Murder at Cape Three Points (30 page)

“I did find one, but I’ve put it away in one of the boxes, so I’ll have to locate it and call you.”

“Thank you very, very much.”

He felt relieved as he said goodbye. She had made it painless.

D
ARKNESS HAD FALLEN
as Dawson returned home. Chikata called him to say he was on his way back from Axim after a long, fruitless day of looking for leads. He planned to return there in the next two days.

“Call it a day,” Dawson had told him. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

He felt deflated. Nothing was turning up any leads. He felt an urgency to keep moving, however. The spotlight was now on Reggie Cardiman. Dawson planned to make a move in the morning. It would be Sunday, and millions of Ghanaians, the most religious people in the world, would be off to church, but he had never let a day of worship get in his way of an investigation.

Chapter 28

B
Y
10
A
.
M
., D
AWSON
and Chikata were at the Dixcove District Court trying to secure a search warrant. It required extracting the magistrate from an evangelical extravaganza in which pastors were casting out demons from evildoers. Dawson got the feeling that the warrant was issued with record speed because the magistrate wanted to get back to the spectacle. By one thirty in the afternoon, they were at Cape Three Points. Cardiman was surprised to see them.

“Can we talk in private?” Dawson asked.

“Of course. Let’s go to the office.”

Cardiman and the two detectives sat facing each other.

“Let’s go back to your meeting with Charles Smith-Aidoo,” Dawson said. “What time did Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo leave you?”

“I think I mentioned it before, didn’t I?” Cardiman said, “Twelve thirty?” Now he sounded less certain.

“As far as you know, where was he going next?” Dawson asked.

“Back to Takoradi, I believe.”

“Did you suggest to him that he go somewhere else before proceeding?”

Cardiman frowned. “No, why?”

“Think carefully. Did you recommend to the Smith-Aidoos that they visit the lighthouse?”

Cardiman thought for a moment and his puzzled frown cleared as soon as he remembered. “Ah, yes—you’re correct. As they were leaving I did recommend they go up there for the marvelous view. I should have mentioned that to you. My apologies.”

“
When
did you recommend that?” Dawson asked.

“Around the time Charles and his wife were leaving.”

Dawson took out his notebook. “Let me read you what I noted when we first met and talked. ‘Cardiman stated: could not have ambushed vehicle if Smith-Aidoos left at twelve thirty and he left almost thirty minutes after—impossible to catch up with them in order to carry out an ambush.’ You went out of your way to make that specific point, and now you tell us you just conveniently forgot to mention that you had suggested to the Smith-Aidoos that they take a detour?”

“That’s true,” he agreed, “but Inspector, this event was four months ago. My memory isn’t infallible. And in any case, they probably decided not to go the lighthouse.”

Cardiman was thinking ahead, Dawson realized. “Why do you say that?” he asked, even though he was anticipating the answer.

“Because if they spent time at the lighthouse,” Cardiman said confidently, “I would have beaten them to the location their vehicle was found abandoned—or perhaps arrived around the same time. Obviously that did not happen, and so I could not have had anything to do with the Smith-Aidoos’ death.”

But Dawson did not agree. Deliberately or not—and Dawson suspected deliberately—Cardiman was using invalid logic: if A then B, and therefore C. It was clever, but not clever enough.

“You told us that you had parted with Charles Smith-Aidoo on good terms,” Dawson said leaning forward and boring his gaze into Cardiman, “but we’ve learned that in fact you had heated words with him because he told you that if you didn’t voluntarily vacate the Ezile property, it would be easy to pay off Nana Ackah-Yensu to kick you out.”

Cardiman’s jaw slackened. “What? Whoever told you that completely misrepresented our discussion. We did
not
have a big argument, and we did
not
part on bad terms, and Charles certainly never threatened me in the way you or your source claims. I’ve already told you what Charles said to me: He offered me a stake in a development along the Cape Three Points shoreline, including the Ezile Bay and Akwidaa locations. He showed me the plan, the expected revenue, the environmental impact assessment, and so on. And I said no.”

That was true, Dawson reflected, thinking back to their first meeting with Cardiman. That
was
what he had said. No matter. Dawson was not thrown off course. “Mr. Cardiman,” he said, “we’re giving you a chance to respond now: did you either kill Charles Smith-Aidoo and his wife, or hire someone to do it, or conspire with one or more people to do it?”

Cardiman appeared shocked. “Oh, God, no! I would never do that.”

Dawson leaned forward and handed the warrant to Cardiman. “The district court has authorized us to search your office and living quarters.”

“Oh,” Cardiman mouthed, looking shattered as he read the warrant. “This is just awful. What do I have to do?”

“You may stand at the door,” Dawson said. “You should closely observe us as we search in order to reassure yourself that we do not plant any false evidence. Anything we remove, we will note for the record, and you will initial it to confirm that it is the item we have removed. Do you have any questions about the procedure?”

“No,” he stammered. “No, it seems quite clear.”

Appearing pale, Cardiman moved to the door and Dawson and Chikata began the search. They were looking for a firearm and/or any incriminating correspondence between Cardiman and Smith-Aidoo. It wasn’t an easy task. Cardiman was a disorganized man, and his office was a jumbled mess.

How does he run this place? Dawson wondered, as he looked in a drawer containing a fertility doll resting on an unruly pile of receipts from two years before. He glanced at Cardiman, whose expression had changed from shock to disgust.

