Deadly Harvest

by Michael Stanley

  That caught Mabaku’s attention. He groaned. “Another grave? Soon you’ll have dug up everyone in the country. Whose and what for?”

  Kubu reminded Mabaku of his suspicions that an additional body was buried with Nono’s sister. “That’s the coffin I want to look at.”

  “Well, it’s a long shot, but your man has already switched bodies once, so I think we can justify a look. If there’s any problem, have them call me.”

  KUBU WASN’T LOOKING FORWARD to the third coffin being opened. It was already more than a month since Seloi had been buried, and the contents of the coffin were sure to be disgusting. Kubu didn’t even go to the cemetery, partly because there wasn’t much excitement seeing another coffin lifted from the ground, and partly because three very early mornings in a row didn’t suit his sleep patterns. He’d asked Ian to phone him when the coffin was on its way to the morgue so that he could meet him there.

  “Here we go!” Ian said as he started to pry open the lid of the cheap coffin.

  A few minutes later he lifted it off and peered inside.

  “You’re right, Kubu! There are two bodies in here.” He gently lifted one shrouded body out. “I’ll order DNA tests on both—­I think I can expedite them because of the circumstances. And now I’ll try to find out how they died. I’ll call you later.”

  “Thanks, Ian. Please do—­as soon as you know anything.” With that Kubu made a dash for the door and a breath of fresh air.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  KUBU SLAMMED THE DOOR behind him, sat down, and turned to the lawyer, who was sitting at the table.

  “Who’re you?”

  “I’m Rra Rampa’s attorney.”

  “I know that,” Kubu snapped. “What’s your name?”

  “Martin Westbrook of Westbrook, Levi, and Mpape.”

  Kubu leaned over, turned the recorder on, and completed the introductory requirements. Then he turned to Rampa.

  “We’ve added charges for the murder and mutilation of another girl, whose identity we don’t know. I just wish they could hang you once for each person you killed. I don’t like the death penalty, but it’s perfect for scum like you.” Kubu slammed his fist on the table.

  Westbrook jumped up. “You can’t talk to my client like that. If you continue, I’ll advise him not to say anything.”

  Kubu leaned toward Rampa. “Who is this new body we’ve found? When did you kill her?”

  “I swear I never killed anyone. I was made to do it. Made to bury those bodies. Please believe me. I’d never hurt a child.” Rampa, unkempt after a night in a cell, banged his handcuffed hands against his chest. “Please believe me!”

  Westbrook leaned over and whispered in Rampa’s ear.

  “So, who made you bury those bodies?” Kubu continued. “Who gave you those bodies?”

  Rampa’s eyes were terrified.

  “He’ll kill me if I tell you!”

  “We’ll hang you if you don’t!”

  “Assistant Superintendent Bengu, I must protest. You can’t intimidate my client like this.”

  Rampa buried his head in his hands.

  “Do you promise not to tell anyone?” Rampa pleaded, ignoring his attorney.

  “I can’t do that. You’ll have to take your chances.”

  Rampa started sobbing. “He’s going to kill me!”

  “Who’s going to kill you?”

  Rampa said nothing, still sobbing.

  Kubu waited.

  Eventually Rampa lifted his head and said, “The witch doctor!”

  For a moment Kubu was stunned. Then he burst out laughing. “The witch doctor? You must be joking. You’re the witch doctor. Not someone else. I suppose next you’ll tell me he’s invisible!”

  “He is, I promise. I’ve never seen him.”

  “Have you looked in a mirror? Good try, Rampa, but I’m not buying it. You’re the person we’re looking for, and you’re going to pay for what you’ve done.”

  Kubu stood up and turned off the recorder. He nodded toward the lawyer and left, slamming the door again.

  THE NEXT MORNING KUBU invited Samantha to join him in questioning Rampa.

  “I have to say I’m a little confused,” Kubu said as they walked to the interrogation room. “Zanele found a partial thumbprint of Marumo’s on the clasp holding the dividers in the briefcase. So the briefcase you found is certainly Marumo’s.”

