After the hearing, Diane drove to The Docks and parked on the street in front of Miss Naomi’s. She and Lovely were waiting on the porch, enjoying a beautiful day and a gentle breeze. It was time for tea.
From a brown bag, Diane removed a plastic bottle of herbal tea, with sugar, and three large coconut cookies from a downtown bakery. She cracked the seal and poured it into three tin cups, the same ones every time. Lovely really liked coconut cookies, and the bigger the better.
Lovely knew the lawyers were meeting with the judge that morning and was eager to hear what happened. Diane covered the status meeting from top to bottom, said things went well, and that her deposition was set for Thursday next week. Diane had already explained the purpose, formality, and importance of depositions — sworn testimony from potential witnesses that allowed the lawyers to learn more about the case. They could, and would, ask almost anything, regardless of the relevance. Depositions were often fishing expeditions, but they were nothing to worry about. Preparation was important, and Lovely would be ready. Steven would be there by her side. He’d sat through a thousand of them and would keep the opposing lawyers in line.
“Can we talk some more?” Diane asked.
“We’re talking now,” Lovely said with a smile.
“With the recorder on?”
“I suppose. You do ask a lot of questions.”
“That’s my job. We’re preparing you for the deposition and all those lawyers. That in turn will prepare you for the trial, which Judge Salazar wants to have next May.”
Lovely bit her cookie and kept smiling. She nodded and said, “Go ahead, dear.”
Diane pulled out a slim digital recorder and placed it on the small round table. “Now, last time, we were discussing your grandparents. You remember all four of them.”
“Oh yes. My father’s parents were Odell and Mavis Jackson. My mother’s were Yulie and Essie Monroe. Their people came from a big farm in Georgia called the Monroe plantation.”
“And they were slaves who’d escaped?”
Her shoulders sagged a bit as she frowned, as if they had already covered this territory. “You see, Diane, all the people who ever lived on Dark Isle were slaves or their descendants. Nobody ever moved there because they wanted to live there, and my people didn’t want anybody new. There was not always enough food to go around as it was. Life was hard on the island. The women took care of the kids and raised vegetables and cleaned and such, and the men fished the water and watched for trouble. They was always watching. From the time a boy was ten years old he was trained to watch the water. They lived with the fear that the white men would return one day and cause trouble.”
“Did that change after slavery ended?”
“Took a long time. News was slow getting out there to the island. Some of the men traded with black men down at the docks on Camino and also on the other side at Wolf Harbor, on the mainland, but there wasn’t much contact.”
“Why not?”
“Why not. Because they were afraid of disease. White people got all sorts of diseases that black folk don’t need and can’t handle. There was always the fear of catching something.”
“Even when you were a child?”
“Not so much by then, in the forties and fifties. But around the turn of the century smallpox got to the island and killed half the people. The population went from a hundred to about fifty. Everybody lost somebody. I remember my parents and grandparents talking about it.”
Diane scribbled some notes. Not for the first time, she wondered how much had been forgotten, and how much had been fabricated.
Chapter Seven
Old Dunes
1
Across the Camino River and headed west away from the island, the busy highway was lined with shopping centers, fast food restaurants, car dealerships, car washes, churches, and big-box retailers, the typical American sprawl. Billboards advertised cheap loans, scowling lawyers, and plenty of subdivisions. Construction was in the air. New developments, new “neighborhoods,” new retirement villages were going up seemingly overnight. Realtors’ signs clogged the intersections. Every other truck belonged to a plumber, an electrician, a roofer, or an HVAC specialist advertising a deep concern for your comfort and quality of life.
Off the main highway and near a quiet bay, another bustling development was springing to life. The Old Dunes Yacht and Golf Club had been approved by the county a year earlier, and, as they say in the trade, “the money had hit the ground.” Luxury homes were being built by the water. The 18-hole golf course was half finished. Rows of expensive condos were in the framing phase. A marina with fifty slips for small boats was being assembled. The air buzzed with sounds of hammers, drills, diesel engines, and the shouts and laughter of hundreds of well-paid laborers.
Old Dunes was a new Florida corporation with a registered agent in a law office in Jacksonville. Its front man was a CEO from Orlando who reported to the home office in Houston. In late October, the private company in Texas sold Old Dunes to a Bahamian shell company that in turn flipped it to another faceless entity registered in the tiny Caribbean territory of Montserrat. Such financial gymnastics were nothing unusual for Tidal Breeze. Wilson Larney and his super-aggressive tax lawyers had long since perfected the game of Slip & Flip, a barely legal maneuver that involved offshore companies and willing bankers. Whatever profits Tidal Breeze ultimately netted from Old Dunes would remain beyond the reach of the IRS. Indeed, the IRS would never know the identity of the true owner.
The shuffling and filing of papers in faraway places went unnoticed in Camino County. All the proper fees were paid, everything was above the table. Developers bought, sold, and flipped properties with their morning coffee and all was well. A microscopic legal notice might appear in The Register or the county weekly, but no one would read it. Old Dunes was just one of many new projects underway in North Florida.
2
Lenny Salazar, the son of the judge, was thirty-three years old, married with two small children. His family lived in one of the many communities sprawling out from Jacksonville. For the past four years he had worked hard building a company that mass-produced small homes. There was a ton of competition and profit margins were thin. Lenny’s dream was to gradually move up to custom building, which was more lucrative. Unfortunately, it was the same dream of every other small contractor, along with every two-bit builder with a pickup truck and a claw hammer.
Lenny was making money because he was at every job, every day. He arrived early to greet the subs and worked late to clean up the sites. Within the trades, his reputation was growing because he delivered on time and paid his bills. He was attracting better subs, the key to success in the business.
His brick supplier was a sales rep named Joe Root, a veteran in the business. Root had seen a thousand builders come and go with the ups and downs of Florida real estate, and he believed Lenny had the smarts to rise above the competition. He found him on a ladder working with a framing crew and said hello. Root dropped in from time to time to check on his customers. Lenny followed him to the curb and they sat in the shade of the only tree in sight.
Root was saying, “Just got back from Camino, got a big order for eight tons of Florida white. You heard of the Old Dunes project?”
“Maybe,” Lenny replied. There were so many developments.
“High-dollar stuff, million-dollar homes, a golf course, the works. On a bay just off the bridge, near the old Harbortown.”
“I know the area.”
“They’re looking for builders. Company out of Texas, I think. Good reputation so far. All of my bills have been paid on time.”