Читать книгу Scrub-a-dub Dead - Barbara Colley - Страница 10

Buoyant over seeing Mack again, and looking forward to catching up on their lives over dinner that evening, Charlotte turned down Milan Street.

For most of her life Charlotte had lived on Milan in an old Victorian shotgun double, just blocks away from the exclusive historic Garden District. After her parents’ untimely deaths, she and her sister Madeline had inherited the hundred-year-old house. Once Madeline had married, she’d sold her half of the property to Charlotte, and off and on over the years, Charlotte had rented out Madeline’s half of the house to supplement her own income.

To Charlotte, the old Victorian was more than just the home in which she’d grown up and raised her son. The location was perfect for her thriving, sometimes hectic cleaning service, since all of her clients lived in the Garden District. After Hurricane Katrina, each time she thought about her home, she offered up a prayer of thanksgiving that it, unlike so many other houses, had been spared. The wind damage had been minimal: just a few shingles blown off and some broken limbs out of her tree. But she was most thankful that the floodwaters resulting from the levee breaks hadn’t reached as far as her neighborhood.

As Charlotte approached her driveway and spied her latest tenant, Louis Thibodeaux, pacing the length of her front porch, her spirits sagged. Though she was unable to see the expression on his face, she’d known him long enough to tell that something was wrong from just his stiff and unyielding body language.

Before he’d retired, Louis had been a New Orleans Police homicide detective, and had, in fact, been her niece Judith’s former partner. Once he’d retired Louis began renting from her, and now he worked for Lagniappe Security, a company that provided bodyguards. Besides their on-again, off-again relationship of sorts, she and Louis had locked horns on several occasions, mostly due to his penchant for being a dyed-in-the-wool chauvinist, which clashed with her independent, self-sufficient attitude.

Too bad their differences, nor the fact that he wasn’t exactly available, hadn’t lessened her attraction to him though. For a man his age, he wasn’t half bad on the eyes. Stocky with military-short gray hair and a receding hairline, he was actually handsome in a rugged sort of way. And unlike a lot of men his age, his stomach was still nice and flat instead of hanging over his belt.

The moment Louis spotted her van, he abruptly stopped pacing. Crossing his arms, he firmly planted his feet near the top of the steps and stared at her, his face grim and determined.

Knowing what a jerk he could be at times, Charlotte braced herself to face him as she pulled into her driveway. Then, suddenly, like a blast of cold water, it hit her.

Joyce. Had something happened to Joyce?

Icy dread twisted Charlotte’s heart. Louis’s ex-wife Joyce had cirrhosis of the liver—too many years of a poor diet and drinking herself into oblivion after she’d abandoned Louis and their son, Stephen, who had been a troubled teenager at the time. After over a decade of not knowing where she’d disappeared to, Louis had finally located her in California. At the urging of Stephen, Louis had paid her a visit, mostly to inform her that she had a granddaughter. When Louis learned of Joyce’s medical condition, the thought of her dying among strangers had been more than he could bear, so he’d persuaded her to come back with him to New Orleans, and he’d been taking care of her ever since.

Charlotte quickly scooted out of the van, locked it, and hurried toward the steps. “What’s wrong?” she asked as she climbed the steps to the porch.

Louis stepped to the side to allow her to pass, and instead of answering her question, he said, “Can we talk?”

Patience had never been a virtue that Charlotte laid claim to, and for a moment she felt like stomping her foot and demanding to know what was wrong right then and there. Restraining the urge and reminding herself that Louis would eventually reveal all, but only when he was ready, she nodded and unlocked the front door.

“Come on in,” she told him, “and I’ll make a pot of coffee.”

The moment Charlotte stepped inside the living room, her little parakeet Sweety Boy began his usual routine of chirping and preening for attention.

“Squawk, missed you, missed you,” he chirped.

“Missed you too, Boy,” she said, and then promptly ignored him as she toed off her tennis shoes and stepped into the soft moccasins she kept by the door. She’d make it up to him later, she silently vowed.

She also ignored the bird’s squawks of terror when Louis stepped inside, closed the front door, and passed by the cage. For reasons she’d never been able to figure out, Sweety Boy didn’t like Louis, nor did he like her sister, Madeline. Each time one of them entered the living room, the bird went wild, squawking and thrashing about in his cage.

For once, Louis refrained from his usual ritual of purposely aggravating the little bird, and he followed Charlotte straight back to the kitchen.

While Charlotte prepared the coffee to brew, Louis seated himself at the kitchen table, and with his arms resting on the table, he stared out the window.

