Chapter 7
Seven
The dumpster wasn’t coming until midweek, but Erielle didn’t want to wait to begin the cleanup.
She started arriving at Rumrunner’s a little before her scheduled shift, parking close to the dumpster, and instead of dumping the whole box, took out handfuls of books at a time and tossed them over the lip so they landed with thunks against the metal.
“Giving the raccoons reading material?” a smooth voice said behind her.
She pivoted, a handful of books raised in her hand, to see Samson smirking at her, arms folded across his chest.
“What are you doing sneaking up on me like that?” she demanded.
He lifted a shoulder. “Wasn’t sneaking. You’d’ve heard me if you weren’t making all that racket.” He lifted a book from the box sitting on the hood of her car, inspected it, frowning. “These are pretty nice books.”
“Mildewed,” she said. “The smell is all over the house, and now all over my car.” She wanted to tell him about the attic, but really, did he care?
“And you don’t have garbage pickup at your place?”
“The garbage can is full already. I’m renting a dumpster but it won’t be here for a few days and I needed to get started.”
He put the book back and leaned against the overloaded box, considering her. “You gonna need more help?”
She set her teeth. She’d seen what little difference one person could make, but she didn’t have the money to pay, and barely had the money to cover a few beers in payment. And he was the last person she wanted to owe.
Well, okay, not the last person, but the last person in town.
“It’s going to take me some time,” she admitted.
“And you’re probably going to need more repairs.”
She thought about the leaky roof that was definitely going to need attention before the roof caved in with the next storm. But that was way more work than a few beers’ worth.
“I’ve got it for now,” she said, not wanting to remind him she was broke. Well, like working here wasn’t a clue.
“All right.”
He pushed to his feet, grabbed the box and tossed it over before she could protest that she’d planned to reuse the box.
He turned to her, too close, and propped his hands on his hips, then motioned with his head toward the bar. “Ready to go in?”
“Let me park my car,” she said, and he stepped back with a nod before he turned and went into the bar.
Man, her car still smelled. She’d leave the windows open if she didn’t think every mosquito in Louisiana would take that as an invitation to party in her vehicle.
She parked, then stepped out of the car, catching a glimpse of something white across the road, just fleeting.
When she turned her attention, it was gone.
“Ghosts on the brain,” she muttered, and headed in to get to work.
She no longer questioned Samson’s presence, though she did wonder why he’d appointed himself her guardian.
It couldn’t just be because she’d been Susan’s friend.
She had to admit she felt a little better when he was on the premises, like she didn’t have to be so alert. She’d never tell him that, though.
She was beginning to identify some of the regulars, who didn’t accept her so much as realize she was the person between them and their beer, so they’d better be on their best behavior. But as the week wore on, the clientele got a bit rougher.
She was sore from hauling books out to the dumpster, which arrived Thursday, and that was just going up and down the porch steps.
She couldn’t imagine how much pain she’d be in when she had to go up and down two flights of stairs from the attic.
She’d considered throwing the books out the attic window, but she could just envision them disintegrating on the way down, and pages flying everywhere.
She was so lost in thought, she didn’t see the large bearded man in a leather vest growing clearly irritated in front of her until he shouted practically in her face.
“Hey, I want a pitcher. Now.”
She jolted, grabbed a scarred plastic pitcher, overfilled it, then placed it on the counter in front of him, letting it slosh over the rim and onto his beefy arms. She set her teeth, prepared to be berated for that.
Instead he just lifted his forearm to his hairy mouth and gave it a long lick, holding her gaze.
“How many glasses?” she asked, stepping back, her hand on one of the bumpy plastic glasses on a tray beside the tap.
He scowled. “None.” Then he picked up the pitcher, lifted it to his lips, and drained it in just a few swallows.
She was sure her eyes were huge when he set it back on the counter and gave her a foamy grin. “Another.”
Did he think he was Thor? She wondered at the wisdom of serving him more, but she wasn’t going to argue. This pitcher he took with him back to one of the rickety tables, sitting so he could face her. That creeped her out a bit, and she automatically checked to see where Samson was.
At the pool table, naturally. She wondered if he would teach her how to play. Maybe she could make some money that way.
Not with this crowd, though.
Okay, as long as she knew where he was, she could relax.
“What are you doing looking at my man?”
A woman a head shorter than her and so thin a good breeze would blow her away, charged up to the bar and slapped both hands on it as she glared at Erielle.
Erielle frowned, looking back toward Samson. Was he…taken? By this tiny woman in low-slung jeans and a tight crop-top? On closer inspection, the woman appeared old enough to be Samson’s mother, so maybe she was misinterpreting?
“I’m…sorry?” Erielle was asking for clarification, but the question incensed other woman.
“You better be. You may be new here, but you need to tread lightly. I don’t know where you’re from, but around here we don’t ogle other women’s men.” She said it “oogle” and Erielle had to fight a smile. She didn’t exactly feel threatened by the pixie.
“I have no interest in your man. In any man,” Erielle said.
The pixie spat out an epithet of her opinion of the truth of that. The word sounded so funny coming from the sprite, Erielle didn’t think she did a very good job hiding her smile this time.
Which made the woman angrier. “Are you laughing at me?”
“I would never!” Erielle said, more concerned about hurting the woman’s feelings than being hurt by her. “But let me buy you a beer to show we’re on the same side.”
The woman’s shoulders relaxed marginally. “Give me a bottle of that, please.” She pointed behind Erielle to one of the pricier beers they carried. Not that they were running a craft brewery or anything, but it was no cheap draft.
Fine, anything for peace. Erielle dug one out of the cooler, popped the top and slid it over. “I’m Erielle.”
