“They will fry out the fat and cut the dried limps into pieces themselves. Mostly they grind it into a powder. This is then usually mixed with ash from his ancestral fires.”
Chapter Seven
Leslie Adams was in her late twenties, a lecturer in theology at a private Bible College. She was as thin as a rake. She prided herself on the fact that she only ate fruit once a day, normally mid-morning with her chamomile tea. She weighed less than one hundred pounds. It must have been easy to overpower her.
Unlike Rebecca Scott’s thick red hair, Leslie’s was dull and mousy. Her arms were outstretched next to her mauled face, as if she allowed herself to be crucified by her murderer. Her legs were also spread wide—no blood, no virgin, again just heavy bruising. Her eyelids were open. Her apartment was a complete mess. The kitchen was strewn with dirty dishes and several dirty carving knives lay around. What did she use the knives for, peeling fruit? Bowls of fruit turned green with rot from the heat. All the utensils were photographed and sent to forensics, but came back only with Adam’s prints on them.
The bathroom and bedroom floors were layered with clothes. Yet, several Bibles with loads of bookmarkers in them were neatly stacked on her bedside table, clearly visible. Perhaps she wanted easy access to favorite verses. No mention of a vibrator found. Holier than thou. Her left eye was partially removed from its socket, torn sinew streaked over the fleshless remains of her cheek. Her right eye stared peacefully at the ceiling. Just the tip of her tongue was missing. Flesh was carved off with a blunt object, yet no object was found at one of the three scenes. The knives came back clean.
Her remains were discovered by a colleague who got worried when she did arrive for work. That was early Monday morning. Leslie was to do a special lecture on the ‘Moral Nature of Man in the Age of Technology’. When she did not lecture, nobody was qualified to stand in for her. Her boss sent a colleague to her house as she did not answer her phone.
Leslie believed that God would protect her against all evil. She never bothered to lock her doors. As she always said, “God was on duty. He is always on duty. He never sleeps you know!” When her body was found she had been dead for no more than two days. She was killed in winter, so her body only just started bloating.
The third victim was a nurse called Rae Haywood. She also lived on a small holding a few kilometers outside of town. Her body was discovered about three weeks after she died and was in a very advanced stage of decomposition. Sauer recalled that the forensic experts had difficulty in establishing the exact time of her death. Her family alerted the authorities only after she failed to show up for a family lunch. By then her remains were virtually a bag of bones held together by maggots crawling through the rotting meat.
By this time, Hobbs and Sauer were handed the case file. They were both at the scene shortly after the body was found. The worse stench of the rotting meat was gone by now, so Sauer could go into the bedroom and see the scene. He did throw up though. Not just because of the still faint rotting smell, but because of the sight of maggots crawling through the woman’s flesh.
“Why was she not discovered earlier?” Hobbs asked her landlord and colleagues. The answers remained vague. She was a loner. She worked in a government hospital where personnel control did not exist, and she worked different shifts. Nobody knew why she was not discovered earlier. It was not as if she was completely disliked. Her colleagues liked her. They thought she was a hard worker, and she liked to take her smoke breaks outside the building. Nobody knew anything about her personal life. Some suspected that she was a lesbian as she was extremely butch. She sauntered like a man and always stood with her legs wide apart. As she did not associate with her colleagues after hours, nobody knew what her sexual preference was.
The truth was that she was a lesbian. She liked going into Hillbrow on Thursday nights and weekends to pick up younger woman. That was when Hillbrow was still Hillbrow. That was before the legions of illegal immigrants from North Africa invaded the once trendy suburb.
She would never take the girls home. She would make them an offer. Once accepted, she would grope their breasts and fanny through their clothing. She would not allow them to do her. She liked doing them, normally in the backseat of the car. She would gobble at the woman’s genitals like a hungry child. She would insert as many fingers as possible into their vaginas. She would firstly thrust the fingers in slowly, waiting for the lubrication to start. Then as she licked and sucked harder at the pussies, she would thrust harder. She liked hearing them moan. She was proud that she could make whores moan and come, something men were mostly unable to do. Afterwards she would light a cigarette for herself and the whore. She would still lightly stroke the genitals while smoking. She could feel the blood pumping through the labia lips. After the cigarette, she would thank the whore, drive home and masturbate herself with one of her vibrators.
