The Monster's Daughter (54 page)

“Hi.” Mike extended his hand to Mathebe. “Mike Engelman. I work with Professor Koch.”

“
Ja
, um … Mike, this is my partner, Sergeant Mathebe.”

Mathebe shook Mike's hand. “Good to meet you, Mr. Engelman.”

“Doctor Engelman,” Alet said.

“Call me Mike.” A dimple appeared in Mike's cheek as he smiled at her. “I'm on my way to Humansdorp. They're reopening the Klasies River project.”

“First humans,” Alet said.

“Right.” Mike's smile grew broader. “You remembered.”

“
Ja
. I … Hey, sorry for not calling. It's just that we've been working on the case. There's a lot going on.”

“You have a suspect?”

“We're getting there.”

“Anyway, Professor Koch asked if I could drop this off.” Mike handed her the envelope he had tucked under his arm. “The DNA results you wanted.”

“Oh.” Alet took the envelope from him. “Thanks.”

“Well, I should go.” Mike extended a hand to Mathebe. “Nice to meet you, Sergeant. Alet.”

“Mike, wait.” Alet glanced at Mathebe.

“I will start,” Mathebe said.

Alet waited until he disappeared into the house before she turned back to Mike. “I really am sorry for not calling you back.”

The dimple disappeared from Mike's cheek. “That's all right,” he said. “Best for you to focus on the case. I hope you get him.” He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Let me know if there's anything I can do.”

Mike got into his car and drove away. Alet opened the envelope. As she finished reading the report, she reached for her cell.

Inside the house, Mathebe had already dragged a box marked
PERSONAL
to the dining room and was busy unpacking it, inspecting every item and laying them out on the table. Alet glanced over the table. “Is that a diary?” She took a small black notebook out of the box and started flipping through the pages. “Planner. To-do lists.” She scanned the pages, finding no entries for the day Trudie died. She carelessly dropped it back onto the table.

“What did Dr. Engelman give you, Constable?”

Alet handed the envelope to Mathebe. “Seems Tilly is not Trudie's biological child. They're not even related. I just called the provincial
records office. They had no record of an adoption. I'm waiting for Jo'burg to get back to me.”

“I see.” Mathebe paused in his work, his eyes narrowing.

“This could be the link between Trudie and the baby ring. Maybe Tilly was the first.”

Mathebe considered this for a moment. “Miss Pienaar is twenty-six. The baby-smuggling only started about ten years ago. I think it is too soon to assume that Mrs. Pienaar was part of it.”

“But—”

Mathebe held his hand up. “We should find evidence, Constable. It is better that way.”

Alet had the sudden urge to go have a drink at Zebra House, but Zebra House was shut down for the investigation. And who knew if Joyboys would even open up again? It was bad enough before, but Unie was really turning into a shithole now.

Mathebe emptied the box and took a picture of the contents. Alet went through everything again, inspecting antique pillboxes and costume jewelry, flipping through books as she repacked it. Mathebe dragged the next box over. It was filled with clothes, mostly modern pieces interspersed with unusually beautiful coats or embroidered blouses, anachronistic mementos, Alet thought. She felt the pockets and seams of each garment, finding an old pound note in the pocket of a jacket with an unusually tiny waist and a small studded earring stuck into the folds of a hoopskirt.

Mathebe's cell rang. “Sergeant Mathebe speaking. Yes. I am.”

Alet packed the clothes back into the box while Mathebe gave monosyllabic answers to the caller. She thought of the picture of Trudie holding a very young Tilly. They looked like so many pictures of mothers holding their infant children. Nobody could guess at the deception. Every box they had unpacked held subtle remembrances of a distant past: a turn-​of-​the-​century coin collection, a silver brush with ivory inlay—small affirmations of Alet's theory, but not enough to prove it.

Mathebe hung up. Something that could have been misconstrued as a smile pulled at the corners of his lips. “Mr. Wexler has been arrested in George. He was chartering a plane to fly him to Namibia.”

“Yes!” Alet couldn't contain her excitement. “Got the bastard. Can't wait to get my hands on him.”

“Constable, you are on leave.”

