by Jacob Ross
‘I could take you home to feed your dog,’ I said.
‘Nuh – s’awright.’
I let it drop and turned to The Mother. ‘Mother Bello, where’s Amos?’
The Mother shouted the boy’s name. He came running down the steps of the house to stand before her.
I reached into my pocket, took out a dollar. I held out the coin to him, following the quick shift of his head before he plucked the money from my palm.
‘Amos, what’s yuh age?’
‘I ten,’ he said.
‘You remember Nathan?’
The boy nodded. ‘Uh-huh. He use to give us sweetie. He an Missa Jason.’
‘Missa?’
‘Jason – Jason gone long time,’ The Mother said. Her face relaxed into a smile. ‘He used to give the chilren sweetie. Jason was here for a coupla months, an then he go. People don’ always stay. Sometimes hard times bring dem here and when dem catch demself, dey tell we thanks an leave.’
‘He tell you thanks before he leave?’
She shrugged. ‘It don’t matter; thanks or no thanks, we do God work same way.’
‘H’was friends with Alice?’
The mother lifted her shoulders and dropped them. ‘I don meddle in young-people bizness.’
‘What business, Mother Bello?’
‘What all dese question for?’ She was suddenly fuming, the big body shifting in the doorway. The Mother’s voice retreated down her throat, like low thunder.
I had begun to dislike this woman. ‘Mother Bello, you really want to know what all these questions for? Well, I guessing Jason left the same way Alice left. I guessing that the same person who kill Alice, kill that youngfella too. And it wasn’t your husband who killed Alice, Mother Bello.’
I stopped, taking in the faces, the complete stillness of these women. ‘Is the pattern of the damage to the bones that tell me that. And if y’all think I making this up, lemme tell y’all what Jason look like: he was a slim fella, brownish curly hair, which most likely mean that he was light-brown in complexion. Nice teeth, so I guessin he had a pretty smile. He had beke features too – straight nose, that kinda thing. About same size as Nathan. Good-looking I think, at least in the eyes of Alice. Is jealousy that kill Jason. Some fucker with a fouet…’
I was about to turn around to point when a fiery snake of pain exploded across my shoulder. It arched my body backwards and dragged the scream out of my throat. I hit the stones, rolled over, glimpsed the downward arc of an arm. The fouet caught me across the chest. Pike stood above me, the knotted whip quivering in his right hand like an aroused snake.
I saw the flash of teeth. ‘Y’all couldha save y’all self – you an she. I goin deal wid she after I finish with you. Y’all shouldha leave what don’t concern you. Y’all too fuckin faas and stupid. Now yuh go dead.’
I heard the fast scuttle of feet around me, voices shouting the children back into the house.
I kept my eyes on the whip, my body still quivering from the shock. When the Watchman lunged again, I followed the swing of his arm with my body, throwing myself down the slope at the side of the house towards the swamp. Pike followed me, the whip-arm straight out, his bare feet peddling the slipping earth – a quick, dim spider-shape above me.
I struck mangue-water, scrambled over the mesh of roots towards a spread of brightness seeping through the mangrove. I pressed my back against a mangrove tree and watched Pike approach, crouched, lips locked down. He swung. I ducked. The whip hummed about my head like a hornet. I slipped around the tree and clawed my way onto the path that led up to the hill overlooking the church.
Not wanting to turn my back on him, I began backing up the hill.
Over there, in the yard, it was silent. A still mid-morning. On the mud track down below, between the mesh of trees, I caught a glimpse of yellow.
Pike’s teeth flashed as he got nearer. I followed his rising hand, his body’s backward arch. At the height of his swing, I dragged the belt from my trousers, convulsed my arm. The leather leapt; the buckle struck his elbow; bit; snapped bone. Even then Pike did not cry out. He staggered back, face twisted with the shock. He righted himself and leapt. I sat back abruptly on the slope, snapped the buckle at his ankle and threw him off his feet.
I saw him rise, heard the shot, watched him grab at air as if it were something he was trying to hold onto. The Ruger barked again, the sound flat and defined like a solid thing. Then three shots in succession, almost as if the weapon had lost patience.