Chapter Eight
“Hallo George!” Sauer called the captain by his first name only when they were alone. “This killer is actually quite bright. He chooses his victims well. I mean, they are all lonely, old spinsters. They all live alone. By the time we find them they are in various stages of decomposition. This fucker started killing these women a year ago, and still we are none the wiser. We only know that he uses a knife to stab them in the right eye. But does he do that before or after he raped them? When does he decide to take out their left eye? And cut off their noses? To spite their faces?” He laughed at his own joke. “And what about the weird marks on their cheeks? Does he really rape them, or does he use the vibrators on them? Or both. And when does he rape them? While they are still alive, or after he killed and mauled them?”
“And is the moon made of cheese?” Hobbs interrupted. “I don’t know. We don’t know. Forensics doesn’t know. This bastard is ahead of us at this stage.”
“And,” Sauer continued, “is Leslie Adam one of his victims? Her left eye was out. Her tongue was missing. She was raped, but we did not find a vibrator and her right eye was intact.”
“I was thinking the same thing. But what type of instrument could it be? A butter knife? A small garden shovel? A spoon?”
“Also, remember her doors were not locked. For all we know the Face Lifter walked into her yard, found the door unlocked and made the most of the situation.”
The two detectives lost themselves again in the case files with Hobbs smoking continuously.
“When is the new forensic pathologist due to start?” Sauer interrupted Hobbs thoughts.
“I heard she started last week already.”
“So, why have we not gone to meet the new she?” Sauer asked.
“From what I hear, she is believed to be excellent in her work—not like old Doctor Benjamin Luther who sold case files to the highest bidder. I am told. Apparently, she is quite a stunner. Her name is Joey and from what I am told, she has eyes as blue as the ocean on a warm day.”
“I would have though the ocean would be green on a warm day. With the algae growing in it and all.” Sauer shoved his chair back hard as he got up. “Going to introduce myself. Are you coming or are you still shying away from the fairer sex? Scared they might peek into your sensitive soul?” Sauer sauntered out of the office. “Love is not for sissies,” he said out loud.
She was definitely a ‘looker’—some forty years ago maybe. Sauer just grinned at himself when he shook her hand. Doctor Joey Mayer was in her early sixties, not five-foot tall and slightly overweight. Her hair was completely grey and pulled back in a bun. The white coat she wore nearly hung to the floor. Her feet were tucked into blue rubber Wellingtons. Her eyes were indeed as blue as the skies on a clear day. No make-up, no jewelry–just a huge watch on her left arm. She was in her office when the two detectives strolled in. Sauer led the way.
She looked up with alert eyes and immediately introduced herself. “So, what can I do for you boys?” she asked warmly.
“We are detectives Sauer and Hobbs .”
“Aha,” she said, smiling. “You
want to know more about that Zeller girl who was killed so brutally. Come in please. Have a seat.”
The two detectives sat down on the government-issued, plastic chairs. Sauer could never relax in them as he expected they would give way under his bulk any moment. It had happened to him before. He was awarded some medal for bravery a few years ago. As he waited for the ministers and speakers to all finish their over-inflated opinions, he drifted off and once he relaxed completely, the legs of the chair started splitting. He landed on the ground with a dusty thud as other members of the dignitary attempted to help him up. The only thing that got hurt that day was his ego, but he did want to badly hurt Hobbs, who could not stop laughing.
Doctor Mayer looked at them over her bifocals and smiled sweetly. Sauer and Hobbs were slightly surprised by the woman’s motherly attitude towards them.
“I hear,” she said to Sauer with a smirk, “that you enjoy being present when I do the autopsies. Some of the other detectives in your department shared that with me. I am told that you often bring your lunch into the autopsies.” She winked at Sauer.
