Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 02 (2 page)

Chapter Two

Strong Turkish coffee and the scent of cinnamon filled the room. Only a single desk lamp provided light, save for the small Sterno can that sent blue-pink flame flickering against the underside of an urn placed on a scarred teak sideboard. Two men slouched in leather chairs while a third, behind the desk, spooned sugar into a teacup. Outside the sun eased over the horizon painting the eastern sky brilliant orange and gold.

“The goods were intact I assume?” he said.

“Have you gone crackers? There’s nothing but rubbish in those parcels.”

“What? I thought you told me—”

“Never mind what I told you. You heard me right, rubbish, small cone-like things that look like some toddler’s
kindergarten clay project. What are we supposed to do with them, hey? We were lied to. That Botlhokwa’s man as much as said there would be rhinoceros horns shipped in from the north. He said the people paid them money to cross the border.”

“Did he, or did he not say horns?”

The man paused and thought. “Okay, maybe I didn’t understand him right. He definitely said priceless and we’d been talking of horns earlier. Either way, there should have been something worth going after out there.”

“Then Botlhokwa’s man took you for whatever you paid him.”

The second man held the sniper rifle across his lap and rubbed the barrel with an oily rag. He smiled, remembering. “Nice piece you give me here. Very fine shot too, if I do say it. One hundred meters in the dark and spot on.”

“You should have seen,” the other man said, nodding. He high-fived the first, an Americanism they’d picked up in Cape Town.

“That man will pay for this. He said this person would be bringing goods to the Chobe Game Park. You paid him for that information, for value received you could say, and he’ll deliver or…” His voice trailed off.

The rifle bearer opened the weapon’s breach and applied the rag to its inner workings. “And you’re going to mess with the big man’s muscle? I don’t think so,
Bas
. There are too many of them to tangle with and who have you got?”

The remark was greeted with a dry laugh. “At the moment, only you two.”

“Oh, no you don’t, Sczepanski. You haven’t paid us for the last dance. You don’t get another until you do.”

The man identified as Sczepanski paused, tea cup in mid-transit to his mouth. “You forget who you work for. There are things that happen to people who refuse to follow orders. The police might be interested in how that dead man in the park got that way, for example.”

“You are not that stupid,
Bas
. You cannot go to the police and you know it.”

“An anonymous tip on the telephone?”

“That leads to us, but also to you. We do not go down but you go with us.”

The man holding the rifle slapped the bolt closed, raised the piece to his shoulder, and swung it around so that it pointed at the man behind the desk. He pulled the trigger and there was a soft double click. “Bang, you’re dead, oops.”

“A hundred meters,” His friend said and smiled. “You should have seen it.”

“If killing is what you are thinking about, do not press your luck. You will cross me and end up that way yourself. We do not play silly games here. You two dolts forget two things, one, who you are in the big scheme of things, and two, why we came north in the first place. One, Lenka sends us here to be the thin edge of the wedge. We are to test this Botlhokwa and his operation. Shooting someone, anyone, is not on the list. From now on, you check with me before you go hunting. And two, remember you are easily replaced.”

The man’s voice had turned icy. At the mention of Lenka the other two shut up and looked uneasily at each other.

***

Sanderson, recently promoted to the supervisor’s position in her sector of the Chobe National Park, had taken a run into a portion of the park nearest to Kasane. It was a thing she did at least once a week. Other areas she assigned to other days. She rounded a large clump of acacia and saw the SUV, a Land Rover, the same as she was driving, but older and definitely dirtier. Its number plate indicated it had come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but she couldn’t be sure about that. It looked as if it had been driven hard for many kilometers, so perhaps it had. The sun had been up for two hours and this open area of the bush had begun to heat up. She saw no sign of wildlife. That didn’t mean there were none nearby. The bush was dangerous precisely because it concealed so many things. A pride of lions could be sleeping off their last feed behind any large clump of vegetation. Hyenas could be lurking, hoping for an easy kill. At night the leopard prowled. She circled the stranded vehicle. There did not seem to be either a driver or signs of life. The circuit complete, she braked, removed the rifle from the rack behind her and cautiously stepped out. Thumb on the safety, she approached the truck. That’s when she caught the scent of death; a scent she was all too familiar with lately. She looked skyward. Yes, vultures had caught it and were circling.

“
Manong
,” she muttered. “You must always be the first on the scene. I do no not like you, you death announcers.”

