A Killing in Kenya (Flight Risk Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Susan Harper

  “Oh, no, I’m headed off to bed,” Pauline said appreciatively.

  Kendell exited the shower, dried her hair, and passed by a sleeping Pauline on her way up to the loft. She tiptoed, not wanting to wake the old woman from her peaceful slumber. She could hear Dot snoring almost as loudly as Pauline. Kendell closed the window this time, not really sure how she felt about being awakened by giraffe slobber for a second morning. Just when she was drifting off to sleep, she was abruptly yanked from her slumber by the sound of loud, incoherent shouting. It was significantly later now, and she glanced over to see that Lil was still not back from what should have been a quick trip to the kitchen. She bolted down the spiral staircase down to where Pauline had been sleeping; the old woman had already crawled out of bed and thrown on a robe after hearing all of the noise.

  The two women exchanged worried glances, and Pauline nodded toward their balcony. The two of them hurried outside, and they were able to look out onto the front lawn of the manor where Jahi and his wife were standing, both shaking their heads and having a loud discussion in Swahili with what looked to be uniformed Kenyan officers.

  “What’s going on?” Kendell quietly asked Pauline, and the woman shrugged. Pauline held Dot tight in her arms as she scanned the surrounding area.

  “Oh, no,” Pauline said, nudging Kendell and pointing to the manor’s front entrance where Lil was being shoved by some of the officers. They watched as the man shoved her into the back of a vehicle.

  “Jahi!” Kendell shouted down, and the man looked up at them. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Why are they putting Lil in a car? Did something happen?”

  Jahi shook his head and shouted back up to her. “Yes, something is very terribly wrong, Miss Kendell. Mr. Zachariah is dead, and these officers believe your friend killed him!”

  4

  Kendell and Pauline had immediately rushed through the manor and down to the front garden where the police vehicle was parked. Kendell was adamant about finding out exactly what had happened to result in Lil being accused of such a crime. She could not imagine Lil as a killer—a little abrasive, but no killer. Lil was seated in the back of the vehicle, the back door open. She was not cuffed or anything, but she had been warned not to get out of the car.

  “You all right?” Kendell asked her first, and Lil nodded nervously. Pauline came and stood by the vehicle next with a reassuring gaze while Kendell walked up to the two officers speaking with Jahi and his wife. “What happened? Why have you arrested my friend?”

  The two officers stared blankly back at Kendell. One of them grunted and crossed his arms. Kendell looked at Jahi. “They do not speak English,” Jahi said. “But I can tell you what happened. I woke up because I heard a crashing sound in my kitchen, and when I got in there, I saw your friend Lil standing over Zachariah with a busted coffee pot in her hand. There was glass on the floor, and in the man’s head. He was dead. I called the authorities, and they concluded that your friend must have hit him over the head with the coffee pot.”

  “Murdered by a coffee pot?” Kendell questioned. “You must be joking!”

  “I saw the busted pot before I saw Zachariah!” Lil called from the vehicle. “I picked it up when Jahi came walking into the room. I didn’t kill him!”

  Jahi kindly translated for Lil to the officers, then he turned to Kendell. “I do believe your friend. She has no reason to want to hurt this stranger, does she?”

  “No, we never met him until we came to the manor,” Kendell said.

  “Jahi,” Jina said, touching his shoulder. “Didn’t our patrons say Zachariah disturbed everyone at the safari yesterday?”

  “Yes, but that does not mean that Lil murdered him,” Jahi said.

  Kendell looked at the officers. “My friend is innocent. You need to do a proper investigation. Just because she was the first one to find the body does not mean she is guilty.” Jahi translated Kendell’s words to the officers. One of the men spoke.

  Jahi then translated for Kendell. “He says your friend is guilty, and they are leaving.”

  “You’re joking!” Kendell exclaimed, her voice raising. “You two get in there and do your jobs!”

  “Miss Kendell, I will do you a favor and not translate that,” Jahi said, shaking his head. “These officers are professionals.”

