Murder at Cape Three Points (19 page)

A
FTER DINNER
, D
AWSON PLAYED
his mbira for a while until the electricity abruptly cut. He heard the drone of the Stellar Hotel’s generators as they automatically switched on.

“Oil City, no lights,” he muttered, sitting at the side of the bed. He had a strong desire to smoke some marijuana, or “
wee
,” as it was popularly known. He wondered where one could get some in Takoradi. The wife and kids weren’t around. This was a good time to do it. He growled at himself for thinking about it and then began to bargain with himself. If he smoked some
wee
, he might see things in this murder case more clearly. That’s what had happened to him in the last investigation.

Stupid.
He gave himself a mental slap across the face.
You are not going out to hunt for marijuana.
It disturbed him that he was even contemplating the idea. What he needed right now was some light, some noisy TV, and a couple of boisterous kids to keep him busy and banish these cravings. It was too dark, too quiet, and he was lonely.

His mind swung back to the investigation. Multiple locations were involved in the Smith-Aidoo murders. Dawson needed to see the site of the presumed ambush and kidnapping a few kilometers away from Ezile Bay. The killers might have shot their victims there, but he doubted that. He believed they had taken them to some secluded beach and murdered them there. That too, if Dawson ever found it, would become a crime scene. After that, they had been launched
out to sea, ending up at the
Thor Sterke
oil rig sixty kilometers offshore. Dawson would be able to investigate the ambush area when he visited Ezile over the weekend, and in time, he hoped to find the location of the beach from which the canoes launched. He propped himself up on his elbow. What about the perimeter around the Malgam oil rig where the canoe had drifted bearing the two dead bodies? It was analogous to a situation on land in which someone is murdered in one location and their body is dumped in another. Therefore, the area surrounding the oil rig had been a crime scene. The importance of thoroughness was not lost on Dawson. Neither Hammond nor any of his team had gone out to the rig, but as a good detective, Dawson felt he had to do everything in his power to get there, especially if he was one day to appear in court to testify against the Smith-Aidoos’ murderer. Dawson had seen too many detectives go down in flames as the defendant’s solicitor made a mockery of the fact that they hadn’t familiarized themselves with the crime scene.

As Dawson drifted off to sleep, he thought eagerly about the next day, Friday. Chikata, his detective sergeant, would be coming up to Takoradi, and later in the day—best of all—Christine and the boys. Dawson could hardly wait.

A
T
6:45 F
RIDAY
morning, Dawson received a call from Chikata that he and the driver were already on the road and should be in Tadi within two hours.

Oh
, Dawson thought,
he has a driver while I got the cramped, smelly State Transport bus.

“Very good,” he said. “Do you have accommodations while you’re here?”

“Yeah,” Chikata said lightly. “My uncle knows one of the managers at Stellar Hotel, so I’ll be staying there for free.”

Dawson was stunned. While he had had to find his own accommodations, his junior officer would be staying in a fancy hotel? For
free
? This is the royal treatment you get when your chief superintendent was your doting uncle.

“I hear say some beautiful women dey,” Chikata said, switching to his beloved pidgin.

“Maybe, but they are all escorts for the white oil engineers,” Dawson said bluntly. “They’re not interested in the likes of you and me. Anyway, you’re coming here to work, not play.”

“Yes, massa,” Chikata said, humbly, but Dawson could hear the mischief in his voice.

I
T WAS PAST
nine when he phoned Dawson again. The police drove notoriously fast, so it was no surprise Chikata had made such good time.

“I’ve arrived at the hotel,” he said. “Room Three Eleven.”

“All right. I’ll be there soon.”

Dawson walked across the street and went up the staircase to the third floor. Chikata opened the door to his knock and blinked in amazement. “Massa, how did you get here so fast?”

Dawson smiled enigmatically. “Magic. No actually, I’m staying right opposite the hotel on the other side of the street.”

