Storm Warning (Crime Fiction)

By Eugenia O'Neal

The Caribbean is not just sun, sand and smiling natives bearing coconuts full of fruity drinks! Far from it! Set on the imaginary island of St. Crescens, the five stories in this collection of short crime fiction will take you deep into the heart of an island society where poverty, corruption, greed and sex form a potent and explosive brew.

In 'The Dead Bishop' appearances are both deceptive and dangerous. Meanwhile, one woman's desire to transform her life has deadly consequences in the title story and, when greed meets desperation in 'Collision,' the body count rises. These and the other two stories will keep you guessing and leave you thinking!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eugenia O'Neal
• Release date: Jun 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301134045

Book preview

STORM WARNING

By E. A. O’Neal

Copyright 2013 by E. A. O’Neal

Maiden Hall Press

Storm Warning

by E. A. O’Neal

http://eugeniaoneal.blogspot.com/

Copyright 2013 by E. A. O’Neal

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Humble Nations

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re–sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Storm Warning

Collision

Face-down

The Righteous Ones

The Dead Bishop

Notes

Other Books Available

Dedication

Storm Warning is dedicated to Linda Evadnie O’Neal

1921 - 2013

Storm Warning

Set on the fictional island of St. Crescens, the five stories in this collection will take you deep into the heart of an island society where poverty, corruption, greed and sex form a potent and explosive brew.

In ‘The Dead Bishop’ appearances are both deceptive and dangerous. Meanwhile, one woman’s desire to transform her life has deadly consequences in the title story and, when greed meets desperation in ‘Collision,’ the body count rises. These and the other two stories will keep you guessing and leave you thinking!

Storm Warning

Shirley sat up and flexed her back muscles. She put her hands on her waist and bent forward then arched back, circled her shoulders. The pile of carpets beneath her were the cheap kind, hard and without much give. When she rose from them she always felt like her spine would break in two.

He was already standing and half into his pants. She watched him as he zipped himself.

It was good, yes? Yes?

It was all right, she said, shrugging. She rose and stepped into her panties, clipped on her bra, and dropped her dress over her head, her movements small and precise.

He ducked his head. Sweat appeared on his nose. Sorry, Shirley. Sorry. I know you did not come, not really, but I’m late. Layla, she’s giving a dinner tonight. Next time I will try to go slower.

Shirley didn’t answer. He had misunderstood.

Please, Shirley. I will make it better next time. You’ll see. Smile for me. I do not want you angry.

Shirley shrugged. She was tired. People in and out of the shop all day long because in four months it would be Christmas and everyone wanted to make sure they had new furniture, new rugs, new beds. Nobody wanted relatives visiting for the holidays to think they couldn’t afford to change up the house for Christmas. The only people Shirley didn’t see coming into Kabalan’s Furniture Emporium were the white people and the rich locals who lived in places like Belle Vue and Diamond Bay. Perhaps they had too many things to consider replacing them every year. Shirley remembered when the house of an elderly couple in Belle Vue was broken into and lots of silverware and jewelry were taken. The cops had no luck finding the burglar until, one day, the woman heard noises in a part of the house the couple seldom used. When the police came they discovered the burglar living in a small room on the ground–floor at the back of the house. He’d moved in after the burglary. Shirley had laughed and laughed when she heard about it on the news. She, herself, could see every room in her house from the front door.

It’s okay, Mr. Kabalan. No problem.

Good, Shirley. A smile spread over his cherubic face and Shirley felt a flash of what was almost affection for him. He dug into his pants, took out his wallet and held out a thin wad of bills.

Thank you.

I will see you tomorrow then, yes?

Yes, God willing.

Shirley picked up her handbag and stuffed the money into an inside pocket. She brushed past him, out to the showroom and then out to the street. As she walked to the bus stop she heard Mr. Kabalan pulling down the hurricane shutters he used to protect his store from burglars.

When the Pinelands bus came into sight, she flagged it down and got on. She took a window seat in the half–empty bus and opened her bag. He’d given her sixty American dollars. Usually he gave her a fifty dollar bill, the ten extra was probably because he was feeling guilty he hadn’t made her come. She slipped the money back into her bag and felt like she could have sung out loud. She was now making an extra two hundred and fifty dollars a week because, even on days when he couldn’t get it up, and just wanted to lie in her arms and tell her about his problems with his no–good children, he still paid her like they’d sexed.

