NOT What I Was Expecting

by Tallulah Anne Scott

  “Now, that’s enough sass from the both of you,” Fry informed us. “Mags, CeCe sent you this wad of cash to get whatever you need while you’re here. There’s some shampoo and stuff at Serge’s place, but if you don’t like his you can get what need. Luke, I brought you some cash, because I’m floating you a loan, I have a high-school-bud interest rate of 0%, so we’ll work that out when you get home. You’ll use the prescription eyedrops, you’ll ride in the blue jellybean, and you’ll stay at Serge’s place for at least a couple of days. See if you can remember anything that might give us a direction to check out or to direct the investigators. Here’s a prepaid cell for you to use. I’m taking your phone, and I’ll leave it at Barney’s house which I now have the key to since I have your keys. It’s best if you don’t turn on your phone down here anyway. Don’t want my law enforcement bud locating you when he’s supposed to be focusing on The Fry.”

  Fry paused to take a breath, looked from me to Luke, back to me and then Luke again. I think he was judging the possibility of leaving without having to hear any more complaints from either of us. “Okay, that should do it for me. Questions, comments, concerns, threats, bribes, or extortion attempts? No? Nothing? Great! Then I wish you both Godspeed!” I got another big Fry hug, and then he turned to Luke.

  “Later, Dude and call whenever. I mean that,” he said handing Luke the keys.

  Luke and I stood and watched as Fry removed Luke’s duffel and deposited it at Luke’s feet. Then Fry climbed into Luke’s vehicle, cranked the engine, gave us a wave as we stood motionless, and sped off into the night.

  When his dust was nearly settled, Luke was the first to voice the obvious.

  “Maggie,” Luke said softly. “How messed up does my life have to be for Fry to be the Take Charge Guy and Voice of Reason?”

  “I’d have to say somewhere around extremely,” I said honestly.

  “Wow. No waffling, hesitation, or words of encouragement,” Luke noticed out loud. “That’s harsh.”

  “Awkward,” I admitted. “C’mon,” I said as I removed the keys from Luke’s still motionless outstretched hand. “Let’s go check out Serge’s cupboards and see what we need before we make a market run.”

  As we climbed into the blue jellybean car Luke wanted to know, “Doesn’t seem right to stay in the guy’s place and repay his hospitality by using the stuff in his cupboards, does it? I guess we can keep a list of everything we use and replace it.”

  I laughed, “I guess we didn’t tell you about Fry’s arrangement, did we? Well then, yeah, it would seem kind of rude. Actually, Serge loves it when Fry spends time there while he’s away. Serge always has something in the way of supplies, but it varies. When he leaves town, he makes a list of what he’d like when he gets back along with the date he’ll be back in town. If Fry goes to Serge’s anytime he’s away, he picks up the list. Then, just before Serge returns, Fry stocks Serge’s place with his requests. Serge comes home all tired and burnt out from traveling, and all his favorites are fresh and waiting for him.”

  I pulled into the designated parking slot for Serge’s apartment. Serge didn’t own a car, so he had one of the few unused parking spots in the French Quarter. The apartment’s decal had to be visible through the windshield or the car would be towed, so I ran up to Serge’s second floor apartment to grab his parking hang tag while Luke guarded the blue jellybean car.

  CHAPTER 10

  Once I returned with the priceless parking tag, Luke followed me back up the stairs to Serge’s place. As we climbed I informed Luke, “You should like this place. It’s small, but it’s full of man toys.”

  “Really?” Luke asked with a little gleam in his eye. He obviously liked the sound of that.

  “Third door on the left,” I said as we entered the second floor hallway. One step into the apartment foyer, and we were hit with the scent of vanilla. Luke gave me a raised eyebrow look. “He has a cleaning lady, okay?” I said defensively.

  “Fine, fine,” Luke allowed, looking around. “It just surprised me after the man toy comment.”

  Directly off the foyer to the left was the dining area, which led into the kitchen. If you chose to go right from the foyer, you’d find yourself in the living room. A doorway off the living area opened into a hall that led back to the bedrooms with one bedroom on each side and the only bathroom situated between them at the end of the hall.

