DOUBLE MINT Read Online Free PDF Page B

we tried one more time
     to repair the big red devil, the whole time hoping against hope we’d get to move back
     to our condo where we had a perfectly wonderful and working refrigerator, leaving
     this place as we found it. (Haunted.)
    “I think we have quite enough refrigerator as it is,” Bradley said, “and I don’t care
     if we have to rebuild every motor in it, I need this refrigerator working. Understand?”
    “You got it, Mr. Cole.”
    It had been a full eight months since that day and the refrigerator wasn’t fixed yet.
     It was an ongoing problem, like the ridiculous décor of my home was a problem, the
     ghosts, good grief, the ghosts were a problem, but my biggest problem lately was Magnolia
     Thibodeaux.
    Several weeks ago, I ran around shaking the fake magnolia trees looking for the real
     one. I came in from work one day and the whole place was blooming. When in bloom,
     magnolias produce an unmistakable cloying sticky sweetness, with a wisp of pepper
     and citrusy undertones, like lemon or grapefruit. There’s no missing it and I smelled
     it. It happened again a few days later. About the same time, I began noticing things
     missing—a voodoo doll here, a Jesus there—and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind Magnolia
     Thibodeaux had been sneaking in here. Because she probably still has a key and she’s
     one of two people, her husband being the other, who know the twenty-ninth floor setup
     well enough to sneak past the surveillance cameras on their way in and out. She was
     so slippery, the cameras couldn’t catch her and neither could I. In the past month,
     I knew for a fact she’d been here no less than five times. I was on the verge of booby
     traps.
    I’d called her. She didn’t answer, so I left a nice message. “Mrs. Thibodeaux, I know
     you’ve been here and I’d appreciate it if you’d call me the next time you need in.
     I’ll be happy to help you with anything. I mean it, Mrs. Thibodeaux, anything you
     need or want out of the residence.”
    I called again the next week. “Magnolia. I know you’ve been here again. Please give
     me a call.”
    I called the next week too. “Look, lady. I’m not going to put up with this.”
    It happened again about ten days ago. I smelled her all over my house. “Magnolia,
     I’m telling you, I’m going to catch you running in and out of here like you still
     live here and you’re going to be sorry. It’s called breaking and entering.”
    Calling her wasn’t doing any good, so I gathered up a load of her Bourbon Street baubles
     and had Baylor deliver it to her. He took Jesuses, ceramic alligator busts, Mardi
     Gras beads, eyes of newts, everything that wasn’t nailed down. Maybe what she wanted
     was in there. It also cleared out one percent of her jambalaya junk. I sent six-foot-tall
     two-hundred-pound Baylor with a box stuffed full and a dire warning: If what you’re
     looking for isn’t in here, too bad. Break into my home again and I’m calling the police.
     Magnolia beat Baylor up with an umbrella and told him to stay off her property. Then
     lobbed Jesuses at him. The worst was, I couldn’t get anyone to believe me. My immediate
     supervisor, No Hair, widely addressed as Jeremy Covey, didn’t believe me.
    “She is not sneaking into your house, Davis.”
    “Yes, No Hair, she is.”
    “Why would she do that?”
    “She’s looking for something.”
    “And you know this how?”
    “Because I can smell her.”
    Nor did my husband believe me.
    “Davis, I swear I don’t smell a thing.”
    “How can you not smell it? It’s her. I smell her .”
    “Do you want me to have cameras installed?” Bradley asked. “I will. Say the word.”
    No. No cameras inside. We’re newlyweds, for goodness sake.
    I stepped out of my inner circle. “Erika? Do you smell flowers in here? Magnolias?”
    Nose in the air, sniff sniff. “I smell Mr. Clean and Lemon Pledge.”
    Erika Cleaning Woman is scared to death of this place. She runs in once