Dead Before Dying: A Novel Page 12

  “Where would they find ammunition for it? After a hundred years?”

  “It shoots Tokarev but it could hurt it. Pressure ratios differ. But the guy still has a supply, Captain. Your murderer. Even his cartridges are old. ’Ninety-nine. Maybe 1900. You must get him. He’s fucking shooting museum pieces to hell and gone.”

  “The ammunition is also a hundred years old?”

  “Unbelievable, isn’t it.”

  “And it’s still effective?”

  “In those days they built to last, Captain. Occasionally you’ll get a misfire. But most of them are still in working order. The guy can wipe out the whole of Cape Town.”

  “You think it’s a man?”

  “Definitely, Captain.”

  “Oh?”

  “Mauser kicks like a fucking mule, Captain. Takes a man on a horse.”

  16.

  He swam with enjoyment for the duration of one length. When he turned, kicking against the wall of the pool and swam back, fatigue sent its feelers through his muscles again.

  He strove for the weightlessness, the efficiency. He swam more slowly, then faster, rested, tried again, but it evaded him.

  When he climbed out of the water he was hopeful about the swimming for the first time.

  On that Thursday, the tenth of January, the chief subeditor of Die Burger had a small stroke of luck. Subs, the people who, among other things, have to think up the headlines in a newspaper, occasionally like an alliteration or a play on words to jazz up their work and, as his luck would have it, the words Mauser, murder, and maniac all started with the same letter.

  That apart, the newspaper had decided to devote the main story on the front page to the murders. There were two reasons for that decision. The first was that the usual sources of information had nothing of note to offer that morning. No more people than usual had died in the townships, the various colors of the political rainbow had made no new serious references to one another, and the government wasn’t involved in a new scandal. On the international front it was quiet too, even in the Middle East, eastern Europe, and Ireland.

  The second reason was the murder weapon. The Mauser Broomhandle.

  After he had seen the photographs of James J. Wallace and Drew Joseph Wilson lying on his desk the previous evening, the crime reporter of Die Burger had started playing around with a theory.

  Both had black hair and black mustaches. They vaguely resembled each other. Both were in their late thirties.

  The reporter had also telephoned Lieutenant John Cloete of the SAPS Department of Public Relations and asked whether it might be possible that the service was dealing with a mass murderer who had his knife—his Tokarev—out for mustachioed, black-haired men this side of forty.

  It was Cloete’s duty to keep the service in the media’s good books. And if a crime reporter had some stupid theory or other, Cloete listened to it and promised that he would come back to him.

  And so Cloete had called Mat Joubert away from a slice of skinless chicken breast, carrots, potato, and broccoli to ask him whether the reporter was onto something.

  Joubert was fully aware of journalists’ habit of grabbing at straws and he sympathized with Cloete.

  “We’re exploring all avenues,” he’d said because he knew that that was what Cloete wanted to tell the reporter.

  Cloete had thanked Joubert.

  “There’s something else, John,” Joubert said before Cloete could put the phone down.

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “The murder weapon.”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “It’s a Mauser Broomhandle.”

  “A what?”

  Joubert had told him. As much as he could remember.

  “Keee-rist,” Cloete had said because he knew the press. And he knew —

  “And then there’s another thing, John.”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Don’t let the newspapers refer to me as ‘one of the Peninsula’s top detectives.’”

  Cloete had laughed, promised, and returned the reporter’s call. “Captain Mat Joubert says they’re exploring all avenues.”

  Then Cloete told him about the Mauser.

  Sensation, the reporter knew, was often contained in the minor details of a story. The condition and color of a pair of underpants, for example. The color of a couple or the difference in color. Or, as in this case, the age of the murder weapon.

