No Murder In Kissinmee

By Oren Cousins

In Road To Damascus, Jamaican-born Bateman Carter is a British Foreign Intelligence (BFI) special agent. He returns to his native island to investigate his brother's death.
In No Murder In Kissimmee, Carter goes to Florida in pursuit of the murderer. His wife, Sonja, insists on going with him. She wanted a piece of the action, and she did get it. Carter assists the DEA and the FBI to break a car-stealing and drud trafficking ring, as well as a couple of murders. He is assisted, in turn, to capture the murderer Diamond Toot, in a wild sort of O.J. Simpson's bronco chase.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oren Cousins
• Release date: Apr 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458060747

Oren Cousins

Oren O.Cousins was born in St.Margaret's Bay, Portland, Jamaica, August 14, 1932.He grew on his parents' small farm at Fruitful Vale,Portland, and attended the village school, He is a graduate of Mico Teachers' College and the University of the West Indies. He served for forty years as a teacher and school principal.In retirement, he engages in writing as community service as a Lay Magistrate and voluntary counsellor. Mr.Cousins has published two books- ROAD to Damascus,in 2005,and American-Jamaican Anthology of Original Poetry.He is in the final process of publishing his second novel.He is a widower, has two grown-up daughters and two grand-children,brothers and sisters, a host of relatives and friends, and enjoys music, reading, dominoes and friends.

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No Murder In Kissimmee

By Oren O.Cousins

Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2011 by Oren O. Cousins

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SYNOPSIS

Jamaican-born Bateman Carter is a British Foreign Intelligence (BFI) secret service agent. He returns to Jamaica to investigate the mysterious death of his brother. After an hectic operation in Jamaica, he goes to Florida in pursuit of his brother’s murderer, Damascus Johns a.k.a. Diamon Toot. Bateman’s wife,Sonja, refuses to be left out of the action, and adds to the excitement and suspense of the hunt for Diamon Toot. A middle-age spinster tries to convince them that there has been no murders in her home town, Kissimmee.

Chapter 1

The road went up, the road went down, And there the matter ended it (( Hillarie Belloc).

MEET MY WIFE SONJA AND LT. PROLER:

MIAMI, HERE WE COME

Everybody of sound mind and body, young or old, loves a wedding. Every woman is radiantly beautiful on her wedding day. Every owlish-looking groom is elegantly handsome and gallant on his nuptial date. Sonja is beautiful and chic. I, if I must speak for myself, should be able to pass as averagely good-looking.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of the ritual, Fr. Mc. Intyre talked to us of what he called the Ten Pillars Of Successful and lasting Marriage. Like the pillars, he took great pains to explain, on which a temple is built, marriage is a Temple, you understand? God is love. God dwells in Temples. Couples must regularly worship at the Altar of Love.

I was greatly impressed and I asked myself how could he know so much about that kind of architecture, and he is not an actual practitioner of the business.When Sonja and I were doing a post mortem of the church ceremony, we came to the conclusion that theorists often know more about a particular subject than those who actually engage in the practical methodology of it.

Everybody acted as if they hadn’t heard when Fr. Mc. Intyre asked if anyone knew of any unjust cause why we shouldn’t be shouldn’t be married. Well, of course, I know of some just causes why we should. Since no one objected, Fr. Mc Intyre asked, "Who gives this woman in marriage?

I expected Sonja to say, I myself am giving myself, but her father swiftly announced loudly and perfunctorily, I am!

I know that he was griping over performing an unpleasant task.

He himself told me so. Fr. Mc. Intyre then stared at me, and asked., Bateman Carter, do you take this woman, Sonja Dianae Joyce, ( he forgot to say, ‘with all her faults) as your wedded and lawful wife to have and to hold blah,blah, blah till death do you part?"

Why do we have to wait until death to part? I murmured audibly. I replied, I am thinking that I ought to…"

No, no, whispered Fr. Mc.Intyre in my ear. I could hear his denture clicking against his tongue, as he spoke, Just say, I do. That will be enough.

I do! I shouted loudly enough to alarm people passing the church in cars. Fr. Mc. Intyre beamed wider and brighter as if he were the groom getting married and not I. Then he peered lasciviously at Sonja. Sonja Dana Joyce, he asked in a paternal tone, "Do you take this man, Bateman Carter to be your wedded and lawful husband, to have and to hold blah, blah, blah until death do you part?

