The Caterpillar Cop

by James McClure

  “So?”

  “I’ve got to make some sort of allowance for the fact it’s a child and pretty thin-muscled at that.”

  “Want me to do your sums for you, Doctor?”

  “Please, just let me explain why I can’t be certain. There are other factors, too. These dark stains indicate postmortem lividity but they’re not as definite as I would expect.”

  “The body has been moved, remember.”

  “Ah, that helps. Let me see….”

  Dr. Strydom felt the limbs.

  “Rigor’s no guide at all on this occasion—it’s hot and he’s not a big chappie. Sets in faster, you see, especially if the metabolism is pronounced at death, which it would be if he’d been running to get away or anything.”

  “Just an estimate, for God’s sake!”

  “Make it around six last night. No earlier than five.”

  “Thanks. Now I’ve a little business at the clubhouse. Keep an eye on things here, Hendriks.”

  “Okay.”

  “One other thing, Hendriks.”

  “Ja?”

  “What do you take me for? A bloody pansy?”

  “Sir?”

  But Kramer was gone, crashing away up the slope, carrying with him a Texan stub that bore a faint trace of orange lipstick.

  3

  IT WAS 2 A.M. but far from the still of the night.

  In the clubhouse hallway Freddie Harris, Mr. Jones, and Sergeant Kritzinger were caught in their own verbal crossfire and ricocheting their row off the walls right down to the ballroom. There a pair of dog handlers were trying to keep their charges away from the potted palms while about thirty uniformed men milled about discussing what they would do to the murdering bastard when they caught him. And from the kitchen came the harsh sounds of a team of Bantu detectives interrogating the club’s ground staff—all of whom had been dragged from their beds in the compound and thought it must be a private nightmare.

  The billiard room was the quietest spot Kramer could find. And it had become even quieter now that Jonathan Rogers had stopped bawling like a baby.

  “Where should I put it, Miss Jones?” Kramer asked, using the rest for his cue. “The top pocket or the middle?”

  Still nothing would evince the slightest response in her. The yellow ball cannoned off a loose red; one went in the top and one in the middle. Not a flicker.

  “I should have known,” Jonathan said.

  “That’s what I’m paid for,” Kramer replied lightly, “putting the old two and two together—or, in your case, the two and one. Nice of you to round it off for me.”

  “But the detail!”

  Kramer placed the corner torn off a small aluminum foil packet on the edge of the table. Jonathan whimpered.

  “It’s all right, son—I’m not a Catholic. Just thought you’d be interested. And so everything had an answer—even the blood.”

  “You do believe me?”

  “Why not? Besides, you’ve got an alibi for the early part of the evening and that’s all that matters. It’s simply my job to tie up all the loose ends. Got a smoke? I’m out.”

  Jonathan fumbled a packet from his jacket and held it out.

  “Texans, hey? Smoke a Texan and cough like a cowboy. Want one, too?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Kramer lit up and chalked his cue.

  “How come a tennis player smokes?”

  “At—only at parties.”

  “Uhuh.”

  The brown shared a pocket with another red—always a tricky shot.

  “When was your last, may I ask?”

  “Cigarette? Afterwards, I think. To steady my nerves. Yes.”

  “And Miss Jones here?”

  “She doesn’t—”

  “Not in the syllabus?”

  “Please!”

  “So you didn’t try to snap her out of it with one little puff?”

  “No!”

  “Okay, okay. Think I could wipe off a bit of her makeup? Ask her for me.”

  Jonathan whispered to Miss Jones, who merely swallowed noisily.

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant. I’m sure it …”

  Kramer wandered over, tearing open a used envelope.

  “Few things cleaner than the inside of one of these things,” he remarked. “Remember a nurse telling me once it was almost sterile if you needed something for first aid. It’ll do very nicely.”

  He braced Miss Jones gently with his left hand behind her head and then pressed the envelope over her lips. When the paper came away, it bore a large, sticky print in orange lipstick.