  “How did Rampa get hold of it?” Samantha asked.

  “Exactly. I can’t figure it out. Maybe we’ll learn something from Rampa. I’ll lead the questioning, but feel free to ask anything you like.”

  A few minutes later they were both seated in front of a slouched and haggard Rampa, unshaven, with the unpleasant odor of someone who hasn’t washed in a few days. He looked exhausted. Westbrook was again seated next to him.

  “Rra Rampa,” Kubu began, “we’re going to continue questioning you until you tell the truth, which you haven’t yet done. You claim to have been forced by an invisible witch doctor to bury all these mutilated bodies—­bodies that had been murdered for body parts. That’s hard for me to believe. If you expect me to believe that, you’re going to have to give me some real evidence that this witch doctor exists.”

  Rampa, chin on chest, shook his head. “He’ll kill me if I do. He said I’d die a terrible death if I said anything.”

  “You’re quite safe in your cell. He can’t get to you there.”

  “Oh yes, he can. His spells go through walls. It doesn’t matter where you are if he puts a spell on you. I’ll die a terrible death.”

  Kubu thought for a moment. I’ll call his bluff, he decided.

  “All right, I’m going to ask you some questions. If you give me truthful answers, I won’t ask who the witch doctor is. If I think you’re lying, I will hold a press conference this afternoon to announce how you’ve helped us with information about all the unsolved murders, and we’ll let you go. I’m sure the witch doctor will be waiting for you to thank you for your help.”

  “You have to believe me!” Rampa cried. “I’m telling you the truth!”

  “You can’t threaten my client like that!” Westbrook said aggressively.

  “Mr. Westbrook, I didn’t threaten your client. I said I’d let him go. The witch doctor is his idea, not mine. He has to live with that.”

  Westbrook crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair. Passive-­aggressive, Kubu thought.

  “Rra Rampa, when we searched your house yesterday, we found a briefcase. We can prove that it belonged to the late Bill Marumo, the Freedom Party politician. How did you get it?”

  Rampa squirmed in his chair. “The witch doctor gave it to me,” he said quietly, as though the witch doctor might hear.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He was delivering some stuff.”

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Rampa said. “It was in a packet.”

  “And who was the packet for?”

  Rampa hesitated. “I don’t know. I had to leave it on a gravestone one evening. The next morning it was gone.”

  “And whose gravestone was it?”

  Rampa shook his head. “I don’t remember. It was nobody I had heard of.”

  Kubu brought his fist down on the table so hard that everyone jumped. “Another useless answer. What do you think was in the packet?”

  Rampa drew back as far as he could in the chair. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you think it was?” Kubu was shouting now.

  Rampa just looked down and shook his head.

  While Kubu took a few deep breaths to calm himself, Samantha jumped in. “How did this witch doctor give you instructions? Did he send spirits to talk to you?”

  “Of course not. He left me a voice mail when he wanted me to pick up a body.”

&nbs
p; “So we can find the number on your phone then?”

  Rampa shook his head. “I checked my phone. The numbers were always different. I think he used public phones. You have my phone. You can check it.”

  “Don’t worry, we will,” Kubu interjected. “So he told you to do this more than once?”

  Rampa nodded.

  “You have to answer the question.”

  “Yes,” Rampa mumbled.

  “How many times?”

  Rampa looked stricken. “Several, I don’t know . . .”

  “How many times, Rra Rampa?”

  At first it seemed he wouldn’t answer, but then he blurted, “Five, no six.”

  Kubu, Samantha, and Westbrook all stared at him.

  “Where did you pick the bodies up?” Kubu asked quietly.

  Rampa sank lower in his chair. He shook his head. “I can’t,” he groaned.

  “Of course you can,” Samantha said. “The witch doctor can’t hear you in here.”

  “He can hear me anywhere, everywhere,” Rampa moaned.