Sonja hesitated and then squealed, I do, indeed, I do! I thought she was going to add though I detest him! But, of course, had she said that, she would be telling a lie, and she claims that she detests lies. I know that she adores me madly, and I love her bad,as we, Jamaicans say in Jamaica, which means I truly love and adore her.

While we were signing the Register, Mrs. Rocabigh, Sonja’s best friend, sang nasally and sugary, There was a wedding in Cana. She is a tall, rugged and big-boned Scottish lass/ Her husband—he is tremendously brave to own such a big-bodied wife—a small pot-bellied, bearded and decrepit looking professor, Dr.Rocabigh, accompanied her on his violin. Man, that music professor can surely bow elegantly and does know how to scrape dem strings! He made his violin howl and squeal. You could see from his playing that the wine-drinking guests enjoyed the wine at the Cana wedding right merrily, the best wine having been kept back for the last ,and the poorer wine served first. A small crowd came off the street, and congregated at the church door, I still believe, to listen to the exquisite bowing and scraping.

After the signing, Fr. Mc. Intyre presented us to the very small audience, as if they didn’t know us before. Keep this in a tight place, he jovially said to Sonja, handing her the Marriage Certificate. This is the evidence that Bateman Carter has signed away his freedom to you for-ever! Keep it in a right place.

Forever? How does he know that? I whispered to myself.

You must always see that all things are put in their right places he jovially warned Sonja and me.

How does he know that? I repeated to myself.

You may kiss the bride, at the count of three, he merrily said, his denture loudly clicking, One-Two-Three! he shouted

We were about lifting our embrace to a higher plane, oblivious to the chuckling and giggling audience, when the gallant priest pulled us apart, gently admonishing, Hey! Hey! Save some for the honeymoon!

The honeymoon! Ah! Ah!’ I said to myself. What does he know? Sonja and I have had a couple of honeymoons, on and off, and nearly called it a day, at times, for almost three years before she dragged me to the nuptial altar. Every dog has his or her day in church! But she or he has to be a seductive schemer to have it. It is not easy to come by. I regarded myself as plain and simply lucky to have captured Sonja. I saw her and loved her at sight, but I was thinking that she was inaccessible. A man must never under-rate himself. I thought of as ruse to get near to her. It is a great advantage to be a policeman at times. You may get close to people. you want to get close, even when they have no desire to get close to you, if you use your head wisely.I used to be a patrolman in Chelsea. She used to drive a Renault Laguna Sport car. I pulled he over one day on a pretext of speeding in a residential zone—well, it wasn’t exactly a false pretext. Miss Joyce, I pleasantly warned, ,having noted her name and address from her documents which I had leisurely examined, I won’t issue a ticket this time, only a warning. But should I pull you in again, I shall throw the book at you."

She almost paralysed me, with the gamma rays from her amber –sea green eyes. I detest policemen, and worse, I detest nigger policemen! she she coolly informed me, while giving me the evil glare from her amber –green eyes.

I stood there spell-bound, and kept my cool,giving her the stare I usually keep for rickety old ladies, chronic old gentlemen, and mentally challenged motorists with whom I contend on my daily patrol. There was fury and venom in her amber –greenish eyes, as she hurled insults at me I fell in love with her eyes.

Having dressed me down good and proper or rather undressed me, she sped off in a flurry, pressing her foot down hard on her gas. I ought to have chased her and given her a ticket, but I did not. But truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. The following day, she overtook me, and pulled me over. I thought I was in for another verbal assault, and I would prosecute her.

I am sorry that I called you a nigger yesterday, she said.

You didn’t call me a nigger, Miss Joyce, I replied. Your exact words were, I detest nigger policemen. I did not take your comment to be referring specifically to me, as I am not a nigger, I took no offence, though I understand what you meant, and should have issued you a ticket, as well as prosecuted you for assaulting and obstructing an officer!

Sir, I apologize. Please forgive me, she gushed. I am truly and thoroughly ashamed and sorry! And she did look penitent in a seductive manner. I almost fell off my motorbike when she touched my arm, smiled and drove away. She waved me down the following day and pulled me in. Officer, she said, Did you feel badly when I aid I detest policemen? I am sorry to have been rude. Please forgive me!

I was offended, Miss Joyce, I replied, but in general, very few, policemen, if any, do not have the pleasure of beautiful young women telling them to their faces that they detest them. You are unique.

