Son Tai's Murder

Son Tai’s Murder

a short story by

Austin Mitchell

Somebody was knocking on the station door.

“Mr. Roy, open up, they’ve killed Son Tai.”

The voice sounded like Rapley, the station’s messenger. I opened the door.

“What did you say, Rapley?”

“I’m just coming from Bamboo Corner. They went in on Son Tai and his family and chopped them up.”

“We have to go for the Corporal. Are you sure about what you are saying.”

“I heard Miss Eunice crying out for murder and I rushed down there to find out what had happened.”

We locked up the station and headed for the Corporal’s house.

“Roy and Rapley, I am going to put on some clothes. I’ll soon be with you. I can’t believe that somebody would want to kill a man like Son Tai, a man who helps everybody in the community.”

Both myself and Rapley bowed our heads at what the Corporal said about Son Tai. In another two minutes he was dressed and ready.

“How many of them are dead?” he asked Rapley, as we headed out.

“Only Mr. Tai but Miss Eunice, two of the daughters and one of the sons were wounded too.”

“What time did it happen?” the Corporal asked as we came out of the river at St. Faiths.

“About two hour ago.”

We topped a rise and came down to Bamboo Corner. We rode down into a group of about fifteen people, dismounted and tethered our horses.

“Son Tai’s body is in that room on his bed,” somebody told us.

His wife, Eunice, had bandages on both hands and Chung-Kee, the eldest son, had a bandage around his head.

“What happen, Miss Eunice?” the Corporal asked.

Eunice Prescott was a local woman whom Son-Tai married soon after he came into the area to set up shop. The union had produced six children, three boys and three girls.

“We were sleeping when I heard Son Tai crying out for murder. I woke up and the man chopped me on my hand.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“It was dark and I couldn’t see anything. I started to cry out for murder too and he chopped after me again, but I dropped off the bed and rolled under it. Then I heard him in the children’s them room and I crawled from under the bed and went into their room, but by that time he was gone.”

The shop and bar were connected to the three bedroom house.

We went past Miss Eunice into the room where Son Tai lay. Although there was a lamp the room was dark causing shadows on the wall. The Corporal shone his flashlight on the bed. Son Tai lay flat on his back, his head had been severed and the bed was full of blood. We went into the children’s rooms which had bloody smears on the walls and on the floor. The door leading from the kitchen to the shop was open.

The Corporal called Miss Eunice and pointed it out to her. We noticed that it could be opened from either the shop or the house. The locks had no marks on them to suggest that they had been forced open.

“We always keep it locked. It must be the robber who opened it,” Miss Eunice said.

We came out to the verandah and the Corporal took out his notebook and scribbled some notes with the aid of a flashlight.

“Where’s your yard man, Miss Eunice?” he asked.

“Reginald must be at his house.”

Enos Creary, a neighbor of the Tais, and who owned the only motor car in the area agreed to go and fetch Reginald.

“When Enos returns he will have to go for Dr. Reid,” the Corporal said and I nodded.

Day was breaking and I guessed the time to be about four thirty. The breeze from the nearby river was giving me goose bumps. The news has obviously spread as a crowd had now gathered.

We went around to the back of the shop and saw that the back door was slightly open.

The Corporal called Miss Eunice and she came around the back as did some other people.

“Your kitchen door was open and now we find this door too.’’

“Maybe somebody used a crowbar to force off the locks. That’s how they got into the shop,” Corporal Bent said.

Miss Eunice covered her face and started crying again.

We went into the shop and Miss Eunice lit the lamps. Things were thrown all over the floor.

“You know what they took?”

“Cigarettes, tobacco, sardine, a lot of tin things, Corporal.”

We went into the bar and the shelves were bare.

“They took all the rums, Corporal and cigarettes too.”

“Whoever it was, can’t use off all of what they stole. They must try to sell it and we will catch them,” the Corporal said.

Enos returned and said that he hadn’t found Reginald. The Corporal cursed and sent him to fetch Dr. Reid.

“We have to go and look for him,” the Corporal said referring to Reginald.

As though somebody had summoned him Reginal appeared. He was blowing hard and was washed with perspiration.

“What are you doing here?” the Corporal asked him.

“I hopped a truck and came off at Zion Hill and ran the rest of the way.”

“How did you hear that Son Tai was dead?” the Corporal asked.

“My woman said that Mr. Creary came to look for me and told her about it.”

“So where were you why Enos never found you when he came to look for you?”

“I stopped at a woman’s house before I went home.”

“When was the last time you saw Son Tai alive?”

“I helped him lock up the shop, myself and Brackly. That was about ten o’clock, then I left for my home.”

“I heard that Brackley might be wanted in St. Elizabeth. But maybe it’s just rumors,” Rapley put in.

St. Elizabeth was a large parish in western Jamaica.

“You know that the back door of the shop and the kitchen door were left open last night?”

“I only helped with the front doors. I thought Mr. Tai locked the back doors.”

“You know where Brackley went after you left him?”

“He and Delbert went up the road. They were going to gamble.”

“Mendez was out here too?”

“He left with Delbert and Brackley.”

“Where they get money to gamble? Delbert is round gambling tables every day. Mendez should still be in prison for the amount of people he has stabbed and cut up,” Rapley again put in.

The Corporal nodded in acknowledgement of what Rapley said.