  “They’re not acting very professional. They are assuming my friend’s guilt just because she was the first one to find the body!” Kendell shouted. “That’s not professional! They need to interview everyone who was here. They need to investigate the scene. They need to—”

  Dot suddenly started yapping. The little dog leaped out of Pauline’s arms and came running over to Kendell, barking loudly up at her for all of her shouting. “Dot! Dot, that’s enough!” Pauline shouted from the car.

  The two officers laughed a little at the hyperactive dog. Then, Lil made a move during the distraction. She bolted from the car, and by the time the officers spotted her, she was sprinting for the Giraffe Manor forest. “Uh oh,” Kendell said under her breath, shaking her head.

  The officers bolted after her. “Lil! That is a terrible idea!” Pauline shouted.

  One of the officers looked over his shoulder and shouted at Jahi before continuing his pursuit. Jahi turned and shooed Kendell and Pauline. “He tells me to make sure everyone is in their rooms, especially you two,” he said. “Please, let’s go.”

  “They’re chasing my friend through the woods!” Kendell snapped.

  “Go inside!” Jahi demanded. “Listen to the police!”

  Kendell scooped up Dot and went with Pauline. The two of them headed inside as instructed and returned to their suite. “I cannot believe they were so quick to blame Lil!” Kendell growled and plopped herself down on the little sofa in the room. She crossed her arms, positively seething. “My friend is about to be arrested in a foreign country. What am I supposed to do? Why would she run? That is only going to make her look even guiltier.”

  “I don’t know, Kendell. That might have been the smart move,” Pauline said. “From the way I understand it, Kenyan prisons have quite a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” Kendell asked.

  “Overcrowding, mostly. Abuse of prisoners,” Pauline said. “They were in the news recently about it, and I can’t imagine an American in the prisons would bode well with the other prisoners.”

  “This is not good,” Kendell said, glancing toward the balcony. “I think I need to find Lil before the police do.”

  “I think that is an accurate statement,” Pauline said. “What we need to do is get your friend to the US Embassy.”

  “Is there one here?” Kendell asked.

  “Remember how we had to listen to the pre-recorded message on our drive out here? I think I remember it saying there was an Embassy.” Pauline said and went digging through her purse on the bed. “Let me look it up.” She pulled out her phone, struggling a bit to figure out the internet, but she got it working after a few minutes. “Yes!” Pauline said excitedly. “The US Embassy is right here in Nairobi.”

  “Great,” Kendell said and smiled. “If I can find Lil before the police do, we can try to get her off the manor…but the embassy is really far away. There is no way we can walk off the manor. It would take us all night just to get off the manor’s property. Then the embassy is still a considerable distance across Nairobi.”

  “I’ll see if I can’t figure something out,” Pauline said, smirking. “I think I have an idea. You just get to Lil before the police do.”

  “I’m on it,” Kendell said and started to open the door to head out into the hall. She frowned, spotting Jahi and his wife keeping guard in the hallway. She closed the door. “Looks like I’m going the long way around.” Kendell headed to the balcony. It wasn’t too far of a fall, but was further down than she would risk just throwing herself over edge. She threw her legs over the balcony and slowly attempted to scale down the wooden bars until she got to the brick. She looked below, still not confident
in such a drop, but she went for it, landing on bent knees to diffuse the shock a bit. She felt a slight pain in her leg, but overall, she was a bit proud of herself for accomplishing such a drop.

  Kendell then headed into the forest where she had seen Lil dart off to. She could hear the officers traipsing around, sounding quite frustrated. She did her best to avoid being seen by them, heading in a different direction. If the officers hadn’t found Lil by now, Kendell assumed it was because they had gone the wrong way. She started wishing she had put on more comfortable shoes instead of the complimentary slippers she had snagged from her room, but she figured if she was going to step in giraffe droppings, she’d rather it not be in her nice, white Keds.

