Wiped Out

by Barbara Colley

  Carefully placing the wine glass back on the buffet, she frowned. Mimi had only set out one bottle of wine. One bottle wouldn’t go very far. As she made a mental note to search the pantry for more, she turned to inspect the table one last time.

  Like most of the other furnishings in the house, the buffet, the china cabinet, and the table and chairs were beautifully preserved antiques that fit the era in which the house was built.

  An ivory-colored, intricately crocheted tablecloth covered the large, oblong table. In the center of the table was a large vase overflowing with zinnias, marigolds, and salvias that Mimi had grown in her greenhouse and arranged herself that morning.

  At one end of the table Charlotte had placed linen napkins, crystal dessert plates, and silver forks. At the other end she’d set out two small crystal bowls: one she’d filled with mixed nuts, and the other, mints. She’d purposely left both sides of the table clear for the trays of pastries she had yet to prepare.

  Satisfied with the appearance of the table, Charlotte headed back to the kitchen. Though the voices in the parlor were somewhat muted, even in the kitchen she could still hear bits and pieces of the chatter.

  On the cabinet countertop were several white boxes from Gambino’s Bakery, filled with assorted pastries. Beside the boxes were four crystal platters.

  Charlotte had just finished arranging the fourth platter when the sound of the back door opening gave her a start. With a puzzled frown, she turned to see June Bryant enter the kitchen. In June’s arms was a bulky sack.

  “Hi, Charlotte,” June said. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”

  “Just a little,” Charlotte admitted, with a forced smile. “I guess I just assumed that the back door was locked.”

  June laughed and set the sack down on the table. “It probably should be, but Mimi rarely locks it when she’s home.” She pulled a bottle of wine out of the sack. “I was supposed to have brought these over earlier, but I’ve been running late all day long.” She removed two more bottles. “I figured that the meeting would already be well under way by now, but judging by the noise, I guess they haven’t gotten started yet.”

  June pointed at a drawer near the sink. “The corkscrew is in there,” she said. “Just uncork these, if you don’t mind, and put them on the buffet. The bottle of white wine should go in a wine bucket with ice. I think Mimi has one stored in the cabinet beneath the sink. I’d do it myself, but I’m sure that Mimi’s probably having fits wondering where I am.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Charlotte told her.

  “Great! And thanks.” June folded the sack, then shoved it into the trash can. “Now—” She dusted her hands and drew in a deep breath. “Guess I’d better get in there before Mimi has heart failure.”

  At least the wine problem was solved, Charlotte thought, as she watched June hurry from the room. Charlotte stepped over to the drawer that June had pointed out, and, sure enough, there was a corkscrew inside, along with various serving implements.

  “So what about the red wine?” she murmured. “I thought red wine was supposed to have time to breathe.” At least that’s what she’d heard. She inserted the corkscrew into the cork of the first bottle. When she’d twisted most of the cork out, she placed a dish towel over the top of the bottle and finished working the cork out with her fingers. A soft pop sounded, and Charlotte repeated the process on the second bottle. Charlotte was working on the cork of the third bottle when she heard a loud rapping sound in the parlor. The abrupt silence that followed was startling and a bit eerie after all of the noise.

  Charlotte raised an eyebrow. Evidently, as June had indicated, Mimi had been waiting for her friend’s arrival before calling the meeting to order.

  With a shrug, Charlotte finished uncorking the last bottle and carried the two bottles of red wine into the dining room. As she placed them on the buffet, Mimi’s commanding voice broke the silence in the parlor and carried into the dining room.

  “The monthly meeting of HHS is now called to order, and since I don’t see any visitors who need welcoming, we’ll move on to the reading of the minutes and the financial report. I’d like a motion to dispense with both.”

  Charlotte heard June make the motion and another voice seconded it.

  “Good,” Mimi said. “Thank you. Our next order of business for the day is our presidential election. After the election we’ll take a short refreshment break before tackling the rest of our business. Nominations for president of HHS are now open.”

