A Beautiful Place to Die Part 2

"Time to go," Emmanuel said. "We'll take the captain to hospital, get the doctor to look him over."

"We're taking him home," Henrick stated flatly. "My ma's waited long enough to see him."

Emmanuel felt the force of the brothers as they turned their gaze on him. He held their stare and absorbed the tension and rage, now doubly fueled by alcohol and fatigue.

"We need a medical opinion on the time and the cause of death. And a signed death certificate. It's standard police procedure."

"Are you blind as well as f.u.c.king deaf?" Erich said. "You need a doctor to tell you he was shot? What kind of detective are you, Detective?"

"I'm the kind of detective that solves cases, Erich. That's why Major van Niekerk sent me. Would you rather we left it to him?"

He motioned to the fire where Hansie sat cross-legged, a plate of Koeksisters on his knees. The thin sound of his humming carried through the air as he selected another sweet pastry.

"We won't agree to a doctor cutting him up like a beast," Henrick said. "He's G.o.d's creature, even if his spirit has departed his body. Pa would never have agreed to it and we won't either."

True Afrikaners and religious with it. Wars started with less fuel. The Pretorius boys were ready to take up arms for their beliefs. Time to tread carefully. He was out on his own with no backup and no partner. Some access to the body was better than none at all.

"No autopsy," Emmanuel said. "Just an examination to determine time and cause of death. The captain would have agreed to that much, I'm sure."

"Ja, okay," Erich said, and the aggression drained from him.

"Tell your ma we'll get him home as soon as possible. Constable Shabalala and I will take care of him."

Henrick handed over the keys to the police van, which he'd found in the captain's pocket when they hauled him out of the river.

"Hansie and Shabalala will show you the way to the hospital and then to our parents' place. Take too long and my brothers and I will come looking for you, Detective."

Emmanuel checked the rearview mirror of the police van and saw Hansie following in the Packard with Shabalala's bike lashed to the roof. The boy was good behind the wheel, tight and confident. If the killer was a race car driver, Emmanuel noted, Hansie might get a chance to earn his pay packet on the police force, possibly for the first time.

The vehicles entered the town of Jacob's Rest on Piet Retief Street, the town's only tarred road. A little way down, they turned onto a dirt road and drove past a series of low-slung buildings grouped together under a haze of purple jacaranda trees. Shabalala directed Emmanuel into a circular drive lined with whitewashed stones. He paused at the front entrance to the Grace of G.o.d Hospital.

Crude icon images of Christ on the Cross were carved into the two front doors. Emmanuel and Shabalala slipped out of the police van and stood on either side of the filthy bonnet. Mud-splattered and sweat-stained, they carried the smell of bad news about them.

"What now?" Emmanuel asked Shabalala. It was almost noon and the captain was doing a slow roast in the back of the police van.

The doors to the hospital swung open and a large steam engine of a black woman in a nun's habit appeared on the top stair. Another nun, pale skinned and tiny as a bantam hen, stepped up beside her. The sisters stared out from the shade cast by their headdresses.

"Sisters." Emmanuel lifted his hat, like a hobo practicing good manners. "I'm Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper. You know the other policemen, I'm sure."

"Of course, of course." The tiny white nun fluttered down the stairs, followed by her solid black shadow. "I'm Sister Bernadette and this is Sister Angelina. Please forgive our surprise. How may we be of service, Detective Cooper?"

"We have Captain Pretorius in the van-"

The sisters' gasp broke the flow of his words. He started again, aiming for a gentler tone.

"The captain is-"

"Dead," Hansie blubbered. "He's been murdered. Someone shot him in the head and the back...there's a hole..."

"Constable..." Emmanuel put the full weight of his hand on the boy's shoulder. No need for specific information about the case to be sprayed around so early. It was a small town. Everyone would know the b.l.o.o.d.y details soon enough.

"Lord rest his soul," said Sister Bernadette.

"May G.o.d have mercy on his soul," Sister Angelina intoned.

Emmanuel waited until the sisters crossed themselves before pushing ahead.

"We need the doctor to examine Captain Pretorius to determine cause and time of death, and to issue the death certificate."

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear..." Sister Bernadette muttered quietly, her Irish brogue now thick. "I'm afraid we can't help you, Detective Cooper. Doctor left on his rounds this morning."

"When will he be back?" Emmanuel figured he had four hours at most before the Pretorius brothers showed up to claim the body.

"Two, maybe three days," Sister Bernadette said. "There's been an outbreak of bilharzia at a boarding school near Bremer. Depending on the number of cases, he might be longer. I'm so sorry."

Days, not hours. Country time was too slow for his liking.

