Treachery in the Yard (3 page)

“Sure, boss. Whatever you say.”

With that I drove off. By now it was 6:20. I went home to change into something more relaxed, then drove to Freda's.

Her place was far enough from the refinery fires that kept part of Port Harcourt unnaturally lit so that it was dark by the time I got to her place, dark enough so if you looked up, you could see stars. I rarely looked up at the stars—what was the point? Freda's apartment was a three-bedroom modern bungalow, part of a building complex wired to a giant industrial generator that supplied private power in case of outages. Her complex also provided clean water, pumping it into a massive overhead tank. The rent was high, high enough to keep civil servants, police detectives, and other ordinary people outside, looking in—just as we might look up at the stars we could never reach. But Freda could afford it. Her job paid very well. She could afford leather seats in her living room; mine were done in fabric. The seats were more like a very long cream-colored couch, placed in an L shape.

I never understood her dislike for paintings. Nothing hung on the walls except for a clock. Rubber-tiled flooring matched the color of the walls.

Where she had really gone overboard was her array of electronics. A twenty-one-inch flat-screen TV, the latest on the market, accompanied by an LG mini–theater system. Her bedroom was a lush ash with a white carpet, with an Arabian rug beside the mahogany bed. By her bedside, on a small night table, was a portrait of Christ with the crown of thorns.

Her kitchen showed the most effort. It made my own kitchen look like the cheaply furnished room it was. She had a standing gas cooker with an oven for baking, a superdeluxe Zanussi fridge, and a multifunction food processor that looked ready for space travel.

She opened the door, wearing the dress I had first seen her in. “This is for our anniversary,” she said, smiling.

I swallowed. I'd thought our anniversary was next week.

“Like it?” she asked.

“Of course. I remember that night. I cherish it. Just as I cherish you.”

Without any gift, I then avoided saying anything else by kissing her. I did not fool her for a second. She laughed as soon as our lips parted. I think I had enough smarts to look embarrassed. We went down the stairs to where my car was parked. I did not like it that she was always a step ahead of me. And she always was.

“I'm taking you somewhere exotic for the night. You'll love it.” Where, I didn't know yet, of course.

“Oh?”

“Somewhere cozy,” I said as we got into the car.

“Where, exactly?” She was on to me, but we both knew that.

“If I tell you, it won't be a surprise.”

I thought quickly as I drove, trying to look as if I knew where I was going—I was probably going straight to the hell reserved for inattentive boyfriends. I thought about the dress she had put on and, in a flash of semi-brilliance, took her to the place we'd gone for our first date—Protea Hotel.

I kept us going with sweet talk until we pulled up outside. When she saw where we were, her lips gave me a gift. “This is the most romantic thing you have done in a long time,” she said. She appeared happy; that was all that counted. I would accept being shallow right now.

We went inside. It was exquisite as ever and expensive, but I didn't mind the hole it bored in my wallet; it was better than Freda boring a hole in my head.

It cost quite a few naira, definitely on the pricey end for
continental food. If we had tried other places we could have had the same food for less, but that was not nearly as romantic. This was the scene of our first date.

After dinner I took her home, stopping the car in front of her apartment, engine still running, headlights still on.

She looked at me, seeing the message.

Should I go in? I had not remembered our anniversary: what did that say? “I have to go back to work I brought home from the office. I talked about today over dinner. You know. Politicians blowing each other up. The pressure's on and Chief wants his report.”

She knew I was lying. I could tell she was hurt, but she just gave me a kiss and left me there. Maybe she'd known all along. Maybe she had her own doubts about the relationship. Maybe she knew how much rope to give me.

I drove on, wondering why I was such a son of a bitch. My cell phone rang. It was Femi.

“Night duty received a call from the Karibis. Remember them?”

I didn't like what I heard in his voice. “Sure. The witness.”

“Five minutes ago, some people tried to break into their home.”

“I'll see you there.”

I was at the Karibis' twenty minutes later. Across the street, the bombing scene was dark and bleak. Femi and other police officers met me as I drove up and parked.

