Working Cases - Episode 5

 

Recap: "Someone had killed my father. And tomorrow, tomorrow I would find him.”
One day later…
I haven’t found the man who killed my father. He’s smart. Smart enough to know how to hide.
 He had his back turned to all the cameras. He lurked in all the darkest spots. Just out of reach . We couldn’t even tell what he was wearing.
Then we found something. A lot of things, in fact. We found the murder weapon—a table knife with a serrated blade. We found fingerprints on the handle. We discovered the senator had been having breakfast with someone when he was killed. We found evidence of one person fleeing the scene of the crime through a shattered glass window. There was blood on the glass from where the person cut himself trying to break it. And all of that evidence led back to one person. Bashir Akande.  
For those for whom that name doesn’t ring a bell, introductions are in order. Bashir Akande, male, 26, tall, dark-eyed, dark-skinned, chiseled jaw, handsome, with model-like features, prodigal son of Senator Abdulraheem Akande, my foster brother. 
For everyone else, the evidence was conclusive. After running away from home for eight years, the prodigal son had returned. His father, overjoyed, had agreed to his request to have breakfast with him

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. Bashir had then proceeded to stab the man with his knife through the heart. He had tried to flee the crime scene and had been apprehended at the airport. In his account was found three million naira transferred from a dummy account after his father was killed, probably as payment for assassinating him. Bashir was the murderer. Case closed, for everyone else but me.
I had to arrest him. I had to take him in because by all accounts he was guilty. I hadn’t seen or heard from my brother in eight years, I couldn’t vouch for where he had been or what he had been up to or what his plan coming home was. It was a perfect frame. Bashir would go to jail for the murder of his father and the man in the shadows in the footage would be dismissed as one of the senator’s workers, besides, the cameras didn’t show him enter the senator’s quarters and there were a lot more people passing by the places he had passed.
Everyone in the station who had a thing against Nicodemus Onojah, the fancy new detective sent to bring an end to decades of police corruption and change the way the system from which they profited worked, was waiting for me to speak. To say something about Bashir being innocent. If I dared to defend my brother when all I had for evidence was a low-res photograph of nothing, I, and the Reforms with me, would be kicked off the force faster than I could say ‘innocent’.
So when I walked into the interrogation room that day to speak to my brother for the first time in eight years, I had no words to say. I couldn’t offer words of comfort. And I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye and say he was guilty.
He spoke before I had finished locking the door behind me. “You know I'm innocent, right?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to answer. I walked to the empty seat across from him and sat down, avoiding his eye.
He spoke again, a small joy in his voice, a tone I recognized from when we were little. “Of course, you do.”
I looked up at him, steeling myself. He was smiling at me, like he used to, whenever he was proud of me. I was older than Bashir, but he was his father’s son. Big, he was always a foot taller than me. Even after puberty hit and I grew a full eighteen inches, I had rushed to welcome him home from boarding school to find he had actually increased our height difference instead of reducing it. I was older, but he had always been the big brother, welcoming me into his home when his father took me in, protecting me, helping me through the pain of the loss of my parents. That’s why it hit me so hard when he ran away. He didn’t even leave a note.  
He spoke again, “Never imagined we would meet like this after such a long time,” he raised his cuffed hands and laughed a little, “handcuffs really don’t suit me.”
“Why did you leave? Why did you not tell me you were leaving?” My voice came out weak, subdued.
“I didn’t mean to leave you, brother.”
“But you did! And what gives you the right to come back like this!” The venom in my words was unmistakable. He flinched. Good. I needed him to feel the hurt I felt when I woke up to find his room empty that day.
“He was going to turn me into you!” He shouted back.
“Who?” I didn’t understand.
“Father,” he turned his face away from me. “Look who you are now—this superhero detective, carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. This is what he wanted me to be, his son, helping in his fight against corruption.” He turned to me again, his eyes hard. “I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t cut out for this stuff.” He jabbed a finger at me. “But you were. I thought I would let you fulfill his dreams. I should have told you.”
 I was almost in tears. “You should have told me.”
I asked again, “You didn’t kill him, did you?”
“Of course not, I came here to reconcile with the two of you, and the next thing I know, I've been framed for murder.”
“I’ll get you out.”
“Don’t. Even I know that’s a stupid idea. Let me stay. This was a trap to get you. Let me take the fall. There’s no use getting us both into trouble.” He said, “Promise me.”
Bashir was right. If the man who killed my father was the person whose corrupt influence he had been trying to destroy, finding him would be the only way to save Bashir. “I promise. You were having dinner with dad when he was killed and you escaped through the window, did you see who did it?”
Bashir shook his head, “No,” his eyes became unfocused, “It all happened so fast. We were eating. All of a sudden, someone ran in, picked me up and threw me through the glass window. He was strong, he knocked dad down with one blow. By the time I stood up and cleared my head enough to get back in, he was gone, and my knife was in dad’s chest. I received a bank alert for a transfer of three million, and an anonymous text message congratulating me for a job well done. I knew I had to run.” 
I was surprised. The killer must have been very strong and fast. My father had trained us in three martial arts. Not many men could match my father in a fight, much less knock him out in one blow.
 I said goodbye to my brother as he was taken to his cell. Because I was considered a family member, I would not be involved further in his case.
I went straight to my father’s office to meet his lawyers. I was to inherit half of all he had and was custodian of the other half until Bashir could return to claim it. I had to make sure nothing of his was tampered with, especially anything that had to do with his life’s work.
The day was a hectic one. My knowledge of my father’s principles and several documents he had created as contingency measures served to deter the people who would otherwise have destroyed his work. It was nearly midnight when I was done. I was in his office alone. All the employees had gone home for the day, so, I was surprised when I heard a knock on the door.
I held my gun under the table and asked the person to come in. It was the secretary—her name was Emily or something. I kept my hand firmly around the gun. What was a secretary doing here at this time?
She smiled and readjusted her glasses. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr.…” she fumbled trying to think of what to call me.
“Call me Nicodemus.” I told her. I put the gun away. She looked harmless enough. She was a small woman, just a hair over five feet tall. She was pretty, fair, and had darkest shade of black eyes.
“Nicodemus, uhm, I used to help your father with his, er, vision. And he gave me strict instructions that on the event of his death,” I only just then noticed the large bundle of files she was carrying, “that I should hand these over to you.” She dumped the files on my desk. He face was serious when she said, “No one else knows these exist. They were his personal findings. I hope they will be useful to you in finding whoever did this to him.”
My father had an assistant? I flipped open the first file, and there, written in my father’s own handwriting, was his first message: Nico, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I left you to fight this battle alone. Your first gift from me; this is Miss Amelia. Trust Her.