"What would you do if Captain Pretorius was badly injured but still alive?" he asked.

"Send you on to Mooihoek. There's a doctor at the hospital full-time."

He didn't get his hopes up. The situation was fubar, as the Yank soldiers were fond of saying. f.u.c.ked up beyond all recognition. He tried anyway.

"How long?"

"If the road is in good shape, just under two hours." Sister Bernadette delivered the good news with a weak smile, then cast about for a friendlier face, one that understood geography. "Isn't that so, Constable Shabalala?"

Shabalala nodded. "That is the time, if the road is good."

"And is the road good?" Emmanuel asked. The headache suddenly pulsed red and white behind his left eye socket. He waited for someone to answer the question.

"Good until ver Maak's farm." Shabalala spoke up when it became obvious no one else was going to. "Ver Maak told captain there was a donga in the road, but he drove around it to come to town."

The collapse in the road was pa.s.sable, but it would add time to the journey to Mooihoek. He didn't want to risk breaking the case open like this. A police van with a dead police captain was sure to get noticed, especially in Mooihoek, where a phone call would bring the press swarming down on them in no time.

"Detective Cooper..." Sister Bernadette touched the silver cross around her neck and felt the comforting sharpness of Jesus' ribs against her fingers. "There is Mr. Zweigman."

"Who is Mr. Zweigman?"

"The old Jew," Hansie said quickly. "He runs a dry goods store down by the bus stop. Kaffirs and coloureds go there."

Emmanuel kept his gaze steady on Sister Bernadette, G.o.d's black-robed pigeon ready to take flight at the smallest sound.

"What about Mr. Zweigman?"

Sister Bernadette released a pent-up breath. "A native boy was run over a few months ago and Mr. Zweigman treated him at the scene. The boy came here later and you could see...he was fixed up by someone qualified."

Emmanuel checked Shabalala. Shabalala nodded. The story was true.

"Is he a doctor?"

"He says he was a medic in the refugee camps in Germany but..." Sister Bernadette gripped the silver cross tightly and asked the Lord's forgiveness for the confidence she was about to betray. "We have had Mr. Zweigman look at one or two cases while Dr. Kruger has been away. Not officially, you see. No, no. A quick look, that's all. We'd rather Doctor didn't find out."

"The old Jew isn't a doctor." Hansie bristled at the idea. "Dr. Kruger is the only doctor in the district. Everybody knows that. What kind of rubbish are you talking?"

Sister Angelina stepped forward with an angelic smile. She could have crushed Hansie in her enormous black fist, yet she chose to appear small in front of the puffed-up boy policeman.

"Yes, of course," she said in a warm voice. "Dr. Kruger is the only proper doctor, that's correct, Constable. Mr. Zweigman is only for us natives who don't need such good medicine. For the natives only."

Emmanuel found himself no closer to knowing if the old Jew was a doctor or a shopkeeper with a first aid certificate.

"Shabalala." He motioned the policeman to the back of the police van, and out of earshot. "What do you know about this?"

"The captain told me, if you are sick you must go to the old Jew. He will fix you better than Dr. Kruger."

Better, not worse. That was the captain's opinion and this was his town. Emmanuel fished the Packard keys from his pocket.

"Here." Shabalala pointed to a row of shops pressed close together under sheets of rusting corrugated iron. A pitted footpath added to the derelict appearance of the businesses, each with its doors thrown open to the street. Khan's Emporium was pungent with spices. Next stood a "fine liquor merchant" manned by two bored mixed-race boys playing cards out the front. After that sat Poppies General Store, which looked in danger of sliding off its wooden foundations and into the vacant lot next door.

Across the road, there was a burned-out garage with a charred petrol pump and piles of blistered tires. A lanky walnut-colored man patiently worked his way through the rubble, picking up bricks and pieces of twisted metal and throwing them into a wheelbarrow.

A black native woman ambled by with a baby tied to her back, and a mixed-race "coloured" boy pushed a toy car made of wire along the footpath. No English or Afrikaners. They had slipped out of white Africa.

"The last one is the old Jew's place." Shabalala pointed to Poppies General Store. Emmanuel switched off the engine and put his optimism on ice. A broken-down shop on the wrong side of the color line was no place for a qualified doctor unless he was crazy or had been struck off the medical register.

Poppies was crammed with hessian sacks of corn, cans of jam, and corned meat. The air smelled of raw cotton, and bolts of plain and patterned material leaned against the far edge of a long wooden counter. Behind the counter stood a slight man with wire-rimmed gla.s.ses and a shock of brilliant white hair that flew up from his skull like an exclamation point.