I took to the road the following day, although, I was not on duty, with the hope that she would come by, and she did not disappoint me. I apologize for saying that I detest policeman and worse nigger policemen, she said.

You apologized yesterday and the day before, Miss Joyce. Shall we now bury the hatchet? I said, Can I take you to lunch if you follow my bike in your car? I turned my siren on and headed for Cuisine Majestic, a great eatery in Chelsea.

Our understanding and our undertakings are harmonious and mutual. We strung along for a long time before she managed to get me in church to be publicly declared man and wife. It still amazes me that she had persevered so long in our pre-marital relationship, nearly three years! The fundamental problem was, I could not envisage myself supporting a wife, like Sonja. on the meagre wages of a policeman. It could have been probably unwise to be waiting for better days to come. But Luck stood by me.

The better days did come almost miraculously. I thwarted the attempt of a couple of thieves, who entered the ancestral home of Lord X, in Chelsea, tied up the caretaker, and stole Lord X’s ancestral coat –of-arms, his ancestral sword, his ancestral cuirass and his ancestral helmet. Why the thieves stole those articles valueless in my philistine estimation, only good.Heaven knows! There were lots of useful and valuables for the taking lying carelessly around. Those thieves were careless in covering their tracks. Failing to flog the stuff to a pawnbroker in Chelsea, they proceeded to rob him at gunpoint. I accosted them single-handedly -a foolhardy act. But it was my lucky break! One made the fatal error of pointing his gun at me when I ordered him to drop it, and I gave him a shot in the arm. It was bull’s-eye with a single shot, thus disarming him by breaking his arm. The other stood rooted to where he was standing, a wicked-looking bowie knife sticking in his trembling hand! I instructed the pawnbroker how to handcuff them each an arm together, which he competently did, although he was shaking like a leaf. It was my lucky break! Lord X recruited me immediately to Scotland Yard’s British Foreign Intelligence unit (BFI), a little gold mine, so to speak, no expenses spared.

Sonja refused to have a big wedding, She chose to have what she what she termed ‘ a functional wedding which meant there were to be no guests and no relatives, apart from those present to officiate at the nuptial ceremony in church. All others were not indispensable-Sonja said—and therefore, will not be invited. The bride and bridegroom are, of course, indispensable". Without them there could be no wedding, she explained.

Yes, I agree, I said. The bride and groom, all dressed up, the center-piece of the shebang, the main actor and actress. We agreed, after some hassling-in fun, of course—that she had to have a maid-of-honour. It was not difficult for her to settle on the six-feet-tall, athletic spinster and Irish potato heiress, Miss Adel Moore, who in church, was indispensable to fuss over the industrious spreading-out of Sonja’s train, like a peacock spreading out its finest feathers, to admire the pink and white roses embroidered on it. When she was not doing that, she was unnecessarily dabbing Sonja’s forehead and cheeks with an inadequate, perfumed lace rag. Miss Moore was indispensable also for holding the bride’s bouquet and glove, while I placed the simple wedding band on her finger.

My best-man was also indispensable He is jolly, and Sonja likes him. He was a good pal and policeman, Sori Amuntuli, son of a chief of Tanganyika., who confided in me after the wedding that it was love at first sight. He wished to marry Miss Moore to add her to his harem which he planned to have, on his return to his homeland. This true African was really and truly too sentimental. He told me that he was entranced by her mountainous height which he confessed, reminded him of Kibo, the highest peak of own his beloved Kilimanjaro. I dissuaded him to propose to her on the grounds that his sparse English had barely enabled him to get into Scotland Yard, I hardly think it would get him anywhere with the prim and proper Miss Moore. Sonja explained that he was indispensable for the show-just in case I got cold feet and absconded or became temporarily incapacitated, he could act as my proxy, and slip on the ring. Little twins, in the cherubic stage of their lives, Joe and Sue—the daughter of one of Sonja’s many aunts was their mother who was married to a railroad engineer in Leeds—were thought with their mother to be virtually necessary".

