Killed in Kruger

by Denise M. Hartman

  The path back to the cabins was deserted after coffee time. Tabitha strained to see, and wished she were not alone in the dark. She jumped back as a flashlight shone in her face when she approached her cabin. She flung her arms up in self-defense.

  “Who are you?” demanded a deep African voice.

  “Tabitha Cranz. Who are you?”

  The flashlight lowered, and she could see the park uniform. “Security. Sorry to disturb you. I was thinking you were inside already.”

  Her heart rate slowed to a more normal rhythm. Nice show of courage, she chided herself. She took a deep breath. “Thank you for watching over us. Do you need anything? I could get you a soda.”

  “No, I’m fine. Thank you, Miss.”

  Tabitha slept fitfully in spite of the deep-voiced guardian angel outside. She was up early and ready to go find out news of the search for Mhlongo, but she didn’t want to wake Daniel if he was still sleeping next door. She brushed her teeth, got dressed, and fidgeted in her cabin as long as she could stand it.

  Finally, she slipped into the cool damp air of the morning twilight. A slight mist clung to the green grass in the breaking dawn. She could smell the dampness. The security guard emerged from a park truck. He reminded Tabitha of a tree, tall and narrow.

  “Have you heard anything on your radio about the search party?”

  “They did not carry on during the night with the search. I heard that. I have since lost contact. I think perhaps a relay station got hit by lightening or something, and we lost the radios.” He shrugged, and Tabitha began to believe losing radio contact was common in Kruger. It didn’t seem to alarm anyone.

  As they stood talking, Daniel came out onto the porch of his cabin. He seemed to hold his arms gingerly and shuffle-stepped, and Tabitha imagined he might be more sore on this second day than on the first. She rushed over to him.

  “Are you ready for the ride back to Skukuza, or would you want to stay around here and rest?”

  “No, no. I am ready. Did our security officer know anything?” He was as anxious as Tabitha to know.

  “No, apparently the radios went down in the night, so we’ll have to go back over to Skukuza to find out. I’ll get your bag.” She ducked into the room before he had time to protest. The one bag was neatly packed and zipped.

  They got the luggage loaded and took off for Skukuza, deciding to eat when they got over to the other camp. Tabitha repeatedly had to slow her speed. Her anxiety kept her foot heavy on the gas pedal.

  As they neared Skukuza, several park vehicles in a caravan passed them, going in the opposite direction. In the rearview mirror, Tabitha watched all of them turning onto one of the secondary roads.

  Daniel spoke before she could. “It is very unusual for that gray van to go out with the others. It is for transporting animals to the laboratory.”

  “They all turned down the same road, too.”

  Easing off the gas, Tabitha met Daniel’s eye. He nodded and she tore a U-turn across the narrow road, bouncing slightly into the soil and shrubs off the other side. She pushed the speed limit back to the tiny road, then slowed as she took the turn to get a feel for the conditions. Asphalt, but narrower. After a few moments bouncing over potholes, they saw the caravan.

  Dust, kicked up from the vehicles ahead, caused a low cloud to shield the road. Tabitha hit every bump. She flinched as the vehicle rocked back and forth, wondering if it made Daniel hurt worse, but he was intent on the cars ahead.

  They bumped off onto a sand road and kicked up more cloud cover. Tabitha followed cautiously. The park cars pulled up where a couple of other official vehicles stood, along with two sober security officers.

  Tabitha kept the silence and watched as Mpande emerged from one of the cars and started giving orders. He marched a little way into the thorny shrubs, after a security officer pointed. A few trees dotted the distance, where a hill rose, blocking the area off.

  Mpande stood looking down, then savagely slapped his leg. One of the men, meanwhile, removed a large bag from the gray van. Mpande turned and called to the men, but Tabitha couldn’t hear his voice from that distance.

  Daniel opened his door to get out, and broke Tabitha awake from staring at the scene. She pulled the emergency brake and followed him. One of the security officers approached them. He and Daniel exchanged a greeting, then the officer said, “I’m sorry, you cannot be here right now. You’ll have to clear off.”

