UNDER SIEGE (A Story Of Hope)

by Ciuri Di Badia

  Also, fester fluids could not be found in her lungs. A fester fluid is a fluid that is secreted by the surface tissues of the lungs when one inhales foreign materials. In this case the foreign material was supposed to be water. On the other hand, her skull had fractures on the back side.

  That set the detective thinking. The following day, he went back to the ranch and started looking for rocks in the river. He found none. It had also occurred to him that the body had been washed down stream, so he moved upstream until he reached the area where the car had been found. He found no rocks that could have caused the fractures. Further more, when a body is lying on water, it faces downwards due to the preposition of its limbs. That means; if there was a huge rock on the course of the river, it could have probably fractured her forehead.

  His worst suspicions were confirmed. The fractures meant that she did not die because drowning. Somebody must have murdered her and thrown her into the water as a cover-up so; the investigation was converted from an accident into a homicide case. He knew that the case was going to be a tough one.

  Detective Allen’s work was therefore cut out; he fist created a list of potential happenings that could have transpired before she was dumped into the water. It was clear that the murderer was looking to disguise his act by making the murder look like a drowning incident. However, the pathologist got ahead of him and uncovered the mystery.

  Another thing was that her car was intact and nothing had been taken from it. Inside, there were no signs of struggle or commotion as her stuff was neatly arranged. That meant that the murder did not happen in the car. He was left with two options: either the murder happened somewhere between the car and the river bank or it happened somewhere else and the corpse brought to the river.

  It set him pondering again. The last thing he did on that day was to go to the police junk yard where the car had been toed to and take a look at it once again.

  When he got there he opened all the doors and started weighing possibilities. Lastly, he went to the boot. It had not been opened since the car was found by the police. Police tamper proof seal was still attached to it. He ripped it off and opened the boot. In there, he found a spare wheel and car repair tools. However, he noticed that something was amiss. The boots’ mat was missing. It got him thinking even more but could not comprehend anything. He went home but still his mind could not stop thinking.

  That night, he came up with his most accurate reconstruction of what might have happened: The murderer must have put her corpse in the boot of her car. Probably after murdering her, he drove her body to the river where he threw it away. After removing the corpse, he must have noticed that it had stained the mat with blood and that could have given him away, so he got rid of it. There he got it. He went to sleep as he looked forward to the following day.

  The following morning, the fourth day after the deceased was reported missing, Detective Allen picked up from where he left. As any investigation goes, he started by interviewing people who came into contact with her just before her death; everyone including her family.

  At the deceased home, everyone was mourning. He did his best to calm them down and consequently secure an interview with the family. Her husband and the three daughters stated that neither of them had seen her on the day that she disappeared. They also added that, for the past week, she didn’t show any weird character.

  The detective then moved to the deceased’s working place where her supervisor said that she reported to work as usual and left at 1 pm just as she did on previous Saturdays. He also made headway and managed to get to her friends who indicated that she did not appear at their usual joint. They also pointed out that she did not pick her phone when they tried to call her.

  He went back to his office where he scrutinized information that he had gathered as he sought to create leads. The autopsy showed that she had been struck by a crude object on the back of her head. It had fractured her skull and left her scalp badly lacerated. He ruled out possible robbery attack as her car and personal belongings were found intact.

  He went back to her home to search if he could get additional information on more people whom she could have been dealing with. The people whom he found there were still mourning. They were a new lot that had come to console the family. He greeted each one of them and called one of her daughters aside. He explained his intentions before she led him to her mother’s bedroom.

  She opened her mother’s bedroom door for the detective. Before she left, she notified him that he should reach out to her incase he needed anything. He fumbled and fumbled through her stuff, looking for that extra info that not even her cell phone could provide.

  To his surprise, he got something that turned him blue. A Wal-Mart receipt that had been draped together with a perfume indicated that she had bought it on the day that she disappeared at 1.30pm. She had paid for it using her credit card. Detective Allen slid it in his left pocket and continued searching. He didn’t go far. The receipt in his pocket was making his mind giddy and he felt like clearing it before he could continue. He left the home for Wal-Mart where he ascertained that she had made the purchase.

  That gave Det. Allen an insight that the husband could be hiding something. How could he have not seen her bring the perfume home? He had stated that he did not leave his house the whole day.

  That is how cases evolve. They open up just like jasmine flowers do as sunlight heats them up. He therefore sought to investigate him further.

