing me a favor. Getting out of the house and making more money would be nice, but I’d hoped to find something a little less demeaning. It wasn’t like I thought the cleaning position was beneath me. I may be a little touched in the head but I love to clean. Not if it meant being treated like a second-class citizen, however well I would be compensated.
I shoved Neil’s boxers and sweat socks into the dresser and unloaded my undergarments into another drawer.
Sylvia appeared in the doorway. “Look, I have a class at one-thirty, so I have to head out. I didn’t mean to upset you, Maggie. I thought you might need a push out the door.”
I stowed my under things and turned to her. “Just tell me this, Sylvie, why them? You were in the room with me last night; you saw the freak show in Armani. Why would you want me to deal with that?”
Sylvia grinned. “At least you wouldn’t be bored. Not to mention, there aren’t too many decent paying jobs in the area right now. It would be a place to start.”
I nodded. Truth was, I didn’t have much in the way of options. My business degree gathered dust in the garage, mostly because I lacked the killer instinct necessary in business. Most of the positions I did qualify for didn’t leave me with the option of being home for my family. I’m an old fashioned girl at heart. My mom had worked in our school lunchroom so she would be free to put her family first, and I prided myself on following in her footsteps.
The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag - #1 Skeletons in the Closet Page 2