On our wedding day, the redoubtable little princess valiantly struggled with a too large basket of pink rose petals which she cutely and briskly emptied in a pile on the red-carpeted aisle, sprawling irreverently atop the pile, exposing her fat little frilly pink pants. Sonja paused to set her upright and console her, while the redoubtable little prince, leaving his weeping sister behind, bravely marched ahead up the aisle, bearing a crimson gold-tasselled cushion on which rested a slim gold wedding band with three little diamonds. I wanted to buy Sonja a grand wedding ring, with three diamonds. She would have none of it. She wanted to be married with her mother’s old wedding ring which she claimed was made from Jamaica gold. I know of no gold mine in Jamaica, except the public purse, government contracts, cellular phone companies and the Lotto.

And the priest is very indispensable. With the absence of a priest, there could be no official religiosity nor ecclesiastical dignity and church blessing to the wedding ceremony. Sonja wanted a ‘functional wedding and she engineered it. A functional wedding meant a small wedding with only indispensable man-power or bare essentials-absolutely no guests. I argued that the term functional was being misapplied. I suggested the term bare essentials. But whenever Sonja holds on to an idea or opinion, she does not let up. I am conscious that I have the same fault. We succeeded in arriving at an harmonious compromise by describing our wedding as a functional-bare essentials" wedding. Both of us were happy with it. Fr. Mc. Intyre referred, at our wedding, to a mutual understanding as meeting each other half-way. What does he know about it? How cans a man who never tasted pork nor curried goat claim that he knows all there is to know about cooking pig or goat?

What Sonja wants, Sonja gets. It’s a common fault of rich girls. But all women, regardless of their status or estate, have to have their way most of the time. It makes for a happier lasting marriage or an easier road for men, on which to string along with women. Fr. Mc. Intyre had omitted to spell out this salient fact in his "Ten Pillars of a Successful Marriage’. Well, of course, a man can’t know everything, even if he is a theorist and a priest.

Immediately after Fr. Mc. Intyre thought it safe to dismiss us, Sonja’s father, Major John Joyce, decorated ace -pilot of World War Two, invited all of us who constituted the bridal party, including Fr. Mc. Intyre, to lunch and wassail at his club which was few shops and doors beyond the church. Apart from having to listen to Major Joyce relate his boring story of how he dramatically and miraculously survived his Spitfire single-engine war plane coming down into the cold waters of the English Channel in sight of the British coast, after a bombing foray over Berlin, lunch went well. Fr. Mc. Kintyre told a few jokes about erring newly wed married couples.I tell you these stories to warn you young people never to let down your guard when you go to bed at night. Always check for mice, mosquitoes, roaches and other intruders. A little mice in the wrong place or whining mosquito in your ear, can mash up your dolly pot! Fr. McIntyre suavely warned.

Miss Moore held her body and face erect and rigid. The mother of the twin kids secretly enjoyed the joke of the priest, but snickered and glowered at her children. She needed not to have worried about them, since they were too young to understand, and were completely engrossed in the chocolate cake and ice-cream, and merrily making faces at each other, unmindful of big people’s talk. Sonja wasn’t happy with Fr. Mc.Intyre’s tale, but he father and I enjoyed it immensely.Sonja is afraid of rats, mice and anything that crawls or flies. I wrapped her hands in mine. I was concerned that our ‘dolly pot’, thanks to Fr, Mc. Intyre, would not be mashed up on our lawful honeymoon night. Have a brave heart, My Darling, I murmured., in her hair, Pay the old malicious coot no mind.My love for you will keep away rats and mice and birds and anything that crawls, creeps, walk or fly that we don’t want to be around nor near to us. Trust me!"

Her smile was worth a million dollars! Apart from Fr, Mc. Kintyre’s scary tale, scary for Sonja that is, our wedding lunch was mightily fine, my father-in-law being cordial to me for the first time, and both Sonja and I were very hungry and thirsty. We, therefore, concentrated on the food to begin our wedded lives.

The ancient wall clock struck three o’clock. It was a Sunday. I can’t explain what got into me to get up, sat at my desk in my pyjama shirt only, and seized a sheet of paper and a pen. Whatever I write, I type into to my computer. An English woman—we were aboard a BWIA jet from London to Jamaica—once told me that all I need to write is a sheet of paper and a pen. I told her that I think some elbow grease is also necessary. She said that her husband, a reticent Britisher had plenty of that, he was a producer. I told her that more than that was required; one had to have some talent. My share of elbow grease, it seems, has come to me at last. I hope some talent has come with it.

