‘I’m sorry,’ he said, getting up. ‘I can only tell you that she was rather much a failed artist. A want-to-be actor who spent most of her time surfing or wandering the beach: And after I’d been around her for a while, I began to see that something wasn’t right about her. The way she seemed so lacking in motivation, and would act so erratic and glazed sometimes.’
‘Did she abuse alcohol?’ I asked.
‘Not chronically. It has too many calories.’
‘Drugs?’
‘That’s what I began to suspect, and it was something I could have no association with. I don’t know.’
‘I need for you to spell her name for me,’ I said.
‘Before you go walking off,’ Marino jumped in, and I recognized the bad-cop edge to his tone, ‘you sure this couldn’t be some sort of a murder-suicide? Only she kills everything you own and goes up in flames along with it? You sure there’s no reason she might have done that, Mr Sparkes?’
‘At this point, I can’t be sure of anything,’ Sparkes answered him as he paused near the barn’s open door.
Marino got up, too.
‘Well, this ain’t adding up, no disrespect intended,’ Marino said. ‘And I do need to see any receipts you have for your London trip. And for Dulles airport. And I know ATF’s hot to know about your basement full of bourbon and automatic weapons.’
‘I collect World War II weapons, and all of them are registered and legal,’ he said with restraint. ‘I bought the bourbon from a Kentucky distillery that went out of business five years ago. They shouldn’t have sold it to me and I shouldn’t have bought it. But so be it.’
‘I think ATF’s got bigger fish to fry than your barrels of bourbon,’ Marino said. ‘So if you got any of those receipts with you now, I’d appreciate your handing them over to me.’
‘Will you strip search me next, Captain?’ Sparkes fixed hard eyes on him.
Marino stared back as guinea hens kicked past again like breakdancers.
‘You can deal with my lawyer,’ Sparkes said. ‘And then I’ll be happy to cooperate.’
‘Marino,’ it was my turn to speak, ‘if you’d give me just a minute alone with Mr Sparkes.’
Marino was taken aback and very annoyed. Without a word, he stalked off into the barn, several hens trotting after him. Sparkes and I stood, facing each other. He was a strikingly handsome man, tall and lean, with thick gray hair. His eyes were amber, his features aristocratic, with a straight Jeffersonian nose and skin dark and as smooth as a man half his age. The way he tightly gripped his riding crop seemed to fit his mood. Kenneth Sparkes was capable of violence but had never given in to it, as best I knew.
‘All right. What’s on your mind?’ he asked me suspiciously.
‘I just wanted to make sure you understand that our differences of the past . . .’
He shook his head and would not let me finish.
‘The past is past,’ he said curtly.
‘No, Kenneth, it isn’t. And it’s important for you to know that I don’t harbor bad feelings about you,’ I replied. ‘That what’s going on now is not related.’
When he had been more actively involved with the publishing of his newspapers, he had basically accused me of racism when I had released statistics about black on black homicides. I had shown citizens how many deaths were drug-related or involved prostitution or were just plain hate of one black for another.
His own reporters had taken several of my quotes out of context and had distorted the rest, and by the end of the day, Sparkes had summoned me to his posh downtown office. I would never forget being shown into his mahogany space of fresh flowers and colonial furniture and lighting. He had ordered me, as if he could, to demonstrate more sensitivity to African-Americans and publicly retract my bigoted professional assessments. As I looked at him now, with sweat on his face and manure on his boots, it did not seem I was talking to the same arrogant man. His hands were trembling, his strong demeanor about to break.