Miss Stanislaus stood halfway down the hill, left leg forward, knees slightly bent, shoulders up to her ear. Her arms stretched out, full and rigid. I wished I could see her eyes.
I looked down at Pike laid out on the earth, his body dark and angular like a fallen shadow.
Miss Stanislaus adjusted her hat, dropped the pistol in her bag and hurried toward me.
‘Missa Digger,’ she said, her face so close to mine it was as if she were sampling my breath. Then she pulled away.
I phoned the office to update Malan. Could he arrange to have Pike picked up? He told me to leave it to him.
I limped along beside Miss Stanislaus to the churchyard. My right shoulder throbbed. The skin along my rib-cage felt singed. She’d poked my shoulder and my back and decided I would live. I had been moving when Pike struck and that saved me from the full impact of his first blow.
Miss Stanislaus wanted to know what made me so sure that it was Pike.
‘The pattern of the damage to the bones of Jason and Alice,’ I told her. ‘Dunno how I missed it. The impact from that knotted whip is not just in one location. The only thing that I thought could do that is a fouet.
‘Then my trick with Amos and Iona: when I gave the boy the money, he wasn’t sure if he should take it, he looked at Pike as if h’was checking for approval. Same with Iona – I offer to take her home to feed her dog. She looked back to see Pike’s reaction. She was afraid. All of it was unconscious.
‘Miss Stanislaus, after what happened to Bello on the beach, Pike locked them down. None of them was leaving there without his permission and it was getting worse – which explain why Adora crept out in secret with her little girl. Adora took a risk, you see, when she talked about the centipede. When she realise we didn get the message, she knew she had to run. She chose the middle of the night through all that mud and darkness.
‘I didn see none ov it and I been right in the middle. How come?’ Miss Stanislaus sounded distressed.
‘Pike is a special case, Miss Stanislaus. We’ll talk about him later. I’spose you work out by now that he is Amos father, and that Alice was the one he believe he own. Right?’
They were in the yard when we returned – the children quiet and still-eyed, leaning against the adults. There was no sign of the sour-faced Watchman.
Mother Bello stood in the middle of the space, tying and untying her headwrap. Daphne threw her arms around Miss Stanislaus’s waist.
‘Y’all know what connection Watchman Pike had to Deacon Bello?’
Silence.
I turned to the Mother. ‘You know?’
She would not look at me.
‘Half-brothers,’ I said. ‘Same father or same mother. I’ll know for sure tomorrow. Pike never got introduced as Deacon Bello brother to any of y’all? How come, Mother Bello?’
The women’s eyes were on her. I watched the readjustment of their postures and I knew that Mother Bello would not be among them for long.
Iona’s throat was working as if she were struggling to swallow. She turned her head in the direction of the church door, still swallowing hard. Then she levelled stormy eyes at Mother Bello.
I edged over to her, dropped my voice. ‘Mebbe Adora take over? She’ll do a better job. I sure.’
Iona shook her head. ‘Is the Sisters who decide. But she – she good as gone. You want to bet me?’
‘Nuh.’
47
Thursday night, Dessie sent me an emoticon with an inverted face and a red g
listening teardrop just under its right eye. Whichever way I turned the phone, it looked the same. As soon as I could, on Friday afternoon I went to the bank. The teller I spoke to left her post and busy-stepped towards a glass door at the back. She knocked on it, then tentatively turned the handle. A woman came out after her, with the walk of an air hostess, her white collar bracketing her ears like butterfly wings.
‘Can I help you? I’m standing in for Mrs. Caine,’ she said.
I read her name, Passiflores Arielle, on the gold rectangle of her tag. ‘You’re Luther Caine’s PA; not so?’
‘Mister Digson, I can take care of it, I’m very sure.’
I looked in her eyes. ‘Miss Arielle, I got good reasons to want to see Dessima.’
‘She’s not here.’
‘When’s she coming in?’
‘Mister Digson, Dessima is not here.’
‘You just done tell me that. Where is Dessie?’
The woman wouldn’t look at me. ‘Sir, I can’t…’
I slipped out my ID and pushed it towards her. ‘Just tell me.’
