Dead Before Dying

by Deon Meyer

Genres: Mystery; Thrillers

Synopsis

Three men who have nothing in common are found murdered in Cape Town, and the string of vicious killings pushes the city toward panic. Captain Mat Joubert is left scrambling for answers in a case that might be his last chance to prove that his life’s slow spiral will not pull him under.

Release date: February 1, 2008

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 416

Sample

1.

IN THE AFTERNOON HUSH of the last day of the year, Mat Joubert thought about death. Mechanically his hands were busy cleaning his service pistol, the Z88. He sat in his sitting room, leaning forward in the armchair, the parts of the pistol lying on the coffee table in front of him among rags, brushes, and an oil can. A cigarette in the ashtray sent up a long, thin plume of smoke. Above him, at the window, a bee flew against the glass with monotonous regularity, in an irritating attempt to reach the summer afternoon outside, where a light southeaster was blowing.

Joubert didn’t hear it. His mind wandered aimlessly through memories of the past weeks, among chronicles of death, his bread and butter. The white woman on her back on the kitchen floor, spatula in her right hand, omelet burnt on the stove, the blood an added splash of color in the pleasant room. In the living room, the boy, nineteen, in tears, 3,240 rand in the pocket of his leather jacket, saying, over and over, his mother’s name.

The man among the flowers, an easier memory. Death with dignity. He recalled the detectives and the uniformed men on the open industrial site between the gray factory buildings. They stood in a circle, knee-deep in the wildflowers thrusting up yellow and white and orange heads. In the center of this judicial circle lay the body of a middle-aged man, small in stature. An empty bottle of meths was gripped in one hand, he was facedown, cheek against the soil.

But his eyes were closed. And his other hand clutched a few flowers, now faded.

It was the hands that Mat Joubert remembered most vividly.

On Macassar beach. Three people. The stench of burning rubber and charred flesh still hanging in the air, the group of the law and the media forming a barrier downwind against the horror of multiple necklace murders.

The hands. Claws. Reaching up to the heavens in a petrified plea for deliverance.

Mat Joubert was tired of living. But he didn’t want to die like that.

Using thumb and forefinger, he placed the fifteen stubby 9 mm bullets into the magazine one by one. The last one flashed briefly in the afternoon sun. He held the bullet at eye level, balanced between thumb and forefinger, and stared at the rust-colored lead point.

What would it be like? If you pressed the dark mouth of the Z88 softly against your lips and you pulled the trigger, carefully, slowly, respectfully. Would you feel the lead projectile? Pain? Would thoughts still flash through the undamaged portions of the brain? Accuse you of cowardice just before the night enveloped you? Or did it all happen so quickly that the sound of the shot wouldn’t even travel from gun to ear to brain?

He wondered. Had it been like that for Lara?

What was it like—her light being switched off and watching the hand on the switch? What did she think about in that last fleeting moment? Life? Him? Perhaps she felt remorse and wanted to give a last mocking laugh?

He didn’t want to think about it.

A new year would start the following day. There were people out there with resolutions and dreams and plans and enthusiasm and hope for this new era. And here he sat.

Tomorrow everything at work would be different. The new man, the political appointment. The others could talk about nothing else. Joubert didn’t really care. He no longer wanted to know. Either about death, or life. It was simply one more thing to survive, to take account of, to squeeze the spirit out of life and lure the Great Predator even closer.

He banged the magazine into the stock with the flat of his left hand, as if violence would give his thoughts a new direction. He thrust the weapon into its leather sheath. The oil and the rags went back into the old shoebox. He dragged on the cigarette, blew the smoke in the direction of the window. Then he saw the bee, heard exhaustion diminishing the sound of the wings.

Joubert got up, pulled the lace curtain aside, and opened the window. The bee felt the warm breeze outside but still tried to find a way out through the wrong panel. Joubert turned, picked up an oily rag, and carefully swiped it past the window. The insect hovered briefly in front of the opening, then flew outside. Joubert closed the window and straightened the curtain.

He could also escape, he thought. If he wanted to.

Deliberately he let this perception fade as well. But it was enough to have him make an impulsive decision. He’d walk across to the neighborhood barbecue this evening. Just for a while. For the Old Year.

2.

