Killed in Kruger

by Denise M. Hartman

  Mhlongo stood and smoothed out his clothes. He nodded and left.

  Chapter 44

  Tabitha pushed on through the rain. Her time was running out in more ways than one. She pressed her foot down a little harder on the accelerator. The gates of Skukuza would be closing in forty-five minutes. She also faced her return flight to the States soon. Would the matter of Phillip’s death be settled by then, or would it be left hanging? Should she extend her ticket and wait for more information to surface? With no ongoing investigation, she might be waiting for nothing.

  The rain lessened and Tabitha picked up her pace on the tar road within the park. The rain had sent the safari sightseers to their cabins early, so the roads were relatively traffic-free except for the occasional private lodge truck. It would not have been a good afternoon for pictures anyway. When she finally approached, the gates were closed, but a bored park employee pushed the wooden planks open again at her beep. Tabitha rolled down her window and called a thank you, but got no response. She circled through the roads and parked in a gravel slot next to one side of her rondavel cabin. The small round building was all hers. No neighbors in the same building, as some other cabins had.

  She grabbed her bag from the seat of the bakkie, and the camera bag from the floor. She hopped up the steps of the rondavel, thinking about dinner. Then she froze. Her door stood ajar. The hair on her arms stood up. She listened for sounds of stealth inside, but heard only adrenaline-fueled pounding of blood in her ears. The twilight turned the yellow walls of the rondavel a purple gray. Tabitha held her breath.

  Anyone inside was operating without lights or sound. Tabitha decided no one could be in there. Had she not latched the door behind her? No, she was positive she had locked it. She stepped to one side and used her elbow to gently push the door open wider. She heard the loud intake of her own gasp. Destruction met her gaze.

  Every stitch of clothing and each item in the suitcases was flung all around the room. She inched into the room. She patted the camera bag at her side for reassurance. Tabitha had packed it not only with Phillip’s good Nikon and lenses, but with the slides she’d had developed for some of her articles. It seemed safer to have them with her.

  She stood in the center of the room. Chaos. Had they been looking for something, or just trying to scare her? The scaring part was working. She’d need to sort everything before she could see if anything was missing. Tabitha listened intently again, wary. She heard the laughter of campers nearby and the final cries of a bird roosting for the night. The half-closed bathroom door loomed at her in the dimness. She carefully slid the bags from her shoulders onto a pile of clothes on the floor.

  Her steps were silent on the clothes covering the floor. She crept to the bathroom door, then kicked it full force, slamming it back against the tiled wall. Nothing. Nothing but erratic heart rhythms in her chest and the echoes of the door. She turned and faced the room. What a mess. She shoved her fingers into her hair, clutching her head. Where to start? Why would someone do this? Whose tree had she shaken? Random crime again, or something specific?

  Her entire body shook, but she focused on work. First, she cleared the two twin beds, so she could sort items according to whether they were Phillip’s or hers. The clothing all seemed to be there. In fact, it looked like more than she’d brought, all spread out like this. She found a hair clip and swooped her hair off her hot neck as she worked, tossing, folding, evaluating. Willing herself to work and not to think. She bent down to retrieve a sweatshirt from under the bed. A voice behind her startled her. She jerked upwards, but her head was still trapped under the bed and hit the frame. Oh yeah, that hurt. If the bad guys were here, she’d have done half their work for them.

  “Miss! Tabitha, are you all right?” It was Daniel’s voice from outside the screen door.

  Tabitha rubbed at the hotspot on the side of her head as she moved to let him inside. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine in a minute.”

  “What happened to your room?”

  “You don’t like what I’ve done with the place?” Tabitha could tell the sarcasm was lost on Daniel. “Someone decided to sort through my belongings today while I was gone.”

  Daniel made a regretful clicking sound and frowned. “Has anything been taken?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I was just sorting everything out. I’d brought Uncle Phillip’s bags in, too, so it was a huge mess.” She took a deep breath, trying to expel some of the tension she’d been feeling the last hour.

