A Carrion Death & The 2nd Death of Goodluck Tinubu

by Michael Stanley

  “Have you ever been married?”

  “No. What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked sharply.

  Dupie interrupted, “This is the tent that Tinubu stayed in. And was murdered in.”

  The tent had a police tape tied around the lower section, making it look weirdly gift-wrapped. Kubu pushed the tape aside, unzipped the flap, and went in. There was still a bad smell and a few flies, although Forensics had cleaned the place up. This is a typical tourist bush setup, Kubu thought. Comfortable, but nothing fancy. He looked around at the unpretentious interior, noting its layout and walked out, closing the fly screen and flaps. He didn’t bother with the tape. He doubted if anyone would want to go inside that tent at the moment.

  He looked back the way they had come. A sandy path ran from the tent back toward the others. He retraced his steps, checking if someone could be seen. By the time he reached the second tent, he was sure that someone could walk unnoticed along this path from one end of the line of the tents to the other. Especially at night.

  “This is where the Munro sisters are staying. They’re writers from England, here by themselves.” Dupie once again provided the information. “The next tent is the Boardmans’. They’re from Cape Town. They’re curio dealers. African art, they call it. And crazy about birds. And the two tents on the other side of the communal area are the same as these. The first is Boy Gomwe’s. The other is where Zondo stayed.”

  Kubu pointed to a path that forked off the one they were on.

  “Where does that path go?”

  “To a lookout over the lagoon.”

  “Let’s take a look,” Kubu said, striding off. After a few steps he slowed to Dupie’s pace. “Where are you from, Mr. Du Pisanie? What’s your role here at Jackalberry Camp?”

  “I’ve already told Detective Mooka all that stuff,” Dupie said impatiently.

  “I know, Mr. Du Pisanie,” Kubu said quietly. “But I need to get the full story for myself. I realize this whole affair is an imposition, but I ask you to be patient.”

  But actually Dupie seemed happy to talk about himself. “I’ve known Salome for years,” he said. “We grew up on neighboring farms near Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia. After independence, she went to South Africa. I stayed on for a few years, but didn’t like the way things were going. So I left and came to Botswana. I know the bush well, and I’m an experienced hunter, so I hooked up with an outfitter in Maun. They hired me to lead trips, mainly into the Central Kalahari. Most of our clients were Germans or Americans wanting to bag some big game. They thought they were in the wilds of Africa, but it was pretty tame, really. We set it up so they couldn’t miss. Made them feel good, and they paid a lot of money for the privilege. They tipped well, too. Good thing, because the outfitter certainly didn’t pay well.” He paused for a moment, then continued.

  “Salome and I had kept in touch after she left Rhodesia. When she inherited this place, she contacted me and asked if I wanted to help run it. I was sick and tired of what I was doing, and came here about twelve years ago. We’ve made ends meet, but only just.”

  “And what do you do here?”

  “Well, I don’t have a specific role.” Dupie shrugged. “Lots of paper work, and I fix the mechanical stuff. And I try to keep the guests happy. Man the bar in the evenings and tell stories about Botswana and big game hunting, and how the area used to be before all the tourists. I know a lot about the history of the area and generally keep people amused. The longer they stay at the bar, the more booze we sell, and that’s where we make a bit of money. We’ve really struggled since the fancy camps have appeared. Camps only in name. Actually they’re five-star hotels. We don’t want to be like that, just a comfortable and affordable place for people to enjoy Botswana. Trouble is, most of the overseas tourists expect the high-end stuff, which we don’t have. And we don’t have enough accommodation to attract large groups—our concession only allows ten guests at a time. We stretch that occasionally by using the tent set aside for our personal friends. Nobody knows about that, and nobody really cares.”

  At the top of the rise, Kubu stopped to catch his breath. Under a tree stood a picnic table and benches. He looked around. The view was spectacular. Water and islands stretched to the hazy horizon. Wild date palms poked into the sky, hosts to circling palm swifts, moving almost too fast for the eye to track. To the right, the mainland was covered with thick vegetation. Jackalberry, mangosteen, and birdplum trees dominated the scene, with an occasional mahogany spreading its heavy branches. And to the left, behind the trees, Kubu knew, were the little jetty and motorboat.

