DEAD KNOT – ‘Stolen’ gets mysterious

EPISODE THREE

Incognito would have considered it a random message sent by Service Providers to advertise a program, but it displayed no service number and he had screened his official and personal numbers from such messages. He only concluded that the message was intentional. But why would someone hide his identity to send him a message? And how did the person get his personal number? The news was definitely irrelevant to the cases he was presently handling, he thought. So how and why was it sent? He wondered. According to the news, the trader was killed around Kuje in Abuja; he has no link to Abuja at the moment.
Incognito hung up on the worries, he forwarded the message to Wilson; his computer analyst. Wilson was good at what he did, he knew what to do with the received message; to track the news, find the source and point of occurrence and also to do the IP address checking to get the location from which the news was uploaded online. 
From just a glance, after he had clicked on the link, there was a picture of a dead man. His face was covered in grasses in a riverine area. Wounds were obvious over him, and his white cloth darkened with blood.
Some minutes later, Incognito bade Qazeem goodbye and having dropped his contact number, he told Qazeem to call him if there was anything he remembered and felt like sharing.

Wilson had tried narrowing down the probabilities and odds, but it wasn’t coming through. He called the police Head quarters at Kuje district to know if they were aware of the incidence. Inspector Garba said he knew nothing about it. And that he was going to call back if he had confirmed the situation positive.
Some minutes later, Incognito’s pager beeped
“Incognito. Over”
“Sticky Keys, over”
“Ten four. Over”
“Abuja Inspector said one positive. Over”
“Shit, how on earth…” Incognito was getting irritated “Ten four, Sticky Key and Cinderella to Abuja one positive ASAP. Over”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, Incognito knew what it meant; discontentment, but he had no choice.
“Ten four sir. Locomotive means? Over”
“Lady Bug. Over”
“Ten four. Over and out”
“Over and out” Incognito replaced his pager to where it was on the dash board as he was driving to Ibadan to have another session of talk with Charles. He looked out of his window just to clear his mind, he saw a child and a dog playing “How innocent juveniles are!”
He whistled along the tune and nodded to the rythym of the great reggae legend’s “One Love”, as his car tape poured. 

Wilson’s code name was sticky keys, he was so called because his hands were extremely fast-sticking to keyboards, consoles, typing and shortcuts. Jenny’s code name was Cinderella and the name lady bug was their secret name for the company’s jet; Citation X, a 72 feet long stuff, with a 2 x Rolls-Royce AE3007C1, fit to rock 972km/hr at 35,000 feet above the land horizon. They had created all these code names and patterns to hide meanings of words and identities to people who could be snooping or who might have bugged the King’s communication system to extract private information.

When Wilson and Jenny arrived Abuja, they met with Inspector Garba and his team; they were already at the crime scene and examining the perimeter. Jenny cursed under her breadth, she hated having other hands who don’t work with her; tampering with possible evidences on a scene, but she had no choice than to cope with them. They had come to their territory in Abuja, so they had to play by the rules. But by the look of things, nobody else had been to the crime scene it looked all preserved.

Since there were people on the scene before them, Jenny decided they use the grid method of searching. Entry and exit points of perpetrator(s) couldn’t be determined; they have been covered by abiotic and biotic actions over time. Wilson was not an examiner, but as he had been to various crime scenes with the rest of the team, he knew what to do and look for. He also has an ability to learn fast, see fast and retrieve images in his brain and mind. Jenny as a pathologist too, have worked long hours in the morgue and scenes with Tomiyosi the M.E to know what to do.
They did a study of the area; the landscape had green vegetation close to where the body was laying, there were buildings which were uncompleted and it seemed they’d been so since over a year. A stream, fallen trees and so many worms around and insects, but far away from the river, the vegetations aren’t so green, they appeared to just be picking up. The Sun wasn’t in its full capacity; the early January rain seemed to have reduced its effect. The early rain in Abuja was quite unusual too, so many unusual happenings have taken place in the past months, Wilson thought.
The body laid in a foetus posture but a leg was stretched out. The victim seemed to have died of cuts, most likely from two persons. Jenny was able to pick out just two knife-edge cut patterns with the aid of magnifying glass.
But the things here were quite different from what was online, Wilson noticed as they took records with notes, pictures and a video covering of the cadaver and the environment.  The dead body from the news was still fresh, probably a day old, much insects weren’t at the scene yet. But here, the body was decomposing  already, rigor had come and gone, hairs were detaching easily, nails had no strong hold to the digits and evidences of blood froth are noticeable around mouth part and eye sockets. The stomach had burst,and liquefaction was taking place already. The vegetation wasn’t this green in the picture from the news. It meant, the picture from the news had been taken some weeks back.

