Black Rain Falling

by Jacob Ross

  He shrugged. ‘Best we could do, Digger, apart from arrestin everybody.’

  I chided myself for asking. Crime scene procedure had no relevance here.

  I told the officers to make a barrier with their bodies between the crowd and us. I lifted the canvas and saw why Lazar Wilkinson’s mother had hidden his upper body. A deep vertical slit ran down the length of his throat, his tongue pulled a couple of inches through it. A necktie killing.

  I closed my eyes and drew breath. Times like these, it came home to me how much I disliked this job.

  Miss Stanislaus folded her skirt around her legs and lowered herself beside me. For a moment, she seemed distracted by the boats anchored close to shore. ‘Missa Digger, y’awright?’

  ‘We got a job to do,’ I said. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Lazar Wilkinson’s T-shirt was buttoned up unevenly. Shiny basketball shorts, twisted almost back to front. No shoes and not a speck of dirt on his feet. I took photos, unbuttoned the shirt and ran my eyes along his exposed chest. I took more photos and directed my LED light at the eyes. Miss Stanislaus curled a finger under the waistband of the dead fella’s shorts. Ain got nothing in the world, I thought, that this woman wouldn’t bring a lil bit of style to. She must have seen my smile; looked at me as if I’d caught her in some guilty act. I slotted a close-up attachment to my cellphone lens and took some pictures of the fingers and feet. Then I brought my face down to the bruised flesh that went all the way round Lazar Wilkinson’s neck.

  ‘Strangulation – cord or wire – most likely fishing line pulled from behind with force.’ I pointed at the junction between the lower jaw and throat. ‘See how deep the cut is there? In fact, they break the hyoid bone. They kill the fella twice, Miss Stanislaus. They strangle him, then they cut his throat.’

  Miss Stanislaus raised her head at the gathering on the roadside.

  ‘This don’t look like no Camaho killing either,’ I said.

  ‘Is what?’

  ‘Look to me like a punishment and a warning. Trinidad had problems with that kind of killing about five years ago – always drugs related – the heavy stuff that wicked people kill for. Happened here once in my first year in the Department. We never found the killer.’

  I ran a toothpick under Lazar’s nails and deposited what stuck to it into a sachet. Then we began the slow, meticulous search of the area around the body. I took photographs, made notes, explained everything I did to Miss Stanislaus. She would file it all in that enormous memory of hers until we sat together to process the information.

  When I pulled back and glanced at my watch, four hours had passed. The sun had begun to sting and now there were twice as many people gathered on the road. News of the killing had, no doubt, drawn them from along the coast – people gone still-eyed and subdued once they’d been told the nature of this killing.

  I was weak in the knees and dripping by the time we rose to our feet.

  Miss Stanislaus treated her hands to a few daubs of handsanitising gel then offered me the bottle. I shook my head.

  ‘Missa Digger, I think they kill im on the beach. Laza Wilkins under-garments wet and rain didn fall last night. Besides he got sand down there.’

  ‘Down?’

  She pretended she didn’t hear me.

  I lowered myself and ran a hand under the waistband of Lazar’s shorts, then passed a finger across my tongue. I ignored the grunts of disgust from the officers above me.

  ‘You right,’ I said.

  She stood for a while, scouring the bay with her eyes, then fancy-walked towards the beach. I hoisted my murder bag onto my shoulders and followed her.

  The morning high tide had receded, taking with it whatever marks that might have been made on the sand overnight. It had left a clutter of driftwood and seaweed behind.

  Miss Stanislaus pointed at a trough at the base of a lowhanging seagrape tree. The hollow was wide enough to fit a small boat. It was padded with straw.

  ‘Love nest,’ I said.

  ‘How you know?’

  ‘I’m not, erm, unaware of the nocturnal culture of Camaho, Miss Stanislaus. Part of the job, yunno.’ I avoided her eyes.

  She pulled away the straw revealing a bed of sand.

  We spent another hour there, sifting the sand around the hollow, combing the crushed grass and gouged earth on the bank above the beach. I pointed at the dug-up earth. ‘Look like he put up a big fight.’

  ‘Why they take his shoes?’ she said.

  ‘Hard to clean. They didn want us to know it happened on the beach. Like you, I wondering why.’

