by Susan Harper
“Yeah, whatever,” Lil groaned.
Three quick knocks interrupted their bickering, and Kendell hurried over, cracking the door open to see that it was indeed Pauline. “Hurry,” Kendell muttered, opening the door for Pauline to slip inside.
“They’re still outside looking for you,” Pauline said. “So far so good. Here, Lillian, put this on.”
“What is this?” Lil asked, taking the colorful cloths that Pauline had managed to swipe.
“I believe it’s called a kanga wrap,” Pauline said. “Masai tribe clothing. This is a plate-like necklace.”
“I do like the gold,” Lil muttered, attempting to figure out how to adorn herself in the dress-wrap. She threw on the necklace as well, and Pauline tied up a colorful scarf to cover Lil’s hair. Pauline stepped aside and then nodded approvingly at her little disguise.
“Now, finish it off with this,” Pauline said, handing Lil a bright-colored vest that the tour drivers had been wearing when they first arrived in Kenya. Lil didn’t question her as Pauline seemed very confident in whatever plan she had brewing.
“So, what now?” Kendell asked once Lil was dressed.
“Now, you are going to stay here,” Pauline said to Kendell. “You’re going to need to cover for me in case they start counting heads or anything like that.” She tapped the side of her head. “I’ve got the route to the US Embassy right here. I’m taking Lil there.”
“How?” Lil asked.
Pauline grinned triumphantly and held up a set of keys.
“Where did you get those?” Kendell asked. “And what do they go to?”
“They leave the keys in an unlocked cabinet near the door,” Pauline said. “No worries. I’ll return it once I get Lil to the US Embassy.”
“Great, let’s add grand theft auto to my list of crimes they can slap me with,” Lil grumbled.
“We’re not stealing it,” Pauline insisted, “we’re borrowing it. And if you don’t like this idea, why don’t you go outside and turn yourself in and find out how Kenyan authorities treat American criminals?”
“Fine,” Lil grumbled.
“You really think I should stay behind?” Kendell asked.
“Yes,” Pauline said. “The last thing we want is to make all of us look suspicious, in case Lil and I get caught. We’ll need a lady on the outside watching out for us. Wish us luck, Kendell.” Pauline was scooping Dot up under her arm, and Lil anxiously scooted after her.
“You got this,” Kendell told Lil confidently, giving her a tight hug before watching the two of them depart. Pauline is going to drive her crazy on their little road trip, Kendell mused as she watched the door close. She waited several minutes before slipping out of the room herself; she could hear voices downstairs.
She headed down into the kitchen; she could see that the city’s coroner had already moved Zachariah’s body and cleaned up the mess left behind. Everyone, apart from Pauline, Lil, and the multiple children in the household, had gathered. They were all whispering so as not to disturb the sleeping children as they spoke.
“I just cannot believe someone killed that man,” Jina said, her eyes focused on the spot where the body had been found.
“You don’t believe that American girl did it, then?” Mr. Duffey asked.
Kendell cleared her throat, letting everyone know she was present. “Lil wouldn’t do this,” she assured them.
“Then why did she run?” Rider asked.
“No doubt because she knows the embassy is around here,” Mr. Duffey suggested.
Spot on, Frenchie, Kendell thought, but decided to keep her mouth shut. “Where is the older woman?” Landon asked Kendell.
“Sleeping,” Kendell said.
“She is not worried for your traveling companion?” Mrs. Ashley questioned.
“Not so much,” Kendell said. “Lil is my friend. Pauline just met her on our flight in from London. Have the police said anything about why they believe someone would have killed Zachariah?”
“No,” Jahi said. “But, from what I have heard from all of you, he did not exactly make friends on the safari.”
Mr. Ashley huffed. “That’s Zachariah for you…”
Kendell raised a brow. She looked directly at Mr. Ashley. “Did you know him before coming here to the manor?”
He stiffened slightly. “Well…somewhat. Our companies were competing over some land here in Nairobi, and he was being aggressive in his business strategies. We had never met face to face prior to this trip, though. A few shared emails here and there, but that’s all.”
