Kingston Noir by Colin Channer

bus stop in front of a bakery flanked by a row of shops, and for a while she just walked, noting her surroundings. A sign told her she was on Red Hills Road.
    The sun was high and hot and she sweated inside her sleeveless white dress and white pumps. Even the mangy dogs roaming the empty streets seemed stunned by the heat. Four men played dominoes on a table under a tree.
    Empress! One of them called.
    She hurried on.
    The address was on a side street, more residential. The houses were long and rectangular and they all had the same red clay roofs and glimmering white walls and sprinklers spinning madly in the yards, which had rosebushes and fruit trees growing behind the wrought-iron gates. She found number ten. A Bombay mango tree stood beside the gate and she rested underneath its branches for a while watching the croaking lizards as they stuck out their yellow tongues at her and nodded.
    She smoked two cigarettes while an hour passed and still she saw and heard no one except for the rhythmic thwacking of a machete trimming grass two or so houses away. It was midmorning. Inside her chest a mix of feelings battered against her heart. The red mailbox latched to the gate had two airmail envelopes. She stuffed them in her purse. Then she scaled the fence, one eye turned over her shoulder in case there was a dog—she had the piece of old pipe ready—and tiptoed around the barred windows. The heavy drapes were drawn. She could not see in.
    In the backyard there was a playpen and a swing. She noticed shoes under a coconut tree … red sneakers good for climbing … the size of about ten-year-old feet. She brought them to her nose and that was when she heard the growl.
    Before she could turn, a dark gray blur had turned solid and heavy against her chest. The shoes and her purse flew from her hands. The pipe fell out and slid across the grass. She rolled clumsily toward it. The dog pranced forward, pawing her as it barked. It wanted to play but she couldn’t really tell. Its eyes were small and hard and dark and otherworldly. Its nails were ripping at her dress. She was on her back but still turning when she felt the metal in her hand. She swung. The dog, its hot mouth near her neck, yelped and flopped down shivering. There was blood on its face but not much. She could tell from its eyes it was stunned.
    She went back the next day and the day afterward. She went at all hours of the day and night peering through the barred windows, walking by the gate and pretending not to look though she had the corners of her eyes peeled. The dog kept his distance. If he came close, even looked like he was going to bark, she just raised her arm and glared at him.
    Hullo, can I help you?
    She spun at the sound of the voice. It was early evening. Shadows creeping in.
    I notice you come by all the time. The woman wiped her hands on her apron and extended them. You looking for the people next door? Mr. Errol and them?
    She swallowed at the sound of her ex-husband’s name.
    Them on vacation. Coming back tomorrow. She paused. Boy, you favor the little girl, bad.
    Moira, you mean?
    Yes, you must be relation. You have the same eyes, the same cheeks. I think the mother dead, not so? She shook her head slowly.
    Mita started to answer.
    Anyway, my name is Winsome, if you need anything. They’ll be back tomorrow. Is summertime now and they travel often, especially with the children out of school and everything. But my name is Winsome. All right. She smiled big and bright and sashayed back inside the house.
    Mita stalked down the road.
    So she was dead. That’s what the fucker who had sent her to prison and stolen her child was telling people. She was dead. That’s probably what he’d told her daughter too.
    Well, she was going to show him dead. She was going to fucking show him.
    That night her friend, or was it her lover—she wasn’t sure how to think of him—drew the bath and lit the candles. It was becoming ritual for them now, except that tonight