I left Sonja in bed. That does not happen often. She tends to rise before me. She is still the same petulant person. I mentioned some time ago—a little more petulant, day by day, I ought to say. But we are happily married. I, especially, since I managed to wriggle out of the bleating and smelly prospect of becoming a sheep farmer. My wriggling excuse was simple. I like lamb chops, but I am chronically allergic to wool on a live sheep. And that’s not a lie!

I left her soundly asleep, lips slightly parted, a puerile look on her rigid face, and a suggestion of a snore was intermittently escaping from her slightly heaving breast. I needed not to have have turned on the light to look at her. I could have guessed that the baby panther had crawled up close to her, as soon as I left the bed. Though most women are afraid of feathery things, flying things and creepy,crawly things, it seems to be the fashion of sophisticated ladies to have cats, poodles, chimps and even big dogs dressed in cap and gown in their beds.

Amuntuli gave us his pet panther as a wedding present. God only, knows how Sonja is going to be separated from that playful beast, when it becomes inevitable to part with him. He sleeps in our bed at our feet, and sometimes he snores. I would have liked to do grievous harm to Amantuli, but he left shortly after our wedding for his beloved Tanganyika, without notifying me. I have not heard from him nor of him since. He is probably entirely engrossed in erecting his harem. Has no time to write. But he might have shown given us a more conventional wedding present or none at all,.and have bidden us a proper goodbye.

Wait till we reach that bridge, Sonja said, whenever I talked about parting with that potentially vicious pet. The longer we keep him, the more painful it will be to part with him, I kept on advising her, but to no avail. She named him Panty. short for panther. I explained to her that that word was already being used to name a piece of flimsy, feminine garment. Therefore, it couldn’t be appropriately used to name a wild, ferocious jungle beast.She replied that panties not panty is the other word. Whenever I explained that Jamaicans rarely, if ever, say panties, they say panty, just as they say t’rows—as and t’rows—is " instead of trousers, disregarding all and sundry, pronunciation, number, gender, person and Agreement of Subject and Predicate, she asked me if learnt about homonyms in school. She has insisted that Panty it is, and Panty it shall be. It took time to get used to the sounds, Panty! Nice boy, Panty! Rude boy Panty! Come here, Panty! Play with me, Panty! Lie down, Panty! Panty, are you hungry? Eat up, Panty! Are you feeling hot, Panty?

Yeah, Sonja is very happy that the mad-cow disease has been brought under control, and we can get imported beef-steak from France, as often as she cares to grill it, which is very often. I brought some seasoning from Jamaica, seasoning in attractive packets, manufactured at a place called Walker’s Wood. Man, those seasonings give a distinctly Jamaican tropical flavour to all British meat, that if you know what a Jamaican tropical flavour is like, garlic, peppery and pimentory-all-spice! I taught Sonja how to use them with truly startling, finger-licking effect.

Sonja, is wonderfully happy with Panty and me. She adores our French poodles, Poo and Pooch. She abhors, yet tolerates Bellows, our smelly, old British bulldog. She is persistently complaining, since our return from Miami, that I have not told her the long story I promised her. about my ROAD TO DAMASCUS mission. Never make a promise to a woman that you don’t intend to keep. That will be perpetual grief! Sonja was a real true-life, flesh and blood character involving herself in that story, so I presume to excuse by thinking that there was not anything to tell that she does not already know. I have been thinking to explain to her that I am no longer obliged to relate to her what she has already experienced, but I have been vacillating.

Much water has passed under London Bridge, and all other other bridges, since my sad and immemorial escapade in Jamaica. I had gone twice to the United States, since, in search of Diamon Toot and his kids. I was bent on keeping my promise to Lucilda to find her kids and restore them to her. I think I did mention before that I never leave off an assignment until I have concluded it. Two years went by, and I drew blank, but I persisted. I never did give up to the end.

I was still with the Secret Service, but there was an understanding with Lord X, when I set out to go back to Miami, to resume my search. No more of those cloak and dagger assignment for me! I was undertaking only minor diplomatic assignments that required no hard dealings. Sonja would not permit it. In fact, she wanted me out of Scotland Yard, and she succeeded eventually. I managed to convince her that I am unsuitable and useless for any other type of job, including sheep farming. She suggested that I wouldn’t have to work. How will I manage to support the lifestyle of my extravagant wife, I bantered, you, Panty your pet panther, Bellows and the poodles, as well as myself? Policing is the only job I know, and I am too dumb to learn another-not even to be a shepherd? I teased.