Mrs. Ashley crossed her arms, frustrated. “He was very rude to us at the train museum.”
“Train museum?” Kendell asked.
“Yes, before we came here to the manor, we ran into Zachariah at the local Nairobi Train Museum. It was the first time we met him, and we got into a slight confrontation,” Mr. Ashley admitted. “But, that’s just business for you.”
Rider grunted. “Sounds like it probably wasn’t Lil who did Zachariah in.”
“Are you accusing me of something?” Mr. Ashley hissed. “Because I do not appreciate it. Besides, I’m not the only one here who had problems with Zachariah. I speak a little French, sweetheart,” he said, turning toward Mrs. Duffey. “You’ve been moaning and groaning about him ever since we got back from the safari trip. His little talk of Trophy hunting has had this broad up in arms. Don’t let the timid I-don’t-speak-English stich make you all think she’s Miss Innocent over here.”
“Hey! Don’t you dare accuse my wife of anything, you creep!” Mr. Duffey snapped.
“What about you?” Landon said, pointing at Duffey. “Your kids said you’re some animal rights activist. Did Zachariah’s talk bug you as much as it did your wife?”
“Really?” Mr. Duffey said with an eye-roll and then pointed his thumb in the Ashley’s direction. “You’re going to accuse me when someone just said they got into it with the deceased only a couple of days ago?”
“Okay, everyone, that is quite enough!” Jahi exclaimed. “Let the police do this work. It is not our jobs.”
“Yeah, but the police aren’t interested in doing the work,” Kendell groaned. She glanced in Landon and Rider’s direction. The two photographers seemed legitimately upset by this ordeal—probably because they were out three thousand dollars now that Zachariah had been killed. She felt confident she could wipe those two off her suspect list, but the Duffeys and Ashleys…not so much. They had legitimate reasons to want Zachariah gone, it seemed, while the photographers had taken a loss with the man’s death.
The group’s voices had escalated quite a bit. Jina at last snapped at everyone, clapping her hands to get everyone’s attention. “I realize I am not being the kind hostess by yelling at everyone right now,” she growled. “But, enough is enough! There is nothing we can do about Zachariah right now. It is late, and if you all keep yelling at one another, you are going to wake up the children. All of you, off to your rooms! Right now! Go on! I’ll bring up a midnight snack and some tea to calm everyone’s nerves, but everyone, stay in your rooms until the Nairobi police tell us it is safe.”
The group all groaned as if they were Jina’s children and had gotten scolded for bickering. Kendell returned to her room, closing the door behind her. She fetched a piece of paper and pen from the work desk in the suite and sat herself down, turning on a lamp. Technically, everyone was a suspect at this moment simply because they were staying at the manor, but she felt the need to focus in on the Duffeys and the Ashleys. Perhaps, she figured, the photographers would even be able to help her with the investigation. She certainly felt like the weight had fallen on her shoulders since the police were so insistent that Lil was guilty.
Kendell knew better. Lil was her friend, and Lil had no motive to hurt Zachariah. These strangers staying at the manor, however, did. If she had to play detective again, now would be the time. Lil was one of her closest friends. She would find a way to clear her name and to get justice for Zachariah, even
if he was a bit of a creep. After scribbling down everything she knew so that it would be fresh in her mind the following morning, Kendell headed up to the loft. She had a hard time getting to sleep, though. How could she sleep knowing that sweet old Pauline and her friend Lil were darting through Nairobi in hopes of finding refuge before the police caught up with them?
6
Lil climbed into the passenger’s seat of the striped jeep as Pauline cranked it up. She wasn’t really sure about trusting her well-being to this complete stranger, but Kendell had vouched for the woman. Lil and Kendell had not been friends too terribly long, but they had become close very quickly. Kendell was usually pretty good about gauging people, but Pauline was a bit of a question mark.
“Keep your head down,” Pauline said, turning the headlights off as she slowly pulled the vehicle away from the manor.