  “What about your pictures?”

  “Thank God, most were in the camera bag I had with me. Now that you mention it…” Tabitha started shoving things around on the bed. “I haven’t seen the box of slides from the giraffe capture or my box of bad shots from my adventures in photography. I didn’t take those with me. They were poor shots and the one that actually showed the giraffe cage was in my pocket, except two extra shots in the hands of other people.” She sorted through the debris some more. “The ones from that really bad roll of Capewater buffalo are gone too.”

  “Have you been up to inform security?”

  “Not yet. I guess I should have done that before I cleaned up, but I wanted to see what, if anything, was missing. It won’t do much good now, but I suppose we can go tell them. I would like to change rooms for tonight. Do you think they’ll have any available?”

  “I am thinking surely we can arrange something.” Daniel’s forehead creased into deep lines.

  Tabitha’s hands shook as she grabbed her jacket and stepped out into the cool night air. They walked in silence for a moment. She glanced around the dark grounds, wondering if whoever had done this watched her now. She shivered and clenched her hands into fists in her pockets.

  “How did they know you were not going to be about?” Daniel asked.

  She willed her mind to focus. “Who knew I was gone? Is that what you mean? Let’s see—I talked to Mister M on the phone; then I wrote the note to you and left. No one. They were just taking a chance, I guess. Of course, the absence of the yellow bakkie monster is a good giveaway, too.” She nodded at the truck in her attempt to lighten the mood.

  “Or perhaps, they followed you.”

  They walked on, thinking about the implications of this. Tabitha recalled the sensation of being followed a few days ago, but hadn’t noticed anyone in the rain today.

  “That would mean that there was more than one, though. I mean, if someone followed me, someone else had to trash my room,” Tabitha said.

  “This makes it more complicated.”

  “Not just a lone poacher with a happy trigger finger sending my uncle to his eternal home? Or a trafficker.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid you are right.”

  They approached the registration desk and Tabitha was glad to let Daniel take over reporting the intrusion into her room. She couldn’t help adding details to the story, though. Fortunately, another room was available. The security people seemed only mildly disturbed by her news and expressed their regret, but since no grave losses had occurred she should be thankful. Feeling the futility of it, she filled out some forms for their records. It would be just a form to go in a file. No answers, no resolution. She worked to make her hand steady enough to write.

  In the restaurant, Tabitha was queued for the buffet line when she spotted Vandenblok. A sudden, righteous fury swallowed her up. She stalked across the restaurant and did her short-person best to loom over his table.

  “Why, Miss Cranz, how are you?” Vandenblok said, wiping his mouth.

  “You didn’t have to break into my rondavel to get the pictures. I would have shown them to you.”

  He pursed his lips. “What are you talking about?”

  “As if you didn’t know. Someone tore apart my room and the only thing missing was the pictures I took at your giraffe capture.” Tabitha had to admit the man did look legitimately startled.

  “You said you would show them to me.”

  “I planned to. I assure you, there was nothing even remotel
y interesting in them.” She wasn’t sure if this was true, but her indignation flowed out of the last hour’s dose of fear. “I would have shown them to you.” She didn’t feel compelled to mention the one slide she still had, or where the other two were. Vandenblok shrugged.

  “I did not break into your room. Why would I do that? No reason at all. My operation poses no threat to anyone.” The edge in his voice told Tabitha she’d gone too far. She inhaled and raised herself to her full height of one inch over five feet, turned on her heel and marched for the buffet.

  Daniel handed her a plate and raised his eyebrows high in a question, but neither of them said anything. Tabitha chose the impala roast, mealie meal, peas and carrots, and chocolate pudding. After they’d tucked into their dinner for a while, Daniel spoke what was on his mind.

  “Where did you leave the note for me to meet you tonight?”

  “Oh, about dinner?”

