A Suspicious Death- a short story by Austin Mitchell
by
Austin Mitchell
Todd's wife had gone up the United States six months previously. They had ten children, so Miss Mona had gone over there, compliments of her sister to look a job to help her large family. Todd did farming but didn't have a large holding so it was very hard for the family to make ends meet. All their children were at various ages and were in school. Todd was probably in his late forties as was Mona. That Saturday evening after he finished working in the field, Todd tidied up and made his way out to the village square to socialize with his friends.
About nine o'clock, that night we heard the shocking news that he had fallen ill and had to be rushed to hospital. By midnight we heard that he was dead!
Immediately rumors started to spread.
"They poisoned him," a man named Daniels told me, the next day.
He said he also knew who had done it and how it was done. According to him men we walking around with long fingernails. They put cornmeal in those nails and threw it your rum thus poisoning you. Several other persons came up with the same theory. I don't know if anybody could be poisoned that way. Other persons said that it was one of the easiest ways to poison a man. Once a man was poisoned that way no amount of tests could find out how he died.
Others said that they had worked obeah on him because his wife had gone away to improve the family's welfare.
Fear gripped the community and drinkers were now pouring out their own rum.This was after all not the first case of a suspicious death in the village. Suspicions fell on the man whom Daniels had pointed out as being responsible for Todd's death. He and several other men had been in the bar drinking with him.
The official report from the hospital was that he had suffered a massive stroke but few people believed that. Mona returned and he was buried two weeks later. The End
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