  “She puts it on thick!”

  “I told you, Lieutenant, she just wasn’t very used to this sort of function.”

  “I bet.”

  One loose end dangled.

  “What are you looking at me like that for?”

  “You say you kissed Miss Jones?”

  “Er—yes.”

  “Hard? Often? Make a meal of it, did you?”

  “We—”

  “Come over here under the big light.”

  Jonathan hesitated.

  “What’s the matter? Think I’m going to give you the third degree?”

  The youth came across. There was a tiny orange smear dead center of his upper lip—exactly where you would expect a novice smoker to pout for a draw. Simple, when you knew how.

  “I think you can go now, and Miss Jones, too. I’ll send somebody round for a written statement tomorrow. We’ll overlook what you said to Sergeant Kritzinger earlier on.”

  “Then—are you saying that I haven’t done anything wrong?”

  “I’m Murder Squad, son, not bloody Vice Squad. Good luck with her pa.”

  Kramer stepped out of the billiard room, pulling the door shut behind him and absently tucking the envelope away with the stub. He carried more junk about in his pockets than nine kangaroos with kleptomania.

  “I say!” said an elegant figure, tossing aside a copy of Country Life and rising from a deep leather armchair in the passage. It was that swanky specialist who went around with an Afghan hound in his Lotus and insisted on hot water bottles to warm his hands before touching an opulent abdomen.

  “Yes,” Kramer prompted irritably. “What do you say?”

  “Gerald Jones got me out to take a look at his daughter Penelope. Where is she?”

  “Second door down.”

  “Really? Quite finished with her, are you?”

  A specialist in sarcasm, too.

  “Yes—and worth quite a penny to you by now.”

  Without having once broken his stride, Kramer continued on his way.

  Kritzinger accosted him in the lavatory a minute or so later.

  “Ach, there you are, Lieutenant! I’ve been all round the building. They’ve got a possible identification for you.”

  “Oh, yeth?”

  Kritzinger tactfully averted his eyes. Kramer was washing a denture under the cold tap.

  “That’s better; bloody hamburger had chips of bone in it. Got underneath. Go on, Bokkie.”

  “There’s a boy aged twelve answering the description, including the birthmark, who was reported missing around midnight. Name’s Boetie Swanepoel and the address is 38 Schoeman Road.”

  “Close by, isn’t it?”

  “At the bottom of the hill, over the river. They last saw him at lunch.”

  “But twelve years old and they only report it at midnight?”

  “Told Central that they’d been to a special church meeting.”

  “Hey?”

  “I know, sir. Perhaps we’d better send a bloke around to clear up the details right away.”

  “Isn’t the father coming up?”

  “Their minister asked if he could do it instead and the Colonel said yes.”

  “So the Colonel’s here now?”

  “In the ballroom, seeing to the briefing for you.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  Kritzinger grinned. Kramer’s total aversion to working with a team, l
et alone organizing one, was well known. Legendary, almost. In fact, there was a joke about it in the NCO’s mess which had for a punch line: “So the lieutenant says to her, ‘But of course I came by myself, lady!’ ”

  “What the hell’s the matter, Sergeant? Did I put them in upside down?”

  “Sir?”

  “Never mind. Come, let’s see what the Colonel’s up to before we plan anything else. We could even get lucky and be sent home to bed.”

  “After you, sir.”

  They arrived in the ballroom just as the last of the search parties tramped off into the night across the wide veranda. Colonel Hans Muller was all by himself at a table littered with maps, snacks, bottles, and party hats. He was trying on the helmet of a London Metropolitan policeman.

  Now there was a man who came damn close to being after Kramer’s own heart. Tall enough to look you straight in the eye, and broad-minded enough not to go asking a lot of fool questions all the time. A real professional, in other words—and what a change from Du Plessis. He was also, as the papier-mâché headgear indicated, possessed of a winning cynicism that sorted the sheep from the goats.