“What happened?” I asked Femi as I got out of my car.

“Someone tried to break in through the back door. His dog barking woke up Judge Karibi. He and his wife were in an upstairs bedroom. He looked through the window and saw a light flash in the backyard.”

“And?”

“He called out, thinking it was his night watchman. It wasn't. The torchlight was turned off right away, and he saw two men run from the compound and spring over the wall but he saw neither clearly enough to provide a good description.”

The Karibis were sitting in the back of a patrol car. They felt safer there. I approached them.

“My colleague told me some people tried to break into your house.”

I heard the story straight from Karibi. When he had tried to call the police, the line was dead. He ended up using his cell to call us. The backyard light was off, and I saw a moment later that it and all the other outside bulbs had been broken.

If the assailant was merely a thief, it would be one of those coincidences that only happen in poorly written novels. Of all the witnesses we had spoken to earlier, only Mrs. Karibi had been on TV. None of the other homes had been broken into, and the Karibis' car remained untouched, parked just outside the fence, an easy touch.

The lead officer left some policemen to guard the Karibis' home and patrol officers to comb the neighborhood with instructions to arrest and detain any stragglers until we verified their identities and what they were doing in the area.

It was time to go.

I drove to my apartment. It had two bedrooms, which was good, although I did not really need the second one. It was the best I could afford on my salary of N18,000 per month (without bribes).

The whole neighborhood was dark.

The power had gone out again. Most outages lasted around two hours. Old transformers breaking down cause some power outages; those outages can take a day or two to correct.

Power outages are more than sitting in the dark. The refrigerator stops running and everything starts to thaw and get warm. Not good if you live in a tropical climate. The air becomes stuffy and extremely hot.

It had been a stinker of a day.

I woke the next morning, got out of bed and into my routine: wash, dress, put on my holster and slip in my piece, put my badge in my pocket, grab the car keys from the side table, finally let myself out of the apartment. But I grumbled all the way through. I was running late because my alarm clock had not turned on: the power was still off. This was common. Often you had to pay a bribe to get electricity initially turned on for your home. When the electricity was on, it was expensive and unreliable.

When I left, as always I wedged a piece of paper in the door frame. If, when I returned, the paper was no longer crammed in the door frame, but lying on the floor, I knew my apartment had an unexpected visitor. The paper was my little borrowing from an old James Bond movie,
Dr. No.
Bond used a strand of hair, I use paper. Simple, but effective—and necessary. You never know who
might visit you when you are not there. To survive, you must be one step ahead.

I stepped outside. The morning was fresh and warm. It would get hot before long, and then you would sweat under the sun, but for now, I savored the morning's freshness as I breathed the warm air.

I walked over to my car and got into it, pushing the water bottles off the driver's seat—in this heat, it was a good idea to always have a drink ready, and I kept a supply of water always available. I backed out and made some good progress until I ran into a holdup coming close to the Flyover at the Isaac Boro Park.

I called Femi to tell him I would be late and he told me Chief wanted to see me as soon as I got there. Traffic began to move again so I eased off the gear, let in the clutch, and continued on my way to work.

As I approached police headquarters, it looked anything but imposing in the morning sunlight. Once it was indeed magnificent, but that was fifty years ago, at the height of the Colonial Police Force—long, long before the oil money arrived to create a dark polluted slick over Nigeria. Back then, the buildings were new, alive with power, their brick walls the color of dried blood (a color borrowed from some of the prisoners held inside). Since those golden days, the heat, the damp, and the lack of care had relentlessly scrubbed the magnificence away, leaving only a shabby exterior. The former glory, like Ozymandias, the once King of Kings, was a very distant memory.

Over the years, new offices were added to the original building in the large courtyard, new buildings gradually added to the old, and finally a separate new building was constructed nearby. Naturally, senior police officials grabbed the top floors of the new building, treating themselves far better than the Colonial Police
had, as befitted their greater power. The new building was a one-minute walk from the original building, painted white, looking new, but the distance between the two was longer, deeper, and wider than the open sewers that ran through the Diobu Zone.

