SHORT STORY: THE MURDER ON SHAKIRU ANJORIN STREET

I raised the ceramic cup to my lips and kissed its edge. The warm tea wet my tongue and I felt my pupils dilate, becoming more receptive to the horizon that stretched itself in front of me. Although
the balcony was a small one, I found a safe haven in it. I felt protected from the harshness of the world within its curvy metal balustrades and the open air left some kind of comfort tingling somewhere in my brain. That morning, the cold air pushed hard so that the grey curtains behind me splashed excitedly.

“Are you coming back inside soon?”

I turned around. Cas was leaning by the glass door, wearing nothing but the black lace underwear that she was so eager to take off last night. His nipples were not as erect as I would have wanted them to be.

“It’s nice here,” my lips formed a smile. She smiled back, but I could sense the fear that danced behind her eyes. Cas was always afraid of the littlest things. It is good she has me, I thought. “Relax, it will be fine. We will get through this.”

“I trust you, Ogala,” she caressed the curtain before turning, disappearing into the dark room.

I saw the bike turn into the street. I watched as it pulled up in front of the gate. The rider, a dark man wearing a fitted cap that covered most of his face, took out his phone. He placed it against his ears. The iPhone XR in my hand started to vibrate.

“I can see you. Wait there,” I said hurriedly into the mouthpiece. I threw the remaining content of the ceramic cup into my throat and dashed into the house. Cas lay on the bed, her fleshy buttocks in the air. She turned to me.

“It is here,” I said as I threw on the shirt that I hung on the door of the closet. She threw one quick look to the door that led to the kitchen and winced. I opened the door and threw myself out. I wanted to run down the stairs, but I feared that I might draw the attention of the other neighbours. The delivery man handed me the jar of vinegar, baking soda and two pairs of gloves. On a normal day, I would have checked to see if the jars had the right quantity, but it was not a normal day.

“Sign here,” he pointed a sheet of paper and a pen towards me. I took the pen wondering if he could hear the huge thumbs my heart was making.

I ran up the stairs, ignoring common sense to act composed. I closed the door behind me and turned the key until I heard a click.

“Is he gone?” Cas’ widened eyes showed her worry. “Did anyone see you?”

“Relax Cas, everything is going as planned.” I showed her the jars I had gotten from the delivery man. I opened the door of the kitchen. Cas followed me. Even though we had both seen how messy it was before, we were still shocked by the load of work that spread out in front of us.  I was grateful that the odour oozing out of the kitchen was not yet strong enough to attract any attention.

“Let me wear something,” Cas said as she dashed out. I had intentionally left the AC in the kitchen on for the entire night. It would help contain the smell, I told Cas. She came back wearing my black sweatshirt. Smart, I thought.

“So how do we start?”

“According to that article on Google, we clean up the whole mess with this,” I slapped the jar of vinegar and baking soda on the cabinet and began to wear the rubber gloves I had just ordered online. She started to wear her gloves too.

“No. I really thought we were going to wash off the blood stains with my saliva,” she grinned at me. I smiled, amused. That’s why I liked her. Cas would find a way to crack a joke even if she was staring in the face of death. He did not deserve her, I told myself. I was unsure if I believed it, or if it was an escape – a way to make myself feel better for what I had done.

The article was right. Washing the floors and cabinet with vinegar and baking soda was actually the easiest part. I spent most of the time shuffling my attention between scrubbing and watching her scrub. My God! I was madly in love with this woman, wasn’t I?”

 

48 hours ago, Cas and I had planned to spend the weekend together at my place. It was not the first time it had happened, so neither of us, in a million years, ever envisaged what would happen that night. I closed early from work and asked the drivers to park the cold room vans with which I supplied frozen foods at my house. At my instruction, they also dropped the key with the resident security. I did not trust any of the drivers. I did not trust anyone, except Cas. I did not need a reason to trust her. She was always so… captivating. I would have fought to stay away from love as I did with the other women before her but, frankly, I did not stand a chance. I fell head over heels in the first few weeks. I was ecstatic when she told me she felt the same. Her husband was a rich, business mogul who was always out of state on business. The few times he came home, Cas said, he would beat her at the slightest provocations. She would send me pictures of bruises. One time, she sent a picture of a red bruise on her thigh with the caption, “Ogala, I wish he were dead.” She told me she spent most of her days, feeling alone. She said she wished that he would love her half as much as he loved his business, but ever since she met me, she had stopped wishing. She had found what she was looking for.

She arrived at the house at 8 at night. She wore a black dress that revealed her moderately wide hips and made her fair skin glow. Her blonde hair curled like telephone wires. She sat on the chair beside me, and my heart stopped. It was not long before we were having steamy sex in the bedroom. I knew my neighbours could hear her moans. They had brought it up in the last resident meeting.

“I can hardly sleep when they start,” the woman whose flat was beside mine complained in the meeting as the other men laughed.

We must have been having sex for the 30 minutes - she was riding me – I must have been saying something about okadas and horses when I felt somebody standing in the room. I think she must have felt it too because we turned to look together. He was standing there. It is hard to tell how long the tiny man had been watching us, but the look on his face… I would never forget the look on his face. It was dark… dark and sad. Watching a grown man cry is dark. Cas jumped off me, dragging the sheets to cover her naked body.

“Why,” he sobbed.

