The Bone Readers

by Jacob Ross

A thick, heavily braceleted arm shot out of a window, sent a scattering of something pale into the yard. Another bout of alarmed squawking, then almost silence.

  ‘Only thing to quiet them. Food! Same with some people if you ask me.’ On the veranda, Chilman pointed at an old canvas chair. ‘Sit down and gimme a minute.’

  I sat back listening to the contours of a murmured conversation in the house. Chilman’s was an unpretentious concrete house on high pillars with a wide veranda. It hung over an incline that dropped down to the sea. A few coconut trees of the short variety fretted the walls with their fronds. From what I could glimpse inside, there were framed photographs of family on the walls, cushioned mahogany chairs, and a table with the usual burden of knitted doilies, plastic flowers and vases. The house smelled of cooking.

  When he came out, he had changed his clothes. He dragged a chair and sat in front of me, the hot red eyes steady on my face. He got up abruptly and switched off the veranda light. Now, only the yellow spill from inside the house lit up the space between us.

  ‘Okay, Digger, talk to me.’

  The secret to what was going on in Chilman’s mind was in his hands – what they were doing while the rest of him remained unreadable as stone. I’d learned that in my first month of employment under him, and kept it to myself. Now he’d interlaced his fingers and his thumbs were circling each other. Chilman was very, very worried.

  I decided not to mince words. ‘The woman you sent us to deal with the Nathan case just gone and stir up big shit, Sir.’

  ‘Spare me the attitude, Digson. Debrief me the way I taught you.’ The old DS’s voice had gone tight and edgy.

  I ran through the events of the day, repeating sentences and words whenever he flicked a wrist – part of the language he’d invented for our meetings at the office. ‘In brief, Sir,’ I concluded, ‘it was – to all intents and purposes – an execution.’

  I felt Chilman’s reaction rather than saw it. Night had rolled in quickly and his guinea fowls had taken to the roof of the house in a clatter of wings and jumbie cries.

  ‘At least,’ I said. ‘That’s how Malan would put it.’

  He said nothing for a long time. I could hear the whisper of the skin of his circling thumbs.

  ‘Tell me again – the riddle she give you ’bout killing Bello a couple times.’

  ‘It wasn’t a riddle, Sir. In Miss Stanislaus’ mind it was a fact. I checked Bello’s body at the mortuary before I came here. The point of entry of the bullet was the upper left edge of the shoulder blade, left side of the body. It exited through the shoulder.

  ‘From the angle of travel, she was most likely crouching low when she shot him, one of the shooting positions I taught her. No vital organs hit. Basically a deep wound with some damage to the shoulder joint and muscle – the anterior deltoid to be exact.’

  ‘In other words?’

  ‘In other words this talk about killing Bello coupla times was her way of saying he was already dead when she shot him. My conclusion is that one of the women killed him.’

  Chilman was massaging the side of his nose with a finger.

  ‘How, Digson?’

  I shrugged. ‘Serious trauma to the right side of his head, contusion of the skin directly above the temporal bone. Basically, something hard and heavy knocked him down – most likely a big stone.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘Who told me what?’

  ‘That she didn’t kill the deacon?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me, but she said so.’

  ‘Talk sense, Digson.’

  ‘Is sense I talking, Sir. Miss Stanislaus don’t lie. I believe she can’t. You got people like that; their brain sort of wired that way. They find lying almost impossible – which is not to say they can’t decide to withhold information… if that make sense.’

  ‘Make the point, youngfella.’

  It felt like the old days with Chilman guiding me along a no-nonsense line of reasoning. I used to love it and resent it at the same time – this cantankerous sonuvabitch trying to trip me up, tear apart my logic and toss it back in my face.

  ‘Like I say already, Sir, I believe one of the women did it – most likely The Mother. She got the strength to use a very heavy stone. I believe they planned to get rid of him. Miss Stanislaus might have even encouraged them. Whatever they had in mind didn’t work out the way they expected. But an opportunity came when Bello tried to drown Miss Stanislaus. They dragged him off her; one of them knocked him down. Miss Stanislaus decide to take the blame by shooting him.’