  There were a few moments of complete silence, and then a crisp voice with a no-nonsense tone spoke up. “I nominate Rita Landers for president.”

  Almost immediately, a second, more vigorous voice chimed in. “I second the nomination.”

  As Charlotte headed back toward the kitchen, she heard June Bryant speak up. “I nominate Mimi Adams for president.”

  In the kitchen, Charlotte iced down the remaining bottle of wine in a silver wine bucket, and when she returned to the dining room with the wine and the first platter of pastries, Mimi was talking again. “Are there any more nominations?” A short silence followed; then she continued. “Voting will be by secret ballot. Our vice president, June Bryant, is passing those out now. And since there are no more nominations, we’ll vote. When you’ve finished marking your ballot, give it back to June and she’ll count them.”

  A murmur of protest broke out. “That doesn’t seem quite fair, Mimi.” It was the same voice that had nominated the woman named Rita. “We all know that you and June are friends, and besides, she was the one who nominated you.”

  “Are you insinuating that I would cheat?” June challenged.

  Personally, Charlotte thought that the woman had a valid point, so why on earth was June being so defensive? In spite of herself, Charlotte’s curiosity overcame her common sense. With her ears tuned to the goings-on in the parlor, she made a show of straightening the forks on the table while she waited to hear how the woman would respond to June’s question.

  There was a slight hesitation before the woman finally answered June, and even to Charlotte’s ears, she sounded embarrassed. “No, June,” she said. “Of course I don’t think you would cheat. Sorry…” Her voice trailed away.

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. June’s intimidation tactic had worked. The woman had given in. The woman might as well have said nothing at all if she hadn’t been prepared to back it up. Instead, all the poor thing had done was humiliate herself. Too bad, Charlotte thought, as she headed back to the kitchen for the remaining platters of pastries.

  A few minutes later, when Charlotte returned to the kitchen for the last platter, June was standing by the kitchen table. On the table were two stacks of small square pieces of paper.

  “Just counting the ballots,” June said absently, as she thumbed through the first stack. With a frown, she counted the same ballots again. Then, after only a moment’s hesitation, she wrote something down on a notepad.

  Charlotte picked up the last platter and carried it to the dining room. When she returned to the kitchen, June was tearing one of the ballots into little pieces. Startled by Charlotte’s return, June glanced up with the look of someone who had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Then, with an expression of relief and a tight smile, she picked up her notepad and pen and walked over to the trash can. She dropped the pieces inside, and without a word, she marched out of the kitchen.

  Once June had disappeared through the doorway, Charlotte tilted her head and stared at the trash can. There was only one reason why June would have torn up one of the ballots.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she muttered. Though she couldn’t be certain, she was pretty sure that June had just rigged the election to make sure Mimi won. More than likely, she’d forged a ballot to take the place of the one she’d destroyed. Charlotte shook her head in disgust. Too bad the woman who had protested had been such a coward and hadn’t stuck to her guns when she’d challenged June about counting the ballots.

  Charlotte tur
ned to stare at the dining room doorway. There was no good reason to return to the dining room since everything was ready and waiting for the ladies to take their refreshment break. “Nope,” Charlotte muttered, “no reason at all.” But then she didn’t really need a reason, did she? Still, she hesitated.

  Mind your own business.

  Ignoring the voice of reason in her head, she grabbed a feather duster from her supply carrier and marched into the dining room. The moment she entered the room, she heard June’s announcement of the voting results.

  “The winner and new president of HHS is Mimi Adams.”

  “Who didn’t know that?” Charlotte grumbled to herself in the dining room.

  With June’s announcement, a murmur of disbelief broke out in the parlor, then, above the chatter, a louder voice. “Ah, excuse me please. Excuse me.” The noise died down. “I don’t mean to sound like sour grapes,” the woman said, “but I would like to know what the ballot count was.”

