Treachery in the Yard (2 page)

She said that she had seen the man walking into the compound before the explosion. How long before, she was not sure. She had been relaxing on her patio. She saw him park and walk into the compound. She had gotten a cell phone call, and was talking to her daughter when the garage blew apart. The man ran from the scene to his car, holding a white kerchief to his face. He was bleeding from the ear. She had time to get his license number and write it down. My kind of woman—well, she was a judge's wife.

“I didn't see which way he drove off, but he was the one who set the bomb. Why else would he have run away? I had thought he was a politician who had come to see Okpara, like the rest of them. People often come on a pilgrimage to Okpara. There was nothing strange about him, until after the explosion.”

“What makes you think he set off the bomb? If he set it off, wouldn't he have first gotten away?”

“He ran out. He was bleeding. If he was legitimate, why was he running? I was just ready to leave the patio to see where he drove off when I heard the second explosion.”

“Second explosion? There was a second?”

“Oh yes. Bigger than the first. That was when the garage caved in and caught fire.”

Femi and I interviewed, separately, more witnesses. Other people also saw the man enter the Peugeot immediately after the explosions, his ear bleeding. The car had been parked near the Karibis' home.

Darlington's group had finished their initial examination of
the blast scene and was in the process of collecting evidence by the time we were through interviewing witnesses. He thought the bomb was on a raised platform inches from the floor—otherwise the impact crater would have been larger—and that it may have detonated prematurely. He thought there was nothing tricky about the bomb, that it probably detonated on a table. However, a larger blast followed, in another part of the garage—that was the one that took the garage out, along with part of the adjoining house.

As I finished my talk with Darlington, I noticed Okpara's personal assistant, Stephen Wike, walking with Kola Badmus, a newspaper reporter I knew. Wike was wearing a long-sleeved buba, pants, and a Fila hat.

He looked nervous. Maybe he was upset that his boss had been nearly blown apart, maybe it was something else. Today, though, he seemed to have lost his ability to remain unruffled. I approached him.

“Who are you?” he asked sharply. “I have a general press conference in about thirty minutes. You can ask your questions then. I'm doing an exclusive here.”

I brought out my badge. “Homicide. Detective Tamunoemi Peterside. I want to ask you about the bombing.”

He backed off a bit. “You're police?”

Kola did not say anything, but he did not back away, either. He stayed, listening.

I put away the badge. “You were in the house?”

“Yes. It was terrifying. I'm lucky to be alive.”

“Any ideas who was behind it?”

“No.”

“Did Okpara receive any threatening calls or letters?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Who hated him this much?”

“No one I know of. I don't think his opponents would try to kill him, at least not like this.” Something about his tone was not right. He was afraid, of me. Why would he be worried about the police?

“What about Dr. Puene?”

“I can't see it. Yes, Puene is an opponent. But I can't imagine he'd try to murder anyone. That's absurd.” However, he failed the eye-contact test.

This was getting interesting.

“I'd like to talk with you some more later,” I told him. He just nodded and, with apparent relief, went back to answering Kola's questions as I walked away.

It would be hours before forensics came up with more than what we already knew. I decided to pay a visit to Dr. Puene, Okpara's opponent.

I phoned Staff Sergeant Okoro and asked him to run the license-plate number Mrs. Karibi gave us. “Femi and I are on our way to Dr. Puene's. Keep any information you get on that car until we get back. Only I should get it. Clear, sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

Okoro was older than even Chief and me. He had joined the force as a young school leaver thirty years ago, and was billed to retire soon. He rose through the ranks to become a staff sergeant. An experienced police officer but a dweeb. We all wondered what he did with his money. He did not buy clothes and had worn one pair of shoes for as long as I could remember. He had left his family in the village to live a better life, but he was not a bad man, just selfish. He was honest, friendly, and competent—at least when he was sober.