The first step in the rebirth of Mat Joubert was physical. Just after seven o’clock that evening, he walked across the tree-lined street of the middle-class Monte Vista to the Stoffberg home. Jerry Stoffberg of Stoffberg & Mordt, Funeral Directors, in Bellville. “We’re in the same business, Mat,” he liked saying. “Only different branches.”

The door opened. Stoffberg saw Joubert coming into the house. They said hello, asked the ritual questions.

“Business is great, Mat. Profitable time of the year. It’s as if many of them hang in there until just after the festive season,” he said as he put the beer that Joubert had brought into the refrigerator. The undertaker wore an apron announcing that he was THE WORLD’S WORST CHEF.

Joubert merely nodded, because he’d heard it before, and uncapped the first Castle of the evening.

The kitchen was warm and cozy, a center of enthusiasm and laughter. Women’s voices filled the room. Children and men traffic-patterned their way easily past female conversations and the ritual of preparations. Mat Joubert navigated his way outside.

His consciousness was internalized, his perceptions withdrawn like the retracted feelers of an insect. He was untouched by the warmth and the domesticity.

Outside, the children moved like shadows through pools of light and darkness, divided into squads according to age but united in their carefree exuberance.

On the porch teenagers sat in an uneasy, self-conscious no- man’s-land between childhood and adulthood. Joubert noted them briefly because their clumsy attempts to appear at ease betrayed them. They had transgressed. He concentrated until he realized what they were trying to hide: the glasses on the porch table were filled with forbidden contents. Two, three years ago he would’ve smiled about it, recalled his own stormy adolescent years. But now he simply withdrew the feelers again.

He joined the circle of men around the fire. Each one’s passport to the group was a glass in the hand. Everyone stared at the lamb that, naked and without dignity, was turning on Stoffberg’s spit.

“Jesus, Mat, but you’re big,” Wessels, the press photographer, said when Joubert came to stand next to him.

“Didn’t you know he’s Murder and Robbery’s secret weapon?” Myburgh, Bellville’s traffic chief, asked from across the fire. His luxuriant mustache bounced with each word.

Joubert’s facial muscles tightened, showed his teeth in a mechanical smile.

“Ya, he’s their mobile roadblock,” said Storridge, the businessman. They laughed respectfully.

Casual cracks and remarks were tossed back and forth across the sizzling lamb, all of it aware of and careful about Joubert’s two-year-old loss—brotherly, friendly, fruitless attempts to rouse his quiescent spirit.

The conversation took a quiet turn. Stoffberg turned the spit and injected the browning meat with a secret sauce, like a doctor with a patient. Sport, quasi-sexual jokes, communal work problems. Joubert shook a Winston out of a packet in his shirt pocket. He offered it around. A lighter flared.

Members of the circle at the fire came and went. Stoffberg turned the spit and checked the progress of the meat. Joubert accepted another beer, fetched another a while later. The women’s kitchen activities had decreased. They had spilled over into the adjacent television room.

Outside, the conversation was geared to Stoffberg’s lamb.

“No use giving it another injection, Stoffs. It’s dead.”

“I’ve got to eat before sunrise, Stoff. I have to open shop tomorrow.”

“No way. This liddle lamb will only be ready in February.”

“By that time it’ll be mutton dressed as lamb.”

Joubert’s eyes followed the conversation from face to face but he took no part. Quiet, that’s how they knew him. Even before Lara’s death he hadn’t been a great talker.

The children’s voices became softer, the men’s louder. Stoffberg sent a courier to give the guests a call. The tempo of the party changed. The women called the children and walked out with plates laden with side dishes to where Stoffberg had started carving the lamb.

Joubert sucked at a Castle while he waited his turn. The alcohol had misted his senses. He wasn’t hungry but ate out of habit and politeness at a garden table with the other men.

Music started up inside, the teenagers rocked. Joubert offered cigarettes again. Women fetched men to dance. The music grew steadily older but the decibels didn’t. Joubert got up so as not to be left alone outside and grabbed another beer on the way to the living room.

Stoffberg had replaced the room’s ordinary bulbs with colored lights. Writhing bodies were bathed in a muted glow of red and blue and yellow. Joubert sat in the dining room, from where he had a view of the dancers. Wessels’s short body jerked spasmodically in imitation of Elvis. The movements of the teenagers were more subtle. Dancing past a red light, the body of Storridge’s pretty, slender wife was briefly backlit. Joubert looked away, saw the daughter of the house, Yvonne Stoffberg, her breasts bouncing youthfully under a tight T-shirt. Joubert lit another cigarette.