  ‘Mebbe they think we stupid, Missa Digger.’

  We moved over to the burnt-out jeep. I eased my way as far down the muddy embankment as it felt safe to go and pushed my head inside. The front seats, now bare metalwork, were far forward and aligned, the foot-well flooded with ditch water.

  I straightened up and scanned the crowd, pausing on the faces gathered in the road. Then I raised a hand at the officer in charge. ‘He’s all yours, Liam. I want y’all to leave this vehicle here overnight. Nobody to go near it, y’unnerstand? Treat it like your wife – in fact, treat it better.’ I turned to Miss Stanislaus. ‘We back here tonight.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  I’d parked near the little red bridge that led into the village. I sat in the car staring at the 200-yard stretch of road at the end of which the gathering crowd hung with an intent, mute curiosity.

  ‘Missa Digger, what botherin you?’

  ‘They come from every part of Camaho to feed on this. Give it a coupla months and is like it never happen.’

  ‘I sorry,’ she said.

  ‘About?’

  ‘Your modder.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about my mother.’

  ‘You was, Missa Digger. So, we build the story now?’

  I told her once that there were two stories to every murder: the one that happened at the crime scene and the bigger one which led to it – the machinations of the murderer and their motive. She’d never forgotten that.

  ‘Miss Stanislaus, I think we looking for two people at least. It take no less than two fellas to roll that jeep from the side of the road into the drain. One of them is very strong. Probably the murderer. I used to see Lazar Wilkinson almost every week driving through San Andrews in that Subaru jeep of his. He’s fit and full ov muscles. I figure the person who killed him got to be a lot stronger than Lazar because a fella fighting for his life will find the strength he never knew he had. Lazar put up a good fight. We know that by the way the place dug up.’

  ‘Why you want to come back here tonight?’

  ‘Becuz it will be dark, and this killing happened in the dark. All the signs point to them killing Lazar Wilkinson a couple of hours before the driver found him, which was around 4.47 in the morning. You kin judge that by the degree of clouding of the eyes. Like I say, I believe is a punishment and a warning. Question is: who the warning for? And why?’

  When I pulled up at Miss Stanislaus’s gate she rummaged in her bag and withdrew a brown paper bag. ‘A lil bit ov cornky. Mek sure you wash your hand befo you eat it. Shouldn matter anyway, specially since you been lickin sand off deadpeople body.’

  A chuckle bubbled out of her. I glared at her, which triggered another burst from the woman.

  Once outside the car, she poked in her head. ‘Missa Digger, we got to talk to Laza Wilkins’ modder.’

  ‘What you thinking?’

  ‘I thinkin Beau Séjour people say the woman kick an’ cuss but they never say she bawl. Mebbe she know who kill she son or mebbe she know why.’

  I saw the old excitement in her eyes, could almost hear that brain of hers slipping into gear. And I felt a flush of relief that this awful case had arrived – something for us to chew on and fight over in the coming days, to ease the passage of time until the hearing happened.

  17

  Lazar Wilkinson’s murder set the island buzzing: back-toback cove
rage on television, all-day radio phone-ins with lay preachers and Evangelists pointing to the murder as proof of the presence of Beelzebub, the Demon Prince Himself, taking residence in the wicked hearts of Camahoans. For some, it was evidence of the Second Coming. They backed it up with quotes from the Book of Revelations. They invented verses and said they came word for word from the Bible. A small-time politician from the opposition said it was a message from The Higher Powers that Camahoans had a duty to vote them in with a landslide. Dreamers and soothsayers had seen it coming years before, and this, they said, was only the beginning.

  Always, they talked more about the nature of the killing than the murder itself, except the drunk who garbled something over the phone that ended with, ‘Y’all is a bunch of jackass’.

  I nodded in agreement. I was hoping they would keep him on for the rest of the day, but the radioman cut him off.

  I switched off the radio, mixed myself a Camaho cocktail – three measures of Bacardi, one Cinzano, one fresh orange – juiced – and a dusting of cinnamon. I fed my CD player Bob Marley’s ‘Guiltiness’ and joined him in cussing all them blaastid downpressers who, without a shadow of a doubt, were going to eat the bread of sorrow, especially Red Pig, the Justice Minister.