  He nodded.

  “At the registration desk. Why?”

  “I am thinking that whoever got into your room read that note before I received it. You are sure you told no one your plans?”

  Tabitha tried to swallow the lump of mealie meal, which was a substance somewhere between grits and mashed potatoes. “If I understand what you’re saying, I’ve just made a terrible fool of myself over there.” She indicated with her head where Vandenblok had been.

  “I am fearful to say it, but I’m thinking that someone from the park read your note and took advantage of that knowledge to abuse your lodgings.”

  The truth of this sank in and made sense to her. She should apologize to Vandenblok, but he’d already gone.

  “If it’s an inside job, how can you find out who did it? Why would they want those pictures? There is no value in them. If they’d just taken some of my stuff, it wouldn’t seem so odd.”

  “It wasn’t very subtle. A wiser thief would disguise his motivation to you.” Daniel took a big bite and chewed slowly.

  “So,” Tabitha waved her fork around, “it all comes down to an insider job of someone conniving but not necessarily bright, is that right?”

  Daniel nodded. “I believe I can find out who worked the desk today and maybe find out about who could have read this note.”

  “It might not be the same person as whoever broke in. A conspiracy, you know? What if Mr. Mpande sent someone to see the rest of my slides? We had that strange encounter when I showed him my slide.”

  “Mmm.” Daniel nodded. “To my eyes, it’s more serious if it is park employees or administrators. I don’t think Mr. Mpande would do that.” He shook his head and studied his plate.

  “Sometimes desperate people do things they would not normally do, though.”

  After dinner, Daniel helped move her bags to another cabin, but suggested she leave the car at the original rondavel as a decoy, in case whoever it was came back. Tabitha felt goose bumps rise on her arms.

  “May I borrow your truck tomorrow to see to a delivery I promised to make?”

  “Is it anything interesting?”

  “Dropping off some papers for someone.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound too interesting. I’ve got some stories to work on tomorrow anyway, sure. What was the promise you made?”

  He shrugged. She’d been feeling conversational, but suddenly Tabitha felt suspicious.

  “What was it, Daniel?”

  “Only that I would take a packet from the offices to a northern camp.”

  “Does this have anything to do with me?”

  Daniel seemed to ponder this idea for a moment before he answered. “I promised this favor to Mhlongo, so he would talk to you. It seemed important to you.”

  “Daniel!”

  He shrugged again.

  “You don’t have to make promises so I can interview people. Either they talk to me or they don’t.”

  “It seemed important. The delivery is nothing, anyway.”

  Tabitha tossed him the keys. “Take it now if you’d like to drive around to your quarters. Maybe the bad guys will think I’ve left.”

  He said he’d be back in time to do a safari run into the park and look for photos.

  It took Tabitha a long time to fall asleep, and every strange sound was someone trying to get into her abode. She sat up in the darkness listening. The wind blowing through the thatched roof made a sound like rain. The idea occurred to her that whoever read the note she’d left for Daniel about being gone could also look at her new rondavel number. She threw her bare feet to the cement floor and padded to the window. The trees waved excitedly in the breeze, and storm clouds blew through the dark sky. Tabitha hugged her arms around herself and squinted into the darkness.

  Chapter 45

  Mhlongo had arrived early for the meeting with Sy. He made sure the cabin was empty of real human beings. He checked his watch. He had told Christopher the shack was a travesty to nature out in the middle of the park, not even on one of the camps. Wouldn’t it be something if a controlled burn seemed to go wild and get the shack and the field around it? It could go back to its natural state.

  He heard the telltale motorbike and went to lean on his park Jeep.

  “So, what you got to show me?” Sy said, kicking the stand for his bike.

  “Pictures.” Mhlongo made it two distinct syllables.

  “Ahh, from the photo man? He dead. Pictures not hurt me now. You talked some sense in that baas of yours? He need to work with me, not against me.”