  Luke let out a whistle when he walked into the dark green and brown leather living room. “What?” I asked.

  “You weren’t kidding,” he said. I saw he was drooling over the collection of gaming devices next to the TV. I recognized one as a Wii, but the other five or six didn’t look familiar. Not surprising, since video games are not my idea of a good time.

  I crossed to the living room window to check out the court yard. Luke walked up behind me, but I didn’t hear him until he cleared his throat. That made me jump nearly a foot high and make some weird “AHGAHG” sound that probably made him want me really bad.

  “Sorry, Maggie,” Luke apologized. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t think I was sneaking up on you.”

  “It’s okay, I guess my mind was elsewhere, and I didn’t hear you,” I said to let him off the hook. I really did think I was way too jumpy at the moment, so I needed to make myself chill a little. I just wasn’t sure how.

  Luke interrupted my thoughts by observing, “They have an impressive garden in the courtyard here. I wonder who keeps it up.”

  “Yeah, taking care of all those flowers must be quite a job. I love how they have it all lit up at night with those tiny white lights. Spectacular,” I observed.

  “It’s really cool that there’s one of those outdoor fireplaces and chairs out there on the balcony,” Luke said turning to me with a big smile, “And did you see the size of the TV?” he turned and pointed at the object of his affection. “I need one like that.”

  I had to laugh at him grinning like a little boy.

  “What?” Luke asked defensively.

  “Nothing, nothing,” I smiled, keeping my little boy observation to myself.

  Luke followed me into the dining area as we checked out the supplies. “Serge is definitely fully equipped,” I pointed out. “I know there’s a lap top in that big drawer by the bar if we need it. I can tell you from personal experience that the best place to use the laptop is in the recliner.” Answering Luke’s puzzled expression, I added, “It’s one of those heated massage chairs.”

  Luke’s mouth dropped open briefly, and then he was gone. That was okay. I knew where to find him.

  While Luke was getting a massage and watching one of the Star Wars movies in surround sound, I took a few minutes to check out the bathroom and kitchen. I found bottled water and beer in the kitchen. The bathroom was fully loaded with toiletry items, guy scents of course, and even an unopened toothbrush.

  I walked down the hall and was about to enter the living room, but found I had a great vantage point for observing Luke while all of his attention was absorbed by the movie he was watching. This new calm allowed me to take him in a little differently. His short, light brown hair was styled, so it definitely had a little gel or something in it. It was so glossy and soft looking I knew it wouldn’t feel prickly. Smooth, tanned skin, not extremely hairy anywhere other than his head (a plus in my book), beautiful brown eyes, long thick lashes, long arms and legs that matched his 6' 2" frame. That grin of his could go from sweet to wicked in the blink of an eye. When I noticed Luke was looking at me, it made me wonder how long I’d been looking at him. Uh oh, this was probably a good time for a diversionary tactic.

  “I was going to let you know I checked out the stash of supplies here, and I think I’ll be fine to wait until tomorrow to shop. At least, I will be if I can borrow a t-shirt from you to sleep in tonight? Everything else I need Serge already has stocked,” I explained.

  “Sure, sure, sure. You can borrow a t-shirt,” Luke agreed. “Are you hungry? How does the kitchen look?”

 
“Well, there’s beer and some bottled water. Unless you can make something out of a bunch of condiments,” I told him, “there’s nothing to eat, but I’m not really hungry. We could order pizza or run get you something if you like?”

  “Nah, I’m pretty beat and not really that hungry either. It’s been kind of a weird day. I think I’ll just put in more of Fry’s eyedrops and call it a day. I’ll go get you a shirt, though.”

  Luke returned with a dark blue t-shirt that he lightly tossed to me. I held it up. It said, “Farming is cool.” I smiled at the message, thanked him for the loan, and told him I’d see him in the morning.

  “Sleep well, Maggie,” Luke said as he started to close his door across the hall from my room. He stopped and added, “Oh, and Maggie, thanks for agreeing to stay. I really don’t think it was necessary, but I want you to know I do appreciate it.”