  “Oh, we just wanted to talk to Mpande when he had a moment,” Tabitha said, pointing at Mpande.

  The security officer looked over his shoulder at the park’s assistant director. “You must stay here, and I will go see if he can talk to you now. We have a problem we are working to handle.”

  He picked his way through the knee-high shrubs, stepping carefully. Mpande met him part way, and the guard pointed back at Tabitha and Daniel. Mpande nodded and came towards them. He approached them with arms outstretched, and without touching them, shooed them back towards the bakkie. The action reminded Tabitha of a goat herder. She didn’t particularly feel like being herded just now.

  “How did you find me out here?” He seemed distracted.

  “We just followed the cars when they turned off the main road,” Tabitha said. Mpande nodded, satisfied. “What’s going on?” Tabitha asked.

  He rubbed his hands up and down over his face, and Tabitha wondered if he’d been up all night.

  “I believe we have found Mhlongo. I think his poaching caught up to him.”

  Daniel’s eyebrows shot up, silently asking what had happened.

  “We have a lioness in the park with very pale skin. Perhaps an offshoot of the white lion, but she was seen in this area recently, hunting with her pride.” Mpande sighed. “I think Mhlongo wanted her fur, but he lost a battle here.”

  “Are you saying he’s dead?” Tabitha asked the obvious.

  Mpande nodded. He slapped his leg, with less vehemence this time. “We had hoped to find his contact person, or his cache. I suppose now we will never know.” His shoulders sagged a little under the official green sweater. “But, we cannot have you here while we do our investigation. You understand.”

  “So this is him?” Daniel spoke for the first time, gesturing out to where the men worked.

  “How can you be sure?” Tabitha asked.

  Mpande squinted back out into the bush. “He’s badly damaged, but there’s enough to be sure it’s him. He had some personal effects, a wallet, a watch…” He let it hang a moment. Mpande turned finally, looking Tabitha in the eye.

  “It’s over.” A tight-lipped Mpande nodded.

  “Did you find his sources? A cell phone to trace them maybe?”

  “No, maybe in the park vehicle when we find it. It is enough you and Daniel are safe,” he said, then without another word walked back to join his team.

  Tabitha should feel something, right? But it didn’t feel like safety. Maybe she couldn’t remember what it was supposed to feel like. Daniel and Tabitha slowly climbed back into the truck and sat watching the scene for a while. It looked like the workers rolled something onto their bag on the ground. Tabitha started the car. She didn’t need to see a human who was killed by lions. She shuddered and put the truck in reverse.

  Chapter 61

  Pieter pulled the emergency brake on the bakkie and killed the lights. The heat of the day clung to the early night air. He strained his ears for a sound of the border guard he was meeting. This payoff and final pickup would be the last of it. He was ready to move out, looking like the legitimate businessman that he started out to be many years ago.

  A crack out in the bush made him squint into the darkness. He reached toward the weapon on the seat beside him. Not large enough to stop one of the big five game animals, but it would do away with any human interference he encountered.

  An engine sounded in the distance, and he relaxed his grip on the gun. Just a little while longer. Had he taken care of everything that could go wrong? So much had been difficult this
run.

  No one knew of the connection between himself and Mhlongo, so his problems should be behind him now. He had waited until he’d seen the lions arriving before leaving. He wasn’t chancing Mhlongo the sly fox surviving.

  A car without a muffler rumbled up to his truck. Pieter tossed a paper-wrapped bundle through his window into the vehicle beside him.

  “When do you come to the border?” The native pulled at a corner of the paper to reveal the money inside the bundle.

  “Day after tomorrow. Tell me what time you work and I’ll come then.” Pieter felt the tension seep out of him. Despite all of his problems this run, it was about to be over. He was about to be wealthier than ever before, and put this secret life behind him in his own Netherlands.

  Chapter 62

  Tabitha and Daniel drove the ten kilometers into Skukuza in silence, each with their own thoughts of Mhlongo. Tabitha pulled into a parking space and cut the engine.

  Daniel spoke first. “I have said a prayer for him.”

