Sweet Paradise

by Gene Desrochers

  “Were Hillary and Herbie here?”

  “Prob-ly, but Hill stays indoors a lot, and I’m outside on my balcony or out here.” He raised his arms to the sky. “I mean, what’s the sense of living here and staying inside, right? Anyways, the place is so big, how am I supposed to know if they were here. I likes to get over in my wing.”

  “So that afternoon, you don’t remember seeing them or them seeing you?”

  “No. You know, Boise-boy, if I didn’t know better I’d think you thought I did in my mama.”

  “All the bases, Harold. All the bases. How long had she been gone before October first?”

  “Junior freaks out too much. She’s a grown woman. She was out of touch for a few weeks or a month. I dunno, maybe more. Man, I ain’t got time to track my mama’s whereabouts. You track your mama around?”

  Where was Francine during the weeks Junior hadn’t heard from her? She wasn’t dead until about a week ago. That left up to fifty days unaccounted for. All of September and maybe a chunk of August. No one seemed to know, and Junior was the only one who really cared.

  My phone rang. Walter Pickering.

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “I need you here.”

  “Mr. Pickering, I’m not an employee of The Daily News.” Heavy breathing into the phone. “Gimme an hour.”

  Leaving Harold to his archery, I returned inside where Hillary whisked by in a kimono. She ignored me as she glided back up the stairs, the red silk tail flowing after her. She held a flute glass with orange liquid. I suspected a mimosa. Along with a bloody mary, an alcoholic’s go-to morning drink.

  “Be bold,” I whispered into my fist before calling up the stairs. “Hillary?”

  She stopped so abruptly, some of the mimosa sloshed on the back of her hand. “Damnit!” She turned to me with clenched teeth. “Must you make a habit of causing me to spill everything? What is it?”

  “On October first, it was a Thursday, were you here?”

  “Yes, we were all here all day.”

  “Wilma wasn’t.”

  “Wilma doesn’t count. I mean Herbie, me, and Harold. We were together here all day.”

  “Harold’s not sure.”

  “Harold’s always confused, but that’s from all the smoking. He loses track of the days. I do not. He was out there and we were in here most of the day. No one went anywhere.”

  Herbie apparated at the top of the stairs. “Will you stop pestering my sister? We were all here on October first, as we told the police.”

  With that, she stormed into her bedroom, Herbie went into his study. The doors slammed simultaneously. My affirmation to be bold only went so far. I didn’t have the guts to knock on their doors and further incur their displeasure. Dana would have done it. She would have pushed to make sure neither of them were lying. I wasn’t so persistent. I would accept them at their word.

  In the kitchen Wilma was once again washing dishes. The islands had never been much for automatic dishwashers, but I figured rich folks like the Bacons bucked convention. However, I saw no dishwasher.

  “Hi, Wilma.”

  She didn’t turn around. She rubbed her eyes with a soapy hand and sniffled.

  “Wilma. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I good. What I could do for you?”

  “No, it’s okay. Never mind. Sorry for your loss.”

  She grabbed a dish towel and dried her hands. “What? You trying find out what happen, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I wish to help.” Her mouth curled into a frown as she fought off tears. “I love Miss Francine. She was good to me da last few years. She in a betta place now. I should not be sad.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, really.” I paused.

  She stared at me, then spread her hands and inclined her head.

  “Were you here all day on October First?”

  “Last week? No, that was Thursday, right? No, I was at the doctor that day. I have tests done.” She held up her cell phone calendar for me to see. “Den I had to go rest at me son’s house. I didn’t work that day.” She put her hand over her mouth as she realized the significance of my question. “That was the day?”

  I nodded solemnly, then said, “When you don’t come, is there someone else?”

  “No, because the odda woman who come also be sick. They on their own that day.” She opened the screen door and went out into the yard. She sat on a stone bench and put her face into her hands.

  Everyone was dealing with the revelation in their own way. Hillary drank and isolated. Harold shot arrows. Wilma cried and worked. None of them were currently available for further questioning, so I took my leave.

