by Sandra Hill
When her call was over, she told Daniel, “You’ll have stuff here by this evenin’.”
“Thank you,” he said, for more reasons than one. He hadn’t thought about his disastrous relationship with Samantha for, oh, fifteen minutes, with all the old lady’s chatter.
Lily Beth waddled up and helped as much as she could. And when Aaron returned, complaining about the amount of groceries he’d been forced to buy, Tante Lulu went back to the kitchen to start dinner, but not before she pulled a framed St. Jude picture from her handbag and hung it on the wall. To no one’s surprise, she also had a hammer and nails in the blasted bag.
Lily Beth went back to the house with her. And Aaron stayed to help Daniel pull out the rusted metal fence.
“I think there’s some white picket fencing stored in one of the sheds. Used to encircle these cottages at one time,” Aaron told him. “Of course, it hasn’t been white for a lot of years, but nothing a little paint won’t handle.”
“Let’s not go overboard. This is just for one guy, for a short time.”
“Uh-huh,” Aaron said, just as disbelieving as Tante Lulu had been.
“By the way, do you still have the key to Remy’s houseboat?” Until they bought this plantation, Aaron had been living on Remy LeDeux’s old houseboat while Daniel lived in the bayou fishing camp.
Aaron stopped what he was doing, stacking the dismantled wire fencing, to stare at him. “Trouble in paradise already?”
“Aaron,” he cautioned.
“Yeah, I have the key. It’s in my bedroom dresser. Why do you need to stay there?”
Daniel declined to answer.
“Ah, Dan,” his brother said. “I knew she would hurt you, but I didn’t expect it so soon.”
“It’s not her fault, and don’t you dare say anything to her. It’s my fault for assuming too much.”
“Uh-huh. So, this whole safe house business here still goes on?”
Daniel shrugged. “I expect so. The Dixie Mob arrests still haven’t taken place, as far as I know. And I’m not sure when the news will break on Nick Coltrane’s death and crimes, and whether Samantha and Angus’s names will come up. At the very least, they’ll want to avoid the news media, at first.”
Aaron continued to study him, the way only twins could, and did. Seeing more. “Why don’t you go back to your garconniére apartment, and I’ll stay in the houseboat?”
Daniel shook his head. “I’d rather not be here when they all come back.”
“Bok, bok! A little chicken-ish, dontcha think?”
“I’m not afraid to be around Samantha, but it could be a little awkward today with so many people around. Besides, Tante Lulu will probably still be there, and you know damn well she’ll be harping at me about thunderbolts.”
Just then, there was a crack of thunder in the distance. It was probably just a portend of a typical Louisiana summer storm to come.
But, holy crap! Maybe not.
They looked at each other and burst out laughing.
When the dust settled, she was alone . . . again . . .
Much to Samantha’s disappointment, Daniel wasn’t at the plantation when Samantha returned with Angus and John LeDeux around six o’clock. Two cops came, too, to provide continued security for them until all the danger was gone, but they became invisible almost immediately.
Tante Lulu explained that Daniel and Aaron had gone off somewhere and hadn’t said when they would return. Couldn’t Daniel have waited for her to come back first?
And Tante Lulu had also relayed some crazy story about Daniel renovating one of the slave cabins so the father of some kid with cancer could live there. Well, that part she could sort of understand, but Tante Lulu went on some rambling discourse about life and fate and things meant to be, and this was why Daniel and Aaron had bought this plantation in the first place, though they didn’t know it yet. All of this was accentuated by the arrival of that too-hot-to-believe cowboy husband of Charmaine’s, Rusty Lanier. Whoo-boy! He gave a new twist to Cajun and cowboy in one neat package. Rusty, without Daniel being there to direct him, just emptied his pickup truck of a load of furniture that supposedly Daniel, via Tante Lulu and Charmaine, had ordered that afternoon. He left it all on the cabin porch for Daniel to sort out tomorrow, or whenever.
Daniel had apparently been a busy bee while she’d been off at the hospital being checked over this afternoon, after the incident with Nick.
She didn’t like the way their meeting had ended earlier today, when he’d tried to convince her not to meet with Nick. For the first time, she began to wonder if he was still upset. She’d been thinking how happy Daniel would be to see her safe and Nick out of the picture, though none of them had wished Nick dead. How naïve of her!
