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  Sleuth on Safari

  A Traveler Cozy Mystery

  by

  A R Kennedy

  Copyright © 2019 A R Kennedy

  EPUB Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Dedication

  This is dedicated to the group I traveled with in South Africa.

  Kaia & Mark

  Tina & Derek

  Abigail & Jason

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1. The Flights

  2. The Dinner

  3. Morning Game Drive

  4. Afternoon Game Drive

  5. Dinner

  6. The Body

  7. Breakfast

  8. Game Drive

  9. Sundowners

  10. Night

  11. Midday

  12. Afternoon Game Drive

  13. Dinner

  14. Night

  15. Lunch

  16. Hippo Walk

  17. Night

  18. Morning Game Drive

  19. Midday

  20. Game Drive

  21. The Bar

  22. Morning Game Drive

  23. After Breakfast

  24. The Plunge Pool

  25. Afternoon Game Drive

  26. Night

  27. Morning Game Drive

  28. Midday

  29. Lunch

  30. Morning

  31. After Breakfast

  32. Sundowners

  33. Dinner

  34. Morning Game Drive

  35. Bar

  36. Afternoon Game Drive

  37. Morning

  38. Breakfast in the Bush

  39. After Lunch

  40. Morning Game Drive

  41. Breakfast

  42. Afternoon

  43. Lunch

  44. After Lunch

  45. The Pool

  46. Last Dinner

  47. Last Night at the Bar

  48. Last Game Drive

  49. Checkout

  Acknowledgements

  Excerpt from R.I.P. in Reykjavík

  The Flights

  For fifteen minutes, we stood at the conveyor belt, waiting for my luggage to arrive. The constant trail of luggage became a trickle and I began to worry. I had a vision that my vacation slideshow would be me in my Supernatural TV series T-shirt and jeans, with a soundtrack of my sister’s voice saying, “I told you so.”

  I glanced at Charlotte. After a fifteen-hour flight, Charlotte had emerged refreshed. I was a little worse for wear. She gave me a dismissive look and I wiped a few crumbs from breakfast off my jeans.

  She smiled briefly and the other expression returned.

  “You know you look like Mom when you’re annoyed,” I told her.

  She glared at me and whipped around. She and her bright pink luggage stormed off. Her pink flowy top wafted over leggings with a black-and-pink chevron pattern. I had to admit, she did look nice. And did not look like she had spent almost a day traveling. I looked down at myself. The same could not be said. My wrinkled black T-shirt and torn jeans, paired with Converse sneakers with tips that used to be white, made me cringe. Nothing about me said glamour.

  I didn’t worry about being left in a foreign country by myself. I could find her a mile away with that highlighter pink gear.

  I said a quick prayer before turning back to the luggage belt. I exhaled and smiled. She didn’t see the last bag to drop onto the conveyor. My worn tan duffle bag.

  Fifteen minutes, and two wrong turns later, I arrived at the domestic airlines check-in line.

  “Naomi! Over here.” Charlotte waved her fingers at me and I waved back, from the end of the line. “Come up here!” I was fine having fifteen people between us but she was not. “Could you let my sister through, please?” She plastered on her best smile and they conceded. The travelers cleared a path and I slithered through with a feeble smile. “Her luggage was delayed. Thank goodness she got it!” She grabbed me when I was within reaching distance and pointed at my T-shirt. “Can you imagine having to wear that for your whole vacation!”

  No one hid their smiles and a twentysomething man, who had helped her with her luggage earlier, openly laughed.

  The next agent became available and we handed her our passports. Charlotte looked at my bag as I placed it on the stand to be checked.

  “What is that?” she asked, pointing to the shiny gray strip along the side of my bag.

  “Duct tape. The tool of champions.”

  She shook her head. “No wonder Dad got you in the divorce.”

  Boarding passes in hand, we cleared security and headed to the gate. The short flight would be departing soon and then our vacation, a safari, would officially begin.

  I handed her my backpack and made for the bathroom.

  “Really? You’re not going to change?” Despite being three years younger, she always ordered me around. Or at least tried to.

  “Into what?” I asked. My luggage, like hers, was headed to our next flight. I said a silent prayer as I gave it to the airline’s check-in agent that I would see it at the next airport. Charlotte was right. I did not want to spend the entire trip in jeans and a T-shirt. Even a T-shirt with cute guys on it.

  She opened her carry-on. I peered in. She had more clothes in there. I didn’t know how she could fill so much, neatly, into that small space. “Let me give you something.”

  “Why? Once we get there, we’re going to bed.”

  “No, we’re having dinner around the fire when we arrive.” She pulled out the travel agent’s itinerary from a front compartment. Mine was somewhere crumpled at the bottom of my backpack. She pointed to the line, “Welcome Dinner.”

  I didn’t want dinner. I wanted sleep.

