The Crocodile's Last Embrace

by Arruda, Suzanne

  At first she faced north, seeking Ursa Major, the Great Bear. One of the better-known constellations, especially to a pilot, he was her link to Sam wherever he was. The bear’s nose and foreleg pointed up to the Lynx. But his body, which formed the Dipper, barely cleared the horizon.

  After finding the bear, she turned east and located Leo, a constellation she’d come to associate with Africa. The great cat, too, climbed skyward tonight. Near his feet sat a bright orb. Jupiter.

  Jade sat down on the grass close to her motorcycle and watched the sky, drinking in the deep black. Only Nairobi’s glow diminished the gems of light winking out of the ebon veil. The bridge’s embankment shielded her from much of the town’s lights and most of the noise, although on a Thursday night, even the Muthaiga Club would be subdued.

  A deep hoo-hoo sounded from a spotted eagle owl in one of the nearby trees. When Jade turned her head to better hear him, she caught sight of two streaks of light pitching across the sky. She’d forgotten there was to be a meteor shower. She waited, attentive to her peripheral vision as well. Within a few minutes, three more meteors sped across the sky, burning themselves up in their run. Jade felt as if the fireballs had coursed through her, searing her lungs and heart with an overwhelming need to see and touch Sam until her desire and loneliness threatened to suffocate her.

  Time to get back to my bungalow.

  Jade rose when a slight noise from the bridge frightened the owl and alerted her. She expected to hear an approaching engine, see a pair of headlights. She stepped farther back from the road, lest the sudden sight of a person standing alone startle the driver. But no lights appeared, which was odd. The Nairobi police were fully intent on enforcing their headlamp law. Jade listened more closely. The engine noise sounded labored, but muffled, as though something between her and the vehicle was blocking the sound. Then the engine noise lessened and she heard a car door shut.

  At first, she wondered whether someone was having automobile trouble. She took a step towards the road to see whether she could offer her help as a mechanic. The sharp crack of snapping wood arrested her in midstride. It was immediately followed by the groan and crunch of metal and a soft splash.

  They’ve gone over the bridge!

  Jade hurried back to her motorcycle and rummaged in the dark for the flashlight in one of her panniers. She slid the switch on, and used the beam to find her way down to the car and its driver. Hopefully, someone was still alive. Farther away from the bridge, the bank wasn’t as steep as it was under the bridge. If there was a route to the driver, it would be there, following the river back upstream to the car. As she scrambled down the embankment, she heard another sound, but it wasn’t the expected moan of an injured victim.

  It was the soft putter of a car slowly backing away in the darkness.

  CHAPTER 3

  During the rainy seasons, Fourteen Falls flows as one thick cascade,

  red from the soil. Fish now move farther upriver, seeking food

  that was flushed out along with the land.

  —The Traveler

  JADE SNAPPED OFF HER LIGHT and froze.

  This was no accident!

  She waited, listening for footsteps, a cough, anything to alert her to another presence—to danger. All she heard was a faint grinding of gears coming from the bridge. Then silence.

  Someone pushed the car over the bridge! Her hope of finding someone alive in the car disappeared. Instead she wondered how many bodies had been dumped.

  She turned on her light and hurried up the shallow river to the wreck, at times sloshing through ankle-deep water when it was easier than plowing through the scratchy brush and large rocks that bordered the steep bank. Something small rustled through the debris nearby, but other than the frightened rodent, all was silent.

  Jade reached the car, a Dodge, resting on three tires; the fourth was hung up on a rock. The car’s hood was crushed where it had struck the rocks below before righting itself. Peering through the broken windshield, Jade spied one occupant, a man, slumped over the steering wheel, motionless. A very thin dab of blood stained his forehead. She moved around to the driver’s side and opened the door, careful to cover her hand with her sleeve. If the police were going to search for fingerprints, she didn’t want hers on the handle. The smell of alcohol wafted out of the car. Jade put her index and middle fingers to the driver’s neck. No pulse. She wasn’t surprised, only saddened.

