Those piercing blue eyes stayed on me for a few seconds before he nodded.
“Okay.” He turned off the tiny recorder and slipped it back into the pocket of his jacket. “That’s enough for now. If you can show me around the property I would appreciate it. The sooner we get done the sooner you can get to the autopsy.”
My heart jerked and all I could do was nod.
He silently walked beside me as we left the building and got into my bakkie.
I had just turned over the ignition when he spoke in a rough voice.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
I could only nod my head because my throat had a huge lump in it.
He sat silently as I took him on a tour of the property, ending at Rex’s enclosure.
Drawing in a deep breath I got out and prepared to face the horror I knew was waiting for me.
It was worse than I expected. They had murdered him in his safe place, his sleeping area. There was blood everywhere.
Whoever did this would have been covered in blood once they were done. But one look at the dried bloody footprints on the floor told a different story, they had come prepared. Those types of prints could be found all over the property, especially on the days the sleeping areas were being cleaned.
Wellingtons. The bastards had worn Wellies.
They were so arrogant they had left those prints there for us to find.
Why?
CHAPTER FOUR
Sunny
I felt completely numb as I sat at my desk and stared blindly at my laptop. A laptop that held the results of one of the most heart breaking autopsies I had ever done. The stark facts revealed how Rex had been killed.
Whoever had done it had experience with the tranquilisation and euthenisation of wild animals and had a thorough knowledge of the physiology of lions. The realisation that we were dealing with someone who had been trained to save animals, not kill them, left me with a hollow feeling in my chest and gut.
Whoever the bastard was had darted Rex with a high dose of ketamine and once he was down delivered a lethal dose of pentobarbital via an intracardiac injection. He never stood a chance of survival. His head, paws and tail was removed post mortem, and for that I was thankful. Rex didn’t suffer in his last moments.
What pissed me off was that some fucker took his head, paws and tail…took everything that made him the King of the Savannah. And for what? What use would they have for the parts that they took?
And what did Rex’s murder mean for our other cats?
How vulnerable were they to attack?
I was still sitting there staring at the screen when Detectives Roos and Tau walked into my office. I tiredly waved at the chairs in front of my desk and leant back in my chair as they sat.
“How weird is it that your surname means lion and you’re investigating the death of a lion?” I asked Detective Tau and he just lifted his shoulders in a shrug. Then he grinned as he looked at his colleague.
“At least my surname is lion and not rose, like his.” He smirked as he nodded towards his colleague who closed his eyes and shook his head as if he had heard it all before.
“Did you find anything significant during the autopsy?” Mr Hot Cop asked, ignoring his colleague.
I nodded slowly. “I did. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. Rex was darted with a high dose of ketamine which took him down after which pentobarbital was injected directly into his heart. That is what killed him. Whoever removed his head, paws and tail did it with surgical precision. This was no hack job. These people are professionals.”
Both of the detectives had frowns on their faces.
“That is not good news.” Detective Tau said quietly.
“No, it is not, and it gets worse.” I had to hold onto my temper as I explained. “They got to him in his sleeping area, somewhere he should have been safe but wasn’t. Only someone who worked here would have known to get to him through the ‘look-see’ observation holes I showed you today. And that same bastard would have known that Rex preferred to sleep inside at night, unlike some of the other cats.”
I shook my head, trying to shake off the rage before I continued. It didn’t work.
“The reason why the animals on either side of his run didn’t make any noise while they were killing Rex was because they had been drugged as well. We found pieces of drugged meat in the runs. The animals would have been lethargic or asleep depending on how much of the meat they ingested.”
“Are you sure about this, Sunny?” Detective Roos asked with a frown, using my name for the first time.
“Absolutely. We have a traitor in our midst. Someone on our team, someone we trust, is helping the poachers. It means that every single animal here is under threat. We have several sought after species which means they will be back. The question is when, when will they come back for their next victim? And how do we ensure the safety of our animals when any plans we make will be reported back to the poachers?” Pushing my hands into my tightly braided hair I scratched at my sweaty, itching scalp.
“You look worn out and in need of a shower.” Detective Roos said quietly.
“I am and I do but I have to report to David first before I can get to a shower.”
“You get the shower and we’ll take the report to David. We’ll discuss the report once you’re done here.” Detective Tau suggested.
It sounded like a good idea. “I’ll send him the report and I’ll print one for you guys at the same time.”
With one stroke of the keys I forwarded the document and heard the printer in the other room start up. Detective Tau got up and went to collect it.
Detective Roos stood and was about to walk out the door when he turned back. His face was deadly serious.
“Lock the doors after we leave. We don’t know who the inside man is and for all we know he, or she, has been watching you and now knows you’re on to them. Don’t take any stupid chances.”
After delivering his message and scaring the hell out of me he left and shortly after I heard the door opening.
“Come and lock up after us, Doctor!” Was shouted at me and I dutifully walked out of my office to the reception and the big glass doors. With them watching I put in the code to lock the doors and then slid the bolts across from the inside just to ensure no one could come in while I was in the shower.
