Treachery in the Yard (6 page)

He nodded again.

“This is the truth?”

“Yes. Wike told me that they had called a plumber for the upstairs washroom.”

“Was he the one who set the bomb off?”

“I wouldn't know. I was at my post when the explosions happened.”

It was easy enough to check. Wike. Interesting. I got up abruptly and went for the door.

“Am I free to go?”

“Yes, thanks,” I told him, and told Ubani to have him released.

I decided to be political. This whole case was political. I needed allies. I decided to call on Captain Akpan, who was waiting in his office. I brought him up to speed.

“Really?” Akpan asked incredulously. “Wike believed the guy was a plumber?”

“Maybe. Maybe he knew all along that this plumber knew nothing about faucets and sinks. I think Wike knows more than he is telling.”

“Did the house need a plumber?”

“Haven't gotten there yet. I thought I'd pass this on right away.”

“I appreciate that.” He sat back, thinking. “There are six house helps and three relations we could question. They have already been interviewed, but without this new information.”

“Femi and I can interview them.”

“Good. Do that. Right away. What else?”

“I have more questions now than before.”

Femi knocked on Akpan's open door. We both turned to look at him.

“One of the two mystery men at the Karibis last night was picked up by patrol officers. Thought you would want to know.”

This was good news. “They're sure he's our man?”

“No one saw their faces earlier, but he was caught sneaking around the Karibi home.”

“When?”

“Early this morning, before the sun was up. He couldn't give a straight story why he was in the area.”

“Excellent. Where is he now?”

“Not here. That's the bad news. Barrister Osamu came and took him on bail.”

“Howell Osamu? Same Osamu? I saw him leaving with a younger man when I came in this morning.”

“Same. Same Osamu. Same young man. His name is Thompson. If that's his real name.”

What interest would a high-end lawyer like Howell Osamu have in such a fellow? “I want to check on Osamu. I want to know what his interest is in this Thompson.”

Captain Akpan shook his head. “Go after Osamu? Is that a good idea? What do we have on this guy? Nothing; just loitering. Osamu will be only too glad to chew your ass off if you make a charge against his client without any evidence.”

“I'll take that chance.”

“There's more,” Femi said. “We received a call from Judge Karibi. I just heard.”

“And?”

“Our men are on the way. I don't know the details yet. The staff sergeant passed it on.”

“I don't like any of this, Femi. I'm going over to the Karibis. Do you have his number?” Femi checked his notebook and gave it to me. I dialed it on my cell. No answer.

In my car, I tried his phone again. On the third ring, it was answered. “Judge Karibi, I'm concerned about your call,” I said immediately.

“Who is this?”

“Detective Peterside.”

“This is Staff Sergeant Okoro, detective. Judge Karibi doesn't want to talk to anyone right now.”

“Thanks, sergeant. Too bad for the judge. Put him on now.”

There was only a slight pause before I heard the judge. “Detective?”

“I'm driving toward your house now. I am concerned about your call. The man found in your backyard this morning. He's on the loose again.”

He sighed. “You are too late.”

There was a pause, and Okoro was back. “Detective, you don't know?”

“Know what?”

“The judge's wife is dead. He found her ten minutes ago, in the kitchen.”

“Murdered?”

“Definitely.”

“I'll be there in a few minutes. I'm in the Rumuokwuta, round about.”

“Yes, sir.”

I don't like murder investigations when the bodies pile up. You have to spend a lot of time climbing over the bodies to get to the truth.

Staff Sergeant Okoro walked over as I got out of my car at the judge's house.

“When he came home nobody answered the door. He and his driver found Mrs. Karibi dead in the kitchen.”

“Where's he now?”

“In an upstairs bedroom. I have an officer with him.”

“How did she die?”

“Beaten. Head bashed in. The pathologist is on the way. There's more.”

I wiped off the sweat from my forehead, the ever-present sweat, the ever-present heat. “More? Like what?”

