The Tanzania Conspiracy

by Mario Bolduc

  Nothing.

  In the closet, she searched his clothes, starting with the jacket he used for hunting, that he’d insisted on keeping after he moved to the residence, even if his deteriorating health kept him away from his sporting habit. He’d had to sell his beloved Winchester 94 to Glenn Forrester. It had been like the end of the world for him.

  An hour later she was running with sweat and had to face the facts: she was getting nowhere. Albert had either disposed of the revolver or taken it with him.

  That was when she caught sight of the bulletin board by the door. Management pinned the menus for the week and other such relevant information there. The head of maintenance added a note about replacing some tiles because of a recent leak. “If you have suffered damage,” the note read, “please report it to the front desk.”

  A leak? Tiles?

  Roselyn lifted her head. The ceiling was made of acoustic tiles, actually a false ceiling, behind which was hidden the electrical wiring and plumbing. If Albert had kept the revolver, Roselyn was sure that was where he would have hidden it.

  Standing on a chair, she began to remove one of the tiles. It took considerable effort. Not that they were heavy, but to grasp one adequately, she had to add a telephone book and an inverted garbage can to the chair. Balancing on the improvised scaffolding, she managed to push a tile into the area above the false ceiling and look inside. She made out a space filled with wires and pipes, with a good helping of dust. There was no gun. She peered farther inside. An object caught her eye, just above where the desk stood. A small suitcase, an attaché case. She couldn’t reach it from her position. She pulled her head out of the ceiling cavity, replaced the tile, and went to Albert’s desk. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? To reach the ceiling, Albert used the desk. She set her chair on top of it, climbed up again, and pushed aside the tile just above her head. It was easy to grab the case by the handle and pull it down.

  Once she was on solid ground, Roselyn examined the little briefcase. It was dusty and hadn’t been opened in quite some time. The case was locked. After searching unsuccessfully through the drawers for a key, she picked it using her nail file. Inside was a photo album. No firearm, no revolver, just a cheap drugstore folder for displaying photos.

  Now what did that mean?

  Roselyn opened the album, which was literally falling apart. It didn’t contain photos, but locks of hair. They were displayed in orderly fashion, six samples per page over some forty pages, complete with name and date. She understood immediately. These locks of hair belonged to men who’d been sentenced to death, whose executions Albert had participated in, either as a member or the leader of the tie-down team. Moving through the pages, she recognized certain names: Franklin Crispel, Duane Berkley, and Keith Busby, with the dates they were executed. And the first of Albert’s career, Lewis Autry.

  For all these years, he’d kept a souvenir of his … clients, you might say. A macabre memory that her husband had hidden from her since he was first appointed to the execution room in 1984.

  The man was obsessed with death, no doubt about it.

  A plastic packet slipped out of the album and landed at Roselyn’s feet. She picked it up. Inside were two more locks of hair held together by a rubber band. These had no identification. She paged through the album again but found nothing to tell her whom they might have belonged to.

  Roselyn felt sick. Shaken, and suddenly frightened. As if she realized, years later, too late, that she’d shared her life with a serial killer with his little fetishes, his double life, his obsessions. A killer who had operated with full impunity under cover of the law, who was paid for the crimes he committed, and who now enjoyed the comforts of a full pension.

  PART TWO

  The Arrest

  15

  Outside city hall, by the entrance, men in suits conferred in low voices, cigarettes glued to their lower lips. Others paced as they talked into their phones, gesticulating for invisible listeners. A small group sitting on the steps seemed ill at ease: these were the men charged with carrying the caskets containing Valéria and Sophie to the cemetery once the ceremony was over. The remains were purely symbolic, since the bodies had been cremated. Now that the guilty party was behind bars, there was no need to keep them. One more masquerade, Max thought.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to pay his respects to the women. The goal of the ceremony was to honour their public memory, and all he knew of them was their private lives — the part they’d chosen to share with him. Exposed to all and sundry, Valéria’s death seemed meaningless to him. Secret, intimate, his pain was all the greater. He couldn’t share his sadness with anyone.

