Dead Before Dying

“Captain Joubert and I have just agreed that you must take over the Mauser investigation, Captain,” de Wit said.

Joubert’s thoughts scurried between the walls of his skull, looking for a way out, panic-stricken. He had to stop this. It was an urge for survival. It was his last chance. But he found no argument. He found calm.

“No, Colonel,” he said.

Vos and de Wit looked at him.

“We didn't agree, Colonel,” he said, controlled and with precision.

De Wit’s mouth opened and closed.

“Colonel, the reason you gave for removing me from the investigation is not acceptable.” He turned to Vos. “I’m with a psychologist, Gerry. I’m ashamed of it but perhaps it’s a good thing. The Colonel is afraid the newspapers may find out about it. That’s why he wants to hide me. But I’ll carry on, Colonel, until I’m officially relieved of my duty, and through the correct channels.”

“Captain . . .” de Wit said, his face heavy with perturbation. He couldn't find the words to match it.

Vos gave a broad smile. “The Mauser thing is enough to make one fuckin’ loony tunes, Colonel. I don’t want it.”

“You . . .” De Wit looked at Vos in disbelief, then at Joubert and back at Vos.

There was a knock at the door.

“Not now!” de Wit shouted. His voice threatened to crack. He looked at the officers in front of him again. “You have—”

The knock at the door was louder.

“Not now!” de Wit screamed with recognizable hysteria. He shook his head as if he’d walked into a spider’s web. He shook his mole finger at Joubert and Vos. “You’re conspiring against me.” The finger shook. So did his voice.

The knock at the door was insistent.

De Wit jumped up. Behind him his chair fell over. He walked to the door and jerked it open. Gerrit Snyman stood there.

“Are you deaf?” De Wit was a soprano.

“Colonel—”

“I said not now.” De Wit started closing the door.

“There’s been another murder, Colonel,” Snyman said quickly before the wood could reach the frame. The door came to an abrupt halt. All three looked at Snyman.

“They’re looking for Captain Joubert on the radio. A man in Hout Bay, Colonel. Two shots. Two 7.63 cartridge cases.”

They stared at Snyman as if they were waiting for him to say he was only joking. De Wit cooled down, slowly, almost imperceptibly.

“Thank you, Constable,” he said, in his normal bandsaw tenor voice. Snyman nodded and turned away. De Wit closed the door. He walked back to his chair, picked it up, set it in place, and sat down.

Joubert considered his words as he started speaking, only aware that the Mauser investigation was his lifeline and that he had to give de Wit a way out of this confrontation. “Colonel, there is no conspiracy. Captain Vos and I couldn't have known beforehand what you were going to tell us. But I’m asking you to reconsider.”

He realized that it wasn'’t enough. Not for a man like de Wit. He knew the time had come to save himself, to grab at the straw. “Colonel, you were right when you said that my record for the past few years hasn’t been good. Perhaps you were also right about my attitude, which was wrong. Even toward the Mauser case— I could’ve put in more by now. But I give you my word. I’ll give it all I'’ve got. But don’t take it away from me.”

He heard himself, how close he was to begging. He didn't care.

De Wit looked at him. His hands were on the table. His right hand moved slowly up to his face. Joubert and Vos knew what its destination was.

“I can’t stop the press if they find out,” he said when the finger reached the mole. Joubert was grateful that the smile remained absent.

“I know, Colonel.”

“And if they find out, the commissioner will take you off. You know that?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

De Wit pointed his mole finger at Joubert. “You must realize one thing. You’ve had your last chance.”

“Yes, Colonel.” He was grateful that de Wit was using the opportunity for peace. And to regain lost esteem.

“You’re going to be watched like no other policeman has ever been watched. And I’m not referring to the media, I’m referring to me.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“One slipup, Captain . . .”

The phone rang. De Wit’s eyes were still fixed warningly on Joubert. He picked up the phone. The smile suddenly reappeared. “Good morning, Brigadier.” He waved a hand at Vos and Joubert, dismissing them. The officers got up and closed the door behind them. They walked down the passage.

“Thanks, Gerry.”

“It was fuckall.”

They walked in silence, their footsteps hurried on the bare tile floor. Vos stopped in front of his office door. “Mat, may I ask you something?”

Joubert nodded.

“How the fuck do you suddenly get your shoes so shiny?”

* * *

First of all he had the whole area cordoned off— the plot, the small wooden house, the sidewalk, and a part of the street.

He was astonished by the beauty of the surroundings. The street was a contour against the slopes of Karbonkelberg, the wooden frame houses in an uneven row a picture postcard of Cape beauty. It wasn'’t a place for death.

He had placed the local station’s uniform personnel at the garden gate with instructions that for the present only the pathologist and the forensic unit were to be allowed access to the scene of the murder.

Fat Sergeant Tony O’Grady had waylaid Joubert and Gerrit Snyman in Murder and Robbery’s parking area. “Can I come with you, Cappy? This thing fascinates me. And Captain Vos says it’s okay.”

Now the three were looking at the corpse. They couldn't get too close because blood lay in a wide pool around the body. But they could see that Alexander MacDonald had been a big, rugged man, with thin red hair, a red beard, and huge hands and feet. In his last moments he’d worn nothing except a pair of shorts. Even in death the bulk of his chest and upper arms was impressive.

They could also see that the murder of Alexander MacDonald was somewhat different from the previous ones.

The one shot was through his neck, and the blood had spouted onto the wall and the few pieces of furniture and eventually spilled over the floor.

The other was between his legs, more or less where his sexual organs had been.

Fat Sergeant Tony O’Grady’s mouth was full of his staple food. It was his escape and his downfall. It was also the reason for his nickname, Nougat. He trod carefully between the pool of blood’s tributaries and said: “This is new, Cappy. This is new.”

Joubert said nothing. He looked at the room, the way the body was lying.

“Doesn’t look like an accident, the shot between the balls.” O’Grady bit off another piece of nougat. “Wonder if he was shot there first? Must be fucking sore, hey, Cappy?”

“Looks as if he was shot at the door. First in the neck, I think. Look at the blood against the wall here. Carotid artery spouts like that. Then he fell. Then he gave him the second shot.”