Myburgh’s fat wife asked Joubert for a traditional waltz. He agreed. She guided him skillfully past the other couples. When the music changed, she smiled sympathetically and let him go. He fetched another Castle. The tempo of the music slowed. Dancers moved closer to one another, entered the evening’s new phase.

Joubert walked outside to empty his bladder. The garden lights had been switched off. The coals under the remains of the lamb were still a glowing red. He walked to a corner of the garden, relieved himself and walked back. A shooting star fell above the dark roof of the Stoffbergs’ house. Joubert stopped and looked up at the sky, saw only darkness.

“Hi, Mat.”

She suddenly appeared next to him, a nymphlike shadow of the night.

“I can call you that, can’t I? I’ve done with school.” She stood silhouetted against the light of the back door, her rounded young curves molded by T-shirt and pants.

“Sure,” he said hesitantly, surprised. She came closer, into the protected space of his loneliness.

“You didn’t dance with me once, Mat.”

He stood rooted to the earth, uncertain, stupefied by seven Castles and so many months of soul-searing introspection. He folded his arms protectively.

She put her hand on his arm. The tip of her left breast lightly touched his elbow.

“You were the only man here tonight, Mat.”

Dear God, he thought, this is my neighbor’s daughter. He recalled the contents of the teenagers’ glasses on the porch.

“Yvonne . . .”

“Everybody calls me Bonnie.”

For the first time he looked at her face. Her eyes were fixed on him, shining, passionate, and purposeful. Her mouth was a fruit, ripe, slightly open. She was no longer a child.

Joubert felt the fear of humiliation move in him.

Then his body spoke softly to him, a rusty moment that came and went, reminding his crotch of the rising pleasures of the past. But his fear was too great. He didn’t know whether that kind of life had died in him. It was more than two years . . . He wanted to check her. He unlocked his arms, wanting to push her away.

She interpreted his movements differently, moved between his hands, pulled him closer, pressed her wet mouth to his. Her tongue forced open his lips, fluttered. Her body was against his, her breasts pinpoints of warmth.

In the kitchen someone called a child and alarms broke through Mat Joubert’s rise upward, toward life. He pushed her away and immediately started toward the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” he said over his shoulder without knowing why.

“I’ve done with school, Mat.” There was no reproach in her voice.

He walked to his house like a refugee, his thoughts focused on his destination, not on what lay behind him. There were cheers announcing the New Year. Fireworks, even a trumpet.

His house. He walked past trees and shrubs and flowerbeds that Lara had made, struggled with the lock, went down the passage to the bedroom. There stood the bed in which he and Lara had slept. This was her wardrobe, empty now. There hung the painting she’d bought at the flea market in Green Point. The jailers of his captivity, the guards of his cell.

He undressed, pulled on the black shorts, threw off the blankets, and lay down.

He didn’t want to think about it.

But his elbow still felt the unbelievable softness, her tongue still entered his mouth.

Two years and three months after Lara’s death. Two years and three months.

Recently, late in the afternoon, early evening, he stood in Voortrekker Road and looked up the street. And saw the parking meters that stretched for a kilometer or more, as far as he could see, on the arrow-straight road. The parking meters so senselessly and proudly guarding them all, were empty after the working day. Then he knew that Lara had made him into one—an irritation during the day, useless at night.

His body wouldn’t believe him.

Like a neglected engine it creaked and coughed and rustily tried to get the gears moving. His subconscious still remembered the oil that waited in the brain, chemical messages of the urge that sent blood and mucus to the front. The machine sighed, a plug sparked feebly, a gear meshed.

He opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling.

A virus in his blood. He could feel the first vague symptoms. Not yet an organ that grew and strained against material with a life of its own. At first only a slow fever that spread through his body and slowly, like a tide, washed the alcohol out of his bloodstream, drove away sleep.

He tossed and turned, got up to open a window. The sweat on his torso gleamed dully in the light of a streetlamp. He lay down again, on his back, searched for a drug against longing and humiliation.

The yearning in his crotch and in his head was equally painful.

His thoughts were driven by a whirlwind, spilled over the barriers.

Emotion and lust and memories intermingled. Lara. He missed her and he hated her. Because of the pain. Jesus, but she’d been beautiful. Lithe, a crack of a whip, a tempest, a tease. A traitor.