It was no coincidence that the first major construction project started by the military junta when it came to power in the eighties was the State Police Building. Maintaining power, keeping control—it was as vital to Nigeria as keeping the oil wells pumping. The State Police had made certain their offices were housed in the largest building in the complex, towering over the old Colonial Police Force building—the new power overshadowing the old. The top floor offices were palatial in comparison to the original offices: more spacious, fitted with air conditioners, modern furniture, and plants. They even had secretaries. In sharp contrast was my stuffy ten-by-eight-foot space, located just across the Yard. My office was barely large enough to contain two old desks, five chairs (three of which you could sit in without any appreciable risk), and a filing cabinet longing for retirement. At least I had room enough to stretch my legs, which was more than what most of my colleagues had.

The lower cadre police officials who did the actual work were still housed in the old offices. Myself, for example: Detective Tamunoemi Peterside, Lieutenant, Homicide.

Homicide was busy. Although unemployment was a major issue in Nigeria, I did not have to worry about my own fate—Port Harcourt ensured Homicide was always busy.

I was relaxed as I went through the security check at the outside gate and then drove past the old block of offices to the newer one across the Yard. I pulled my car up within a few feet of the new building's front steps. Blocking the front steps a bit was my way of making a statement. Why use the parking lot? That was for someone else, and I was not someone else. Does that sound arrogant? I
am not sure you can be a Homicide detective without some arrogance flowing in your veins.

Captain Godwin Akpan responded quite strongly the first time I parked in front. He was forced to walk around my car, which he thought demeaning. He threatened to write me up for insubordination—“the unruly act of blocking the entrance.” But he only threatened. When he saw that the threats did no good, and that I continued to park in front of the stairs, he let it go. He really had no choice. I was not going to budge and he was a pragmatic fellow. I liked him, but his insistence on going by the rules always got in my way.

Akpan was a model police officer. He took himself seriously and followed his own standard of being a “good cop.” He was also too self-confident and aggressive, and could be very demanding and critical. You usually knew where you stood with him. He was straightforward with his staff. Although he was often a pain in the ass, we still had a good enough relationship.

When he let it go, I responded politely: I followed the silent protocol and whenever I parked and got out of my car, I did not smile. It is not the Nigerian way to rub it in. Parking in front of the steps is one thing, grinning about it quite another. Though it might be good to try it once just to see what happened . . .

I saw Barrister Howell Osamu, of Osamu and Associates, walk out of our building and toward a new Lexus Jeep. The SUV looked like it had all the extras. Lucky man, he. Did his luck make him wealthy, or did his wealth make him lucky? Or did luck have nothing to do with it?

Quite a legend Osamu was—famous for saving Barigha Duncan from jail time. Duncan was the boss of the organized crime syndicate in Port Harcourt, the Duncan family. His mistress died
in his house one night after he brought her home from a club. Word was he suspected her of cheating on him. When he confronted her, she denied it. In the ensuing discussion, she suffered massive damage to her head, which killed her instantly. Duncan was smart enough to call Osamu, a budding lawyer trying to make his mark in Port Harcourt. Osamu had already won some important cases, putting him in demand in and around Port Harcourt, but he had been waiting for the Big One, and the Barigha Duncan case was it.

The state attorney hurriedly prepared the case, assuming he'd have no problem, given that Duncan had been alone with the mistress, and she was obviously the victim of a homicide. But no murder weapon had ever been found, and Osamu had experts testify that the mistress had tripped on a settee while trying to strike Duncan, hitting her head on the hard floor. Of course, a fall like that would not cause massive skull damage, but that was where a good lawyer, in those heady heights, gets brainy. Or was it because the autopsy was conducted by someone who needed some extra cash? The autopsy did not support a murder charge, thus the opportunity to nail Duncan went down the toilet. The jury ruled it an accidental death, and Duncan walked out a free man. Osamu had won his first (but not last) truly sensational case. Suddenly, he was transported into the league of attorneys with millionaire clients. There were plenty of crooks who needed his services. It took no time at all for him to start buying very expensive new cars.