—I don’t know what you talking bout, she said.
—I saw her. I know where she was going.
—Go bout your business, Alicia Mowatt.
—You know where she was going too.
—I say I don’t know what you bloodclaat talking bout.
—You girls come up from Cross Roads like you know how uptown run. If you knew how uptown run, you would know who run it.
—You can keep your bloodclaat uptown then. Me gone.
I tell you a secret. Is not Jacqueline alone I name. I hate the name Janet, you see.
This is what Ruth Stenton was wearing when the crew from JBC TV came to her house at twelve noon, thirty-five minutes after the police had left: a pink halter top and a plaid tennis skirt.
The crew got to her house in Trench Town, a city ghetto six miles west of where the body was found, having just left Immaculate Conception High School where in asking for reactions from the girls, the girls first learned that Jacqueline Stenton was murdered. Ruth was outside her house—blue, yellow, and small with a rusty zinc roof and packed tight beside the others flanking it. The reporter had stepped through the picket fence gate, pausing when she thought of dogs.
—Me don’t believe no police. No sah, not me daughter. After them never show me no picture. Them say me have to come identify the girl, but me nah go nowhere fi go look pon dead body. And now TV camera in me house. You couldn’t make me fix up the whatnot and breakfront little bit? Is just like she fi do this. Damn gal probably in some house somewhere a laugh bout how so many people a talk bout her. What a damn gal love when people take notice. Her father she get it from. After she, me just say no more pickney.
—Ma’am, the police are saying—
—Oi, camera man, you can see me from this side? Under the tree no have too much shadow? Are we on the air?
—It’s not live, Miss Stenton.
—Wah? Then me can go put on me other outfit?
—Ma’am, what do you remember most about your daughter Jacqueline?
—Who?
—Jacqueline?
—Me daughter don’t name no Jacqueline. She name Janet. Same thing me tell the damn police, that me daughter don’t name no Jacqueline. Is who playing poppy show with me?
—Ma’am, are you saying this is not your daughter?
The reporter whipped out a photo she stole from the police headquarters. Ruth Stenton fainted.
This is how Grace McDonald made morning coffee. She scooped one more teaspoon than usual into the filter and set it in the coffeemaker. She waited, hummed with the machine, and turned on the TV.
Outside, if she looked hard enough, beyond her secondfloor balcony, beyond the trees in the front yard that made her town home look like country to the road, rush hour traffic was already starting up. Across the road was a wedding center that played Celine Dion all the time, especially Saturday nights, making her cringe. That was it, fucking Celine Dion. At work, the nurse would play her at the reception desk, even the hardcore sky juice vendor with his cart by the hospital gate would be humming that shit song from Beauty and the Beast.
On the morning news, in between Miss Jamaica heading off to Miss World and the rise in gas prices at the pump, was a breaking story about a dead girl from Immaculate Conception High School found at South Parade underneath a bus. Name withheld until the family had been contacted.
What Grace really wanted was a cigarette, cancer in the titty could kiss her rass if it ever showed up. She thought about combing her hair, making herself nice for the man who was going to show up like poof! as her mother liked to say. Her mother also said her black nail polish made her look like a lesbian.
Nothing wrong with jeans, even if the button was getting harder to button, she thought. And she had on an honest-togoodness floral top this morning, the tip of the neck was even lace. Thank God her lab coat would hide the rest of it, for she already felt like an idiot.
She did agree with her mother to wear lipstick, though, just because of how her mother talked about it like it was the new thing, the lick. Isn’t that what you young people say? The lick?
Dead girl arranged on a blanket underneath a bus in broad daylight. Maybe this going be the lick now in this goddamn place. Pretty but so scrupulously violent. When she was in med school at Georgetown she used to joke with her friends that if they really wanted to be trauma surgeons they should do their internship in Kingston, at Dutty Public—the (un)popular name for Kingston Public Hopsital.
The phone rang. It was the director of public prosecutions, Michael “Barracuda” Barracat.
—McDonald, you see this business on the news?
—What business, Mr. Barracat?