  AS MY TAXI MOTORED down the road, I spotted movement behind a tree.

  “Stop,” I said. The driver halted in the middle of the hot pavement.

  I held my breath. Nothing moved except a plump ground lizard that skittered across the road, its tail flinging pebbles as it went. A breeze kicked up and the flap of a shirt billowed from behind the tree then vanished again.

  “Hey!” I hollered as I got out of the taxi. “Hey, man, I see you.”

  The fat guy from the hospital and the Rav-4 darted out from his hiding spot and took off down the road, a newspaper flapping in one hand. I gave chase and after only about one-hundred yards, he was wheezing so heavily I started reviewing my CPR training. He pulled up as I was about to catch him and held his hands high, then leaned over, holding his knees.

  My pepper spray was out as I limped up. Despite my aching knee, I was considerably faster.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, seeing the pepper spray. “I’m unarmed. Be cool.”

  Sweat poured off his forehead. He wiped his beard with his left hand. He still held the newspaper in his right. He smelled like cheap cologne and dried sweat.

  “What gives? Why are you snooping around this place?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. I’ve done nothing.”

  The taxi eased up next to me. The driver dead-panned. “Hey, da man. Da meter runnin’. You want me still.”

  “I’m a little busy. Uh, yeah, keep it running. Just wait.”

  “Irie.” He pulled to the shoulder and killed the engine.

  “Unless you want your eyes to burn badly, tell me who you are.” I tried to sound threatening, but a spray bottle lacked the same cachet as a gun.

  “I’m here checkin’ on Junior. Francine asked me to keep tabs on him.”

  “Francine Bacon?”

  “How many other Francines you know?”

  “Keep talking,” I said. “What else do you know about Francine and Junior?”

  “Nothing.” I started to depress the trigger. He held his hands over his eyes. “Don’t man, that shit stings like a mother.”

  “So what, you’re some guardian angel.”

  He smiled at this. “Yeah, buddy, a guardian angel, that’s me. Sent from Georgia to keep the boy safe and sound. I’m the king of hearts.”

  “Did you send him that letter?”

  “Yeah, buddy, Francine said if she didn’t stay in touch I was supposed to get that letter to Junior and get him the hell down here, then come on down too. Well, hell, you know things kinda went bad.”

  “Bad how?”

  “My kid, well, not so much a kid as a man now, at least he looks like one, he got hisself arrested same day I was hoppin’ on a plane to follow Junior. I had to go bail out the little bastard. You believe that? Me a former law-man and my kid in the pokey?”

  “You work for Francine?”

  “Yup. That’s correct. Francine Bacon. She pays me, but not so much I want pepper in my eyes. I’m too old for this shit.” He finally straightened up and half-leaned, half-sat on the edge of the cab.

  “You’re the one in the Rav-4?”

  “Yeah, I knew you were on to me. Couldn’t sit in that car no more in plain sight. Got out here ‘ca
use I’m worried. Besides, it’s hot as a mother in a car around here. Hey, buddy, is Junior okay? Haven’t seen him for a while.”

  “I think he’s in his room grieving,” I said.

  The guy nodded. “Makes sense. Yup. My granny died, I did that. We was close. She taught me craps. Well, my granny on my daddy’s side, not my mama’s granny. She wasn’t nice.”

  “Name?”

  “Daryl. Daryl Evans. I hail from Decatur.”

  “Okay, Daryl. I’m Boise. You know anything else?”

  The cabbie piped up again. “Hey da man, your meter up to fifteen. You still goin’?”

  I looked at Daryl. “Where’s your car?” He pointed down the road. I paid the cabbie and he drove away after sucking his teeth at me.

  When we got to The Daily News building, I sent Daryl to the Snack Shack. He said his blood sugar was low and kept apologizing for scaring me.

  “See that door?” I pointed.

  “Hard to miss.”

  “That’s my office. I’ll meet you there in thirty.”

  “You got it, buddy.”

  Daryl waddled off toward the Snack Shack.