“The maid was killed, too. I think she died from a hit on the head. We found them both in the kitchen.”

“What does the crime scene say?” I asked as we walked into the house.

“Judge Karibi found the front door locked. The gardener said he was relaxing in the boys' quarters, listening to music on
headphones. Says he didn't hear a thing. The house isn't ransacked, no signs of forced entry. Looks like they gained entry through the kitchen. We found signs of a struggle in the kitchen, a chair overturned, and a table on its end.”

I walked through the ground floor of the quiet house with him. There was blood on the kitchen floor.

“We found two distinct pairs of shoe prints in the backyard, going to and coming from the kitchen door.”

If Thompson had murdered two women, chances were he had not been alone.

Dr. Lazarus Onwuchekwa, one of our pathologists, was bent over Mrs. Karibi's body, while the crime scene boys were taking photos. The doctor looked up. “Good day, detective.”

“Is this how you like to start your day?”

He shrugged. “The pay is good.”

I checked on the rest of the search, which had been done on the house and grounds. The front door was clean, but there was blood around the back door, and shoe prints in the backyard.

“Anyone talk to the gateman?” I asked Okoro. He shook his head. “Get him here. We need to know where he was when all this happened. And Judge Karibi's driver, too, I have a few questions for him.”

I found the judge in a bedroom upstairs, sitting quietly on his bed, an officer in a chair across the room. He looked stunned. “Sorry, judge. I need to ask some questions.”

He was staring ahead. “Now? Can't it wait, man?”

“I know. And I am sorry. But it cannot wait, not if we are going to catch whoever did this.”

He looked at me now. It was not a look I ever wanted to see again. He did not want to say a word—but he was a judge, after all, and
knew.
“I got a threatening call in my office. A man's voice,
telling me that my wife should keep her mouth closed. I told him she had already given her evidence. I was worried, so I came home early. The door was locked. That was not unusual, of course. But no one opened it, even after I knocked several times. Miriam, our maid, should have answered. I got out my keys and had my driver accompany me. At first, the house seemed abandoned. But I heard the television in the living room. I hoped Naomi had gone to the kitchen or washroom. But I found her on the kitchen floor. After that, everything was a blur. I think my driver called the police.”

“Did the phone caller say anything else?”

“Just what I've told you. No name; I did not recognize his voice.”

I like being tough but I could not bring myself to ask him anything else. I left him sitting quietly with the police officer keeping him company. The driver corroborated his story. The gateman had nothing to add except that he had observed a white Toyota truck driving around the neighborhood around ten in the morning. He thought they were probably looking for an address and were lost. There were two men inside. A huge guy was driving, and a younger, thin man was in the passenger's seat.

“Thompson,” I muttered to myself. The gateman must have seen the expression on my face, for fear jumped into his eyes as the realization hit him: the occupants of the white truck must have been the killers. Now that this happened, he had to have been thinking he should have alerted the police about the suspicious men.

I let that sink in. He looked reproached enough to make me believe he had a lot of guilt weighing on his conscience. He huffed a sad breath and looked at the other officers standing around when I interrogated him. He must have been thinking of arrest. Poor guy. He was miserable. I left him to go find Okoro.

When I found Okoro, he passed on what the pathologist told
him. “Mrs. Karibi's throat was slashed. The maid was hit in the back of the head. Laz said she was hit in the back of her head with a blunt object. Maybe wood, he thought: round, like a small club. Hard to tell exactly what happened, but it looks like the maid was killed first, maybe right in front of the wife seeing how the judge's wife fell next to the maid, over some of the maid's blood from the head wound.”

“Her death meant only one thing. She was right about the driver of the white Peugeot 305 being the bomber.” I pulled out a St. Morris and lit it.

“What makes you think that?”

“She saw the bomber. And was very public about it. She was the only one who can positively identify the bomber. This was not a burglary where someone was accidentally killed. They came for her.”