  The Mauser was manna from heaven. Old, rich in history, with a touch of controversy about it—dating from the Anglo-Boer War, which might give it a right-wing color. It had a strange, exotic appearance. That was why Die Burger’s front page looked the way it did that Thursday morning. In the newspaper’s attractive modular makeup, the main story, photographs, and a graphic box in a large square had been etched against a salmon-colored background. And the headline? Two words, alliterative, in big sans serif letters: MAUSER MURDERER. And below it, in smaller serif, the subheading: MANIAC MAY STRIKE AGAIN.

  Joubert read the newspaper in his office.

  His week of standby duty was over. He now had a three-week breathing space before he had to lead a standby group again. That was why he had the luxury of a newspaper on his desk that morning. He read the copy and shook his head over the inventiveness of a journalist who could make front-page news out of the make of a weapon, a theory, and a vague statement from the police.

  But he didn’t mind. Publicity was one of the great allies in the solving of crimes. Some criminals had even given themselves up as a result of a newspaper report stating that the police net was tightening. And as for the impact of television . . .

  He read the report and looked at the photographs of Jimmy Wallace and Drew Wilson. He knew he didn’t have one single solid clue and he was certain that this wasn’t the last Mauser murder. Maybe the reporter was right. Maybe it was a man who came home to catch a black-haired man with a black mustache with his wife. And was now shooting such men to boost his ego.

  Mat Joubert, armchair psychologist.

  Never mind, he said to himself. Another few hours and he would be back with the real thing, his own personal physician of the soul. The one and only Dr. Hanna Nortier, interrogator, surgeon of the psyche, healer of sick souls.

  “We’ll see one another on Thursdays, Captain,” she had said. He suddenly realized that he was looking forward to it.

  What could that mean? He lit a Benson & Hedges Special Mild. It still didn’t taste like a Winston. He folded the newspaper and looked at his watch. Half past eight. Perhaps the people at records were at work by now. He picked up the receiver and dialed the number. The time had come for them to start looking for a Mauser.

  Ferdy Ferreira didn’t read Die Burger on Thursday, January 10. Or on any other day. Because reading a newspaper was too much trouble.

  And he had enough trouble in his life. Like his wife. His wife was Trouble with a capital T.

  “Ferdy, walk the dogs.”

  “Ferdy, look for work.”

  “Ferdy, you eat too much.”

  “Ferdy, beer has given you that gut.”

  “Ferdy, the least you could do is to help me clear the table.”

  “Ferdy, I’m on my feet all day long. And what do you do? You sit.”

  He especially liked sitting in front of the television. From the moment his wife caught the Golden Arrow at the bus stop in front of the Old Ship Caravan Park until programming ended with a religious broadcast in the evening.

  Ferdy’s lack of knowledge of the murders was due to the fact that there was no way the SABC could give its attention to every murder in the country. After all, it was a national news service and covered only major events. That’s why there had been no mention at all of the death of James J. Wallace or that of Drew Wilson. So in a certain sense it could be said that the South African Broadcasting Corporation carried some culpability in the death of Ferdy Ferreira.

  Not that they would ever know.

  Joubert knocked at the door of the dilapidated hous
e in Boston and considered the fact that it was only two blocks away from the late Drew Wilson’s. His heart rate increased and he slid the palm of his hand over the Z88 to reassure himself that it was still there.

  The fax from records had stated that there were sixteen registered Mauser Broomhandles in the Cape Peninsula.

  Joubert had divided the list of names between himself and Gerrit Snyman because there was no one else. The other detectives who were not on standby were in court as witnesses—conclusive evidence that they had done their work successfully in the past year. Snyman was new. And Mat Joubert . . .

  The door opened. A woman stood there, large, middle-aged, and ugly. Her features—the eyes, the mouth, the nose—were uniformly small and unattractive in the center of her face so that she resembled a reptile.

  “Mrs. Stander?”

  “Yes.” Impatiently.

  He introduced himself and explained why he was there. They had to check every Mauser in the Peninsula to see whether it had been fired.

  “Come in.” She turned and walked down the passage. Joubert saw that her shoulders were broad and thought she looked like a murderer. He could see her in his mind’s eye, this hunk of a woman, in front of James J. Wallace and next to Drew Wilson’s car.