Waiting for the coffee to brew and growing more fidgety with each silent passing moment, Charlotte unloaded the dishwasher. By the time she’d finished, the coffee was ready.

She poured them each a cup, set the cups on the table, and then seated herself across from Louis. Her patience at an end, she sighed. “Okay, out with it. What’s happened?”

The look on his face was a mixture of misery and anger. “I caught her drinking again.”

Without asking, Charlotte knew that the “her” was Joyce, and concern and relief warred within, relief because Joyce hadn’t actually died, but concern because Joyce knew that drinking again could hasten her death.

Death.

Charlotte frowned. Joyce’s doctor had warned her that another drinking binge could finish her off. Her frown deepened. On more than one occasion, Joyce had indicated to Charlotte in confidence that she hated being a burden to her family. Was it possible that Joyce was drinking on purpose?

Choosing her words very carefully, Charlotte said, “You do realize that even though she’s very grateful for everything you’ve done, it really bothers her that she’s such a burden on you and Stephen. Especially considering the circumstances of your past relationship,” she gently added.

Anger flashed in his eyes, but before he could reply, Charlotte threw up her hand, palm out. “Just hear me out before you say anything. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not true. You’re thinking that if she was so grateful, then why keep drinking? Why do the very thing that made her sick in the first place, the thing that could kill her?”

Charlotte reached out and covered Louis’s hand with her own. “Have you even stopped to consider that it’s possible that she could be trying to speed things up, that she’s so tired of being a burden on everyone that—”

“No!” Louis jerked his hand from beneath hers and shook his head.

Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “Think about it, Louis! What if—God forbid—the situation were reversed? Put yourself in her shoes just for a moment. What would you do?”

Charlotte held her breath as Louis stared at her, a myriad of conflicting emotions chasing across his face. Then, without a word or even a sip of his coffee he abruptly stood, turned his back to her, and stalked out of the kitchen. A moment later, Charlotte heard the front door open and close with a decisive click.

A pain squeezed her heart as she sat in the lonely silence staring at the steam rising from Louis’s untouched coffee. Though her emotions demanded that she go after him and try to comfort him in some way, her common sense kept her seated at the table. She’d already said enough, evidently more than Louis wanted to hear.

“Que será será,” she whispered with a sigh. Then she bowed her head and prayed, first for strength and mercy for Joyce, then for strength, peace, and grace for Louis, his son, and his granddaughter.

By six Charlotte had showered, applied fresh makeup, and fixed her hair. After trying on three different dresses, she finally settled for the one she’d tried on first, her old reliable, little black dress. Instead of the string of pearls she usually wore with the dress, she opted for a simple gold chain and a pair of small gold hoop earrings. While fastening the hoops, a mental image of Tessa Morgan’s lone earring came to mind. It really was a shame that Tessa had lost the other one.

That’s what she gets for hauling all of that stuff around.

“Not nice, Charlotte,” she murmured as she checked out her image in the full-length mirror. Besides, what Tessa did was none of her business.

Giving her hair one last pat, she headed for the kitchen to check her blood-sugar level. Ever since the scary episode she’d experienced just months ago during Mardi Gras when the level had plummeted, she’d tried to be more vigilant about taking care of herself. Being a borderline diabetic was troublesome enough, but it was a whole lot better and less trouble than being a full-fledged one.

As she went through the daily ritual of pricking her finger, squeezing a drop of blood out onto the test strip, and waiting for the results from the small monitor, a sudden tremor of uncertainty seized her. It had been a long time since she’d gone on a real, honest-to-goodness date with a man. Too long, she decided, especially if just the thought of it made her insides so jittery.

The machine beeped and Charlotte glanced down at the small readout display on the monitor. “Right on the money,” she murmured as she jotted down the resulting numbers. Taking her time, she packed up the machine and put it away in the drawer.

Glancing at the clock on the microwave, she sighed. “Still too early to leave,” she complained.

Just as she closed the drawer, the phone rang. Again she checked the time. Wondering who on earth could be calling her, she hurried to the living room.

Though she didn’t immediately recognize the caller ID number, her curiosity got the best of her, and she picked up the receiver anyway. “Maid-for-a-Day, Charlotte speaking.”

“Charlotte, this is Mack.”

“Hey, Mack, I was just about to walk out the door.”

“Glad I caught you then. I’m so sorry to do this to you—last minute and all—but I’m going to have to cancel our dinner date. We’ve had somewhat of a family crisis,” he explained, “and I need to take care of things.”