  He looked for Inspector Kilonzo in the crowd. The policeman stood to one side along with Shembazi. The two men were wearing their ceremonial uniforms, loaded down with medals and ribbons bearing the colours of the republic.

  Max didn’t know what attitude to take. It was clear that Kilonzo was plotting in the shadows — that had been clear since he’d come to Bukoba. But he wasn’t sure for what purpose. Was he acting on his own or for someone else pulling strings behind the scenes? Should he confront him head-on or try to find out more through subterfuge?

  Both options had their advantages.

  He chose confrontation.

  “Hello, Inspector.”

  Kilonzo turned around. A smile crafted for the circumstances. A manly handshake. “The ceremony will begin in a few minutes. Madame Michieka and her daughter had many friends. They were much appreciated for their work.”

  Kilonzo was radiant. For the policeman, Max thought, this public funeral marked the end of the affair. Despite the nature of the event, he was wearing a triumphant smile.

  “I don’t see Valéria’s friend,” Max said.

  “Her friend?”

  “President Lugembe.”

  Kilonzo shot Max a penetrating look, wondering where he was leading him.

  “You said so yourself when I first came here. Don’t you remember? The president was deeply affected by Valéria’s death. She was his friend.”

  The tension left Kilonzo. “I spoke to him. He was relieved to learn we’d found the guilty party.”

  “What happened to him? Did he confess?”

  “Not yet. But he will. I have full confidence in my interrogation team.”

  Max couldn’t help thinking of the kandoya method.

  Last night at the hotel he’d researched the rebel Ugandan forces at the end of the 1970s. He discovered that the Uganda National Liberation Army of the time was made up of disparate groups, including the Kikosi Maalum — “Special Force” in Swahili — the Front for National Salvation, and the Save Uganda Movement. It was a fragile coalition composed of units that often had divergent interests. Hardly surprising that once Idi Amin was toppled, his former opponents began fighting within the new government. It had taken years before Uganda achieved stability and could turn its back on the memory of Idi Amin and his reign of atrocity.

  It was possible, as the doctor in Okambo’s Cessna had suggested, that one of those rebels was responsible for the torture and murder of Valéria and her daughter.

  That hypothesis didn’t explain the killer’s motive. But at least Max had something to go on. And Kilonzo had tried to conceal the information, which showed it was important. Paradoxically, hiding elements had a way of bringing them forward.

  After a few minutes of idle chat, Max led Kilonzo away from the others. He went straight to the point. “Why didn’t you say that Valéria and her daughter were tortured?”

  Kilonzo took a step back. “Who told you that?”

  “At the morgue you hid that from me. And you knew about it, I’m sure.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “All the difference. A thief wouldn’t have done that.”

  “He must have been a sadist.”

  “A veteran of the war in Uganda, maybe?”

  Kilonzo said nothing. Max could see the inspector studying him, wondering if
this was just a fishing expedition. He was sure he’d hooked the right fish, though. “Your suspect wasn’t even born at the time.”

  “I don’t see what Uganda has to do with this.”

  Max told him about the kandoya, which Kilonzo might have practised himself. As he described the torture and how it worked, Max wondered if the policeman would interrupt him to correct and add some missing detail.

  “None of that proves anything.”

  “Why won’t you do your job, Kilonzo? For some reason, you’re ignoring Zuberi the witch doctor. Then you try to fob off a fake suspect on your president. Why don’t you look at the veterans of the campaign against Idi Amin?”

  “That was for a just cause,” Kilonzo declared right on cue. “It liberated Uganda from a cruel and backward despot.”

  “Did you fight in that war?”

  His silence spoke volumes. Once again, he must have been wondering what Max really knew.