Sauer grinned. “Yeah, right,” he said, laughing. “Sadly, I don’t do blood, rotting corpses, gore, guts, or brains. Nor do I do bad smells. That’s the captain’s department.”
“Ah,” Doctor Mayer said looking straight at Sauer, “I heard that you are squeamish. But not to worry my boy, we’ll get back at those who tell such tales.”
She turned and looked at Hobbs. Sauer could swear he could see Hobbs blush ever so slightly.
“And you must be the famed Captain George Hobbs? Master detective—the one that speaks max ten words a day?”
Hobbs blushed a little deeper, yet the stern look in his eyes never faltered. He nodded his head.
“So, what have you got for us?” Sauer asked. “Have you had time to do Zeller yet?”
“Yes, briefly. But don’t worry. I told my niece that I was not coming home early tonight. There were a lot of cadavers on the slabs this week. Back log from old what’s-his-face.” She waved her left hard towards the door leading to the cold rooms.
“Tonight, when it is quiet, I will do a thorough autopsy. These things, when properly done, take hours you know. Come see me in the morning, maybe I have some answers for you.”
Sauer looked at her. He placed a brown envelope on the table.
“We want to ask you a favor,” Sauer continued.
“Ask away.”
“We want you to look at these photographs of the three other victims, compare them with the lady on the slab and tell us what instrument caused these injuries. Also try and see if you can find any genetic material on the towel.”
“What towel?” Doctor Mayer asked
“The blue towel that we bagged at the last killing?”
“Sorry, no blue towel in my inventory,” she said as he got up and retrieved an A4 book from her top drawer. She paged through it. “One female cadaver—Charmaine Zeller, a few collection bags containing hairs, bloodied bedding, a pink sex toy…” she read from the book. “But no, there was no towel.”
Sauer blew out a loud breath. He looked at Hobbs and then at Doctor Mayer. Both detectives were speechless. They specifically asked for forensics to come collect the blue towel. Somebody is going to get fired for this!
“That is what I do. I will see if the genetic material under the last victim’s nail would match the first three victims. Not that there was much fingernail. All the victims had their nails cropped right into their flesh after they were killed.”
“How you know it happened after death?” Hobbs asked.
“No blood. Which means the heart stopped pumping.”
“So there was no genetics found under the first three victims’ fingernails as well?” Hobbs questioned.
“I personally swabbed Zeller’s fingertips myself. But up to date we have been unable to find any genetic material that does not belong to the victim. Your killer is a crafty bugger. We might be lucky. Technology is getting better and better. We are not the Naval Criminal Investigative Service yet, but sooner or later this bugger is going to slip up. These tests take weeks to do, but in the end they are the real thing. Deoxyribonucleic Acid does not lie.”
Sauer and Hobbs left the dark mortuary. The bright sunlight made them squeeze their eyes to slits. Still lost for words, they looked at each other for a moment. We must go back and see if we can find the fingernails. Maybe the killer threw the nails in a trash can, or out the window…Then Hobbs pointed with his right index finger at something behind Sauer. They were still on the mortuary premises situated next to the holding cells at the back of the charge offices. The big detective turned around and saw a makeshift washing line running from the gutter on the corner of the premises to a tree some five meters away. A black woman was busy washing clothing in a bucket. On the line was a blue towel flapping in the wind…Zeller’s blue towel.
“How the fuck?” Sauer spluttered. He walked with long strides towards the woman.
“Where did you get this towel?”
She looked up at him dumb founded. She straightened up and shrugged her shoulders.
“I said…where the fuck did you get this blue towel?”
She shrugged her shoulders again and shouted in her native tongue to somebody out of sight. Hobbs walked over to the towel and felt it. It was still damp. She probably washed it first thing in the morning. The woman shouted again. This time in a higher pitched voice as Sauer still stood glaring at her.