“Right.” Alet had almost forgotten about it.

“I will go right away.” Mathebe stacked the last of the boxes.

Alet dusted her hands off. “Call me when you're done with Wexler.”

Mathebe hesitated, something obviously on his mind.

“
Ja?
”

“You and Dr. Engelman …”

Alet knew where this was going. “We had dinner.”

“He is involved in the investigation.”

“I know. Nothing happened.”

Mathebe gave a curt nod. He turned and left, closing the front door behind him. Alet could hear the front gate moan outside as he opened and closed it. She had climbed over the fence that night to avoid making that noise. Alet walked into the living room and looked out from between the net curtains. If the killer had stood right there, he would have seen her go into the flat with Boet. The light had only gone on as Boet left. Did he do it to make it look like Trudie was still alive? If that was his plan, why wait? Why would he have cared about watching Alet and Boet?

Alet called Mathebe's cell. “Hey, was Jana Terblanche ever fingerprinted?”

“She has no arrest record.”

“She must have been fingerprinted for an ID book or passport or something. We need to run her prints against the partial you found in the house.”

“Mrs. Terblanche was in Oudtshoorn the night after the murder.”

“That's what Boet said.”

“You do not believe him?”

Alet thought about it for a moment. “I don't know. Either way, they were both on the farm the night of Trudie's murder.”

Alet began a systematic search of the house, starting on the doorstep and working her way back. She checked for loose floor and ceiling tiles, drawers and hiding places that they might have missed. By the time she reached the enclosed
stoep
in the back, she was ready to throw in the towel. If Trudie's killer had been looking for something in the house, he must have found it.

Alet's eyes itched from the dust. She rubbed them, but that only
made it worse. She walked out toward her flat to take a bath and wash all the filth off her. Walking around the back of the house, she noticed how dry Trudie's flower beds were. A strange guilt crept over her. She dragged the sprinklers out into the beds and turned them on. Drawing the hose out from its coil, she watered the large flower beds. The smell of wet soil wafted through the air. Alet imagined the distressed plants giving a sigh as the water seeped to their roots. In the twilight, a pleasant coolness descended on the garden, and Alet gave her own sigh. She regretted the fact that she had never offered Trudie help. Maybe if she had spent more time with her, she would have noticed that something bad was about to happen; maybe she could even have prevented it. She shook off the thought. “If only” was never productive, she knew that. It created the illusion that she had control.

The front gate moaned. Alet craned her neck to see around the peach trees as Tilly walked down the path, her step tentative as if she didn't inhabit her own body. She looked startled when she noticed Alet.

“Are you okay, Till?” Alet felt hesitant about approaching Tilly, unsure of where they stood.

“I've been released on bail.” Tilly looked haggard, her blouse wrinkled. “Boet Terblanche came to see me. He made an offer on the land. It was low.” She crossed her arms. “He thought I'd probably want to let it go.”

“Meaning what?”

A sarcastic laugh escaped Tilly's lips. “He thinks I'll be sent to prison. He didn't say it, of course, but he didn't have to.” Hazel eyes looked pleadingly at Alet. “What's going on?”

“I don't know that I should—”

“Who else?” Tilly said hotly. “Who is going to tell me? My lawyer? Your buddy, Mathebe? I have nobody left, Alet. Just tell me what you know.”

“Let me get you a drink?” Alet guided Tilly to her flat. Tilly stared at the beer Alet handed her as if it were a crystal ball.

Alet sat down next to her on the
stoep
. “Trudie's DNA does not match yours.”

Tilly's face betrayed no emotion. “Go on.”

“We're still searching for adoption records, but so far there are
none. We just caught Jeff Wexler. I suspect that he might know something about this.”

“You think Jeff knows who my real parents were?” Tilly's voice was flat.

“I don't know,” Alet said, wondering why Tilly wasn't responding to the news. “It's a possibility.”

“I don't want to know.” Fine lines formed around Tilly's lips as she formed the words. She tilted the beer bottle back.

