Ivory Ghosts (10 page)

I stared at a photograph on the wall of Dr. Geldenhuis's office of an elephant-back safari in a mountainous jungle. The elephants were Asian. It looked like one of those places Craig had mentioned with regard to the difficulties of patrolling drug and wildlife trafficking in the mountainous terrain of Asia.

Doctors often went to exotic places, or at least they often had photos of exotic places, perhaps to take their patients' minds off their pain. I looked more closely at the picture. Out of the entire expedition, there was one white man. It was Dr. Geldenhuis, wearing a wide-brimmed oilcloth hat.

Dr. Geldenhuis walked through the door and loomed over my shoulder, annoyed. “Can I help you?”

I turned to face him, embarrassed. “I'm sorry. The nurse said I could wait in your office.”

Geldenhuis took his time sizing me up. Then he softened. “I keep telling her not to do that.” He scratched his head, looked at the photo, and smiled. “Perhaps I need more interesting photos in my waiting room.”

“Where was this taken?”

“Yunnan. Just on the border with Myanmar. Hell, it's a raw place.”

“See any wild elephants?”

“Not on the Chinese side. But Myanmar is riddled with the buggers. And the ivory is denser than lead. Carves like butter. Not like the
kak
you get in Africa. Except for the Congo, of course. But not much left there. Pity, really.”

I looked at him incredulously.

“A hobby. I buy the antique stuff.”

I tried to play dumb. “But isn't the trade shut down?”

“Preconvention stuff is all aboveboard in China. There's a whole backlog of it since the carving factories closed. Can only export the worked antiques, though.”

I looked down, not expecting such a conversation. I feigned ignorance. “Interesting. I had no idea it was so complicated.”

He looked me up and down. “How can I help you?”

“I'm working in the area and wanted to ask your advice about malaria.” I thought this was a safe place to start the conversation.

He shrugged. “You don't need me for that. You can get chloroquine at the clinic.”

“But isn't this a chloroquine-resistant area?”

“Why do you want to take anything? The prophylactic is worse than the bug, I assure you.”

“Not worse than dying from cerebral malaria, surely?”

“True. We do get a case every now and again. Why didn't you get something from the Peace Corps, or whoever you are working for? I can't get mefloquine up here. What outfit did you say you were with?”

“A conservation group based in South Africa.” After our conversation about ivory, I suddenly didn't want to say “
WIA,”
in case he had heard of them or asked what the acronym stood for. “They thought I could get what I needed locally.”

“Clearly they didn't know where they were sending you. What do you have going with them?”

“Helping to monitor the local elephant population. They're in charge of coordinating elephant counts throughout southern Africa.”

“I see. I have my guy Alvares fly for the censuses sometimes, but you'll be lucky to catch him sober on a weekend. Caprivi's not good for the liver.”

“So you have a 182?”

Geldenhuis nodded. “You know airplanes?”

“I've flown a census or two.”

“You're a pilot?”

I nodded.

“So, what kind of monitoring are you doing, exactly?”

“General counts. Population level stuff. And then I hope to look at how many mortalities are due to age or disease or poaching.”

Dr. Geldenhuis raised a brow. “Poaching's not a big problem here, you know. There are plenty of elephants, just not enough space. The farmers are hacking down the forest like nobody's business. There's going to be no place left for them to live.” He got up and showed me to the door. “Well, I've got to get a quick bite and get back to the hospital.”

“How did the ranger look?”

Dr. Geldenhuis exhaled. “He'll be lucky to survive the night.”

I shook my head. “What a shame.”

“Treatment takes months, if they're lucky enough to get it. Around here, people don't know if they'll be alive from one day to the next. It's just too long. And, of course, once people start to feel better, they stop taking it.”

“That must be a huge problem.”

“Yes, it is.”

I headed toward the door. “And doxycycline? Can you get that?”

He led me through the door to the waiting room before answering. “I'll put an order in. Should be here in about two weeks. Meantime, wear socks. Anopheles mosquitoes love the ankles.”