Maybe he wasn’t as happy as she’d imagined.
But then, maybe she was overthinking everything.
They ate dinner . . . a sumptuous feast of shrimp étouffée that Tante Lulu had whipped up, along with fluffy rice, accompanied by fresh bread that Aaron had bought in the bakery of the Starr store where he’d shopped. He’d also picked up another fruit tart, much to Lily Beth’s delight, and Angus’s and Samantha’s, too, not having eaten since this morning. John also said it was wonderful, almost as good as Tante Lulu’s Peachy Praline Cobbler Cake, which had made the old lady beam.
Throughout the meal, Samantha and Angus regaled the others with a retelling of the day’s events. They were both still in a state of shock, or at the very least, on an adrenaline rush.
“I almost shit my pants when I walked into that office and saw Nick with a gun aimed at Samantha’s head,” Angus said with a laugh.
“Hush yer mouth, boy!” Tante Lulu said, flicking Angus with a dish towel. “That kind of language ain’t proper.”
“Ya shoulda said poop, instead of shit,” John advised with a grin, probably having been flicked many a time in his life by his beloved aunt. Everyone, even as far as New Orleans, had heard of Tee-John LeDeux, the baddest Cajun to ever cross a bayou. He must have given Tante Lulu every one of the gray hairs she hid . . . under her Farrah Fawcett wig, which was incidentally lopsided at the moment. In fact, John leaned up and adjusted it for her.
“Or mebbe ya shouldn’t say no bad words at all,” the old lady said with a harrumphing sound.
“Anyhow, I don’t even remember bein’ shot,” Angus went on. “It only hurt when I woke up.”
“Ah, yer mah hero,” Lily Beth drawled out, patting Angus on the shoulder. They were sitting side by side on one of the benches. It was a wonder the bench didn’t tip over like a seesaw with the disproportionate weight. Really, Samantha could swear the girl had gained five pounds just since yesterday.
“Weren’t ya scared?” Tante Lulu asked Samantha.
“Shaking in my high heels. Don’t forget to give them back to Charmaine, by the way. The funny thing is, when you’re in the middle of something dramatic like that, you don’t stop to think, ‘Boy, am I scared!’ You’re too caught up in the frenzy of your wildly beating heart, your light-headedness, and what’s happening around you. Almost like you’re hovering above the scene, and it’s happening to someone else.”
“I know what ya mean,” Tante Lulu said. “I felt lak that when I first heard that mah fiancée, Phillipe, had died in the war.” Everyone knew that long ago Tante Lulu had been engaged to Phillipe Prudhomme, a frogman, one of the original Navy SEALs, and that he’d died on Omaha Beach during World War II. “In fact, I felt lak that fer a long, long time. Fergit about that Walkin’ Dead show on the TV. I was lak a true, blue, walkin’, talkin’ zombie. Fer years! I drank too much, smoked lak a chimney, and slept with more sailors than a French Quarter pros-tee-toot.”
Whoa! TMI! I do not want to picture this old lady as a hooker.
“What made ya stop?” Lily Beth asked, in awe, hearing this story for the first time. Well, part of it was a first for Samantha, too.
“St. Jude, bless his heart. He come ta me right on Jackson Square before St. Louis C
athedral in Nawleans.” Tante Lulu sighed and swiped at her teary eyes. “But thass another story.”
John pulled his aunt down onto the bench beside him and kissed the top of her wig. “Now, doan be gettin’ the moody blues.”
“I won’t,” she said, “but sometimes it jist hits me, of a sudden, what I lost.” She turned to Samantha. “Yer situation is different. You’ll be feelin’ better by t’morrow.”
Samantha nodded. “Funny thing, though. Much as I had grown to detest Nick, and loathed the baby selling scheme of his, I never wished him dead. It saddens me.”
“Course it does.” Tante Lulu was back to her usual opinionated self. No longer weepy with memories. “It’s cause we allus hope that bad folks will see the light before they go ta their Maker, and be saved. Lak I was by St. Jude.”
