Mary Francis Colt loved her job working as a secretary for John Fulton, public defender. For a girl growing up in Lakeview, a small Florida town in the turbulent 1960s, it was a solid opportunity for a better life. Mary Francis dreamed of bigger and better things. But that all comes crashing down when she is kidnapped by Bonelle Jackson, the irrational and dangerous mother of two men her boss helped sent to jail. When their mother's plot to break them out of jail is foiled and one of the sons is killed by police, Bonelle brutally murders the innocent Mary Francis and abandons her mutilated body in the swamps. Soon, law enforcement officials are hot on the manhunt for the escaped convicts and their murderous mother. Benji Goldman and Charlie Pepper become involved when they discover the body of Junebug Black floating in the water off of Monkey Island in Lake Harris. Now they must determine if these two murders related-before another person winds up dead.

Monkey Island

By Thom Weekley

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Thom Weekley
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-5179-3

Chapter One

1968

A warm blast of air greeted her when she opened the door of her Impala. 'It's summer time now.' she thought as she exited her vehicle. Mary Francis Colt was a local born girl and the secretary for the Public Defenders' Office in the 9th Judicial District of Florida in the sleepy southern town of Lakeview. His name was John Fulton. She had worked for him for the last six years and was a faithful and trust worthy employee, even though he wasn't always equally faithful to her as an employer. Their office was in downtown Lakeview and he was set to oversee all the people accused of crimes in criminal trials when they were deemed indigent by a judge and could not afford to hire a private lawyer. Her duties included typing legal briefs and letters, preparing John Fulton for trial, answering the phone, and the most important of them all—make sure there was a hot cup of coffee on his desk when he got to work in the morning.

As she fumbled through her purse to retrieve the office keys, she opened the door, picked up the copy of the Lakeview Chronicle and went to her desk. She hung up her jacket on the wall peg next to her typewriter as she usually does in the morning, put the keys back into her purse and went to the coffee machine to make the strong morning java. When the coffee started brewing, she returned to her desk and went through her purse looking for her compact in order to put on her professional face for the day. The compact slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor. As she went down on her knees to pick it up, she saw a pair of shoes of a woman standing over her. They were the shoes of Bonelle Jackson, a person who had been pestering her and John lately about her two sons.

"Git up off'n the floor, bitch!"

Mary Francis looked up into the steely eyes of Bonelle and immediately noticed the snub noised revolver in the black woman's hand. "Please don't shoot, Bonelle. I have two children at home. Who will take care of them?"

"I got's two boys too and they in the Lake County jailhouse cause your boss man didn't defend them well enough to get them off."

As Mary Francis struggled to get up through tears and an awkward position, grasping at the corner of her desk she once again looked into Bonelle's eyes and the gun she was brandishing in front of her.

Bonelle was born in the outskirts of New Orleans in a black Cajun settlement called Pointe du Alb. She had grown up hard. She started washing clothes when she was ten to buy food for herself and her alcoholic mother and had turned prostitute by the time she was twelve. By then she had a steady clientele of rich white men who liked nothing better that to snuggle up to a pretty young black girl and pretend to have intercourse. Bonelle had been beaten several times when the flesh didn't exactly keep up with the urges. She married Somali Jackson when she was fourteen and by the time she was sixteen, she had two babies, Goshawn and Marjoe Jackson. Somali went back to his homeland in Africa at the birth of the second child believing that he was not the fatherly type, leaving Bonelle to raise the boys by herself.

It was at this point in her life that she began to practice the dark at of Santeria, a Caribbean version of a West African religion that involves animal sacrifices and magic spells. She became so involved that she studied to be and got the position of a woman's version of orisha called iyalorishas (mothers of orishas). In the Santeria religion, this would be like a priestess position and she vowed to make her two sons, Marjoe and Goshawn members and santeros, or priests, themselves.

She moved to Lakeview soon afterwards and became involved in organized crime by becoming a numbers runner for an illegal Traffficante bolita syndicate in Tampa. Her job was to sell bolita numbers to the poor people of Lakeview and deliver the prize money, if there ever was any.

She had recently been involved with a local bolita hustler named Junebug Black. He sold numbers on his own and hardly ever paid off any winnings. The Trafficante family found out about Junebug and ordered Bonelle and her boys to take care of business, in other words, permanently nullify the problem which was costing them money and giving the family a bad name. When Bonelle confronted Junebug, a fight ensued and her boys were locked up for racketeering and attempted murder.

John Fulton was appointed to be council for Bonelle's two boys. At the time Fulton had an overwhelming case load and the States Attorney had a box load of evidence which included two pistols and two switchblade knives. They also had eyewitness testimonies from several patrons of the 2 Spot bar that told the court about them. They were GC, Connell and Prince. They ended up getting ten years in prison which would be reduced to three years on good behavior. Junebug was let off with probation. Bonelle steadfastly blamed John for their conviction and tried every way she could to get them out of jail. She even called one time to threaten John and his wife with death if he didn't convince the judge to release them from prison.

When Mary looked up she saw Bonelle pointing a pistol at her head. "I want's to see Mr. John. I want's to see him right damn now!" Bonelle ordered. There was a threatening tone in Bonelle's voice that the secretary had not heard before.

"He's not in yet. Can I help you, Bonelle?" Mary responded nervously through tears. When Mary looked up at the stern faced black woman, she saw the snub nosed revolver pointes right at her head. This sent the shivers right up her spine for she knew that this time there was going to be real trouble.

"Git on up! Git on up now! I don't have time to wait for Mr. John, so you will have to do."

As tears flowed from the Mary's eyes, she exclaimed, "What are you going to do with me?"

"Never you mind, now git on up of'n the floor."

Mary rose from her crouched position and reached for her purse. Immediately Bonelle snatched the purse out of her hand saying, "You might'n have a gun in there. I'll take this right now."

Mary reached for a Kleenex from her desk top and wiped the tears from her eyes and Bonelle continued, "You'll have plenty of time to cry later, now takes me to your car. And remember, I has a gun at your back so don't try any crazy business or I'll put a bullet in you so fast it will make your head swim."

A pigeon walked at their feet cooing as only pigeons can. He was looking for a tiny morsel of food and found one in an earthworm that struggled across the already hot sidewalk outside the office.

The two walked out of the building without locking the door. On the way out Mary saw her jacket hanging on the wall peg and thought that this would be a sign to John that thing had gone very badly this morning. They headed to the parking lot where Mary was forced to open the passenger side door so that she and Bonelle could enter the automobile without Bonelle letting down her guard and avoid suspicion. Then Bonelle reached into Mary's purse and retrieved the car keys, handed them to Mary and said, "Now let's be on with it." As the car came out on Main Street, it turned toward East Town and the part of town that Bonelle knew well. It was a traditionally black neighborhood where there were some black entrepreneurs that owned shops, but most of the commercial enterprise was done by white people. There was a grocery store on the corner of Main and Rambo...