Scorpion Scheme Page 6

  Meanwhile, I felt like hospital germs pranced across my skin. We'd changed but hadn't showered after leaving our hospital to come to KMT.

  "Gizelda," said Luke.

  She wrenched her head up, eyes widening as if she’d already forgotten us.

  Luke patted her shoulder. "Why don’t you thank the doctors for their help and let them get on with their night."

  "Of course! Not only did you help, you gave me these roses. You must think me a mannerless boor." She tucked her phone in her purse. Her knuckles shone white as she clutched the roses with her other hand.

  "I think you’re grieving," I said quietly.

  A laugh jerked out of her mouth. "Yes. I am."

  "Are you okay?" I kept my eyes on her instead of Luke, whom I could see flexing his fingers out of the corners of my eyes. Tucker shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  "Yes. All right. I’m trying to process ... our mother and now our father."

  "Oh, no. What happened to your mother?" I said.

  Luke cleared his throat.

  "If it’s too painful—" said Tucker.

  "She also … died suddenly." Gizelda covered her mouth, inhaling and exhaling slowly over the roses before she could speak again. "It brings back bad memories."

  "How awful." We often write "died suddenly" in an obituary to describe a suicide. I winced in sympathy.

  Tucker said, "A loss on top of a loss is very difficult. We're so sorry to hear that."

  "We'll work it out. It’s very sad, but we lost her in 2017," said Luke. "We've had a few years to adjust. Other people have dealt with worse."

  "That's true." Gizelda's eyes filled with tears, and the roses wobbled in the air as she reached into her purse for a tissue.

  Luke threw his arm around her and squeezed her shoulders. "We made it through that. We'll make it through this, too."

  She said, so low that I dipped my head to hear her, "Our poor father. Why did he have to go like this?"

  "Terrorists." Luke added something I didn't understand, presumably in Afrikaans.

  She nodded and blew her nose before balling the tissue in her palm. Now she had no free hands. I felt like offering to hold the roses so she wouldn’t be so burdened.

  Instead, I squeezed Tucker’s hand and cleared my throat. "Uh. Is there anything we can do for you? Maybe get you a beverage or a hot meal?" I turned to include Luke in the invitation. "Sometimes a walk outside helps."

  Gizelda peered at me for a second, almost like she was trying to decode my face, before she abruptly handed the roses back to me. The plastic made a crinkling noise. "Please. I can’t accept these. They remind me too much of my mother's funeral. Our aunt sent a car made out of roses."

  "Oh, no. I've never heard of a car made out of roses," I said, accepting the bouquet. The roses smelled sweet. Up close, I noticed a few more crumpled, decaying petals.

  "Is that a South African tradition?" asked Tucker, whose brain contains a constantly-updated encyclopedia comparing and contrasting cultural differences.

  "Not at all. It was a gesture of respect," said Luke, hugging his sister against his side. He was so big that he nearly lifted her off her feet.

  "Because your mother loved cars?" I ventured. It seemed less likely that a deceased 87-year-old's wife had raced cars, but never say never. Fingers crossed that I'll zoom around as an octogenarian, plus Mrs. Phillip Becker could have been much younger than her husband.

  Gizelda Becker made a strange noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Her brother released her as she reached for another tissue. "No. She died in one. A car accident."

  Whoa. I swung the roses behind my back. "I'm so sorry."

  Tucker made sympathetic noises for both of us.

  She closed her eyes. "I didn't go to Luke's with my mother. I should have been driving. My father had a headache, so I stayed with him, but our mother took social commitments very seriously. She missed her grandchildren and insisted on driving herself. The autopsy—"

  Luke shook his head and clapped her on her shoulder. "Don’t torture yourself, Gizelda."

  She squeezed her eyes shut and visibly tried to calm herself down, even though tears glistened in the seams of her eyelids. "She went through the windshield."

  I started to reach for her with my rose hand, but I didn't know her well enough to make contact even if my fingers were free. "You’ve endured so much. I wish we could help."

  "She should have worn her seat belt. And our poor, poor father. Oh, God. Why did he make us come back here?" Her knees sagged. Luke caught her.