  The following morning he summoned her daughters to his office. They discussed a lot of things but the detective’s prime motive was to establish the history of the deceased’s relationship with her husband. To summarize their conversation, this is what the detective found out:

  As the daughters explained, their parent’s relationship was on the rocks in the recent times. A month before, their mother discovered that their father was having an affair with his secretary. She saw them on her way home when she noticed the husband’s car pulling up at a convenience store. Looking closely, she saw them making out before the secretary got out of her husband’s car and waved as he drove off.

  After that incident, they quarreled many times especially when her husband could not account for his late arrival at home. He usually came home very late and in most cases, drunk. In some days, he failed to go home all together. From that, the detective presumed that the man was still adamant that his affair with the secretary should continue. His wife, being the only thing on his way, needed to be fixed. Most probably, the husband opted to terminate her. The detective had a strong haunch that the husband could be having something to do with his wife’s death.

  The following morning, he summoned the husband to his office. He interrogated him and still, he insisted that he did not set his eyes on his wife the day she disappeared. However, as a secret weapon, the detective did not reveal that he had found the Wal Mart receipt in her room.

  The police performed finger print test on him to ascertain if he had had his hand on the car. They then let him off. The result came out as positive. It was clear now that the detective’s leads were yielding some fruits. However, his newly found evidence was not enough to support criminal proceedings against the husband. The reason being; the car in question was in his compound and he could have touched it, just like anybody else would to their wife’s car.

  There lay the problem. Det. Allen had to brood over like he had never brooded before. His mind revolved and revolved as it sought to devised a unique way of proving that the husband had murdered his wife. His persistence paid off when he finally developed a way. It was unorthodox but the most important thing was that it had great potential to work out his case.

  He looked at the analogy of soils. The soil at the husband’s house was sand while that at the river bank was the red loamy soil. Going by the characteristics of that red soil, it is so sticky and given that the murderer reached the river bank to dump the body, he probably had his shoes threads stuffed with the red sludge. No matter how one washes
the shoe, not all the red-soil would come out of the sole.

  ‘That would be a strong evidence to incriminate the husband’ the detective weighed up to himself. His next task was relatively simple. He needed to establish the shoe that the husband was wearing on that day and look for the red soil on it. For the time being, he strove to do exactly that. He just had to find a way of reaching and groping through the husband’s shoes in a way that the he would not discover his intentions and possibly get rid of the shoes-Det. Allen's only hope of solving the case.

  He acquired a search warrant and unexpectedly buttonholed the deceased house. He urged the mourners to get out as the police searched the house for the final time. They all obliged. The husband did not seem to be shaken by the police’s action. Perhaps, he was pretty convinced that he had covered up all potential leads that could have given him out. The rest of the mourners could not understand what was going on. They just looked on as they murmured to one another.

  The police poked and poked around the house before finally getting into the husbands bedroom. The detective knew what he was looking for, so, went straight to where the husband kept his shoes and clothes. There, he stared at them as mixed thoughts of anxiety and composure crossed his mind. The shoes were neatly cleaned and some polished. On the rack, they looked as if they had been displayed to lure potential buyers.

  He took his time before he started examining them; a shoe at a time. After picking, turning and placing down a half of a dozen pairs, he found what he was looking for: Some shiny black sport shoes had red mucks on their soles. Although they had been thoroughly washed, red flecks could still be seen in between the soles threads. The fact that they were sporty made it easier for the detective to spot the mud. You see; the pattern on the sole made it hard for the cleaner to squeakily remove all specks of mud. That gave the detectives idea a lease of hope.

  He had the shoes taken to the lab to test if the soil on their soles was identical to the soil at the river bank. The test itself was scientific and involved the observation of the molecular structures of the soil’s particles and the content of its mineral composition. That’s the only elaborate explanation I can be able to put forward for the purposes of this book. See, I’m not that well conversant with such scientific tests. However, the test came out as positive, indicating that the husband was at the scene where his wife’s body was believed to have been thrown into the river.

  It takes an innovative and experienced detective to unwrap some of these disguised incidences. Detective Allen knew this very well and he stepped up his game to counter that of the perpetrator. The husband was arrested and later presented to the court for hearing. The detective presented his evidence well and consequently went all the way to win the case.

  A mother had returned home after half day at work only to have her cheating husband rob her life. He then placed her jacket and purse in her own car before heading to dump her corpse in a distant river, 25 miles away from their home. He had then parked her car on a recreational area near where he had dumped her body. He then took a cab home, happy that he had disguised his crimes. Thanks to one unrelenting detective, all that was uncovered and justice was served. The husband was accorded a triple digit jail term. The detective’s mission of pursuing justice still continues till today although, with a more challenging case-Tommy’s case.

