Sweet Paradise Gene Desrochers (classic novels TXT) 📖

like that. You hurt my feelings. People have emergencies. Things happen to family from time to time.” He scratched his beard and finished another beer. “You mind?” He pointed at the last unopened bottle in the cardboard six pack holder.

“You know anything else?”

“What about? Francine died. Suppose she was sick or something and wanted him to come on down.”

“You were a law man? You think she had you hand deliver a letter because she was sick?”

“The lady was skittish as hell. I suspect she worried about the unreliability of the mail, but by the way you’re speaking, should I suspect foul play’s at play?”

I nodded.

“That’s a damn shame.” He swallowed another half a beer in a gulp, making me wonder where it all went so damn quickly.

“Anything else you want to share to help me figure out what happened to her? She was your employer after all.”

“How’d she perish?”

“Drowned,” I said, looking out toward the harbor. You could see Hassel Island in the distance. Everything was slathered in green trees and brush. One ruin stuck out and one white house. All that life. All that death.

“Out there? Double damn. I hear drowning ain’t no way to die. You know all those years in Decatur, I only investigated two killings and both were pretty poorly conceived. We caught the bitch and bastard in one day both times. They didn’t even run. Nothing like what you see in the movies. But shit, the guy, he got off on a tech. Too bad. Guy had to kill again before we got it right. That one’s always itched me, you know?”

“She washed up on a beach right out there on that small island.” For some reason I too felt like sharing.

“Not much drowning goes on where I’m from, but I remember hearing at a law-enforcement seminar that those water deaths are a lot harder to nail down, what with critters eating and evidence washing away and all.”

“There’s not much to go on, you’re right. What do you think about reparations for slavery.”

He bellowed and slammed his hand on my desk. “I’m not sure a Georgia boy and, well shit, whatever you are, should be having that conversation. You got some, can I say black, in ya?”

He finished the beer and gave a satisfied belch. “Burping helps digestion. I try to do it as much as possible.” He held out his hand. “My work’s done here. If you ever come up Decatur way, look me up, Boise. I’m in the one-story brick house on Sycamore Street and Sycamore Place.”

“That’s it, you’re leaving?”

On his way out the door, he eyed the wrecked paint job and leaned into to study a glob of red. “She didn’t pay me enough to get involved with murder. I leave that to young bucks. One piece of advice: don’t be shy about using that pepper spray, and get some new tennis shoes. You never know when you gotta be light on your feet and those soles look slicker than deer guts on a doorknob.”

With that, he got into his Toyota and headed out, swerving around a car before remembering to drive on the left.

I spent the rest of the afternoon repainting the door and cleaning up what remained with a mop and bucket borrowed from the super. Back at The Manner, I paused at the bar. Four bottles of Guinness later, I staggered upstairs and passed out.

Chapter 14

One thing was good , when you had a bunch of suspects with skin in the game, time was on your side. Where would the killer go? He ... or she ... needed to stick around, or it was all for naught.

Reparations for slavery. I was still having trouble wrapping my head around that idea, because virtually no one believed in it except former slaves and their descendants. There were a handful of examples where former slave owners freed their chattel and awarded them generous offerings as payment for years of unpaid labor.

In the U.S. there had been numerous suits over the years by individuals and organizations, but none had been granted anything by the judiciary system or the legislature at the federal or state level.

Even with a black president, no meaningful discussions on a major political stage had taken place. However, according to the notes from discussions Kendal had with Francine Bacon, she planned to give the vast majority of her estate to the descendants of the slaves her family had owned before slavery was abolished in the Virgin Islands.

“Forty acres and a mule, my ass,” I whispered.

How would that make Francine’s kids feel? Betrayed. Slighted. Worthless. In general people were not fond of being disinherited. I doubted Harold, Hillary, Herbie, and Junior were exceptions.

I needed a list of the people involved on all fronts. In other words, I needed a list of those who would benefit from reparations to go along with my list of those aggrieved by Francine’s generosity.

Walter was in his office. He seemed to be expecting me.

“I got something you might like to peruse,” he said, handing me a sheet of paper.

I glanced at the heading. “You must be a mind-reader.”

The details of the trust fund appeared to leave the bulk of the estate worth approximately one-hundred-fifty million dollars to forty-four descendants of the original slaves who worked for the Bacon’s when they procured sugar plantations in St. Croix, Puerto Rico, and St. Kitts, as well as those who lived in St. Thomas and worked at the docks and in the warehouses that shipped out the goods produced by the plantations for sale around the world.

The slaves in Puerto Rico were hardest to track since the Spaniards set them free long before the other colonies, provided they agreed to convert to Catholicism. Who the hell was going to quibble about being Catholic or keeping their name when the alternative was slavery? Morals always lose to freedom, unless you’re Nelson Mandela. With their names changed and everyone intermarrying, coupled with poor record-keeping, those people got