“Marie,” the other woman said grudgingly, and took a healthy swallow of beer.
Man, these people drank beer like it was water.
“I know who you are,” Marie said. “Old Man Benoit’s precious granddaughter.”
“I don’t know about precious,” Erielle said on a humorless laugh.
“Left you everything, didn’t he? Not even his own kids got anything?”
“They…did not get along.” She didn’t want to discuss her family’s dynamic with a stranger. Well, she didn’t know if she was a stranger. She was just a stranger to Erielle.
She didn’t want to tell Marie that her mom and aunt had left home as quick as they could and didn’t look back.
The only reason she knew her grandparents at all was because both her parents were ambitious and didn’t know what else to do with their only child but send her to the bayou every summer while they worked.
Then they would decry the fact that she came back to them sun-browned with a penchant for running barefoot, a taste for Cajun food, and a longing to return to the swamp.
A longing she’d buried as she grew up, went to school, found different dreams, and stopped visiting her grandparents.
And now they were gone, but they hadn’t forgotten her.
“He thought you were precious, though. The old man.” Marian’s voice drew her back to the present.
Erielle was torn between wanting to hear about her grandfather’s pride in her and not wanting to add to her guilt.
But Marie wasn’t leaving her spot, so Erielle engaged.
“Are you from Phantom Bayou?”
She tucked her chin in. “I knew your grandparents,” was all she said.
“My mom? My aunt?” Sometimes Erielle forgot those two women—who couldn’t be more different from each other—had lived here as well. And since they never talked about their childhood, she wouldn’t mind hearing stories from someone else.
“One of the girls was older than me, the other younger, so no, I knew who they were, but didn’t really know them. One of them, the older, couldn’t wait to get out of town, so she didn’t really have many friends.”
“That would be my mother,” Erielle said with a sigh. “And not much has changed. She has her own idea of the way her life should go.” And Erielle was too much like her in that regard. She tried not to wince at that insight.
Marie nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds about right.”
“So what do you do around here, Marie?”
The older woman scowled, and Erielle remembered that Samson had warned her not to ask questions.
“I used to work at the chemical plant that shut down. Now I work in Maillard at the grocery store.”
Erielle’s inner grimace must have shown on her face.
Marie waved a hand. “It’s not so bad. Not as much money, but better working conditions, that’s for sure. Which is good, because I’ll probably work there until I die.”
“So what do you think it would take to bring businesses back to Phantom Bayou?” Erielle asked, leaning forward.
Marie’s gaze shuttered. “You’re not going to bring business back. Not unless it’s another factory, and you know that won’t happen. Could do ghost tours, like your granddaddy wanted to, I suppose, but I don’t think that would bring quite the business you want.”
“Do you believe this place is haunted?” Erielle felt compelled to ask.
Marie leaned closer. “Girl, I could tell you some stories that would keep you up at night.”
The hair on Erielle’s arms rose as she looked into the other woman’s dark eyes.
“Marie, are you going to gab all night, or get out of the way so we can get some drinks?” a man demanded behind Marie.
Marie took her bottle, saluted Erielle with it, and went to rejoin her group as the next customer stepped forward.
Erielle couldn’t get the place cleaned up ahead of closing time like she usually did, because business was brisk. In fact, she had trouble ushering some die-hards out of the bar so she could close. She was glad Samson had hung around, though guilt nagged at her that he had to stay so late.
“You don’t have to wait for me,” she assured him as she picked up the bus tub and started clearing tables in the pool room.
He straightened out the pool cues, racked the balls in the center of the table for tomorrow. “I don’t mind.”
“I’ll be fine getting to my car, getting home on my own. You saw where I parked.”
He grunted, and added some more bottles to her tub. “I still feel better waiting.”
“You don’t get paid to do this,” she reminded him.
“You don’t get paid much, either.”
Her turn to grunt.
“Cal said you have some issues with some windows in your house?”
She pivoted on him, eyebrows raised. “Cal?”
“Deputy Thibodeaux? Said you have one window swollen shut and another you can’t lock?”
“Not real crazy about him telling everyone my business,” she muttered.
“He meant well. Said he spent a good amount of time at your place, giving it a look. Said you worried you had a squatter.”
“Yeah, really not crazy about him telling everyone that, either.”
“He was telling me because he thought you might hire me to take a look at those windows.”
She sighed. “Can’t hire anyone just yet. I got the lock fixed, at least.”
His eyebrows went up. “You fixed the lock?”
“I…got those little brackets you screw on to keep the window from being raised. I did that with all the windows.” At his skeptical look, she continued.
“I went around to all of them and made sure they were secure. Except the attic one, since I’d have to climb two stories to do that.
” When he didn’t respond, she continued.
“Should take me about half an hour to clear all this up, if the raccoons haven’t come back. ”
He grinned at her. “They’re too smart for that, now that they have books to read.”
Despite her exhaustion, she grinned back.
She was so tired when she was finished cleaning, she practically staggered to the car.
She was glad Samson had stuck around because she was too tired to pay attention to her surroundings, and there were still two bikes—and two bikers—in the lot down the way.
She didn’t know if they’d been waiting for her, but when they saw Samson, they took off.
He circled her car, inspecting it with a frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing I can see, but I’m going to follow you home.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“It’s not far, and it will make me feel better. I won’t stay, just wait until you get in, then I’ll head home.”
She wanted to argue, but really, right now she just wanted to go home and go to bed. She nodded, started her car, and pulled out of the crushed shell drive, his truck behind her more reassuring than she wanted to admit.
When she got to the house, she parked in the driveway. Once she staggered to the door, she waved, and Samson drove off. She locked the door behind her, sure that not even a ghost could keep her awake tonight.