  Malan called me close to evening, his voice thick with sleep. ‘Digger, what I hearing?’

  ‘Dunno, Malan Greaves, tell me what you hearing.’

  ‘Is all over the news about de killing in Beau Séjour. You check it out?’

  ‘Who check out what? We ain got a CID no more. You forget you fucked it up?’

  ‘Lissen, man, it wasn—’

  ‘Wasn what? Your idea? You want to lie for me now? I read your report to the Justice Minister. Tell me one thing before I put down the phone on you: why? Gimme the real reason.’

  Malan went quiet for a while. ‘Put yourself in my shoe, Digger—’

  ‘Nuh, I don’t want to do that. Especially that!’

  ‘Digger, I tryin to have a conversation with you.’ Malan sounded plaintive. ‘I work five years in that department. Chilman was s’posed to hand over the runnings of the place to me after he retire, but de dog won’t let go. He resign but he won’t leave me to do my job. He give himself new title – Consultant Without Borders or some shit like dat. Dat’s not no post; dat is provocation! Why people goin offer you a job, give you a title and not give you a chance to do de job! Eh? He insult and undermine me everywhere I turn. He override every decision I make. Then he employ dat woman to mind my bizness and challenge everything I say. And yunno, I let him do it becuz I dunno how to fight him back. So, what you expect me to do?’

  ‘Leave the job. Resign! Go back to Grand Beach and sell your marijuana like you used to before Chilman gave you a job. Not mash-up a whole department and spoil everybody’ life.’

  ‘Digger, you cussin me and I taking dis from you becuz we work togedder. Else—’

  ‘Else what? You’d come here and shoot me in my house, not so?’

  ‘Okay, Digger.’ He’d dropped his voice. ‘I going to call you when you cool off.’

  ‘You didn mention the promotion, Malan. Chief of Patrol.’

  He went silent, and then switched off.

  I left home at 10.30 for Beau Séjour, the site of Lazar Wilkinson’s murder. Miss Stanislaus was waiting for me on the grass verge outside her gate. I’d called her before I left and asked her to dress differently. She’d done something with her hair that made her look much younger. She’d put on a dark denim shirt and a loose-fitting pair of slacks that were elasticated at the feet, and to compensate for the shocking lack of colour on her part, rainbow-coloured canvas shoes. No handbag.

  ‘Where’s your protection, Missa Digger?’ She dropped sceptical eyes on my belt. ‘Becuz Malan take mine.’

  I reached into my glove compartment, took out the Glock and held it out to her. She looked at the gun, then at my face; kept her hands folded in her lap.

  ‘I figure you in trouble already and it can’t get worse. And I thinking about you on your own in that house with Daphne, yunno. Anyway, if you get caught with it, the trouble is mine. Is I give it to you. Besides . . . ’

  ‘Besides?’

  ‘I figure you been feeling naked without Miss Betsy.’

  ‘Dunno what you gettin at, Missa Digger.’

  ‘Depends on how you hearing me, Miss Stanislaus.’

  ‘Missa Digger, I been thinkin – I been thinkin that a woman was involve’ with Missa Laza Wilkins. You want to know how I know?’

  ‘I listening.’

  ‘The two front seat of the car that burn – they don make no sense.’

  ‘I not following you, Miss Stanislaus.’

  ‘Think about it, Missa Digger.’ She smacked her lips and sat back. I visualised the burnt-out car, the two front seats perfectly aligned, pushed up against the dashboard. Straightaway I saw what Miss Stanislaus was getting at and I was appalled at my carelessness and Malan’s stupidity for wanting to get rid of this woman.

  I’d seen Lazar Wilkinson driving that vehicle many times. He drove with the seat pushed back for legroom, adjusted for a man six feet tall – like me or Malan.

  Besides, both seats were too far forward for anyone to sit comfortably. It also meant that whoever killed Lazar Wilkinson had never seen him driving, or—

  ‘Mebbe they was in a hurry,’ Miss Stanislaus interrupted my thoughts. She did that sometimes and it always unsettled me.

