Sitting on top of the box springs was a yellow manila envelope containing fifty thousand dollars in savings bonds.
Their second shock came when they pulled a shallow wooden box out from under the bed and discovered dozens of letters, at least fifty, which had been sent to Raoul Lanier and marked mail refused, some of them more than twenty-five years old.
“Mon Dieu!” Charmaine exclaimed. “And all these years Rusty thought his father made no contact with him.”
“This calls for a cup of burnt roast,” Tante Lulu declared and walked off toward the kitchen to brew the strong Cajun coffee. Charmaine followed after her, stunned.
Soon they were seated at the kitchen table, sipping at hot coffee and munching on last night’s leftover Les Oreilles de Cochans, or pigs’ ears cakes. Charmaine’s tongue practically curled around the rich Cajun delicacy—deep fried twists of dough coated with cane syrup and nuts.
What to do with everything they’d just discovered?
“Well!” Tante Lulu said, as if that said it all.
“Rusty will be so pleased,” Charmaine said. “I think.”
“Well, why wouldn’t he be? Fifty thousand buckaroos is a lot of cash to put this ranch back on its feet.”
“Twenty-five thousand, not fifty,” Charmaine corrected her.
“Oh. Thass right. Charlie’s will left everything half and half. Does that mean you’ll be hightailin’ it back to Houma, now that you can pay back the fish?”
For some reason, that prospect did not delight Charmaine, as it should have. “I don’t know.”
Tante Lulu grinned, as if she knew. “Ain’t you afeared of having yer kneecaps broken or the Mafia puttin’ a horse’s head in yer bed, or sumpin’ ?”
“Yeeeees,” she said uncertainly. “But I’ve always believed in putting money to work for me. Maybe there is a better use for my half.”
“Better than having kneecaps?”
Charmaine licked the syrup off her fingers one at a time. “I’ve been thinking… it’s only an idea at this point…”
“Uh-oh! The last time you had an idea for making lots of moola, you lost yer shirt.”
“This is different.”
“It allus is. So, tell me. What’s yer idea?”
“What would you think about turning the Triple L into a dude ranch? You know, hunky cowboys teaching rich city ladies how to ride horses. Stuff like that. I think it would be a way to make the ranch profitable again. And maybe we could even have a beauty spa here, too. Really, it’s a good idea. It would bring in a lot more steady income than stinkin’ cows.”
Tante Lulu looked at her as if she lost one of her last screws and said, “Ooooh, boy!”
St. Jude probably rolled his eyes, too, and said, Ooooh, boy!
In the still of the night…
Raoul was mentally and physically beat by the time he arrived home at midnight.
All the lights were off, except for a lamp in the living room. Even before he glanced around, he detected lemon wax in the air and knew that his very own Molly Maids must have attacked the room. It looked great, better even than it had when he’d been a boy and his Dad employed Clarence’s late wife as a housekeeper. He’d told Charmaine that she didn’t have to do all this housework, but did she listen to him? Hah! Not about this or anything else. Add Tante Lulu to her team, and he might as well wave a white flag.
As he stood under the steaming shower, he cataloged the events of the day. The cattle had brought in a depressingly low price, only thirty thousand dollars in profit for three hundred animals. How was he ever going to build up a new herd on that? Or buy feed? Or pay Clarence and Linc their back wages? Or get the much-needed new carburetor for his Jeep. Or pay the past due electric bill. Forget about the taxes. And there was always the possibility that Charmaine would demand her half.
After he’d sent everyone home about 6:00 p.m., he’d gone to see his parole officer. Not an experience he’d ever want to repeat, though he would have to, monthly, for the next year. He’d developed a sudden talent for grinding teeth. Devereaux had been especially obnoxious, deliberately trying to prod a reaction from him that could result in a red mark in his file. In particular, Devereaux had delighted in his crude observations over his still being married to Charmaine, a former Miss Louisiana. Apparently, there was something crudely funny about beauty queens and ex-cons.