  “Oh, uh, no problem,” I responded, since he caught me off guard, and I couldn’t think of anything clever or meaningful to say.

  After I took a quick bath, brushed my teeth, and slipped into Luke’s pro-farming shirt, I decided to use my time wisely. I figured I was going to have trouble falling asleep after this strange day, so I should make a plan. I climbed into bed, tested both pillows to see which I liked best, turned off the bedside lamp, and made myself comfortable. Now it was time to strategize, to use Fry’s new word (which was already a word for everybody else).

  I woke to the sound of bird’s chirping outside my window and the sun shining so brightly I knew it wasn’t exactly the break of dawn. Aw, crap! No wonder I’ve never done anything ingenious like made some kind of scientific breakthrough or something. If I fall asleep every time I try to be profound, that explains it. I turned to look at the bedside clock and saw that it was 9:37 in the morning. I was going to fuss at myself in my mind a little longer, but I worried I’d fall back asleep. I eased out of bed before that could happen.

  I quickly slipped on my clothes and quietly opened my door so I wouldn’t disturb Luke if he was still sleeping across the hall. I needn’t have worried, since his door was open, his bed was made, and I smelled coffee. I slipped into the bathroom, washed up, and applied the limited makeup I had in my purse.

  I followed the coffee scent and found Luke was sitting at the dining table with coffee and a newspaper. “Where did you find the coffee?” I asked excitedly. It smelled soooo good.

  “Good morning to you too,” he said with a smile.

  “Oh, sorry,” I smiled sheepishly blushing a little. “Good morning.”

  “I decided to wander a little since you were still sleeping and see what’s close by,” he explained. “I found a little food mart on the next street, so I picked up some coffee and donuts.”

  “Wow,” I gushed. I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t been awake long enough to be able to play it cool. “How long have you been up?”

  “Only a couple of hours. I usually get up around 5:00, but I didn’t wake up until 7:00 this morning,” he elaborated while looking a little embarrassed for having to admit he was such a slacker and slept in this morning.

  So what did that make me? I decided to point out my take on the whole sleeping business. “Yeah well, I don’t usually get up that early, but I’m up way before this. CeCe and I open the shop every morning except Sunday. Yesterday was kind of eventful and very stressful, mostly for you, but I’m thinking the whole weird, unsettling feeling probably contributed to disrupting your bodies normal sleep schedule.” I was creaming and artificially sugaring my coffee while I enlightened him on my theory. When I decided the coffee met my standards, I joined Luke at the table.

  “That’s an interesting diagnosis, Dr. Maggie,” Luke said with a smile. “Now for your next caller we have Henrietta from Heck-of-a-bad-marriage. Go ahead Henrietta, the doctor is listening.”

  “Now see, sometimes – and I’m not sure why this is – but sometimes I get the feeling you don’t really want my help,” I told Luke matching him smile for smile.

  “No, no, no,” Luke said shaking his head. “I just like giving you a hard time, but the truth is I was hoping to talk to you about Uncle Barney. It can wait until you’ve had your coffee if you like.”

  “Nope,” I shook my head and gave him the thumbs up. “The doctor is in, so go.”

  “Well, I was thinking about the stuff I mentioned in the car, and the fact that you said very little, but made me realize something. I guess I’m hoping we can try that again,” he announced. “Oh wait – not necessarily the ‘you saying very little part.’ I mean, you can say whatever . . . ,” Luke gave his head a slight shake as if that might help him out of the hole he’d stepped into.

  I knew what he meant and wasn’t offended by his statement, so I decided to let him off the hook. I had coffee and was feeling generous.

  “I get your meaning, and its fine. People in my profession have to make allowances for our patients saying things like that all the time. Go ahead,” I encouraged with a smile.

  Luke smiled, gave me a ‘thanks’ nod, and went on. “If I tell you the entire story, everything Uncle Barney said to me about Ms. Eliza or at least everything I can remember, I’m hoping you can help me find something I’m missing.”

  “Let’s try it,” I said feeling a little pressure, because I didn’t want to miss anything important and let him down. “What are some of the things he said about her? Especially lately, I guess. Just tell me what stands out in your memory.”