She stepped up to the window and peered in. The man’s body lay slumped across the front seat. That’s when she saw the blood spatter and the rest of the detritus on the passenger side window and door. She stepped back. This was not for her. She returned to her truck and thumbed on her radio, switched to the police band and waited a moment. This meant she must deal with Superintendant Mwambe. She did not care for this man. The locals called him
Tshwene
, Baboon. It was not fair. He was not a baboon, but he certainly did try her patience. Perhaps he would assign someone else to this case. She engaged the talk button and called in the shooting.

The dispatcher answered. She recognized Derek Kgasa’s voice. Apparently Superintendent Mwambe had finally found a task his nephew could actually do without endangering the populace of Kasane.

“Derek. Is that you?”

“Sanderson? Yes, what are you doing on the official police band?”

“I must report what appears to be a murder in the park. Here is a Land Rover sitting three kilometers from the main gate. A man—he looks Congolese but who can say—is in the front seat and dead with a hole in his head.”

“Oh, my. That is very serious, isn’t it?”

“A large hole in the head would be.”

Silence.

“Derek? Are you there?”

“Yes, I am considering what I must do next. The man is definitely dead, you say?”

“Derek, listen to me. The man is being shot in the head some hours ago. You must send a car and investigators. The sun is up, the park is filled with scavengers. Even now the
manong
are circling. You must remove this body immediately.” Sanderson knew Derek was not the brightest man on the force. They had gone to school together and he had become a policeman by default. By his own admission he lacked the necessary brain power to function as an officer of the law. He needed help. “Derek, is there an investigator available?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Can you put him into this conversation?”

“Wait.” A minute passed and a male voice spoke.

“Who is this I am speaking to?”

“I am Sanderson, the game ranger. Are you an investigator?”

He was. Sanderson repeated the details to him. He acknowledged and said he would be there in twenty minutes. He would not need her to stay.

“But you do not know where this dead man is.”

“You said three kilometers from the gate.”

“That covers a great deal of territory, you know.” Why, Sanderson wondered, were the police so thick when it came to dealing with their colleagues in the other services? “I will give you the precise coordinates. You can enter them in your GPS and you will come right to me. And I must stay in this place at least ’til you arrive. There are too many animals that would have your dead man for their breakfast if I don’t.”

She disconnected before the inspector thought to give her more orders. Foolish man, the park was her responsibility. She would tell
him
what to do.

It was more like half an hour before the police made their way to her. Superintendent Mwambe accompanied a young man who didn’t look much older than her daughter, Mpitle. The two men alit and approached her.

“So, Sanderson. You have created another fine mess, I see.”

“Superintendent Mwambe, I don’t think this is my mess, but yours. There is a very dead man in this vehicle and you will have an investigation on your hands for certain.”

This was not going to be a pleasant day.

Chapter Three

Mwambe and the constable whose name, as it happened, was Carl Kgobela, Constable Carl Kgobela in fact, strolled to the vehicle and peered in.

“You seem to have a murder on your hands,” Sanderson said as she prepared to leave.

“It is not a murder until the evidence says it is,” the Superintendent said and cut her a look. Mwambe had little or no use for women in positions of authority and the sight of Sanderson had become a chronic source of annoyance for him.

Sanderson knew she shouldn’t reply. She knew Mwambe’s penchant for officiousness and that he would give her some hard words and looks, but she couldn’t resist. “This man has a very large bullet wound in his head. There is blood and gore all over the interior of the truck. I am but a simple game ranger, but I would think that points to murder, Superintendent.”

Mwambe scowled and looked in at the body. “It could be suicide, you know,” he said. His petulant tone was the sort that always set Sanderson’s teeth on edge.

“That seems to be a very large wound for a suicide and besides, if this man is shooting himself, where is the gun he is doing it with and why would he drive unknown into my park in the dark of the night to do this thing?”

“Those are questions the police are trained to answer, not women game rangers. You did not pick up a pistol?”

“I did not.”

“It may have fallen on the ground or under the seat. Constable, look under this Land Rover and see if there is a gun.”

The young man did as he’d been asked. He fell to his knees, leaned over and peered under the car. He shook his head and stood. Unbidden, he opened the door and searched under the seats. No gun. He shook his head once more.

“It will turn up, you will see. Ah, Sanderson, before you make me a gift of your amazing detective skills, I will point out to you that there are no other foot prints here but mine, yours, and Kgobela’s. If someone shot this man, where is the evidence?” He offered her a smug smile and waved his hand toward the Land Rover. “Ah, you see that is the way police work is done.”