  “This is really beautiful,” he said. “I can see why people come here.” As though in disagreement, a small flock of Meyer’s parrots screeched overhead, flying toward the mainland. Kubu saw immediately why Tatwa had dismissed the possibility of the murderer arriving or leaving on foot. Between the camp and the mainland was a swamp, riddled with pools and covered with papyrus and other reeds. He could see several hippo runs cutting through the area, and a few crocodiles sunning themselves on isolated sand banks. So the murderer had either arrived and left by boat or was already on the island the night of the murder.

  Reluctantly Kubu headed back to the main path, but just before they reached it, he stopped suddenly. Here there were elegant mangosteen trees but the brush between them was varied riverine bush, thick, thorny, and unwelcoming.

  “What’s that, Tatwa?” Kubu pointed to some reddish threads caught on a hooked thorn.

  “Looks like a snag from a shirt,” Tatwa replied without interest.

  “Yes, but why there? In the middle of a bush? Why would anyone be there? It’s all thorny and dense.”

  Tatwa shrugged. He wanted to get on with the interviews. “Maybe a child. Could be from anyone.”

  “Some branches have been bent here, too. Someone deliberately pushed into the brush between the trees, and then came out again. He didn’t force on through or you’d see broken twigs and other signs. I want Forensics to have those threads. If there’s a match with one of the victims, it may tell us something.”

  “That’s a one in a hundred chance!” protested Tatwa.

  “Yes,” Kubu agreed. “Good odds.” He stepped back so that Tatwa could have a clear field to obtain the strands of material. He did so with a poor grace, a pair of tweezers, an envelope, and several scratches as the thorns fought to protect their property.

  “Let’s go,” Kubu said abruptly. “I’ve seen enough.” He turned and headed back to camp.

  Chapter 7

  Ian MacGregor pushed back his desk chair and stretched his legs. He was tired but alert, sucking on an impressive briar that might have appealed to Sherlock Holmes. He could taste the moist richness of the tobacco carefully packed into the bowl. The pipe wasn’t alight, of course. He had stopped smoking it after a stand-up argument with his doctor following a brush with pneumonia.

  “I’m pathetic,” he thought contentedly. “In my fifties, living in a foreign country far from the lochs of home, no family, more acquaintances and colleagues than real friends. Can’t even smoke a real pipe. And I’m as happy as a pig in swill.”

  There were two great joys in his life, albeit two sides of the same coin. One was the African bush, especially the arid drama of the Kalahari. The other was trying to capture that drama in watercolor paints. He gazed at a desert scene on the wall, a large watercolor showing the remains of a giraffe carcass with hooded vultures circling. The carcass and the dry grass tufts around it were impressionist, slightly out of focus, with the vultures, sharp and true to a feather, seeming to move against the azure African sky. For once, his hand had captured the vision in his mind. Some people did not feel it was entirely appropriate in Ian’s office, which adjoined the hospital morgue. But Ian did not care. He thought it the best thing he’d ever painted.

  There was a perfunctory knock, and Mabaku strode in. At once, the office was too small. “Director Mabaku,” said Ian, surprised. “What brings you here?” Mabaku expe
cted people to come to him, not the other way around.

  “What do you think I’m doing here, MacGregor? I can’t resist seeing you relaxing among your cadavers,” he growled. “I’m waiting for the reports on Tinubu and Langa, of course. Kubu’s waiting too. Probably with a sandwich, a glass of wine, and his feet up. Why am I the only one who thinks this case is urgent?”

  Ian chuckled. “I was just thinking about how to put my report together when you walked in,” he lied, his Scottish brogue stronger than usual. “Here are the notes.” He indicated a writing pad. The cover had an unpleasant rust-colored stain. Mabaku grimaced.

  “Never mind the formalities. What will the report say?”

  Ian decided on a little fun. “Come on, I’ll show you,” he said.

  He led Mabaku to his laboratory next door, put on surgical gloves and a face mask, and slid open a cold storage drawer. The smell of formaldehyde pervaded, but Ian did not seem to notice. He lifted the shroud to expose the mutilated body of a black man.