  Luke got up and walked over to pour another cup of coffee as he tried to organize his thoughts. When he started back toward the table, he began, “Uncle Barney would usually refer to her as Monday. I’m not sure if it was easier for him to keep his regular lady friends straight by using the days he saw them instead of their names,” with a chuckle he added, “or maybe he was just bragging to me that he had a special woman for every day of the week.” Luke smiled at the memory.

  That made me smile too.

  “He loved her coffee cake,” Luke continued. “He’s used words like lively and firecracker to describe her. She was his favorite lady, I know that. He’d always say Monday was his favorite. That she looked up to him, admired him, so I guess there was a bond there. It was clear to me that he thought a lot of her. It was all pretty normal stuff up until the last time he went to see her. That’s when I began to worry that he was becoming delusional instead of just disoriented or confused.”

  Luke stopped for a second, and I could see how painful it was for him to recount the story. I could practically hear his thoughts and felt sure he blamed himself for not doing something to prevent what happened to Barney.

  “I stopped by the house to grab a sandwich before I headed over to the library when I got back from my trip to Lafayette that morning,” he described quietly. “Uncle Barney came in, and he was so upset it took me a while to get him calmed down. He said he’d just come from Monday’s – you know, Ms. Eliza’s. Now that I think about it, I’m wondering if he walked around getting madder for a few hours. I know he usually went to her place around ten in the morning, and it was after one in the afternoon before I got back to town. I was rushing through my sandwich until he came in, and I heard the front door slam. He came stomping into the kitchen. He was spitting mad and making no sense at all.”

  “He said he knocked and rang her doorbell at the usual time, but she didn’t answer. He looked around for a note, but there was nothing. He was pretty put out and started to leave when it crossed his mind that maybe she was hurt, sick, or just had her TV too loud and didn’t hear him. He started walking around the house checking for an unlocked window to crawl in and check on her. When he got around to the kitchen window he saw Eliza sitting at the dining table with her back to him. He said that Hoss and Little Joe were in there with her, and he was pretty mad about it. He said he knew she liked Hoss and Little Joe because they’d watched Bonanza together often, but he never thought she’d give them the coffee cake she had made for him.”

  Luke began rubbing his temples as if tryi
ng to make sense of this. “I asked him why he didn’t just knock on the window to get her attention and find out what was going on,” he continued. “He said that if she’d wanted to see him she would have answered the door. He felt she had made her choice and preferred Hoss and Little Joe to him. He was still mad, but said he was staying home for the rest of the day when I returned to the library.

  “By the time I got home from work Monday evening, he was kind of sulking but not as angry as he had been,” Luke went on. “He didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and he was much calmer. I think I decided that at least some portion, if not all, of that story wasn’t real, and that I should probably just watch him to make sure he wasn’t seeing things everywhere all the time. I assumed he’d patch things up with Ms. Eliza, and everything would go back to normal. I knew that every now and then he would say some crazy sounding stuff, and then a minute later he’d be his old self again. I didn’t really take the Bonanza rant as anything to worry about. That afternoon, her cleaning lady found Eliza’s body, but we didn’t hear about it until the next day. I found out on the job at the library, and I remembered her name even though Uncle Barney seldom used it. When I went home that night, I told Barney. He’d been working in his garden all day, cancelled on his Tuesday lady friend, and hadn’t left the house or listened to any news. I tried to ask him about his trip to Eliza’s house Monday, but he looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about and told me he didn’t remember going to her house the day before.”

  Luke smiled, but it was a sad smile, “I told you Ms. Eliza was his favorite. I was worried that he was so upset by the whole Monday episode that it might have caused some kind of drastic decline in his health. Did I tell you I called his doctor Monday afternoon? I couldn’t get an appointment for him until the end of the week. Then after worrying about it all afternoon, I called a company that has companions for the elderly – you know, like sitters except they would go do whatever Uncle Barney was doing because he didn’t sit. I was scheduled to interview several possible companions on the day we found Uncle Barney’s body.”