Sanderson suppressed the temptation to scream and merely nodded. Mwambe was the most exasperating man she knew. She climbed into her SUV and left, following the track the dead man’s Land Rover had made on its way in. She wished to know how this vehicle had managed to intrude into the park. A hundred meters up the track she stopped. Here, the ground had obviously been disturbed. She scanned the area with the eyes of someone used to studying the ground for tracks and evidence of recent movements by animals in her park. Someone had swept the area with a tree branch, it seemed. She thought she saw a partial foot print. She stepped out and circled the area. She found the tire tracks of another vehicle. She didn’t relish another round with Mwambe, but he needed to know about this. He would not be happy with it, but he needed to know. Mwambe, she knew from past experience, preferred the quick and easy answer. Suicide would be the way to close this case—quick and easy. And there seemed to be something else attached to his eagerness to move away from the obvious but Sanderson could not think what it might be.

She turned and drove back to the murder scene. Kgobela looked up as she braked.

“Constable, can you tell me if the hand brake is set on this vehicle?”

The constable peered into the truck. “No, it is not.”

“What is this, Sanderson?” Mwambe’s stout figure loomed up behind the murder vehicle. “You are interfering in matters that do not concern you again.”

“Superintendent, there is something you must see up the hill.”

Exasperated, Mwambe looked at her for several seconds. “Go with her, Kgobela, and see this important thing.”

Sanderson returned to the place where she’d found the tire marks and explained her conclusions.

“You see, he was met by at least one person, probably more. They shoot him and then release the brake. A little shove and the truck, it rolls down the hill to where we found it.”

“Yes, that will fit. The superintendent will not be so happy with you, Sanderson.”

“Oh yes? Well, he never is.”

She returned the constable back to the scene. He stepped out and Sanderson left. She still had to find out how the man or men got into her park.

***

The rifle seemed particularly menacing in the half light. If the person at whom it was pointed had any fear, however, it did not show in either his demeanor or voice. He stood and stepped around the desk.

“Put that thing down, you idiot.”

The man hesitated and lowered the sniper rifle’s barrel, then he placed it butt down to the floor with near military precision. “What will you do?”

“I will find and then talk to this man of Botlhokwa, and if necessary to Mr. Big himself, and I will find out what he is doing with his lies. Lenka will want to know of this. Let me see the rubbish you took from the man in the park.”

The three men exited the gloomy warehouse out into the morning sun. Kasane seemed cooler than normal for this time of year. They squinted against the bright light. The Land Cruiser sat a few meters from the door in the warehouse’s parking lot. The years of oil leakage on its surface managed to override the scent of the blooming mango tree next to the door. The first man opened the boot. One of the parcels was open. The man with the rifle smashed at the contents with its butt.

“There, you see? The people here would say,
matlhakala,
trash.”

They studied the debris. “It looks like someone rolled iron filings, pebbles, and powder of some sort and stuck it all together with what looks like the compound panel beaters use to smooth out the deeper dents in body work.”

“Why would anyone transport this all the way from the north?”

One man shrugged. The other scratched his beard.

“Perhaps they wanted to test the route.” The beard scratcher said. “They roll up this tripe to look vaguely like a parcel of rhino horns, you know, and bring it in to see if Botlhokwa’s people could be trusted. If he failed them and they are caught, there would be nothing in the boot to incriminate them.”

“Test the route for what?”

“What were we expecting to find?”

“
Ditshukudu…dinaka.
”

“Rhinoceros horns, exactly. Or any number of things, you see? They know the World Cup comes soon to South Africa. The place will be crawling with Arabs and Asians. They will have their national teams competing and reasons to be here with their private jets. You can be sure that there will be much smuggling done. All sorts of things will bring a big price. They will fly up here to stay at the big lodges, perhaps gamble at the new one the Americans are building. But, you see, before you sneak the things in, you must have a safe and sure entry. This man is doing what you could call a dry run.”

“I guess Mr. Big has failed his test.”

“What shall we do with this mess?”

“Get rid of it.”

“Where?”

“I don’t care. Think of something. There is that new lodge, the American one I just mentioned, going up on the river. They have a huge bin for their rubbish. Throw it in there. A little more shouldn’t bother them.”

The men nodded and closed the boot.