The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag 00 - Skeletons in the Closet

throat, and then Janice amended her statement
    “Well, I’ll be eighteen in January. I’m real good at cleaning, Mrs. Phillips, and I really need this job.”
    I knew Jack Montgomery, or Jack Hammer as the SEALs referred to him in reverent tones, by reputation only. He’d been the senior chief for Neil’s SEAL team when Neil had graduated from BUD/s training and received his Budweiser pin. Neil had only been on a few missions with Jack before he had retired to his family’s home in Massachusetts, but the stories lived on. While I’d promised Neil I would take a partner along with me, I had mixed feelings about involving someone innocent into the whole rigmarole. A tough-as-nails former SEAL, or a no-neck goon was one thing, but the teenage daughter of one of them?
    I wiped my forehead. When had I started sweating?
    “Janice, there’ll be lots of hard labor involved; you know, beating the Persian rugs, wrestling the carpet cleaner....” Potentially dodging bullets…. “Are you sure you can handle this sort of thing?”
    “Oh, I’m in excellent shape and I really need the money. Please, Mrs. Phillips, take me out on a job and you’ll see.”
    My eyes closed, and I pinched my thumb and index finger over the bridge of my nose. I knew I was going to regret this, but…. “Are you free tonight?”

    * * * *
    Francesca Carmichael lived in a Greco-Roman temple. It was only twelve miles from my house but, like visiting my in-laws in Cambridge, it may as well have been Jupiter. The well-manicured lawn stretched as far as the eye could see, broken only by a too-natural-to-be-natural placement of oak and maples. The house itself was three massive stories, with a balcony wrapping out of sight on every floor. It had to be at least seven thousand square feet, larger than all three of the houses I’d ever lived in combined. I thought the Kline’s house on Cloverleaf Drive was spectacular, but this white-columned monstrosity was definitely more than a place for Frannie to hang her hat.
    It had occurred to me on the drive that I didn’t know too much about Francesca. She seemed to have an abundance of free time and an endless supply of capital. She was beautiful, but not shallow, and as down to earth as the rest of us work for a living stiffs. I hadn’t seen a wedding ring, and she’d never mentioned a husband, but who knows? Maybe he’d moved in three years ago and gotten lost inside, never to be seen again.
    “Wow, some digs, huh?” My teenaged companion snapped her gum, her silver gaze trained on the mansion. “I guess this lady’s like, rolling in the dough.”
    I had a flash of Scrooge McDuck swimming through his money bin.
    “Are you sure you’re up to this?” I asked Janice with a pointed glance at her distended belly. Funny how she’d neglected to mention she was six months pregnant over the phone.
    It was only forty-five degrees outside according to the flashing Framingham bank clock/thermometer we’d passed, but I’d shed my denim jacket and perspired through my long-sleeved Henley with the small hole in the shoulder seam. I hadn’t stopped sweating since Jack Hammer had dropped her off at our house, a black scowl on his craggy face that had Marty running for cover under Kenny’s bed. The plan had been that Jack and Neil would do some catching up while Janice and I went cleaning, but I had a hard time picturing the taciturn man gabbing away with Neil.
    I could easily picture the stalwart demolitions expert taking out the White Cloud of Death with a rocket launcher.
    Janice smiled and cracked her gum again. “Absolutely. I need to show Daddy that I can hold my own in the world, so he backs off about me giving up my baby for adoption.”
    I so wasn’t going to touch that topic with a ten foot pole.
    “Let’s go,” I said instead. I’d already decided that I’d do the majority of the work, allowing Janice to rest as much as possible.
    I’d learned my lesson at the Kline’s, so I parked at the back of the house, near what appeared to be a mud room. Janice followed me to the door, and I knocked. I’d carted my cleaning paraphernalia, but figured I’d leave it in the van until I scoped out Frannie’s set up.
    A dour looking woman in her early fifties answered the door and waved us in without preamble.
    “I’m Maggie Phillips, and this is my partner, Janice. Francesca hired us to—”
    “I’m Mrs. Smitts, the housekeeper. You will be assisting me to prepare for Ms. Carmichael’s