“Tilly—”

“I've had dreams, Alet. Since I can remember. The same ones. I used to wake up at night crying, terrified. My
ma
 … Trudie said she would never let things like those dreams happen to me. She denied it was real, but she couldn't erase what was left behind,” she tapped her index finger against her forehead, “the stuff in here. Once it's done, it never goes away, see?”

They sat in silence, watching the bright colors of the garden become muted and the sky turn from bright blue to pale pink. Alet felt a melancholy settle over her as she thought of children like Tilly, locked behind doors, their lives dependent on the whims of others, most of them only discovered when it was too late. She understood Tilly's need to save, misguided as it may have been. She was saved too.

“I need to know about your
ma
and Jakob Mens,” Alet broke the silence. “What happened?”

Tilly sighed. “
Ma
found him in Oudtshoorn. A filthy hobo, crazy, off his rocker, living off scraps and handouts, but
Ma
treated him like he was Jesus himself, returned from the dead. Jakob could do no wrong. She got him the job with old Mr. Terblanche. I guess they struck some kind of deal. Jakob would come to the house sometimes. I'd hear them late in the night, talking, when they thought I was asleep. Once I walked in on her holding him like he was a baby. It was just weird. The kids at school treated me like a leper when word got around that a black slept in the house. I hated him back then, I won't lie. But I didn't kill him, Alet.”

“Do you remember anything from the night of the accident?”

Tilly shook her head. “When I woke up the next day, I felt wrong. I could barely see straight and my head … It was almost like I had the flu really bad. I tried to go to work. Jeff told me to stay put in the office.”

“Wait. He said you took a sedative.”

“No. I threw that stuff out. It made me feel weird.”

“So you don't remember taking anything?”

Tilly shook her head.

“What exactly happened before you went to bed?”

“I closed the restaurant. Maria, Lukas and Jeff were gone already. I was exhausted. I couldn't focus on the paperwork so I just put everything in the safe and locked up.”

“What about before you closed?”

Tilly frowned. “Only Dr. Oosthuizen was there, finishing his drink. Sometimes just hangs around for conversation. He's kind of lonely. I think Petrus was there too. Or maybe he left already, I can't remember.”

“You said your mom and Jakob talked. Do you remember about what?”

“No, but when I went through her stuff I found the last name ‘Morgan' on some of the old papers. I remember that they sometimes mentioned it. I thought it might be distant family or something.”

Alet leaned in. “Papers?”

“Birth certificates, marriage licenses, report cards. That sort of thing.”

“I didn't find anything.”

“I took them.” Tilly looked away. “It was just a lot of old papers. I didn't see what they had to do with any of this.”

“Could I see them? They could help us.”

Tilly nodded reluctantly.

“There's something else I need to ask you. What did you and Trudie really argue about before she was killed?”

“I told you.”

“Come on, Tilly. I need the truth.”

“It has nothing to do with her death.”

“Perhaps not. Why don't you let me decide?”

Tilly folded her body up in the chair. “
Ma
found out.”

Alet frowned. “About Wexler's operation?”

“That I was involved. She told me she was ashamed of me. Of what I had become.” Tilly's voice broke. “Rich coming from her, don't you think?”

Later that day, Tilly brought Alet a concertina file filled with years and years of documents, birth certificates, old ID books, marriage licenses, school report cards. Alet dumped the contents out on her counter. A plain hardcover school notebook thumped out. Her pulse quickened as she opened it and ran her eyes down the page.

“What's that?” Tilly asked, helping herself to a beer.

Women's names, details about their lives, dates. Every page revealed increasingly obsessive observations, intimate invasions of lives, with no clue to the identity of the author. She recognized at least four names that had been in the Angel Killer files.

“I'm not sure, hey. Can I hold on to these?” Alet motioned to the pile of paper. “Promise I'll get them back to you.”

Tilly nodded. She muttered something about a decent bath and disappeared out the door. Alet dialed Mathebe. His phone went straight to voice mail. This couldn't wait. She had to get down to Cape Town, have Theo confirm that the other girls were also murder victims. If he would even talk to her. Alet grabbed a backpack, black T-shirts, underwear and a toothbrush. On the way out of town, she stopped at the twenty-four-hour coffee stand and handed Giel two R5 coins.