Though a part of her was disappointed, another part of her was relieved. “No problem,” she told him, but even as she said the words, she couldn’t help wondering what kind of family emergency had come up, especially after having met his daughter and granddaughter earlier. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No, nothing, but thanks.”

Itching with curiosity, she waited a moment for Mack to elaborate. When he didn’t, she finally said, “In that case, how about a rain check? We can always have dinner on another night. Besides, your family has to come first.”

“Thanks for being so understanding, but then I knew you would be.” He paused. “Tell you what, how about tomorrow night instead?”

The invitation wasn’t said with much enthusiasm which made her wonder if he’d used the old family emergency ploy to get out of the date to begin with. Maybe, like her, he’d had second thoughts as well. Then again, maybe like her, he had a case of the jitters. So, now what? Should she go or not go? Did she even want to go?

You’re being ridiculous, and it’s not like Mack is going to try to jump your bones or anything. It’s just simply a dinner date. Nothing more, nothing less.

Before she could change her mind, she said, “Tomorrow evening would be fine. Just tell me when and where, and I’ll meet you there.”

“Is there some reason you don’t want me to pick you up at your house?”

“No—no particular reason,” she quickly assured him. “I just figured it would be easier all the way around if I drove myself.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said after a moment. “It’s been a long time since I was down here. I had to go downtown earlier and almost got lost. I’d forgotten how confusing all of the one-way streets can be. Anyway, there’s a restaurant just down the block and across the street from the hotel.”

“Yes, I know where you’re talking about.”

“Just meet me there around seven. I’ll wait for you inside near the front door.”

After Charlotte hung up the telephone, she wandered over to her little parakeet’s cage. “Well, Sweety Boy, here I am, all dressed up with nowhere to go. All that worrying about what to wear for nothing,” she grumbled.

She stuck her finger inside the cage, and the little bird quickly sidled over for her to rub the back of his head. “So much for my exciting dinner date. I’ll just have to make-do with leftovers tonight instead. Guess I should look on the bright side, eh, Boy? Now I can get out of this garb and get comfortable.”

But as she headed to the bedroom, she thought about Mack’s rain-check dinner invitation again. Besides his lack of enthusiasm, there was something else that bothered her about it, something that hovered on the edge of her memory, but what?

Racking her brain for the illusive memory, she changed into her pajamas, but it was while she was eating a makeshift dinner of cold leftover chicken and a salad that it suddenly occurred to her what had been bothering her about her dinner date.

“…the other reason I came by was to let you know that your father expects you to join him and the rest of the staff for dinner tomorrow evening.”

The big staff dinner gathering scheduled for tomorrow evening was what had been bothering her. After thinking about the conversation between Belinda and Mack, she strongly suspected that Mack worked for Belinda’s father, and that Mack, as well as the girl, would be expected to attend the dinner party as well.

While Charlotte cleaned up the kitchen, she debated on whether to cancel the date or keep it. Since there was a slight chance that she could be wrong, in the end she decided to give Mack the benefit of a doubt and keep the date.

Once the kitchen was clean, Charlotte decided to watch TV. Though she tried to stay awake until time for the television mystery series Monk, she kept nodding off. After she’d nodded off the third time, she gave up and switched off the television. In the bedroom she set her alarm clock an hour earlier than usual and climbed into bed.

Charlotte was just dozing off when she heard raised voices coming from Louis’s half of the double. Not for the first time did she wish that the wall that separated her half from Louis’s was thicker and more insulated. Though somewhat muffled, she could still hear every angry word whether she wanted to or not.

“Is this what you’ve been looking for?” Louis shouted.

“Give that back!” Joyce yelled.

“Not on your life. It’s going down the drain.”

“No! Don’t!” Joyce cried. “It’s mine. You have no right!”

“I have every right as long as you’re under my roof,” he retorted. “I’m warning you, either stop the drinking or get out.”

For long moments, silence reigned, then Charlotte heard Joyce sobbing. Seconds later, like a shotgun blast, the front door slammed, and Charlotte jumped. Outside, a car engine roared to life, followed by the squealing of tires as the car pealed out of the driveway.

In the dark room Charlotte lay listening to Joyce’s sobs, and though her instincts urged her to go next door and comfort the woman, her common sense agreed with Louis. Not that she agreed with his overbearing methods. But then, who was she to judge? Who knows, in his shoes she might do the same thing.

As she lay there, wondering where Louis had gone, at some point she realized that she no longer heard Joyce’s sobs. Closing her eyes, she said a quick prayer for both Joyce and Louis, then finally dozed off into a fitful sleep.