The woman looked down at the card.
‘She, she’s in hospital.’
‘Where?’
She looked around her quickly. ‘I can lose my job for this, Sir.’
‘Relax. Pretend you serving me. What happen to her?’.
‘I can’t say, Sir.’
‘What happen to her?’
‘It’s… I can’t, I really…’ She turned to leave.
‘Miss Arielle,’ I said. ‘You forgetting something.’ I offered her a sour smile. ‘You forgetting you’z a woman too.’
I watched her start to walk away, the swing in her shoulders gone. I was about to leave when she turned around and came back to the counter, picked up a slip of paper, scribbled on it, and handed it to me.
I took it and told her thanks.
I went back to the office, phoned directory enquiries in Barbados. After that, I spent an hour or so making calls.
At work the next day, I emailed scans of my letter of employment, my salary slip, my passport and my police ID to the Cave Hill Clinic in Barbados. They called back and I spoke to a Doctor Philips for at least twenty minutes. After, I drove the five miles to Saint Paul’s.
Mrs. Shona Manille grew cattleya orchids and butterfly jasmines in the front garden of their old, white, colonial house, with gables and awnings and a veranda with delicate latticework.
Damson and plum trees created circular islands of shade on well-tended grass. White translucent curtains fluttered through big bay windows. There were books and photos of family everywhere in the living room.
Dessie had inherited her mother’s beauty. The woman floated about the veranda like a dancer, dressed in a loose flowing forest-green dress with enormous sleeves. Her thick cotton-white hair was scooped into a mound, held in place by an elaborate tortoise-shell comb.
‘Raymond’s shopping in Miami,’ she said ‘He’s back next Tuesday. You can talk to me.’
When I’d told her what I knew, she went to the phone and called Raymond-in-Miami.
She blew her nose into a white handkerchief patterned with pink hand-embroidered roses. ‘We didn’t know,’ she said. ‘Dessima told us nothing. Luther said she was taking a break in New York.’
‘Maybe Dessie wanted to spare y’all the embarrassment… Socially, I mean. I take it that you don’t know about last year too. Between January 5th and 17th?
She grew still, pulled up a wicker chair and sat down. ‘You talking about the baby she lost?’
‘That’s what Mister Luther told you?’
She gulped. I thought the woman was having a stroke.
‘Overdose.’ I said. ‘That’s all the clinic was prepared to tell me. Had to send my ID and a couple of other documents to confirm who I was.’
I wrote down the address of the clinic and my number and placed it in her hand.
‘I’m getting the plane this afternoon,’ she said. ‘We have family in Barbados. I’ll stay with them.’ She leaned forward, all dripping eyes and trembling lips. ‘Luther doesn’t know what he’s playing with. When I finish with that boy…’ She straightened up, shook the tears from her eyes and was suddenly calm again. Her self-control was frightening. Old money; I thought, old power. The Manilles owned the rum factory in the south, a couple of cocoa plantations, the biggest hardware store in San Andrews, and probably every string-puller worth pulling on the island. Them kinda people – a pusson don’t want to cross them. No, Suh!
‘I have to go,’ I said.
‘What did you say your name was?’ She was waving the paper at me.
‘Digger,’ I said, and left.
48
I admired the small miracle of Miss Stanislaus walking the mud-path to the church in a fine white linen dress and matching strappy sandals without getting a speck of dirt on her clothing. She wanted to see The Mother, she said, before our debriefing at the office.
Miss Stanislaus strolled into the church, looked around her briefly, pulled up a chair and sat in front of Mother Bello. I noticed that she hadn’t done her usual curtsy.
It was Saturday – usually a time of elaborate preparations for the all-day Sunday service – yet the yard was empty. It was odd how the absence of human sounds transformed the way I saw this place – just a pair of shabby buildings buried among the bushes on the edge of a festering swamp. Mother Bello was inside the church. The stammering Watchman sat on a narrow bench at the back. I saw no sign of his whip.
‘Mother Bello, what Miss Alice was to you?’ Miss Stanislaus looked agitated.