  “Sorry,” she said to the victim, and crossed herself, reciting a brief prayer for the man. Then she headed back to her motorbike and into town.

  One lone police constable sat at the desk on duty, reading yesterday’s newspaper. Jade recognized some of the headings: Another Plague Victim in the Indian District and Limuru Road Bridge a Danger to Life and Limb.

  It certainly was tonight.

  The constable, a young Englishman, jumped to his feet. “How may I help you, miss?”

  “I’m reporting a death, possibly a murder.”

  “A death? I say. Where?” He ran his gaze over Jade’s muddied shirt and trousers. “Are you all right?” He took a sheet of paper from a desk cubby and pulled a pencil from his shirt pocket.

  Jade pointed to the newspaper lying on the desk. “At your Limuru Bridge. A car went over the rails. The driver is dead.”

  “Then it’s an accident.”

  “I doubt it. I heard another car drive off slowly. There were no lights.”

  “Well, if someone was driving with no lights on that bridge, it’s no wonder that they went over. That is a violation of the law, you know.”

  Jade sighed. “You misunderstand me, Constable. I suspect the car was pushed off the bridge intentionally, made to look like an accident.”

  Her statement suddenly struck home and the constable momentarily ceased scribbling on his paper. “And what were you doing there at this hour, miss?” He studied her again. “Were you in the vehicle?”

  Jade noticed that he didn’t specify which vehicle, the one that went over or the one she reported hearing leave. “Neither. I had stopped my motorcycle on the north end of the bridge before going into town.” When she noticed his arched eyebrow, she added, “I wanted to look at the stars.”

  “Alone?”

  “Alone!”

  The constable bent down and made some notation. “Your name and residence?”

  “Jade del Cameron. I’m a guest of Lord and Lady Avery Dunbury near Parklands.”

  She answered a few other basic questions regarding where she’d been and again why she was alone at night near the bridge. Jade replied patiently, wishing for a cup of coffee. When she’d heard the crash and reacted, it was with the nearly instinctive reflexes that had carried her on her ambulance runs during the war. Jade was certainly no stranger to death there. Several of her runs had ended in unloading a deceased soldier whose wounds had been too severe to withstand the long trip from the lines to an evacuation hospital. But the aftermath was always the same, sitting with Beverly and the other women in some farmhouse basement, drinking tea, cocoa, coffee, or Bovril—whatever someone had received in a package from home. She felt the need for that now, only she knew she’d be drinking alone. It wouldn’t be right to disturb Beverly.

  The constable’s voice startled her out of her reverie. “I rang up the inspector, miss. Gave him all the particulars. He’ll send some men out to the spot to fetch the body tonight.”

  “Did you tell him that it might be murder?”

  “I did. Funny thing, miss—when I gave Inspector Finch your name, he didn’t seem at all surprised. He said you had best go home now. Inspector will contact you tomorrow if he has any questions.”

  Jade nodded, thanked the constable, and went outside to her motorcycle. Her hand shook as she gripped the handlebars and it took all her presence of mind to steer the machine north through town to the northern edge of Parklands and to her rooms. She recognized the symptoms as a type of aftershock that hit after the initial surge of energy came in times of danger. While she wa
s on the riverbed or by the car, her mind felt as clear as the African night. Her leg muscles had carried her willingly up and down the embankment, her arms assisting by pulling on low branches. But whatever extra strength she’d gained, she paid for now with trembling limbs and an exhausted, foggy brain.

  One light burned in the Dunburys’ windows. Bev, Jade knew, would either keep watch or have Farhani keep watch and alert her once she had safely returned. For a moment, Jade considered knocking on Bev’s door, but decided against it.

  No sense waking the baby. As she turned on her own house lights, the one in the big house across the yard went out. Beverly would retire now. Jade headed into her bathroom and took off her filthy clothes. It was too late to heat water out in the main kitchen for a hot bath, so she settled for a cold sponge bath and shampoo at the bathroom basin. She put on a fresh camisole and drawers and tossed the dirty clothes onto a chair. While she toweled her hair, she looked on her supply shelf for coffee. The can was not beside her little spirit burner.

