Murder at Cape Three Points (14 page)

“It’s complementary to it, I would say.”

“I’ve been questioned by both Hammond and his assistant, and now you want to do the same,” DeSouza said in annoyance. “I’m tired of you guys showing up at my door in the middle of my work. I mean, what is it you’re digging for? I didn’t murder the man or his wife. This should be more than obvious to you by now.”

“I apologize for the repeated intrusions, sir. I realize how irritating it must be, and that isn’t my intention. However, I’m reviewing their investigation, and I have to be thorough. I have no choice.”

DeSouza heaved an exasperated sigh. “All right. What is it you want to know?”

“Just to confirm, Fiona Smith-Aidoo succeeded you as chief executive officer of the STMA in April this year, is that correct?”

“Yes, yes. Isn’t this information already in your files?”

“But once she was dead, the position reverted to you?”

“Look, after her death, I was designated acting chief from July to October, and then a special election was held and I was re-elected.”

“Did you get along well with Mrs. Smith-Aidoo?”

“Oh, here we go again.” DeSouza closed his eyes for a tortured moment. “There are all kinds of stories about the rivalry between Fiona and me, but it’s much ado about nothing, and the notion that I might have plotted and executed her demise just to get this job back is just so ridiculous.”

“You were on the radio—”

“Yes, I know. I was on that Skyy FM program, and I said this
and that. Maybe I was a little heated, but it was theatrics, that’s all it was.”

He was theatrical—Dawson gave him that. “I was curious about this letter that I found among the Smith-Aidoos’ belongings”—he opened the folder he had brought and took the letter out, sliding it across the table to DeSouza—“signed in your name. Did you write it?”

“Yes, I did,” he said, with an impatient glance. “And what about it? In fact, rather than anything nefarious, this letter expresses my true sentiments. ‘Based on your assurances, I believe you are an honorable woman’ is what I wrote and what I meant.”

“What lead to this letter being written?”

“Between January and April, Fiona was campaigning aggressively for the chief executive position,” DeSouza said, sounding somewhat like he was explaining to a child. “At the time, some people accused me of raiding the STMA coffers in order to build a luxury home. I don’t know where this blatant lie originated, but there was a rumor that Fiona was responsible.”

“But you never had any evidence that the rumor was true.”

“Correct.”

“Is it possible that someone bore malice against Fiona Smith-Aidoo and tried to ruin her reputation by making it appear that she was creating the rumor?”

“I have no idea,” DeSouza said, gesturing with impatience. “You’re asking me an impossible question. I can tell you that I did confront Fiona about it. She was quite insulted by the notion that she was responsible for this ‘gossip,’ as she called it. Obviously, she wanted her objection and denial recorded in black and white, so she sent me a letter to that effect, and I accepted it and replied with this one.”

“Do you remember where you were on Monday, the seventh of July, the day Charles and Fiona were killed?”

“Again, for the fourth or fifth time,” DeSouza said, as if this questioning was torture, “I am here in my offices every Monday from morning till early evening. Every Monday night, I prepare for the IT class I teach at Takoradi Tech on Tuesdays. That Tuesday, we had an STMA meeting in the evening. When I got here, it was around five thirty or so, and everyone was there except Fiona. It was unusual for
her to be late or absent. We were scheduled to debate the issue of Sekondi-Takoradi city planning in response to the influx of people into the area. We even had the director of the Ghana Tourist Board present as well.”

DeSouza’s phone rang, and he snatched it up, listened for a second, and then told the person on the line that he’d call him back. “So, yes—what was I saying?”

“The meeting,” Dawson prompted him.

“Right—Fiona was very late. We waited a little longer and tried to reach her by phone, but after about fifteen minutes or so, I offered to chair the meeting and we went ahead. About an hour later, one of the STMA members got a phone call from his wife, who works at the Effia-Nkwanta hospital, saying that Fiona and her husband were dead.”

“How did your colleagues react?”

DeSouza turned his palms up. “What do you expect? Disbelief. Shock. That doesn’t even sum up the totality of what we felt.”

“At that time, what did you know about the cause of death?”

“No one knew anything. The meeting came to a standstill and everyone was on the phone calling all over the place.”

He stared at his desk for a while, evidently picturing the chaos and shock of that evening.

“Did Fiona have any enemies among the STMA members?” Dawson asked, allowing a pause.

“Not that I know of.” DeSouza pressed his lips together. “I cannot tell you how to do your job, but the likelihood of finding anyone on the STMA with motive enough to kill not only Fiona but her husband as well is very small. Disagreements occurred, yes, but this is entirely normal on a board such as this. In fact, it would have been odd if we
didn’t
have any divergence of opinion.”

“Thank you, sir. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Do you know what I don’t get, Inspector Dawson?” he said, looking exasperated. “I don’t understand why you don’t target obvious suspects instead of coming here over and over to ask these tedious questions.”

“Obvious suspects like whom?”

“Take the simple example of that madman Reggie Cardiman at
Ezile Bay,” DeSouza said with a backward flap of the hand. “He hated Smith-Aidoo’s guts. He was the one person who would suffer from some of the development plans that Malgam Oil had in mind, and Charles was driving those plans. Wouldn’t you want to get rid of the man if you were Cardiman? And what about the rumor that Fiona was having an affair? Have you followed that lead?”

Dawson sat up straight. “An affair with whom?”

“You’re investigating this case, and you don’t know this?” DeSouza said in disbelief. “I have no clue with whom she was supposed to be having an affair, Inspector. That’s for you to find out, for goodness’ sake. And even if I knew, I wouldn’t want to sully the person’s name.”

“Well, you’ve at least partially sullied Cardiman,” Dawson pointed out dryly. “You might as well keep going.”

Too late, he realized that the last comment wouldn’t go down well.

