Deadly Harvest

by Michael Stanley

  While he took them to the bathroom to wash, Kubu explained how chameleons catch live insects and wouldn’t like pizza. Tumi was uncomfortable with the idea of eating flies, but Nono said she’d eaten moths a few times, and they weren’t too bad. Kubu decided they should have dinner while he still felt like eating and promised to admire the chameleon later.

  AFTER ALL THE FOOD had been polished off, and the children had climbed into bed, Kubu read them a story while Joy cleaned up. Later, Joy came in to kiss them good night and rescue Kubu from further encores. Then the two adults could settle for a few hours of peace, and drink another glass or two of the wine.

  “Nono really loves you, Kubu,” Joy said. “Do you see the way she looks at you? As though the sun comes out of all that bulk.” They both laughed.

  “I’ve been thinking about Nono,” Kubu said. “Tumi is very fond of her, and it will be awful to separate them. And where will she go? With the HIV and everything? Perhaps we should think about adopting her?”

  “You don’t have to ask me, Kubu,” Joy said quietly. “It’s what I want, but I waited for you to come round. It was only fair.” She gave Kubu a big hug, and they sat close together for a few minutes. Then she moved away, looked at him sternly, and said, “But we’re not keeping the chameleon!”

  Kubu laughed, but then his face turned somber as he thought of Nono as he’d first seen her, tiny with not an ounce of fat. Hungry enough to catch moths.

  “Seloi would be so grateful,” Joy said quietly. A few tears trickled from her eyes, but she wiped them away.

  Kubu remembered Nono, big-­eyed at her sister’s funeral, not knowing what to make of it. That was the first time he’d met Rampa. Funerals of Distinction. At the time he’d thought the title laughable—­a one-­man show arriving late in a bakkie with the coffin bouncing on the back. But he’d been wrong about that. It turned out Rampa was very successful. So why had he come by himself? Did he work alone in the hot sun to save a few pula? And why was he late? The mourners had been forced to wait for quite a while.

  He realized Joy had said something.

  “I’m sorry, my darling.”

  “I asked if you wanted coffee.”

  “Coffee? Yes, please.”

  Joy smiled, recognizing Kubu in think-­mode, and left him to it while she made the hot drinks.

  Kubu went over the funeral again in his mind. He remembered the undertaker, hot and sweating, calling for a few strong men to help him. And the strong men struggling with the pinewood coffin of a girl wasted away by AIDS.

  Rampa had come late. What if he’d done something along the way that delayed him? What if he’d opened the coffin and added another corpse? Then he would have had to be alone. And the coffin would indeed be heavy if it contained two bodies instead of one. But the timing was wrong. It couldn’t realistically be either of the two girls they knew had been abducted. Maybe there were others?

  Joy put the coffee down next to him. It came with two shortbread cookies on the side. He smiled his thanks.

  “Joy, do you remember Seloi’s funeral? Do you know who organized it?”

  Joy nodded. “It was the relatives Nono was staying with before she came to us. They said that Rra Rampa—­the undertaker—­occasionally helped very poor ­people to have a proper funeral when they couldn’t afford it. They approached him, and he agreed to do it for very little money. We all chipped in to cover the cost, and to have some cake and tea for the mourners at the house.”

  Kubu put a shortbread in his mouth and chewed slowly, savoring it along with a new idea.

  “Was that why he came alone with the coffin on the back of a bakkie?”

  “Yes, he said the men there would have to help him bury the coffin; he couldn’t afford to pay for workers. I suppose his hearse was being used for another funeral. There are so many nowadays . . .”

  “Yes,” said Kubu, sipping his coffee. “Only this time maybe there was one too few.” Joy looked at him, puzzled.

  He smiled at her. “Let’s talk about something else. Tomorrow, let’s tell Nono we want her to stay with us and see what she says. Maybe we should ask Tumi first? But they’re sisters already, aren’t they?”