Hobbs ripped the towel from the line and walked back to Sauer. He lifted the top edge of the towel and showed it to Sauer: The white embodied insignia was clear: CZ.
An off-duty policeman, dressed only in blue, track suit pants, stumbled towards them. He clearly had been asleep. He spoke to the woman in their native tongue. Her explanation was long.
“Oh,” he said eventually, “she says the towel was given to her mother by her mother’s employer.”
“Is she sure she did not get it from her boyfriend’s employer?” Sauer’s sarcasm was wasted. “This towel was found on a scene of a muthi killing. Now the ancestors are going to be very angry.” Ancestral worship is still very rife in Africa.
Doctor Mayer was busy dissecting. She did not want to be disturbed, so the detectives left the towel with a note explaining everything on her table. The note read: ‘Please, despite this, see if you can find anything’.
Walking back to their car, they both shook their heads. Only in Africa.
Chapter Nine
Sauer and Hobbs drove back to Zeller’s house. The house still displayed the yellow police tape around it. Because the door was kicked down by the eager rookies, it was easy to pry it open. The wooden door cracked as Hobbs and Sauer pulled it off its hinges. A stale smell of death greeted them. Funny how that smell never really does go away. Sauer took a few deep breaths and then walked straight to the bedroom. The bloody mattress and bedding had been removed. Somebody opened the hideous floral curtains.
The window had not been fixed yet. He dragged a chair closer to the bedside table and opened the drawer. Inside were several notebooks and Bibles. He paged through them quietly. Ah, she kept diaries.
Sauer started reading. “…Life has to have more meaning than getting up and going to work. There has to be more—why can other people lead such fulfilling lives and I am never noticed. Maybe I should lose some more weight. But it is not easy for me. I eat because I am lonely. And bored. I so desperately want a husband. Why can’t God give me a husband? I am not a bad person. I do all the right things…”
Sauer stopped reading. What crap! Maybe she would get a lover if she got off her ass, lost weight and started doing naughty things. Or just sport. Plenty of lonely guys at sports meetings.
He walked to the kitchen, found a plastic shopping bag and walked back to the bedroom where he unceremoniously dumped the diaries inside the bag. He bent down and looked under the bed. He always did it.
One day I am going to find the boogie man!
; Once, when he was a rookie, they searched a house for a suspect. They looked everywhere. They just could not find the suspect until Sauer started looking under all the beds. Sure enough, there was the suspect huddling in a corner under one of the beds. It was with much fanfare that he dragged the wailing man from under the bed. The next day, the unit commander made a point of congratulating him.
Sauer walked down the hall to her study. He pulled the chair out and sat down. Everything was pristine and in its place. Pain in the ass. He switched her computer on. The computer started up fine but then required a password. Because Sauer is by no means the best-informed person when it comes to computers, he shut it down again. He heaved his heavy body under the table and started pulling out cords.
“Hey Georgie Boy, I’m taking the computer in for analyst.”
Hobbs didn’t bother to answer. He knew his partner was on a roll. Hobbs still hovered outside next to the bathroom window. Perhaps the killer dropped something. They had been over the scene a thousand times. What are they missing? He walked back into the house as he needed to urinate.
He lifted the lid of the toilet and started unzipping his pants. Just as the water was about to leave his bladder, he saw it. He turned his penis towards the bath and pissed into the bath. A splatter of urine marked the floor and the side of the bath. He shook off the last drops and packed it back into his pants. This might be the fasted piss he has ever had.
“Sauer!” he bellowed.
“What? I’m busy…”
Hobbs looked around the bathroom. He saw nothing he could pick up the fingernail at the bottom of the toilet with.
In his left jacket pocket he found a surgical glove. He pulled it over his hand and ever so carefully, picked the nail from the bottom of the toilet. Sauer walked into the bathroom. “What?”
Hobbs smiled widely and held the nail up at Sauer. Bingo.
“Get forensics to swab the toilet. Let’s hope the killer was in dire need of a piss after all his hard work.”
Cannibal Man Page 4