Hot Tea

by Sheila Horgan

  My first impulse was to fling the door open wide, but when you are raised by an otherworldly type mother, you learn to listen to that little voice that everyone has, but most people ignore. My little voice said Hello? You reached out and locked the deadbolt for a reason. The cosmos is being kind. Be careful. PAY ATTENTION!!

  Just then, the man on the other side of the door said, “Hello?”

  Which, you know, freaked me out again. I don’t usually freak out so easily. I mean, I come from a very large family; there is always something weird happening. If I freaked out at every little sound and situation, I’d be freaked out all the time, so the fact that I’d already been freaked out several times today was beginning to freak me out.

  He pounded on the door. I jumped about a foot and a half. He said, “I heard you lock the door. I know someone is in there. You have about 12 seconds to open this door or I’m calling the cops.”

  Bad guys don’t threaten to call the cops do they?

  I opened the door. I took a breath, and tried to slow down my racing heart, as not to faint at his feet, and said, “Can I help you.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Cara. And you are?”

  “I’m Joseph. Just what are you doing in Louis’s house?”

  “I might ask you the same question.”

  “You might, but I asked you first.”

  “Louis’s brother Steven has hired me to document Louis’s belongings, organize them, and he will then determine what is to be done with them. Can I ask how you know Louis?”

  “Louis and I were partners, for about 7 years.”

  Why is it that gay guys are so good looking? I know that it isn’t appropriate to say something like that, but if I were glommed into a group of really beautiful women, I wouldn’t mind, so I’m sure that a gay guy wouldn’t mind me saying that virtually all gay guys are gorgeous. Right?

  Maybe that’s what caused the estrangement between Louis and Steven. Such a shame. Happens all the time, but it is really a shame. What happens behind closed doors is such a small, but granted very important, part of your life.

  Back to present, I said, “Joseph, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Thanks.”

  “Should I tell Steven that you were checking on the condo for Louis?”

  “I doubt Steven knows who I am. Louis didn’t get along with his brother. It’s a long story. Old news.”

  “Well, I’m really very sorry to hear that.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Joseph broke it by saying, “I just came here to get a book. I’ll grab it and get out of your way.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t let you do that.”

  I couldn’t believe he took it as a challenge, his eyebrows went up, and he stood a little straighter, “What?”

  “Steven is Louis’s next of kin. I understand that they didn’t have a day-to-day kind of relationship, but Steven has hired me to do a job, and part of my job is to make sure that anything and everything that belonged to Louis goes to Steven. I can’t let people come and take mementos without Steven’s permission. I can ask Steven if he will release the book to you. I will be in contact with him tonight. If you want to leave me your number, I can call you in the morning, if not, you can stop by again tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be back to get the book tomorrow.” He was gone before I could ask him just what book he was talking about.

  His intrusion caused me to rethink my plan. I’d start in the office and see if there was some book that might draw my attention. Maybe Louis is a collector. Maybe there’s something signed by an author. It couldn’t be too valuable cause Joseph just walked away instead of bonking me over the head and taking what he wanted.

  I locked the deadbolt and headed for the office, pen and paper in hand.

  Since it was a book I was looking for, I went to bookcases first. I’m smart like that. There were two of them. Blonde wood. Floor to ceiling. About four and a half feet wide. He had books stacked neatly. Some shelves held paperbacks in double rows, some held hardbound books. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to his filing system, other than neatness. None of them seemed to hold any great secrets. They were pretty much garden variety stuff. Didn’t seem to be an erotic title in the bunch, which is a good thing, since that probably would have freaked me out a little bit wondering if Bernie was the author. I was actively trying to forget that particular nightmare.

  I sat on the floor to get a good look at the bottom row of the second case. I scooted back a bit, I must be getting old, it's getting hard to focus on some stuff. I scooted a bit more and got stabbed in the kidney by the handle of a filing cabinet. It hooked me. It hurt like hell. Too bad I don’t carry workman’s comp insurance.

  I muttered a few words that I won’t repeat, flipped around, and pulled at the handle. Locked. Great, as if I wasn’t getting frustrated enough. This little situation was not going to get the better of me.

  I pulled the top drawer open, there was a mishmash of different colored folders. They were all neatly labeled, but not as much care went into the actual filing process. In the very front of the drawer was a huge accordion file that had a bunch of papers and receipts shoved into it. My guess is Louis was collecting everything needed for his taxes, and would straighten it all out the second week of April, like all normal people do.