  Joy laughed, delighted. “Oh, yes, they’re sisters already!”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  THE NEXT MORNING MABAKU, Kubu, and Samantha gathered in the meeting room. Kubu reported on his meeting with the undertaker and his subsequent thoughts about the rather odd funeral of Nono’s sister. Samantha chipped in with the news that Rampa had occasionally visited the Welcome Bar No. 2. In turn, Mabaku informed them that he’d obtained the commissioner’s grudging approval to probe the late deputy commissioner’s records for leads to the witch doctor.

  Kubu and Samantha split up the tasks ahead. Kubu said he would follow up on phone calls and text messages to and from Gobey’s phones, particularly during the week prior to his meeting with Mabaku. He also would check with Helenka in Forensics to see if she’d prepared the necessary paperwork to send to Canada to get information from Hushmail. Samantha would interview Gobey’s personal assistant to see if she had any useful information.

  Kubu and Samantha agreed to meet back at CID headquarters after lunch.

  “MY MEETING WITH LORI, Gobey’s PA, wasn’t particularly helpful,” Samantha told Kubu. “She said that nothing out of the ordinary had happened during the week Gobey told you he’d spoken to his informant. He was his normal self, except when he received the call from the witch doctor and another time after he’d talked to his nephew, Joshua.”

  “Joshua Gobey? That’s his nephew? He’s head of the diamond division. I wonder what he was talking to his uncle about.”

  “Lori said he visited Gobey twice. Once”—­she pulled out her notebook—­“on the twenty-­fourth of April, and then on the second of May. It was after the second meeting Lori thought Gobey was upset.”

  “I wonder if he’s also after his uncle’s job,” Kubu mused. “Perhaps he was trying to persuade Gobey to pull some strings.”

  “That’s the job the director wants. Right?” Samantha asked.

  Kubu nodded. “Gobey wouldn’t try to influence the commissioner, from what I know of him. He might have advised his nephew, but he would never have used his position to push him just because he was his nephew.”

  “Maybe that’s why Gobey was upset. His nephew was angry that his uncle wasn’t going to oil the process. Lori also said that Gobey was like a father to Joshua—­ever since Joshua’s father died.”

  “I think I’ll have a talk to him. Perhaps he knows something about the witch doctor, although I’d be surprised. I should also speak to Gobey’s wife, although I doubt she’ll say anything.”

  He stood up. “I’d better speak to the director about this first.”

  MABAKU’S REACTION TO KUBU’S request to speak to both Joshua Gobey and the late deputy commissioner’s wife was not what Kubu expected. He’d thought that Mabaku would have sent him to Joshua and visited Gobey’s wife himself.

  “Kubu, I’ll try for an appointment to speak to Joshua Gobey tomorrow. I’m told he also aspires to the position of deputy commissioner. I don’t want him or anyone else to think I’m undermining his position by having one of my staff question him. You’ve met Mma Gobey, so it’s fine for you to talk to her. Don’t push too hard if she doesn’t want to share what they talked about in private. She may not want to talk to you at all, and that’s fine just at the moment—­at least until after the funeral.”

  IT SEEMED LIKE A long shot, but Samantha took it anyway. Something had happened to Owido on the night of the fifth of May, and Molefe had sent Rampa a message that night at about the right time. If Rampa had been involved in some way, she thought, it was possible Owido had been brought to the funeral parlor, or perhaps even to Rampa’s home. If so, someone might have noticed something. The area around the undertaker’s premises would be pret
ty dead on a Saturday night, so her best chance was if something had happened at Rampa’s house.

  Rampa lived on Tshwaana Road in a newer middle-­class area not too far from his Broadhurst premises. His house was well set back from the road, and from the outside it looked comfortable, but not ostentatious. A narrow driveway led down one side of the property to a single garage. Samantha spent a few minutes looking at the house from the street to fix the layout in her mind. She checked her watch. It was 6 p.m., a good time to find ­people at home after work.