  My coffee’s gone!

  She moved aside some tinned meats and, not finding it, looked to see if it had fallen onto the floor. There was only her wooden chop box, where she kept her camping supplies. That was when she spied a tin on her little table with Miss del Cameron printed on a tag. Two notes lay beside it. One simply read, Please give this to Miss del Cameron with my compliments. It’s a spiced South African red tea. Quite delicious and purported to be very healthful, more so than her coffee. Your friend, Major Anthony Bertram.

  Jade recognized him as Avery’s friend who was visiting when she’d returned from Kilimanjaro last September. The other note was from Beverly.

  To that effect, I confiscated your coffee can. Love, Beverly.

  Jade sighed. More mothering from Bev. “I hate tea,” she muttered. Jade opened the tea and sniffed the contents. A fragrant blend of cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and some other spices wafted up to her. She sneezed. And pepper, too! For a moment she considered trying a cup when a great yawn erupted from her. Tomorrow.

  She barely remembered her head hitting the pillow, but in her dreams, it was a rolled-up blanket under her head and her bed was a bundle of straw stuffed into old ticking in a farmhouse basement the day that David crashed.

  JADE ROSE FORTY MINUTES BEFORE SUNRISE, dressed in last evening’s clothes, and settled herself at her table for a Spartan breakfast of a stale scone dunked in a cup of the tea, which, to her surprise, was good once she added a dose of honey to it. Not only didn’t it remind her of dried oak leaves steeped in ditch water, as did black tea, but the pepper provided a pleasant jolt to her palate. She knew that Beverly would expect her to join her and Avery at the main house, but Jade didn’t feel like facing an interrogation so early in the morning. At least, not from Bev. Jade was expecting one anyway, but from a different quarter. Finch arrived just as the sun rose, the long morning shadows sprouting in the golden light.

  “Miss del Cameron, it seems I need to speak with you about a body,” said Finch. “Again.” His gaze drifted down to her dirty trousers and stocking feet and snapped back up to her face. “My apologies for disturbing your breakfast. However, I presumed you would be an early riser, as I need to see this accident right away. It appears you’ve anticipated me.”

  “Won’t you come in, Inspector?” said Jade. “Have some tea while I put on my boots. It’s South African and not bad. The pepper in it is very stimulating.”

  Finch stood at her door, his hat in his hand. “Thank you, no. I need you to accompany me straightaway to the Limuru Bridge and tell me everything that happened last night. I want to be finished before there are many people on the road.”

  Jade set her empty cup on the table, grabbed her boots and hat, and headed out the door.

  “You do not lock it?” Finch asked.

  “Should I?”

  “There have been the usual burglaries by natives, miss. Don’t think that because you are part of Lord Dunbury’s estate, you are immune.”

  Jade took the hint and went back inside to find the house key and lock her door. Finch held the rear door of the Crossley staff car open for Jade, then slid in beside her. An Indian constable sat behind the wheel. At Finch’s nod, they drove to the bridge. Jade finagled her boots on in the rear seat. She saw Finch look at the knife hilt peeking out of the sheath on her right boot. He said nothing and looked out the window again.

  The car stopped on the Nairobi side of the bridge, about fifty feet back. A second, even older car was already waiting for them. Constable Miller stood beside it, stiffening to attention when Finch stepped out.

  “Inspector!” said Miller with a salute.

  “At ease, Constable,” said Finch. “You’ve been here all night?”

  “Yes, sir, Inspector. Traffic very light. No one’s been by since two o’clock, sir, excepting one farmer.”

  “Very good,” said Finch. “We’ll look at the scene now. Constable Singh,” he said to the Indian, “take photographs, but get the fingerprints when we get the car back to police grounds. Miss del Cameron, show me where you were last night.”

  Jade pointed across the bridge. “On the other side.”

  “Where, exactly?”

  Jade led the way across the bridge, keeping to the rail opposite the break. As she walked, she studied the ruts in the dirt road. On the other side of the river, she found the place where she’d sat.

