The Skulkers
The
Skulkers
by
Austin
Mitchell
Up and coming high jumper, Dwain
Morris, is en-route to an athletics meeting in Europe when he is awakened from
his sleep in his hotel room in Miami by a phone call from his aunt, Syretta
Harris.
“Dwain, your father is dead. Gunmen just shoot him, they chopped him too before they
killed him.”
“No… nobody saw who did it? “Where it
happen?”
“Down at his house in Goffe Springs.”
“Auntie, I can’t believe it and daddy was
such a peaceful man.”
Syretta wasn’t sure what Dwain was saying
about his father was all that true.
After he finished speaking to his aunt he
decided to call his mother, Beulah in Cayman.
“Dwain, Jesus, I can’t believe it. Even
though he and I are not together again,
I still feel it for him. You have to stay strong, my son.”
After he and his mother finished speaking
he called another aunt living in Jamaica.
“It’s true, Dwain. I’m just coming from
up there. They just took away the body,” Lena Britton told Dwain.
Beulah
calls him back also confirming Cal’s
death. Dwain begs her to come to Jamaica to make arrangements until
he returns home and she agrees.
After
the conversation with his mother, Dwain lies in bed reminiscing about his
father and what he had told him the last time they met. One of Cal’s nephews, Prince Beckford, had been deported home to
Jamaica.
Before Prince’s untimely return he had been sending Cal
his money to bank and Cal
had done so enabling Prince upon his return to buy several cars and start a
taxi service. Prince ignored Cal’s
advice and in a year had lost all of his cars except one. Price reverted to his
old ways once again. Cal
suspected that he was a lotto scammer and this was confirmed when he had to
seek refuge in Goffe Springs. Just when he thought he was safe he was shot and
killed.
Dwain
cast his mind on Talbot, Cal’s half brother. Could he be responsible
for his death? The two men had never been close, especially after Cal returned home from the United States and fixed up the old
family house after evicting Talbot and his family.
Two
weeks later and Dwain is back home and grateful to his mother and aunts for the
work they did in arranging Cal’s
funeral. On the night before the funeral the police raid the home looking for
Prince’s computer. Dwain is shocked to learn that Prince was the leader of the
Skulkers, a notorious gang of lotto scammers. On the night after the funeral,
Dwain has to flee the Skulkers and Clinch Marston, their new leader. It seems
that Prince’s computer has some very important information on it such as the number
of the gang’s bank accounts both in Jamaica
and other Caribbean islands and the names of all
the members of the gang and their affiliates. Dwain has to be in hiding as the
gang has spies looking for him and he has to miss several training sessions.
He
gets in contact with Talbot, who denies killing Cal. Instead Talbot fingers Clinch as being
responsible for Cal
and Prince’s death. Time is running out for Dwain as he is missing meets abroad
and losing income. Unknown to Dwain, Talbot has Prince’s computer and sets up a
meeting with Clinch. Talbot demands five million dollars for the computer. Clinch
gives him two million dollars in cash and when Talbot delivers the laptop to
him Clinch shoots him dead and collects back his money, but unknown to Clinch,
Dwain has been tipped off by a neighbour and comes on the scene with several
policemen and Clinch is captured along with several of his accomplices.
Clinch
confesses to killing Prince but fingers Talbot as being responsible for Cal’s death. Dwain later
learns that tons of information was found on Prince’s laptop even fingering
some society bigwigs involved in the lotto scam. End. Please visit the Austin G Mitchell pages at Amazon for a look at my books.
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