“But I don’t want you to go,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. Tomorrow he was leaving. Tomorrow he’d be on his way to Vietnam, clear across the world.

His arms tightened around her. “And I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered. “But don’t you see? This way Uncle Sam will pay for me to go to medical school.”

“There has to be another way,” she cried. “We could borrow the money, and I can work while you go to medical school.”

“Oh, honey, you know better than that. In the first place, no one is going to lend me that much money, and in the second place, without your degree, the kinds of jobs you’d qualify for would barely keep a roof over our heads.”

“No,” she sobbed. “Don’t go…don’t go…”

Charlotte came awake with a jolt, her face wet with tears.

“Dear Lord in heaven,” she whispered, her insides still heavy from the throes of the dream. First, the nightmare about drowning during Katrina, and now she was dreaming about Hank. What in the world was going on?

Dreaming about the horrors of the hurricane she could understand, but why on earth would she be dreaming about Hank and something that happened over forty years ago?

Mack, she decided, blinking back tears as she pulled the covers to her chin and burrowed farther down in the bed to ward off a sudden chill. The combination of seeing Mack again, then hearing the argument between Louis and Joyce, must have stirred up all of the old, painful memories that she’d tucked away years ago, she decided.

Hearing Joyce and Louis argue had reminded her of the last night she’d spent with Hank before he’d left. It had been one of the few times that they had disagreed over anything. Too bad she hadn’t realized then how sweet the making up afterwards could be or she might have instigated more arguments.

Relegating the memories back to where they’d come from, Charlotte turned her head to check the time. Reliving the past only made her sad. When she saw the numbers on the illuminated dial of the clock, she sighed. “Time to get up anyway,” she grumbled. No sooner had the words left her mouth than the alarm buzzed.

When Charlotte stepped out on her front porch, she noticed that Louis’s car was gone. As she locked the front door, she wondered if he had stayed out all night? If so, where had he stayed? Of course it was always possible that once he’d cooled off he could have come home then left again later. Though possible, not likely, she decided, as she crossed the porch, descended the steps, and headed for the van. Lately, any time he had to go out of town on business or catch an early flight, he let her know about it, just in case Joyce had an emergency.

With a shrug and reminding herself that what Louis did or didn’t do was really no concern of hers, she unlocked the van, climbed inside, and drove to the hotel.

Most of Charlotte’s day passed quickly without incident, and by midafternoon she only had one room left to clean before going home. She’d tried to clean it earlier but the occupant had put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign.

When she approached the door, she noted that the sign was gone, but just as she held up her arm and curled her fingers into a fist to give the courtesy knock, a woman from inside shouted, “I told you it was over, so leave me alone.”

Charlotte dropped her arm and backed away from the door. Though muffled, she could still hear a man shout back at the woman. “And I told you that it’s only over when I say it’s over. I love you, and I don’t intend for another man to raise my baby!”

“Well, I don’t love you!” the woman cried. “And for your information, my baby will be raised by who I choose. And I don’t choose you. Now, get out! Get out or I’ll call the police!”

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” the man yelled. “For now,” he added. “But I’ll be back.”

The door abruptly opened, and a man stalked out into the hallway. Without a glance Charlotte’s way, he stormed past her.

All that Charlotte could do was stare at the man, the same man whom she’d seen arguing with Lisa the day before. As she watched him disappear around the corner leading to the stairwell, she narrowed her eyes. Christopher. If she remembered right, that was what Lisa had called him. So, did that mean that the room belonged to…

“I don’t need the room cleaned today.”

At the sound of the woman’s voice, Charlotte jerked her head around to see Lisa standing in the open doorway. The robe-clad woman’s eyes were puffy and red. Probably from crying, Charlotte figured. Unable to help herself, her gaze lowered to Lisa’s midsection. If Lisa was pregnant, she didn’t show it yet. So, did Frank know about Lisa’s condition?

“I said that I don’t need the room cleaned today.”

Lisa’s words snapped Charlotte out of her reverie. “Yes, of course. Would you like for me to come back—” Before Charlotte had time to finish her sentence, Lisa slammed the door shut.

“Guess not,” Charlotte muttered. Fine with her. She was tired anyway. Grabbing hold of the handles of the cleaning cart, Charlotte wheeled it toward the elevator. With one less room to clean, she could go home early and rest a bit before her dinner date with Mack. But as the elevator carried her to the ground floor, she couldn’t stop thinking about the argument she’d overheard between Lisa and Christopher. And she couldn’t stop wondering if Frank Morgan knew that his fiancée was carrying another man’s baby.