by Martin Steyn
“All right,” said Magson to the LCRC members, “you have the descriptions of the underwear and jewelry. One of the victims’ hockey equipment is missing. We’re also looking for rope, sex toys, pornography and any weapons. Remember, the victims were held captive for a period of time, and they were hanged, so be on the lookout for any evidence of this. Finally, we’re looking for an iron.”
Magson nodded and they dispersed. Menck disappeared into a room. Magson looked at the doorway and touched the nearest LCRC member’s shoulder, satisfied that it was sergeant Stacy Faro. “Will you help me search the bedroom?”
“Sure.”
Luckhoff had a double bed, unmade in black and gray. It was the only bed in the house and Magson noticed the absence of a head and foot higher than the mattress. No easy way to tie someone to the bed. The rest of the furnishings comprised a closet, a dresser and a table containing another hi-fi, a stack of CDs and miscellaneous items. Another guitar, an acoustic one, leaned against the wall. There was no obvious place to tie a rope in order to hang a person.
He decided to start with the closet and opened the first door. Clothes on the shelves, T-shirts, jerseys, some folded, some stuffed in. A stack of magazines. Guitarist, Total Guitar, Metal Hammer. Music, music, music. Looking at the numbers on the CNA price tags, for a moment Magson feared he had developed double vision.
“The man could open a plectrum shop,” said Faro.
Magson turned around. “A what?”
“A plectrum shop.”
“What the hell is a plectrum?”
“These plastic thingies.” Faro wiggled a triangular disc in her latex-covered fingers. “You use it to play guitar.” She demonstrated on an air guitar. “My little brother always dreamed of being Lenny Kravitz. Had the whole look and everything. Hair. Ripped jeans. Even the nose ring.”
Magson looked at her.
“You don’t know who Lenny Kravitz is, hey?”
He shook his head.
“Well, it didn’t work out anyway.”
He turned back to the closet, resuming his search through the magazines.
“Here’s something.”
Something more interesting than pieces of plastic, Magson hoped. “What?”
“Panties.”
Bingo. Magson joined her at the dresser. A variety of female underwear filled the bottom drawer. A chill slipped through him. “It’s a lot more than four.”
“There are bras also.”
If these were all trophies from victims ...
First, Faro took several photographs of the drawer’s contents. Then she started documenting the underwear, sealing each item in an evidence bag. In addition to a description of the panties Dominique had typically worn to hockey practice, they had a strong suspicion that Danielle had been wearing black panties, the companion to the black bra she’d had on when they had found her, a set her mother had bought her.
“Somebody kissed this one,” said Faro. “Right on the ...” She showed Magson the lipstick lips on the white cotton panties. “My brother would’ve liked this.”
Magson frowned. “There was a girl here the first time we came to talk to Luckhoff. Maybe this is hers. Did you find any other women’s clothes?”
“No, but I don’t think this is one girl’s things. They’re all in different sizes.”
“All right. Look through the black ones first.” Magson read the description out loud. “And it would be a medium.”
She searched, finally shaking her head. “No. Just a couple of G-strings. What is this tiny thing supposed to cover?”
The “tiny thing” was held up for Magson’s inspection. “I don’t know. Is there no jewelry or anything?” Of course, they would have seen it already, or at least have heard it scraping as Faro had moved underwear around.
“No. Just panties and bras.”
Magson clicked his tongue and returned to the closet. The next two doors revealed clothes on coat hangers, shoes at the bottom. The last door wouldn’t open.
“This is interesting. This door is locked.” All the keyholes were empty. Where would Luckhoff hide the key?
And why?
“Magson!” someone called.
He left the bedroom, saw Menck entering the kitchen, and followed suit.
“Here.”
A door in the kitchen led to the garage. Where the kombi was. As well as a large blue trunk. The lid was open.
“Well,” said Magson. “What do we have here? Was this thing locked?”
“No, Warrant. I just lifted the lid.”
“So he locks one of his closet doors,” mused Magson, mostly to himself, “but a trunk filled with drugs he leaves unlocked.”
“What’s in the closet?” asked Menck.
“I don’t know. Haven’t found the key yet.”
“Well, let’s go find it. I’d like to know what he’s hiding in there.”
Magson looked on the table, underneath the hi-fi, and started with the dresser again. Behind him, Menck was searching the closet. Plectrums were not the only items Luckhoff had in abundance; he was clearly quite fond of candles, as well. A dresser in a bedroom seemed a strange place to keep such a collection of candles.
“Ta-daa!”
He turned around and saw a key with light gray tufts clinging to the shaft in Menck’s blue latex fingers. “Where did you find that?”
Menck shook his head. “Did you never hide stuff when you were at school?”
He walked over to Menck.
“Prestik. A boy’s best friend when he needs some privacy.” He held the key for Magson. “So. Let’s see.”
The teeth slid all the way into the keyhole and turned easily. The lock clicked open. Magson grabbed hold of the knob and opened the door.
He gave a step backwards.
He stared at the tall gas cylinder.
Menck crouched in front of the closet. “What do we have here?”
Like the one holding the helium.