  “Plus,” she leaned in and whispered, “the people on the tour with us have to be on this flight.”

  I looked around the small gate area and had to agree. To appease her, I grabbed my cosmetics case out of my backpack. It was better than putting on that frilly yellow top she was holding out for me.

  Charlotte was pleased, especially when she saw it was the one she had given me for Christmas and that it was in good condition. I had never used it.

  In the bathroom, I brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face. I ran my fingers through my hair. I looked at my makeup case, hoping it had dry shampoo in it, but knowing it didn’t. My sister’s case would. My pride wouldn’t allow me to ask her for it. However, my pride did not keep me from returning to my sister in faded, ripped jeans, a wrinkled sci-fi themed T-shirt, and sneakers.

  Even though she no longer was carrying her hot pink luggage, she was still easy to locate. Her “Meet People” voice, the one she had learned from our mother, could be heard twenty feet away. I hid several rows away, in view of the boarding gate, until our flight was
called.

  “It took you all that time and you look like that?” she asked. “You’re going to feel silly at dinner looking like that.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  In the same tone I had used earlier, she added, “You look like our mother when you do that.”

  As I walked down the plane’s aisle to our seats in the last row, I marveled at the difference from the jetliner that had gotten us here. This one was only three seats across. If someone didn’t like small spaces, or flying in general, this would be a difficult flight.

  Charlotte played the “Who’s on our trip?” game. She was the inventor and the only one who played.

  “Nope, not them. I think they live or work here,” she said about two burly men. “Him? No, don’t think so. Looks too scholarly to go on vacation.”

  The man with the tweed jacket, elbow patches included, did look scholarly. A professor, I’d guess. Or, at least, he wanted people to think so. He had been behind me at passport control and had tapped me to move along when I had hesitated briefly. He had looked annoyed that I needed the prompt. I hoped he wasn’t on our trip. He looked like a buzzkill.

  A trio—a young man, a teenage boy, and a woman—followed behind the professor. The young man had been the one who had helped Charlotte with her luggage and had laughed, a little too hard, at Charlotte’s joke. “Ooh, them. They’re with us. I heard them saying they were headed to our lodge.” She pursed her lips. “I can’t figure them out. Mother or aunt? Maybe wife or girlfriend to the older one.”

  The woman looked to be in her thirties—early or late. It was hard to tell. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was dressed in sweatpants and jacket but looked put together, not sloppy. She was not as stylish as my sister but not as messy as me.

  The young man, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, was likely to be in his twenties. But again, early or middle, it was hard to tell. His unshaven face could mask a baby face. Clean-shaven, he would look years younger. Was the stubble his usual style or the result of a day’s journey without shaving?

  Charlotte was right. It was difficult to ascertain their relationship. The pair could be a couple years apart or a generation apart.

  “How do you know they’re not with the older guy?” I asked without thinking. I had been sucked into Charlotte’s game.

  “Oh please. No way.” She sighed. “First of all, I would never put them together.”

  “What? Couldn’t he be the uncle? The father? The sugar daddy?”

  She dismissed me. “And most importantly, they haven’t said one word to each other the whole time we were in the boarding area.”

  “I could travel that way with you.”

  “Ha-ha, Naomi.”

  I smiled, glad she thought I was joking. I wondered how long the laughs would continue. We hadn’t spent this much time together since our parents’ divorce over fifteen years ago.

  The trio stopped two rows in front of the older man. The young man took the window seat on the right, while the teenager sat across the aisle and scooted into the window seat. The woman glanced at the professor while the boy got settled. The professor didn’t notice, his head buried in a book.

  A middle-aged couple were next onboard. She sat several rows in front of us, leaving her carry-on in the aisle. The man lifted it into the overhead compartment. She kissed him on the cheek and held his hand as he sat.

  “They’re probably with us,” Charlotte whispered. “Probably a trip to save the marriage.”

  “What?” I asked. How could she tell that in the two minutes she watched them walk down the aisle?

  “They’re trying too hard. The affection doesn’t match a couple that’s been together that long.”

  “How do you know that? Maybe they just got married.”

  “Please, did you see that ring?” she asked, referring to the woman’s engagement ring and wedding band. “Yellow gold? Marquis cut? Clearly from a couple decades ago.”

  Lastly, an older couple came down the aisle. The man was scowling and the wife looked fearful behind him. They were ready for a safari, dressed completely in khaki. She touched his arm, signaling the first row was their seats. He pulled his arm away and snapped at her. She recoiled and sat by the window.

  “Our luck, they’re with us. Total snooze fest.”

  I wondered if anyone else played this game. If they looked at us, two women in their twenties, what would they think? Two friends? I couldn’t imagine us as ever being friends. Sisters? I didn’t see a family resemblance but our mother assured us there was one.

  Charlotte’s game was over. Her guesses made she turned her attention to me. “I have no idea why we’re doing this.”

