Frederick Ramsay_Botswana Mystery 01 (17 page)

Chapter 38

Even though he was on edge, somehow Bobby managed to eat his breakfast without starting a quarrel. He needed to be Mr. Cool this morning. At any moment he expected police cars and detectives to come crashing into the hotel, throw handcuffs on Brenda and haul her away. He did notice several employees dashing toward the walkways that eventually led to the path to the Sedudu Bar. If Brenda noticed, which he doubted, she gave no indication, but happily wolfed down a huge breakfast and several cups of coffee. He would have to wait, he guessed.

They were nearly back to their room when a policeman approached them.

“What’s with the police cars, officer?” Bobby kept Brenda close.

“Ah, I am
Superintendent
Mwambe, not ‘officer.’ And the excitement is about a death.”

“Somebody was killed?” Wherever Brenda’s mind had been, it quickly returned to the present.

“Alas, I am afraid it is so, an American tourist, one of your party, if I am not mistaken.”

“Name?”

“I do not know. He was a large man in a suit…”

Bobby’s eyes lit up. “That would be Leo Painter, then.”

“Leo’s dead. Wow. Where?”

Mwambe pointed back along the walkway toward the bush. “Just by the Sedudu Bar, Miss. It is very terrible.”

“This I gotta see. Bobby, we could be in for some serious money soon.” Brenda rushed away. After four steps she paused and bent her knees and lifted her feet, first one and then the other, to remove her shoes. Bare footed, she hurried down the walkway, pausing momentarily to drop her shoes and her purse by their door.

“Put those away for me, will you?” she called over her shoulder.

“Leave it to my wife to wear stilettos with a safari outfit. She’s strange, you know?”

“I’m sorry, you were saying?” Mwambe had had his eyes and mind on the show of legs and thighs and missed Bobby’s remark.

“Weird, she is. Say, you know, she’s been acting kind of strange lately. Now that you tell me Leo’s bought it, it makes sense, sort of. See, I came in last night, like, I was at the bar, and she’s all jumpy, you know?”

Mwambe did not know. His confusion altered his usual scowling expression.

“See, she really hated Leo, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t have something to do with him getting killed.”

“I hardly see how that is possible, Mister…”

“Sorry, I’m Griswold, Bob Griswold. Oh yeah, she could. You don’t know it, but back in Chicago? Like, she used to hang around with gangsters and all. Worked in a night club as an exotic dancer.”

That revelation brought another shift in Mwambe’s expression. Exotic dancer added to the bit of leg he’d seen…“That is quite fascinating Mr. Griswold, but I still don’t see how.”

“Look, step in our room for a minute. You just might be interested in something I saw in the trash can. It, like, didn’t mean anything at the time but, you know, I thought she might have cut herself shaving her legs and so I didn’t pay any attention but when you add in Leo’s been killed, well…”

Mwambe’s mind had stopped inputting with
legs
.

They reached the door. Bobby stooped and collected Brenda’s shoes and opened the door. “If you’ll just have a look.” He stopped in his tracks and dropped the shoes. Mwambe had to sidestep around him.

“They cleaned the room. I said not to and they did anyway. Now it’s gone.” He turned to the policeman. “You’d better check the trash for the evidence.”

“Sir, I am confused. You say your wife had something to do with the death, is that correct?”

“Yes, no, I’m worried, you know. Like, she is my wife and all, so I have to support her and…” Bobby ran out of words. He didn’t want to sound too pushy, but he did want Mwambe to start to check her out. Only the room was clean and the glove gone.

“How could she have done such a thing? I cannot see how this woman in her high heels and short dress could have incited a lion to attack your friend. A man perhaps, but not a lion. How would she do that?”

“Whoa, you said lion? A lion killed Leo?”

“But yes. I thought you knew.”

“You just said he was killed, and I thought you meant he was murdered.”

“Well, by the lion, yes. We do not think of wild animals as murderers. Hunting and killing is what they do. But I suppose you could say that.”

“No, wait, you’re sure about the lion thing?”

Superintendent Mwambe backed out of the room. “If there is nothing for me to see…your dust bin is empty and…well, good day to you.” He scurried down the walkway toward the lodge. Bobby kicked the door shut. He went over to the trash can and peered in as if to be sure his eyes were not playing tricks on him. Still empty.