The Mother said that Alice was like a daughter. Life did not bless her with children of her own. Alice was nine when she took her from her grandmother in that hill village in Saint Johns, named Malaise. The old woman couldn’t manage the child anymore and so she offered to take her.
‘Amos is ten,’ Miss Stanislaus said. ‘Not so?’
The Mother said yes.
‘That mean,’ Miss Stanislaus leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, both palms pressed together. ‘That mean Alice had Amos when sh’was thirteen. From what Missa Digger tell me, that… that was the year after Edmund Hill Prison let go Pike and he come straight to the church. Not so?’
In the silence, I looked back at the Watchman. He seemed asleep or was pretending to be.
‘So, why you never let nobody know?’ There was a new quality to Miss Stanislaus’s voice – fretful, impatient.
‘As God is me witness…’
‘Don’t waste God time and ask him to do your dutty work for you. Answer me! Why!’
‘Deacon mek me.’
‘Mother Bello, you lie. Miss Alice never try to tell you what go on? Eh? You never notice no change in she behaviour? You wasn watchin she; you never use to bathe she or dress she, or comb she hair? You never use to talk to she. Eh? How come you didn know what yuh husban brother doing to she? And when it hit you that she thirteen years and she with child for a harden-back jailbird, what you do?’
Miss Stanislaus was on her feet and in the woman’s face. I thought she was going to strike her. I closed my fingers around her elbow and urged her outside.
Miss Stanislaus covered her face with her hands and pressed her head against my shirt. Soft sobs shook her shoulders. I held her until she quietened.
‘I going back in there,’ I said. ‘I not finish yet.’
We left the church at noon. The briefing was not till late afternoon so I took my time. Miss Stanislaus’s eyes were still swollen; I was wary of engaging her in conversation.
‘You talk,’ she said, when we got to the office. We were five minutes late.
Chilman had taken my desk. The old man grinned and winked at me.
‘I here at the behest of the Commissioner.’
Malan looked relaxed. Pet was throwing covert glances at Miss Stanislaus and I.
‘Okay, Digson, shoot,’ Chilman said.
‘That’s an invitation, Sir?’
The old
geezer scratched his cheek and grinned.
Malan shuffled his papers and tapped his feet.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘These are the facts as I see them: In summary: four murders – three committed by Pike Hunt, Deacon Bello’s brother. Pike’s victims are Jason Cullman, Alice Massy and Nathan Kurl, in that order. The last victim, Deacon Bello Hunt, was… well… I’ll come to that later.
‘Pike was Bello’s half-brother. The third of five brothers. All of them same mother. Apart from Bello, each had a record: harassment, criminal damage, threatening behaviour and various public order offences involving cutlasses, bootoo, stones, lengths of chain and knives.
‘Every one of Pike’s convictions refers to his temper, or to actions pointing to his temper. Basically, when Peter “Pike” Hunt goes berserk, he is capable of anything. On top of that he was pathologically jealous.’
‘Keep it simple, Digson,’ Chilman grumbled.
‘For most of his adult life Pike been in and out of jail for aggravated assault. His first son, Christopher Russ – aged nine – died from trauma to the lower spine. Pike was arrested on suspicion of murder but the boy’s mother – a woman from Moyah village – would not speak. They released Pike because of lack of evidence.
‘Pike was released from jail six and a half years ago for GBH – his victim was a school boy. He went straight to Bello’s church. Bello took him in and made him a Watchman.
‘Pike lay claim to Alice when she was twelve.’ I slid a look at Malan, but the Chief Officer had his eyes on the floor. ‘Alice was thirteen when she had his child – Amos. She was nineteen when she started selling provisions from Bello’s land in San Andrews marketplace. That’s where she met Jason, who came from Saint Mark’s parish to San Andrews looking for work. I got his phone number off Alice’s phone, and his details from his service provider. Alice brought him to the church. I don’t know if she ever told him about Pike or was using the fella as a shield between herself and Pike. In fact, Alice tried to run away once. Pike caught her and beat her up so bad he broke her shoulder blade with that whip of his. As a matter of interest, Pike always strike across the shoulder first.
‘The Mother confirmed that Jason left without notice. Now we know why.