  “Bring me a burger,” I yelled after him.

  My office was cleared and the door still looked like a dead guy had smeared blood all over it. After a quick once over to make sure nothing was missing, I trudged up to the top floor. Walter waved me into his office. He patted a laptop with his hand.

  “Is that Kendal’s?” I asked.

  “His wife got it over to me. Look at his notes on Francine Bacon.”

  He tapped a button and the screen glowed. It’s hard to overstate the thrill of entering another’s private world, whether in their computer or in their home. I’d always had a bit of a voyeuristic bent. To be a fly on the wall in the most private moments of someone’s life when they’re at their most vulnerable, their most real. Computers could give you such a glimpse. Searching Francine’s bedroom gave me a similar thrill. Nothing was better. Nothing except finally seeing all the clues click together like magnets.

  The notes detailed basic things about Francine. On page four things changed. A charge bolted up my spine. Two words: slavery and reparations. Reparations. Reparations for slavery. Other than once hearing mention of forty acres and a mule, I knew nothing about this, but it jibed with the article I’d found in her bedroom.

  “What is this saying?” I asked. My skin felt hot. Without waiting for his answer, I left his office and headed for the cooler in the corner. Three tiny cups of water later the heat in my gut started to subside.

  When I returned, Walter said, “Just keep reading.”

  Walter went out, I heard a refrigerator open and close, then he returned munching on a sandwich and opening a bag of chips. The notes were copious. They detailed a plan, as well as how Francine had come to have such a plan.

  When I was too tired to read anymore, I raised my head. I expected Walter to be looking over my shoulder. He wasn’t even in the office. Out in the bullpen, he was leaning over a reporter and pointing at the man’s monitor. Above him, printed on the wall, was the mantra that The Daily News beat into the minds of young reporters before they left for more prestigious papers: “The News Never Sleeps.”

  As he walked back in and shut the door, he said, “It’s big right? Provides clear motive.”

  “Are these numbers right?”

  Walter settled back into his throne. He waved off an approaching reporter. The man scampered away.

  “I know you’re not a Kendal lover, per se...” he said. I started to protest, but he held his long fingers aloft. “It doesn’t matter. The man was thorough. He was also ruthless and his loyalty left something to be desired, but he was thorough. Besides,” he tapped the computer again, “Francine Bacon’s a primary source. If she said it about her fortune, what’s not to believe?”

  “Maybe she had dementia,” I said.

  “Nope. Kendal insisted on her having two tests done by a psychiatrist and a neurologist. She also had her own done by a doctor in Florida. None of them had ever met her before the test to ensure objectivity. One even witnessed the creation of the Bacon Trust Fund.”

  I took off my hat and rubbed my thick, oily curls. My eyes dropped to my sneakers, then shot back up to Walter’s face. “Do any of them know?”

  “How the hell would I know?” Walter muttered. “Even not knowing, it had to be one of them, right?”

  Greed. For a fortune worth over one-hundred million to parcel out this way would drive any heir to at least consider homicide. It’s funny how fast one-hundred million shrinks once you divide it up amongst four or five people and pay the taxes, outstanding debts, etc.

  It didn’t seem like Francine accepted counsel from her children. What had Herbie said? She was paranoid. Hillary needed the money since she had no discernable desire or ability to earn a living. Harold was fun, but eccentric. Who knew what was going on in that surf-obsessed, reefer-driven mind. Besides, he certainly knew how to wield an arrow.

  I wanted it to be Herbie. The guy was an arrogant weasel who stunk of entitlement. He would never pass the smell test. In the parking lot below a mangy dog took a leak on one of Pickering’s Armor-All’ed tires, then trotted jauntily away. The yellow liquid beaded and rolled off the shiny, black rubber, making a steaming puddle on the pavement. They were all archers in the Bacon family, although Junior insisted his dad was not that great, I suspected “not that great” in their world only meant he wasn’t Olympic quality.

  Walter shot an arrow into my musings. “How well do you know your client?”