  I looked him in the eye. ‘What I want to know, Sir, is why Miss Stanislaus feel she could do a thing like that and get away with it.’

  Chilman sucked his teeth. ‘Use your brain, Digson. You’re an officer, you shoot a man while acting within the auspices of the law. Who going to arrest you – the same police you working for? That’s why she take the blame. Problem is, she miscalculate, or misjudge how Malan was going to deal with it.’

  He crossed his feet and leaned forward, the salt-and-pepper head bowed slightly. ‘Is the kind of thing that she would do. Carrying all that stuff inside her head – all that…’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘Sorry, Digson, Kathleen will have to tell you herself.’

  ‘I want to know what she is to you,’ I said. ‘I have a right to know.’

  Chilman threw me a red-eyed squint. I thought he wasn’t going to answer. He rubbed his head, then another slice of silence before he stirred.

  ‘Kathleen is my conscience, Digson. That’s what she is. The one I left behind on Kara Isle. Bright! Bright as firefly backside. She just didn’t have the chance the others here had. If she had she would be running this island better than the whole pile of them who trying to run it now.’

  His voice had retreated down his throat. ‘And you right, she don’t lie, not even to protect herself. That used to get her into trouble as a child.’

  ‘And you, Sir – how about you and lying?’

  I heard Chilman’s slow intake of breath. ‘I should take exception to that, Digson; but you an investigating officer and you doing your job.’

  ‘What is she to you?’ I pressed.

  Chilman waved aside the question. ‘You want a drink?’

  ‘No, Sir. I want to finish this business and go home.’

  The old DS stood up. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I want a drink.’

  He was in the house for a while – a series of rattlings and bangings punctuated by the protests of his wife.

  He returned with a bottle and a glass, filled the glass with the care of a dispenser, knocked back the alcohol with a quick jerk of his elbow.

  Chilman smacked his lips and sighed. ‘I tell you something, Digson. Them Trinidadians foolin theyself when they say steel-pan is the only thing that we, West-Indies-Man, invent. Is a lie. Is not we invent rum too? Before steelpan! It won’t surprise me if the fella who invent pan had a couple of shots inside him when the steel pan idea come.’ He chuckled at his own joke, wagged a finger in my face. ‘We got to make Kathleen official. She got to be an officer before all this shit break out.’

  Chilman slid the glass and bottle under his chair.

  ‘Malan wouldn’t…’

  ‘Fuck Malan. Sorry about the language, Digson, but you fretting me. Malan could’ve done the paperwork, employ the woman as instructed, weeks ago, and this would’ve been no problem. But that womaniser hate my arse so much, he decide anything that come from me not good. Even if I the one who pick up his arse from off the beach selling black sage to tourist and telling them is special marijuana. I give him a job and look – is that decision I make that cutting my arse right now. Digson, you ever wonder about my employment policy?’

  ‘All the time, Sir.’

  ‘I tell you something: a lil over thirty years ago, we had some young fellas running this island. Shit go down in the end, but I learn one thing from them: to make things happen you got to create your own bureaucracy. Else you�
��ll wait till hen lay cricket ball and cock grow teeth before you get a result.

  ‘Now,’ Chilman settled back, ‘Word of that preacherman death going to hit the island tomorrow. Y’all either have to ride it out or pre-empt it. I in favour of pre-emption – that’s a word, Digson? So, first thing tomorrow, press statement from the Department with all the allegations – all of them – against Bello. Don’t make it sound like speculation, make it sound like fact.’

  ‘You, erm, involving the Commissioner again?’

  ‘I always involve him. How you think you got your job? S’matter of fact,’ Chilman wagged an index in my face, ‘you owe him a conversation. Now, Digson, this is the essence of the story as it going to appear in the news tomorrow:

  ‘An officer attempted to arrest Bello. He resisted and gave said officer good reason to believe the officer’s life, and members of his congregation were in danger. Officer had no choice but self-defence. You notice how I word it, no name involved.’

  The old DS made a circle in the air above his head. ‘And while people out there still in shock, you go out and get hard evidence. You find it fast, Digson, because Camaho people not stupid. Leave them jackass foreigners to believe that. We who live here can’t afford to make that mistake.’