  There were seven houses on each side of the street, and Samantha chose to start at the one opposite Rampa’s home. She worked her way up the street, asking the residents if they could recall any activity late that night. Most just shook their heads, puzzled by the question. One or two had grouses about noisy neighbors and their even noisier pets, but no one had anything remotely useful until she reached the house on the right of the undertaker’s.

  When she knocked, the door was opened by a large woman wearing a loud dress printed with bright red roses. Samantha stated her business, and the woman looked blank.

  “We’re about to go out,” she said. “Let me call my husband. I don’t remember anything special about last Saturday night. But he sometimes stays up late.”

  Samantha called after her that it was the Saturday before last, but the woman had already disappeared into the house. She was replaced by a tall man, conservatively dressed with no floral extras, who proved to be more chatty than his wife. He listened carefully to Samantha, and then slowly shook his head.

  “No disturbance or anything like that. I remember we were watching television. A very long movie about a war somewhere and building a bridge. Kefilwe—­that’s my wife—­gave it up and went to bed. I went to the kitchen to get a snack and heard Rra Rampa driving out. Our kitchen faces his driveway. It was very late for a visit. I thought maybe someone had died, and he was going to fetch the body. Depressing how busy he is. It’s the AIDS, you know. Well, he has to make a living, too, I suppose. I don’t remember anything else happening that night. This is a quiet part of town. Nothing much ever happens around here. Which is not a bad thing.”

  Samantha controlled her excitement. “Are you sure Rra Rampa went out on Saturday, the fifth of May?”

  The man nodded. “Oh, yes. Because of the movie. The Bridge on the River something.”

  “And are you sure it was Rra Rampa’s car?”

  “Oh, yes. He has to back out from his garage, you see, and his car is a bit loud. Perhaps there is a hole developing in the exhaust?” He looked at her as though she might know the answer to this.

  “But you didn’t actually see it?”

  He shook his head.

  “What time was that?”

  This caused a thoughtful pause. “I think it was after ten. That’s why I thought it was so odd.”

  “Did you hear him return later on?”

  He shook his head. “I must’ve gone to bed by then.”

  “Did you ask Rra Rampa about it?”

  He shook his head again. “None of my business, and we’re neighbors rather than friends. He comes and goes quite a bit with his job. But he doesn’t often go out in the middle of the night.”

  His wife called from inside the house, and he added, “Kefilwe’s always in a rush. Is there anything else?”

  Samantha thanked him and added silent thanks to heaven for nosy neighbors. Kubu would be very interested to learn that after receiving the text message, the undertaker had gone for a drive somewhere.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  THE NEXT MORNING, MABAKU drove the few miles to Joshua Gobey’s office in downtown Gaborone. The PA showed him into Gobey’s comfortably large office.

  “Dumela, Director Mabaku. Please sit down. This is an unexpected pleasure.”

  Mabaku didn’t think that Joshua Gobey’s face mirrored the words of welcome. It was unsmiling, and the man looked tense.

  “Thank you, rra. I know this visit comes at an awkward time. First, your uncle’s untimely death. My wife and I extend our deepest sympathies. And second because I understand that we are both interested in his position. I assure you that my visit has nothing to do with that.”

  Joshua Gobey nodded but said nothing.

  “In fact,” Mabaku continued, “it is only because your uncle has passed away that I am able to be here.”

  Joshua frowned.

  “About a week before he died, he visited me with a strange story. He said an informant, whom he refused to name, had told him of a witch doctor who was going to make muti, using human body parts. The witch doctor was someone whom he himself had visited for traditional medicines. Your uncle was very upset with what this witch doctor was planning to do and wanted to help us apprehend him.”

  Joshua didn’t respond.

  “So I wonder . . .” Mabaku continued. “I wonder if your uncle mentioned anything like this to you? I am told you were very close to him and saw him a ­couple of days before he passed away.”

  For several moments Joshua didn’t say anything, but just sat staring at Mabaku. Then he shook himself out of his thoughts.