I sighed, then took out my cell and phoned Freda Agboke,
my girlfriend. I had to tell her I would miss lunch. The explosion and investigation were all the explanation she needed. We agreed to do dinner instead. Then I went back to my car with Femi, and we drove to Rumuokoro, to speak with Dr. Puene.

The estate in Rumuokoro had no paved streets, but the owners had started paving them on their own, without government help. They had the money to do it. They even had industrial generating sets for a private power supply—there were regular power failures throughout Port Harcourt. They sunk boreholes and built overhead water tanks for storage. They even arranged their own security. Rumuokoro was its own little world, filled with big people.

At Dr. Puene's, a uniformed guard stood in front of a big red-painted iron gate.

“Police,” I told the guard. When he just stood there, I showed him my badge. He opened the gate.

The compound was big, with three buildings. Paradise on earth . . . for Port Harcourt, anyway. The buildings were big enough so each was a compound of its own. Painted a cream color, with dark red roofing, the buildings looked alike, differing only in size
and shape. A gleaming black Toyota Limited SUV with tinted glass stood in the driveway. When I got out of the car I straightened my suit. Best to look nice for the rich. We got out and started for the front door of the largest building, not wasting any time with the supplicants milling about, waiting to see the doctor, hoping for some largesse.

A mobile policeman in a very crisp uniform and holding a combat rifle guarded the front door. He looked too well fed to be Nigerian police. Who said living in the court of the superrich doesn't have benefits? Not me.

I again pulled out my badge. “Police. Here to see Dr. Puene.”

He saluted.

That amused me, but I said, “Thank you, sergeant.” It is always good to be polite to people bigger than you are.

We followed him inside to the foyer, which looked even richer than outside. The furniture was all imported, the curtains were Italian silk, very expensive paintings hung on the walls—or at least, they looked expensive. They certainly were big and had plenty of colors.

The inside walls were done in a cream color. The furniture matched, in leather. There was a crafted leafless tree with several lighted bulbs, all imported, illuminating the foyer. The airconditioning was wonderful.

If the foyer was exquisite, the living room was even more so. I walked through a large sculpted archway to enter the room. It was huge. Here, the furniture was all white leather with yellow lace covers. There was a wrought-iron center table, a cream marbled floor, a chocolate brown, wooden-paned ceiling fan with gold trimmings. The red wool curtains were Italian. More expensive paintings.

Strangest, there was a fireplace. That was a good laugh. A fireplace in the tropics? Were these folks expecting it to snow in
Port Harcourt? Some people can't give up their borrowed cultures.

That led me to wondering about Mrs. Puene, who was originally from California. Rumor had it that she had returned to America after just three weeks of slugging it out here in the tropical heat. She had come down with sunstroke and had rushed back to a cooler climate. She had married the young Nigerian doctor, who was studying at a university in the States, and, as their wedding gift, her father had solely financed Puene's private practice in Los Angeles. After a long time there, they left their sixteen-year-old son and fourteen-year-old daughter back in the States and moved to Nigeria this past April. Bad time to be in Africa for Mrs. Puene, a first-timer. The heat peaks at that time of the year. No one blamed the white woman. She never thought that marrying an African would mean having to actually live in Africa.

We came to a large room. The sergeant entered in front of us, announced us, and then we stood in the presence of the man himself.

Dr. Puene had a high forehead and a receding chin, a bad combination. He was about six feet tall and oozed power. He had keen brown eyes and thick black hair. Clean shaven and robust, he struck me as a natural-born leader, at least in his well-tailored American suit. He would have made the late Afro juju maestro from Nigeria cry. The way he carried himself spoke of a man who had surmounted all sorts of challenges, a man in charge. A medical doctor, successful by all standards. And an America-trained gynecologist.

He had started his campaign shortly after returning to Nigeria. He said the least he could do was listen to his people, opening a new era for the Ogoni in the politics of Rivers State. The Ogonis' history was an ongoing struggle against the degradation of their
lands as a result of oil drilling, the suffering of their people, governmental neglect, lack of social services, and the political marginalization they endured in Nigeria. But he struck me as the type who was probably not as interested in opening up opportunities for his people as he was driven to get power. To me, he seemed the type of man who was prepared to succeed at any cost, including bombing his opponent. He also was no fool, and not a man given to errors. If he had planned the bombing, he would have ensured it would not be traced back to him.