  Had to be the other candidate, Charlotte figured, as she brushed the feather duster along the edges of the buffet. Rita something or other was her name if she remembered right.

  “Of course, Rita,” June answered. “The vote was eight for you and nine for Mimi.”

  Charlotte winced. Even to her ears, June’s tone dripped with condescension.

  “It was a close vote,” June continued. “But we all know that ‘close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.’”

  “Or when there’s cheating going on,” Rita shot back. “May I please see the ballots.”

  Rita’s own condescending tone more than matched June’s, and Charlotte could just imagine the hateful looks bouncing back and forth between the two women.

  “Gladly,” June retorted. “Here, count ’em yourself.”

  Several moments passed, and the parlor was so quiet that Charlotte fancied she could hear the rustling of the ballots being counted by Rita. For all the good it would do her, Charlotte thought. The fix was in. June had made sure of it.

  “Well?” June demanded. “Are you satisfied now?”

  “Not by a long shot,” Rita snapped back. “Winning by only one vote is just a bit obvious, don’t you think, especially when you went slinking off to the kitchen to count the votes all by yourself. Without any witnesses, I might add.”

  “Now you just hold on there,” Mimi cried. “June would never—”

  Rita interrupted with a shout. “No, Mimi, you hold on! Secret ballots are one thing, but this is carrying things too far. And anyone with any scruples at all would offer to let everyone vote again and count the votes in the presence of everyone—which is what should have been done to begin with.”

  The silence was deafening. Charlotte held her breath, waiting to see if Mimi would give in to Rita’s demands. But Mimi didn’t say a word, and after a moment it was Rita who finally spoke again. “That’s it! I’m out of here. I don’t like cheaters. Never have. And you know exactly what you can do with your election and your precious HHS,” she added.

  “Hey, Rita, wait for me,” a voice called out. “I’m going with you.”

  “Me too,” another voice chimed in.

  “Me three,” yet another voice spoke up.

  Mere seconds later, the front door slammed so hard that the sound echoed throughout the house. There was a brief moment of dead silence, and then the room burst into an uproar.

  Buzzing bees, thought Charlotte. Angry buzzing bees. But no, not bees. Bees were much too tame by comparison. It was more like Rita had stirred up the mother of all hornets’ nests.

  Several loud raps sounded. “Order, please,” Mimi cried, but the women ignored her. “Ladies!” Mimi rapped sharply again and kept rapping until the chatter finally died to a low murmur. “I think that now would be a good time for our break,” she said, her voice quivering with emotion. “There’s coffee, wine, and pastries in the dining room across the hallway. We’ll reconvene in about twenty minutes.”

  Uh oh. Suddenly realizing that her presence in the dining room could be construed as eavesdropping, Charlotte tucked her feather duster beneath her arm and hurried back into the kitchen. She was bent over her supply carrier when Mimi entered the room only seconds later. Charlotte straightened. Mimi’s face was pale, and she looked as if any minute she were going to burst into tears.

  “Charlotte, I’m going upstairs for a few minutes,” Mimi said, an edge of desperation in her voice. “Would you please make sure that everyone has what they need?” Without waiting for Charlotte’s answer, she turned and fled the room.

  Charlotte wanted to feel sorry for Mimi, and she did, but only up to a point. In Charlotte’s opinion, Mimi had no one but herself to blame for the fiasco with Rita. She could have let the group vote again, as Rita had requested. That would have been the gracious thing to do, the fair thing. But she hadn’t, and because she hadn’t, and because of what June had done, Charlotte just couldn’t sympathize as much as she would have under other circumstances.

  With a sigh, Charlotte wandered into the dining room to check on things. Whether she agreed or disagreed with what Mimi and June had done didn’t matter in the long run. What mattered right now was that Mimi was her employer, and she still had a job to finish.