Cas muttered out her words – words that did not make sense. I jumped out of the bed, in total confusion. I did not know whether to run. How could I run out of my house? Where will I run to? And that’s when I got the bright idea. The man was seated on the edge of the bed, crying when I took the dense metal sculpture on my cabinet and struck him across the head with all my might. What followed was Cas’ scream and a thud – his lifeless body hitting the ground.

“What have you done?” Cas yelled as she threw herself to his body that lay on the floor.

“I am helping you”

“You are what?”

I shoved her away from the body as I hit the dead man a second time. The force of the blow made the lifeless body move. His eyes were open and I could see the shock he experienced right before he died.

“What are you doing?” Cass asked again, crying, mindlessly throwing blows at my chest.

“Shhhhhhh! Relax! Listen,” I held her hand. She struggled to free herself. “Listen to me,” I tried to keep her calm, physically. She is quite a strong woman.

“I am doing it for you,” I said, struggling to catch my breath. I had now pinned her on the bed. She was breathing heavily now.

“For me?”

I raised my eyebrow. She nodded, “I am calm now”. I gently let go of her hands. I sat on the bed, tired. She sat up too.

“You said you wish he was dead. He was beating you. He was stopping you from being with me. He doesn’t deserve you, Cas,” tears had begun to form in the corner of my eyes. Cas looked at me, and I think for the first time, she understood. She held my hand,

“So how do we get rid of the body?”

***

Cas and I had spent the entire night cutting up her husband’s body into small compatible disposable plates. The hardest part was draining the blood in the large kitchen sink. We had neatly stacked the plates by 4AM. All that was left was to clean up the entire kitchen. The whole place was overwhelmingly messy that Cas began to cry.

“What have we gotten into, Ogala,” she sobbed.

“Relax. I need you to trust me. Can you do that?” She nodded as she struggled to catch her breath.

“We will get through this together,” I said, and then I whipped out my phone. I typed How to wash off blood stains into Google search.

***

“Now all we have to do is load the plates into one of my vans and drive off,” I said, looking at how clean the kitchen had become.

“Where will we drive to?” I looked at the lady who had just walked into the kitchen. She had excused herself to use the restroom 45 minutes ago.

“I don’t know. It does not matter,” I shrugged. I was confident that even if we get stopped by the police, we will not be suspected of anything other than driving meat to a Lagos party.

“Why did you kill him, Ogala?”

I was taken back, not by the question but by the biting coldness of her voice.

“What do you mean? For you baby.”

“For me? Are you sure you did this for me?”

“What are you saying, Cas?”

“Young man of 38 who has been diagnosed with borderline disorder, dealing with abandonment issues because his mummy left when he was three, finds a happily married woman. He falls in love with her and kills her husband because he thinks the husband is stopping this woman from loving him,” she was smiling. I felt anger climbing up my spine, possessing me until I lost control. I raised up my hand as high as it could go and brought it down on her face. Her lips broke and blood spilt out.

“Yes. Is that all you have?” she laughed.

My anger boiled, and I hit her a couple of more times. I hit her until I was struggling to catch my breath. She was now on the floor, her face covered in injuries. She was too weak to get up, but the smile on her face remained.

“I knew you had it in you,” she said faintly.

“Why would you say that to me, Cas? I love you?” I was confused. She parted her lips to respond but was cut off by the aggressive banging on the door. I stopped. Shocked. I definitely was not expecting anybody. Cas’ smile widened, and before I could make sense of anything, she screamed:

“Please help me! I’m in here.”

It happened in a flash. The policemen broke down the door and rushed into the house with guns. I threw my hands up in fear. They quickly handcuffed me. Before I passed out, I saw Cas crying helplessly.

***

“Self-defense,” I said, confidently. The cuffs tightened around my wrist, making every movement I made with my arm pain. The interrogation room was dark except for the lamp dangling from the ceiling, casting light on the mean detective across the table. I expected him to charge at me, but he simply just laughed.

“You don’t know what is going on, do you?”

I looked away, guiltily.

“Chief Sunny had life insurance which means whoever his family is will get a hundred million if he dies, and 50 million more if he is murdered. You see, word on the street is that he is a very meticulous man. Now whoever your lawyer is can convince the court that the woman planned the murder, manipulating you as the lover to kill her husband for her. That doesn’t do much for you. Ten years at least. Plus, that would hardly hold anything because her story is that she did not know about her husband’s insurance, and in her statement…,” the detective takes the sheet of paper from the desk and reads from it. “You kidnapped her husband and her killed her husband and threatened to kill her if she does not marry you.”

The detective stopped smiling. He must have seen the look on my face. He could tell I was shocked. “Ultimately, pushing this narrative of you being lovers with Cas and her husband finding out about you and attempting to kill you will only make matters worse for you,” he continued.

 

“How can she say I did that? Only a mad man would do something like that.”

“She did say you have a history of mental illness. Borderline, she calls it. Is that true?”

My eyes trailed off the table, and I was no longer in the room. The detective was still talking but his voice turned into nonsense echoes, like words spoken underwater. I must have been jerking or gasping for air because the detective was shouting while shaking me violently. I could only make out two words “Ogala” and “Help”.

***

I woke up in a hospital. I was grateful I had woken up from the horrible dream. I felt a familiar discomfort on my left wrist. I tried to move it, but it was stuck. I opened my eyes and so my left hand was cuffed to the bed. Oh shit.

“Welcome back.” I looked up and the detective was standing right beside me.