  “Because I got a good deal.”

  “You and your good deals…” She clicked her seat belt in place. She checked it twice to ensure a snug fit. “If you got a good deal to jump off a bridge, would you?” she asked in our mother’s voice.

  “Why, yes, I would.” I had actually. Bungee jumping. It was a one-off for me but I was glad I did it. At a good price.

  But Charlotte was right. Why were “we” doing this? I could use one hand to count the days we had spent together over the past few years. But she was the only one who had said yes. The five people I had asked before I got to her had all said no.

  I buckled myself in and prepared for takeoff. My well-traveled backpack, with papers spewing out, was stowed in front of me. I looked out the small window and watched the workers putting in the last few pieces of luggage on board.

  After a bumpy flight that felt much longer than an hour, we slowly deboarded down a flight of stairs onto the tarmac. We walked the hundred or so feet to the airport, a small open-air terminal. It was a huge contrast to the mega-terminals we had been in for our previous flights.

  After a long day of travel, it seemed everyone’s energy levels had plummeted.

  According to Charlotte, our itinerary instructed us to collect our luggage and meet the lodge’s representative outside the airport.

  Fortunately, my luggage, and Charlotte’s, arrived quickly. My fears of wearing the same clothes for days dissipated.

  We were first out of the airport. A man, dressed in an olive polo shirt embroidered with the lodge’s name and symbol, khaki shorts, and hiking boots, greeted us. He held a chalkboard sign that read, The Lonfte Lodge welcomes—

  The Wallaces

  The Vankeys

  Charlotte & Naomi

  Sabrina, Zonah & Zaden

  Dr. Higgins

  Charlotte ran over to him. “We’re Charlotte and Naomi.”

  He smiled and greeted us. “Wamukelekile!”

  Charlotte repeated the greeting to him, precisely. I didn’t bother and just said, “Hello.”

  Another man, dressed in the same lodge uniform, came over and took our luggage.

  Over the next few minutes, we met our fellow safari travelers.

  The Vankeys—The old scowling couple.

  The Wallaces—The middle-aged near-divorce couple.

  The woman, Sabrina, and two males, Zonah and Zaden—relationship unknown.

  And Dr. Higgins—the “professor.”

  My sister was right.

  I was the sloppiest of our group.

  Except, possibly, for the teenager, who was also wearing jeans and a sci-fi television T-shirt.

  That did not make me feel better.

  The Dinner

  After a short ride over bumpy terrain, we arrived at the lodge. My drowsiness dissolved as I held on for dear life to the Land Cruiser’s side.

  We were met with a bubbly drink and a hot towel by two staffers. They escorted us into the lodge’s lobby and encouraged us to sit or mill around in the area while the staff checked us in.

  Each party kept to themselves while Leticia, the lodge’s manager, greeted each group. She had us sign the guest book, took our passports, and asked for a credit card for incidentals. The couple that Charlotte thought was near divorce, Jack and Geri Wallace, handed ever
ything over without having to be asked. The Vankeys talked with Leticia longer than the rest. The lodge’s manager assured Colin the passports would be returned quickly and that it was common practice.

  Leticia spoke to Charlotte for a few more minutes while I marveled at the lodge. The reception area was a large A-framed building. The tall ceilings had tree limbs running across, for decoration or support, I didn’t know. The area around the fireplace had two cream-colored couches with patterned throw pillows in safari-neutral colors, and a few chairs with coordinating throw pillows. You felt like you were inside, but with no walls or windows you were actually outside.

  Leticia returned our passports and credit cards and handed us each a key. Eager for a shower and good night’s sleep, I asked where room four was.

  “Dinner is first, please,” Leticia announced. Another staff member ushered us to a long candlelit table.

  The staffer who had met us at the airport returned and greeted our table. “Habari za jioni!” Many tried to repeat it and all failed. “Or we can all just say ‘Good evening, Sonny!’”

  Everyone repeated “Good evening, Sonny” with varying volumes and energy levels.

  He smiled a huge grin. It was impossible not to smile back. I looked around the group. I was wrong. The professor found it possible. His face was neutral.

  “Yes, I know,” Sonny continued. “It’s been a long day. And we have an early morning ahead of us. But first we eat!”

  Begrudgingly, I sat down at the seat closest to where I was standing. All I wanted to do was lie down.

  “Why’d you sit here?” Charlotte mumbled, as she sat down next to me.

  “It was the closest.”

  “Now we’re going to get stuck talking to the old folks.”

  I ignored her. I wasn’t going to be talking to anyone. I’d be lucky if I kept my eyes open for the meal. The adrenaline rush of the ride was gone.

  As the waiter placed a small bowl of soup in front of me, I tried to remember the last time I had a good meal. The aromas awakened me, and my hunger, and I dug in.