Sweet Paradise by Gene Desrochers (most read books in the world of all time .txt) 📕

I was releasing some stored trauma or throwing up a rancid bratwurst. My breathing flowed as if I was a car with a new air filter. When next I looked up, Pickering stood in the doorway.

“So?”

“Why are you back so soon?”

He held up his gold watch. “Been an hour and fifteen.” He read my face. “Got more to say? I’ll work at Dana’s desk. You keep at it.”

He shut the door, but the spell was broken. A few more details, then I wrapped it up. One new observation had occurred to me as I re-examined the events surrounding Kendal’s death. Something struck me about the angle of the arrow’s entry. I thought it had come straight through the door, but in fact, Kendal had been facing to the left of the doorway slightly, so the arrow had come in from that side of the parking lot. After I finished, I made a copy of the pages and handed the copy to Pickering.

“I want the original,” he said, squinting at the pages.

“Sorry, but I’m keeping the originals.”

After a tense moment, he shrugged, stapled the copied pages together, returned to his office and shut the door.

Chapter 8

“T hat Pickering guy called me,” Junior said when I walked into the Bacon house. “The guy’s relentless. I spilled that it’s my grandma who’s missing, but said that stuff I always hear about being off the record. He didn’t like it but I stood my ground. Whaddya think?”

I sighed. “Well, as I said, newspaper guys want to print things. They aren’t in the business of keeping secrets, but if Pickering says it’s off the record, I think you’re all right. Don’t tell him too much more.”

“Why’d you?”

“Guilt, I guess,” I muttered. “I have a load of guilt about things like this. Even Kendal the Jackal has a family. In the end, we all want the same thing.”

We walked into the expansive backyard. Harold was taking aim at a target. He hit a bullseye. Junior picked up the joint Harold had balanced on the edge of a portable table and took a hit.

“How does your dad feel about that?” I asked.

“He doesn’t know,” he said pointedly.

I wiped sweat off my upper lip. “He won’t hear it from me, but hard to miss the smell on clothes.”

“I’ll blame him,” he nodded at Harold. “Second-hand smell, right?”

He cracked a smile at his uncle who gave him a knowing look. “Those two been blaming me for all the negative habits of this one for years. Why ruin a good pattern?”

Junior pinched the edge of his shirt and sniffed. “He’s a dick. Uncle Harold’s the only good one besides grandma around here.”

Junior offered me the joint. I waved him off.

“Ready to do some recon, amigo?”

After Harold and Junior each tugged on the joint one more time, Harold killed the spark. He dropped the roach in a dime bag, and pocketed the bag. The three of us headed upstairs. Wilma was in the kitchen, banging pots around as usual. The smell of fried food occupied this section of the house.

“Shouldn’t you guys have a bunch of servants running all over the place?” I asked.

“Not grandma’s style. Right, Uncle Harold?”

“We used to have more, but mama’s been simplifying over the years. She’s more and more uncomfortable with servitude.”

“How long will they be gone?” I asked.

“Who knows. Hill’s afraid of her own shadow at social gatherings. She acts tough, but they might have to break off anytime. Then again, if she drinks enough wine ... ”

Harold took out a key and unlocked a room at the back of the house. We ascended a mahogany staircase that ended at a single door. Outside the door on the right was a Haitian-style landscape painting vibrant with yellows, reds and blues. Once inside, the far wall was dominated by a set of African masks, some smooth and simple with red and gold lines, others more elaborate, with strips resembling hair, eyebrows and beards. You felt watched. The walls were painted an earthy color. A window overlooked the ocean. Shadows from drifting clouds played across the shimmering sea.

There was one photo on her nightstand of the entire Bacon clan at what looked like a luau, complete with tiki torches and a boar on a spit in the background. I had met everyone in the photo except Francine, who stood in the center wearing a hula skirt. A petite woman with short, silver hair. She resembled Betty White. Using my phone I snapped a photo of the photo.

Next to the picture, facing the spot where Francine presumably slept, was a small painting of reeds. Above the reeds, looking almost like it was rising out of the water, were the bold words, “If not me, who?”

There was more to that quote, but I couldn’t remember it at the moment.

“So, what are we looking for Inspector Gadget?” Harold asked. The pungent scent of weed hit me as he edged toward the dresser. “And what’s with the limp?”

“War wound.” I turned in a circle, taking in the rest of the room. “What happened in here?”

Harold and Junior gave me blank stares, so I clarified. “The furniture.” I indicated the bed and side tables. “Not Victorian. Appears to be African and some Caribe style. Simple. Much more suited to the island than the rest of the house. Either this room was changed or the common areas downstairs were. From the looks of things, I’d say it was this room that underwent the most recent transformation. Am I right?”

Junior put his hand to his chin and got very still again. “Yeah, it is different here. What used to hang on that wall with the masks?”

Harold puffed his cheeks and made a farting sound with his lips, then said, “Oh yeah. Man, it used to have a really big painting of our rum plantation done by this semi-famous artist in the eighteen-hundreds. A landscape of the production facilities in St. Croix. Barrels of rum being hauled away for shipment