  Tucker looked agonized. He squeezed my hand so hard that it hurt.

  "We’ll need some time to process this," said Luke, his voice slightly hoarse.

  "Of course. Please contact us if you think we can be of any help. You have our numbers, right?" said Tucker. He let me go so he could enter their contact information in his phone.

  Gizelda dug more tissues out of her purse. "Father would have been safe at home. I could have protected him."

  "Please don't blame yourself," I whispered.

  "You can reach out to us any time," said Tucker. "Please. Day or night. We're still on Canadian time anyway. We're so sorry for your losses. We didn’t mean to intrude."

  Luke shook his head. "We should be fine. Thank you. I'll make arrangements for our father."

  Shipping their father's remains to the other end of the continent must be an ordeal. I said, "If you need help, I could ask Sarquet Industries for advice. They're an international corporation." Not that EMR software would have much to do with funeral arrangements, but as far as I was concerned, Isabelle and Youssef owed us one.

  Luke pursed his lips. "I appreciate the thought. We’ll take it from here."

  "Of course," I said, and Tucker and I withdrew together, me leaning forward to hide the bouquet. My stomach churned. Roses would never smell the same to me again.

  I bet they wouldn't call. They'd stay locked in their grief. Selfishly, that meant I could never ask Gizelda Becker about the cobra bag, let alone the mysterious man and the Kruger millions.

  10

  "We really stepped in it. What are the chances that roses would make her cry?" I whispered to Tucker as we rode the elevator to visit the Momberg family on the seventh floor.

  He nodded and glanced at our reflection in the fingerprint-smudged steel doors. "Bad luck. You never know what triggers anyone, especially right after a death."

  "It's crazy that both their parents died 'suddenly.'"

  Tucker gave a lopsided smile. "My friends tell me lots of wild stories about South Africa."

  "But poor Mr. Becker died in Egypt." I swung the bouquet for punctuation, yanking the roses back before they touched the elevator walls.

  "Bad things can happen anywhere. You know that better than anyone."

  "Totally. If people saw me at St. Joe's, they'd call Canada the world murder capital."

  "That's my girl. Killer karma." Tucker tilted his head. "That's just you, though. South Africa's like its own murder ball."

  I nodded. "I guess that's what happens when you build your economy on slavery and apartheid. Thank God Nelson Mandela somehow became president."

  The elevator binged in agreement. We trotted down the corridor toward the Mombergs' room while Tucker scrolled through his phone and offered South African statistics.

  "Fifty-eight murders per day. Rising steadily since 2011. I guess the only upside is that there are fewer sexual assaults than from 2009 to 2015."

  "Good."

  "Oh, wait. Sexual assaults are on the upswing for the past three years."

  "Ugh. Sounds like a war zone." I felt like plugging my ears and chanting la-la-la. I sniffed the roses to make me feel better.

  "Not as bad as real war zones like Syria, Afghanistan, or Yemen—unless you cone down to specific townships like Philippi East in Cape Town. Then it's worse." Tucker clicked off his phone and dropped it in his pocket, grabbing my free hand.

  "The Beckers don't look like t
hey're from a rough township, but I guess they could be." I held up the wilted roses. "Um, you think the gift shop will give us our money back?"

  Tucker snorted. "Are you kidding? You keep 'em."

  "I don't need them."

  "Hope! You're so cheap. Just take the roses. When we're rich, I'll shower you in roses."

  I shook my head. "Roses take pesticides and growing space and water that could be used on food, not to mention the carbon footprint of flying them around the world."

  He sighed. "You're right. Total buzz kill, though. Well, let's see if the Mombergs want them."

  "Sure. Let's do it."

  "Ho ho ho." Tucker grinned at me, and I scanned the corridor to make sure we weren't offending anyone.

  A tired-looking woman in blue scrubs and no head scarf padded past us in her running shoes, dinner in hand. I thought I could smell chicken and rice, and my stomach gurgled, even though I haven't eaten meat in two months.

  "I'll take you out for supper afterward. I know the perfect place. One of my buddies recommended it." He knocked on the door of room 7604. "Mr. and Mrs. Momberg?"