  Kendell walked around for nearly half an hour, occasionally ducking behind a tree and changing directions to avoid the officers, who were growing louder and louder and more and more frustrated with each passing second. After a moment, she saw them head back toward the manor, probably to call for assistance in finding the woman who had slipped away into such a large forest. Kendell felt something smack the back of her head, like some sort of small seed. Looking up, she saw Lil waving at her from up in a tree.

  “How did you get up there?” Kendell whispered, her friend hardly visible in the dark as she hid behind some lower branches.

  “There were a lot of trees at my house as a kid,” she said, barely able to hold herself up.

  “I’m impressed,” Kendell said. “Why did you run?”

  “I got scared,” she admitted. “I’ve heard things about Kenyan prisons…”

  “You and Pauline both,” Kendell grunted. “Listen, if we can manage to sneak you off the manor, the US Embassy is in Nairobi.”

  “How are we supposed to do that?” Lil questioned.

  “Pauline is working on something,” Kendell said.

  “How do you know that old lady isn’t just going to turn me in to the police?” Lil asked shakily.

  “She’s a friend,” Kendell assured. “And it sounded like she had a plan.” Kendell put her hands on her hips. “Would you come out of that tree? You look like an idiot up there like that.”

  “I’m actually feeling pretty smart right now since they walked by me three times tonight,” she said, smirking slightly as she made her way down. She nearly toppled over when she jumped. Lil moaned as she caught herself against another tree. She stood upright and stretched her back. “I haven’t climbed a tree since I was a kid. I’m way too old for that nonsense.”

  “Let’s just get you to Pauline,” Kendell said. “Without running into our Kenyan friends.”

  “If you say so,” Lil said anxiously.

  It was still pitch black outside apart from some stars overhead. Kendell nearly ran into a tree twice, but the two of them managed to circle a good distance in the forest until they believed they could head to the manor without being spotted. They stood at the tree line, each feeling a bit anxious, before darting toward the manor and creeping around the back walls. Thankfully, a back door was unlocked, and they were able to slip inside without being noticed by the officers stationed by their vehicle at the front of the manor, calling for assistance.

  Kendell walked lightly with Lil on her heels. They turned a corner, and suddenly, there was Jahi staring them down. They both stiffened. The man shook his head, pressing his fingers against his temple. “You Americans…” he groaned. He glanced toward the manor’s front entrance. “I saw nothing…” he said, spinning on his heels and walking back to his bedroom.

  Lil exhaled heavily, and the two of them hurried back to the suite, where Pauline was patiently waiting. She was on her phone, and she seemed to be studying a map. “Thank goodness,” the old woman said when she spotted Lil. “That was quite a sprint into the woods.”

  “If you think that was impressive, you should have seen where I found her—up in a tree,” Kendell said.

  Pauline snickered. “Please tell me you two have a plan to get me out of here,” Lil moaned. “Eventually, those officers are going to come look inside the manor instead of the forest. They’re calling in backup. They are bound to find me eventually. I need to get to the embassy so that I can get myself an American lawyer to help me out and to keep me safe.”

  “I agree with you completely,” Kendell said. “Lil, what happened? Did you see who hurt Zachariah?”

  “No,” she said. “I already told you what happened. I went down to get coffee and maybe something to eat. I saw the busted coffee pot on the ground, and I picked it up. I figured that someone had just broken it and had not wanted to clean up the mess, but then I saw some blood dripping off the pot. That’s when Jahi came walking into the kitchen. He flipped on a light, and we both saw Zachariah lying there with his head cut up. Jahi called the authorities, and I waited downstairs with him. When those officers got there, we told them what happened, and they just started shoving me out the door. They wouldn’t listen to anything I said. They just knew I was an American and that I was in the room with Zachariah.”

  Kendell shook her head in frustration. “Okay, get your stuff packed,” Kendell said. “We’re going to see what Pauline and I can come up with.”

  “Okay, but do it fast,” Lil said, hurrying up to the loft where she and Kendell had been sleeping. “It’s only a matter of time before they find me.”

  Pauline kept scrolling through her phone. She glanced up at Kendell. “Looks like you and I have another mystery to solve.”