  “How old were you in 1979? Twenty-four, twenty-five? You served in the army, from what I understand. The dates work out. That winter I’m sure you weren’t confined to barracks and made to shine boots. The entire division was sent to conquer Kampala.”

  One hundred thousand soldiers. As well as regular troops, Nyerere mobilized policemen, prison guards, and various militias. A khaki-coloured tidal wave had overwhelmed Idi Amin’s forces.

  “What are you trying to insinuate, Cheskin?”

  “That you probably had contacts with the Uganda National Liberation Army. Their members worked with the Tanzanian army.”

  “Are you accusing me of being responsible for the death of these two women? You’re out of your mind.”

  “You were involved with the rebels in exile. They showed you how to convince recalcitrant prisoners. You wanted to hide the doctor’s conclusions because they associated the rebels with Valéria’s murder.”

  “This is madness!”

  “By refusing to reveal the contents of his report, you’re protecting someone. Maybe even yourself …”

  “Be careful, Cheskin! Or I’ll have you arrested for contempt for a high-ranking police officer.”

  “If I ever find out you were involved with Valéria’s death in one way or another, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Your threats and your tin medals don’t frighten me. Neither does your fake outrage.”

  Max walked into the building, leaving Kilonzo visibly shaken.

  The large salon had been cleared of its heavy teak tables, replaced by straight-backed chairs set here and there. Empty chairs, as if the decor was simply decorative, a little too prim, too formal, too orderly to satisfy this unruly crowd, in mourning but not too much, noisy with perpetual whispering. In front of a starched curtain, at the foot of a low stage where the municipal authorities usually held court, sat a table covered with a navy blue cloth; on it two coffins were displayed. Funeral wreaths of various dimensions, placed against the table, some as big as tractor tires. A few bouquets of flowers, fading already, were placed here and there at random, filling out the decoration. A large photo of Valéria and her daughter in the garden, unposed, that Max had noticed in the living room of the house, completed the setup and replaced the portrait of the mayor in his best Stalinist pose, temporarily taken down and stacked in a corner behind the stage.

  The room was filled with Valéria and Sophie’s friends and acquaintances, along with a number of clients. Among them, standing under the artificial breeze of a fan, several albinos with their moon-pale features. Max had no idea how rich Valéria’s social life was. He had the impression Sophie and her mother lived in isolation, supporting each other without outside help. The women spent their lives on the margins of Tanzanian society, and they distrusted it. Their involvement with albinos was a living accusation of their countrymen, a negative judgment of Bukoba’s passive attitude, its complicity.

  Did Sophie have a lover? On Max’s first visit to Bukoba, once when Valéria was with a client in her office, he walked into the guest room where he’d left his suitcase and stumbled upon Sophie kissing a boy her age. She hadn’t been back from Montreal for long, and had already resolved not to return, but hadn’t announced the bad news to her mother yet. Sophie had thought she would come back and have her mother to herself, and now a stranger — Max — was hanging around the house.

  At first relations were tense. Valéria made an effort to bring her daughter into their activities, but after three days, she dropped the attempt. They ate each in turn, as in a cafeteria, with Sophie doing her best to avoid Max.

  One morning he came across the girl on the veranda. He wanted to break down her cold resistance, since it bothered Valéria and made Max unhappy.

  “I love your mother, Sophie. And I believe she loves me, too.”

  “You hardly know each other.”

  “That makes no difference.”

  “She’ll never leave Bukoba. You’re wasting your time.”

  So that was what was bothering her. Not being separated from Valéria, but that her mother might abandon her obligations in Bukoba. Sophie saw herself as the guardian of Valéria’s social conscience.

  Max was relieved. “There’s no reason to worry.”

  “Don’t you want to take her to Europe?”

  “Who told you that?”