  “Junior? I’ve known him since, well, since about eight minutes before Kendal bought it,” I said in a shaky voice.

  Chapter 12

  Junior and Leber sat across from each other at the large dining room table at the Bacon residence. A light breeze carried the scent of hibiscus from the estate’s expansive garden beyond the soccer field and tennis court.

  “Impressive place you got here,” Leber said as Wilma placed a glass of water in front of him. “This glass of water looks more expensive than my car.” Wilma shuffled back to the kitchen. He sipped the water. On his extended pinky finger, he wore a thick gold ring encrusted with red jewels. “What’s the story?”

  “It’s my grandma’s house,” Junior muttered.

  “Mmmm. Even the water tastes better up here.”

  Junior shifted. The wooden seat felt harder than usual this morning. He was supposed to hold his tongue, waiting for his dad to get back. Leber had arrived, fifteen minutes early for their appointment, so Junior had texted his dad, who replied in all caps: “REMAIN SILENT UNTIL I GET THERE.”

  Junior hadn’t replied. Although only eighteen, Junior had studied the human animal. He’d read a lot of books. He liked to watch people’s behavior. It reminded him of going to the zoo, except the animals were all around in their natural habitat, every day of his life. Some of them needed cages, but most left you alone if you faded into the background. He was pretty sure his father qualified as a narcissist. His aunt’s condition was less clear. He guessed all the categories were like breeds of dog, some people were pure, but most were mutts.

  This cop had some kind of hero complex, or he enjoyed power. You could apply that analysis to almost every cop.

  “What’s your story?” Junior asked.

  Leber was surprised by the question. People didn’t ask cops questions like this. They were too uncomfortable. Afraid to do anything wrong lest they incur his closer inspection. Junior had gone there. Willingly. Leber could use that.

  “I started out as a beat cop, then worked my way up to detective. Took some criminology courses at the local university. My mother enjoys calling me Poe after Edgar Allen, who she says wrote the first and best detective story. Maybe it was her influence.”

  Junior fell into his stillness, examining Leber to the point where the seasoned cop felt slightly uncomfortable.
The kid had wells for eyes. A little creepy.

  “You have solid alibis,” said Leber.

  “I do.”

  “So why not talk to me?”

  Junior slid his phone across and showed Leber his father’s message.

  “I see,” Leber muttered. “But don’t you want to help Boise and me solve this thing?”

  Leber met Junior’s gaze. The kid didn’t look away, but didn’t speak either. Wow, another very rare occurrence. Only crazy people stared right back when he was there to question them about a murder. Sometimes mothers made eye contact when pleading for their guilty sons. Junior Bacon wasn’t a mother. Was this kid just plain crazy?

  The front door banged open. Herbie Bacon stormed in, Aunt Hillary on his heels. That left Uncle Harold as the only missing piece for the business of data gathering today. This case would be a marathon. He didn’t have any substantial evidence implicating any of them. He needed cooperation from Francine’s family, otherwise this investigation would devolve into legal posturing for every bit of information. He didn’t need that complication. Keep it friendly.

  “You came here early on purpose, you weasel, looking to take advantage of an impressionable young man who is distraught over the loss of his grandmother.”

  Leber felt like a garter snake being attacked by a mongoose. He remained seated, his hands resting lightly on the table in front of him. This man wanted to be the alpha in this family, but he wasn’t. He was a sniveling bully who lived in this little world because outside of it, his weakness would be exposed. Men like this did cowardly things. Killing an old woman and a reporter from long-distance qualified.

  “Dad.”

  “Not now, the grown-ups are talking,” Herbie barked.

  “Dad.”

  “Now, this conversation and interview are over. Wilma!” The housekeeper did not respond or appear. “Hillary, go find her!” His voice squeaked as he said the last word.

  Hillary stared at her brother, then plopped into the sofa in her favorite pose and yelled. Her voice projected much more than Herbie’s, but it also grated more, like one of the women from a 1930’s gangster film who all sounded like uneducated New Yorkers. Her speaking voice was more refined, more proper.