Those bolts had been added by Loek as a precaution and had never been used, until now.
After my shower I dressed in the clean scrubs I had in my locker. I checked that the clinic was secured for the night and that the security lights were turned on before I walked out to the reception area.
One look at the doors and I knew someone had tried to come in while I was showering. The pad of the electronic lock was green, it meant someone had unlocked the door but because of the bolts couldn’t get in.
Going back to my office I called Loek while I packed up my laptop and my autopsy notes. Better safe than sorry.
He answered after two rings. “Sunny, are you on your way to the office?”
“Uhm, could you come and get me please? Someone tried to get into the clinic while I was having a shower. I’m nervous about walking out on my own right now.”
There was a short stunned silence. “I’m on my way, stay in your office until I get there. I’ll call you when I get to the door.”
And then he was gone.
I sat deep breathing at my desk as I waited.
Why would one of our staff work for poachers? Were they being threatened or was it the money?
Before today I would have put my complete faith in each and every person at the Wild Fig Sanctuary. Now? Now I’m not so sure about who to trust.
Twenty minutes later I was in David’s office with a mug of hot tea clasped between my hands that were shaking ever so slightly.
“Do you usually leave your laptop at the office?”
“Yes, I do. I just forward anything I want to review to my computer at home or to my personal laptop.” I took a sip of the tea and
widened my eyes at Cherise who had made it and was sitting beside me. She had added a more than generous amount of whisky to the tea.
Narrowing her eyes at me she nodded to the mug. “Drink, it’s good for shock and anything else that ails you.”
While I had been in the shower the detectives had been questioning Cherise. She had still been with them when Loek had let them know someone had tried to get into the clinic. As far as I was concerned that removed her from the suspects list, but I could see the cops were not as convinced.
What was scary was the fact that the cameras outside the clinic had mysteriously malfunctioned right about the time someone tried to open the door. The camera inside the reception only showed a vague hooded outline through the tinted glass door. It was one of five cameras in the clinic. The others were in the examination and operating rooms and were used for recording during the treatment of our patients.
It would now change as a team Loek trusted was going to install security cameras inside and outside the clinic, at the offices and at the visitor’s centre. Over and above those he already had installed.
The security at our complex was also being beefed up right along with the work they were doing to the perimeter fencing. Hopefully it meant that our animals would eventually be as safe as the gold in Fort Knox.
“Our technician found no fingerprints at the clinic, and there should have been prints. All of us touched those doors earlier and not even our prints could be found. The door was wiped before the perpetrator left and that is a good indicator that it was our inside man, or woman.” Detective Tau summed up for all of us.
Roos’s next request had my mind racing over possibilities.
“We need a list of those employees who are able to do the procedure required to kill an animal like Rex.”
“Sedating and injecting a big animal needs skill, Detective. And a skill like that is something every vet and vet’s assistant has. We can give you a list of all our employees but there are only a few of them with that particular skill.” David for some reason thought he had to explain, again, that not all of his staff could have been one of the poachers.
“What about you, Mr Mabuza, could you have done the procedure?” Tau asked, his shaved head tipped to the side and his eyes narrowed on my boss.
David nodded slowly. “Yes, I’m a trained veterinarian and I’ve worked with Wildlife Conservation before starting the sanctuary with my partners. But you already know that.” He moved a piece of paper across his desk towards Tau and Roos. “I knew this question was going to come up so I sat down and drew up a list of employees with the necessary education and experience to perform the procedure, myself included.”
Roos silently picked up the paper and read the names before passing it to Tau.
“We’ll need to see everyone on this list for questioning, but it’s getting late and if I remember your schedule it’s time for the animals to be fed. If you don’t mind, we would like to go to the kitchens where the food is being prepared to observe the process of preparing the meat and then observe the feeding of the animals.” Roos looked like he was anticipating David denying them access but that’s not what happened.
“We can set up the interviews for first thing in the morning and I’m sure Sunny and Lukas can escort you to the kitchens and take you along on the feeding ride.” David immediately agreed.
And that was why we were all piled into Loek’s jeep and riding along with the staff van as they delivered the carcasses to each of our animals. This afternoon’s meal consisted of whole chicken carcasses and whole rabbit. The big cats needed the nutrition supplied by the entrails and bones in the carcasses.
I jumped out when we finally reached Dayana’s run. She was already waiting and gave an angry raspy coughing growl at the new humans she could scent on the slight breeze.
I had checked her food very carefully before it was sealed into the container only used for her. The kitchen staff had been curious when they saw me inspecting the meat but once I explained what had happened to the animals last night they were all on board. Getting the food packed up had taken longer than usual as we were all being very careful in our inspections.
Taking her container I walked over to the first entry gate to her run and keyed in my code. Once the gate opened I stepped inside then closed and locked the gate behind me before opening the next gate. She sat watching me as I walked in set the container down and opened the last gate.