He sat down heavily on the bed and contemplated his reflection in the mirror. Leo was killed by a lion. What was he to do now? He’d inherit all that stock and would be in a position to have an important position in the company for sure, but the divorce was out. Brenda would get half of everything if he did it, and she wouldn’t cut him any slack. He’d have to stay married. Maybe later he could…could what?

He pounded his fist onto the mattress. It was so perfect. How could a lion do that to him? Still, there was the spear point. They had to find that. And the scarf he’d left in the path. Once they did their autopsy thing and saw he’d been stabbed, they’d figure it out. He didn’t need the glove. Just a matter of time.

But suppose the lion, like, ate Leo. They wouldn’t be able to see the stab wound, would they? He needed a back-up plan. Somehow he had to make them think murder with a capital M.

Killing Leo had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. Harder than leaving the accident where that kid got himself killed two years ago. They were still looking for the car, his car, his BMW. But he didn’t have it anymore. Stolen and stripped, chopped into a million pieces. But that was then, this is now. He’d need to get his plan moving again. People thought he was stupid. He’d show them stupid. He hadn’t gotten this far just to see the whole thing go down the drain in flames.

Bobby’s existence, his life as an adult, you could say, consisted of an endless string of mixed metaphors.

He went to the door where he’d dropped her shoes and purse. The shoes he left, but he carried the purse back to the bed. Who to call? Desiree. Brenda always told her everything. And Desiree was never far from her phone. Unless she was unconscious or seducing a pole at the club, Desiree was on line. He found her address and hit text.

HEY BFF…I DID IT, WE’RE IN THE $$…B.

He waited and sure enough the phone’s ringtone sounded. He switched to vibrate and answered.

DID WAT?…D2

He thought a minute and then responded.

DID LEO N HE SED HD TELL BBY SO I TK HM OUT!

WTF!!!

HAD 2…2 MCH $ DOWN THE CRAPPER IF I DNT—OOPS GOT A GO…B

He closed the phone. He was about to turn it off but thought it would be better if it looked like she had lost it while it was on. More messages behind this one would make it seem more authentic. Later he’d slip out and drop it where the cops could find it. It buzzed madly in his hand. He stepped out on the deck and slid the phone under the step where he’d hidden the spear and scarf the night before. He had just closed and locked the slider when Brenda began rapping on the door.

Left her key in her purse. Dingbat.

***

The gray monkey had positioned himself in the trees watching and waiting. He knew that sooner or later one of the doors would be left ajar and he could affect a raid. There was almost always fruit, and lately he’d solved the problem of opening the cold box. It had food, too. And he’d grown partial to the taste of lipstick. He watched the man put something shiny under the step. He waited, then swung from branch to branch to the ground, scuttled across the lawn, retrieved the phone, romped back to the tree, and climbed back to his perch. This was something new.

Chapter 39

Leo’s headache had not improved with coffee, and his stomach was acting like it had joined the Teamsters and was on strike. He liked to think of himself as plain speaker, blunt. When his body refused to accede to his will, he became noticeably rude. His acquaintances would say rud
er
, that Leo was characteristically rude. That was not true. On occasion he could be positively charming. That’s when he was most dangerous. The pounding on the door seemed almost in sync with that in his head. It stopped all conversation between the men. Modise had shifted their focus. What else would push in to screw up his day?

“Get that, will you, Travis?” Leo felt annoyed. He had things to do, and he couldn’t get a minute’s peace without some jackass beating on his door. Travis opened it. The hotel manager stood on the threshold once again.

“I am sorry to bother you again, but we have found Mr. Farrah.”

“Swell, now we can all celebrate. Where did he turn up?” Leo was past politeness.

“I am sorry, but you see, he has met with an accident.” The manager had that look. The one you see on the face of someone who’s afraid there will be trouble, yelling, or maybe a lawsuit.

“Is he hurt?” Leo mentally calculated the cost to the company of flying Farrah back to the States and then on to the Mayo Clinic. He winced at the number that popped up.

“I am afraid it is worse than that. Your friend is dead.” The poor man reflexively took a step backward as if he expected a blow. Leo relaxed a bit.

“Dead? What do you mean, he’s dead. What happened? Did he fall? Heart attack? What?”

“It appears the lion about which we were speaking before, the one we warned you about, often if you remember, has taken him.”

“Holy shit. Did you hear that, Yuri? There really is a lion, and he ate Farrah. Farrah was toxic. Probably killed the beast, too.”