  Kubu turned to Samantha, “Please go and arrange for a press conference at three this afternoon. Tell them it’s about a breakthrough in the Marumo case.” Samantha stood up to leave.

  “Noooo . . .” Rampa let out a long wail. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.”

  “No, you won’t,” Kubu replied. “You’re going to take us there.”

  AN HOUR LATER RAMPA guided Kubu to a dirt road south of the city. It was a rutted bush track, obviously rarely used. Samantha and Westbrook were also in Kubu’s Land Rover, and Zanele and her team followed in their forensics vehicle.

  “Those bushes on the left,” Rampa said. “That’s where the bodies were.”

  The small convoy pulled up a hundred yards from the bushes, and Zanele and her team moved slowly toward the site, looking for any signs of activity. As they neared the bushes, Zanele called Kubu over and pointed to the ground. “Tire tracks. Two sets.”

  Kubu could see the difference in the tread marks.

  A few minutes later, Zanele again called. “It certainly looks as though something heavy was dragged on the ground here.” She pointed to a drag mark from near the road to behind the bushes.

  “We’ll sample the soil to see if we can pick up any hairs or traces of blood. We may get lucky,” she said.

  “Good work,” Kubu told her. “Let me know as soon as possible.”

  He walked back to the Land Rover, where Rampa was handcuffed to the door, watched by Samantha. Westbrook paced up and down outside the vehicle.

  “So what does that prove, Rra Rampa?” Kubu asked as he climbed into the vehicle. “It doesn’t prove that you’re not the witch doctor. It was a good try, but you can’t fool me. You’re the invisible person we’ve been looking for. You thought you were clever, but criminals like you always make a mistake. You’re going to hang from your neck until you’re dead. And I hope the spirits of all the ­people you’ve killed are there to watch you go to hell.”

  “Detective Bengu . . . ,” Westbrook started to say.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” Rampa wailed.

  “I need to speak to my client,” Westbrook interjected.

  “Fine,” said Kubu. “Call us when you’re ready.”

  A few minutes later, Westbrook walked over. “My client wants to make a confession,” he said. “Can we go back now?”

  Kubu glanced at Samantha and shrugged. “That’s fine, only make sure he’s telling the truth.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  WHEN THEY LEFT THE interrogation room after listening to Rampa’s confession, Kubu was thoughtful. “We must bring in Sunday Molefe again. Rampa’s confession contradicts his story.”

  Samantha nodded. “I’ll do it.”

  Kubu walked a bit farther, then stopped. “Rampa certainly wants us to believe he’s not a killer.”

  “That was all bullshit,” Samantha exploded. Kubu looked at her askance—­it was the first time he’d heard her swear.

  “All he admitted to was picking up and burying bodies,” she continued. “That’s a clever way to avoid a murder charge. I want to do to him what he did to them! Show him the knife, cut off his balls, and then work up from there. Hanging is too good for him! We should . . . we should . . .” Words failed her.

  “But are we sure he’s guilty of the murders?” Kubu asked mildly.

  “Of course he’s guilty! He buried a butchered child with your little girl’s sister, and put the albino in Ndode’s grave. And there’ll be lots of others, if we can find them without digging up every graveyard!” She was so angry that she slapped the wall.

  “He’s admitted burying the bodies.”

  “You can’t believe his pathetic story about doing it because he’s terrified of some witch doctor? He is the witch doctor!”

  Kubu sighed. He very much wanted Samantha to be right. And yet there were things that worried him. Rampa worried him. In the face of all the evidence they’d produced, the man stuck to his unlikely story.

  He had another thought.

  “Is it possible that he has a split personality? He really believes there’s another person because there’s another personality?” Even to him it sounded unconvincing, and Samantha gave a derisive laugh.

  “He’s so good at lying, he’s even getting to you,” Samantha spluttered. “He lied to his funeral parlor clients as he cut bits out of their dead loved ones and then buried them in the wrong graves. He lied to his witch doctor clients about what he could do for them. And he lied to those poor little girls when he gave them lifts in his car.” To Kubu’s embarrassment, she started to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m fine. Just give me a few minutes.” She walked away quickly toward her office.