A crackpot, Emmanuel judged quickly, and "the old Jew" wasn't as old as he'd imagined. Zweigman was still the right side of fifty, despite his hair and stooped shoulders. His brown eyes were bright as a crow's as he took in the sight of the mud-spattered pair without reaction.

"How can I help you, Officer?" Zweigman asked in an accent Emmanuel knew well. Educated German transplanted into a rough and charmless English.

"Get your medical kit and your license. We need you at the hospital." He made sure Zweigman saw the police ID he slapped onto the counter.

"A moment, please," Zweigman answered politely, and disappeared into a back room separated from the main shop by a yellow-and-white-striped curtain. The mechanical whir of sewing machines filtered out, then stopped abruptly. There was the sound of voices, low and urgent, before the shopkeeper reappeared with his medical bag. A dark-haired woman in an elegant blue satin dress tailored to fit the generous curves of her body followed close behind Zweigman.

The old Jew and the woman were as different as a gumboot and a ball gown. Zweigman could have been any old man serving behind any dusty counter in South Africa, but the woman belonged to a cool climate place with Persian carpets and a grand piano tucked into the corner.

The word "liebchen" tripped from the woman's mouth in a repet.i.tive loop that stopped only when Zweigman gently placed his fingers to her lips. They stood close together, surrounded by a sadness that forced Emmanuel onto his back foot.

The headache had returned, glowing hot behind the socket. He pressed his palm over his eye to clear the blur. An image of Angela, his own wife, imprinted over his retina. Pale-skinned and ephemeral, she called to him from a corner of the past. Had they ever stood together as intimately as the old Jew and his anxious wife did just now?

"Let's go," Emmanuel said, and headed for the door.

Outside, the light was soft and white and shot through with fine dust particles. The coloured boys in front of the liquor store looked up, then quickly returned to their game. Better to have a policeman walk by than stop and ask questions.

Emmanuel got into the driver's seat, cranked the engine, and waited. Zweigman slid in next to him with his medical bag balanced on his knees. No one spoke as the car eased away from the curb and started back toward the hospital.

"Where did you get your medical degree?" he asked. All the boxes had to be ticked before Zweigman was allowed to work on the captain's body.

"Charite Universitasmedizin in Berlin."

"Are you qualified to practice in South Africa?" He couldn't imagine German qualifications being denied by the National Party, even if the person holding them was Jewish.

Zweigman tapped a finger against the hard leather of his medical bag and appeared to give the question some thought.

They swung off Piet Retief Street with its white-owned businesses, and headed up General Kruger Road. Every street in Jacob's Rest was the answer to an exam question on Afrikaner history.

"Are you qualified?" Emmanuel asked again.

The shopkeeper waved the question away with a flick of his hand. "I no longer feel qualified to practice medicine in any country."

Emmanuel eased off the accelerator and prepared to swing a U-turn back in the direction of Poppies General Store.

"Ever been struck off the register in Germany or South Africa for any reason, Dr. Zweigman?" he asked.

"Never," the shopkeeper said. "And I don't answer to 'doctor' anymore. Please call me 'the old Jew' like everyone else."

"I would." Emmanuel pulled the car up in front of the Grace of G.o.d Hospital and switched off the engine. "But you're not that old."

"Ahhhh..." The sound was dry as parchment. "Don't be fooled by my youthful appearance, Detective. Under this skin, I am actually the ancient ancient Jew." Jew."

Strange turns of phrase were one possible reason the oddball Kraut was sitting next to him, and not in some sw.a.n.k medical suite in Cape Town or Jo'burg.

"I think I'll call you the peculiar Jew. It suits you better. Now let's see your papers." Friendship with a man crazy enough to choose shopkeeper above physician was not on his list of things to do. He just wanted to verify the qualifications, then get relief for the pounding in his head.

Sunlight caught the rim of Zweigman's gla.s.ses when he leaned forward, so Emmanuel wasn't sure if he'd seen a spark of laughter in the doctor's brown eyes. Zweigman handed him the papers, the first of which were in German.

"You read Deutsch, Detective?"

"Only beer hall menus." He flipped to the South African qualifications written in English and read the information slowly, then read it again. A surgeon, with membership in the Royal College of Surgeons. It was like finding a gold coin in a dirty sock.

Emmanuel looked hard at Zweigman, who returned his stare without blinking. There had to be a simple explanation for the white-haired German being in Jacob's Rest. Deep country was the ideal place to bury a surgeon with shaky hands. Did the good doctor have a fondness for alcohol?

"No, Detective Sergeant." Zweigman read his thoughts. "I do not hit the bottle at any time."

Emmanuel handed the papers back with a shrug. Zweigman was more than qualified to do what was asked of him. That was all the case needed.