Inspector Garba did not want them taking the dead body, he said it happened in his jurisdiction and so he wasn’t going to let them take over the case. Wilson had said he got the information and it was linked to a case which he was working on, although it had no link with any of the cases they were handling. And he wasn’t willing to share the details with the local police. Since the overseeing officer refused, Wilson had to call Incognito, who called the Supritendent and he told Garba to let the case go after he had liaised with Incognito.
When they got back to the Police station at Kuje, they did some basic checks; blood sample from residues and possibly viable evidences that could be easily lost checked. Running the finger print against the network providers’ databases, so that the name of the victim could be obtained was impossible, as a result of decay. The online news had not mentioned name, the victim was only referred to as a Trader. But while investigating the scene in grid; a method that eluded the police,  Wilson discovered a driver’s license which read “Adeola Adeoye”, he kept it from Inspector Garba and his team
Jenny and Wilson did the necessary paper works, signed them too. They bagged the victim and drove to the Nnamdi Azikwe airport, the body was strapped aboard. Wilson sat with the pilot at the 2 man crew cockpit, He dialled Incognito’s number after he had contacted the tower at Lagos. He told him the situation report.
When the name ‘Adeola Adeoye’ was mentioned, Incognito took a brief moment of pause. He said the name triggered a memory from the recently acquired information, he said Adeola was Charles’ friend, they  had a common childhood and although he hasn’t seen him or any picture of him, he planned calling him the following day as he had planned to talk with some other close friends of Charles.
Then it was no coincidence that the news link was sent to Incognito.

Ade was brought into the King’s Morgue, he was an horrible sight and his stench filled the atmosphere. His body had decayed beyond all carefulness. Based on this stage, Jenny could guess he had been dead for almost two weeks. His tongue stuck to one side of his mouth, his eyelids half closed over his flattened eyeballs, his. His cloth was soiled and turned black due to enzymic actions on the spilt blood. The openings of wound spread across his face, to the neck, arms, stomach and inner thigh, they were filled with sand, liquids and egg cells. Tomiyosi stood some feet away, filling the details on a death form. Efe who was doing his internship was on her left, he was giving all diligence to removing what he had called hair from the victim’s wounds. Though Tomiyosi from experience had told him they were fibres from a cloth material, but as he removed them with shaky hands, his mind still saw them as hair strands.
Tomiyosi was comparing photographs from the crime scene with the real picture. She held the  high resolution magnifying lens some centimeters away from her nose, as she examined the wounds. She saw more fibres, dead maggots and extremely small eggs of insects. As she continued the examination, she was able to maneuver the deceased hands, using a horizontal ink roller and a finger straightener over a print card and thus obtained a print from the left forefinger of the victim. It was a smile of luck, because it was the only finger not yet disrupted totally.
“This body is no less than three weeks old.” Sophia, the young new examiner said.
“Well, so it seem” Jenny responded.
“Ma, from your tone,” Efe was saying, “you sounded like it could be more or less.
“Yes” Jenny replied, “We’ve had enough cases and examinations handled and have learnt not to draw up conclusions before it all ends. You see, helpless victims who have mouth but can’t utter words, beg for mercy to be listened to. And the only way to listen to what they are saying is by paying attention to all details possibly present with them, and make right conclusion from inferences observed.
“Okay ma.”
On close examination, Tomiyosi noticed a bulge in the flaccid eyeballs in  the cranium, almost unnoticeable. And she noticed  abrasions beneath the lower lids though they were sagging.
She touched the lobe of the tongue with her gloved hand, it was soft as she anticipated and loose. Rigor had come and gone. On the neck region after she had brushed with powder, she noticed a chain link impression. She heaved.
“I don talk am”
“What?” Jenny asked with raised brows
“When I noticed the flattened sunken eyes, with dilated pupil, I suspected he died of asphyxiation more than cuts. The cuts were inflicted posthumously, probably to  mislead the forensic team. You were able to get fallen nails, right?”
“Yes, I enveloped some”
“Let’s see possible abrasions, if they’re not decomposed beyond apology”
Jenny brough the evidence bag, retracted the envelope labelled “NAILS”
The nails contained flesh really, but they were too degraded to be tested. Insects and enzymes have done an imbalanced justice to the bits found underneath the nails
Tomiyosi hissed. “I wonder why they waited this long to reveal the news to the world.”
“So that it would be a dead end if they try to investigate” Jenny said.

She readied the materials collected from the body; the white and black cottons, autopsy pictures and eggs and larva of various insects including the melanogaster among others for further analysis.

It was almost ten pm when Incognito approached the Ibadan-Ife express way. He pressed Charles doorbell at the Wole Adegbite Avenue exactly when the clock chimed ten.
Charles looked through the peep hole and with a worried face and tone, he welcomed the detective
“Welcome Sir” he offered a hand shake “How far? Were you able to get anything? Any information that could be of help?”
“Well, nothing really,” he offered his hand in return “it only seems it would be an interesting case”
Charles pulled back a bit with a raised brow, he said “How? Please sir; do you know where Temmy is? Have you any news about my wife?” he sounded dull and looked like he was loosing composure.
“Not yet” Incognito adjusted the backrest on the chair and sat. ” I met and spoke with Qazeem the driver and he said nothing unusual. His facial expressions depicted sincerity to an extent and at some point, he sounded cold as if he is not concerned about what happened”
“Yes I knew I couldn’t trust the bastard” Charles blotted “How would he say he slept on duty?”

What?
Was Qazeem really guilty?
What did Incognito know, that he did not say?
Was the King’s Forensics able to unlock any twist from the dead knot?

Episode 4!!!

Right Here!

Picture obtained from “color box”