No Tears for Sonya by Austin Mitchell

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About the author:

Austin Mitchell has written more than eighty short stories. He has also written several plays, poems and
novels. He has attended several writing workshops. Several of his short stories have been published in
newspapers in Jamaica.

What inspired you to write your book?

I love writing and i remembered a story about a lady who did something like what Sonya did.(fraud)

Here is a short sample from the book:

Sonya Brown was getting ready to go out with her occasional boyfriend, Mickie Harris, when her cell phone rang. Her boss, forty year old Chester Guthrie, was on the line. They talked for about two minutes before he ended the call.
“Who was that?” Mickie asked.
“Chester, he wants me to come to the office tomorrow at ten o’clock. He says it’s an emergency.”
“That damn slave driver, what does he want that can’t wait until Monday?”
“You’re still bitter at him for firing you after that detective told him about you and June Phipps.”
“That guy was lying.”
“Why did you have to go out with her when you know that she was Chester’s woman?”
“She begged me to go with her for a drink. We never went to any hotel.”
“I still want to know why you did it? I was calling you while you were with her and only getting your voicemail.”
“That was almost two years ago and we’ve gone over it many times since. We don’t know why he wants you down at the store tomorrow.”
“Maybe, he’s doing some stock taking, but I worked until three o’clock today and he didn’t say anything to me.”
“You think he could have found out?”
Sonya bit her lips.
“About what?”
“The apartment and the three taxis you have on the road.”
“I don’t think it’s that. He can’t prove that I’ve ever stolen any money from his hardware store.”
“Still want to go out again?”
“No, I’m sorry. I want to know what he has up his sleeves.”
“I told you to leave from about four years ago, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“Leave and go where? You know that if I resigned, he would get suspicious. I’ve been with him, since leaving high school almost twelve years now.”
Mickie patted the gun at his waist, hidden by his sports shirt. Sonya also carried a gun in her handbag. It was a Smith and Wesson, Colt. 22. She had completed a firearms instruction course. She had been careful not to let any of her colleagues know about it.
“Do you want me to get Carlos to bump him off? We made him take care of Judy when she got too nosy.”
“Are you crazy? And as to what happened to Judy, you know that I had nothing to do with it.”
Judy Binns had been one of Chester’s assistants and she had begun to ask some awkward questions. One day she saw her writing receipts for a customer in an irregular receipt book. She had threatened to go to Chester.
Sonya had wanted to give the girl a good beating. Mickie had suggested that they use Carlos to beat her up. God, she hated Judy. It was like Chester had set her to watch her. Sometimes she would burst into her office unannounced. She was still in shock when she heard that she had been killed in a hit and run accident. She had refused to give Mickie any money to give Carlos.
She remembered Alton West. They had been going around for a year before she ended the relationship. He kept turning up at her gate at all sorts of hours, begging her for another chance. He had lost his job, the bank had seized his car, in fact, he was almost bankrupt with credit card debts of over half a million dollars. True, she had helped him run up those debts, but she didn’t want any broke pocket men around her. One night, she had called the police on him. He got into an altercation with them and was shot.
He died the next day in hospital. His family and friends had blamed her for his death, but she felt blameless. Nothing came out of the case. The policeman who shot him claimed that he fired his gun in self defense after the man stabbed at him with a knife. She felt that after six years, it was time to put the whole episode behind her.
“We don’t know what he’s up to. I think we should wait.”
“What if that detective is spying on us and reporting to him?”
“What could he report? The money from the apartment is sent straight to my bank account and remember that you manage my taxis.”
“Suppose he finds out about us?”
“He doesn’t know that I’ve stopped seeing Doug.”
“I’m tired of this kind of life. We have to be hiding just because of one man.”
“You’ve just got to be patient. Things will work themselves out.”
“It’s like all his employees are slaves. He doesn’t trust any of them. That’s why he fast into their business so much. I’m glad I’m no longer working for him.”
“Look how he fired Lydia and nobody knows why he fired her. We have to be speculating that it was because she stopped sleeping with him.”
“You know that Judy went to him with a story that she was stealing from the hardware.”
Both of them shook their heads. Chester’s firing of Lydia and Judy’s death were still reverberating around the hardware, after so many years.
She came and hugged him. She could feel his frustration. Maybe after tomorrow she would know what to do about Chester.
“Let’s go down to Randy Chin’s bar and have a few drinks. It might make you feel better.”
“Okay, but I just feel like going with you tomorrow and let him know about us.”
She wondered what he was talking about. They had too many break ups over the five years they had known each other. She certainly didn’t want anymore relationships with him. She would soon tell him that they should let their relationship remain as employer and employee. That would put him down a peg or two, but she didn’t care.
She wondered if he knew that she wanted to go back to Doug. They only had a break up because of a disagreement over where they should live. He wanted her to live with him at his house in Golden Spring while she wanted them to live in Molynes Gardens. She didn’t want to live so near to his relatives who lived next door. They had broken up six months ago after going around for close to two years. He was a medium sized man in his middle thirties. He was always at Ricky Chin’s sports bar where he is a regular patron. He was separated from his wife and the father of two children. He is a commercial farmer with fifty acres of land in St. Mary.
It was only after that that Mickie had tried to push in himself, but she would soon put him in his place. Mickie was relatively tall brown complexioned guy. He was in his middle thirties
“I’ll lock up the house and we can go.”
***
That morning, she left for her work place at nine o’clock. Being a Sunday there was hardly any traffic on the roads. As she drove down, she thought of calling Mickie. He had dropped her home last night before leaving for his flat. As she neared the entrance to the store on Barnes Avenue in Constant Spring Gardens, she was shocked to see yellow tape and policemen.
A car had crashed into the gate! It was Chester’s BMW! The front doors were open and police photographers were snapping
away. A small crowd had gathered. She stopped her car on the other side of the road, flung open the car door and rushed out. She dashed across the road. Other police vehicles with their sirens, flashing were coming on to the scene.
“Miss, move away from the yellow tape, you’re disturbing our work,” a young policewoman shouted at her.
Policemen were all over, taking photos of the scene.
“It’s my boss’ car. What happened to him? Is he injured? Was he shot? I saw blood in his car.”
“Miss, move away from the tape,” an Inspector growled at her.
She did as she was ordered to do.
She saw a security guard and called him over. She couldn’t remember his name, their employer changed them so often.
“Just as I came on duty, Miss and Mister Chester drove up, I heard the gunshots. By the time I turned around, the car sped around the corner and disappeared.”
“How long ago it happened? Is he badly injured? How many gunshots did you hear?”
“About an hour ago, Miss. It’s in his head, he got most of the bullets. He looked dead to me. They shot him around eight times.”
“ My God! He can’t survive that ! You know what colour car it was?”
“It was a white car. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to see what kind of car it was .”
Mickie drove a silver colored Nissan Tida. She drove a Suzuki Swift Hatchback.
The guard left and went to stand with a group of onlookers.
Sonya took out her cell phone and called Mickie again, but all she got was his voice mail. She decided to wait around and see what was happening. Within a half hour most of the staff members were there. Chester’s wife, Delta and other family members were also there. Some of them, including Delta and some employees were crying. Watching them, Sonya had to hold herself, not to join them in shedding tears too. She got on her cell phone to other staffers, whose numbers she had and let them know what had happened. Some of them lived far away.