  I perused it pretty quickly. I know that’s an oxymoron, you can’t examine something carefully and do it quickly, but I spent a lot of my childhood going through my brothers and sisters stuff and not getting caught. It’s one of the many useful skills that I’ve developed along the way.

  It’s pretty much a given that I would be scanning all this stuff and emailing it to Steven. He probably wouldn’t want me to deal with it personally.

  At the very back of the top drawer, was a red folder smooshed up against the back. When I went to grab it, it didn’t want to come to me. I forced the issue, and won, and found a filing cabinet key taped behind it.

  Bingo.

  I opened the bottom drawer with my newfound key and saw three beautifully bound leather books. This must be what Joseph was talking about. Probably diaries. He probably didn’t want his personal life spread out for the world, and Louis’s disapproving brother, to see. What else could it be?

  Now I have a moral dilemma. Do I hand over the books? Do I read them to see if they are relevant to Joseph, and if I do, am I really just being a voyeur? Do I give them to the rightful owner, Steven, and, in all likelihood, he will simply destroy them.

  It sucks to have morals.

  I let those questions simmer in the back of my head while I sorted through some more files from the top drawer, deciding what I would take home to scan, and what I would leave to organize tomorrow.

  I decided that it was the better part of valor to go ahead and look in the leather bound books. It isn’t that I’m a voyeur. It isn’t that I’m nosey. Well, I am, but the reason that I was looking in the leather bound books is that it is my job. That’s my story and I’m comfortable with it.

  Since I had no intention of reading all of the books, I grabbed the one in the middle. When I flipped it around, it opened pretty much in the middle.

  I’ll say one thing for Louis. He has lovely penmanship for a male. Not fancy, but very legible.

  All that blood. I can smell it every time I take a deep breath. It is like the particulate released from their bodies has become part of mine. The metallic stench.

  They lay there, looking at me, accusing me, with their arms and legs akimbo.

  Wonder what her last thought was. Was it one of fear? Acceptance?

  Why is that so important to me? Why do I go from one woman to the next, asking the same questions I know they won’t answer? How many more will there be before the cops catch on, and when they finally catch on, what will happen to me?

  I slammed the book shut and tried to remember to breath. For a nanosecond I thought that maybe it could be the words of a novelist,
or a screenwriter, but really, don’t writers use word processors, and there were volumes of this stuff. Handwritten.

  Something was wrong. Really wrong. You know that tried and true saying, well, at least it is a tried and true saying in my house. When in doubt, get out! I have no idea why I was so scared, but it’s the people that stop to figure that part of it out that always get killed by the boogey man. I didn’t stop and wait for logic to kick in.

  I scooped up the book and returned it to the spot from whence it had come. I’m proud to say my hands were a bit shaky but I was able to lock the filing cabinet drawer and leave everything, as I’d found it.

  I was out the door in seconds flat, in my car, and driving away before I could faint or throw up or scream.

  At the first stop sign I dug out my handy dandy GPS thing, hit all the right buttons on the first try and was on my way.

  I tried to talk myself away from the edge while I drove. The nice thing about cell phone technology, is these days, when you are talking to yourself, everyone assumes that you are actually having a phone conversation. No such luck. I was just having a minor meltdown.

  By the time I heard my little Australian friend talk to me through my GPS, telling me that I was almost home, I had nearly calmed down. I’d decided to be rational. I decided I’d either have to suck it up and do the job I’d committed to doing, or call the guy and beg off, citing insanity as my only defense.

  I’m a lot of things, but chicken isn’t one of them, well, actually I am a chicken, but one of the things my mother has taught me is that it is ok to be a chicken, as long as you don’t make life decisions based on chickeness.

  I went into my apartment, grabbed my little point and shoot camera out of my favorite hatbox, and headed back to the condo.

  My little Australian friend kept me company. He didn’t even criticize the fact that we were headed right back to the place we’d just left. He never really does. Even when I don’t follow his directions, and he has to keep rebuilding the route, all he ever says is ‘recalculating’. More than once, I think he has been a little irritated, and I could hear it in his voice, but maybe that’s just me.

  I decided that the problem was a lack of focus on my part. I should have asked how Louis died. I should have tried to glean why Steven is so cold. I should have taken a little more time and become acclimated in the condo.