“Are you quite finished?” DeSouza said icily. “I have work to do.”

“Yes, sir,” Dawson said, standing up. “Thank you very much for your help. Apologies for taking up your time.”

DeSouza grunted and didn’t get up. At the door, Dawson turned. “One other question, sir. Did you hate Fiona Smith-Aidoo?”

He gave Dawson a cold stare. “After all that we have said, you have the utter gall to ask me such a thing? I will not dignify it with a response. Please be sure to shut the door behind you.”

Nice man
, Dawson thought sardonically as he left. Not a pleasant interview at all. Nevertheless, what DeSouza had had to say was interesting. First, the chief executive had pointedly drawn attention to Cardiman’s animosity toward Charles, which Dawson had already realized, and then he had remarked upon a rumor that Fiona had been having an affair, which Dawson was hearing for the first time. Spurned lovers are no joke, he reflected. Adultery was fertile ground for a vicious murder in any number of directions.

Dawson wondered about DeSouza’s motive in planting these “suspicions,” and it raised at least a soft alert in his mind.

Baah had been chatting with the security guard as Dawson approached.

“Where now, sir?” Baah asked as they got back into the car.

“It’s time for lunch. Can we go somewhere to
chop
?”

“I know a good place at Market Circle.”

“Good. Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

Chapter 13

A
FTER LUNCH
, B
AAH TOOK
Dawson to his meeting with Jason Sarbah. The steel and glass Malgam building resembled its counterpart in Accra, but it was smaller. Baah drove up to the double gates at the entrance and waited for the armed sentry to come out and grant them clearance. Baah entered the large car park at the center of which was a circular lawn with perfectly tended grass and a rotating triangular prism bearing the Malgam logo on each face.

Dawson hopped out, signed in at the sentry box, and went to the entrance. The lobby was spacious and quiet with a small bubbling fountain in one corner, large potted plants, and a waiting area with low-set leather seats. Dawson stopped at the front desk where two lovely young receptionists were sitting.

“Good afternoon, sir,” one of them said.

He liked her full red lips. Her manicured fingernails were the same color.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “Inspector Dawson to see Jason Sarbah.”

“Please sign in and take a seat. I will let his office know.”

She called up while Dawson wrote down his information in the large logbook on the countertop.

“You can go up now, sir,” the receptionist said. “Here is your temporary ID badge. Please wear it in plain view around your neck during your entire visit and return it at the end. Security will escort you up.”

The security man released the barrier arm and held it open. The lift took them to the fifth floor and another reception area behind a pair of automatic glass doors.

“Please have a seat,” the pretty but ice-cold receptionist said. “Mr. Sarbah will be with you in a moment.”

Jason Sarbah came out a few minutes later. He was late thirties, athletic, of medium height and skin tone, dressed in a light beige suit and matching tie, clean-shaven, and very good-looking.

“Inspector Dawson?” He smiled, but barely. “Pleased to meet you. Come this way and we can chat.”

He followed Sarbah down a carpeted corridor with glass-enclosed offices on either side. Printed boldly on Sarbah’s door was his title:
DIRECTOR OF CORPORATE RELATIONS
.

The office was spacious. His desk was glass-topped. He had a leather sofa, a water dispenser, a mini-bar, a coffee machine, and a bowl of fresh fruit.

“Do have a seat,” he said, indicating the chair in front of the desk and sitting down in his executive leather chair on the opposite side. “So. Sekondi police have put out an SOS to help solve the Smith-Aidoo murder, is that it?”

“Yes. A petition was submitted. As the detective assigned to the case, I do have to go over territory that may already have been covered by Superintendent Hammond, so I apologize in advance if some of my questions have been asked before.”

He nodded and appeared very willing. Not a shadow or a frown passed over his expression. “No problem, Inspector. I’ll try to be of as much assistance as I can.”

“If I’m correct,” Dawson began, “up until his death, Charles Smith-Aidoo had the job which you now hold.”

“Yes, that’s right. He had been Corporate Relations Director at Malgam for almost two years.”

“How did your filling his position come about after his murder?”

“When the position for corporate relations director was first advertised, I applied for it and was interviewed. I didn’t get it—Charles did. I met Mr. Calmy-Rey at Charles’s funeral, and we chatted. He invited me here to talk some more.”

“And then?”

“Well, when I told him I had been after Charles’s position, he promised to talk to some members of his team. They invited me back for another interview, and after about a week, they offered me the job.”

Dawson found the description bland—made for mass consumption and therefore unsatisfying. “You must have impressed them in some way.”

Sarbah leaned forward slightly and interlaced his fingers on the desk. “Let’s say that they challenged me at the interview. They asked me to be frank. They gave me some tricky scenarios and asked me how I would handle them.” He lowered his voice very slightly. “I had a feeling that their test cases were not completely fictional, and in fact after I started work, I did find certain types of conduct that I wanted to change.”

This sounded interesting. “For example?”

“You may have heard of Reggie Cardiman.”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Cardiman’s resort is practically legendary in the Western Region. He brings in money.” Sarbah made a tower with his fingertips. “So, in my opinion, you have to give him due respect and handle him with diplomacy. The way Charles treated Mr. Cardiman, telling him that a tentative plan was in effect to move him off the land on which Ezile Bay sits, is not how I would have approached it. There are other ways to perhaps sweeten the conditions, or offer alternatives. Is it any wonder Mr. Cardiman had no love for him?”

“Have you spoken to Mr. Cardiman yourself?”

“Yes, by phone. For now the decision is not to aggressively pursue acquiring any land on Cape Three Points, whether Ezile or Akwidaa. I’m sorry, can I offer you something? A soft drink, water?”

“Water, thank you, sir.”

Sarbah rose and went to the bar.