The manager did not share the joke. “Indeed, the lion is dead also, but I do not think your Mr. Farrah had anything to do with that.”

“This is awkward. Is he in pieces or what?”

“No, he is quite whole. As I said, the lion was dead beside him. We have removed Mr. Farrah’s body to the police station for examination and will release it to you in a day or two. It is routine, the police say.”

“No rush. Farrah isn’t in one, why should they be?”

Inspector Modise stepped into the room behind the manager, who turned and left, shocked at the American’s callousness.

“Your friend is dead, and we don’t know what happened.”

Travis had remained silent until now, but this was something new, even exciting. “I thought that guy said the lion got him somehow.”

Modise ignored him and spoke to Leo. “Do you know anyone who would like to have seen him dead?”

“His ex-wife certainly, in a New York minute, but she’s in Winnetka at the moment, and I don’t see her slipping over here forming an alliance with your local beasts to knock him off, and leaving without someone knowing, so you can rule her out. She probably gets the life insurance, though. I wonder, does double indemnity cover a lion attack?”

“The lion was only a peripheral player in his death, we think. The game ranger believes he must have been stabbed somehow, and the lion found him later.”

“Could he have fallen on something sharp and then…I don’t know, run into the lion, which finished him off?”

“Anything is possible. Mr. Farrah may have encountered the lion, become so frightened that he ran into a broken tree limb and then fell and the lion carried him a ways and—”

“And then dropped dead?”

“It would seem so.”

“Sounds very odd to me. I mean, what are the chances? Anyway, I can’t help you inspector. He left here at about ten o’clock last night and was on his way to the bar. I told them that. Henry was not a likeable man but not one you’d hate either. It has to be an accident.”

“Yes. Well, we shall see what the autopsy shows.”

“We should go see this,” Travis said.

The men stood and single-filed out the door. Modise turned toward the hotel; the three others headed to the Sedudu bar. They passed Brenda on her way back. She chose to ignore them. She could be rude, too.

At the edge of the campground, a clot of people watched as a group of men supervised by a woman who, they were told, was the gamekeeper, lifted the carcass of the lion onto a tarpaulin and then into a truck bed. By the expressions on their faces, the lion must have been very heavy.

“Ow.” Travis hopped on one foot, and stared at the ground. “What the hell was that?”

“What was what?” the two men pivoted back to see what had caused Travis to yell out. He pointed at the ground, then reached down and held up the spear point, now covered with grit from the dozens of feet that had walked by or on it in the last hour.

Greshenko held out his hand and took the point from Travis. “It is a replica of an
assagai,
a Zulu warrior weapon. It would be on the end of a spear shaft. They sell these in the gift shops. They are made in South Africa by the thousands. Tourists buy them for souvenirs. Some camper must have lost this one.”

“It’s not authentic?”

“Not hardly. Listen, if all the
diassagai
in circulation today had been once on spear shafts in 1879, the Brits would have lost the Zulu War. He stepped to a green-painted oil drum marked
waste,
and dropped the point in. It hit the bottom with a series of clangs. That drew the attention of the woman gamekeeper. She left the men and the lion and approached them.

“Excuse me, sirs, but could you tell me what that was that you disposed of in the dust bin?”

“A spear point they sell at the gift shop,” Travis said. “I nearly bought one, but until Greshenko’s little speech I’d forgotten all about that. Brenda Griswold purchased one, though.”

“I am Sanderson. I work for the park, you see. There are questions about this death I cannot answer. I think I should have that, if you don’t mind.”

“Help yourself. Do you think Henry stabbed the lion, or did the lion stab Henry?” Leo had not mellowed much since he’d left the room. Sanderson retrieved the point from the bottom of the barrel and wrapped it in her neckerchief.

“I do not think either of those interesting possibilities are the case, sir. I do not know if this
lerumo
has anything to do with this killing. But the man you called Henry had a wound in his stomach that could have been made by such a thing. I will hold it for the police.”

“Then you think Henry was murdered? I know there is a feeling among the populace in my country that the only good lawyer is a dead lawyer. I didn’t know it was true here as well.”

“I do not know the ways of America. In my country we respect the men and women who devote their lives to justice. It is a noble calling, I think.”

“Wait another sixty years, and then you’ll see it differently.”

Sanderson’s puzzled look suggested she did not understand or appreciate this man’s cynicism. She scowled at them as if to say those Americans, they have so much and they value so little.