Then Leber surprised me. “You makin’ fun of my glasses?” He pulled them to the tip of his ample nose. His deep brown eyes peered at me over the rim. A predatory dog sizing up the enemy. “I got sensitive eyes. Work-related accident. Some bastard turned on a very intense light while enhanced-interrogating me a few years back. I see fine, but can’t stand bright light or even faint light much anymore.”
“That didn’t disqualify you from police work?”
“You think competent detectives are coming out of the woodwork around here. The department’s lucky if we can find anyone with a college degree and no record.”
“Sounds like every cop I’ve been involved with,” I said. “So, what is it you want?”
“Boise, drop the cop-hating act. I know you don’t feel that way about folks trying to do the right thing and putting their lives on the line.” He waited while I silently acknowledged he had a point. He continued. “Pickering’s being a hard-ass about Kendal’s laptop. Says he doesn’t know where it is. I could bring him up on obstruction, but I know him, he doesn’t care about that.”
Pickering had shown me the laptop only days ago, so I knew he had it. I wasn’t going to divulge that to Leber. But neither would I lie openly if the question came up. Pickering was a good newspaper man. Any good newspaper person had spent time locked up for something they believed in. The guy was political, but I suppose he had his principles.
“What do you want from me?”
“You guys are buddy-buddy. I remember you solved those cases a few months back, got them lots of readers. Walter Pickering must love you.”
He crunched on a piece of ice, which sent chills down my spine.
“He definitely doesn’t love me. He’s charging me for ad space after all that bump in readership.”
Leber winced down a swallow. We were both nearing the end of our first round and ordered another.
“You want me to convince Pickering he should share information from Kendal’s laptop with you, assuming he has it?”
He nodded.
“And why should I go to bat for you, Detective?”
“Francine’s body, for starters.”
“Not the same ballpark. What else? Can you give me a copy of the murder book?”
With a sideways look, he raised one eyebrow ala Roger Moore.
“Then tell me what you have. If we really are helping each other.”
He proceeded to feed me information the police had recovered concerning phone records for Kendal. He’d been in contact with several people in Barbados, St. Kitts, the Dominican Republic, and St. Croix. The same places the Bacons owned sugar plantations.
The offices and the mercantile operations were in St. Thomas because it had the best harbor and the most lucrative shipping, allowing Bacon Rum and their other sugar products ease of distribution. St. Thomas was also the safest place historically since the slave rebellion had taken place in St. Croix in 1848. The Bacon family had left managers at the various plantations while holing up in St. Thomas. Under Francine’s leadership, much of the property had been liquidated or donated as historical sites with an endowment.
“She had a need to make amends if you ask me.” Leber leaned on the bar. He looked like a wet newspaper in a wind-storm.
“Why are you so clued in on Francine?” I asked. “What about Kendal?”
“Ninety-percent he and she are mixed in the same thing. This ain’t a coincidence. Probably family. Am I right?”
“Hey man, you’re the detective. I’m just a lowly investigator trying to make it in the man’s world.”
“You sayin’ I’m the man?” He paused, then after another sip said, “There’s two kinds of detectives: the kind who gather information and the kind who take that information and gel it into a good theory to catch the perpetrator.”
I waited for more, but he seemed to want to fill me in on categories of detectives. When he didn’t say anything for a while, I responded, “So, what are you?”
Leber started to lean back and caught himself. “See! Who likes backless stools? Who?” He yelled the last word and Willy glanced our way. Leber waved him off. “Boise, I need some more and your pal Pickering has it. Talk to him. Get him to spill on Lady Francine Bacon’s plans. And what about your bosses?”
“Who’re my bosses?”
“Junior and Harold. Aren’t those the guys who’re paying you?”
“Mind your business, Detective.” I bolted the last of my Guinness, then wiped my mouth across my forearm and licked the residue. Cops made you feel like a whore for being in the free-market.
Chapter 20
It was late and I was exhausted, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep. Pickering answered on the first ring. Guess I wasn’t the only one running myself ragged. He agreed to meet me at a hole in the wall with no sign near Backstreet Pizza. Very covert.
As I walked, internal questions rained on me like confetti. What was Francine really up to with Kendal? What was Junior’s role? The rest of the Bacons were dysfunctional, but killers? What of the inheritors, aka the descendants of the Bacon slaves? Could they be involved and if so, why? They were on the winning side of this thing. The lucky ones who would finally reap what their ancestors had sowed under lashes and nooses.
By most accounts, Francine appeared to be a stand-up lady in the community who decided to abdicate the throne. She was not mother of the year and she continued that trend by shorting her heirs, but the money was never theirs, not really. Least that’s how I’d always looked at inheritance. Not mine to begin with; if anyone wanted to give me their hard-earned fortune, that was blind luck. There was no right, not even with spouses or children. Then again, if you felt you were being cheated, well, there’s no telling what you’d do. I also never had a mother or grandmother with over one-hundred million to give.
The same mutt that begged
