There is the issue with the typed suicide note, which could’ve been written by anyone. The victim looked prepared for the next few days, unlike someone who’s ready to take his life. The woman he’s supposed to have killed himself over disputes any kind of deep connection, and there’s also the matter of a missing laptop.
The fact that I, Sgt Makini of Jiji Ndogo Police Post and a simpleton at best, brought these issues to the fore has a few people on edge. My partner and common-law wife Sergeant Sophia is beginning to think I’ve been a hypocrite all along. A savant masquerading as a dimwit. That sentence on its own would only work to affirm her case.
“Maybe you were you a detective in another life,” Sophia says. “That’s the only way to explain this.”
“Why can’t I be good at it in this life?” I ask.
“Because…
because you’re…”
“Because I’m what, stupid?”
“No, because you’re you. You’re Makini. You’re a lovable small-town sergeant. You follow my drift?”
I don’t quite follow her drift. “Am I loveable only if I come across as stupid?”
She scoffs and toys with the collar of her uniform shirt. “That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just that… I feel like it’s a dream and I’ll soon wake up and all this won’t be real, you know? I mean, it’s…” She stops and looks me straight in the eyes. “I’m not used to you being like this. It’s like… like a paradigm shift.”
“A para-what now?”
“It means a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions,” a voice says from behind me. I turn around to see Detective Gundua standing by the door. “Hi, Sophia,” he says. “What philosophical topic are you kids on now, huh?”
“Good afternoon, detective,” I say, already feeling as if I’m intruding on a private conversation. “Any new developments on the case?”
“As a matter of fact, there is.” He consults his notes. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you got very lucky on this one.”
Ignoring
his snide remarks, I plough on excitedly. “So, I was right, yeah?”
“You know how they say penicillin was discovered after a scientist left out a sandwich on a table in a lab?”
Sophia snorts. “I don’t think that’s how exactly that story goes, but go on.”
“All I’m saying is,” Gundua goes on, “Makini boy here hit a once-in-a-lifetime jackpot. The autopsy report is out. Valentine was strangled but not by the rope he was hanging from. That was only staged to look like a suicide. He was killed because of his social media activity.”
“Where he acted as a gay influencer?” Sophia asks.
“He only pretended to be gay for likes,” Gundua corrects. “But most of the ‘gifts’ he was receiving were only a way for Nigerian drug dealers to launder money.”
I shake
my head. “How?”
“It happens more than you’d think. These ‘influencers’ get a crapload of money, keep some and send the rest back to the ‘gifters’ as clean money.”
“But was he killed?”
Gundua shrugs. “Something made him change his mind and his sponsors didn’t take it too well.”
“We should go after them!” I yell with excitement.
Gundua smiles condescendingly. “Sgt Makini, you were lucky, but leave the rest to the real detectives, okay? Stick to your lane.”