“Yes, I noticed. Thanks.” I was about to walk out, then stopped and turned around. “Hey, listen, I meant to ask you something. Father Sebuku mentioned that you do some flying for the Red Cross.”

“I do what I can.”

“Do you know if they need any other pilots in the area? I'd like to volunteer in my spare time.”

“Afraid I don't,” he said dismissively.

As I passed him, he pressed a hand down on my shoulder and his eyes pierced right through me. “It's not like the parks in South Africa,” he whispered. “Elephants don't like people here. Watch yourself.”

I nodded nervously, not knowing what he was talking about or what had caused his sudden aggression. I made a quick exit, passing a thin Chinese man wearing a suit, fidgeting in a plastic chair in the waiting room. He looked like the owner of the Dollar Store—the one I'd seen having an argument with Alvares.

I couldn't help noticing how the suit sagged off the man's frail body and wondered why he was here wearing it. It was more modern than the few suits I had seen around town on a couple of elders, and not common. Maybe he was trying to make a good impression on the doctor.

When I got outside, I turned around and looked at the dingy office. I took a breath to shake off the interaction and walked over to my car, which was parked right next to the window of the doctor's office.

I stood next to my car door, bracing myself for the heat that would assail me from inside the vehicle. I took a few moments to wait for a car to drive by so it wouldn't fill my car with dust. The car passed, and I watched as orange powder from the dirt road blew in through the slightly opened louvered windows of the doctor's office. Then I opened the door and stood back as the heat escaped.

I heard raised voices coming from inside the office, and for a moment, I was tempted to see if I could hear what the doctor was saying, but he walked over and closed the dirty louvers with a loud clap. I tensed up, rolled down the window, and jumped into the sauna. It was time to face Jon Baggs.

I parked under the shade of a sausage tree outside Baggs's office and checked my sat phone to see if Craig had sent me anything. There was an attachment of a snapshot of a news clipping from the
South China Morning Post
. There was a fuzzy photograph that looked just like Dr. Geldenhuis. Craig had scribbled a note at the top of the clipping. “Have you come across this bloke?” Another scribble read, “Okay to run by Jon.”

I read the piece.

Dr. Geldenhuis, a general practitioner in the small town of Katima Mulilo, is a suspect in a murder case. Dr. Geldenhuis was known to have a relationship with a local Chinese businessman named Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee has been suspected of smuggling small amounts of ivory to Hong Kong, but was never found guilty.

Mr. Lee was last seen in a
mokoro
on the Chobe River just south of the Namibian border in Botswana. Dr. Geldenhuis was the last person seen with the victim before he disappeared. Authorities are searching for clues.

I dug around in my backpack for my cigarette lighter USB plug and plugged it in. I connected the small 12-volt printer that Craig had given me, which I kept underneath the passenger seat along with a sheath of paper. I attached the sat phone to the printer and printed out the article.

Carrying the piece of paper, I walked past five men lying on the lawn in ragged clothing as Baggs pulled up. He got out cursing and slammed the door before realizing I was there. I waved sheepishly. He did a double take, as if experiencing the same startle response he'd had on our first meeting. He recovered by bowing at the waist, mockingly. He goose-stepped up to the men, tapping one in the belly with his boot. Jon twitched one eye, mockingly, as if struggling to keep it opened. “Buffalo meat must be a soporific!”

“Mr. Baggs, I have something I want to show you.”

Baggs ignored me and kept walking. I followed. As he entered the building he shouted, “Draadie! The usual, 63131.”

She shook her head.

“Christ. Not again.”

She nodded.

“And stop those men from loitering.” He shook a finger at her. “You know full well they're not here for jobs. They're listening for patrol schedules, trying to determine the best day to go out for some fresh buffalo relish.”

Draadie flipped up
The Namibian
in front of her face. “I'm just the secretary.”

Baggs cursed under his breath and disappeared into his office with me following.