Samantha wasn’t sure about that. Not about Tante Lulu and St. Jude. But about everyone hoping that everyone would “see the light.”
“It dint hafta end lak it did,” John said. “If Coltrane hadn’t shot at a cop and been aimin’ his gun at Samantha, he wouldn’t have been gunned down. ‘Suicide by cop’ probably hadn’t been his intention, but that’s how it worked out.”
“Did he die right away? Before he could see the light?” Tante Lulu asked, making the sign of the cross.
“I don’t know ’bout the light,” John said, with a wink at Samantha, “but Daniel pronounced him dead at the scene, almost immediately after he was shot.”
“Daniel was there?” Samantha tilted her head to the side. This was the first time she’d heard that. “In the parking garage?”
“Mais oui,” John answered. “Dint ya see him, chère?”
She shook her head, guessing that she’d been even more out of it than she’d recalled. But the idea that he’d been there, and left, gave her a foreboding of things not so right between them, more so than she’d thought.
John was telling Angus and Lily Beth what the situation would be from now on. “There will probably be a day or two before the paperwork is done for the Coltrane case. The accomplice, Misty Beauville, was arrested at a private airport outside the city, and she’ll be spillin’ the beans all night long, is mah guess. We doan think there’ll be other arrests, too difficult to investigate perps outside the country, and it looks lak Coltrane was using some Nigerian middle men ta sell his product . . . i.e., babies.”
Lily Beth groaned at that image. Her baby being shipped outside the country.
Once again, Angus hugged her in comfort.
And Samantha wondered if something might be developing between the two of them.
“Shouldn’t I go back home to see what damage might have been done at my house?”
John shook his head. “Not yet. The house is secure. Give it another day or two. Let the Fibbies give you the all-safe signal before you leave here.”
She nodded.
“The biggest concern now is Jimmy Guenot and his branch of the Dixie Mob,” John went on. “Until those arrests are made, y’all have gotta lay low. Not you so much, Samantha, but by association, yer still in danger. As evidenced by those lowlifes that visited you before you left Nawleans.”
“I keep tellin’ y’all. Lemme call Jimmy’s mama. If she knew what her boy was up to, she’d hogtie ’im and roast ’im over her bar-b-q.” Truly, Tante Lulu was enjoying all the excitement, you could tell by the gleam in her eyes and the way she practically bounced on her seat as she talked.
“Yer not callin’ anyone,” John told his aunt. “Everything is still hush-hush.”
“Right,” Tante Lulu agreed, zipping her lips, but grinning mischievously. The bayou grapevine would be singing as soon as the old lady got the go-ahead, or maybe even beforehand.
After more discussion about the day’s events, John said he was going to drive his aunt home, promising to pick up Tante Lulu’s car the next day.
“I gotta come back mah self t’morrow to help with the cabin,” she protested.
“Not tomorrow. You’re having lunch with Charmaine, Sylvie, Rachel, and Valerie. A planning session for yer birthday party, remember?” Rachel and Valerie were the wives of Remy and René LeDeux. Tante Lulu’s big pool party bash was planned for Saturday, only four days from now.
“Hmpfh! I doan see why I hafta plan mah own party? It should be a surprise.”
“How could it be a surprise when it was yer idea ta begin with?”
She was still arguing with her nephew while they walked off. But almost immediately, she came back and told Samantha, “Tell Daniel I’ll be puttin’ the finishin’ touches on his hope chest.”
Then she was off again.
Samantha had to smile as she explained to Lily Beth and Angus how Tante Lulu made hope chests for all the men in her family. Quilts, monogrammed pillowcases, doilies, and lots of St. Jude imprinted items, like place mats, napkins, and wind chimes.
Aaron and Lily Beth went to their room where they planned to watch a Big Bang Theory marathon. The double bed they’d put in the front parlor for Lily Beth to use, temporarily . . . the one with the rice frame . . . had been moved up to the guest bedroom, aka Aunt Mel’s room for when or if she ever came to visit, along with the rest of the matching bedroom furniture that had been delivered by some high school boys that day . . . an armoire and a dry sink. The boys had also brought two single bed frames that had been unreachable in the back of the storage unit, but for which Daniel and Samantha had already bought mattress sets.
