by Martin Steyn
LAPA Publishers
Pretoria
www.lapa.co.za
Catalyst Press
Livermore, California
www.catalystpress.org
Serious Violent Crimes Unit
Bishop Lavis, Western Cape
Unit Commander
Lieutenant Colonel John Hattingh (46)
Group Leader
Captain Henz Kritzinger (37)
Detectives
Warrant Officer Jan Magson (54)
Warrant Officer Gys Burger (48)
Warrant Officer Colin Menck (40)
Warrant Officer Azhar Najeer (36)
Warrant Officer Patrick Zuzile Theko (31)
Warrant Officer Kayla Schulenburg (28)
Abbreviations
AFIS
Automated Fingerprint Identification System
SVC
Serious Violent Crimes Unit
FCS
Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offenses Unit
LCRC
Local Criminal Record Center
SAPS
South African Police Service
Glossary
ag
ah, oh
bakkie
pickup truck
bleddie
slang, from the English “bloody,” usually meaning “very” or “damned”
bliksem
literally “lightning,” but used as a soft curse word to mean anything from “damnit” to “hit” or “strike,” “bad person” to “very”
bloekom
eucalyptus or blue gum tree
boerewors
literally “farmers’ sausage”, usually made of beef
braai
barbecue
buk
bend over
dolosse
knucklebones used by sangomas to read the future
dominee
church minister
donner
literally “thunder,” but used as a moderate curse word similar to bliksem
ja
yes
klagtebakkie
literally “complaints pickup truck,” the vehicles typically used by uniformed police officers
koeksister
traditional sweet tea-time treat, of deep-fried dough soaked in syrup
lekker
tasty, but used to describe anything pleasant
meneer
mister
mevrou
missus
moer
versatile curse word similar to bliksem and donner in usage
nee
no
oom
uncle, but generally also used as a respectful form of addressing an older male
ouma
grandmother
poegie
motorized scooter
rottang
cane used for corporal punishment
sies
yuck, used to indicate disgust
slaptjips
French fries
soutie
a slightly derogatory term for an English-speaking person
vel
skin
worshond
literally “sausage dog,” dachshund
One
March 9, 2014. Sunday.
“Yet another Sunday lunch with the family interrupted by blood and maggots,” remarked Warrant Officer Colin Menck beside him. “What a great job we have, hey, Mags?”
Behind the wheel Warrant Officer Jan Magson did not respond. He simply continued along the meandering Vissershok Road out of Durbanville, looking for the murder scene.
“Casey has embarked on a grand campaign to get a horse for her birthday. Next year, when she turns ten. Because it’s a special birthday.”
Magson glanced at the horses looking out over the white wooden fence. Further on, on the opposite side of the road, a sign indicated the turn-off to the Meerendal Wine Estate. The rest was just vineyards, the green much too vivid. He didn’t want a new docket.
“So I’m talking to myself again today.”
Sometimes Menck was like a child whose mouth had to be in constant motion, opening and closing, emitting sound. “I didn’t sleep well,” said Magson.
“I don’t ask a lot. ‘Yes’. ‘Oh’. Even a grunt will do.”
The vineyards petered out, leaving only faded brown grass. Magson glanced in the rear-view mirror. The road was empty, but his eyes lingered. The Corolla’s dust-specked mirror turned his irises an even grayer green. There were lines etched in his forehead and cracks around his eyes. At his temples, the hair was receding. His moustache was edging away from brown towards gray.
He looked away.
There were two klagtebakkies at the side of the road, white pickups bearing the South African Police Service’s logo and emergency number, blue lights on the roof and a holding area in the back. A few unmarked vehicles as well. No houses in the light brown surrounds. Magson parked the Corolla and turned off the ignition. As they got out, a uniformed officer came to meet them. They showed their identification cards.
The uniform nodded. “Warrant Officers. She’s lying some distance in.” He pointed with all five fingers extended.
“Were you first on the scene?” asked Menck.
“Yes, Warrant.”
“Who found her?”
“A birdwatcher.”
“Is he still here?” asked Magson.
“It was a woman, Warrant,” said the uniform, now looking at him. “I kept her here until the first detective took her statement. He let her go when he was done. I have her details.”
“That’s good. Is Captain Kritzinger at the body?”
“Yes, Warrant.” He removed his blue cap and scratched his black hair with the fingers of the same hand. It was glistening with sweat.