As Baggs walked behind his desk, I saw him remove a fax from the corner. I had just enough time to see the WIA letterhead. It was my security clearance.

He sat down and glared at me, making me realize that, before I brought up Geldenhuis, I had to apologize for what had happened over the weekend. Gidean or Eli would have told him about my getting in the middle of their bust. “Look, I'm really sorry about the other night. I had no idea.”

“Yes. How would you? Should have been a bloody moonlit picnic, shouldn't it have been?” Baggs quipped sarcastically. “How rude of Gidean not to invite you along.”

“It won't happen again.”

“Damn right, it won't.”

There was a harsh outburst in Afrikaans outside Baggs's window. His eyes lit up, and he giggled. “You don't want to get on Draadie's bad side.”

I looked out the window to see that she had done what Baggs had asked—chased off the potential poachers from their nap. “What kind of a name is Drottie?” I tried to pronounce Draadie's name like he did.

“Who, Draadie?” He chortled. “That's her nickname. It's the diminutive term for a thin wire. Can't say the Afrikaners don't have a sense of humor.” He looked with admiration at the empty lawn.

I smiled. “Look, I'm sorry we've been having trouble communicating. I'm hoping we can change that. Which is why I'm here right now.” I pushed the clipping toward Baggs. “What do you make of this?”

Baggs squinted as he skimmed the headlines. “Murder?” Baggs blurted out angrily. “Impossible.”

“Why is it impossible?”

“Listen. They've got the wrong guy.” He pointed his pencil at me. “Dr. Geldenhuis doesn't get blood on his hands, do you understand me? I've been on this case for a year now.”

“Do you think he was set up?”

“It's the only explanation.”

“What would the motive be?”

“Don't know.”

“Maybe the witch doctor's creating a distraction?”

“The witch doctor doesn't dabble in triads,” Baggs said, using the British-coined word for Chinese organized crime groups. “He's too smart for that.”

“Geldenhuis must be on your list of suspects, given the kind of character he is.”

“And what kind of character is that,
Detective Sohon
?”

“He doesn't strike me as the most upstanding citizen you have in this town.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Sohon? And who does?”

“Please don't misunderstand me. I just wonder if he could be involved in the ivory smuggling.”

Baggs tossed his hand as if throwing me a bone. “He was caught in South Africa a few years back with a couple of tusks in his trunk. Now we think he might be dealing on the side again. But there's no way this guy would strangle some Chinese mobster for a buck.”

“Is he connected to the triads?”

“Donnie is a hobbyist. He's no international smuggler, and certainly not a killer. Mark my words, Ms. Sohon.”

“Catherine, please.”

“Catherine. The only blood Dr. Geldenhuis touches is his patients', and he is dedicated to his craft of keeping people alive. I have firsthand experience with this. He is a bloody damn good doctor.”

“So why would anyone bother to set him up? Could he be in a little deeper than you think?”

“You can't believe everything you read in the papers, can you?”

“No, but we can believe the genetic reports on ivory corridors. We can analyze what was found in the trunk of the car last week. We can see where it came from.” I was testing him, having already sent the ivory chip to Craig's analysis team stationed in Pretoria. Knowing that I now had security clearance, I felt I could push a little harder.

I pulled out my ivory report and put it on his desk. I quickly flipped to the page with the ivory trade map. “The Hong Kong office traced the latest illegal shipments of ivory that were intercepted in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to southern Angola and Zambia. They think it's being run through the Caprivi corridor and shipped from Walvis Bay or Johannesburg.” I turned the page. “Here's another one: Guangzhou seizures via Singapore and Vietnam made up of elephants from Zambia and Angola.”

Baggs shifted uncomfortably at this. “A couple of tusks gone amiss hardly warrants an international investigation. Not sure what you think you're going to find here.”

“What if it came from the Caprivi?”

“Caprivians are not poachers. You're more likely to see a butchered carcass with its teeth still on. These people are law-abiding citizens when it comes to ivory. We have a handle on the situation. Couple of chancers, that's all.”

“And what about just over the border, in Angola?”

