Melan

Chapter One

          The front of the police office clearly needed a thorough grass trimming. It looked deserted except for a lone police officer who sat on a low bench in the front yard under the shade of a bent cashew tree. He seemed to be in the middle of a lazy, comfortable doze despite the intense afternoon heat. Mrs Nina decided, as she stepped out of her Camry XLE, that the station needed a lot more activity considering the high crime rate of the area.
          Mrs Nina, a grandmother of three girls, looked disapprovingly at the surroundings. "Do you call this a police station?" she snorted to herself and spat when she saw the dozing officer.
         She began to walk towards the building, picking her way through the narrow path, avoiding stones and trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her left ankle. Her eyes felt heavy, she had been crying for a long time.
             She entered into the lounge of the station. The heat felt worse even though all the windows had been thrown open and a ceiling fan was blowing away. It made a squeaky noise that got on Mrs Nina's nerves. The lounge was a fairly large room with walls of blue - fading blue. It had a single desk and a chair behind it. A few other chairs were also in the lounge, probably for visitors. An officer sat behind the desk, reading a newspaper, apparently not perturbed by the heat.
           Mrs Nina approached him but the officer did not notice her until she coughed. He looked up, waved her to a chair and folded the paper.
        "Madam, good afternoon"
      Mrs Nina nodded, looking him over. He was a well built young man of thirty, give or take. She nodded in approval. She cleared her throat again.
        "I'm here to report a murder." she said.
        Officer Robert Viyz sat up quickly. Murder. That word sent off an alarm bell in his head. He hated dead bodies.
       "Murder?"
       "Yes. My daughter's."
    Robert took out a note and pen.
  "Go on, Ma. Tell me everything."
  "It happened last week"
He looked up. "Last week?"
   "Yes. Let me finish."
   "Sorry, go on."
  "It happened last week Monday. She had been okay the previous evening, smiling, laughing and all. But when her bedroom door was opened on Monday morning, there she was dangling from a rope."
      Officer Robert lay the note down. "Is that not the suicide case of Mrs Rosemary Adingy?"
      Nina's face suddenly contorted with rage. She hit her fist on the desk.
      "It's not suicide! It's murder! They killed my daughter."
     Then she wept. Robert, not exactly sure of what to do, sat there staring at her. After a while, he passed her some tissue paper, muttering an "I'm sorry".
       Mrs Nina looked at him.
"You have to investigate this case, sir. Please. They murdered her"
  "Madam, this case has been shut. It was suicide."
  "No, it's murder. They killed her!"
  "Who killed her?"
  "That's what you need to find out"
  "I'm sorry, Madam. It's a closed case."
  "Then find something, a way. Open it again. Find them."
"Is there any reason why you think so?"
  "My daughter would never kill herself. She was going to win that election."
    She began to cry again saying to herself "I told her. She wouldn't hear.  Leave it for the men. She wouldn't listen."
    Robert looked at her for sometime. Then he said. "Would you like to see the Chief here? He might help."
    He led her down a narrow corridor. At its far end was a door. On it was written,
            OFFICER MAMAU DAWUD
           DISTRICT CHIEF OF POLICE
      Robert knocked on it and led Mrs Nina into the room. The room was more comfortable than the lounge. It had an air conditioner. A fat, amiable looking officer sat behind the desk peering at some papers. He waved Nina at a chair in front of him. After sometime, he looked up and asked what the issue was.
       Mrs Nina repeated her story, insisting that her daughter was murdered and asking for an investigation. When the Chief saw that he could not shake her off, he turned to Officer Robert.
       "Take her statement. Do a little bit of snooping around "
    Then he said to Mrs Nina, "If we find an anomaly in the case, then we would reopen it."
              *               *              *
      Robert Viyz rubbed his hands in excitement, picked up the patrol car keys and left the lounge into the afternoon heat. He was not surprised to see Officer Johnny dozing under the cashew tree. He was not surprised by anything he saw in the station anymore. The apathy towards work and duty in general was contaminating. He would bet his last nyala that some officer was somewhere on the highway running a patrol that is nothing but a ploy to collect bribe.
             Robert had joined the force two years ago and had quickly found out that the job was nothing like the academy. The rigorous training had suddenly dissolved in thin air when he had got the job. Of course, there was a lot of crime in the city of Loybna, but police response was near to zero. It turned out to be a routine job with few moments of big crime. Robert hated routine. This was not the reason he joined the police force. He thought he was going to be a superman.
           He turned the keys in the ignition and took to the highway. "At least, I have a case" he said to himself.
          The roads were clogged with traffic. The danfo buses and the motorcycles and private cars were all struggling to move at the same time. Robert put on the siren and moving was made a lot easier for him.
            Election was in two weeks and the mood said nothing but voting. The sign posts and bill boards had nothing on them but campaign posters. As Robert rounded a bend, his eyes fell on a poster of Mrs Rosemary Adingy.
                She had been the only female contestant for the office of Governor. Then on Monday, eight days ago, she had committed suicide in her bedroom. It had been and is still the talk of the town. Many theories had been brought forward from depression to evil spirits.
          Robert made a turn into a narrow tarred road bordered on both sides by expensive looking villas. The sign said Cedar Estate. This was an estate for the multimillionaires. He stopped at No 38. This was the house of the late Mrs Adingy. He stepped out, walked up to the gate and rang a bell. Some minutes later he was let into the compound.