The softness of a breast against his elbow. His neighbor’s daughter.

Lara, who’d turned him into a parking meter. Lara, who was dead.

Lara was dead.

His mind searched for an escape in the face of this, shunted his thoughts into the disconsolate safety of a gray depression in which he had learned to survive in the past months.

But for the first time in two years and three months, Mat Joubert didn’t want that as an escape hatch. The great drive-shaft had turned between the roughened ball bearings, the valves moved in their cylinders. The machine had forged an alliance with Yvonne Stoffberg. Together they were fighting the approaching grayness.

Yvonne Stoffberg fluttered in his mouth again.

Lara was dead. He drifted down into sleep. A duel without a winner, a new experience.

Somewhere on the borderline of sleep he realized that life wanted to return. But he crossed over before fear could overcome him.

3.

Detective Sergeant Benny Griessel called the Murder and Robbery building in Kasselsvlei Road, Bellville South the Kremlin.

Benny Griessel was the one with the ironical sense of humor, forged in the fire of nine years of crime solving. Benny Griessel called the daily morning assembly in the Kremlin’s parade room the circus.

But this was a cynical remark made during the time of the ascetic Colonel Willy Theal, of whom fat Sergeant Tony O’Grady had remarked: “There but for the grace of God goes God.” O’Grady had laughed loudly and told no one that he had stolen the quip from Churchill. In any case none of the detectives had known it.

This morning was different. Theal, the commanding officer of Murder and Robbery, had taken early retirement on December 31 and was going to grow vegetables on a smallholding in Philippi.

Coming in his place was Colonel Bart de Wit. Appointed by the minister of law and order. The new black minister of law and order. As of January 1, Murder and Robbery was officially part of the New South Africa. Because Bart de Wit was a former member of the African National Congress who had resigned his membership before accepting the command. Because a cop must be impartial.

When Joubert walked into the parade room at seven minutes past seven on the first of January, forty detectives were already seated on the blue-gray government-issue chairs placed in a large rectangle against the four walls. The muted buzz speculated about the new man, this Bart de Wit.

Benny Griessel greeted Mat Joubert. Captain Gerbrand Vos greeted Mat Joubert. The rest carried on with their speculations. Joubert went to sit in a corner.

At exactly quarter past seven the Brigadier, in full uniform, came into the parade room. Behind him walked Colonel Bart de Wit.

Forty-one pairs of eyes followed him. The Brigadier stood up front next to the television set. De Wit sat down on one of the two empty chairs. The Brigadier greeted them and wished them all a Happy New Year. Then he started a speech, but the detectives didn’t give it their full attention. Their knowledge of human nature, their capacity to evaluate others, was centered on the commander. Because their professional future was tied up with him.

Bart de Wit was short and slender. His black hair was thin in front and at the back on the crown. His nose was a beak with a fat mole on the border between organ and cheek. He wasn’t an impressive figure.

The Brigadier’s speech about a changing environment and a changing police force was nearing its end. He introduced de Wit. The commander stood up, cleared his throat, and rubbed the mole with a forefinger.

“Colleagues, this is a great privilege,” he said, and his voice was nasal and high-pitched, like an electric band saw. His hands were folded behind his back, his short body was stiff as a ramrod, shoulders well back.

“The Brigadier is a busy man and asked that we excuse him.” He smiled at the Brigadier, who took his leave as he walked to the door.

Then they were alone, the new commander and his troops. They looked at one another, appraisingly.

“Well, colleagues, it’s time we get to know one another. I already know you because I had the privilege of seeing your service files, but you don’t know me. And I know how easily rumors can spread about a commander. That’s why I’m taking the liberty of giving you a short résumé. It’s true that I’ve had no experience in local policing. But for that you must thank the apartheid regime. I was taking a course in policing through the University of South Africa when my political beliefs made it impossible for me to stay in my motherland . . .”

De Wit had a weak smile on his lips. His teeth were faintly yellowed but even. Each word was flawlessly rounded, perfect.

“In exile, among a valiant band of patriots, I had the privilege of continuing my studies. And in 1992 I was part of the ANC contingent that accepted the British offer for training. I spent more than a year at Scotland Yard.”

De Wit looked around the parade room as if expecting applause. The finger rubbed the mole again.