  Tabitha turned and stared at the profile of the big African man. “He tried to kill you.”

  “Yes, but he did not succeed, and God has brought a sad justice to Mhlongo.”

  This comment sobered Tabitha’s incredulity. She listened to the ticking of the engine cooling. Mhlongo was gone, but something wasn’t right. Her sense of danger was not relieved. Maybe it just needed to sink in more.

  They made their way to get breakfast, and found a table to put their trays on under a thatch-roofed patio, the smell of bacon and toast in the air.

  Tabitha bit into her own toast, then brought up the subject that seemed to be hanging in the air between them. “Mhlongo couldn’t have worked alone.”

  “No.” Daniel added blackberry jam to his toast.

  “He couldn’t have moved you into the bush on his own, and you don’t remember walking there.”

  Daniel nodded.

  “The picture Phillip took had two people in it. It got everyone worked up. Now it hasn’t been mentioned. That doesn’t explain why Mhlongo kept the giraffe capture slide either.”

  “We need to know how it all relates to Mhlongo.” Daniel dipped his toast in juices on his plate.

  “He was the inspector for the site, but it wasn’t his transport.” Tabitha chewed and speculated. “Something was wrong with that site. Mpande is too caught up in Mhlongo right now to see it. Would he listen to you? He still seems to hold back with me, like I’m going to run to the news networks as soon as I leave the room.” She sawed at a big piece of ham-like bacon. Maybe she would leak something to the news.

  “Yes, I think he is a man of discretion, and that much rides on his shoulders right now. He wants respect for his position from the director.”

  “I would think he has it. He’s got the job.”

  “Ah, well, you wouldn’t understand. It is very hard for the oppressed people to leave that thinking behind and move into this new kind of world we are creating,” Daniel said.

  “That’s fair enough. I wouldn’t be able to understand. He’s in no danger of being fired, is he?”

  “Most likely not. There are shadows that haunt us all, though.”

  “I’m haunted by that slide with the people and the scared eyes. Could Mhlongo be involved with human trafficking? Are we all looking in the wrong direction?”

  “I don’t think he would. He did have limits, I think.”

  “Like killing my uncle?” She regretted the sarcasm immediately. “Sorry. It’s just that the more I think about it, the more things don’t add up. Mhlongo being dead is just too simple. Tidies everything up and ends an investigation, but with few answers. I mean, I was afraid of him and I’m glad that threat is past, but how did such a good ranger end up dead from a lion kill?”

  “I see what you are thinking. I, like Mpande, want to believe the ordeal is finished.” He tapped his knife against his napkin. “I still think about my mother’s vision. It was you running and shadows pursuing you. I know this has not happened.”

  “Well, there was the dead animal on my cabin porch. We don’t know how long Mhlongo was around. Maybe he was there all night,” she swallowed, “watching. That could be the shadows your mother saw.” She paused. “I do still feel uneasy.”

  Daniel just nodded, deep in thought. They ate for a moment, each lost in their own mental pursuits. Tabitha finished a basted egg and listened to the bird sounds in the trees. She supposed she should just be happy to be out of danger and get out of the country quickly. Her sense of justice and her desire to see Uncle Phillip vindicated felt unfulfilled. Maybe that’s how it was. It never could be satisfied. It was all too convenient, ready to be swept away and written off. She would just ask a few more questions.

  “I could see if Rian ever got his animal control friend to look at the enclosure slide. Mhlongo took it for a reason. Perhaps Rian’s guy will shed some light on why Mhlongo wanted to keep the slide. Do you think it’s possible that Mr. Vandenblok is involved?”

  “Vandenblok?” Daniel chewed the rest of a bite. “I don’t think so.”

  “He fits the smuggler profile Chuck Alonzo described to me last night. In and out of the country a lot. Successful business that appears to be legitimate. Of course, that was Chuck talking.”

  “Yes, but I see what you mean. Though Mr. Vandenblok has worked in the park for years, and I have not heard of him having a problem.”

  “I’m not thinking of having as much as perhaps giving problems,” Tabitha said.

