Wrongful Dismissal

Chapter 7

"DA KILLER IS HERE! RIGHT HERE IN OUR MIDST! HERE! HERE MI A TELL YU DA KILLER IS HERE!" Screamed Ceyon's Auntie Babzy. "LOOK NO FURDER DEN DIS SCHOOL. DA KILLER IS HERE."
Everyone was looking at her like she was a mad woman. She was, for she loved Ceyon like he was her own child. She was jumping around and screaming and running from one person to the other.
"WHA U LOOKING AT? YU TINK MI AFRAID A YU? WHA YU GONA DO A KILL MI TOO?" She continued shouting.
The President Marie Nicholson walked around with the biggest and brightest candle of them all. Showing her importance and prominence. Babzy couldn't stand it.
"WHA YU WAN WIT DAT BIG CANDLE CUZ YU TINK YU A BIG WOMAN?" Babzy continued, "THE KILLER IS HERE! MI NA REST TIL DAT PERSON IS IN PRISON. DEN MI A FIGHT FI DA DEAT PENALTY A COME TO JAMAICA!"
Everyone stayed away from her. They would clear a path whenever she came around. She would lunge at people and they would jump back. "YU TINK MI AFRAID A YU? MI NOT AFRAID A NA BODY. YU AFRAID A DUPPY. YU SHOULD BE..............YEAH MAN! DUPPY IS HERE. YU CALLED DUPPY HERE CUZ YU A KILL CEYON ON CAMPUS. YEAH MAN DUPPY HERE NOW! YEAH MAN!"
Mason was enjoying the show. Babzy was making his job much, much easier. He could just stand back and watch everyone's reaction to Babzy.
She was a wild woman.
Mason was getting filthy looks from several people too. Timar's words of warning were running through his head, "Remember they know that you are not on the police force. Therefore you do not have protection as a police detective would. You are a citizen and they all know it. So just be careful."
Mason had an ominous feeling there. It was plain spooky. Someone wanted rid of Ceyon Montcliffe. He needed to find out why and then he could find out who, from the why.
The vigil went on late into the night. People started leaving, others that lived on campus stayed. Mason was tired and was pretty much finished for the night. He decided to leave.

He got in his car and drove out of the campus. The guard stopped him at the gate. They sure stepped up security since the murder. The President drove up and parked her Land Rover near the guard house and jumped out of the vehicle.
She was grandstanding just for Mason and he knew it. She was seeking favourable attention as she knew that he was watching her especially.
"Now I have told you before," she is shouting at the guards, "that you are to check EVERY CAR coming in AND going out. Those are the rules and I don't care what you have to do to accomplish that but you make sure, that is the procedure! It must be respected and followed!"
How pathetic! Mason thought. Such drama. She should go in the theatre. Imagine, on her watch, her tenor, a senior, brilliant, genius, lecturer was brutally murdered. Not a very good one for her biography. In the history books, her name will be there and beside that will be the murder of Ceyon Montcliffe a beloved teacher at her school. Her subordinate, her employee. For shame! She can be sure that she would not get a transfer or another job, certainly not in Jamaica.
Mason gets out of the campus and mindlessly drives down the dark road. Grabbed his cell phone......
"Hello." The sleepy voice of Gigi.
"You are going to kill me."
"Come on over!" She sighs, "I'll put on a pot of coffee." She knew that he needed to talk.
"I love you."
"Oh-shut-up!" She laughs and hangs up.

Thirty minutes later he is once again, for the second time in one day, sitting on her sofa. St. Thomas was cool at this time of the year in the night. She lit a fire to make the room inviting and cozy. She didn't buy the house with a fireplace but she promptly had one installed. That was the beauty of St. Thomas in the winter months, the days are hot but the nights are definitely chilly.
Mason had a chill of another kind. A chill one has when they have the creeps about something. He involuntarily shuttered.
"What is it?" Gigi asked quietly.
"What is this world coming to if a beloved son, nephew, brother, teacher, friend, with no OBVIOUS enemies, can get assassinated? What does that mean for the rest of us?"
"Assassinated is a pretty strong word Mason."
"Yes it is." He just looked her in the eye and stared for a long moment. Said nothing more.
Then she spoke. "Murder implies a malicious and premeditated killing of one person by another; while assassinate implies that an important person has been murdered, often by someone hired to do the job. Generally for political or religious reasons."
Mason was silent for a long while and then, "I think that Ceyon falls into that category. He was assassinated in execution style. Two knives to the back of the head. Whoever engineered and plotted this murder was sending a message. If it was to kill someone for their car or their possessions, hitting him in the head with a toilet tank cover and killing him would be enough. But to deliberately go in the man's kitchen and get two of his chef's knives and drive them into his brain.........from behind..........is altogether different."
"How so?"
"The person was sending a message. We don't want your genius. We don't need your brain anymore. We have power over you. We can stop you from succeeding. We will stop you from succeeding. We stopped from succeeding."
Silence fell again after Mason uttered those eerie words.
"For the person that engineered this killing it was about politics and religion."
"How so?" Gigi asked.
"The university is their church and the positions are the politics."

Mason felt bad for burdening Gigi with all this. He lightened the mood somewhat by saying, "They caught those two guys using Ceyon's credit cards in Montego Bay." He laughed, "IDIOTS!"
"Way on the other side of the island!" Gigi stated. "Not too clever of them is it? One way to be easily caught."
"Yeah, sooo stupid. Thinking that if they used them on the other side of the island that they would go undetected. They have sawdust brains. So stupid that they still didn't know that the credit card system is computerized and the cards can be tracked instantly. So now they are in custody for possession of stolen goods, meaning the vehicle and stealing and using a man's credit cards. That should hold them for a while until we can get to the King Pin."
Mason started shaking his head and smiling in a sad way. "You know just how nice Ceyon Montcliffe was?"
"How?" Gigi showed her interest.
"A man named Patrick Francis is a barber here in town. He told the police that since 1989 if Ceyon was in town he would go and get his hair cut and get a shave on Saturday night, every Saturday night. He had a standing appointment with the barber. Ceyon respected time and his appointments so much that if he was going to be late for his appointment he called Patrick to tell him that he was late. And just a couple of months ago Patrick's brother Matthew Francois was killed in Ocho Rios by a Ranguard Security vehicle."
"Oh dear! That's terrible!"
"The Ranguard Security employee was driving one hundred miles an hour in a fifty zone, he lost control of the vehicle and mounted the sidewalk that Matthew was walking on and drove with Matthew on the windscreen a hundred feet and then he dropped to the road in front of the vehicle. He died in hospital two hours later. Ceyon went all the way to St. Catherine's for Matthew's funeral............imagine.........his barber's brother.

Patrick was waiting for Ceyon until eleven p.m. on Saturday night, Ceyon never called. Patrick knew, without a doubt, that Ceyon was in hospital, in a coma or dead. He knew something really bad happened to him because Ceyon never missed his appointment. Never."

"Ceyon was such a nice man, wasn't he?" Gigi concluded.
"He treated his barber like he was the Prime Minister of Jamaica and went to his brother's funeral. How many people do you know would do that?"
"Two." Gigi said.
"Two? Really? Who are the two?"
"Ceyon Montcliffe.........and you!" Gigi said emphatically.

Mason got up leaned over and kissed Gigi on the forehead. "I do love you." He said tenderly.
Gigi smiled, "I love you too."
"Later."
"Hey?"
"Yeah?"
"Mind your skull."
Was the last thing Mason heard as he closed the front door behind himself.