Free Juba Good by Vicki Delany Page A

No weapon. This was a training mission, remember. I was here to observe. To offer comments and helpful ideas when needed.
    A year without the Glock, and I still felt like I had a giant hole in my side.
    Deng carried an AK-47. He was former army, SPLA—Sudan People’s Liberation Army. At first a band of guerillas, fighting for independence from Sudan. Now the army of South Sudan. He’d spent his time in the bush during the war, doing things I couldn’t imagine. Things I didn’t want to imagine. The long and brutal civil war had made these people hard. Some of them didn’t handle it too well. Deng did. He had a quick smile and a hearty laugh. He wanted to be a good police officer. I’d asked him once if he had a wife and children. A mask settled over his face. He yelled at the driver of a scooter who hadn’t come at all close to us. I never asked again.
    The woman was lying at the side of the road, up against a concrete wall. Her skin was as black as midnight. Blacker. An earring made of red glass hung from her right ear. A short tight black dress and red stilettos were clues to her occupation. Another dead hooker in the dusty red streets of Juba.
    This was the fourth. If she was a hooker. If the same person had been responsible. The fourth in three weeks.
    Deng snarled at the security guard who’d found her. The man quickly stepped back. He knew his place.
    I used my Maglite to illuminate the scene. A white ribbon was wrapped around her neck. Wrapped very tightly around her neck. As white and pure as the snow on Kokanee Glacier in midwinter. Same as the others.
    â€œWhat do you see?” I asked Deng. That’s the training part of my job.
    â€œA white ribbon.”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œDo we have a serial killer here, Ray?”
    â€œI’m beginning to think we do.”

Chapter Two
    Forensic rules of evidence tend to be a bit wobbly in South Sudan. We wouldn’t be joined by a crew of techs in hairnets and white booties. No police tape. No fingertip search of the vicinity. No lab analysis. No DNA samples taken. No databases checked for similar cases. The body would be carted away and that would be the end of that.
    Deng and I did what we could to examine the scene.
    It looked as if she’d been taken by surprise. Strangled with the white ribbon. Left where she fell. No defensive wounds on her hands or arms. No signs of sexual activity.
    Deng crouched down. “What does the ribbon mean?” He reached out one hand and ran his fingers over it very lightly.
    â€œI don’t know. It means something to him. He might not even know what. Sometimes they leave a sign. Sometimes they take trophies.”
    â€œTrophies?”
    â€œYeah. I don’t see anything missing here. Serial killers usually have a signature. His is the white ribbon.”
    Deng shook his head. When you’ve seen so much death and dying, it’s hard to believe someone would do it for…fun?
    At a guess—and it would never be more than a guess—she’d been dead about two hours. Not many bugs yet. No rigor mortis.
    I’d once tried to explain rigor mortis to Deng and his colleagues. They’d nodded very politely. I’d felt like a total fool. These guys had seen more dead bodies than any undertaker in Vancouver. They knew the process of decay, thank you very much.
    Sometimes they could be so goddamned polite. Why didn’t they just tell me to shut the hell up? Suggest we take the time allocated for the lecture to go for a beer?
    Deng and I shone our flashlights around the area. I made notes in my notebook. And then we left. What else could we do? The carcass would be loaded into the back of a van and that would be the end of her.
    The bend in the road was close to Notos. A good bar with a great Indian kitchen. I suggested we stop in for a drink. Deng looked surprised. We UN advisors told them drinking on the job was a bad thing. I winked and said it was all part