  “Looks like it,” Kendell said, shaking her head. “But, before we do any of that, we’ve got to find a way to get Lil somewhere safe.”

  Pauline nodded. “Yes, dear, I agree.”

  5

  Kendell watched anxiously as Lil rushed to pack up her little bag with what few items she had brought with her to Kenya: her flight attendant uniform, two pairs of shoes, a toothbrush, spare underwear, socks, and her famous bag of mid-flight snacks. This had been a spur of the moment decision for Lil, and Kendell hated that the woman was probably regretting it. It seemed that a spew of bad luck had latched itself onto Kendell and Pauline’s trip. Their London trip had been the first leg on Kendell’s journey, and the second for Pauline, who had been visiting Kendell’s stomping grounds in New York beforehand. London had almost been disastrous after an actor at the Globe Theater had literally lost his head. Now, it seemed that single incident of misfortune had cursed them; Kendell blamed it on the show they had seen at the theater. Macbeth was known as the cursed Scottish play, after all. What were the odds of seeing two murders in one week, across ocean waters no less?

  “Poor Lil,” Pauline said as they watched Lil rush around the loft, shoveling everything she could into a bag.

  Kendell gently touched Pauline’s shoulder, encouraging her to sit down on the sofa with her. “I’m not sure what we’re going to do now,” Kendell said. “Those officers just called in for backup. It’s only a matter of time before they realize Lil is no longer in the forest and decide to search the manor for her. The manor’s property is miles long in every direction. I don’t know how we could possibly get her out of here before getting caught.”

  “You have no faith in me,” Pauline said, grinning.

  “You have a plan?” Kendell asked.

  “Not a very good one,” she said. “But, yes, I have a plan. Excuse me for one moment. I’ll knock three times so you know it’s me.” Pauline stood, placed Dot in Kendell’s lap, and scurried out into the hallway.

  “Where is she going?” Lil asked in a panicked whisper as she made her way down the spiral staircase from the loft.

  “I don’t know,” Kendell said. “But apparently, she has some sort of plan to help you out.”

  “I’m freaking out,” Lil admitted. “We’re in a foreign country, and I’ve just been accused of a serious crime. Remember what happened to that American kid who got arrested in Korea?”

  “That was Korea, Lil. We’re in Kenya,” Kendell reminded her.

  “Kenyan prisons still have a terrible reputation, Kendell!” L
il hissed, still whispering out of fear of being heard by unfriendly ears.

  “I know, I know,” Kendell said as she stood, still holding Dot in her arms as she made her way over to Lil. “But I trust Pauline. She may be a kooky old broad, but I trust her. She had my back in London, and I had hers.”

  “Why? What happened in London?” Lil asked.

  “Just a really bad misunderstanding,” Kendell said, attempting to brush it off as nothing, but Lil was giving her the stare down. “Pauline may or may not have been arrested for murder. The reasoning for her booking was never really clear to us.”

  “What!”

  “She was cleared,” Kendell assured her. “But, yeah, we witnessed a murder at the Globe Theater, and Pauline had snuck back stage to meet the actors. It kind of looked suspicious, so they brought her to the station for questioning. Then the cop who arrested her was rude, so she broke his nose. I’m pretty sure the assault on the officer thing was the reason they arrested her, but they wound up dropping whatever it was they initially charged her with. It was really just a big misunderstanding.”

  “She’s nuts!” Lil yelped, still trying her hardest to keep her voice down. “And you brought me here with the crazy old bat!”

  “Lil, calm down,” Kendell said. “Pauline is trying to help you, remember? Someone killed Zachariah, and it obviously wasn’t Pauline. She was up here with me, so you don’t need to worry about her. She’s your friend, I swear.”

  Lil sighed. “Yeah, I guess so. Pardon me for being a little skeptical of the white southern lady who offers free rooms to a random black woman she met on a plane.”

  “You weren’t random,” Kendell argued. “She invited you along because you’re my friend.”