  ‘Malan, Sir…’

  ‘I tell you already, fuck Malan. Malan got no choice. He can’t say he had nothing to do with it. And if he say he didn’t, I will get one of those newspaper people to ask him in public why he allowed a woman who is not an employee of his Department to shoot a preacher with a gun that he himself accustom wearing.

  ‘You think I goin siddown on my arse and watch all my hard work come to nothing because of Malan feelings? A statement will be on his desk tomorrow for him to read out on the radio.’

  Chilman filled himself another glass.

  ‘You forgetting one thing, Sir: you retired. Is Malan run things now…’

  Chilman chuckled – a soft throaty sound. ‘If you really believe that, Digson, you wouldn’ be here right now. Anyway,’ he scratched his head and raised his brows at me, ‘Bello connection with the Nathan case surprise me.’

  ‘Soon’z Miss Stanislaus said it, it made sense,’ I said. ‘Even though Nathan’ mother not convinced the remains we uncovered is Nathan.’

  ‘Iona not wrong, Digger. That could never be the same Nathan she give birth to. H’was clothed in flesh and talking when he left the house. Now, all these years later, all she see is bone. So she right; is not her son; is bone. What the lab say?’

  ‘Report coming from Trinidad at the end of the week.’ I said.

  Chilman pushed himself off the chair. ‘Link all of it to Bello. Create a chain of evidence: Nathan, the business with the lil girls, and the young woman – what’s her name again?’

  ‘Alice.’

  ‘And in the meantime, Digson, when newspaper come to ask you questions, blind their arse with science. Use them big words you does show off with to make good people feel ignorant and small. Do that if you have to, because you’ll be buying time. I don’t believe Kathleen wrong about Miss Alice. Find that girl wherever Bello hide her. You do that and you rest the case. I done talk. I got a coupla calls to make. You sure you don’t want a drink?’

  ‘What’s she to you, Sir?’

  ‘What’s who to who?’

  ‘Miss Stanislaus.’

  ‘Use your brain.’

  ‘I want to hear you say it. What’s Miss Stanislaus to you?’

  He sucked his teeth, mumbled something about ‘chupid attitude’ and slammed the door behind him.

  I made the call before I went to bed. ‘Digger here. I just been talking to your father.’

  I heard nothing for a while – just the background rise and fall of women’s voices, the tik-tok-tinkling of night insects, a fretting child. Then, ‘How’s he, Missa Digger?’

  ‘Drinking but still thinking, Miss Stanislaus. Is a miracle he still got a brain. You plan to go to the office any time soon?’

  ‘You advise me to go?’

  ‘Nuh. You got good reason to stay home; you still recovering. Next time Malan interrogates you, I want you to tell him you were in shock, you were feeling a little bazodee because of all the confusion. You forgot how things happen. Bello beat you up and drag you in the water. He was trying to drown you. The Mother pulled him off. You run out of the water. When Bello come after you, some of the wimmen hold onto him. The others tried to hold him back. Bello broke away from them and was coming for you again; that’s when somebody hit him.’ I paused, ‘All that happen for true, not so?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Now I want you to add this part: h’was about to get up again, and with him having already made an attempt on your life, you felt you had no choice but to retrieve your gun and shoot him before he could turn on you again. You got that?’

  ‘Nuh.’

  ‘You want me to repeat it?’

  ‘Nuh. Missa Digger, that last part not true.’

  I could hear her footsteps and knew that she had retreated from the group.

  ‘I asking you to give yourself a chance, Miss Stanislaus. That’s what I doing. I asking you to do that until I clear up matters.’

  ‘Nuh.’

  ‘Miss Stanislaus, what’s the difference between lying and holding back the facts?’

  ‘One is a lie.’

  ‘They both doing the same thing in this case.’

  ‘How come, Missa Digger?’

  ‘They both hiding the truth – except you save everybody a lot of grief if you tell Malan what I tell you.’

  ‘Nuh!’ I could hear her breathing over the phone. ‘Missa Digger?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Is what I feel to say right now. Missa Digger, you like Julie mango? I got one for you.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘Beg yuh pardon?’