The case was getting complicated. I had a hunch a lot of what had happened was tied in with Thompson, and perhaps Osamu. Finding Thompson was critical, and his bail form possibly had clues. It was so much nicer when it was just politicians trying to kill each other. It was a long, thoughtful drive back to headquarters.

A half an hour later, back at headquarters, I asked for Thompson's bail form. But the desk sergeant had other ideas about the form when I approached him. He was old enough to be my father. In a condescending way he said, simply, “You might want to clear this with Chief. Howell Osamu is powerful.”

“Definitely. He is the best ass-crack lawyer around. Any ass that needs a lawyer takes a crack at him.”

“Just because you are a detective does not mean I have to laugh at your bad jokes.” He sounded a lot like my father.

“Sergeant, I don't have to clear anything with Chief.”

“Really? I love it when you talk like that. Gives me a lot of exciting yelling to look forward to.”

“Are you refusing to give me the bail form?”

“You could put the entire department in trouble.”

“You have a problem with my investigation style?”

“Heavens no.”

“Good. The bail form, then.”

“Oh yes, the bail form. One minute. Mr. Detective.” He slowly—very slowly—walked to a row of old wooden filing cabinets, and looked through the recent folders until he found one. He took the bail bond form from the folder and handed it to me, accompanied by a sarcastic grin and a raised eyebrow.

There was no address for Thompson in the file—hardly a surprise. I would have to get the address off Osamu, his lawyer. I handed the file back.

A few minutes later, I was parking outside Osamu's law firm. It was a nice little hornet for the superdeluxe lawyer—a four-story modern office block. His office was the whole of the second floor, all of which was Osamu and Associates. His secretary looked up from her computer as I walked out of the elevator.

“Nice dress,” I told her.

She had a smile like Dracula except her teeth were not as sharp. I decided not to bother with the charm. “I am Detective Tamunoemi Peterside,” I said, showing her my badge. “I'm here to see Barrister Howell Osamu.”

“One minute, please.” She was wearing a hands-free headphone/mike. Classy. You don't usually see such things in Nigeria—they are expensive. She pressed a button on the intercom. “Sir, there's a police detective here.”

I waited. She listened. She looked up at me and smiled as
pleasantly as she could manage. “I'm sorry, he's busy. But you can fill out the visitor's form and we can see when he's free for today.”

I smiled back, already moving around her toward the inner office, where Osamu was. “Excuse me, sir, you can't go in there,” but I did.

Barrister Osamu was not exactly hard at work. He sat with his feet up on his desk, watching television. He looked up with a scowl, not pleased to be interrupted with his important work. “Who the hell are you?”

“Detective Tamunoemi Peterside, Homicide, State Police.”

He sighed wearily and looked over my shoulder at his secretary, who followed me in. “Carol, you can go back to your desk. Detective Peterside here won't need anything. He won't stay long.”

“Thank you, sir.” Carol closed the door and left us alone, after giving me a nasty look.

Osamu turned his attention back to me. “Well?”

“I have a few questions about Thompson, the young man you took on bail this morning.”

“Make it snappy, I don't have time to waste.”

“I'm trying. Give me his address.”

“His address is my office.” He looked at me more carefully. “My friend,” he finally said, “I assume you know the law if you are a police detective. Mr. Thompson is my client. There are limits to what I must tell you. But, if I knew his address, I would tell you that. However, his address is my office because I do not have any other address for him.”

“I'm looking for a killer.”

“Excellent, that is what you are supposed to do. May I ask who this killer might be?”

“The gentleman you took on bail this morning. Mr. Thompson.”

“I am not aware of a homicide charge against my client.”

“There isn't one, yet.”

“You must know better than to barge into my office like this. Have you been a detective very long? Do you intend to remain a detective very long?”

“I want Mr. Thompson for questioning in the murder of Mrs. Naomi Karibi. You may know her as the wife of Judge Karibi.”

Finally, I had his real attention. He sat up straight. Well, it is an attention grabber for a lawyer to hear his client may have murdered a judge's wife. “Karibi's wife? What happened? When?”