“Oh, I see.” Chikata laughed. “You are welcome. Come in.”

Natural light illuminated the room through a large window that looked out onto the landscaped grounds. Two large beds faced the widescreen TV, which Chikata had tuned to a movie channel. He had set his laptop on the writing desk. The whisper-quiet air conditioner high up on the wall had the room deliciously chilled.

“Enjoying life, eh?” Dawson said with a hint of envy.

Chikata laughed again. At twenty-nine years old, he consistently turned women’s heads with his powerful build and bold, granite-chiseled facial features.

“Would you like a Malta?” he asked, knowing his boss’s favorite well.

“For sure,” Dawson said, brightening.

“I ordered some for you from the restaurant.”

He got a bottle out of the mini-fridge and tossed it to Dawson, who caught it with one hand. Chikata took a bottle of water for himself. If he couldn’t drink beer, he drank water.

“Okay,” Dawson said, “turn off the TV and let’s get started.”

He sat in the desk chair while Chikata perched on the love seat in the corner to listen to the briefing. The sergeant had seen the now infamous picture of the impaled head, but he knew very few other
details. At Dawson’s account of his meetings with DeSouza, Chikata gave a one-sided smile.

“The most indignant guys are sometimes the most guilty,” he observed.

“True,” Dawson agreed.

He related his encounter with Hammond, warning Chikata to watch his step when dealing with the superintendent.

“Okay,” Chikata said. “I’ll be careful. So, what’s next?”

“I want to go to Takoradi Tech to double-check DeSouza’s alibi. Baah can drop me off there, and you continue with him.”

“What am I going to do?”

“I’ve been looking at the family angle of this murder,” Dawson explained, leaning forward. “Now it’s time to find out whether traditional religious beliefs played a part—
juju
, witchcraft, ritual sacrifice, and so on. I want you to dig around fetish priests, shrines, and the like for any inside information relevant to the murder. In the past year, has anyone visited a shrine to ask for guidance for a problem for which the solution was to sacrifice Charles and/or his wife? And we want to know the significance of a severed head on a stake.”

Chikata let out a mild expletive. “You go to Tech, but I have to go to these
juju
people? What kind of welcome is that?”

“But you’re so good at that kind of thing,” Dawson said, grinning.

Chikata looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t think there’s any kind of
juju
involved in this case,” he declared.

“Why do you say that?”

He shrugged. “It’s just my impression.”

“Impression!” Dawson exclaimed. “You’ve just arrived on the case, you have been here barely one hour, and you’re already tossing impressions around?”

Chikata threw his head back and laughed, showing a set of perfect white teeth. Dawson found a scrap of paper on the desk, balled it up, and threw it accurately at the Sergeant’s head.

“I say no
juju
at all involved in this case,” Chikata asserted. “You say yes. We’ll see who is right.”

C
HIKATA
’
S CHAUFFEUR HAD
had to return to his duties in Accra, so Baah would get to keep his post as driver for the detectives. He was waiting for them downstairs in the car park. After Dawson had introduced him to Chikata, he got into the front passenger seat and Chikata sat in the rear.

As they set off, Dawson called Jason Sarbah to ask a question. “Technically, the
Thor Sterke
oil rig is a part of the crime scene. How can I visit the rig?”

“That might be difficult,” Sarbah said, after a short pause.

“Why is that?”

“A lot of regulations. For example, there can only be a certain number of people on the rig at one time. If you come on, we have to pull someone off.”

“I see.”

“And also, you have to get underwater training before you can step foot on the rig.”

Dawson frowned. “Underwater training?”

“One goes to the rig by helicopter, so everyone has to go through HUET—Helicopter Underwater Escape Training.”

Dawson felt a little faint. “Oh.”

“Can you swim?”

Dawson’s hearing had shut down as he broke into a cold sweat. “Pardon?”

“Do you swim?”

“Not very well. Well, not at all, really.”