—Come, girl, I’m in the middle of bush and hear about it before you?
—Sir?
—The Immaculate girl. My own mother just called me about it. Damn woman bawl so much she almost short circuit her phone. Ole girl went to Immaculate too, you know. Pull!
—Sir?
—Shit.
—Excuse me, sir, I don’t get—
—One second, McDonald … How you mean, Busha? Your eyes in the back of your head or the front of your backside? You totally launch that at the wrong angle, you damn ass … Then you go and find it while I shoot the next one … Pull! Ha … yes … McDonald. Sorry about that. Some people think they can cheat at clay pigeon just because they name Sanguinetti.
—Are we back now?
—Yes. Sorry. So, my girl …
—You talking to me?
—Yes, McDonald, back to you. I swear these new mobile phones are nothing but grief. Try holding one with your shoulder and shooting. Impossible. Simply impossible. Don’t get one, McDonald. Anyway, I need you to work on that girl today, you hear me? I already getting calls out here that this case need to move fast. Very fast. What nasty business, eh? Murdering an Immaculate girl. Almost make me wish it was Merl Grove girl, but that’s a terrible thing to say, don’t it? What school you went to, by the way?
—Wolmer’s.
—Good enough. I hope to Jesus she’s not from uptown. Otherwise this thing could get sticky.
You make me pack big bag and leave my mother house. Stop calling me little girl.
This is what Ruth Stenton was wearing when she went to the morgue on North Street, two miles northeast of where they found her daughter’s body: a cream satin dress with ruffles round the neck and lace down the sleeves. The hem flounced several inches topside her knee.
Her Jheri curl wet look was still damp. She dabbed her neck-back with bath tissue.
Ruth Stenton had fainted at the sight of her daughter in the police photo but still didn’t believe it. She was going to know once and for all that very day. First she went to her sister in Rose Town to ask her to identify the body because she couldn’t take any stress from people who were bound to start talking about the loose mother who send her daughter out at four o’clock in the morning when school don’t start till eight o’clock.
No, the Sister said. If is she then is you why the girl dead, bitch, move you bomboclaat from me gate.
She took a bus right to the morgue but turned away from the entrance three times when she got there. That girl was somewhere at some man yard taking cocky and laughing at her mother, she just knew it. That photo didn’t even show her face too good. She was sure now, plus that was not even Janet’s school uniform. A higgler across the street was blasting her boombox from a hand-built stall—Nelson Mandela has won the peace prize, the newscaster just said. Ruth went inside.
Outside the cold chamber, Ruth turned to the policewoman standing beside her.
—Me sick of people telling me that me never want me daughter. If me didn’t want me daughter she would have never born.
The policewoman looked at Ruth Stenton as if to say something, but pointed at the door. When Ruth had the urge to slap a woman, usually she slapped the bitch, but the policewoman had a club and a gun.
—Ma’am, you not the only person who have a viewing toda
y, the policewoman said. The room was dark and cold with the whup whup whup of the fan above. Three bodies were laid down on slabs. Two were draped. One, an old man with dried blood below his nostrils, lay exposed.
—What kinda place this? Ruth Stenton said.
A fat man with thick glasses, a white coat, and a large yellow notepad came in. He looked like a doctor at the door, but as he passed Ruth with his hurried shuffle he looked like a butcher. He said nothing and yanked the gray sheet off the head, stopping at the neck.
—Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, Ruth Stenton said. The man had pulled the cloth to the shoulder, but Ruth pulled it down further.
—When them find her?
—She was found in the morning hours, the man in the white coat said. Early-morning hours.
—Is stiff she stiff?
—The process of rigor mortis is almost completely gone, ma’am.
—What that mean? The news reporter say them just murder her.
—No ma’am, they just found her. We still don’t know exact time of death.
—You mean they never kill her in downtown?
—You’re going to have to ask the police further questions, ma’am.
—Oh. Her breast them just stand up so in this blouse. Is rape them rape her?
—You’re going to have to ask the police, ma’am.