  “He’s always worked closely with the park officials, so it’s hard to imagine. But Mhlongo had to be working with someone. He lived at the employee compound, so it would be hard for him to store and move everything himself if he was smuggling or poaching.” Daniel pursed his lips and looked off toward the sky, contemplating this theory. He nodded.

  “I’m going to get a hold of Rian today and find out about the slide. Do you know where Vandenblok had the giraffes stored?”

  Daniel stared at his empty plate, seeming to debate whether to answer. “I am thinking they are near the Marolela loop, not far from the road to the airport. Why?”

  “I might go out and look around—from a safe distance—and see if things are running normally without Mhlongo in the picture.”

  “This is not a good thing. I must go with you. Remember my mother’s vision.”

  “You need to go rest, and besides, I’ll go in broad daylight. Wasn’t her vision at night?”

  Daniel agreed this was true, but looked grim.

  “Look,” Tabitha said. “I’m going to stay at Lower Sabie tonight, if I can, to get pictures down by the dam at sunset. So I’ll swing by the loop on my way down there and see you tomorrow. You need the time to rest.”

  Daniel continued shaking his head, but looked like he needed to lie down even though it was morning.

  She ignored her own nagging unease as well as Daniel’s. Besides, she had to know the truth. Had Mhlongo alone killed Phillip? But, why? “Besides, all our theories are conjecture. According to the park officials, all the danger is past.”

  “Please God, let it be so,” Daniel said.

  <><><>

  Tabitha stood with the phone in her hand, biting dry skin off her well-worn lip. She wondered how much she should tell Jeffrey. She didn’t want to keep anything from him, but she also didn’t want to distress him. Her brave front might slip in the face of Jeffrey’s loving prying. She let out a deep sigh and dialed the numbers.

  “I caught you at your desk. I’m glad,” she said when she heard his voice.

  “It’s the African adventurer. Everyone in my office can’t believe you’re in Africa and I didn’t go too,” Jeffrey said, his voice warming to hers.

  “See, you should have come.” It did her good to hear him. “I could have used an extra set of hands.”

  “I probably don’t have any expertise that would have helped.”

  “You could drive the truck while I shoot some pictures. My friend Daniel from the hospitalit
y department got hurt, so he won’t be able to drive me around anymore.”

  “What happened?”

  The moment of decision. Lies or truth? “Uhm. He got hurt. Uhm.”

  “Tabs?”

  “A poacher sort of tore him up and left him to be eaten in the veldt, but I found him before anything worse happened.”

  “You found him? How’d you get involved in this?”

  “Well, it all may relate back to Uncle Phillip’s death, and I’ve been nosing around and couldn’t help but be involved. I want the truth, and Daniel was only involved because of me. I can’t tell you how relieved I am he’s not hurt worse than he is.”

  “Are you coming home soon, or will you be part of some ongoing police investigation halfway around the world?”

  She could hear the ticking clock of her airline return ticket. “I’m planning to come home on schedule on Thursday.” She didn’t say “hopefully” out loud. Would all be clear by then? “Don’t tell my mom any of this stuff, if she calls.”

  “Don’t worry. I can’t see myself saying—‘Hey Silvia, Tabitha is involved in some smuggling ring in South Africa, but she’ll be home on Thursday.’”

  Tabitha laughed. “Thanks, Jeffrey.” That was all she could say without her brave front slipping. She changed the subject. “I just have a couple more things I have to clear up.”

  “You gotta be you. I realize that, but I am worried for your safety. Can you be you—more carefully?”

  She laughed, but didn’t say anything.

  “Is the wedding on?” he asked. She paused too long.

  “I see. You still don’t know what you want.” Jeff continued, “I haven’t felt comfortable about this trip and I still don’t. Be careful. Please, be careful.”

  When she got off the phone, she realized the intensity of his concern did nothing to alleviate her own worries about safety. She needed the truth to get rid of the angst. Maybe the truth would make her way clear with Jeffrey. Would the truth set her free? She twitched her orange earrings and fortified herself for the next call.