“You will have a life vest on, but you will still be required to know how to escape in the case of a submersion. If you want to proceed with it, I’ll arrange a session for you and after you are certified, we can set up a date to fly you to the rig.”

Dawson cleared his throat nervously. “Yes, all right. I suppose … I suppose I’ll have to do it. Thank you, Mr. Sarbah.”

He ended the call in near terror.
Underwater
training?

A
S PLANNED
, B
AAH
dropped Dawson off at Takoradi Technical Institute and continued on with Chikata. The buildings of the spotless campus were red with yellow trim on the end walls, and yellow
with green trim along the classroom verandas. Dawson went upstairs to the main office on the second story of the administrative block and asked to see someone in charge of staffing.

“That’s Mrs. Chinebuah,” a receptionist said, and led him to an adjoining office. She knocked, opened the door, and looked in.

“Please, this gentleman has a question for you.”

Chinebuah was a hefty woman in her early forties in a trouser suit with a short-style wig framing her round face. Densely packed into her outfit, she looked like she could take down two grown men.

Dawson entered. “Good morning, Mrs. Chinebuah.”

“Good morning,” she said pleasantly. “May I help you?”

“Inspector Dawson, CID. I’m making some inquiries.”

She smiled. “Am I in trouble, Inspector?”

He smiled too. “Not as far as I know. I’m investigating the death of Mr. and Mrs. Smith-Aidoo.”

“Ah,” she said, shaking her head. “Sad.” She took out several sheets of papers from the copy machine and straightened them on the counter.

“Did you know them?” Dawson asked.

“The man, yes. Not so much his wife. He was a strong supporter of TTI, both morally and financially.”

“Really? So he was well-liked by everyone here.”

“Someone donates money to your school, and you’re going to dislike him?” She began to fold the sheets of paper. “We could hardly believe that this murder had taken place. Is there something specific you need to know?”

“You’re in charge of staffing schedules?”

“Just one of my duties as an assistant administrator, yes sir.”

“Mr. Kwesi DeSouza. He’s a member of your staff, correct?”

“Yes,” she said, pressing a button to begin a series of copies. “He’s in IT.”

“I understand he works on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays,” Dawson said, watching the sheets of paper flowing into place with hypnotizing regularity.

“Yes, I believe that’s correct,” she said. “I can check for you.”

“I’m interested in the dates of seventh and eighth July of this year.”

She sat down with an air of efficiency, pulled her chair up to her desk computer, and went into the appropriate screen. “Let’s see now … the seventh was a Monday. Yes, he worked that day … oh, no, sorry—he had to postpone the class until Wednesday.”

Interesting
, Dawson thought. DeSouza had not mentioned that. “Any reason given for the postponement?”

She was trying to remember. “Let me think. He called me about it … aha, yes, I remember now. He went to a funeral in Somanya, the Saturday before—that would be the fifth—and then some kind of family palaver arose, and he told me he couldn’t be in on Monday, so the class was canceled and rescheduled to Wednesday.”

“Is Mr. DeSouza here today?”

“He may be in the IT office marking exam papers, or else he could be invigilating an exam. The students are taking their midterms.” She pointed out the window in the direction of IT. “Turn right where you see the electrical department and go straight.”

“Thank you very much.”

“You are most welcome.” She looked concerned but not panicked. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine. Just routine inquiries—nothing to be concerned about.”

“Very good.” She smiled and winked at him. “Then I won’t bother to mention it to Mr. DeSouza.”

O
UTSIDE
, D
AWSON PAUSED
to look at a bronze statue of a man in front of a piece of equipment on a tripod—a kind of mascot of the institute. The campus was neat, with well-kept grass and trimmed shrubs. Students, all in their early to late teens walked back and forth between classes in khaki and cream uniforms that reminded Dawson of his secondary school days. Women were evidently very rare here, and they seemed to be mostly assigned to the fashion design department.