  Even with a dozen women milling around, the dining room was large enough that it wasn’t overly crowded. Charlotte paused just inside the doorway and glanced around. She spotted June almost immediately standing near the buffet with a glass of wine in her hand. Looking as innocent as a newborn lamb, she was laughing and talking to a small group of women. Almost as soon as Charlotte saw June, June glanced up and saw Charlotte. June abruptly excused herself from the group and made a beeline for Charlotte.

  When she reached Charlotte, she took her by the arm and pulled her just inside the kitchen. “Do you know where Mimi got off to?”

  Charlotte didn’t appreciate the accusatory tone in June’s voice at all—a tone that insinuated that Mimi’s disappearance was Charlotte’s fault. She firmly pulled her arm from June’s grasp and fought the urge to rub it, not from pain, but simply because she also didn’t appreciate being manhandled by anyone, least of all someone who was almost a complete stranger. Using all the self-control she could muster, she said, “Mimi went upstairs for a few moments.”

  June’s face wrinkled with concern. “Did she say why?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Hmm, maybe I’d better go check on her, just to make sure she’s okay.” She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know how much of what went on in there you heard”—she waved toward the parlor—“but we had a little altercation with one of the members—a slight misunderstanding—and, well, the member got upset, and Mimi—poor thing—takes everything to heart.”

  A slight misunderstanding? First the woman manhandles her, and now she was insulting her intelligence. Charlotte felt her temper rise.

  “Anyway,” June continued, “I won’t be gone but a moment, so just make sure everyone has what they need until I get back.”

  Yes, ma’am; no, ma’am; right away, ma’am. Or maybe she should just stand at attention and salute. Charlotte swallowed hard. June’s intimidation tactics might work on some people, but she had another thing coming if she thought Charlotte was going to put up with it. Charlotte forced a tight little smile. “Ms. Bryant,” she said, “I’ve already assured Mimi that I would take care of things. And I will,” she added pointedly.

  June gave her an odd look but nodded once. “Of course,” she said, her tone chilly. Then, with a slight lift of her chin, she stuck her patrician nose in the air, turned, and hurried toward the doorway leading to the central hall.

  As Charlotte watched June weave her way through the other women, she took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm her racing pulse. Good thing she didn’t have trouble with high blood pressure.

  After a moment, she felt a bit calmer. She returned to the dining room and busied herself with picking up the dirty dishes and tidying the table. All around her, conversation
s centered on Rita and continued as if Charlotte weren’t even there. But, then, no one ever paid attention to the hired help. It was a fact that Charlotte had learned early on when she’d first started up Maid-for-a-Day, and it was the very reason she insisted that the women who worked for her adhered to her client confidentiality policy.

  Once Charlotte had cleaned up as much as she could for the time being, she slipped into the kitchen. As she stood at the sink hand washing one of the crystal dessert plates, she tried to concentrate on what she was doing instead of the conversation between the two women standing just inside the dining room doorway. But ignoring what they were saying proved to be impossible, and she got an earful.

  Chapter 4

  Both of the women looked to be in their early forties, and each had a glass of wine. The taller of the two had a whiny, nasally voice and was the one who did most of the talking.

  “It’s a shame that there’s such bad blood between Mimi and Rita,” she said.

  “Bad blood?”

  “Has been for a while now.”

  Charlotte glanced over at the two in time to see the shorter woman wrinkle her brow. “How come? I thought Mimi and Gordon were really good friends with Rita and Don.”

  “They were, once upon a time, but not any more. I can’t believe you haven’t heard about it. Why, that was just an awful scandal.”

  “Scandal? What scandal?”

  “Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I heard that Rita accused Mimi of having an affair with Don.”

  The shorter woman gasped, and Charlotte almost dropped the plate she was rinsing. She cleared her throat loudly, hoping that when the women realized she could hear everything they said, they would stop their gossiping.

  “Why, that’s just plain ridiculous,” the shorter woman said.

  So much for trying to be discreet, Charlotte thought.

  “Mimi would never cheat on Gordon,” the shorter woman continued. “And she certainly wouldn’t cheat on him with the likes of that awful Don Landers.”