Murder at Cape Three Points (13 page)

After half an hour, he became pleasantly drowsy. He reached out for the light switch on the wall to turn off the bare-bulb ceiling light and stretched diagonally across the bed since it was a little too short for him. He felt tired, but he couldn’t sleep. His mind flitted over the events of the past two days like an undecided hummingbird. Instinctively, he felt that the Smith-Aidoo murder had greater breadth and depth than any of his previous cases. Two corpses in a canoe adrift around a deep-sea oil rig, a severed head with an excavated eye socket, a nineteenth-century pocket watch with a scrawled inscription invoking blood ties. What did it all mean?

Chapter 11

I
N THE MORNING
, D
AWSON
once again hired Baah’s taxi services for the day. On the way to Sekondi-Takoradi Police Headquarters, the young driver, curious about the Ghana Police Service and the work of a detective, peppered Dawson with questions.

“So I think say you dey come to Tadi to investigate that man they dey cut off his head.”

“Yes. Charles Smith-Aidoo. Did you hear something about it?”

“They say it be
juju
.”

“What do you think?”

He nodded. “It could be.”

Baah’s reference to the involvement of supernatural powers was the second one after Sly’s. An idea struck Dawson. “Do you know any
juju
men in Tadi?”

Baah hesitated. “Many of them dey.”

“Can we go to them?”

“I can take you,” he said with a nervous smile, “but me, I won’t talk to them. I fear them.”

“No problem.”

“So I should take you now?” Baah said, taking his eyes off the road briefly to look at Dawson.

“No—this evening, if we have time. If not, then tomorrow.”

“Okay, sir.”

T
HEY ARRIVED AT
Sekondi Headquarters around 8:30. Superintendent Hammond was in a meeting with three of his detectives and
Dawson had to wait until they were done. Two detectives left while ASP Seidu remained behind.

“Good morning, sir,” Dawson said as he came in, switching on what he hoped was a disarming smile.

“Good morning,” Hammond said dully, barely looking at him.

“Morning, Dawson,” Seidu said, more amiably.

“May I?” Dawson said, gesturing to an empty chair.

“Of course,” Hammond said indifferently.

Dawson sat.

“Yes, Inspector?” the superintendent said. “Can I help you?”

The smile didn’t work
, Dawson thought. “Just wanted to report how things have been going so far.”

“Go ahead, then.”

Dawson related the events of the day before—his morning meeting with Dr. Smith-Aidoo and then the visit to her house.

“Seems she didn’t know about the pocket watch inserted into her uncle’s mouth,” Dawson said.

“Of course she knew,” Hammond said indignantly. “She has just forgotten because of the shock she was in. I told her about it myself.”

Perhaps the superintendent was telling the truth, Dawson reflected, but he doubted it. How would Dr. Smith-Aidoo have forgotten that kind of lurid detail?

“Do you have anything else?” Hammond asked, resuming his aloof tone. “I have to get to a regional meeting.”

He looked at his watch conspicuously, which Dawson ignored as he removed a document from his folder.

“As you already know,” he said, “Fiona Smith-Aidoo had a rivalry with Kwesi DeSouza.” He leaned forward and handed Superintendent Hammond the minutes of the acrimonious meetings. “I don’t know if you saw this.”

Hammond glanced at it and gave it back. “We questioned Mr. Kwesi DeSouza closely. He denied being on bad terms with Mrs. Smith-Aidoo or having anything to do with her death. Then we checked his whereabouts on the seventh and eighth of July. He has an alibi. We also looked into any possibilities that Mr. DeSouza could have hired someone. We have not found anything.”

Dawson nodded respectfully. That sounded like some solid
detective work had been done. “Another name that came up in these meetings at the STMA,” he continued, “was Reggie Cardiman, the gentleman who owns the Ezile Bay Resort at Cape Three Points.”

“We already know about him,” Hammond said, leaning back in his chair and irritably tapping the end of his pen on his desk. “He has lived in Ghana for almost twenty years—he even speaks Fante. He is crazy about wildlife and the environment and all that stuff, and he loves his Ezile Bay Resort. The village next to Ezile Bay is called Akwidaa. Various companies have approached the chief, Nana Ackah-Yensu the third, about buying land in the area—oil companies, real estate developers, and so on. Some have accused Ackah-Yensu of selling off tracts of land, although he denies it and says he wants to collaborate only with the government to develop that area.”

Dawson leaned forward, happy to get this kind of information and wondering if the superintendent might be finally thawing out.

“Nana Ackah-Yensu told us that Malgam Oil wanted to build luxury villas in Akwidaa,” Hammond continued, rocking back and forth slightly in his squeaky chair—a nervous habit, perhaps. “That’s where the Ezile River joins the sea and a beautiful bay is formed, as well as some ruins of a German fort built in the seventeenth century. So, this is attractive real estate and the kind of scenery these tourists love.”

“So, did Charles Smith-Aidoo go to the chief to talk to him about the villas?” Dawson asked.

“I was just coming to that,” Hammond said, holding up his palm. “He approached the chief about the possibility of relocating Akwidaa either farther inland or farther east in return for building a new village from scratch with running water and electricity.

“Meanwhile, Smith-Aidoo went to Cardiman to tell him that if Chief Ackah-Yensu agreed to move, Malgam Oil would likely annex the Cardiman’s Ezile resort as well, in order to build more chalets. Cardiman leases the land from the Akwidaa village so he would have no legal right to stop it.”

