Hotel Room Murder Read online

  Hotel Room Murder

  A Tunde Osbourne Investigation

  Published by Laybels Publishing

  Copyright 2021 C. M. Okonkwo

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your preferred ebook distribution platform and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  DISCLAIMER

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead, undead, in the before-life or in the after-life, will be deemed a compliment of the author’s genius.

  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this book to mystery and suspense lovers, anyone looking for a quick read and a case to solve in the process.

  I do hope you enjoy it!

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prelude: Click

  Chapter One: Ring

  Chapter Two: Body

  Chapter Three: Message

  Chapter Four: Proof

  Chapter Five: Driver

  Chapter Six: Daisey

  Chapter Seven: Call

  Chapter Eight: Confession

  Chapter Nine: Access

  Chapter Ten: Killer

  Postlude: Closed

  Acknowledgments

  Prelude: Click

  Thursday, 22nd November 2018

  7:25 a.m.

  The weather seemed a bit confused; not sure if it wanted to be hot or cool. The heat stung like a sharp needle while the clouds looked pregnant, threatening a downpour. Many would have used that as an excuse to stay home, but not the man in the dark glasses on a mission. He slouched in his car seat, stationed at a strategic spot in the parking lot of a hotel and watched the main entrance.

  He had been sitting there for the past one hour, patiently waiting as night turned to day even without the sun showing up. He toyed with the radio in his car, flipping through stations until he got to one that wasn’t playing noisy songs. The radio host was announcing the 8:00 a.m. news, but that wasn’t what interested the man.

  He looked at his wristwatch to confirm the time, and like clockwork, he saw Subject A approach the entrance of the hotel. He sat up immediately, took off his dark glasses, put his camera to his face, then began to click away. In the space of thirty-something seconds, he had taken about fifty pictures of Subject A, and he shook his head at how predictable people could be.

  Subject A was a man who shouldn’t have been at the hotel at that time or any other time. He was a man who should have been at home with his wife but instead chose to be with another woman. He had been difficult to find at first by the man in the dark glasses, changing his rendezvous locations without notice until he discovered this hotel, and for the last two weeks, he had always been there at the same time, every day. Thirty minutes after he arrived, Subject B always arrived; a woman who should have been at home with her husband as well, but instead chose to be with another man. Whatever both parties said to their spouses to be away from home so early in the morning, the man in the dark glasses didn’t know.

  The man threw his glasses back on and continued the wait, and exactly thirty minutes later, as expected, Subject B trotted to the fore of the hotel, wearing dark glasses and a scarf wrapped around her head. It was a disguise that worked with anyone who didn’t know what she was up to, but not with the man in the dark glasses. Just like with Subject A, he flung off his glasses immediately, picked up his camera, put it to his face, and began to click away, taking more photos in a shorter time than he had done with Subject A until Subject B was out of sight.

  The man replaced his glasses and sat for a few minutes going through the ton of evidence he had collected within the space of one month since he was hired, and was confident that it was time to hand something over to his client. He put the camera away, pulled out his phone, then dialled a number.

  The call rang once before it was answered. The man didn’t expect that it would be answered any second later, especially by a woman who suspected her husband of cheating and who was probably awake and wondering where he was.

  “Hello,” the groggy-sounding female voice said.

  “Good morning. It’s me,” the man in the dark glasses replied. “I have everything you need.”

  “So, it’s true?” the female client asked and confirmed at the same time. Her voice had suddenly switched from groggy to shaky. Her worst fear had been confirmed.

  The man in the dark glasses did not need to reply to the woman’s question-cum-statement. Instead, he asked, “When can we meet? To hand over the evidence and get the balance of my payment?”

  “Today. Same place and time.” She sniffled twice, then added, “In front of my children’s school by 2:20 p.m.”

  The man knew that it was unprofessional, and it was something that he had never done before, but strangely, he felt pity for his client. It must have been the sniffling that got to him. He sighed, and said, “Lagos Star Hotel.”

  “What?” The female voice suddenly came alive.

  “Lagos Star Hotel. That’s where your husband is right now. He arrived at eight and usually spends about two hours there.”

  The man hung up after his last statement before the woman could say any other thing. He knew she would have further questions, and he didn’t want to hear them, neither did he want to answer any other question. His work was done, and he had gone the extra mile.

  To complete his private investigation, he would have waited the remaining two hours for his subjects to leave, then taken final photos of them. But in that instance, he thought that maybe it would be better to let the wife see them physically, in case she was still doubtful, then she would conclude for herself.

  So instead of leaving the scene, he slouched once more in his reclined car seat and waited for his client to arrive, which she did at about 9:00 a.m. After they reconfirmed their meeting for later in the afternoon and that he would bring along printed evidence, she set a reminder on her smartphone, then headed for the hotel entrance, while he fired up his car and left.

