A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn

flames breathing onto his face and the uncomfortable feeling that he was outside the circle of those selected by God to be pure.
    “I read about it in the papers,” he said, and moved on to the next photo. Paul, as big and thick necked as his brothers, in army uniform, then a Pretorius family portrait no more than a year or two old. He focused on the youngest son, who was finer boned than his brothers, with a sensitive mouth and messy blond hair that fell over his forehead. The captain and his wife had run out of brawn by the time it came to making Louis.
    “An Englishman came through town with his camera and charged one pound to take a photo. We have one in our house showing me with my ma and sisters.”
    They moved through to the kitchen, where two black maids laid cold meat and slabs of bread onto a giant platter. A third maid, white haired and ancient, sat at the small table and sobbed in quiet bursts.
    “That’s Aggie,” Hansie whispered. “She’s been with the family since Henrick was a baby. She’s not so good anymore, but the captain wouldn’t let her go.”
    They passed a dining room dominated by a wooden table and chairs that carried a whiff of the Bavarian forest. Large windows looked out onto the vine-covered back veranda where a group of older men, rough farmers in khaki, stood together in a tight bunch.
    “The fathers-in-law,” Hansie explained. They stepped out of the house and onto the veranda. Six children, from knee to shoulder height, played with a wooden spinning top that wobbled and bounced between them. A young black girl rocked a fat white baby on her knee. The Pretorius brothers held their own council out on the garden lawn. All except Louis.
    Emmanuel approached them. Erich started straight in.
    “Hansie here says it was the old Jew who looked Pa over. How’s that?”
    “Checked his papers myself. Everything was in order. He was qualified to conduct the examination.”
    He waited for angry denials, but none came. The brothers stared back at him, expressions unchanged.
    “Pa was right.” Henrick’s speech was a beat too slow, thanks to an afternoon of steady drinking. “He always said the old Jew had something to hide.”
    “Shifty,” Erich threw in. “Who else but the old Jew would lie about something like that, hey? Probably doesn’t know how to tell the truth. No practice.”
    The Pretorius brothers were halfway to being wrecked, and in no hurry to slow the ride.
    “Did your father and the old Jew have a disagreement lately?”
    “Not for a while,” Henrick said. “Pa went to see him a couple of times this past year just to talk to him about how things work here in Jacob’s Rest. Give him guidelines, like. To keep him clear of trouble.”
    “Good of him,” Emmanuel said mildly, recalling Zweigman’s comment about the captain dropping in for a “friendly chat.” “You think the old Jew resented your father’s help?”
    Henrick shrugged. “Maybe.”
    “Enough to kill him over?” Emmanuel plowed ahead, exploiting the brothers’ relaxed state of mind. Sober, it was hard to find a wedge into them.
    Erich snorted. “Him, kill my pa?”
    “The old Jew’s scared of guns,” Henrick explained. “Won’t touch them. Won’t even sell bullets from his shop.”
    “He couldn’t strangle a chicken without help,” Johannes said.
    “Couldn’t piss on a fire without his wife aiming it for him,” Erich added with a mean-spirited giggle that set the brothers laughing.
    Emmanuel let the laughter subside. In a few hours, when the whiskey bravado had worn off, they’d feel the full weight of their father’s murder, and remember that the killer still walked free among them.
    “Pa, look. Look, see,” a boy of about ten called out from the veranda as the spinning top wobbled down the stairs and rolled onto the grass. The children followed in a rush of high-pitched squeals.
    Henrick grabbed a tiny girl and threw her into the air. The other children crowded around, begging