  "Frederik and Noeline, please. Oh! You brought us roses?" Noeline's plump, bruised face, with a nasty cut on her right cheek and a few more superficial lacerations, softened as I presented her with the bouquet. She inhaled the roses' scent. 'They remind me of home. Thank you."

  "It's nothing."

  Their son Jaco watched with wide eyes as I shifted from foot to foot, embarrassed at the second-hand flowers. The entire family seemed to be wearing the same clothes as yesterday

  The little girl, Fleur, tugged at the mom's pants, dislodging them. "Mommy okay?"

  Noeline grabbed her waistband and hiked it back up above her hips before her underpants showed. "Yes, fine, of course, no problem."

  Their lacerations and fatigue and Fleur's tangled hair begged to differ. I gazed past them to see Tucker shaking hands with the dad, Frederik, who sat on the side of the bed with his right eye bandaged up.

  Frederik bowed his head and said, "Thank you."

  "The flowers were nothing," I said, determined to change the subject.

  Noeline raised her face from them. "Oh, do you know the history of roses in South Africa?"

  That's one subject that has never come up in my life, but Tucker grinned. "Please tell us."

  She awarded him a tremulous smile. "We consider roses one of South Africa's first settlers. Jan van Riebeeck brought rose trees from Holland and grew the first Dutch rose on November first, 1659."

  Ouch. I'm sure many people lived in that territory before 1659. And I wondered how roses had affected South Africa's ecosystem, considering the "settlers'" brutal treatment of human beings.

  "Ah," I said. I'd better not bring up politics when her husband could lose an eye.

  Frederik raised his hand. "They don't want to hear about this, Noeline."

  "Oh, we don't mind." Tucker grinned at her. "South Africa is quite famous for its roses. Isn't one of them named after Nelson Mandela?"

  The little boy, Jaco, giggled and clapped his hand over his mouth before Frederik frowned at him. "It's very kind of you to stop by with flowers, but have you heard anything about my eye?"

  Tucker sobered immediately. "I haven't had a chance to speak to anyone, but with your permission, I could do so."

  "I give you permission. I don't care what I have to sign. I want some answers. And if you don't get any of those, I'm going straight home." He mumbled to himself in Afrikaans in such an ominous tone that his wife gasped and I glanced at the children, who watched their father, wide-eyed, as he added something about Phillip Becker.

  Noeline placed a hand on her husband's, trying to calm him. "We're so sorry to hear Mr. Becker has passed. We heard his son flew up. I'm glad the brother and sister are together now. Very sad."

  "Very sad. Just goes to show, you never know what's going to happen," said Tucker.

  The little girl bounced up and down on her toes between her parents while Noeline filled a cardboard urinal with water to use as a makeshift vase.

  "Imagine a mine owner getting hit by an IED in Egypt." Frederik laughed a little too loud.

  I stared at him while the children smiled uncertainly.

  Noeline turned around with a fake smile. "You'll have to excuse my husband. Sometimes he speaks without thinking."

  "Did you get to know the Beckers on tour?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "Not very much. They upgraded their hotels and would only join us for certain excursions."

  "I wonder why they paid for the tour at all," said Frederik, beginning to pace. He obviously felt trapped in the small room with one cramped bathroom and one dirty window.

  "Why? I heard him say it was safer in a group. Less of a target that way," said Noeline. "I used to talk to Gizelda a little. She liked the children. She missed her nieces and nephews."

  "She's all right," said Frederik, smoothing Fleur's hair and sticking out his tongue to make her laugh.

  "Did you talk to Mr. Becker, too?" I asked.

  Noeline blushed and shook her head, the roses still in one hand.

  "I offered him a beer once," said Frederik. "Turned me down flat. Said he had too much work to do. Work? An old man like him? He's on vacation. And what kind of work does he do, anyway? I know mine owners. They sit on their money."

  "I'm sure they work very hard," Noeline insisted as Jaco absorbed every word. Meanwhile, Fleur spun in circles, watching her bloodied skirt flare with every turn.

  "Yeah, what the hell. He's gone now, anyway." Frederik picked up his son and tossed him a few inches in the air, making him laugh before he caught him again.