  She hesitated at the sitting room door. “Wait here.” She gestured with her hand and walked on down the passage. He walked into the sitting room and sat down in a chair, ill at ease. And he was vaguely amused by his discomfort. His job was to seek out murderers without discrimination—beautiful and ugly, fat and thin, old and young. It was only in films and on television that the murderer was always an aesthetically unattractive stereotype.

  But when he heard Mrs. Stander’s heavy footsteps in the passage again, he kept his hand close to his service pistol and balanced his body so that he could get up easily.

  She had a wooden chest in her hands. She came to sit next to him and wordlessly offered the chest.

  He took it. He saw the carving on it—a scene of Boer soldiers on their horses, the fine detail of the animals, of the men’s hats and waistcoats and firearms, precisely and lovingly etched into the wood. He touched the small work of art, amazed.

  “My grandfather made it on St. Helena,” the woman said. “He was an officer. And a prisoner of war there, of course.”

  He opened the chest.

  He’d seen the drawing, the graphic representation of the Mauser in Die Burger that morning, remembered its shape and appearance. But the graphics hadn’t prepared him for the metal and the wood, the curves and contrasts of the weapon.

  It didn’t look like a murder weapon.

  The line of the barrel, the angle it formed with the slender stock, was feminine—a soft, sensual curve. The magazine, square, chunky, and blunt, was an abruptness in front of the trigger, like a male sexual organ, unattractive but effective. He lifted the Mauser out of the chest. It felt lighter than it looked. WAFFENFABRIK MAUSER OBERNDORF, he read on the frame. He turned the pistol over, looked down the barrel, sniffed in the odor of black metal and dark wood.

  He knew that this wasn’t the weapon.

  “You must oil it,” he told Mrs. Stander, who sat forward in her chair, her eyes never leaving his face. “There’s rust in the barrel. You must oil it well.” Then he placed the weapon carefully and respectfully back into the chest.

  When he drove to Paarl, to the next Mauser owner on his list, he speculated about the murderer. Why this weapon? Why choose a pistol that attracted attention like a beacon burning in the night? Why use ammunition that was a century old, and could leave you, at that heart-stopping moment, in the lurch? Was it a political statement after all? The voice of the Boer is not stilled.

  Two victims, one English-speaking, a ladies’ man, one Afrikaans-speaking, gay. Our Boer voice is not stilled and we still shoot the English and queers.

  No, it was too simple. Too one-dimensional. It might be a statement but on another level. A way of attracting attention. Of saying: I’m different. I’m special.

  The other seven names and addresses on his list took him to two retirement homes, three pensioners, and two amateur weapon collectors. He saw four different Mauser Broomhandle models, each subtly different from the other, each one with its own chilling charm.

  He found no suspect on his list.

  In the late afternoon he drove back to Cape Town. In the city, at a stoplight on the way to Dr. Hanna Nortier’s consulting rooms, the Argus paperboy stood next to the car. Joubert read the headline with ease:

  BLAST FROM THE PAST.

  17.

  When he followed her through the door he noticed that she was wearing a dress in a plain design, dark blue material patterned with small red and orange flowers. It covered her to below her knees. He could see the muscle and bone of her shoulders and wondered who her dietitian was.

  They sat down.

  He saw that her frail beauty was pale today, the smile polite but not warm, slightly forced.

  “And how is Captain Mat Joubert?” she asked and opened his file.

  What should he say? “Fine.”

  “Have you come to terms with the fact that you’re consulting a psychologist?”

  “Yes.” Not the whole truth, because he’d looked forward to the visit. He’d chewed over this peculiarity between visits to Mauser Broomhandle owners in the Cape. He’d speculated, considered possibilities, because there wasn’t one reason only. After the previous visit it seemed as if the abscess in his head . . . the pressure had decreased and the gray curtain between him and life had taken on a paler hue.