  As of that moment, Kritzinger was finding it almost impossible not to look like an astonished merino.

  “Hello, sir,” Kramer murmured casually, keeping his eyes perfectly level.

  “Lieutenant Kramer—I was hoping you’d turn up. The men and the dogs are out but I don’t think we’ll get very far with them.”

  “Good for the papers, sir.”

  “Exactly. Now you must have a few things to tell me, but I don’t think we need detain the sergeant.”

  “Bokkie, go and see that the Jones mob push off.”

  “And then, sir?”

  “Listen for the phone in the secretary’s office.”

  The Colonel waited until they were alone.

  “Right, take a seat, tell me about the blood on those two.”

  “Not material to the case.”

  “Don’t waste time on it, then. I hear the murder was sometime around six.”

  “Thereabouts. Strydom isn’t going to swear to anything more definite.”

  “And otherwise?”

  “Usual bit of passion and panga.”

  “You mustn’t get me wrong, Lieutenant, I want to get this bastard, but—hell!—it makes me bloody tired just to think of all the trouble it’s going to be.”

  “And then we might not make it.”

  “True, too.”

  The Colonel picked out an unopened bottle of lager, opened it, halved the contents, and handed a glass to Kramer.

  “Cheers.”

  “Cheers, sir.”

  Kramer allowed his thoughts to rise with the tiny amber bubbles and pop unconsidered on the surface. The only sound was the swish of the big fans hanging from the ceiling. He wished it could stay that way for a while. He needed a break.

  “Hmmm. Wrapped up the Shabalala case this morning?”

  “Yes, sir. Remanded to the Supreme Court on the fourteenth.”

  “You’re free, then?”

  “Sir.”

  “Well, I’m a long way behind on the armed raids in Zululand so I’m giving this one back to you—it’s all yours.”

  “What exactly do you mean by that, Colonel?”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “Until I’ve got something?”

  “No, got someone. Okay?”

  Kramer raised his glass to him—and noticed the funny hat was gone.

  “So let me show you what I’ve arranged here tonight….”

  The Colonel took a sausage and placed it carefully on the already stained map.

  “There is the body.”

  He arranged a handful of cocktail sticks around it so they radiated out down the hill.

  “I’ve put teams out to search along these lines—the dogs are just picking up what they can. You’ll see that the fellows going along this way must meet the others along that stick and so they’ll cross over and double-check on the way back here. Like you, I haven’t much hope they’ll find anything so you’d better start working through known weirdos first thing in the morning. Any questions?”

  “Have a nut, sir,” Kramer said, offering him a bowl of them. “Make sure you get the right one.”

  Swish-swish went the big bright blades overhead.

  And then the Colonel smiled with great care, as if his teeth were bad. They were not. It was just the awkwardness of a well-mannered man who sees only his own jokes.

  But the point had been made.

  “Don’t worry, I know the problems,” he said. “Every mother in the town will be screaming for your blood if—We’ve got a visitor.”

  The middle-aged man advancing recklessly across the slippery dance floor wore the solemn garb of a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. His smooth, flat face was paper white, making his mustache somehow not quite part of it-rather like a black postage stamp affixed beneath the blunt nose. This illusion was heightened by the way he kept pressing at it with the back of a hand.

  Predictably he went right on by to be sick in the azaleas before returning to introduce himself.

  “I’m Dominee Pretorius,” he said. “Please forgive a moment’s weakness. The Almighty has never before made such demands.”

  Kramer immediately gave up his chair.

  “Was it Boetie?” the Colonel asked.

  Dominee Pretorius nodded woefully.

  “And have you known him long?”

  “Since a babe in arms. Since a movement in his mother’s womb.”

  What you might call a real friend of the family. Kramer brightened.

  “But can you tell us anything about him as far as today—I mean yesterday—is concerned? Have you seen his parents?”