“Nitrous oxide. Gas mask. Clothes pegs. Dildo. A woman’s ...”
The cylinder had been what Hannes had found. In the cupboard in the garage. Together with the rubber hose and the oven roasting bag and the elastic band. Days later, when Magson finally had gone to get rid of the stuff, he’d noticed that the door had not been properly closed, half of the rubber hose lying on the floor. What had Hannes been looking for? Pliers? An old rag? What did it matter? He had seen the cylinder, the hose and the rest, and he had figured it out. Perhaps not immediately, but Hannes had never been stupid.
“Mags.”
“What?”
“Are you still having a look,” asked Menck, “or can LCRC do their thing?”
Magson motioned for them to continue and moved out of the way. When had Hannes known? How long had he carried it in silence prior to his mother’s funeral?
“Our dentist used laughing gas,” said Menck. “When I was at school. Always told me to just breathe naturally and I never listened. We had some good times, Doctor Dave and I.”
The inside of the closet flashed repeatedly as the sergeant took photos.
“Do dentists still use nitrous oxide? Not that you’d—” He glanced at Magson and turned back to the closet. “All I get these days are injections. Which results in me chewing halfway through my cheek by the time its effects have subsided. I’m going for a smoke.”
Magson stepped closer and really looked at the contents of the closet. A gas mask, a translucent triangle that fit over the nose and mouth, connected to the gas cylinder with a rubber hose. A dildo the shape of a test tube. Ten or more clothes pegs, rather large, made of plastic. A dark gray belt of the same material as a police uniform belt.
Sergeant Faro lifted a black camisole by the straps, studying it. There was lace at the V of the chest area. She sealed it in an evidence bag without comment.
Magson looked at the doorway. He speculated inside his head, but only echoes returned.
It was just after eleven when Magson stopped in front of his gate. Two eyes glimmered in the headlights. He’d completely forgotten about the dog. While he was busy with the lock, the dog stood with its front paws against the gate, tongue out. He pushed the gate and the dog squeezed through the gap as soon as its body was able to fit. Its tail wagged with such fervor that the entire back half of its body was involved in the motion.
Magson smiled. “Did you think I wasn’t coming home again?”
The dog barked and panted excitedly.
“You must be hungry. Let me just put the car in the garage, then I’ll give you something to eat.”
He pulled the Jetta into the garage, still impressed that the dog waited on the side without a word from him, locked the door and walked to the gate. The dog followed and watched as he put on the chain, its tail wagging all the while. He walked to the front door. The dog trotted alongside, looking up at him.
“What do you do here all day while I’m away?”
The dog just panted and looked at him. That spotted brown face looked much too innocent.
He unlocked the front door.
The dog remained outside, watching him, its head cocked to the left.
“Go around to the back door and I’ll give you some food.”
In the kitchen he grabbed the bag of pellets and opened the back door. The dog came running around the corner of the house. The pellets clattered into the tin plate and the dog started eating. Pellets crunched and the body jerked. The dog devoured each meal as if it were the first one in weeks.
Magson filled the bucket with water. He needed to get around to a shop and buy a decent water bowl.
When he went into the house, he left the door open.
Fifteen
May 27, 2014. Tuesday.
“Look, Mr. Keyser, it is your absolute right not to talk to us, but I have to tell you, things are not looking good for you. We found some damning evidence in Mr. Luckhoff’s home. A considerable amount of drugs, which makes it highly unlikely that it is just for recreational use. So we’re already looking at drug trafficking. And the fact that we also found drugs in your home, combined with the fact that you and Mr. Luckhoff work so closely together, make it a natural conclusion that you are also involved. Your neighbors told us about frequent drunken parties. There was even an altercation between you and one of your neighbors regarding drug use at one of these parties. But drugs aren’t all we discovered in Mr. Luckhoff’s residence.”
Magson looked at the two men across the table in the interrogation room, Hugo Keyser and his father, an attorney.
“Did you know that there’s a closet in Mr. Luckhoff’s bedroom that he keeps locked and that he hides the key?”
Hugo Keyser looked at him, at his father, back again. Licked his lips. “No. What about it?”
“We found a number of items in that closet.”
“What kind of items?” asked his father.
“Items of an incriminating nature.” Magson kept his focus on Hugo Keyser. “We know you were one of the last people to see Danielle Ferreira alive. We know you planned to have sex with her at your flat. We know Danielle Ferreira was raped before she was murdered. And now we have these items found in Mr. Luckhoff’s possession. This boat is sinking, Mr. Keyser. The question you have to ask yourself is whether you’re going to go down with it, or whether you’re going to jump off and swim.”
“Warrant Magson,” said the older Keyser, “will you give us a moment, please?”
Magson nodded and rose.
“And turn off the recording equipment?”
“Of course.”
Magson waited outside in the corridor. What would the father advise?
His theory was that Luckhoff and Keyser were both involved in the murders, about Malherbe he was not sure yet. Perhaps Keyser would turn on Luckhoff. LCRC would take a while analyzing all the fingerprints. He’d asked them to give priority to those lifted at Luckhoff and Keyser’s homes. The gas mask, dildo and other items were currently at the Biology Section for DNA analysis. But that always took weeks, even when a high-profile case received priority.