  Not having the facts left me wide open for the ewww factor. Fear creeps in where information is lacking. Plus the whole cops at Bernie’s thing was oooking me out.

  If I call Steven and he tells me that Louis is in fact a writer, I’m golden. Until then, that’s what I am going to assume.

  I was feeling almost brave by the time I got back into Louis’s condo. Thank God it was still light outside. I don’t think I’d have had the guts to go into a dark condo. Not today. Not this condo.

  Everything was the same as I’d left it. I did a quick run through the house, taking pictures of everything. I grabbed the receipts so I could scan them at home and send them off to Steven. I grabbed the leather bound books, because I may be a chicken, but I’m a nosey chicken.

  When I got home, I downloaded the pictures, making a separate folder, computer not manila, for each category I thought important. I scanned the receipts into the folders with Louis’s pictures.

  I ran down to the office center in my apartment building. Really, calling it an office center is more than generous. It is a little bitty space that they shoved a fax machine, a computer that is full of viruses, an old copy machine, a rickety office chair and a lousy printer. But they can put in their advertisements that they have an office center, and that’s what’s considered important. The good news is, they have all the different delivery services pop in every day, so you can send things out, or have your packages dropped off in the office center instead of having them sit in the hall outside your apartment door.

  Anyway, I ran down there and shipped off a DVD of all relevant information to Steven, and felt pretty professional. I went back to my apartment and I sent off a quick email –

  Steven,

  I went over to Louis’s condo today. I was able to take pictures of the contents of the condo, and to scan a number of documents, the majority of which are current bills and such. Due to the size of the file, I prepared a DVD that will be at your office tomorrow morning before 10.

  A gentleman named Joseph came to the condo while I was there. Said he had come to collect a book. I did not allow him to take anything from the condo. He left before I could get any specific details. He is supposed to come back to the condo tomorrow. What would you like me to do about Joseph?

  Also, I came across a locked door in the hallway, across from the master suite. Although I was only at the condo for a short time, I did not see a key for the lock. Shall I hunt for the key, which could take some time, or would you rather I call a locksmith?

  Thanks,

  Cara

  One of the advantages of this career would be that people probably won’t be in a rush, and I can set my own hours. Wonder if there is really a market for this kind of thing.

  I bet the way to do this is to go in the first time and spend an hour or so just looking around and taking pictures. Then send all the basic information and a list of what I think needs to be done. I could give them some options in price and services. I could give them a little time to acclimate. They could then decide just how detailed they want my involvement to be. I’m pretty flexible, although I admit openly that I’ve stopped trying to get my foot behind my head, but that probably doesn’t belong on a business brochure anyway.

  I have integrity; I was honest about the foot thing. I wonder if I would need to be bonded; that could eat up all my profit. I’m not trying to get rich here, but I’d like to be able to afford the basics, and maybe some extra Oreos now and then. Basically, I would provide a service, and different people could define that service differently. Wow, that sounds a little Kitty Kat Klub.

  I wonder if I could meld the eulogy business and this business together.

  I wandered around my apartment muttering to myself. The down side of being really organized, is when there is nothing to do, there is nothing to do. My dishes were already done, my bed was made, I could probably clean out my closet, but I didn’t really need to.

  I decided that in the comfort and privacy of my own home, maybe I’d just read a little of Louis’s books. I was feeling brave, and confident in the fact that they were actually the words of a screenwriter not some wacko. I did a quick search on the Internet for gay serial killers, since Joseph said he’d been Louis’s partner for years. That means gay, right? Since Louis mentioned multiple girls in the little bit that I’d read, I looked for gay serial killers that lashed out at women, and I couldn’t come up with a single case where a gay guy was running around killing girls. They usually kill guys. Lots of them. Yuck! I admit, I didn’t do an extensive search, it wasn’t a very pleasant subject, but the more I think about it, the more I am comfortable that those leather books are a literary work of some kind. I’m prayerful his literary work is fiction. A book. A screenplay. A night class project. Hell, I don’t care, as long as it turns out to be something benign.

  I went to the kitchen and fixed myself a quick cup of tea. What can I say, I’m Irish, tea helps any and all situations. Although it’s never been on the list of things it can help, everything from a broken heart, to staining paper for a fourth grade school project, a cup of tea will help calm me while I read the book of what could very well be a whacko.