What Rapley said about the two men was true. Neither was permanently employed nor had a small holding as most of the men in these areas. They were shiftless characters and I had no doubt that the Corporal had them as the prime suspects for Son Tai’s murder.

Corporal Bent then went into the house and we followed him.

Miss Eunice sat in a chair and she was still crying. The children were all sleeping on the floor.

“It doesn’t look as if they got any money, Miss Eunice?”

She shook her head and, as if reading my earlier thoughts the Corporal looked at me.

“Maybe whoever it was, never had time to search for money before they escaped.”

Enos returned with the doctor. The Corporal took him aside and they talked briefly before he went inside to examine Son Tai.

More people had gathered in the yard now. The doctor spent several minutes in the house.

“The head was severed by a sharp instrument, probably a chopper or a machete. It was probably the same instrument that inflicted the wounds on the children and Miss Eunice.”

He had dressed Miss Eunice’s wounds and woken up the children to dress their wounds.

“I’ll write the death certificate and make my report so that Son Tai can be buried later today or tomorrow.” He took a cup of coffee from Miss Ethel, the Tai’s helper.

Whoever had killed Son Tai must have used a very dull weapon on his wife and children.

It was now broad daylight and we sat with the doctor and ate the breakfast Miss Ethel had prepared for us.

After breakfast, Enos drove the doctor back home. Reginald told us that he would start cleaning up the place for the set-up later tonight. He would then go over to the cemetery in the adjoining district to help dig the grave.

As a rule most homes in these areas kept enough lumber to build a coffin. I had no doubt that workmen would be on the scene either later today or tomorrow to build Son Tai’s coffin.

Corporal Bent, Rapley and I left to open the station. On reaching a very hilly part of the area, the Corporal turned to me.

“We are going to look for Brackley, Delbert and Mendez. I need to ask them some questions. Rapley, tell Vernal Phipps to open the station.”

Like myself, Vernal Phipps was a District Constable.

We reached the entrance to St. Faith’s district when we saw Brackley and Delbert coming down the road. The Corporal shouted for them to stop as he wanted to talk to them.

They were both shabbily dressed and looked like they could do with a lot of sleep.

I listened intently while he questioned them.

“Where were both of you last night?”

“We spent the entire night gambling,” Brackley replied.

“You won anything?”

“No, Corporal, both of us are broke,” Delbert replied.

“Where is Mendez?”

“We left him down at Son Tai’s shop last night,” Brackley replied.

“You heard about Son Tai?”

“Yes sir, Son Tai was a good man. We could get things to credit from him. I don’t know anybody who would want to kill him,” Delbert explained.

“All right, go and find something useful to do. We might want to ask both of you some more questions so don’t go too far.”

The Corporal said that he wanted to ask some questions of the Tai’s neighbors, as well as Reginald.

“Roy, before we go back to Bamboo Corner we are going to look for the woman, whose house Reginald said he was at last night. It’s Merlene, Hustay Brown’s daughter. It’s a long time I know that he is along with her.”

***

“Corporal, it’s nearly three months now since Reginald and I broke up. I can’t believe that he would tell you that he was at my house last night,” Merlene told us as we stood in her yard under a huge mango tree that was in full bearing.

“All right, Merlene, I’m sorry to bother you but if you see him don’t tell him that I asked you any questions about him.”

“Are you sure that it’s she, Corporal? It could a next woman,” I said as we rode out of the yard.

“It’s only her I know about, but there could be other women as you say. He has to tell us who it was since Merlene says it’s not her.”

***

When we reached Bamboo Corner, we heard that Reginald had gone home. The Corporal swore under his breath.

“I thought he would have stayed to help you, Miss Eunice, seeing that you are not well.”

“He said he had to do something at his house before he returns.”

“We are going to look for him,” the Corporal said and we left.

When we reached Reginald’s house, his woman said that he had gone to have a bath by the river. We turned our horses and headed in that direction. At this time during the drought, the river was just a stream. Huge trees guarded either side of it. We were fifty yards away when Reginald spotted us and started running.

“What the hell! Why is Reginald running because he saw us coming?” the Corporal asked as we galloped to where he had been sitting. We dismounted and tied the horses to some nearby bushes.

There on the ground were the bloody clothes and the machete. Reginald was just about to either wash away the blood or bury them. Corporal Bent pulled his gun, but did not fire a shot.

The next night, we caught Reginald as he made his way to the house of a woman. She too denied when questioned that she had been with him on the night of Son Tai’s murder.

I sat in a chair in the Corporal’s office as he questioned Reginald.

“Reginald, you can’t say that it’s not you who killed Son Tai and chopped up his wife and children. We found the machete and your clothes. Why did you do it and Son Tai was so good to you?”

“He wanted to run me from his place and he was going to make you lock me up because I stole things off his property. He said I was also setting up my friends to rob him.”

“So what did his wife and children do why you took it out on them too?”

“They used to be rude to me, sir.”

“Who help you, Mendez, Delbert or Brackley?”

“Mendez helped me break into the house and shop, but all he wanted was money so he got vex and left.”

“Where did you hide the things that you stole?”

“They are in a back room at my house.”

We found the things he had stolen, where he said they were. He said that he had only put them in the room after he killed Son Tai and his woman knew nothing about it.

Reginald received a life sentence, but we never caught Mendez. The End.