The door opened. “Warrant?”
Magson entered the interrogation room and took his seat once more.
“Hugo had nothing to do with the girl’s death. However, he does have valuable information regarding the drugs.”
“Let me be completely honest,” said Magson. “I don’t really care about the drugs. Organized Crime will want to talk to you about that, but I’m interested in the murder of Danielle Ferreira.”
“Hugo has no further information regarding that matter.”
“Mr. Keyser, we haven’t been able to locate a single person to corroborate your son’s version of events. Nobody saw Danielle Ferreira running down the street.”
“She did!”
“Hugo,” his father silenced him.
“I can tell you about the drugs.”
“Hugo. Quiet.”
“We get it in Knysna. That’s why we’re always playing gigs there. They bring it in through the Heads—”
“Hugo,” said his father sternly. “Shut. Up.”
“I didn’t kill her. I didn’t do anything to her. I swear.”
Kempen Luckhoff did not appear too bothered about the situation. He leaned back in the chair, seemingly comfortable and unperturbed.
“We found your trunk,” said Magson. “In the garage.”
Luckhoff didn’t reply, just looked at Magson.
“It’s interesting. Just yesterday you sat in that same chair, telling me how ‘fake’ all the pop stars are. But you’re exactly the same, Mr. Luckhoff. You pretend to be a musician with some kind of message, but in actual fact you’re just a drug dealer.”
“I’m very disappointed,” said Menck.
Luckhoff glanced at him and rolled his eyes.
“Nothing to say?” asked Magson.
“You’re a policeman. You look and see crime. That’s how you’re programmed.”
Menck perked up. “So there is another way to look at the trunk? Well, don’t keep it to yourself.”
“A woman sells her sex on the street. You look and see a whore. But maybe her husband kicked her out and she’s trying to feed her kid.”
“Oh, I see. It’s one of those means-to-an-end kind of situations. You sell drugs so your music may live.”
“Like, for example, to finance a CD,” said Magson.
“But you don’t really want to sell drugs.”
“I never said I’m selling drugs,” said Luckhoff.
“Surely you don’t need a whole military-grade trunk of the stuff for personal use,” said Menck.
“I have no use for drugs at all. My music is my drug.”
“For you, everything is about your music,” said Magson.
Luckhoff nodded.
“All right. So where does this stuff fit in?” He pushed a photo of the closet’s contents across the table.
Luckhoff looked at it. Showed no reaction. “Recreation.”
“Mr. Luckhoff. We know you did not drop off Danielle Ferreira on Voortrekker Road as you claimed yesterday. We know you dropped her off with Hugo Keyser at his residence. So that Mr. Keyser could have sex with her.”
“And?”
“Danielle Ferreira was raped and sodomized. An object was most likely used. Then she was murdered.”
“Oh, I see. And you think I did these things to her because I have an—” Luckhoff formed quotation marks with his fingers “—object in my closet.” He shook his head. “You are wasting your time. Yes, I dropped her off at Hugo’s. But I never saw her again after that. She was never in my place. And I didn’t kill her.”
“So why lie to us
about where you dropped her off?”
“Because I knew that you would go on a wild goose chase like a bunch of idiots. Because obviously it has to be the rock band who did it.”
“All these items are currently at the forensic laboratory,” said Magson. “Where it is being tested for DNA.”
Luckhoff shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You are never going to catch that girl’s killer.”
“Is that a challenge?”
Luckhoff slowly turned to him, looking him in the eye. “No. It is the tragic truth. She was never in my place. I did not kill her. You are looking in the wrong place.”
“So why lock away a dildo in your closet?” asked Menck. “Why hide a girl’s camisole in there when you have a whole drawer filled with bras and panties that isn’t locked? Why do you have a bottle of nitrous oxide?”
“For my personal use.”
“I thought you don’t need drugs. I thought your music is your drug.”
Luckhoff looked up at the ceiling. “No wonder crime is so rampant. You’re not very bright, are you? I don’t use it as a drug. I use it for sex.”
“How?” asked Magson.
Luckhoff shook his head. “You would think detectives investigating sex crimes would know more about sex.” The brown eyes focused on Magson. “I inhale it. It makes masturbation more intense. Just like the pegs and the dildo.”
“And the camisole?” asked Menck. “Do you put it on?”
Luckhoff turned to him, leaning forward. “Nitrous oxide is cool, but if you want the ultimate orgasm, you have to tie something around your neck. I like a belt, which I assume you found as well. The camisole goes between the belt and my neck. It prevents bruising. Being close to death makes your body more alive. Everything is more intense. Maybe you should try it. The next time you have your wife on the verge of orgasm, choke her.”
“Do you enjoy choking girls?”
“Only if they want it. And once they’ve had it, they always ask for more.”
Magson stared at the wall in the operational room where the photos of the victims and the dump sites were affixed. Lauren Romburgh. Dominique Gould. Maryke Retief. Danielle Ferreira.
“Mags.”