“And last year I did research at Scotland Yard for my doctorate. So I’m fully informed about the most modern methods of combating crime now being developed in the world. And you . . .”

The mole finger hastily sketched a square in the air to include all forty-one.

“. . . and you will benefit from that experience.”

Another opportunity for applause. The silence in the room was resounding.

Gerbrand Vos looked at Joubert. Vos’s mouth soundlessly formed the word patriots and he cast his eyes upward. Joubert stared at the ground.

“That’s all as regards my credibility. Colleagues, we’re all afraid of change. You know Toffler says one can never underestimate the impact of change on the human psyche. But at the end of the day we have to manage change. The first manifestation is for me to tell you what I expect of you. If I prepare you for change you can facilitate it more easily . . .”

Benny Griessel banged the palm of his hand against his head just above the ear as if he wanted to get the wheels turning again. De Wit missed the gesture.

“I expect only one thing from you, colleagues. Success. The minister appointed me because he has certain expectations. And I want to deliver the kind of input that will satisfy those expectations.”

He thrust his forefinger into the air. “I will try to create a climate in which you can achieve success—by healthier, more modern management principles and training in the latest crime- combating techniques. But what do I expect of you? What is your part of the contract? Three things . . .”

The forefinger acquired two friends held dramatically in front of de Wit.

“The first is loyalty. To the service and its aims, to the unit and your colleagues, and to me. The second is dedication. I expect quality work. Not ninety percent but one hundred percent. Yes, colleagues, we must also strive for zero defect.”

The detectives started to relax. The new man spoke a new language but the message remained the same. He expected no more than any of his predecessors. More work at the same inadequate pay. Results, as long as his back was covered with the higher-ups. And his promotion was assured. They were used to it. They could live with it. Even if he had been a member of the ANC.

Joubert took the red packet of Winstons out of his pocket and lit up. A couple of others followed his example.

“The third is physical and mental health. Colleagues, I firmly believe that a healthy body houses a healthy mind. I know this will make me unpopular in the short term, but I’m willing to take the chance.”

De Wit knotted his hands behind his back and straightened his shoulders again as if expecting an attack. “Each one of you will have to undergo a physical examination twice a year. The results remain confidential between us. But if the doctor finds certain . . . deficiencies, I expect you to correct them.”

The hands behind the back were released. The palms turned out as if he wanted to ward off an approaching attacker.

“I know, I know. It was the same at the Yard. I know how difficult it is to be fit all the time. I know your stress levels, the long hours. But colleagues, the fitter you are, the easier it is to overcome the obstacles. I don’t want to be personal, but some of you are overweight. There are those who smoke and drink . . .”

Joubert stared at the cigarette in his hand.

“But we’ll tackle it together. Together we’ll change your lifestyle, help you to get rid of your bad habits. Remember, colleagues, that you’re the cream of the service, you project the image both here and outside, you are ambassadors, PR representatives. But most important of all, you have a duty toward yourself to keep your body and mind in shape.”

Again the slight hesitation, the pause for applause. Joubert killed the cigarette. He saw Vos dropping his head into his hands. Vos didn’t smoke but he had a beer gut.

“Right,” said Colonel Bart de Wit. “Let’s handle today’s workload.” He took a notebook out of his jacket pocket and opened it.

“Captain Marcus Joubert . . . Where is Captain Joubert?”

Joubert raised his arm to half-mast.

“Ah, we’ll meet formally a little later on, Captain. Is it Marcus? Do they call you . . . ?”

“Mat,” said Joubert.

“What?”

“Like in rug,” said a voice on the other side of the room and a few detectives gave a subdued laugh.

“I’m called Mat,” Joubert said more loudly. De Wit misheard him.

“Thank you, Captain. Very well, Captain Max Joubert will lead the standby team for the coming week. With him are Lieutenant Leon Petersen, Adjutants Louw and Griessel, Sergeant O’Grady, Constables Turner, Maponya, and Snyman. I’ll get to know you all, colleagues. And Captain Gerbrand Vos led the standby team over the festive season. Captain, is there anything you want to discuss?”

The professional life of a Murder and Robbery detective didn’t leave much time for extended sympathy when a colleague lost his grip. There was comprehension because it could happen to anyone. There was gratitude because it hadn’t happened to you. And there was sympathy, which lasted for a month or two, until the fated colleague became a millstone round your neck in the execution of your duty.

