After lunch, Steven gave them the names of the two victims who had been killed by the rogue and dumped outside his compound.

Innocent again accompanied them as interpreter and led them to the houses of the families of the two victims.

“The first was Anna Kayitesi, about two weeks ago. A Rwandan woman who moved here with her family before the war there and married a man over in Nakuru,” Innocent explained. “She had two children. We will go to her parents’ house here in the village. She was visiting them before she died.”

The small mud house he brought them to was tidy and the door was opened by a wizened old man with balding gray hair and stooped posture. Innocent spoke for a few minutes with the man, who didn’t invite them in.

Eventually he turned to Ryenne and Lucien to translate. “His daughter had visited that day as she does every week. His wife has been ill and Anna would come and cook for them and clean the house. That night, she left at her usual time, just after dark, to catch a matatu to Nakuru.”

“A matatu?” Ryenne asked.

“It’s a minivan taxi,” Innocent explained.

“They fill it with as many people as it can hold, comfortably or not, and it’s a pretty cheap way to travel,” Lucien said.

Ryenne narrowed her eyes. How did he know? Was he just showing off?

“So, I’m guessing she didn’t make it onto a matatu. Where’s the stop?”

Innocent asked Anna’s father who pointed toward the west. They all thanked the old man for his time and walked in the direction of the matatu stop.

“Innocent, is there anyone who was on that matatu or waited at the same stop we can ask if they saw Anna or anything that could help us?”

“I can go there tonight at the same time Anna did and ask if anyone saw her that night.”

Ryenne nodded. In the meantime, she glanced around as they walked, looking for signs of a struggle or a clue as to what happened to Anna. At the end of the lane, the sun glinted off something under a shrub. Ryenne bent down and found a gold necklace. “Look at this, guys. Could this have belonged to Anna?” It was a small gold cross dangling from a simple gold chain.

Innocent shrugged. Ryenne put it in her pocket while they finished examining Anna’s path between her parents’ house and the matatu stop. They found nothing else of interest and no one was waiting in the hot sun for a ride. Innocent told them the police had questioned several people in the village and no one had heard or seen anything.

They trudged back to Anna’s parents’ house and Innocent asked her father about the necklace. One look and his face crumpled and tears came to his eyes.

Ryenne put the necklace in the old man’s hand. “We are so very sorry for your loss.”

Leaving Anna’s parents, Innocent took them to another house, closer to the Muteti compound.

“The second death happened last week,” he said with a big sigh. “Mr. Muteti had only just hired him a few days before. His name was Matthew Wanjiru and he was my friend.”

Ryenne stopped walking. “Oh, Innocent, I’m so sorry. You could have told us you would rather not do this for us. I’m sure one of the other men could have acted as a guide today.”

Innocent shook his head. “They do not all speak enough English to interpret for you. And I wanted to come with you, to help you find out what happened to my friend.”

Matthew’s house was similar to the Kayitesi house. Small, tidy, made of mud and all natural materials. A woman of similar age to Eleanor, around mid-forties, answered the door and greeted Innocent warmly with a big smile and a hug. She shook hands with Lucien and Ryenne.

“We’re sorry to disturb you at this difficult time,” Ryenne said. “Can you answer some questions for us to help us find out who did this to your son?”

Mrs. Wanjiru’s smile thinned and she nodded. “Of course, of course, please come in.”

They sat in the small front room on a wooden sofa.

“May I bring you some tea?” Mrs. Wanjiru asked.

“No, thank you,” Lucien said. “We don’t want to put you to any trouble. Can you tell us about the last time you saw your son?”

She took a deep breath. “Matthew had a new job and was very excited. He was on the night shift for the first week and he left a little early because he did not want to be late.”

“Tell us about his new job.” Ryenne already knew what it was, of course, but she wanted to hear it in Matthew’s mother’s own words.

Mrs. Wanjiru stared out the window. “He was hired by Mr. Muteti to guard the compound. I only found out later that he had been hired as extra staff because Mr. Muteti was being threatened. Had I known it at the time, I might not have let him take the job.” Her voice cracked and she pulled a handkerchief from inside the sleeve of her white button-down shirt.

Innocent mumbled something, probably in Gikuyu and left the room. He returned a couple of minutes later with a glass of water. Mrs. Wanjiru took it with a wan smile. She sipped and pulled herself together.

“Had he ever worked as a guard before?” Ryenne asked in a soft voice.

Mrs. Wanjiru shook her head. “No, but he did not want to work in the coffee plantation as his father did. He was not very good at school and did not have many choices. A night guard seemed like a good job for him, and he would get to work with some of his friends.” She smiled at Innocent.

“So, back to that night. He left early for work.”

“Yes.”

Ryenne waited for more but Mrs. Wanjiru didn’t say anything.

“When did you learn about...the attack?” Lucien asked, fidgeting on the couch.

She took another deep breath. “The next morning. Innocent came to tell me the news.”

Ryenne gave Innocent a sharp look. He hadn’t told them this.

“Mr. Muteti sent me to tell her after the police took his body away.”

She looked over at Lucien and raised an eyebrow. This time they had learned even less than earlier with the Rutos and the Kayitesis. Clearly, they were questioning the wrong person.

They took their leave and on the way back to the compound, they interrogated Innocent.

“Why didn’t you tell us you knew more about what happened to Matthew than she did?” Ryenne asked.

“Eh, I was not trying to hide anything,” Innocent insisted. “You asked to meet the families of the victims so I took you to them. That is all.”

“So, who found him at the compound?” Lucien asked.

“We heard a noise at the gate, about thirty minutes after the night shift started. Matthew had not arrived yet so we thought it was him. We opened the gate and he fell into the compound. His back had been propped against the gate, like he was sitting.”

“Who is we?”

“Eh, me, Teddy, Daniel, Joseph, Zachary. And some others who ran away.”

“Did they run because they knew something or maybe even did something to Matthew?”

Innocent shook his head emphatically. “No, no, no, they were scared. The rest of us tried to talk them out of it, but some went right then, before Mr. Muteti even came outside, and others snuck away in the confusion.”

“Did the police search for them?”

“Mmm.”

She turned to Lucien. “Let’s read the police files. We can always talk to some of these guys if we have more questions.”

Lucien agreed. They left Innocent at the gate of the compound and went into the dining room for cold drinks. The files, as Steven had promised, were waiting for them on the table.

They each took one and pored over the notes. There wasn’t much there. After thirty or forty minutes of reading tight handwriting and typewritten pages, Ryenne had had enough. She slapped a hand on the table.

“They don’t even know what kind of animal,” she said with frustration seeping into her voice. “We only know it was a leopard because Moses saw it last night. There’s been no evidence to prove either of the earlier attacks was by a leopard shifter. Why does Steven even think they were carried out by the same person?”

She stopped to take a breath and a sip of lemonade.

Lucien took up a similar line of questioning. “And other than Matthew being an employee of Muteti, what’s the connection between him and the victims? There’s nothing in the file beyond the two bodies being found near his compound. Moses was nowhere near here and worked outside the village. He has no connection to Muteti. Why were these victims chosen by the rogue?”

Ryenne threw her hands up and shook her head. At least she wasn’t alone in her frustration.

But it didn’t get them any further and it wouldn’t stop the next attack.