Lil felt Dot, the old woman’s little purse dog, shaking next to her. She wasn’t much of a dog person, but the little thing could potentially start barking and draw attention to them. So, Lil picked her up and put the pup in her lap. It calmed down almost instantly. It must not like the jeep, Lil thought. It was pitch black out this way, so Lil was just hoping Pauline didn’t hit a giraffe on their way off the manor property. “Can you… Can you even see where you’re going?” Lil asked as Pauline made an abrupt swerve, avoiding a random boulder.
“Honestly, not really,” Pauline admitted. “Plus, I haven’t had a license in years!”
Lil felt her stomach drop. She was starting to wonder if staying back with the Kenyan officers and remaining in a Nairobi prison would have been a better option. She shook her head, knowing good and well the safest thing for her to do was to get to the US Embassy where she could be protected by the US government during court hearings. Otherwise, she could become another one of those American traveler statistics that wound up dead in a foreign country’s prison system. True, Nairobi was no North Korea, but Nairobi had a reputation for not treating their local prisoners well, let alone foreign ones.
Far off, Lil could see headlights heading past them and toward the manor. “At least they still think you’re somewhere in the forest,” Pauline said. “That will hopefully keep them busy until we can get off the property. Not sure how good police communication is in Nairobi, but just in case, we are going to ditch the jeep in the national park.”
Lil raised a brow. “You haven’t…done anything like this before, have you?”
“Oh, honey, no,” Pauline said, chuckling at the thought. “But I watch a lot of crime shows. It’s my secret vice. This car has a plate. Taking it into the city won’t be a good idea, so we’re heading northeast into the national park. From there…well…we’ll have probably twelve miles through the city.”
“Twelve miles on foot!” Lil shrieked.
“An hour’s car drive, probably,” Pauline said. “But taking this colorful jeep through the city is going to stand out. We’ll figure something out once we leave the national park. For now, why don’t you lean your head back and rest.”
“You don’t think you should rest?” Lil questioned.
“I’ll rest when I feel like I need it. You’re the one who has had the shock of her life. Not me,” Pauline insisted.
Lil wasn’t so sure she could rest, but decided to give it a try. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. There was something about the calm little dog in her lap that was soothing, and she fell asleep.
It wasn’t until she felt sunlight against her face and heard a distinct purring sound that Lil opened her eyes. She blinked. The sun was up and shining directly on them, and she saw that Pauline had climbed into the backseat and was curled up asleep with Dot. She must have gotten tired in the middle of the night, Lil concluded and sat up. What she saw next almost caused her to scream, but she bit her tongue. There was a large lioness fast asleep on the warm hood of the jeep. “Oh…oh no, oh no, oh no…” was all she managed to mumble. “Pauline…” she whispered harshly. “Pauline!” She grew only slightly louder.
Pauline sat up slowly. “What are you moaning and groaning about?” she asked, and the giant cat awakened to the sound of Pauline’s nagging tone. When Pauline saw the creature, she sat upright.
Lil froze. Well, I guess this is it, Lil thought. Dot started barking. Yup, I’m going to die. The lioness didn’t like Dot’s barking. Its mouth widened and it snarled slightly before hopping off the jeep and slowly walking away. Lil, once the lioness was trotting off, immediately hopped over into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“What are you doing?” Pauline questioned. “I was going to leave the jeep here!”
“Are you crazy?” Lil yelped. “That would mean we would have to walk here! There was a lion on top of our jeep ten seconds ago!”
“Sweetheart, we are a five-minute walk from the park’s welcome center,” Pauline assured her. “We will be fine.”
“Not if we get eaten by a lion!” Lil argued.
“Shut the engine off,” Pauline demanded. “I promise, we will be just fine.”
Lil hesitated, but she supposed they did need to ditch the vehicle as Pauline had said the night before. Against everything her fight or flight instincts were trying to tell her, Lil shut off the engine and slowly made her way out of the jeep. She grabbed her bag from the passenger’s side floorboard and then held a hand out to Pauline to help her out of the back. The woman tucked her little dog into her purse-like carrier and straightened up, taking a moment to fluff her gray hair before walking away from the jeep with an abundance of confidence. “You’re really okay with walking after just seeing a lion here?” Lil asked after they had been walking for a few minutes. They were surrounded by large, open fields. She could see a herd of zebra far off in the distance.