“The prospect of losing Ezile Bay was probably terrifying for him,” Dawson said. “It would give Cardiman a strong motive. Could he have followed the Smith-Aidoos and ambushed them on the road from Ezile?”

Hammond shook his head. “They left Ezile around twelve thirty, and we have confirmed that Cardiman did not leave for Takoradi until one o’clock. The Smith-Aidoos would have been long gone by then, and Cardiman could never have caught up with them.”

“Maybe he had an accomplice who delayed them until Cardiman arrived.”

“Maybe this, maybe that,” Hammond said, with a sardonic smile. “We can’t operate on maybes. At the end of the day, there is no evidence whatsoever that Cardiman was involved.”

Discussion over
, Dawson thought. He moved on. “I found an old phone in Mr. Smith-Aidoo’s study. Were you aware of it?”

Hammond looked at Seidu and then shook his head. “No, we didn’t find anything like that in his desk, and his niece didn’t mention it.”

“It was buried in a box of old equipment and cables,” Dawson said.

“What about it?” Hammond asked.

“I saw some text messages from Charles Smith-Aidoo to a Lawrence Tetteh.”

Hammond’s rocking stopped abruptly in the forward phase and he almost hurtled off his chair. “Did you say Lawrence Tetteh?”

“Yes. I wonder if this is the same Lawrence Tetteh who was murdered.”

“Why do you think that?” Hammond asked tensely.

“Could there be a connection between the murder of Tetteh and the killing of the Smith-Aidoos?” Dawson asked coolly. “That’s the question I’ve been wondering myself the past few days.”

Hammond squinted at him. “Do you have the phone with you?”

Dawson took it out of his top pocket and switched it on. He took the screen view to the text message section before handing it to the superintendent.

Seidu went around Hammond’s desk so he could watch as the superintendent scrolled through the messages.

“Okay,” Hammond said, but it came out huskily and he cleared his throat. “I see what you’re saying.”

“Shall I take it to Vodafone to see if they can trace the number, sir?” Seidu asked.

“No, I can take care of it,” Hammond said. “I know one guy over there very well, and he can check it very quickly.”

“Thank you, sir,” Dawson said, pleasantly surprised by Hammond’s apparent willingness to participate.

“Not at all.”

Dawson stood up. “I’m going to look for Kwesi DeSouza at the STMA offices, sir.”

“As I told you,” Hammond said, his coldness returning, “we have looked carefully into his alibi already. Nothing is there. I don’t think it’s necessary to go back to him.”

“Just routine,” Dawson said lightly. “For my own records. You know Chief Superintendent Lartey—he scrutinizes every detail.”

Hammond’s cheek twitched, probably resenting Dawson’s invoking a superior officer, because he couldn’t very well challenge it.

“Also,” Dawson said, “I think I forgot to mention that my assistant, Detective Sergeant Chikata, will be joining me from Accra to help with the investigation.”

Hammond nodded. “Yes, Chief Superintendent Lartey has informed me of that.”

As Dawson was leaving, he kept feeling he had forgotten something, and it was as he was opening the door that he remembered.

“One more thing, sir,” he said, turning with his right hand still on the doorknob. “Mr. Smith-Aidoo’s laptop was never found, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Hammond said. “We believe whoever ambushed his vehicle also stole his laptop.”

Dawson suppressed a wince as a quick stab of pain shot through the palm of his left hand. “I see,” he said, catching his breath. “Thank you.”

Dawson left stunned, because he knew decisively that Superintendent Hammond had just lied about the laptop. The timbre of his voice had changed, not in a way Dawson could consciously define, but enough to trigger his synesthesia and reveal that his superior wasn’t telling the truth. The laptop hadn’t been stolen. The question was, where was it, and what was Hammond trying to hide?

Chapter 12

T
HE
STMA
WAS AN
old, two-story building painted an odd green and subdivided into three sections bordering the car park in a semicircle. A blue-uniformed guard directed Baah to an available parking space. Dawson got out and entered one of the ground floor departments, where a woman directed him upstairs to Kwesi DeSouza’s office. Marked with a sign that read
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
, it was the very last room at the end of the verandah. Dawson knocked and went in, welcoming the pleasant blast of cold from the air conditioner.

The secretary at the desk told him that DeSouza was in a meeting and Dawson could wait if he had a half-hour to spare. He sat down where she had indicated and used the time to check his phone, replying to a text from Christine asking how he was doing.

He also saw that Dr. Smith-Aidoo had sent him her aunt’s number.

DeSouza’s door opened. Two men came out laughing over a shared joke. DeSouza, burly, bespectacled, and shaved completely bald, was dressed in a short-sleeved white linen shirt with Ghanaian embroidery down the front. After shaking hands with DeSouza, the visitor left.

“What’s next, Susana?” DeSouza said to the secretary.

“Please, there’s someone here to see you.”

Dawson stood up and introduced himself.

“Yes, sir,” DeSouza said. “How can I help you?”

“May I speak with you for a few minutes?”

DeSouza appeared curious and wary. “Come in,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation.

He ushered Dawson into the inner sanctum and then shut the door behind them. It was even colder in there than in the front office.

Dawson chose one of the two chairs in front of the desk and DeSouza went to his on the other side. His office wasn’t opulent, just comfortable.

“So, Inspector, what can I do for you?”

“I’m in Takoradi investigating the murder of Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo. CID Headquarters was petitioned to look into the killings.”

“What, is this a different investigation from Superintendent Hammond’s?”