“All right. Take us to him.”
“Wait,” said Menck, “let me just fetch your bib.”
“As long as you realize you’ll have to carry it around the whole time,” grumbled Magson. “Because I’m not putting it on in this heat.” The temperature was only part of the reason—as Menck knew perfectly well. Magson loathed the stupid crime-scene vests. Besides, it said crime scene investigator on the ones meant for the detectives.
“The blue brings out your eyes, man,” said Menck with a smile revealing his teeth.
“My e
yes are green.”
They walked up to the barbed-wire fence running all along the shoulder of the road. Magson noticed no signs of rust or disrepair, but here where most of the vehicles were parked, four of the posts had been overturned.
“I take it, it was like this?”
“Yes,” said the uniform.
They followed him through the opening. No tire treads. And the gap was too small for a vehicle to fit through. Had the victim walked? Or had she been carried?
Everything in the hilly environment looked the same—brown and dead, like the tall grass brushing against the legs of his trousers. Except for the snake of reeds, most likely following a small stream. In the distance was a clump of blue gum trees. The air was dry and the smell reminded him of chili, the flakes Menck was always shoving under his nose. Sweat trickled down his neck and he wondered how much further it was to the body.
Reaching the top of a hill, Magson saw the people. Members of the Local Criminal Record Center had begun to document the scene. Captain Henz Kritzinger was in conversation with a small group of people, one of whom was the forensic pathologist—she stood out like a beacon in her white overalls and the bright orange vest with the words Forensic Pathology Services on it.
Captain Kritzinger grimaced. “Well, do what you can.”
The LCRC member nodded and walked off.
“Captain,” greeted Magson.
“The doctor thinks we have a problem.”
“She has already begun decomposing in this heat,” said Doctor Sinette Killian, brushing an errant brown lock from her forehead, “but the indications are that she was hanged.”
“Hanged?” asked Menck. “I can’t remember us ever having a murder by hanging.”
“I can.”
“That is the problem,” said Kritzinger.
“There was a girl, around September, October last year, I think, perhaps November,” explained Doctor Killian. “There were signs of sexual assault. She was also dressed, but her panties were gone.”
“But she wasn’t one of ours,” said Menck.
“I can’t remember who the investigating officer was, but as far as I know, the docket is still open.”
Two for the price of one, Magson thought. Fantastic.
The body looked like that of a teenage girl. She was clothed in a pair of shorts and a white top with spaghetti straps, but her feet were bare. Her abdomen was severely distended with gas and the exposed skin was a brownish yellow with dark green blotches. There was a lively presence of maggots, some quite large. Thick, dark fluid had seeped from her nostrils and mouth. The smell—something resembling rotten eggs and decaying meat coupled with that sweet smell unique to humans—was so strong that Magson could taste it at the back of his throat, and he knew it would be clinging to his clothes all the way home.
Doctor Killian knelt next to the body and gently turned the girl’s head away from them. Her swollen face did not look good—the first wave of blowfly females had targeted her eyes, nose, mouth and ears to lay their eggs. But it was evident from the lush dark brown ponytail that she’d had beautiful hair. A discolored furrow was visible in areas around her throat and neck, despite the attentions of the maggots.
“The furrow is high here against the throat,” indicated the pathologist. “Then it slants upward around the sides of the neck to the back.” She looked up at Magson and squinted against the sun. “This is where the knot would’ve been.”
He walked around the body and crouched on the other side. Blowflies buzzed around the girl, touching down, lifting off. The frenzied maggots were eating as if they knew their time was running out. The girl’s clothes were not torn. Everything was where it should be. “And you say it looks like the previous one, Doc?”
“I’d like to do the post mortem first and have a look at my report on last year’s case, but murder victims who were hanged are extremely rare, as you’re well aware. Death by hanging is pretty much always suicide. So it would be quite a coincidence if we’re looking at two different killers.”
“Coincidence,” said Magson. “Not likely. How long do you think she’s been lying here?”
“Five to eight days maybe.”
He placed his hands on his knees and pushed himself erect. All his hinges were in need of a few squirts of Q20. The left knee could do with some new parts.
Menck was looking around, rubbing his short dark brown hair, then stroking his moustache and goatee. “It’s far to those bloekom trees. If she was hanged there, why drag her all the way over here?”