They went on to the bedroom, which was quite unkempt with an unmade bed that smelled of stale sweat. It was not quite as packed with junk, and it took them less time to search it. There was nothing found and nothing to take away. Dawson had mixed feelings. It was not that he wanted Cardiman, specifically, to be guilty, but he had wanted so much to find something to finally get a break in the case.

He turned to Cardiman and offered a handshake, which he accepted uncertainly. “Thank you very much, sir,” Dawson said. “We apologize for the inconvenience.”

“Not at all, Inspector,” Cardiman said dully. “I suppose I should say have a nice day.”

O
N THE WAY
back to Takoradi, they discussed the encounter with Reggie Cardiman.

“What do you think?” Chikata asked Dawson.

“He hasn’t proved that he wasn’t involved in the murder,” he said, “and neither have we. He could be lying that he didn’t have a bad argument with Charles, and if he did, why at the end of that would he talk about such pleasantries like going up to the lighthouse for the beautiful view? So that he and/or someone else would have time to get into position to intercept them on the way back to Takoradi.”

Chikata was quiet for a moment. “At this point, Dawson,” he said finally, “whom do you suspect most? You have DeSouza who hated Fiona’s guts; there’s Jason Sarbah who blamed Charles for the death of his daughter Angela; Cardiman who might have felt deadly afraid that Charles was going to destroy his way of life; possibly some Akwidaa fishermen who didn’t want to be uprooted by Malgam; perhaps some members of some activist group like FOAX who want to stop Malgam in its tracks … have I missed anyone?”

“Yes, you have,” Dawson said. “Brian Smith-Aidoo, Charles’s bitter younger brother who was jealous of his success and his influence over Sapphire Smith-Aidoo.”

“Does he have an alibi?”

“He says he was at home all of Monday, the seventh of July, sick with gout. He lives alone, so it’s not confirmed.”

Chikata sat forward in the backseat. “Shall we go back to him and interrogate him again?”

“Yes, I think so,” Dawson said, “but I’ve been thinking about the
juju
angle to this case. I don’t feel like we have probed deeply enough into it. Baah, please take us to Kweku Bonsa’s shrine.”

“Yes, sir,” Baah said. He adopted a mocking tone. “So-called best fetish priest in Takoradi.”

“You don’t believe it?” Chikata asked.

“No, he’s just
chopping
people’s money.”

A
S THEY ENTERED
Bonsa’s shrine, Dawson discreetly commented to Chikata that he had expected much less. Three surprisingly modern buildings with four labeled consulting rooms surrounded a clean cement compound. Maybe Baah was right—Bonsa
was
making good money.

“He even has a website,” Chikata said.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, look over there,” Chikata said, pointing his chin to a wall emblazoned with the URL.

They found an assistant and asked to see Mr. Bonsa.

“Please, you can wait for him,” the assistant said.

“
Mepaakyew
,” Chikata said politely, using the word for “please” in Akan, “tell him we’re policemen from Accra, and we don’t have time to wait.”

“Yes, please,” the man said, scurrying away.

Dawson looked at Chikata and smiled. “I like that. You asserted yourself well. And beat me to it, too.”

Chikata smiled. “I’ve already missed him once while he was doing his spiritual dance special. I’m not coming back a third time.”

The assistant returned. “Please, he says he can see you in ten minutes.”

Ten minutes turned out to be thirty, but by general standards, that was very good. Dawson and Chikata took off their shoes at the doorstep of Consulting Room One and entered.

A small pile of cowry shells in front of him, Kweku Bonsa was sitting on the carpeted floor of a slightly elevated stage around which four attendants stood. Bonsa was a slight man with a severe defect in the left side of his face as though it had been gouged out as a child. A pink, rigid scar tugged at the lower lid of his left eye, which watered constantly because it could not close completely.

One of the attendants prompted the visitors to introduce themselves. Dawson spoke on Chikata’s behalf, since the sergeant didn’t speak Fante.

Bonsa stared at them and nodded. “What problems do you have?” His voice was hoarse and scratchy.

“We are looking for the person who killed a man and his wife last July,” Dawson said, deciding on the blunt approach.

“Why have you come to me?” Bonsa asked.

“We want to know if it was a human sacrifice. The man was Mr. Charles Smith-Aidoo. He and his wife were shot, and then he was beheaded. Can I show you the picture?”

“If you want.”

He brought up the image on his phone and gave it to one of the attendants, who showed it to Bonsa. He looked at it for a moment with not even a twitch in his expression and then handed the phone back.

“I don’t deal in such blood practices,” he declared.

“I didn’t say you did,” Dawson said. “I’m asking your opinion.”

Bonsa leaned slightly forward and swept his hands back and forth over the cowry shells, scattering them. One of his assistants picked up the few that had strayed outside of reach and threw them back in the pile. Bonsa studied the shells as he muttered something inaudible. He repeated the cycle of scattering and studying twice, and then he looked up with the good eye narrowed to a slit.

“If someone is saying it is a sacrifice,” he said, “the person is uttering a falsehood. It is a killing of a different purpose. The one who did it is trying to make it seem like a human sacrifice.”

Dawson wasn’t sure if his next ploy would work, but he took the plunge. “I heard that in April of this year, a man came to you asking your help for his dying daughter.”