“Yes, because the welcome center is right there,” Pauline said, pointing. Lil could see the safe haven in the distance.
“Thank goodness,” Lil said under her breath.
Once they reached the welcome center, they were greeted by a white Kenyan woman who began speaking to them in Swahili. Lil stiffened, realizing that the woman might have mistaken her for a native between the garb and the Giraffe Manor vest she was wearing. Pauline spoke before Lil had to explain why she didn’t speak the national language. “Pardon me,” Pauline said perkily. “But we are hoping to catch a bus back into the city?”
The woman frowned slightly for being interrupted, but quickly changed her expression. “If you hurry around front, there is a bus about to leave,” she said, pointing. “I’m sorry, but were you part of the earlier tour? Giraffe Manor is in the opposite direction that the bus will be taking you? Are you lost?” she asked, confused as to why a Giraffe Manor tour guide would be walking around the national park.
“No, we’re not lost,” Lil said. “This kind patron just asked me to give her an extended tour.” Lil then made a motion with her fingers like she was handling money, implying that Pauline was paying extra for a more extensive private tour. The woman nodded and smiled at Lil like she understood.
Lil and Pauline scurried around the small building and made it into the city bus just in time. So far so good, Lil thought, proud of the old woman who had managed to get her this far. “We’ll take the bus as far as it will let us,” Pauline said. “Which should be just a few short miles from the US Embassy.”
“Thank goodness,” Lil said under her breath.
They stayed on the bus for nearly thirty minutes, traveling through the enormous city of Nairobi. The buildings were enormous. Had Lil not been so distracted by the lion on top of their jeep, she probably would have taken time to enjoy the juxtaposition of being able to see the giant skyscrapers in the distance while in the Nairobi National Park surrounded by zebras and their predators. Now, deep in the city, she found that Nairobi was not too different from New York—slightly less crowded, but still an industrial city full of its own special culture.
The bus made a stop, and Lil stiffened when she saw a handful of officers climb onto the bus. The
men sat toward the back, and Lil could feel her heart racing. She felt Pauline touch her hand and shake her head to warn her not to make a move. “We get off at the next stop, and we do so quickly,” Pauline said, looking into her compact mirror back at the officers. “They haven’t taken their eyes off us since they got on the bus. They’re probably planning on nabbing us outside of the embassy.”
“So, we’re just going to get off at the next stop?” Lil questioned.
“That’s the plan. And do it quick,” Pauline said. “They won’t expect us to.” Pauline glanced out the window, and Lil felt as though the old woman must have been secret ops or something because she was acting like she had done this a hundred times before. “I see the stop coming up. There is a taxi sitting right there across the street. We bolt for that.”
“Okay,” Lil said anxiously, jumping up as soon as the bus started to come to a rolling stop. Pauline was just as quick as her, scurrying right on Lil’s heels. The officers jumped up as well as Lil had expected them to do, but there were so many others standing up to exit the bus at this point that it blocked them off. The two women darted across the street, dove into the taxi, and told the driver to head north.
The man didn’t understand what they were asking very well because he went east, and the next thing they knew, they were scurrying out of the taxi into a small Kenyan village just northeast of Nairobi. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Could you really not understand the word embassy!” Lil shouted as the disgruntled taxi driver made an obscene gesture, muttered something about Americans, and sped off.
“Ooh! Just look at those beautiful clothes!” Pauline cried, headed into the village. A small group of villagers, mostly children, greeted Pauline with smiles.
“Pauline!” Lil snapped. “What are you doing? We have somewhere to be!”
“Oh, honey, I hadn’t planned a trip to an actual village! Why didn’t I think of that?” Pauline mused. “Sometimes you just have to take what life is giving you and roll with it, Miss Lillian!”