  “I finished not long ago,” he said to Mabaku. He pushed some escaping material back into the stomach between his rough stitches. “Messy lad, aren’t you?” he said to the corpse. He lifted up the head and folded the scalp back for Mabaku to see.

  “Look here, but don’t come too close. Someone hit our friend verra hard. Didn’t kill him though. No fracture. But it would’ve knocked him cold.” He pointed to a discoloration on the head. “See the mark where he was hit? The shape and pattern makes me think it was a metal object like a wrench.” Then, as though the idea had just occurred to him, he added, “Put on gloves and a mask. Then you can feel the indentations for yourself.” But Mabaku declined with a frown. He wasn’t enjoying his tour of the late Goodluck Tinubu.

  “Now here’s the really interesting bit,” Ian continued, indicating the chest cavity, which had been opened with an electric saw. “I had to take the heart out to check the damage. I have it here somewhere.” He looked around vaguely, pretending it was lost. “I found a wee hole. Your murderer stuck something long and sharp into it. Something like a sharpened bicycle spoke. Very neat. Right through the right auricle. The heart would have stopped pretty well at once. That’s why there wasn’t much blood when the throat was cut afterward.”

  “Why cut his throat at all if they stabbed him through the heart? What sense does that make?”

  Ian looked at him. “I tell you what happened. It’s your job to make sense of it. The murderer hit him hard across the left temple knocking him cold. Then he stabbed him through the heart, killing him. After that he cut his throat, probably a few minutes after death, and what blood was around seeped out. Not much. Then, or just before—I can’t tell—he used a sharp knife to cut this cross on the forehead.” MacGregor traced it with his finger. “Then he cut off the ears and stuffed them in the poor man’s mouth. From the wounds, I’d say the murderer was right-handed.”

  Mabaku had had enough. “Let’s go back to your office.”

  MacGregor looked disappointed. “Don’t you want to meet Langa?”

  Mabaku shook his head firmly. “When did all this happen anyway?”

  MacGregor returned Goodluck to his penultimate resting place, and started to wash up. He shrugged. “Between two and five that morning is about the best I can do.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, there’s this. He was on the bed when he was hit, but I can’t tell whether he was stabbed on the bed or on the floor. There was blood on the pillow, which we sent to Forensics, but I’m sure it’s his and came from the head wound. But the body was on the floor when we found it, and the blood from the throat and ear wounds was on the floor too. Why did the murderer move him? Was he worried about dirtying the sheets?”

  Mabaku shook his head. “Food? General health?”

  “Agreed with what the camp people said he had for dinner. No alcohol. He seemed pretty healthy. But there was a time when he wasn’t. He had some impressive scars on his lower back. Bullet wounds, I’d say. He was lucky to get out of that lot alive.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  Ian shrugged. “A long time. Twenty, thirty years. There’s no internal damage anymore. Everything healed.”

  “What about Langa?”

  “Well, that’s pretty straightforward. He was hit from behind and then several times from the front. At least one of the blows cracked his skull and killed him. Then the attacker rolled him off the path down the rocky slope. There was blood at several points on the way down.”

  “Could he have fallen and hit his head?”

  Ian shook his head. “Too many blows! He could have slipped and hit the back of his head, but hardly likely that he’d then get up, fall forward cracking his skull, and roll down the slope.”

  Mabaku nodded. “That’s it then?”

  Ian fetched his pipe, settled himself, and started to suck it. “The wounds on Langa’s head are similar to Tinubu’s. My guess is the same weapon was used on both. I would bet that you only have one murderer, or group of murderers, not two.”

  Mabaku just scowled. That was very little consolation.

  Chapter 8

  Kubu and Tatwa commandeered Dupie’s office for the interviews. Barely enough room for three chairs, but it was relatively private. With Dupie’s help, Kubu cleared enough of the desk for it to be usable. Kubu shook his head. How could anyone operate in such a pig sty?