  Back to Birma’s apartment………

  The detective expeditiously walked to James who was at that moment retelling what he had seen for the nth time.

  As he got James to calm down, he started putting him through the mill. He was so determined to do away with the third degree that he skipped cordial questions. The highlights of the grill went like this:-

  “Before this happened what was transpiring here?” Detective Allen asked curiously.

  “I saw one tenant by the name Tommy enter the deceased’s apartment as soon as he parked his car at the car port. The night was still young at that time. He did not take time there as he went to his own apartment thereafter”

  “Approximately how long did he take?” the aggressive detective asked as he appended to his notebook.

  “I can’t state exactly how long it was but am sure it didn’t exceed five minutes”

  “Ok you can go on” the detective nodded.

  “Later he came out and talked to some men in an express van out there. They seemed to be delivery-men who had delivered something to him. He then returned to his apartment”

  He paused for sometime before he continued.

  “In the meanwhile, Dan, the guy right there who is sobbing, shambled into Birma’s apartment. After sometime, Tommy went to join Birma and Dan. Tommy then came out and went to his house. Several minutes later, Dan also left Birma’s apartment for his”

  “Thank you so much, the information you’ve given will be so paramount in this investigation” detective Alex commended before continuing. “Do you think there is something else I should know?”

  “Not really. Afterwards, I went outside the gate to speak to a lost driver who did not know his way into this neighborhood.” James explained.

  “How did you get to discover the body?”

  “A while ago, I happened to notice the opened back door. After calling out with no response, I decided to go in and check; that’s when I saw the body on the floor”

  “Thank you, ill do my best to ensure that the murderer is apprehended and put to jail. That’s why am here”

  The detective turned to Dan who was sitting on a bench that was located outside. He was petrified, halfway transfixed. He was sobbing silently as he deeply comprehended the whole situation. His plight was exacerbated by the fact that the situation was largely ascribed to him.

  Det. Allen traipsed closer to him; he sat on the hand rest of the bench and went on to business. Curious snoopers followed him with their eyes. They were anxious to know what would develop.

  “Cool down, we will get to the bottom of this soon” the detective solaced with Dan.

  Dan responded by nodding his head. A sign that detective’s sentiments had been swallowed. He however didn’t complement it with any words.

  The detective gave Dan sometime to collect himself together so that they could easily have a talk. After being convinced that he had cooled down, the detective continued.

  “Dan, what transpired in the apartment when you went there?”

  “a-a-a-a I went and chatted with Birma” Dan stammered. He seemed not sure of what to say.

  “I am asking you that, not because I suspect you of any ill, but because it happened that you went there. I just want to have a clear picture of everything. Without you or any other concerned persons, I can not go far with my investigations, so just play your part and me mine while the truth play its”

  Dan mumbled in between the sobs “we flirted, creating chemistry between us. It provoked the guppies in our blood. My member and her member fell into insurmountable temptation and we started grooving-I hope you understand what I mean”

  “I get you clearly. What happened when Tommy came in?” the detective continued cross-examining Dan

  “We were completely drowned into watchamacallit? Lets say; we were exploring each others inner anatomies to a degree that we could not notice anybody entering the room”

  “Did you close the bedroom door before you started your mmmh you know?”

  “I can remember slamming it shut with my left leg as we headed to the bed”

  “Was it open when you were coming out?”

  “Yes the bedroom door was open. However the entrance one was closed at the time I was coming out”

  “So that means that Tommy found you under the heat of the thing.”

  Dan was a duping freak, a big headed duping freak. I am convinced that he is. How could he not hear the door being opened? Even though consecrated in other businesses, how could he not hear the door?

  “Were you two going out?”

  “No, but we were very tight friends”

  “By any ch
ance, do you happen to know whom she might have been seeing?”

  “She once told me that they were having a thing with Tommy. However, that is just a past that they shared for now”

  “Was there anybody else in her life that you know of?”

  “No. she never spoke of her dating life. It’s only that time that he was pushing with Tommy that she spoke towards that course. However she explained to me that theirs was just good-time bliss”

  “Where is Tommy?”

  “I haven’t seen him since late this evening”

  “Do you know where he could have gone?”

  “No, I don’t have any idea”

  “Which apartment is his?”