Coco kicked off the pumps, tore off the wig, and bolted after her.
The woman wasn’t in shape or athletic, and he caught up to her before she reached the bedroom door. Coco grabbed her by the shoulder, spun the woman around, and pushed her up against the wall.
“What the hell are you doing in my house, Francie?” he demanded.
“I…I forget something important, Mr. Mize,” she said, terrified. “I no know you’re here.”
“Obviously,” Mize said. “What could be so important that you broke into my house wearing rubber gloves, Francie?”
She began to cry. “I was looking for…my bank card. The ATM.”
“You figured out you were missing your bank card three months after I fired you?”
Francie nodded wildly. “Yes. Just yesterday. I look everywhere. I say, this one must to be at the Jeffrey Mize’s house. So I come. I call you from outside. I ring doorbell.”
“To make sure I wasn’t home,” Mize said.
“No! You no answer. You no hear?”
“I was busy.”
His former maid’s gaze flickered down to his black panties, garter belt, and hose, and then back to the eyelashes and makeup.
“I so sorry,” she blubbered. “I see this now.”
“My secret life?” he said. “My closet?”
“I no mean to! I just looking for—”
“Something to steal, isn’t that right?”
“No, Mr. Mize,” the maid said, and she made the sign of the cross.
Mize’s mind turned to Coco’s unique perspective again, and he said, “I was wondering why I’d been missing some of mother’s lesser jewelry. Never suspected you, Francie, but that’s my naturally trusting personality.”
The maid got more frightened. “No, that’s not—”
“Sure it is,” Mize said. “You’re dirt-poor, Francie. So you steal. It’s what you do. It’s what I would do if I were you.”
She clamped her jaw shut and tried to struggle away, but he threw her back against the wall. “Please, Mr. Mize,” she whimpered. “Don’t call police. I do anything, but not that!”
Mize thought, said, “You can keep a secret, can’t you, Francie?”
She seemed not to understand for a moment, but then her head bobbled like a toy. “Of course, I no tell anyone you like dress lady-boy, Mr. Mize.”
He laughed. “Lady-boy? Is that what they’d call me in Haiti?”
Francie’s eyes darted around, but her head started bobbling again. “I sorry, Mr. Mize. Is a bad thing? Lady-boy?”
“You tell me.”
“No, Mr. Mize,” she babbled, “I no care your lady-boy secrets.”
“Then I don’t care you’re a thief, Francie.”
She didn’t know what to say, but she nodded in resignation. “Merci, Mr. Mize. Please, I so sorry.”
“How’d you get in?” Mize asked.
Francie looked down.
“If we’re going to share secrets, we better start by being honest, don’t you think?” Mize said in a more pleasant tone.
Tears dripping down her cheeks, Francie nodded. “I make key last year.”
“Show me?”
The maid pulled off one of her rubber gloves, dug in her back pocket, and came up with the key.
He took it, said, “The alarm code?”
Francie blinked. “You give it to me, Mr. Mize. You no remember?”
That was true. Stupid of me.
“I remember,” Mize said.
“What I do for you?” she ask. “Clean house again? It look like no clean for long time, Mr. Mize.”
“Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”
“Yes, yes,” Francie said. “Anything, Mr. Mize.”
“Who else knew you were coming here to steal?”
“No one! I swear to spirits.”
“Better to work that way, I suppose.”
She nodded again. “No one knows, is better, I think.”
“Makes sense,” Mize said. “What have you stolen from me before?”
Francie looked down again. “Something silver from dining room, and maybe bracelets and necklace in other room.”
“Thin gold bracelets? Little bangles?”
“I so sorry.”
“You were desperate,” he said. “I know what that’s like.”
Francie grabbed his hand and kissed it. “Bless you, Mr. Mize.”
Mize smiled. “Well, then, I know your secrets; would you like to see mine?”
The maid looked torn.
“C’mon, if we’re sharing secrets, we’re friends now,” he said. “Let me show you the closet and all its beauty.”
Francie licked her lips, and then shrugged. “Okay.”
“Real ladies first,” Mize said, and gestured with a flourish toward the open closet door.
Uncertain, she moved past him, crossed the room, and stopped in the closet doorway. She looked around and her eyes widened.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Mize asked.
Francie’s voice was filled with genuine wonder. “I never see such things before this now. Maybe in movies.”
“My mother started the collection,” Mize said, taking a white kimono off the door hook and slipping it over his shoulders. “She loved her clothes, and she taught me to love them too.”
The maid’s face tightened. “Is good. I think.”
“It bonded us,” he said. “See the jewelry box on the vanity? It was Mother’s. She was a spendthrift with exquisite taste in jewelry. Have a look. She’d want you to see.”
Francie glanced at him tying the robe. He stopped, smiling. “Go on.”
The maid went to the vanity. The lights around the mirror were glowing. She opened the lid. Her jaw dropped.
“Now, that’s what you were hoping you’d find, wasn’t it?” Mize asked.
He’d slid in behind Francie. In the mirror, she saw not Mize, but Coco, the smile gone cold, the eyes gone vacant.
Before the maid could reply or even change her expression, Coco flipped the robe’s sash over Francie’s head.
He cinched it nice, tight, and brutal around her neck.