Eight stops later, Shirley got off. Although late nights were dangerous in a place like the Pinelands because of kids and crackheads wielding kitchen knives and stolen guns, she preferred arriving in the late evening. Dusk forgave a lot in the Pinelands. In the half–light, the Styrofoam containers strewn on the ground, the sewage water running on the sides of the street and the half–naked little boys with their pee–pees out didn’t look so bad and she could always pretend she wasn’t smelling what she was smelling.

Evening, Miss Clara, Shirley called out to a woman sitting in her house, braiding her grey hair by an open window.

Evening, dearie. How you do?

Good, thank you.

Shirley waved and kept walking. Miss Clara was always ready for a chat but Shirley just wanted to get home. Five doors down, she took out her key and let herself into the small wooden house she and her husband rented. Tomorrow, she would deposit the money in the bank during her lunch hour but, tonight, it went into a box under the loose floorboard beneath the threadbare rug she had bought second–hand at the Red Cross shop on Mercy Road. She’d begun saving long before January when Mr. Kabalan first reached over to stroke her nipples and she had felt opportunity in his fumbled caress. Now she had more than eight thousand St. Crescian dollars in the account her husband knew nothing about.

She hadn’t told Gavia but she was planning their escape to the States. A couple weeks ago, she had gone to the American Embassy on Cudmore Way and submitted their non–immigrant visa applications. She’d forged her husband’s signature and she knew she could get into a lot of trouble for it but if she’d asked him to sign it, himself, he might have refused and forbidden her to apply. She wanted to present him with a done deal. He would find it much harder to object to their going if they had their visas. Once there, they would simply overstay. Get lost in that huge country and never return to St. Crescens. Gavia didn’t know about any of this. Gavia was the kind of man it was best to spring things on. If she told him way in advance he would only think up reasons to stay on St. Crescens. He wouldn’t see that they were going nowhere fast on this little two–by–four island. She’d had enough of it.

If they didn’t get through with the visas, well, she would wait and see but she was tired of the hard–scratch life and if she couldn’t get in legal, she would get in how she could. By the end of next year, God willing, they would be in New Jersey, one way or another. Her sister, Dorothy, was already there in a place called East Orange. Shirley thought that was a strange name for a place but her sister liked it there.

Shirley dropped her bag on the bed and headed to the bathroom. She stepped into the shower, a small concrete stall whose faucets were caked with lime, but the public water was running and it was still naturally warm so she was thankful for small mercies. Shirley washed her panty and hung it up to dry on the pipe holding up the shower curtain.

She heard the front door open while she was toweling. Gavia had arrived. He was taking off his boots in the bedroom when she went in. His gun was in its holster on the chest of drawers.

This day hot like fire, eh, he said in greeting.

You think it will rain tonight? she asked.

Maybe, maybe. What you cook?

Corned beef cook–up. That meant rice, corned beef, onions, corn, okras and whatever else she had found in the cupboard that morning.

Gavia left for his job as a security guard at Kabalan’s Lumber in Port Piparo at minutes to four in the morning because it took the bus almost two hours to get there and his shift started at 6:30am. Shirley woke up much later and cooked their dinner. Gavia would return home by four and eat what Shirley had left for him on the stove or in the refrigerator but, in the last couple of weeks, he had begun coming in late. He told her it was because he was putting in overtime but when she used the payphone down the road to call him one evening, the man who answered told her he’d left for the day.

Shirley never asked him about it. If it was another woman, it would end as soon as they left for the States. She never considered he would leave her. They had been together since she was fifteen and he was nineteen and now here they were in their thirties. Though she knew about one or two other side–women along the way, Shirley never doubted Gavia’s love for her.

Gavia rose and went into the kitchen. Shirley put on her housedress and took her comb and her jar of Serena’s into their tiny living room.

You want some? Gavia asked from the kitchen where he stood by the stove, spooning food into a plate.

Not right now. Shirley put on the television and sat down on the sofa. She was switching channels but stopped at the Weather Channel when she caught a man in a brown suit explaining that Tropical Depression Six, just formed in the mid–Atlantic, was likely to develop into a hurricane. Shirley uncoiled her hair and combed it out before gathering and twisting it in small sections, securing each with a bobby pin. She dipped her finger in the Serena’s and applied the grease to her scalp in long, slow strokes. Shirley could feel her husband’s eyes on her and she smiled to herself because he’d never lost his fascination with the almost waist–length, heavy, naturally wavy hair she usually kept pinned up at the nape of her neck. She thought of it as one of the many gifts she gave him, this nightly ritual of loosening and letting down her hair which no man had seen since she’d left her father’s house.

You had a good day today? Gavia asked.