Doctor Killian rose as well. “There are indications that she had been bound.”
“But he untied her,” said Magson. “Probably after. No rope left with the body.”
“Feels more like a dump site,” said Menck.
“What’s the birdwatcher’s story?”
“She saw some or other bird and told her husband to stop,” said Captain Kritzinger. “Got out and followed the thing to hell and gone, binoculars in one hand, bird guide in the other. Her husband says it’s the story of his life.”
“And then she found the girl.”
“Hmm. I don’t think the husband will be stopping for a bird again any time soon.”
Menck chuckled.
Magson looked back towards the road, despite the hills hiding it from view. “I’m wondering about the fence.”
“Did he break it,” asked Menck, “or find it that way?”
“LCRC will have a look in any case,” said Kritzinger.
“Hanging.” Magson turned his attention back to the ugly furrow in the girl’s neck. “It’s not just a way to kill someone. It’s also a form of execution.”
March 10, 2014. Monday.
It was early morning when Magson signed the register at the Salt River Forensic Pathology Laboratory and followed the familiar path to the dressing room. He exchanged his shoes for gumboots, followed the kink to the passage and turned right. The air was cool, somewhat stuffy. The gumboots squeaked on the vinyl floor. He pushed the swing doors open and the rotten egg and meat smell hit him. And he still had to completely rid his dwindling hair of yesterday’s assault. He greeted the pathologist and her assistant struggling to force open the fingers of a male body, and walked deeper into the dissection hall to the recess where Sinette Killian’s station was located.
The murdered girl lay on the steel trolley, in the same condition as when Magson had seen her last, bar most of the maggots. Those that still remained were lethargic after their night in the fridge. The photographer was taking pictures.
“Morning, Doc.”
“Morning,” said Doctor Killian, dressed in deep green scrubs, with blue latex gloves. “I did some reading.”
He looked up and found her blue eyes waiting for him. “And?”
“The rope marks look similar to the previous case.” She picked up a photo.
He took it from her. A close-up of the same type of furrow in the neck as was evident on the girl in front of him. Comparing the two, he nodded. A dark lock of hair was visible next to the girl in the photo.
“Also a brunette?” he asked.
“Yes. And the same age group.”
Magson sighed.
“There were a couple of other interesting findings with the previous victim. Abrasions and contusions on her wrists and ankles indicating she’d been bound. Bruises on her back consistent with blunt force trauma. Not perimortem.”
“She was held captive for some time.”
The pathologist nodded. “And she was found fully clothed, except for her panties.”
“When was this?”
“She was discovered on October 24, last year.”
“Where?”
“In the veld outside Brackenfell.”
Doctor Killian opened a packet from the sexual assault kit and used the swab to collect any biological trace e
vidence, mainly semen, that might be inside the girl’s mouth—and which had managed to survive the maggots.
“We have a possible identity,” said Magson. “The clothes match. Hair, too. Teenage girl who disappeared on February 27.”
“February 27. That’s what ...? About ten days.” She nodded, placing the white swab in its special triangular box and sealing it. “That would be consistent. What were the circumstances?”
“She was walking home from a friend’s house. Just disappeared.”
Doctor Killian turned her attention to the lush hair, cutting matted locks and folding them into a piece of white paper. She pulled a number of strands from the scalp, sealing them in a second piece of paper. Her auxiliary service officer, Kennedy Zihlangu, lifted the girl’s head when Doctor Killian gave a nod. She held a third piece of paper underneath the girl’s head and drew a plastic comb through the long dark brown hair. She folded the comb along with any trace evidence into the piece of paper and sealed it.
Then she raised the girl’s left wrist and cut the rubber band around the brown paper bag enclosing the hand. Carefully, she removed the bag and sealed it in an evidence bag. Having opened the next packet from the sexual assault kit, she moistened the swab with sterile water and rubbed the tip beneath every nail on the girl’s left hand. Her nails were dirty due to the conditions her body had been exposed to during the previous several days, but otherwise short and neat.
“No clear defensive wounds.”
Magson frowned.
The pathologist examined the girl’s wrist. “Definite abrasions. Significantly worse on the outer sides. Indicative that she had been bound. Wrists against each other perhaps. There are signs of scab formation. Some yellow in the contusions. She was held captive for a period of time.”
She completed the same ritual with the right hand and examined the wrist.