  Why would anybody want to adjust the seats of a car they’d torched unless it was so obviously out of place in the first case that . . . I glanced at Miss Stanislaus. ‘So what you saying is that the seats might’ve been flat down and somebody straighten them up before burning the jeep?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And you thinkin flat-down seats mean bed, and bed mean woman for a womaniser like Lazar—’

  ‘Could’ve been a fella—’

  ‘Nuh! Ain got no Camaho fella who’ll want to be found dead lying in a car by the roadside with another fella, especially in the night.’

  ‘Missa Digger, it look to me as if they didn’t want nobody to think a woman was involve’. Is why they bring Missa Laza Wilkins back to the roadside, take ’way his shoes and even wash his two foot, and then burn the jeep. What I guessin, Missa Digger, is Miss Lady start him off in the car, then interrupt his bizness.’

  ‘Their bizness, Miss Stanislaus.’

  ‘Den she make im take ’er to the beach.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For decency, Missa Digger – woman got a lotta that. Fellas ain got none. She must’ve tell him she wasn comfortable by the road, she prefer somewhere private. In other words, she reduce him to de beach.’

  ‘Seduce, Miss Stanislaus. She seduced him.’

  ‘Same difference, Missa Digger – he dead, not so? So is reduce she reduce im.’

  I swung the car onto the road and grinned at her. ‘Yes, Mam. If you say so, is so.’

  A pleasant Camaho night. A high wind was coming off the sea and cooling down the island. Miss Stanislaus dropped a small parcel in my lap. I smelled potato pone.

  ‘Missa Digger, I been thinkin dat everything I say make sense ’ceptin the part where the woman tell Missa Laza Wilkins to take ’er to the beach. I wonderin if he won’t get vex and tell ’er, no. He not going to force imself on ’er? I mean, right dere in de jeep, like how y’all—’

  ‘Miss Stanislaus, not all fellas do that.’

  ‘They don’t?’ She went quiet for a while. ‘Well, that mean she different from all Missa Laza Wilkins’ other little wimmen. She have to be a woman he got the heats for.’

  ‘Hots, not heats.’

  ‘Same difference, Missa Digger. Mebbe it was the firs time? Mebbe she strong-mind enough to make im do what she want him to do?’ She cocked her head at me. ‘Missa Digger, you don think we need more wimmen like that in Camaho?’

  I could hear the mischief in Miss Stanislaus’s voice. ‘All of that is guesswork so far, Miss Stanislaus.’
<
br />   ‘I know, Missa Digger. But is good guesswuk!’

  18

  I dropped Miss Stanislaus on the bridge that began the stretch of road into Beau Séjour. I drove straight through the village, rounded a couple of corners and parked under a tree that overhung the road.

  What I didn’t tell Miss Stanislaus when she asked me why I wanted to return around this time was that I believed Camahoans are a people of the night. We become our true selves in the dark.

  I’d seen self-righteous politicians, god-fearing wives, fireand-brimstone preachers and high-flying lawyers in places and positions that would appal the dead. Come night-time, right was no longer what the law books dictated. Right was whatever a person could get away with. All the things that would not pass their lips by day became the meat of conversation in the dark.

  I’d wanted Lazar’s burnt-out jeep to remain there because it would draw the curious, and hopefully bring out those who – assured by the cover of darkness – knew something about his murder. Even a criminal might want to see the effect of his handiwork on others.

  The place was jumping with people. Coalpots threw off the smell of roasted corn, barbecued pork and chicken. Women moved around their fires like fat, industrious ghosts. News of the killing had drawn folks out from as far as the inland villages. A couple more murders around the island and the local economy would be booming. No need to tempt foreigners with sin, sex and serfdom.

  Miss Stanislaus had gone ahead of me. It took a while before I spotted her at the fringe of the crowd, and that was a good thing.

  I kept an eye out for young boys.

  I had only to find my way to a food-stall. Growing boys were always hungry, drawn to food – or the smell of it – like bombo flies to a corpse. I slipped through a group of them and asked for a mix of roasted corn, barbecued pork, curried goat and chicken. I placed myself just outside the small circle. Sure enough their chuckles and gossip dried up. I felt their eyes on my hand.

  I gave it a couple of minutes, soured my face and turned to them. ‘Food smell so good. But I buy too much. Y’all want to help me?’