  "My turn! My turn!" Fleur bounced up and down on her toes.

  "Did you know the Beckers from before, in South Africa?" I said.

  Frederik bellowed with laughter. "You hear what I said? The Becker family owns the Sacco Manganese Mines. You know how much money that is? You think they hang around with a truck driver and his family in Durban?"

  "They came on tour with you," I said.

  Frederik gave Fleur one, two, three tosses. He raised his voice over her giggles. "Hardly. Didn't eat any of the meals. Only came with us for the museum tours, and even then, they were gone half the time."

  Jaco tugged on his father's belt loop, and Frederik set his daughter down so he could heft Jaco in the air once more. "Oof, you're getting heavy, boy."

  "No, I'm not!"

  "Two more. One, two!" Frederik set his son down and said, "Phillip had 'private meetings' scheduled everywhere around the city and all the museum men in his pocket. I tell you, they should have gotten a refund. The most time they spent with us was that bus ride, and look what happened."

  "Frederik." This time, Noeline added something in Afrikaans.

  "I'm sorry," Frederik told us, running his hand through his sweaty, receding hairline. "I shouldn't say such things. The man is dead. Sometimes I speak before I think." He bared his teeth at his children. "Don't be an old fool like your father, hey?"

  Fleur laughed and pretended to snarl back at him, while Jaco looked puzzled. He could probably feel the strange undercurrents in the room.

  "Did Mr. Becker ever talk about Kruger?" I asked Noeline.

  "The park?" she asked, startled.

  "I don't know," I admitted. "When Mr. Becker was hurt, he mentioned the word Kruger, but he was speaking in Afrikaans."

  "Oh, goodness. We've brought the children to Kruger several times, and we've talked to them about how terrible it is to poach the rhino horns, but I didn't mention that to Gizelda, no."

  "What did you talk about?"

  She shrugged. "She asked me about the children and if I needed any help. They can be a handful. She was busy with her own father, though."

  "What did she have to do for him?" Tucker asked. "Was he physically weak?"

  Frederik snorted. "The man seemed all right to me. It wasn't like he couldn't order his own food and complain if the coffee wasn't hot enough."<
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  "He had a cane, and she made sure to keep track of their bags and their personal items," said Noeline, with a warning look at Frederik. "He was always talking to her, asking her to take notes, that sort of thing."

  "Take notes. About what?" I said. I couldn't imagine my father dictating at me.

  "Sometimes it sounded like mine business. Usually he talked about Egyptian history. He seemed quite taken with Osiris and Horus. I don't know. These two keep me very busy." She winked at her children.

  "Yes, it was mainly that kind of historical nonsense," said Frederik. "Every other sentence, he'd say to his daughter, 'Remember that!' Or 'Mark that down!' So she did. I've worked with people like that. Easier to write it all down than to brush them off."

  Man, I needed access to those notes. I'd memorize them right after quizzing her about the cobra fanny pack. Tucker and I exchanged a glance, and I knew his brain had latched back onto the Kruger millions. As my grade eight teacher used to joke, Great minds think alike—and small minds seldom differ.

  "Did she take notes on paper, or on her phone?" I asked.

  "She had a little red book!" Fleur burst out. "It was so pretty. I wanted to draw in it, remember, Ma?"

  Noeline laughed. "Yes, but we don't touch other people's things, right, sweetie?"

  "I do!" said Jaco, while Fleur pouted and the adults laughed.

  Tucker smiled at the Mombergs. "I'm tempted to do the same myself. Did you happen to notice the black leather bag around his waist? The one with a cobra on it?"

  Frederik shrugged. "I may have seen it. What about it?"

  "It's an unusual bag. I wonder what was inside it?" Tucker's pale cheeks reddened while both of us pretended not to notice. Act normal, and maybe you'll look normal.

  Frederik shrugged again. "He probably had his passport and money in it, the way all of us do."

  Noeline nodded in agreement.

  "You saw him taking his passport out of the cobra bag?" I asked.

  Frederik shook his head. "I'm not looking at Phillip Becker."

  Noeline said, "We're too busy with our little ones."

  Neither of them met our gaze. I could tell from Tucker's stillness that he noticed, too.