  “Here,” she said. “It was near to ten thirty when I stopped on my way back from the Thompsons’ farm.”

  He arched his brows and frowned. “Then you’d have been on the Fort Hall Road, not here. Why did you come here?”

  “I wanted to see the night sky. I couldn’t look at it very well while I was riding my motorcycle, so I turned off onto this road.” She didn’t look at Finch when she explained. To her ears it sounded pitiful and she didn’t want to see his reaction.

  “Continue, if you please.”

  “I heard an engine coming up from the south. I stepped back farther away from the road so I wouldn’t startle whoever came across, but no one did come. That’s when I heard the wood snap and the car go over. I can’t be certain, but I thought I heard the car door close just before it went over. But it was soft, not a slam.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I went east, downstream, to find an easier way to get down to the car.”

  “Do you mind showing me? You needn’t fear seeing the body. My men removed it early this morning.”

  Jade pointed to her filthy trousers. “As you said, I anticipated you, Inspector.” She took him along the route, wondering if he’d follow her into the river. He did, as did the Indian constable who carried a box camera.

  “By the way, you won’t find my prints on the door,” she said. “I used my sleeve.”

  Finch’s thin lips twitched in a half smile. “Don’t worry, Miss del Cameron. I didn’t plan to arrest you.” He looked up to the bridge and the splintered railing. “Nearly a straight drop.”

  “Not what one would expect if someone was speeding along and broke through the rails,” said Jade.

  “But you saw no lights,” said Finch. “And the man had been drinking. The smell of the alcohol inside the vehicle was quite strong. So it’s not inconceivable that he was drunk, forgot to put on his headlamps, and drove off the road. You’ve seen the papers, I’m sure. The railings are merely tacked in place in some spots, giving the illusion of safety. Public works has done nothing about the bridge.”

  Jade considered this a moment. “Even drunk, he’d have put his arms up defensively when he went over. They were at his sides, as I recall, and I didn’t see much blood, which suggests he was already dead before he hit. And did you notice the ruts up top?” She stepped over the rocks to the back of the car.

  “Yes,” said Finch. “I did. Deep from the last rains but nearly parallel to the railing.”

  “Exactly,” said Jade. “One would have to be driving very fast to skip out of those ruts.”

  “In w
hich case the automobile should have flown even farther before landing,” finished Finch.

  “This rear guard is scratched,” Jade said.

  Both Finch and Singh joined her. The latter took several pictures of the scratches as well as the position of the car relative to the bridge.

  “Pushed,” said Finch. “The man on duty last night said that you heard someone drive away.”

  “Slowly, with lights off,” added Jade.

  “Blast and damn,” muttered Finch under his breath. He straightened and motioned for Jade to lead the way to the top. “The body is in Dr. Mathews’ office, awaiting an autopsy. It will be only a matter of time before the jackals from the newspapers descend on my office. I will, of course, do what I can to keep your name out of this, Miss del Cameron, at least until there is some formal inquest.”

  Finch and Jade trudged up the bank to the top, leaving the Indian constable below to guard the car. Finch waved for Constable Miller to join them. “I shall send you back to town. Take Miss del Cameron with you. Then find something to haul up the car; block and tackle if we have to, or try Messrs. Childs and Josephs to see about borrowing that Bates Steel Mule tractor of theirs. We’ll have to drag the motorcar back to town, I’m afraid. Doubt it’s in any condition to . . . Oh, bloody hell.”

  Two vehicles pulled up behind Finch’s car and a man jumped out of each. Both wore tweed suits and straw boater hats. One sported large sunshades the size of motoring goggles, and wide sideburns. He stood aloofly to one side of his car. The other was barefaced, sunburned, and approached with the aggression of a hungry dog. Each man carried a notepad and a pencil.

  “I think the reporters are here,” said Jade.

  “Miller, keep them back!” ordered Finch.

  “Is it true that someone drove through the rails last night, Inspector?” shouted the red-faced man.

  “Was it suicide?” asked the one with the dark glasses. His voice, more subdued, carried the question with a practiced gentility, as though this were a garden-party conversation.