“Good morning, Doctor,” I said, walking up to him. “Sorry to bother you. I'm Homicide Detective Peterside and this is Detective Olufemi Adegbola. State police.”

He smiled and shook our hands as if he meant it. “Very good, then. What can I do for you, officers? I don't have too much time, you saw the people waiting outside.”

“It shouldn't be long. We have some questions.”

“You said you are Homicide? Why do you want to talk to me? Who's your Oga?”

We call our superior officers
Oga
as a mark of respect. “I'm sure you know.”

“Yes. I do.” His face was hard to read—he would smile whether he liked or hated you. “I have achieved a certain station in life, detective. If Homicide wants to speak to me for some reason, I'll talk to your Oga.”

I ignored the barely veiled threat. “Okpara's house has been bombed.”

“I've been phoned.”

“Do you know anything about it?”

“Of course not. The call was the first I'd heard.”

“You're running against Okpara to be the candidate for governorship for your party.”

“So?”

“You have a motive. We have to follow up on all possibilities.”

He shook his head, dismissive. “This is a waste of my time. We are political rivals, not gangsters.” He walked away, taking out a cell phone. “This conversation is over.”

Puene, like many politicians in Nigeria, had difficulty seeing things from outside his own perspective. He had little patience with people who did not see things his way. He showed himself to be a forceful, intimidating, and overbearing individual. This had the potential to be a real problem for the yankee-trained doctor-turned-politician, as it could cost him allies.

Well, maybe interviewing him was a stupid wild guess, but it felt good to needle the jerk. We walked out, Femi trying to be invisible. The primaries were twelve days away. Violence was always in the air to begin with, and this race was close.

It was a long drive back to headquarters. We took Ikwerre Road to Diobu. By Nigerian standards, the roads were smooth. By any other standards, as Bette Davis had said, you had to be prepared for a bumpy ride. Large potholes loomed everywhere and were hard to avoid, the asphalt washed away by erosion to expose red earth.

There were scattered stalls along the roads. People chatted in the roadside markets. Drivers honked impatiently while noise from the many repair shops was deafening; it sounded like a thousand voices were shouting and cursing all at once. The carbon monoxide pumped into the atmosphere from the car and truck exhaust pipes made it difficult to breathe. The public housing was situated close to the roads, with garbage littering the streets. When the rain came, it got very flooded, making it difficult for cars to pass and a living hell for pedestrians.

I sighed. Port Harcourt is not all about filth and dirt and
disarray, but it certainly seemed like it much of the time. Most people lived in stench, say along Creek Road, the center of Port Harcourt. It was much nicer to live in neighborhoods that had playgrounds, where the noise level was low, the taps flowed with water, and working streetlights were taken for granted.

But that was in the Government Reservation Area. Elsewhere, tap water was unreliable, forcing many people to rely on water tankers and
Mairuwa
(water hawkers). Power outages were almost routine in the rest of Port Harcourt, where you could at times go for days without electricity. Too bad for those who did not live in the Government Reservation Areas.

We soon arrived at headquarters, and I was able to stop philosophizing, and return to work.

When Femi and I walked in, a news story on the Okpara bombing was on the TV in the common room. Mrs. Karibi, the judge's wife, was interviewed about what she had seen. That was too bad—I did not like my witnesses exposed.

It was past six in the evening when I called it a day.

“I'm off,” I told Femi. “Get on with the report. I'll review it when you're finished.”

“I'll have it ready tomorrow morning.”

“And Femi . . .”

“Yes?”

“We'll have to keep an eye on Wike, Okpara's assistant. He didn't act normal. Maybe it was the bombing that had him jumpy, but it felt like something else. He knew more than he let on.”