  Then there was the other tale, Dr. Hanna. The heartrending story of the Fucking Stupid Policeman and the Undertaker’s Daughter. A thriller in one short act with a twist in the tail. Psychologist’s dream, Dr. Hanna. So many nuances to investigate. Self-image, sex . . .

  He surprised himself when he realized that he wanted to speak to Hanna Nortier about it. About his relief that his sexual urge still existed. About the humiliation. He wanted to know whether he had been programmed for humiliation.

  But there was another possibility that he’d discovered, another potential reason why Mat Joubert was looking forward to his second visit to his personal head doctor. And that was the doctor herself.

  She paged in the file in front of her. It bothered him. Couldn’t she remember what he had told her the previous time? Had the blood he’d spilled on her carpet washed out so easily? She looked up at him. He saw the tiredness around her eyes and had a sudden insight: he was the eighth or the tenth or the twelfth patient of the day who sat opposite the slender woman spewing out the bitterness of their lives.

  “You said very little about your mother during the first session.” Her head was still bent over the file. He heard her voice and it sounded like a musical instrument. He put his hand into his coat pocket, took out the Benson & Hedges, lifted the packet’s lid, saw the cigarettes in their neat rows. His big fingers always found it difficult to extract the first cigarette from a new packet. He pinched the filter between thumb and forefinger and pulled. The cigarette slid out, Joubert changed his grip on it and put it into his mouth, then realized she was waiting for him to speak.

  “My mother . . .”

  Why had he looked forward to this visit? He put his hand into his pocket, brought out the lighter, let the flame shoot up, sucked in the smoke. He noticed that his hand was shaking slightly. He put the lighter back into his pocket. He looked at her.

  “How do you remember her?”

  “I . . .” He thought about it.

  “As a child, I mean.”

  As a child? How did one remember anything as a child? Episodes, fleeting incidents that made such an impression that you recognized their shape and content even when they lay under a thick layer of dust on the shelves of your memory.

  “My mother was pretty.”

  He was six or seven when he realized it for the first time. It was on Voortrekker Road, that main artery of his youth. The church’s building fund or missi
onary money was at low ebb again and the sisters of the community had organized a pancake stall on the sidewalk—every Saturday morning. He’d begged his mother to take him along, the promise of soft pancakes with unmelted cinnamon sugar crunching under his teeth a prospect that inspired him to make a complete pest of himself. She gave in in the end, simply to keep him quiet. There were four or five other women at the sidewalk stall early in the morning. The street was still quiet, with the sun rising at the eastern point of Voortrekker Road, as if the road determined its orbit. He sat away from them, his back against a shopfront, his arms resting on his drawn-up knees, his head on his arms. He was sleepy, already sorry that he had come, his expectations of pancakes disappearing in the face of the women’s businesslike attitude. He’d closed his eyes and heard his mother’s voice. It was different, not the way it usually sounded. This made him look up at her. There she stood behind the table, busy unpacking and arranging, her hands skillful and sure while her face reflected the gold of the early morning sunlight. She was speaking. The other women were listening. And laughing. His mother, the woman reduced to quiet self-effacement by the abusive shouting of her husband, was amusing the women. That morning he’d caught a glimpse of someone he would never really get to know.

  “I think they’d forgotten about me,” he said to Hanna Nortier. “And my mother was imitating someone. I don’t know who it was—another woman probably. There on the sidewalk, just after seven in the morning. She walked a little way up the pavement, turned, and became someone else—her walk, her bearing, the way she turned her head and neck, her hands and arms. ‘Who am I?’ she asked. The other women laughed so much they couldn’t speak. ‘I’m going to wet myself,’ one said. I remember that because I was shocked. Between the gales of laughter they shouted the name of the woman, the one my mother was imitating. And then they clapped. My mother bowed with a smile on her face and the sun shone and then I saw my mother was beautiful with her smooth skin and her red cheeks and her shining eyes.”