POLICE in Livingstone have arrested a 29-year-old murderer and interrupted the vacation he had been enjoying with the loot he stole after murdering a teacher in Chifunabuli District three months ago.
Police closed in on fugitive, Chris Chisote after he shared photos of his enjoyment with a relative via WhatsApp.
Dressed in nothing else but a blue satin boxer short with bright yellow sunflower prints, Chisote lay on the couch of a popular tourist resort on the banks of river Zambezi in Livingstone.
And with every sip of an ice cold Mosi he took, he watched as the sun’s rays tantalisingly kissed the river as the water rose high with every wave that passed blocking the beautiful tequila silver sun from his view.
Such reminded Chisote of his times on Lake Bangweulu in his native Chifunabuli District.
Scenes so beautiful brought the corner of his mouth to touch his moustache in an involuntary smile that only he could understand for what he had done to ‘achieve’ such a good life.
With a sense of pride for his ‘achievement’, Chisote turned his eyes to Inonge, his newly-acquired Livingstone girlfriend; slim, tall with a complexion of fine tea who lay on the other bench sucking on her grapes and her body twinkling in the evening sunshine…..he muttered to himself, ‘why did I waste all those years on short Luapula girls…only if I had known early what lay here in the south’
Such bliss sent him into a half sleep; he could hear the waves on the Zambezi rise and then come crashing down in the river below despite his eyes being closed.
But, as you know, no orgasm lasts forever.
And in a twinkling of an eye, without warning, Chisote was awakened from his bliss with a slap whose crack sent all the other tourists, Inonge inclusive, scampering in all directions fearing that it might be the sound of a suicide belt detonating as it so often does at International tourist resorts.
Unable, to understand what was happening, Chisote refused to open his eyes in denial thinking it was just a dream, unbeknown to him, three more cracking slaps in quick succession followed smoking him out his dreamland on to the floor.
As he lay on the floor screaming in pain, he realised that such a slap could only come from a trained slapper; a Lilayi graduate.
Before he could soak in anymore free sunlight, Chisote was airlifted by two cops as the other one concentrated on continuously slapping his half-naked body.
To the surprise of many, the fine gentlemen who some two minutes ago was speaking some fine English to his lady was now wailing in Aushi protesting his innocence and calling for his mother to intervene.
After the police had left, the tourist emerged from behind the bushes where they had been hiding and demanded that the resort manager investigate why their fellow tourist had been ‘abducted’.
The result of the inquiry was shocking to all.
The inquiry by the resort’s manager from police on why their big-spending client was bundled in such fashion revealed that Chisote was an ex-inmate who in Chifunabuli District of Luapula Province used a pounding stick (pestle) to kill Annette Lutanda Namugala, a local teacher who was sub-contracted by government to distribute Social Cash Transfer payments to the unbanked poor and old folks of the area.
To support his lavish lifestyle, Chisote robbed Annette after killing her and if the pounding stick did not achieve its aim, he finished her off with a manual strangulation.
The K91, 000.00 that Chisote was spending on his lavish lifestyle was a proceed of the gruesome act.
With Zambian winter fast approaching, Chisote today sits in a lonely cell of Mansa awaiting formalities of trial in the High Court with a possibility of facing the hangman or at best a permanent stay in maximum prison.
With no Zambezi river to view or a female’s body to behold, all his eyes can now see are filthy walls plastered with insults written by former occupants whose only paint was their fecal matter and their fingers as paint brushes.
Indeed, crime does not pay.
©Kalemba March 30, 2021