  ***

  Same day

  Thursday, 22nd November 2018

  12:30 p.m.

  Titilayo Lawrence stopped in front of room 202, where she was supposed to clean for her morning rounds, and knocked, as she yelled “housekeeping.” No answer gotten, she knocked again and there was still no answer. She slid her access badge into the card reader and pulled it out when the indicator light flashed green, then she opened the door and entered the room. Seconds later, she took a hold of her cleaning trolley and pushed it in front of her.

  A pillow lay on the floor, not too far from the door, which she picked up and placed atop the trolley. She shook her head as she advanced further when she saw male and female clothes littered about. She hoped that she hadn’t walked into a love-making session, so she decided to announce her entry again by yelling “housekeeping.”

  No one answered, so it was evident that she was the only one there, as there was no sound of water running in the bathroom. She imagined the couple making love and wondered how many rounds they must have gone. She smiled at the thought of that, then picked up the clothes and also placed them on the trolley before going to the main room.

  The sheets and the blanket covered the entirety of the bed, but Titilayo Lawrence noticed some strange red patches on them. She gripped one edge of the blanket and pulled the whole thing from the bed. She staggered back when she saw two people on the bed, a man and a woman, both naked.

  At first glance, it looked like they were snooz
ing, but they lay too haphazardly to be that asleep. So out of curiosity, she bent over them and touched the woman, but when she saw patches of what looked like blood on the man, she knew that they were far from asleep.

  She withdrew her hands immediately in utter shock, then began to walk backwards. As the reality of seeing and touching a dead body played in her head, she placed a hand over her mouth and the other on her stomach. She was horrified and thought she was going to throw up. She continued to walk backwards until her back reached the door and bumped into it.

  She then turned around without hesitation, screamed, and ran out of the room.

  Chapter One: Ring

  Same day

  Thursday, 22nd November 2018

  1:00 p.m.

  By the time Inspector Tunde Osbourne arrived at the crime scene, a team of forensic officers was already on the ground combing through the evidence and taking pictures. The call had come through early, but he figured that it would be better to let the first responders look at the scene and evacuate it if possible before he showed up to investigate.

  The hotel was massive, modern-looking, and most especially expensive. The array of cars in the parking lot told the same story of luxury, and concurrently, another story of worry, as the inspector wondered why there were still cars in the parking lot when the hotel should have already been evacuated.

  He entered the reception that looked golden from the tiles to the décor, the ceiling, and the furniture. There were also cameras at various points, which meant that there were more eyes and that his work was going to be easier and faster than expected. Observing the area, he noticed that the place teemed with people and activities as if there had not been an incident in the hotel at all. In fact, there were more people on the ground floor than there were cars in the parking lot, and the inspector couldn’t understand why.

  After he had scanned everywhere in the first few minutes after his entry, he went to the front desk from where he was directed to room 202. He got to the second floor and didn’t need further direction. He followed the sound of rattling and voices and got to the room with the opened door. He entered and no one paid him any attention.

  The room was overcrowded with both police officers, who were not doing anything, and forensics officers, who were actually working and looked inconvenienced by the presence of too many humans. They hissed and grumbled when they had to ask police officers to step aside so that they could move around and do their jobs. Inspector Osbourne felt that they would get mad if they saw another police officer enter the room, so he had to make his visit meaningful.

  He spotted one of the forensic officers, who he assumed to be the head, as she was not doing much of the work, but busying herself watching what her colleagues were doing and taking her own notes. Just like her colleagues, she looked like she had been summoned to tackle a pandemic, clad in a white overall, eyes behind large square transparent goggles, a face mask over her nose and mouth, and white latex gloves on both hands. She and her colleagues hadn’t been given any concrete information about the suspected cause of death when they received the call, so to be safe, they went prepared until they knew what they were up against.

  The inspector walked up to her, and said, “My name is Inspector Tunde Osbourne of the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department of the Victoria Island Divisional Police Station.”

  The woman removed the mask from over her nose and mouth, and replied, “I’m Officer Ndidi Okezie, Lead Forensics Officer for the case.”

  Inspector Osbourne didn’t know who she was. Because of the work load and schedules of doctors and forensics experts, most of them worked in shifts, depending on the time and day a case was discovered and who was on duty. Inspector Osbourne had worked with a few of them, some more than once, but he had never met this one before.

  He extended his hand to her. Officer Ndidi Okezie, stretched her hand with her fingers rolled into a fist, and the inspector shook her wrist. She didn’t bother taking off her glove for the handshake, and the inspector didn’t blame her. If anything, it was going to waste her time and she would have to put on another glove. It wasn’t worth the hassle.

