Free From Bad to Wurst by Maddy Hunter

the blast. I’m afraid there was nothing left of it to recover.”
    â€œOh.” Obviously, my brain was still a little addled because I sure hadn’t connected those dots. Of course her handbag had been obliterated; that’s what bombs were built to do. Obliterate things.
    â€œSo if she was carrying my book with her, it’s gone?” asked Otis. “Destroyed?” He pulled open the drawer of the nightstand to find it empty.
    â€œThat would be my guess,” said Etienne.
    Otis looked oddly pensive before heaving a disappointed sigh. “Maybe the librarian will go easy on me if I explain what happened.”
    â€œMy mom works in a library. Would you like her to write you a note?”
    â€œNo, thanks. I’ll wing it.” He circled the bed, peeked behind the drapes, and checked under the barrel chair before scratching his head again. “Must have been in her pocketbook because it’s sure not here. Okay, then. I’ll get out of your hair now and let you finish up what you’re doing. Thanks for helping me out.”
    â€œNo problem,” said Etienne as he escorted him to the door. “I just wish the outcome had been better for you.”
    â€œMe too. Me too. But at least I tried.”
    Etienne walked back to the bed with Astrid’s lime green spinner suitcase in hand and set it on the mattress. “I know the man is grieving and might not be feeling himself, but did he seem a bit disingenuous to you?”
    â€œA bit? What I’d like to know is, if he wasn’t actually looking for this book that he knew nothing about, what was he looking for?”
    â€œWhatever it was, he didn’t find it. I’ll clean out the bathroom.”
    As I placed a couple of stacks of folded clothes into the suitcase, I noticed a bulge in a side pocket. Peeling the Velcro strips apart, I dug out a household storage bag filled with a dozen truffles that were so badly squished, the interior of the plastic was a dark smear of melted chocolate. “Astrid was a chocoholic,” I called out to Etienne before depositing the bag in the wastebasket and heading for the closet.
    Every hanger had something dangling from it. Ankle-length dresses in assorted colors for her beer hall performances. Crisply starched aprons. White blouses with short puffed sleeves and low-cut ruffled bodices. And at the end of the row, a frothy display of femininity in pastels as pale as butter mints. “Aww.”
    Etienne emerged from the bathroom with an armful of zippered toiletry bags. “ Aww what?”
    â€œLook at these nighties. They remind me of something TV housewives wore in the boudoir a few decades ago, in the days when they scrubbed floors and vacuumed carpets in high heels and pearls.”
    Lace. Silk. Nylon. Spaghetti straps. Ruffles. Feathers. Ankle-length confections with see-through cover-ups as delicate as gossamer. “Peignoirs. I didn’t think women wore peignoirs anymore.”
    â€œAstrid Peterson obviously did.”
    I fingered the bodice of one nightgown, noting how the lace design was missing several strategic threads and the satin ribbon was frayed at the edge. “Do you suppose these were part of her wedding trousseau? Trousseaus and hope chests were a must with brides in my mom’s generation. Women embroidered little flowers on pillowcases and collected pieces of their good china and bought provocative intimate apparel for their honeymoon. These days brides-to-be register at Home Depot and ask for gas grills and nail guns.”
    â€œHer lingerie does look a bit tattered.”
    â€œI remember my mom wearing a peignoir once when I was little. I thought she looked like a princess, so I asked her if she was going to a ball. I never saw her wear it again. I think she traded it in for flannel pajamas and wool socks.” I grinned. “The closest thing I’ve come to a peignoir was one Halloween when I bought a French maid outfit.