  ‘I say “not bad”. DS Chilman say to call him.’

  ‘Nuh!’

  ‘You not calling him?’

  ‘Nuh.’

  ‘You saying “nuh” to everything tonight?’

  I thought I heard her chuckle. ‘Nuh!’

  ‘Miss Stanislaus, don’t change your mind about the mango. Tomorrow I come for it.

  26

  I’d never known Pet and Lisa to begin work this early. The sun had just struck the waters of the Carenage and water taxis were bobbing against the sidewalk for the Monday morning work-rush to the government complex in Canteen. The bus terminal had just begun to boil with the thunder of incoming traffic, raucous with the shouts of harassing bus conductors.

  My arrival cut short Pet and Lisa’s conversation. I jangled my keys at them, dropped into my seat and closed my eyes.

  ‘What wrong, Digger?’

  ‘Lil headache,’ I said. ‘Not much sleep, yunno.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Things a little bit twisted,’ I said.

  ‘What tings?’ Pet said.

  She was sifting through the Friday post. She pulled out a brown A4 envelope, got up, dropped it at my elbow. I nudged it aside and turned around to face them. ‘Talk to me, ladies. Something on y’all mind?’

  ‘Digger, how’s Miss Stanislaus?’

  I dismissed the question with a flick of my head, held their gazes until Pet directed a glance at the window. ‘Talk out there say that something happen, yesterday?’

  Pet paused for my reply. I offered none.

  Lisa raised blue-pencilled eyebrows at me. ‘People say the Department kill a big-time preacherman? Is all over San Andrews.’

  ‘When y’all hear that?’

  ‘First thing this morning. Neighbour come round and tell my mother. I wasn listening but I overhear.’

  The two were looking at me closely.

  ‘Is true,’ I said. I rose to my feet and stretched my limbs. ‘Circumstances made it so that we had to defend ourselves.’

  ‘Who’s “we”?’

  I reine
d in my irritation. ‘I can’t get into that right now. I’ll talk to y’all later, although I not obliged.’

  ‘Okay,’ Lisa said. ‘Miss Stanislaus involved?’ Concern was etched on their knotted brows. Women! Not giving a damn about us fellas.

  ‘Yes, Bello – the Preacherman – assaulted her. He was going to drown her.’

  Lisa raised a hand to her mouth. ‘She awright?’

  ‘She’ll survive. Miss Stanislaus only look like a dolly, but she tough as gru-gru nut.’

  Pet looked up mid-chuckle. Her expression froze. Lisa sat down abruptly and began straightening her keyboard. I heard the rumble of Malan’s engine.

  When the vehicle stopped, Lisa squinted at the window facing the courtyard, her head jerking sideways like an anxious chicken. She soured her face and sat back. ‘Bad weather.’

  ‘More like a hurricane,’ Pet said.

  It was how they announced Malan’s mood. They were never wrong. It didn’t matter how laid-back he looked when he arrived. When times were good, one of them would say, ‘No rain today.’

  Malan grunted a greeting and strode into his office. I raised my brows at Pet and Lisa.

  I walked over to Malan’s door. I was about to turn the handle and enter when he raised a staying arm. His eyes were on his screen. I watched his changing posture, his narrowed eyes, the stiffening shoulders, the forward thrust of his upper body. The printer in the office woke and spat out a couple of pages. Malan lifted a finger at Lisa. She promptly retrieved the pages and brought them over to him. Malan took them, looked over his shoulder in my direction in a way that sent a current of unease through me.

  I retreated to my desk, sat there doing nothing. After a while Malan shouldered open his door, strode across the floor toward me.

  ‘So you went to Chilman house last night to make your report? I thought you was going home to rest?’

  I stood up to face him. ‘In the light of what happened yesterday, I wanted to get some answers from…’

  ‘Don’t waste your breath, Digson. I know what happen.’

  The women were quiet. Pet had stopped typing.

  ‘Hear me out, Malan…’

  ‘Why! Where’s your loyalty, Digson?’ He’d curled his lips around my name. ‘You Chilman likkle boy? He running you? How come you driving all the way to his house late Sunday night to make report?’