“I know you Americans think that you can act as INTERPOL at the slightest of hints,” Baggs fumed, “but need I remind you that you are here as our census pilot? Not to investigate the ivory trade. You could blow a year's worth of work for us in a day.”

“Monitoring elephants from the air, documenting carcasses, natural mortalities, poaching,
and
what happens to ivory—that all falls under the general umbrella of elephant conservation, no? I am a conservationist first, pilot second. I'd like to help if I can.” I suddenly noticed six new freshly hacked-out bloody tusks behind his desk. The three tusks from the induna's backyard were still sitting in the same place they were during my first visit. I pointed to the pile. “And why so protective when the evidence is stacking up?”

He saw where my gaze landed. “Last night's bust.”

“Fresh?”

Baggs nodded. “I'm sure your Hong Kong triad would
kill
to get their hands on these chopsticks. Apparently selling cheap from a former conservancy chair vacationing in Botswana.”

I felt like he was again batting at what he thought was a cornered mouse. “Look, I'm simply trying to help connect people and information.”

“Brilliant idea! Why don't you save your speech for a Rotary lunch? Dr. Geldenhuis is not your man. Small-time doctor. Small-time crook. Let the
little
people handle this.”

I couldn't help wondering whether he was covering something up, and I refused to let him end the conversation like this. “Okay, how about this. You investigate these small cases, but let me take a sample?”

I could see that he was about to lash out, so I quickly touched the edge of one of the three tusks from the first pile. “Just the tip, or even the edge of each of these tusks. I've got a hacksaw in my car. Maybe we can help provide additional information by knowing where they originated?”

Jon smoldered and stood up. “We've got the investigation covered. Now, good day, Ms. Sohon.”

I tried to keep my cool, but I was fed up, having seen the elephant bloodbath just over the Angolan border firsthand and knowing Craig had been unable to get any leads on the incident. “Maybe you should cut this martyr bullshit and open your eyes.”

Baggs gritted his teeth. “One must be careful not to let things get too personal, Ms. Sohon. You're
way
out of your element here.”

He grabbed his keys, pulled his jacket down, and showed me to the door. “And as I understand it, perhaps you should look inside for the true martyr in this game!” He growled as he walked out after me, “I have much more important business to attend to with the governor.”

I stood in the reception area trying to recover from the sting of his words. What was he referring to exactly? Surely Craig wouldn't have said anything about what had happened to Sean? I was just being paranoid. “Wait, please, Jon, hear me out.” I was embarrassed that I had just blurted out his first name—not sure how he'd handle my switch to the informal, particularly after such a bad interaction.

Unflinching, he marched to the door.

“At least have a look at the report,” I pleaded.

As Jon walked out of the building, Draadie smiled, and said sarcastically, “I see you're getting on like a house on fire.”

I smiled and hesitated in the doorway. I was going to respond but instead observed Jon eyeing Alvares, the deli manager, who had just pulled up in the parking lot. I watched Jon look both ways and then shake a finger at him, telling him to get out of the parking lot, like he didn't want to be seen associating with him. Alvares had gotten similar treatment from the manager of the Dollar Store.

“Trust me.” Draadie sucked on her cigarette. “Fire is better than ice.” She blew smoke out the window and smirked. “It gets much worse.”

“That's a scary thought,” I replied emptily as I watched Alvares angrily make a hasty departure with Jon following closely behind. I looked at my watch and turned to Draadie. “Does Jon ever spend time at Hippo Lodge?”

There was enough time to stop by the lodge under the guise of telling Alvares I'd be in on the weekend and still make it to Susuwe before dark. That way I'd have an excuse to follow Jon.

“He's on the wagon, if that's what you mean.” Draadie puffed.

“But does he ever hang out there?”

Draadie shrugged. “He likes to fish. And so does the doctor.”

“Dr. Geldenhuis?”

“He owns the place.”

I smiled and said good-bye.

I heard Draadie call out after me, “Watch the road, the river is rising.”