  Little by little, things improved between them. Sophie accepted that Max was part of Valéria’s life, perhaps because he didn’t try to absorb all her attention and wasn’t out to turn her away from her work and her darling daughter. The time they spent together was furtive, quick, unpredictable, stolen from their daily lives. When she needed stability and fresh air — to recharge, as she called it — Valéria could count on the world of Bukoba, and on Sophie, who waited for her the way a wife waited for a husband after a long business trip. By then the girl had moved on to something else: law school in Dar es Salaam. Her studies were her way of staying close to her mother. Max suspected the girl was interested in becoming a lawyer as a way of remaining near Valéria and her entourage, instead of striking out in the world and starting a family the way most young people did.

  Suddenly, it was very hot, the atmosphere heavy in the crowded room. Max moved to the corner in search of better air. Valéria’s support for the death penalty for albino traffickers and her constant conflicts with Amnesty International attracted a handful of journalists, bored in the roomful of guests. Cameras slung over their shoulders, they looked as though they were sorry they’d made the trip. What were they hoping for? Noisy demonstrations for or against Valéria’s decision to call for capital punishment for traffickers? The debate belonged to ancient history. The murder of the two women was garnering little interest in the media.

  Max stepped up to the twin coffins. More photos of Valéria and her daughter were placed on the table for the guests to look at. He picked up one of the portraits. In it Valéria wore her hair short, her tight curls relaxed. The photo dated back to the years before they met, perhaps before Sophie was born, her university years, after she left her village for good.

  She’d told Max how that happened, once. The Anglican pastor who taught her English, the choir leader, had encouraged her to apply for a scholarship, which meant she could move to Dar es Salaam and attend business school. She was an outstanding student, industrious and concentrated, with iron discipline — or so she claimed for Max’s benefit.

  Valéria had pulled herself out of the back country and had no intention of returning there. She studied with desperate energy, afraid she might miss her rendezvous with the modern world. Her parents were illiterate, her brothers and sisters had never set foot in a school, she was the first of the family and among the few in the village to do so, and she would show the way for the others. A pioneer who, to everyone’s surprise, went to live in Bukoba once she earned her diploma at Makerere University. What happened to the prediction that she would launch her career in the capital, or elsewhere in East Africa, or even Europe? Instead, she settled into this nowhere town to sort out quarrels between
neighbours and unmask cattle rustlers. And, most of all, devote her life to albinos.

  Pastor Randy Cousins presided over the ceremony. He was a jovial man with a faint resemblance to Desmond Tutu, and he’d consulted Valéria in the past. In his warm, welcoming voice, he described her with true emotion, speaking of her ability to listen to others with empathy and compassion. She could enter into her clients’ situation, so said Cousins, as one with the fears and worries that had moved them to take their savings in hand and come in search of her help.

  As if waiting for his cue, an albino took the pastor’s place at the microphone. He spoke of how he’d met Valéria. And with her, Sophie. And of all the things the two had done for him.

  Other tributes followed, all charged with emotion. Flanked by her colleagues from the Women’s Legal Aid Centre, Désirée Lubadsa described the remarkable work Valéria had done for the women of the Kagera region.

  Then voices rose in common prayer, a melody of infinite slow sadness, sung by the crowd shaken with emotion.

  The heat was stifling, its intensity intolerable for Max despite the revolving fans. He could scarcely listen; he was thinking of everything he’d learned during the ceremony, and the new possibilities that made the picture more complicated. He wondered what the link was between Valéria’s involvement with the albino cause and the forgotten war against Idi Amin.

  What was the dictator’s attitude toward albinos during those terrible years when he held power? Max had no idea.

  Kilonzo seemed sincerely surprised when Max had insinuated that he was somehow involved in the two women’s murders. That, too, had been a shot in the dark.

  The ceremony went on forever. Max was just about to head for the exit when Cousins’s voice rose above the murmur. “And now we’ll hear from Teresa Mwandenga.”

  Max stopped and glanced toward the front of the room. Teresa Mwandenga, the accountant who’d run off with The Colour of Respect Foundation’s funds.