            The entire place breathed wealth. The clean, precise lawns, the well gravelled driveway, the stunning gardens and of course,  the silence. He came to the huge, front door and rang. Few seconds later, he was let in by a middle aged lady who happened to be the housekeeper. She said her name was Flora and that Mr Adingy would join Robert soon and would he have a drink.
          Mr Adingy turned out to be fat with a potbelly. He bounced into the room and sat heavily down. He smiled showing kolanut stained teeth. "You're welcome."
     "Thank you"
     "I hear you are from the police"
    "Yes, Sir"
He looked at him quizzically.
   "I thought we were done with the police."
       "Your mother in law, Mrs Nina, asked that the case be reopened. She says that Mrs Adingy was murdered."
        Mr Adingy raised his hands in exasperation. "She's delirious! What is wrong with that woman?"
      Robert said nothing except give a strained smile.
      "Did you guys tell her that nothing can be done?"
       "Yes. She's adamant. Look, why don't you tell me everything you know. Let's see how to explain things to her."
        "I already said everything I know. What else do you want?"
        "Let's go over it again, shall we? I'll ask the questions."
      He sighed. "Go ahead"
  Robert took out his note book and pen. "How was her mood the evening before?"
       "I wouldn't know. I wasn't at home. I was on a business trip. You know, China."
      "You weren't around?" "No."
     "Who was she with?"  
    "No one."
      "How about the housekeeper?"
    "She doesn't live here. In fact she was the one who discovered the body when she came to work Monday morning."
        Robert wrote that down.
     "When last did you speak with her?"   "Sunday morning."
    "What was she sounding like?"
   "She sounded perfectly normal."
  "Do you mind telling me what you talked about?"
     "The usual things. How the day had been, how the campaign was coming and the kids."
       "Where are the kids?"
       "They were on a holiday in our hometown at the time of this event. They are still there with their grandma."
         "Was she alone?"
        "Yes. I was supposed to be around. But, this business trip thing came up. I had to leave for a few days." He looked away. Robert observed him. What exactly is Mr Adingy lying about?
          "What do you do, sir?"
         "I'm a business manager. I had to see a client who thought that some inside trading was going on in his firm."
          "Permit me to digress a bit. How did you meet your wife?"
        Mr Adingy smiled. "It was when she came to a joint with her friends for an eat out. And even though she was twenty five years my junior, we clicked. It was just love. I'll miss her. I honestly will."
      Robert nodded. He thought for sometime and said "That would be all, for now. Please accept my condolences. "
       "Thanks"
    Robert left the house. As he was starting up his car, he saw the housekeeper, Flora returning to the house carrying a large empty bucket. Probably went to deposit trash just opposite the villa. He stepped out to talk to her.
        "You're the housekeeper, right?"
She nodded. "Yes, sir".
"Please accept my condolences."
      She nodded.
        "She was a nice woman. Very nice"
        "Did you see her on Sunday?"
    She nodded again stifling tears.
        "How was she?"
     She shook her head. "Madam was not feeling fine. In fact, she was not well the entire week. I was the only one with her. Her children were on vacation in their home town. Her husband was on a trip. She was not feeling well at all. She had fever, she complained of headache. She was scared. Maybe election fever."
            "And on Sunday?"
     "The same."
     "What time did you leave?"
    "Half past eight in the evening."
   "Wasn't that a bit late?"
   "It was two hours later than I normally leave but she asked me to stay a little longer. "
     "Do you know the reason why?"
     "I don't. But I know she was scared and that she called someone who came to meet her."
     Robert's ears were wide open now.
  "Someone?"
   "Yes, sir. But I don't know who it is. "
    "You have no idea?"
   "She threw a paper in the trash can. I opened it."
     She laughed a bit ashamedly. "You know women, we can be very snoopy."
"What was in the paper?"
"It was a phone number. I trashed it."
       "Did you tell anyone?"
      "No one asked me. The police only took a statement of how I found her body."
     "Do you have any idea whose number that was?"
       Flora looked at him in a strange way and said, "Can't you guess? Everyone around here knows Madam had affairs outside her marriage. Probably a boyfriend."
    "Affairs?"
   "Yes, sir. But that is common knowledge."
     "Common knowledge? Does Mr. Adingy know?"
     Flora looked at him as if he was from space. "Of course. I called it common knowledge. Anyway, she was very pretty." Then to herself, she said, "These very beautiful people. Run away from them."
       "One last thing. What was the relationship with her husband like?"
     Flora shook her head firmly saying, "That I can't say."
       Robert skipped that and asked her how she found the body. It was the same story of arriving in the morning and opening the bedroom door and seeing her Madam dead, hanging from a rope tied to the ceiling.
        Back at the station, Robert and the Chief reviewed the case.
        "The coroner placed her death at half past eleven. Maybe whoever it was that came to see her was gone by then."
        "Or maybe he was still around."
    "It's worth looking into."
   So the Chief said, "This might be a piece of the case that was overlooked. The fact that there was someone else on the scene of whom nothing was found by way of finger prints. Why were they wiped? And the fact that the husband and the housekeeper give different accounts of her state of mind around the period. "
          Robert nodded. The Chief continued.
          "I'm handing the case to you. Take it seriously. It's your first individual case, right?"
          "Yes, sir."
         "I'll talk to the Chief Judge. He will overrule the suicide verdict."
          He looked out the window and then at Robert.
          "I can sense that this case is going to be big. You can call Mrs Nina. Tell her that the case has been reopened."
          As Robert came back into the lounge, he took a deep breath. This is going to be big. He came to the door. Johnny was awake now. He was eating groundnuts. He turned and seeing Robert, he waved. Robert gave him a nervous smile.