I wouldn’t want to be a connubial parasite, you see! You know the type of spineless, scheming, parasitic male who demands alimony from his rich wife, which he uses to keep other women.

Yeah! Much water has gone under the bridge! My search, sanctioned by Lord X, was suspended following the WTC September 11th. inferno that rocked American, as well as the world, but worst in the heart of America where it actually happened. Lord X recalled me to London to join a special corp to help to nose out possible suspected IRA and Sinn Fein terrorist activities in Ireland. Car-bombing was becoming prevalent. Yeah! ` Terrorists had toppled the WTC 110 stories-twin towers. I was in Miami at the time, searching, under the aegis of the FBI, for Diamon Toot, his kids and Kersene Ile!

Too much optimism is a grievous fault of Sonja. She is also very self-opinionated. Whenever she holds on to an idea, it virtually requires a bomb to dislodge her. She hopes to meet the Governor-General of Jamaica., one of these days. She thinks he is rather handsome, charming and dashing. Probably dashing and charming, but I don’t think he is rather handsome. I am wondering why do young women find older men rather handsome, dashing and charming. I sometimes think that they are thinking of the fatter and sometimes more generous pocketbooks that are usually owned by older men. Some women think that it is better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave. Believe me, I don’t think such a disposition can be accounted to The Father Figure nor to Oedipus Rex complex

A self-preservation principle of all secret-service operatives is to disassociate oneself, as quickly as possible from a completed assignment. But it is impossible for me to do so, in the case where my own grandfather, Pappy. George and Raymond had met their tragic and brutal end, and I hold myself somewhat responsible for Pappy’s death. It is not possible to be coldly indifferent, impersonal and forgetting. I am curious to know what ensued after I killed my schoolmate, Vincent Chew. I browsed the Jamaica Gleaner for several weeks but gleaned very little from them, except that his employees had discovered his body, and called the Police. It was felt that he was murdered by someone he probably knew. The extermination of Chew will go, the way of the riddles of killings, added to the Jamaican nation’s rapidly increasing inventory of unsolved murders. His cache of guns, money and heroin apparently had not been discovered.Pappy’s house? It has probably been vandalized, by now, or occupied by squatters.

As I mentioned several times before, I am not in the habit of abandoning an assignment. The rougher the assignment gets, the tougher I get. The more mysterious the assignment becomes, the more my sleuth hormones are salivated to unravel it. I am like those inveterate and professional chess-players They never give up!

As I mentioned before, I was recalled from working with the Miami FBI in searching for Diamon Toot alias. Damascus Brown alias Tony Brown ,his kids and Greta Mire alias The Horse alias Kerosene Ilea, all suspected to be in Florida, in order to go join in investigative operations into suspected resumption of terrorism by the IRA.

I would have preferred to go after Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein and the Al Quaeda bunch, but I had made a solemn promise to Sonja never to engage in what she caustically loves to call my hanky-panky games. I regard myself as starving not to have been able to offer my sleuth hormones to work with United States operatives on the WTC holocaust triggered terrorist hunt. A man, in this life, can’t have everything; he has to let go of some things to save some things which are dearer to him.

I had wrangled permission out of Lord X to work with the FBI to crack a suspected drug trafficking, car-stealing and human –trafficking ring suspected to have their centre of operation in a township by the name of Boca Raton, Florida. I was attached to the Miami precinct under Chief John Sanguinettii., a pleasant sort of martinet who gets the job done without much fuss and fanfare. I was attached to Lieutenant Jim Proler, as his sidekick. He is a nice guy who treated me as a good brother would treat his sibling, the first time I was in Miami. By an arrangement between Chief Sanguinettii, and my chief, Lord X, under the wings of the D.E.A., I was assisted full time by Jim Proler, I was to work full time on finding Diamon Toot’, Gretata Mier and Diamond Toot’s kids, Jodi and Damascus Jr.

Sonja had insisted that we tie the matrimonial knot before I set out for Miami. It’s now or never! she had passionately declared. Bateman Carter, Listen to me! I won’t stand for any mor hanky-panky games, without me. I am not going to let you out of my sight! Let’s go see Fr. Mc. Kintyre immediately!

Her father, Major Joyce, although he didn’t approve his son-in –law -to-be, was mortified that she refused to allow him to plan a big wedding. The rest of that story