Page 45 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Road Kill

<< 3 >>

We bumped over an imperfectly-covered sewage channel at the
Route de Tigabougou and hit the rutted narrow avenues of the
Quartier Ancien. I scanned the mud-brick compound walls briefly
illumined by my headlights, trying to orient myself by finding any sign
of a familiar landmark. “Aren’t we getting close to the Peace Corps
office?”
“Yes. Both Amadou Coulibaly and I—he’s my counterpart at the
ministry—noted that she was killed on a side road between the Corps
de la Paix and the Hôtel du Fleuve. That is, we could not find any
other reason for her to be in that place; it’s on the way to a short cut
along the river if you have a motorbike, and she was hit while riding
her moped.”
I digested that. The hotel was not a usual hangout for PCV’s.
Visiting dignitaries and wealthy tourists had nowhere else to stay in
Falidougou: it was the closest thing in the country to a luxury hotel,
its prices bearing the greatest resemblance. Most Peace Corps kids,
proudly displaying the outward signs of quasi-acculturation acquired
more often by staying power than merit, would not be caught dead in
the lobby of the Hotel du Fleuve. Death, it seemed, had caught Sally
Furth before she could get there.
But something else puzzled me. “How did you find out about the
accident? Do you work at night?”
She laughed, but it was not a schoolgirl’s giggle. “Not unless
there’s an investigation in progress. You may as well know now that I
have a short-wave radio.”
“What!” I was outraged. “But, but, no American personnel are
allowed to have a radio unless the embassy authorizes it.”
“Mine was not issued by the American government,” she replied
serenely, “although it was paid for by our taxes. Don’t you know
about the command and communications equipment we gave the
Jolibanans a few years ago?”
“Of course I do. But please don’t ask me to go into the policy
behind it.”

44