  “No. My uncle did not mention such a thing to me. We spoke of my father and of his illness.”

  “If I may ask, what did he say about his illness?”

  Again Joshua paused before answering, as though weighing each word before delivering it.

  “He was worried by his health. He was having trouble breathing—­emphysema, I think. But he was optimistic that his medicine would help him.”

  “Were you surprised that he passed away so soon after you saw him?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” There was a hint of aggression in Joshua’s voice. Mabaku wondered why.

  “Let me put it another way. When you saw him last were you worried that his death was imminent?”

  “No.” Mabaku thought Joshua was beginning to look agitated.

  “Do you have any idea what caused the rapid decline?”

  Joshua shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  “Rra Gobey, do you have any idea who the witch doctor was that your uncle consulted?”

  “No!” Joshua almost spat out the word. He stood up and hissed, “I don’t know what you are trying to do. Why are you trying to smear my uncle’s memory? Or are you trying to implicate me in some muti scandal? Is that why you’re attacking me? You know you’ll never become deputy commissioner unless you can discredit me! Just wait until I’m in my uncle’s office. Now get out of mine!”

  Mabaku stood up slowly, wondering whether to respond. He decided against it. “Thank you for your time, Rra Gobey. You are reading too much into this visit.” He turned and left.

  Joshua thumped his fist on his desk, causing an empty teacup to rattle in its saucer. He was worried. What does he really know? he wondered. Does he know about my visits to the witch doctor?

  He sat for a few minutes trying to regain his composure. Then he pulled his laptop toward him and opened his browser.

  I need to speak to the witch doctor about this, he thought. And soon.

  AT MUCH THE SAME time, Kubu arrived at the home of the late deputy commissioner. He’d called ahead to ensure he would be welcome to visit. At the ring of the doorbell, Maria Gobey answered the door.

  “Please come in, Assistant Superintendent,” she said.

  After they had settled in the living room, each with a cup of tea, and had completed the mandatory pleasantries, Kubu broached the subject at hand.

  “I know this is very difficult for you, mma, but I wonder if you can shed light on a problem we have.” He paused. “A few weeks ago, on the seventh of May to be exact, your late husband visited my boss, Director Mabaku, and told a story of a witch doctor. He said that an informant, whom he wouldn’t name, had provided information that this witch doctor was going to kill someone for muti. We have
reason to believe that the witch doctor has now abducted an albino to do just that.”

  Mma Gobey sat motionless, with a vacant look on her face.

  “Mma, did he ever tell you who the witch doctor was or where he could be found? Or did he perhaps relate all of this to you and tell you who his source of information was?”

  Tears welled up in Maria Gobey’s eyes. She shook her head. “I cannot tell you these things. Tebogo obviously wanted to keep this information confidential. Otherwise he would have told you.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sure he asked you to be very discreet, so why are you now breaking your promise?”

  “Mma Gobey,” Kubu said quietly, “your husband was one of Botswana’s finest policemen. He wanted the witch doctor caught—­to prevent further murders. And he could have kept silent. He was about to retire. No one would have faulted him for that. Yet he came forward in an effort to catch this murderer. We can’t let him down now.”

  Mma Gobey let out a big sob and buried her head in her hands. “I can’t say anything. I promised Tebogo.”

  Kubu sat quietly, hoping that Mma Gobey would regain her composure. After several minutes, Kubu stood up. “Mma Gobey, I’m very sorry to have intruded at this very sad and difficult time for you.” He walked toward the door. Before he left, he turned. “Last Christmas, a young girl called Lesego disappeared in Mochudi. We are convinced she was killed for muti. Just a few months ago, another young girl, Tombi, disappeared on her way home after school, not far from here. We think she was also taken for muti. There have been others.” He paused. “And about a week ago, a visitor to our country, an albino from Tanzania, disappeared. From what your husband said, he too was to be killed so some politician or businessman would find new strength or good fortune. We think all of these ­people were killed by the same man. How many more are there going to be?”