It was busy. Everybody wants to surprise their relatives with new furniture. Even people who ain’t expecting nobody to come back from foreign still putting things down on layaway.

We could do with new furniture. What you think?

Shirley looked around at their mismatched chairs and sofa. The foam in the cushion beneath her was flat and uncomfortable, she could feel the wire springs against her bottom. Maybe next year. Please, God, let us be in the States next year.

Gavia came and sat next to her, a full plate in his hand.

Like how you’re working so hard nowadays, you should be able to talk Kabalan into giving you a good discount.

Shirley glanced at him. Was she imagining it or was there something in his tone that said he knew about her and her boss?

Her husband rested his beer on the floor in front of him and looked at her blandly.

Shirley forced herself to be calm. If he knew, he would have said something. Gavia’s hot temper had gotten him in trouble more than once, with friends and strangers alike, though never with her. He was proud of the fact that he’d never struck her. His Daddy had drilled that in him, best you leave a woman rather than hit her.

Perhaps next year we can buy a set. Doesn’t make sense to me buying things for the house and hurricane season’s just started.

You think that one will hit us? he asked, jutting his chin at the television.

I surely hope not. The last hurricane to hit St. Crescens was Hurricane Lenny and it had devastated the island. Dozens of houses broke apart, the pieces scattered far and wide by the furious winds. The house they’d lived in then had lost its galvanized roof. Eleven people died, six of them in an avalanche which swept away a row of houses in the Northern Hills.

The next evening, it was Miss Clara who first shouted out to Shirley as she walked home,

You think Khalil will come here?

Shirley’s mouth dried and her tongue felt like sandpaper in her throat.

What? What you mean, Miss Clara?

The storm. They gave it a name this morning. Tropical Storm Khalil. They’re running out of English names and start giving them Arab names and all. You must not know because you’re there at work all day. What did you think I meant? The blood’s gone from your face like you’ve just seen a jumbie. You all right?

Yes, Miss Clara. But Khalil was Mr. Kabalan’s middle name and Miss Clara was grinning like she knew and if she knew, all Pinelands knew because there was nothing the old woman loved more than to spread gossip.

Come. Miss Clara unhooked the latch on her porch gate and beckoned to her. Come inside for a spell. Let me give you a glass of cold ice water.

Shirley moved like a woman walking on hot tar.

Sit, sit. Miss Clara pointed to one of the four straight–backed chairs ranged neatly around her small kitchen table.

Shirley sat.

Girl, look how you’re sweating fit to beat the band. Miss Clara smiled at her as she reached for a glass. She dropped a bit of detergent no bigger than a tear into it, held it under the faucet and swished around the weak foam before going to the fridge and pouring out some water.

Shirley tasted the soap in the water and took only a couple sips.

Feeling better?

Shirley nodded. Thank you. Her mind raced. If Miss Clara knew, who had told her? Miss Clara didn’t go out of her house much, except to the government’s Senior Citizen’s Center in Pasea and to the Lighthouse of Grace Baptist Church in Sandy Bay. The community rallied around her and she had a lot of visitors, though, because people knew her family had either died out or moved off–island and she’d never married or had children. Who had told her? It was on the tip of Shirley’s tongue to ask the woman what she knew but that was the one thing she could not do. If she did know anything, Miss Clara would never admit it and then Shirley would have to explain why she was asking.

All right, Miss Clara. Thank you for the water. I’d best push on now.

The color’s back in your face. Miss Clara looked her over approvingly. You take care now, you hear?

By the time she reached her house, Shirley had half–decided there was nothing to fear. The old woman was simply making conversation about the storm as people would from now on until it died away. Shirley put Miss Clara out of her mind but, every now and then, she felt a vague uneasiness she couldn’t quite pin down.

Gavia followed her into the house about an hour later, just after she’d finished warming his dinner on the stove.

You all right? he asked, walking past where she sat watching the latest about the storm. Antigua, Montserrat and several other islands were now under Storm Warning while Storm Watches had been issued for St. Crescens, the US and British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Khalil was expected to intensify as it began turning north within the next couple of days but, if it maintained the predicted course, it would pass to the south of St. Crescens. The island could expect heavy rains and high gusts but nothing like the storm’s full fury. The weather people warned that Khalil’s path could change, bringing it closer to St. Crescens. Residents were expected to begin their preparations now. If the storm did pass over the island, it would probably do so as a Category One hurricane. Residents were strongly advised to take warnings seriously.

What was Lenny when it passed? Shirley asked. Category Three?

Category Four.

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