  “What was all that about?” Kubu discovered that Mabaku had walked up behind him during Samantha’s explosion. We don’t need a meeting room, Kubu thought. Everyone’s in the corridor anyway.

  “Samantha’s furious about Rampa. She wants him to confess, grovel, and beg for mercy while she personally tightens the noose around his neck. And she really wants to do something much worse to him than that.”

  “And you don’t think he deserves it? I’m inclined to agree with her.”

  Kubu turned to look at his boss. For someone discussing a mass murderer, he thought, Mabaku sounds in a remarkably good mood.

  Mabaku caught his inquiring expression. “I’ve just been to see the commissioner. He’s very pleased with our work on this case. He wants it all neatly wrapped up, implicating Marumo as much as possible, and the late deputy commissioner not at all. I said I thought we could manage that. He spoke very warmly about us.” He raised his eyebrows. “About both of us.”

  The commissioner was another person who would like Rampa hung, drawn, and quartered, Kubu thought. I disliked the undertaker from the first day I laid eyes on him, but they all seem to be missing one point: we haven’t established that he’s guilty of the killings.

  Mabaku gave him an encouraging slap on the back. “Let’s get it all tied up, Kubu.” Then he strode off to his office with a cheerful wave.

  JOY HAD INVITED PLEASANT and Bongani to join them for supper that evening. Joy cooked a big pot of chicken curry—­hot the way the adults liked it—­and a small pot of curry-­flavored stew for the girls. Tumi pronounced the adult version “burny” and wouldn’t eat it. Nono was less fussy, but she also preferred the milder variety.

  Pleasant smiled as she watched the children dig in. Her interest suggested that she was picking up tips for the not-­too-­distant future.

  As usual, Nono finished her food while Tumi was still fiddling with hers. “Aunt Pleasant,” she said, “Tumi and I are real sisters now.”

  Pleasant laughed. “Of course you are!” She knew all about Kubu and Joy’s plans to adopt her. Nono smiled her beautiful smile.

/>   Bongani finished crunching a poppadum. “I see you’re a big hero again, Kubu. Not only did you catch Bill Marumo’s killer, but you’ve arrested a muti murderer. The undertaker thing is headlines in all the newspapers.”

  “The trouble with the press is that today’s hero is tomorrow’s nobody at best, and tomorrow’s villain at worst,” Kubu replied. He spooned desiccated coconut and banana slices onto his second helping of curry, and then mixed in several tablespoons of Mrs. Ball’s chutney. He wished he had a spicy gewürztraminer to go with it, but had to make do with a chenin blanc.

  “Where does the case go from here?”

  Kubu shrugged. “We still have to establish just what Rampa actually did and did not do. It’ll be a while yet.”

  “The Daily News is speculating that Witness Maleng is also linked to Rampa.” Bongani hesitated. “The piece reads as though that tidbit came from a police source,” he added shrewdly.

  “There’s a lot we don’t know yet. I think some ­people may be getting ahead of themselves.” Kubu felt uncomfortable about the whole issue and changed the subject. “Tell us about your big project.” Bongani got the message and enthusiastically launched into the plans for his upcoming research study in the Okavango Delta.

  AFTER THE GUESTS HAD left, the girls were asleep, and the cleaning up had been done, Kubu and Joy snuggled into bed. Both were relaxed but tired, and a cuddle seemed in order, but Joy sensed that Kubu was distracted.

  “You’re not happy about this case, are you, Kubu? I could tell by the way you cut off the discussion at dinner. Something’s worrying you.”

  “It’s just that everyone has declared the case solved—­a nice, satisfying outcome with no embarrassment to important ­people. The evil witch doctor doing unspeakable things in a funeral parlor. Great for the Daily News.”

  “But maybe that’s how it was?”

  “Maybe.”

  Joy dropped it and soon drifted to sleep. But Kubu lay awake, turning over in his mind the various issues that bothered him.