Marino stared back as guinea hens kicked past again like break-dancers.
“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 curtly said.
“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.
“Will you let me know what you find out?” he asked as tears filled his eyes, his head held high.
“I’ll tell you what I can,” I evasively promised.
“I just want to know if it’s her, and that she didn’t suffer,” he said.
“Most people in fires don’t. The carbon monoxide renders them unconscious long before the flames get close. Usually, death is quiet and painless.”
“Oh, thank God.”
He looked up at the sky.
“Oh, thank you, God,” he muttered.