My girl liked to play a game with her food. She wouldn’t eat if I didn’t play the game.
Picking up the first carcass I swung it around then threw it up into the air. She ran and launched herself into the air snatching the carcass before it could fall on the ground. I had a rabbit and another chicken carcass in the container and I sat down on the big rock in the run and waited as she devoured the first chicken.
Dayana needed about 3kg of meat, bone and entrails a day to keep her healthy. We didn’t feed the cats on Saturdays to mimic the way they would eat if they were in the wild. Saturday was digestion day for our cats.
I fed her the next chicken and lastly the rabbit and left the run as she settled down to gnaw on her treats. She didn’t mind eating her prey on the ground if she had put it there but she refused to touch anything she hadn’t. Hopefully that made her safe from whoever was drugging the cats before they killed them. She would not eat anything thrown into her run; neither would she touch meat that had scents on them that she didn’t recognise.
When I got back in the jeep the two cops were looking at me like I was crazy.
“Why didn’t that cat attack you?” Tau asked.
Loek laughed and answered before I could. “She’s Sunny’s baby. Anyone else do that shit and she will attack. We think she claimed Sunny as her own when she bit her.”
“She bit you?”
Both of the men looked at me with shocked expressions.
“Yes, but it was more of a love bite than the real thing. The minute she broke the skin she let go. She didn’t mean to hurt me.” I tried to play it down but of course my mouthy co-worker and friend wouldn’t let it go.
“We couldn’t go into the run and she wouldn’t let us dart the damned cat. Her back was scratched to shit and she had this big bite on her shoulder but she sat in that enclosure until Dayana calmed down. Only then did she leave the run. She was lucky she didn’t get an infection from her claws or teeth. Bloody stubborn woman.” He grinned when he said it though.
I knew he had been around long enough to know that the cats came first. They had suffered enough and needed to be treated with loving care.
“You are crazy people, you know this, right?” Detective Tau shook his head and looked at his partner who did the same.
“And I think you are crazy to do the job you do. People shoot at you, for heaven’s sakes! That’s so much more dangerous than what I do here.”
Both detectives shrugged as if it was nothing. I watched the news and I saw the stuff going on out there. Their jobs were very dangerous.
Yes, my job was dangerous to some extent but the cats were sedated when we personally interacted with them. No one would be so crazy as to step into the runs and confronting the cats. They might be in runs looking all relaxed and harmless but they weren’t. They were wild animals and we reminded ourselves of that fact every single day.
Cops confronted bad guys with guns and knives and who know what else. Their jobs were definitely more dangerous.
Nothing else was said as we drove back to the office building.
The detectives left after promising to be back early in the morning to continue interviewing the staff.
I followed Loek in my bakkie as we headed home while the sun slipped below the horizon. The early evening brought cooling breezes and the calls of the big cats. I looked forward to relaxing on my enclosed veranda with an ice cold glass of wine while the screens kept the goggos (bugs) from getting inside.
After another quick shower I pulled on my pj’s and headed for the kitchen when my
tummy gave a hungry growl. While heating up a tub of left over spaghetti I poured a huge glass of wine and sipped as I waited. Summer was slowly coming to an end, the days burning hot but at night it cooled down and my veranda was the perfect place to relax before bed. With my heated dinner in one hand, the wine bottle tucked under my arm and my glass in the other I went out onto the veranda. Setting my glass down I slipped the bottle from under my arm and put it on the small coffee table. Sinking my behind into the big easy chair I stirred my food with the fork I had stuck in it before coming outside.
While I had been in the shower and getting dinner darkness had fallen and the night settled in over the sanctuary.
I slowly ate and sipped my wine while the day scrolled through my head.
We had lost one of our cats and not because he had peacefully slipped into death after finally living a good life. No. Rex had been brutally murdered by ruthless poachers. It meant that every single cat on the property was now at risk of the same happening to them. We would be on high alert until the person working with the poachers was found. And even after that we would still be on alert because they now knew how to get in.
I dropped the empty tub on the coffee table in front of me, picked up my wine and took a big slug. Our animals would only be safe after security was stepped up and all codes and locks were changed. Tonight the guards would be patrolling the perimeter fences and would be on a constant rotation so that there was more than one person out there all the time.
The security firm we had used for the installation of our systems would be here in the morning to check everything over. Hopefully they would be able to cast more light on how the poachers got in. None of the fences had been cut. None of the fence alarms had gone off. None of the gate alarms had gone off. Everything had seemed totally normal until Rex had been found.
Only then had the team on duty realised that we had been breached.
And that’s why the cops would be back in the morning.
Glancing to the side to see if Cherise was home I grinned when I saw her car was in her drive but her lights were off. It meant that she was with Loek. The two had recently started a relationship after dancing around each other for far too damned long. I was happy for my friends, they both deserved to find that special someone.
A Touch Of Grey Page 5