The Books of R. J. Brown

The Dead Husband
Published April 2009

A CLEANING WOMAN'S WORST NIGHTMARE

Cleaning up dead husbands is not in SALLY COLLIER's job description so when she finds one half-buried at the bottom of his garden, her Monday morning schedule gets seriously derailed.
       Sally has history with MELVIN BIRNBAUM, the owner of the multi-million dollar home overlooking Discovery Bay on the Olympic Peninsula and after her beau, Jefferson County Chief of Detectives GEORGE TULLOCK warns she'll have to do a Sally Sees: remember what she saw on her arrival, her day turns into a walk down memory lane.
       From a post-World War II London childhood to being a secretary and emigrating to Chicago; from years as an eager-beaver office girl to single motherhood; from heading west to the Bay Area where she met Mel, his wife RENEE, their daughter, CLAIRE and their dog, BORSCHT to working in a doctor's practice in picturesque Port Townsend. Now she's a charwoman with her own company of highly qualified women, SAL'S GALS, has made a good life for herself and found a good man to love.
       Sally's proud that Charles Dickens wrote about her trade in A Christmas Carol, and says of her mentor: "My Mum was a good char, it's just she didn't do it with light heart. You know, have fun. Oh, quit sniggering! Of course you can have fun cleaning house. What's the first thing little girls play at? Anyway, she taught me that a family's home will tell you a lot about how they're getting along, and for the past three years the Birnbaums have been in trouble."
       As this feisty char's work week unfolds she's harassed by the widow Renee and her employer, the Seattle entrepreneur ALAN HATTON, takes Mel's dog and the grieving daughter under her wing, shows the case detectives, SMITH and WESTIN, a thing or two and is summoned to the reading of the deceased's will.
       From her unique perspective as an immigrant and a business woman Sally isn't shy about why she loves the houses she cleans, her stories, her romance and telling how the mystery of THE DEAD HUSBAND unravels.

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