Apparently, Daniel and Aaron had not only set up the guest bedroom, but they’d put together the two twin beds in the front parlor for Lily Beth and Angus to use. A lot of work for a temporary situation. Something more for which she had to thank Daniel. And Aaron, of course.
Samantha took care of all her animals, delighting in Clarence’s new vocabulary. Maybe she should have spent more time teaching him. But then, maybe his ability to be taught would make him more adoptable.
It was almost ten o’clock before Samantha heard a vehicle in the front driveway. She’d taken a shower and put on clean clothes . . . well, relatively clean, considering her dwindling supply . . . and was running a comb through her damp hair. She rushed downstairs, anxious to see Daniel. She heard a vehicle shut down, and voices raised in discussion, then another motor turning over and a vehicle departing. She figured it was probably Aaron, off for his nightly trips to no one knew where.
By the time she got to the front gallery and was going down the steps, though, all she could see by the exterior lights was Aaron. It was Daniel who had taken off.
“Where’s Daniel?” she asked Aaron.
“Um . . . he decided to sleep on Remy LeDeux’s houseboat tonight, to allow more room for you all here at Bayou Rose. It’s just temporary.” Aaron didn’t quite meet her eyes as he relayed this news.
The message being: temporary, as in, after I leave.
Maybe it was better that she was alone tonight. So much had happened in such a short time. She wasn’t thinking clearly.
Even so, the first thing she did when she got back in the house was hunt out a bottle of good Scotch whiskey. This was a night that warranted booze. Even Southern Belles, especially Scottish ones, appreciated the medicinal value on occasion of a good binge.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Who needs soap operas with a life like his? . . .
Daniel was not in a good mood when he arrived at Bayou Rose at nine o’clock the next morning. He’d barely slept all night, and then he had to go to the bus station in Houma at seven-thirty to pick up Edgar (call me Ed) Gillotte and take him for a quick visit to the cancer center before bringing him to the plantation.
Luckily, Molly was having a good day, and if she could keep her numbers steady for a week, a bone marrow transplant would be scheduled soon. Her daddy’s presence proved to be the best medicine available. As the potential donor, Edgar would begin testing tomorrow, but that would only take a few hours every day until the surgery. In the meantime, he would work on the slave cabin and live there. Hopefully.
Everything was based on hope.
Edgar was about thirty years old and overly thin, but with wide shoulders and impressive biceps. A receding reddish blond hairline led to long hair, clubbed at the neck into a ponytail. One of his incisors was missing. Probably no money to replace it once it had been pulled. Despite all that, he wasn’t a bad-looking guy, and his clothes were well-worn, but clean.
But wait till Tante Lulu got a look at his tattoos, though. Up one arm and down the other, like a colorful billboard, and presumably on other body parts, as well. Daniel hadn’t looked too close. He hoped they weren’t pornographic. Oh, hell, no, he didn’t care. And Tante Lulu probably wouldn’t either. Except . . . oh, crap! . . . was that a horned devil peeking out of a bush? Tante Lulu will have a screaming Cajun fit.
Daniel skirted the mansion and went past the struggling rose garden with the St. Jude birdbath.
“Whoa! Who is that dude?”
“St. Jude. Patron saint of hopeless people.”
“Like me?” Edgar asked with a laugh.
“Or me.”
“You do seem kinda down,” Edgar observed.
“You could say that.”
“Woman troubles?”
“You could say that.”
“I can give you advice. I’ve been married three times. My first wife got a bun in the oven when we were in college. Never did take to the baby. She ran off with an ROTC guy on campus ’cause she liked his uniform. I was in my sophomore year. Football scholarship. Had to drop out, of course.
“My second wife decided she’d rather be a lesbian, and don’t think that doesn’t kick a man in the nuts. She left me with two more kids.
“My third, and present wife, went to do the laundry one day and never came back. That marriage resulted in one more kid, Molly. I’d get a divorce if I could find her, or if I had the money.
“Thank God for my mama, the world’s number one babysitter, but she’s getting up in years, and my cousins Erline and Dorsey, who help out sometimes, are a little bit sluttish and tend to wander off at the most inappropriate times, and . . . well, you get the picture.”