—Then you never see things on her that not supposed to be there?
—You shall have to ask the police, ma’am.
—You must did see something when she come in here?
—She’s still in her school uniform, ma’am. That is how they found her.
Ruth pulled the cover down further.
—That is not her school uniform. The girl only in grade ten, this is a senior girl uniform.
—Ma’am?
—She didn’t have no ears-ring? On her, I mean.
—Whatever is there is what she had, ma’am.
—It worth three hundred dollars.
—As I said, ma’am.
—Uh-huh. You not saying much.
—Maybe whoever is the perpetrator took what you’re looking for, ma’am. You’ll have to identify the bag at the front desk, since they found it far away from the body.
—Where them find it?
—Let me see. Norbrook Crescent. That’s off Norbrook Drive.
—What the bag doing up in Norbrook? After the school not in Norbrook.
—Norbrook on the way if you drive down from the hills, ma’am.
—She look like she drive? What she would be doing going to school from Norbrook? She come from Trench Town.
—Ma’am?
—Stop call me ma’am, me no look like no rassclaat old woman.
—Don’t bother with the ghetto behavior in here, lady, the policewoman said.
—A who you ah call … I mean, excuse my French, officer.
—Ahem, are you saying these are not her clothes, ma’am? the man said.
—Since ah me is the mother who buy the school uniform, that is what me telling you.
—That’s what the victim was wearing—I mean your daughter, that is what she was wearing.
—Why my daughter would wear them things? She didn’t even like school too good.
—Ma’am, she was wearing those clothes and a pink underwear.
—Them make a man check little girl panty? Is what kinda slackness this?
—Look here, lady, I already tell you don’t give this man any trouble, the policewoman said.
—Make me see this yah panty.
—Ma’am, you can’t just—
—But this is not me daughter clothes. Officer, you of all people must know say is old-time panty this? And why me daughter in this uniform? Why nobody telling me that?
—Your daughter was not a student of Immaculate Conception High School?
—Yeah, but she not in grade twelve. She not even sixteen yet. No that me just say? Lawd a massy, is what deh pon me now, Father? You talk to that teacher yet?
These are three of the five questions that the autopsy specialist had about the girl but did not ask her mother. The other two he forgot after he received a telephone call:
1. Why was her uniform clean when her face, hands, and legs appeared to have all sorts of marks and bruises?
2. Was she alive downtown for any length of time or was she brought to the scene post mortem?
3. In what manner was she placed underneath the bus? How long after filing a report will the police try to forget about it?
3
You going to get me in trouble, you know. Is bad enough you have me leaving out on Thursday, now you have me doing Wednesday too.
The next day, Tuesday, October 26, the Star newspaper carried as its headline, Immaculate Girl Body Found Under Bus. The story had no statement from the police. Her mother said she was a good girl who liked school and was even going to become Catholic, and she doesn’t know which demon out there would kill her daughter. The director of public prosecution, the Right Honorable Mr. Michael Barracat, promised a speedy resolution to the case.
The article also quoted the head of the Jamaica Council of Churches, who said Jamaica must be going to hell when even decent little girls whose countenance would never ask for rape, get raped and murdered.
Two schoolgirls said they saw Janet being followed by a red Saab twice, the last time on Wednesday, October 19, five days before the discovery of her body. The same Saab has been seen on the school grounds more than once in the past few weeks.
One of her teachers, whose name is being withheld as the police proceed with their investigation, said she was a fine student, about to do well in the GCE O levels. On Wednesday, the Star had as its second-page headline, THE SEARCH FOR THE SAAB.
On Thursday, on the third page, in the top right column, the headline read, STREET VENDOR WANTED IN QUESTIONING.