  The inspector pulled out a pair of latex gloves from his pants pocket and put them on, as he glanced around. His eyes first met with a splatter of blood on the sheets, then rested on the two still bodies on the bed. “This looks pretty bad,” he commented.

  Officer Ndidi Okezie looked at him.

  He nodded towards the bodies on the bed, to let her know what he was referring to, then added, “Lovers?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Officer Ndidi Okezie shrugged, not quite sure what the answer was. “But they are married, that I can confirm.”

  The inspector turned to her. “They are a couple, then?”

  “We can’t tell for now, but looking at their fingers, you would see that they have wedding ring marks.”

  Inspector Osbourne went to look at the fingers on each victim and saw the marks. “So they could be married and having an affair, or be married to each other?”

  “Yes, to both.” The officer nodded. “But then, if they are married to each other, why take off their rings?”

  “I’m pretty sure a lot of couples take off their wedding rings, especially when they are together.”

  “Possibly, but what couple would check into a hotel just for a quick fix? They could have just stayed at home.”

  “The ones who have kids.” Inspector Osbourne smiled.

  The officer lowered her head, embarrassed, then looked away.

  Inspector Osbourne turned back to the bodies, then continued, “Did you find the rings?”

  Still looking away, she said, “No.”

  Inspector Osbourne wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. He looked up at her again, and confirmed, “No rings?”

  “No,” she repeated, and looked at him, regaining confidence. “That’s where it’s confusing.”

  Inspector Osbourne nodded, then remarked, “Because if they were lovers, they would have their rings on them for after their hook up. Unless they both didn’t know they were married to someone else, or maybe they are married and might have left their rings at home.”

  “That’s all we have for now.” The officer sighed. “Possibilities, until your people get the facts. Because from what I gathered, the officers on the ground can’t tell for now who the victims are until the hotel management provides them with their information.”

  “You didn’t find any form of identification on them?”

  “On the man, yes. He had a wallet in his trouser pocket and the name on his driver’s license is Kamar Ogunba. He also had a credit card and the access card to the hotel room.”

  “Hmm. So he probably reserved the room.” Inspector Osbourne looked at the bodies again. “And the woman?”

  “Nothing on her.”

  “No handbag?”

  “Strangely, no.”

  Inspector Osbourne observed the woman’s body closely. There were several scars on her head as if she had been battered by an angry person, but one of the scars stood out. It looked like a bump she could have gotten from a fall, while the others looked like a circular object had been used to hit her several times. The inspector wondered just how hard the blows would have been to have killed her. He went over to the man and saw a dark patch around his jaw area. A trail of blood was also on his neck, so the inspector moved him on his side and saw that there was a slight tear just above his neck. He had received blows to his head too, but they had different patterns from those on the female victim, and his had patches of blood on them.

  “There’s evidence of trauma to their heads,” Inspector Osbourne offered, as he replaced the male victim on his back. “But I’m not sure it was enough to kill them.”

  “The paramedics would be here any moment from now to take them away for examination. But we were able to retrieve a glass bowl from the coffee table that was used on the back of the male victim’s head. We are yet to get the object used on the female victim.
”

  “How long before I know the time and cause of their death?”

  “It depends on how fast Doctor Akachi examines the bodies,” the officer replied. “It usually takes between two to four hours for an autopsy, but he knows to give you a preliminary report once it’s determined.”

  Inspector Osbourne nodded. He remembered something, then asked, “I noticed that the hotel is still operating and packed full as if nothing happened. Shouldn’t an evacuation have been initiated?”

  “The hotel didn’t think it was worth disturbing their clientele about and causing panic when we could easily seal off the affected area. They evacuated just the two rooms beside us and had to remind us of the inconvenience it caused to their guests.”

  The inspector shook his head. If he had his way, he would have initiated the evacuation himself. He was going to speak with the hotel management about that.

  “Anyway, I’m already done processing the scene,” Officer Ndidi Okezie continued, as she glanced around, and at the same time, the paramedics entered and began clearing the room. “We’ll all be out of here in a few minutes and I’ll send you a detailed report with all the evidence recovered within the hour.”

  “Thank you. I’ll go and speak with the hotel management and the staff who discovered the bodies.”

  ***

  Same day

  Thursday, 22nd November 2018

  1:30 p.m.

  Inspector Osbourne sat across Mr. Akande Bishop, the manager of Lagos Star Hotel, in a meeting room on the ground floor of the hotel. Standing beside the manager, was a woman whose badge only read ‘Receptionist’. They were both looking utterly relaxed and composed, one would think they were reporting a mere case of someone writing bad press about them.