  “Seen them? I’ve been sitting up with them until half an hour ago, going over it again and again.”

  “What?”

  “Where he was—what might have become of him. Dear God, we never imagined anything like this.”

  “Then can you tell us his movements?”

  “Look, I must be going,” the Colonel interrupted. “I’m sorry if I seem rude, Dominee, but there’s work waiting at HQ. Anyway, Lieutenant Kramer is in charge of the case—I know you’ll give him all the help you can.”

  “Of course.”

  “And you are sure that you’re quite free, Lieutenant? There are no little jobs left over I could delegate in the morning?”

  “I don’t think so, sir, thanks. But wait—there is one: here’s a registration number I’d like Traffic to check for me before I forget. I’ll give them a statement about it later. A bloody fool farmer tried to kill me with his Land-Rover near the bottom of the hill tonight.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Came out of his place and right across the dual highway. Maybe you saw where I mean—there’s a bulldozer parked by the side of the road.”

  “Man, I saw the tire marks. But that track doesn’t go to a farm—it’s for the wattle lorries. What time was this?”

  Kramer almost flustered.

  “After midnight. Twelve-thirty, perhaps. Half-past twelve.”

  The Colonel looked at his watch.

  “Hmmm. A long time to hang around, I agree. But suppose I get Traffic to follow this one up straightaway?”

  “If they don’t mind, sir.”

  “I’ll ask them to do it as a special favor—from you.”

  Hell, the Colonel was a bloody good bloke. But one oversight was all that you were ever allowed and Kramer had a sudden, unpleasant feeling that his score was two.

  * * *

  Hendriks was on the verge of joining the Trekkersburg Fire Department. From what Fireman Viljoen told him, as they shared a log in the now deserted glade, the pay and conditions compared more than favorably with his own. You spent twenty-four hours on fire duty, twenty-four on ambulance duty, and then had the next twenty-four all to yourself. With a set rota like that, the dollies at the post office could take you seriously when you
asked for a date. On top of which, you got a decent room of your own (to take them back to), your own washbasin with hot and cold, and proper meals at a private hotel down the road. This, too, was an excellent source of female company, he was vividly assured. Oh, and another thing: it was perfectly natural to appear only half-dressed at the machines when the bells went down, so there was no need to limit yourself to one night in three. All this and an extra twenty rand a month.

  “How are you off for blokes?” Hendriks asked, attempting merely polite interest and failing.

  “Three vacancies.”

  “Really, hey?”

  Hendriks wandered across to the generator. Viljoen watched him uneasily.

  “Of course, it’s not the same as the police,” he said quickly. “Different regulations and all that.”

  “Jesus, you’re not telling me it’s tougher, are you?” Hendriks scoffed. “You should have been at police college.”

  “No, but different.”

  “How?”

  “Little things—heights, and so on.”

  “Huh! When I was so big I used to hang by my hands from the top of my pa’s windmill. You just ask him sometime—he nearly took the backside off me with his belt when he caught me. Said I’d have all the kaffirs laughing at him if I fell off.”

  Viljoen made no reply.

  “Isn’t that good enough for you lot?”

  “Fine! Only, you see, I meant heights this way.” The fireman put his hand on his head. “Five foot eight.”

  He said it as nicely as he could but Hendriks reacted as if to a raucous jeer. He reddened and stumped off behind a tree, where he took oblique pleasure in urinating on a toad.

  So that was it. But if the South African Police thought five foot six inches was man enough, then he knew where he belonged. And he decided to keep an eye on these fire brigade bastards; men with such amoral standards were capable of anything.

  Certainly it was safe to assume that Dominee Pretorius never used notes for a sermon. Man, he could talk. He did for mole-hills what hormone advertisers claimed to do for flat chests. And the truth of the matter was that Kramer had long since ceased listening.

  “Pardon?”

  “Boetie won the hundred yards in the swimming gala last year.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Yes, and he was going for the record this very week. The ways of the Almighty—”