This is what the police knew about Irie Bruce, sky juice vendor who parked his push cart every day outside Immaculate’s front gate. He said he wasn’t running when they caught him. Him was chilling with him queen when man knock pon him door, and in the ghetto when a man knock hard pon a man door it either mean gunman or judgment. No, him never hear no police say, Police! Open Up! Everybody know that police don’t make no sound when them pounce, them just sneak in like Nicodemus, a thief in the night. He said he didn’t have no reason why he didn’t sell outside the school on that day or the days after that. Him was just chilling with him queen when Babylon knock pon him door. You is a nasty rapist who fuck little girl pussy then kill them, that’s what you is, a policeman said. Twenty-four hours in the lock-up at Central Police Station, his left eye had swollen shut and he was so dizzy that he nearly shit himself.
Forty-eight hours later his two legs were swollen and he screamed at odd times that them shocking him with current up him balls. A white man, belly pushing out of his gray suit, showed up at the lock-up seventy-two hours after Irie Bruce was detained, asking if he was being arrested for anything other than not selling sky juice on the day Janet Stenton was murdered. He had an American accent. You come too late, him already confess, the policeman on guard said.
What going on? You don’t sound like you when you say that. I don’t know. You don’t sound like you.
These are the specifications of a Saab 900 Ruby:
Width: 70.9 in.
Height: 57.1 in.
Length: 182.9 in.
Ground clearance: 5.9 in.
Front track: 60.0 in.
Rear track: 59.3 in.
Wheel base: 105.3 in.
Cargo capacity, all seats in place: 15.0 cu.ft.
Maximum cargo capacity: 15.0 cu.ft.
EPA interior volume: 108.4 cu.ft.
The Saab 900 Ruby is only available in the UK. The lining of the trunk is gray carpet and not resistant to stains.
This is how you administer the Electric Boogie. Brandish an electric cord, ripped from an old appliance such as a blender, toaster, or table lamp, but preferably
an extension cord, which is longer. Cut along the seam to separate the two electric wires and trim rubber from the exposed ends. Wire on left is the fixed electrode, wire on the right is the movable electrode. Have a man in the appliance repair shop across the street attach a box so that it can be switched on and off. Subdue the perpetrator and remove all clothing. Insert dishrag in the perpetrator’s mouth to prevent talking. Suspect’s own T-shirt can also be used. Approach table large enough to hold suspect but keep hands and feet hanging off table. Employ three or four personnel to restrict movement of limbs, and cuff wrists and ankles to table legs. Pull back the foreskin and wrap the fixed wire around the glans of the penis. Insert plug in electrical outlet. Blindfold the perpetrator. Apply second wire to feet, mouth, nipples, anus, and testicles in random sequence. The closer the movable electrode to the fixed electrode, the greater the shock.
This is the transcript of Irie Bruce’s confession after the return to his jail cell: Me did was going to the school like me always do every day of the week. Me did was pushing me cart from the ice factory after me pick up crush ice for the day. Me did was walking from the ice factory down by Tower Street then pushing the cart west, then north until me reach South Parade Circle. That is when me did see the victim waiting at the bus stop for a bus. The place did still dark and streetlight still a glow. Me wonder why a girl all by herself out waiting for the bus when no bus was running yet. Cause me did know that no bus was coming for a long time, me allow lust to full up me heart. And it did full of wicked thoughts. Why me did full of wicked thoughts is cause me was a wicked person. Me walk up to her from behind and didn’t raise no alarm cause me want to perpetrate the act quiet. Nobody was there when me grab her and take her to water lane which did dark. The lane did was like fifty yard from South Parade—no, thirty yard; no, sixty yard. South. Me grab her neck with one hand and cover her mouth with the other one and pull her backaway, bout fifty, sixty step till we reach the lane. She struggle and elbow me, which is why me have bruise all over me rib cage and toe and ankle and cheek. And the side of me head. And the cut above me eye. All them cut and bruise is what she do when me dragging her. And when me beat her up. Me did ready and push her down and take out me cocky, but she kick after me and the foot catch me balls which is why me balls also bruise up. And me cocky. And why me little finger break. She do it, she do all of it. And cause me never get to use me cocky, me kill her. She make me mad, madder than woman ever make me mad. And me grab her and knock her and squeeze her throat with me hand. Them say me strangle her—yes, me strangle her. And she break me finger. She do it.
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