  “Look here at these.” Mhlongo held out his arm with the slides of the haunted eyes he’d gotten from the American’s cabin.

  Sy had to come close to reach them. He took one and turned it to catch the light.

  “Just faces.”

  Mhlongo didn’t say anything, just pressed his handgun to Sy’s head. Sy froze for a moment.

  “They are human beings. You got no right like that.”

  The wiry Sy flipped around fast as an eel, and the two men went wrestling into the dirt. Mhlongo was surprised at the drug dealer’s lean strength, but managed to get the gun on his head and pull the trigger. It should have been done long ago.

  He dragged the sack of garbage to the shed. Then he pushed the motorbike into the shed and jammed the door so it wouldn’t open. He could smell the smoke on the controlled burn a couple kilometers off.

  He’d told the Schopenhauer kid to start the burn in this field this afternoon. It was a blight to have a shed in the park, right? If he didn’t start the fire, by morning the park authorities would be handing him over to the police.

  Chapter 46

  In the morning, Tabitha fought her need for action and held herself firmly in front of the computer screen in her rondavel. She waved away the cleaners when they showed up. If she stopped, she’d lose momentum. Finally, she could call another piece done, until the editor got hold of it anyway, for a rewrite. She made her way to the offices and negotiated an internet line where she could access email. Her fingers strummed the edge of the desk; twenty eight28 new messages. She scanned over the junk and noticed one from the editor she’d sent a story to last week. Pleased with this draft, please add, please change, please have to me by Monday, overnight photos from Phillip, please phone me at home. So much for being done with the assigned piece. She also had a weird email that asked her at her earliest convenience to call the US Embassy. Odd.

  She unplugged her laptop and made her way to the public phones. Nervous, she dialed the editor’s number. What could she want beyond the email’s myriad of requests? Tabitha identified herself into the receiver.

  “What are you doing calling me?” the editor demanded.

  “You asked me to phone you at home.”

  “I did? Oh. Which story was it?”

  Tabitha gave her a brief rundown and tried to explain about Phillip and the lack of photos and that she could send some slides.

  “Yadda, yadda. Okay. I wanted to make sure you could overnight slides and email high res of anything else to me and they’d better be good
. I need something very, very, oh I don’t know—Africa, I guess. Evocative. Your writing will be more poignant in the next draft, right?”

  What was that supposed to mean? Tabitha thought. “I’m not sure about the slides getting to you in time. I’ll see what I can do, but I’m still at Kruger.” Tabitha spun the phone cord round and round her finger. “I’ll do my best.”

  She heard the editor sigh. “Well, I’ll expect it all on my desk before Monday anyway or I’ll have to kill the story.”

  Tabitha glared at the receiver after the dial tone buzzed in her ear. She slammed it onto the cradle. She was glad all the editors weren’t that difficult. At this rate, she’d need that waitress job before she even got home. Kill her story after all she’d been through? Where would she find Federal Express out in the middle of a nature preserve? Another trip into town? Plus the poignant rewrite. Ugh. Like she’d meant the other version to be a dull first draft. No, it was sent with finished product in mind. She took a deep breath. Calm down. Editors all have different tastes. This one will just be harder to satisfy. This was what Tabitha wanted, right? A life of—of traveling, writing, hotel rooms, editors? Daniel’s contented face rose up in her mind. Introspection would not solve this.

  She wanted Uncle Phillip’s killer punished. That was what she wanted. She picked up the handset again and looked at the piece of paper with the embassy’s number. She identified herself and the email request she’d had and was transferred.

  A very official man’s voice came on the line. “Ms. Cranz?”

  “Yes?”

  “I had a call from an Illinois senator requesting that we verify your whereabouts and security?”

  Holy crapCrap, her mother really had called the senator’s office. “Um, I’m fine. I’m at Kruger.” Awkward.

  “The message from the US seemed to indicate you might be in some danger. Are you?”