Two colleagues in Murder and Robbery had retained their sympathy for Mat Joubert for two years—each for his own reasons.

For Gerbrand Vos it was nostalgia. He and Joubert had started together at Murder and Robbery as detective sergeants. The two shining new stars. Willy Theal allowed them to compete, to strive for more and more accolades, but they were promoted together to adjutant, to lieutenant. In the force they were a national legend. The Afrikaans Cape newspaper, Die Burger, wrote a quotable piece about them on the center page when they were promoted to captain simultaneously. Always simultaneously. The young reporter was obviously impressed by them both. “Captain Vos is the extrovert, the big man with the face of an angel, dimples in his cheeks, baby blue eyes. Captain Mat Joubert is the quiet one, even bigger, with shoulders that will fill a doorway and the face of a hawk—brown eyes that can look straight through you,” she had written dramatically.

And then Lara’s death came and Vos accepted that his colleague no longer wanted to compete. And waited for Joubert to complete the grieving process. Gerbrand Vos was still waiting.

Joubert was busy with the first case dossier of the morning. Seventeen more stood in three piles on his desk, yellow-gray SAP3 files that regulated his life. He heard Vos’s purposeful tread on the bare gray floor tiles, heard that the footsteps didn’t end at the office next door. Then Vos was in the door, his voice subdued, as if de Wit was in the vicinity.

“General forecast deep shit,” he said. Gerbrand Vos used language like a blunt weapon.

Joubert nodded. Vos sat down on one of the blue-gray government-issue chairs. “Patriots. Patriots! Jesus, it makes my blood boil. And Scotland Yard. What does Scotland Yard know about Africa, Mat? And ‘colleagues’ all the time. What kind of CO calls his people ‘colleagues’?”

“He’s new, Gerry. It’ll blow over.”

“He wants to see us. He stopped me at tea and said he wanted to see each and every one of us alone. I have —” Vos looked at his watch—“to be there now. And you’re next. We’ve got to hang together, Mat. We’re the two senior officers. We’ve got to sort out this fucker from the start. Did you hear him on fitness? I can see us doing PT in the parking area every morning.”

Joubert smiled slightly. Vos got up. “I’ll call you when I’ve finished. Just remember: band of brothers. Even if we’re not fucking patriots.”

“It’s okay, it’s only jam, Mat,” Vos said thirty-five minutes later when he walked in again. “He’s waiting for you. Quite friendly and full of compliments.”

Joubert sighed, put on his jacket, and walked down the passage.

Colonel Bart de Wit had taken over Willy Theal’s office and made it his own, Joubert saw when he knocked and was invited in.

The team pictures against the wall were gone. The dirty green carpet on the floor was gone, the sickly pot plant in the corner had disappeared. Three certificates of degrees conferred now hung against the newly painted white wall. The floor was covered in a police-blue carpet and in the corner was a coffee table on which a small plaque announced I PREFER NOT TO SMOKE. On the desk was a holder with four photographs—a smiling woman in glasses with heavy frames, a teenage boy with his father’s nose, a teenage girl in glasses with heavy frames. The other pictures showed de Wit and the minister of law and order.

“Do sit down, Captain,” said de Wit and gestured at the blue-gray chair. He also sat down. A small smile instantly hovered.

Then he straightened the thick personnel file in front of him and opened it. “What did you say? That they called you Max?”

“Mat.”

“Mat?”

“They’re my initials, Colonel. I was christened Marcus Andreas Tobias. M.A.T. My father called me that.” Joubert’s voice was soft, patient.

“Aaah. Your father. I see he was a member, too.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Never an officer?”

“No, Colonel.”

“Aaah.”

A moment’s uncomfortable silence. Then de Wit picked up the staff file.

“I don’t play my cards close to the chest, Captain. Not about my political views then and not about my work now. So I’m going to be painfully honest with you. Things haven’t been going well. Since your wife’s death.”

The smile on de Wit’s face didn’t match the seriousness of his voice. It confused Mat Joubert.

“She was also a member, wasn’t she?”

Joubert nodded. And wondered what the man across the desk knew. His stomach muscles contracted and doors closed in his mind as a precaution.

“She died in the course of duty?”

Again Joubert nodded, and his pulse rate increased.

“A tragedy. But with respect, Captain, since then things have gone badly for you . . .” He looked. . .