  When the space was workable, Kubu took Dupie’s seat and motioned him to sit down opposite. Tatwa sat near the entrance to the tent, behind Dupie’s right shoulder. He was going to observe, not participate. But he was fascinated by an object, perhaps a paperweight, which had emerged from under one of Dupie’s piles of documents. It was striking: an opaque glass disk about three inches in diameter. The outer ring was deep indigo, then a teardrop of white containing an inner ring of turquoise, and finally a pitch-black center. It looked like a flattened eye, staring.

  “What’s that?” Tatwa asked.

  “This? It’s a souvenir a Turkish hunter gave me when I saved him from a lion. It’s called a Watching Eye. Apparently they’re all over the place in Turkey. Supposed to bring good luck to businesses and such. Doesn’t seem to work in Africa though, judging by the way things have been going here. But it’s useful. I tell the staff it watches them when I’m not here, and they’re petrified of it!” Dupie laughed, creating a belly wobble. Then gauging the reaction from the policemen, he quickly added, “Just a joke, of course. Just a bit of fun.”

  “Mr. Du Pisanie,” said Kubu turning the conversation to business. “Thank you for showing me around. Now I have to find out what happened here the night before last. I’m going to ask you a number of questions, which you should answer as fully as possible. If anything pops into your mind as we are talking, please tell me. You’d be surprised how often something that seems unimportant can be the key to solving a crime.”

  “Look, of course I want to help. But what are you doing about catching Zondo? The longer you play tourist and Sherlock Holmes, the further he’s getting away!”

  “Don’t worry. We’re looking for him, and the Zimbabwe police are looking for him. We’ll find him. I want to be sure we can nail him when that happens. If, of course, he is the murderer.”

  “Pretty obvious he’s the murderer! Dog that didn’t bark!”

  Kubu had read Sherlock Holmes, but decided to ignore the remark. “Where were you when Tinubu was murdered?”

  “In my tent. These guests are not much into after-dinner drinking. So I closed the bar about ten.”

  “You didn’t hear anything during the night, like a scream or a loud thud?”

  Dupie shook his head.

  “Did you see anybody wandering around the camp later?”

  Again Dupie shook his head.

  “Did you stay in your tent the whole night?”

  Dupie hesitated. “I went to the bar to get a bottle of soda water at some point. Thirsty. Hot night. Don’t actually remember when. Otherwise, yes, I was in my t
ent until I got up to take Zondo.”

  “Can you think of any reason Zondo would murder Tinubu and Langa?” Kubu looked up from his notebook.

  “Those terrorists are all the same. Savages. No place for the law. If you think someone has wronged you, kill ’em. That’s their attitude. I saw it all too often in the war.”

  “That’s the civil war in Southern Rhodesia?”

  “Call it what you want. It was a bunch of terrorists trying to get rid of the whites. That simple. We gave them hell, but the rest of the world stopped us from finishing them off.” Dupie glared at Kubu daring him to engage.

  “You fought in the war, I take it?”

  “Yes. In the Scouts. That’s the Selous Scouts, not the…”

  “From what I remember,” Kubu interrupted, “they were the elite troops. Is that right?”

  “We were the ones asked to do all the big jobs and all the dirty jobs.”

  “Did you by any chance know or recognize Zondo, Langa, or Tinubu?” Kubu looked at Dupie, gauging his reaction. Dupie shook his head emphatically.

  “Why should I? Never seen any of them before.”

  “Other than the fact that Zondo left suddenly, did you see or hear anything that makes you think he could be the murderer? Did he and Tinubu talk to each other? What about Langa?” Again Kubu watched Dupie carefully as he answered.

  “I can’t say that I noticed anything,” Dupie said. “Langa and Tinubu sat at the same table at dinner that night. Drank soft drinks.” Dupie managed to add a sneer to the last two words. “They seemed to get on okay. Didn’t talk much. They said they met on the road from Gaborone to Kasane. Tinubu’s car had broken down and Langa stopped to help. Langa was looking for a place for a few nights and decided to come here with Tinubu. After dinner, they had coffee. Tinubu left almost immediately, claiming he was tired. Langa stayed a while and offered us all an after-dinner drink. First time he’d been sociable. Zondo declined, but Gomwe had one Amarula then went to bed. That’s a cream liqueur flavored with marula fruit. Tourists like it.”