Murder at Cape Three Points

by Quartey, Kwei

  In years past, he had relied heavily on the care of others, but the Cairo of today was fiercely independent, far from helpless, and doing very well for himself. His curio shop was located along the tourist trap, clustered around Oxford Street. It was packed with souvenir vendors, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, banks, and telecom giants like Vodafone. During the global economic downturn, Cairo had fallen on a rough time, as had other merchants, but he had survived and trade had picked up again. Until only a couple of years ago, he had been single, but now he was married to Audrey, a gem of a woman, and they had one daughter.

  The shop, Ultimate Craft, was air-conditioned and filled with the sweet smell of wood and leather goods. Recently Cairo had expanded, buying out the neighboring shop and annexing it. Georgina, his faithful store manager, greeted Dawson and told him his brother was in his office.

  Dawson poked his head around the door. “Busy?”

  Cairo looked up and grinned. “Darko, come in! Not really. I’m only pretending.”

  Dawson laughed and leaned down to hug his brother. “How are you?”

  “Fine—just going over the books,” he said, waving at the laptop on his desk. “You know how that is.”

  He was three years older than Dawson and had the same closely shaved hairstyle. They resembled each other in the face, but the physiques differed. Cairo, athletic as a boy before the accident, was now chunkier than his younger brother, although he had recently lost weight on the orders of his doctor.

  He swung his lightweight wheelchair around to face Dawson as he took a seat. “So, what’s up, little brother?”

  “I’m off to Takoradi on Tuesday,” Dawson said.

  “Oh? What’s going on there?”

  “New case. Don’t know if you ever read about the murder of Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo off Cape Three Points.”

  Cairo searched his memory for a moment and shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. What’s the story?”

  Dawson gave him a quick rundown, explaining that the case came to CID via petition.

  “Hope it goes well for you,” Cairo said sincerely. “You know we all like to have you right here in Accra. It’s a pity you have to leave Hosiah right now.”

  “I know,” Dawson said, shaking his head regretfully. “I hate it myself, but Lartey is in no mood to be messed with, and I’m coming up for promotion soon.”

  “Audrey and I will have Christine and the boys over at the house or drop in to see them,” Cairo offered.

  “Thank you. I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”

  There was a slight pause.

  “I saw Papa yesterday,” Cairo said quietly.

  Dawson leaned his cheek against his knuckles and fixed his gaze at the floor. “And?”

  “He asked for you.”

  Dawson grunted noncommittally, and Cairo cleared his throat awkwardly. “Darko, I know there’ve been hard feelings between the two of you, but he’s getting old now, and he’s not going to live forever. I’m just saying maybe it’s time to not so much forget, but to forgive. He does love you.”

  Dawson snorted. “You don’t hit the people you love, and whether Papa used his hand or a cane, he hit me a lot. It was never the same for you, since you were his favorite, so maybe you don’t understand, but I didn’t deserve to be treated that way just because I was attached to Mama and a skinny boy who wasn’t good at sports.”

  “I think I do understand, Darko.” Cairo sighed heavily, rubbing the fist of his left hand slowly against the palm of his left as he contemplated this still unresolved family predicament. “Papa had a violent streak and he scapegoated you, that’s for sure, but …”

  “But what?”

  “Isn’t this something of a case of ‘he who is without sin cast the first stone’?”

  Dawson looked at him in surprise. “I have never once hit my wife or my kids, and God strike me down if I ever do.”

  “I know that,” Cairo said reassuringly. “I’m not talking about your family. You are a caring husband and father, but you haven’t been without violence in your work. A few years ago, especially up until the time you found out the truth about Mama, you were almost out of control—beating suspects up, losing your temper, remember?”

  Dawson nodded reluctantly. It was true, and he wouldn’t deny it.

  “So, just give it some thought, little bro,” Cairo said with a smile. “That’s all I’m asking. You’re a better person than years ago, so why not add reconciliation with your father to your achievements?”

  Dawson took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Okay, I’ll think about it.”

  “Thank you.”

  They chatted for a while about less weighty things, and then Dawson stood up to leave. “I have to get going.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you out.” Cairo wheeled himself beside his brother to the entrance of the shop, and they embraced one more time.

  “Be careful in Takoradi,” Cairo said. “We want you back safely.”

  DAWSON RODE BACK to his Kaneshie neighborhood home at No. 10 Nim Tree. Cream-colored with olive trim, the house was very small, but it was far superior to the dilapidated police barracks where even officers above Dawson’s rank stayed because they couldn’t afford housing elsewhere in the city. He and Christine were simply lucky that their landlord was a member of her extended family.

  The house was deserted since Christine was still out with Sly. Dawson sat on the sofa of the sitting room that adjoined the kitchen and looked through the docket. He made a couple of notes to keep the record up to the minute. He left the folder on the table as he got up to answer a knock on the door. His neighbor needed help unloading some building materials, so Dawson went next door with him and left the docket on the sitting room table. That would turn out to be a terrible mistake.

  Chapter 5

  ON TUESDAY MORNING, WHILE Christine went off to get Hosiah from the hospital, Dawson spent a few hours at CID tying up loose ends before he left. He was to take the State Transport bus to Takoradi, and he didn’t want to start out too late. However, it was past noon by the time he was heading home on his motorbike, negotiating the clogged, asphyxiating traffic on Ring Road West.

  When he finally got home, Christine’s little red car was parked in front, meaning she had returned with the boys. He was eager to see Hosiah back at home from the hospital, and he could spend a little time with him before leaving, but the day was already getting old. At this rate, he might not reach Takoradi before nightfall on one of State Transportation’s chronically late, lumbering buses.

  Once inside the house, he sensed something was wrong. Sly was sitting by himself on the sofa looking forlorn.

  “What’s wrong?” Dawson asked. “Where are Mama and Hosiah?”

  “In the bedroom,” Sly answered, in barely a whisper.

  Dawson put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

  “She’s angry with me.”

  “What happened?”

  Sly bowed his head even further and wrung his fingers. It didn’t look like the answer was forthcoming, so Dawson proceeded to the bedroom. On most occasions, these upsets were minor. Maybe not this time, he thought, as he heard Hosiah crying. He stopped in the doorway. Christine was sitting on the bed holding her son close as he whimpered and sniffled against her chest. For a panicky moment, Dawson thought perhaps something had gone wrong with his heart condition, but then they would have kept him in hospital, surely?

  Dawson’s appearance apparently unleashed a fresh round of tears from Hosiah. He sat on the bed next to his son, who promptly launched into his arms and held on tight. Dawson raised his eyebrows questioningly at Christine. He wished someone would tell him what was going on.

  “On Saturday when you went next door,” Christine told him quietly, “you left your docket on the sitting room table. Apparently Sly opened it and saw the picture, and today he told Hosiah about it and frightened him.”

  Dawson drew in his breath sharply and closed his eyes for a moment in
the painful realization of what had happened. The cardinal rule was that his sons never see any autopsy or murder photographs.

  He rubbed Hosiah’s head gently back and forth. That usually comforted him. “Shh. It’s okay. Are you scared?”

  The boy nodded. Dawson shifted him to his knee so they were facing each other.

  “Tell Daddy why you’re afraid. You have to stop crying, though. Here, blow your nose.”

  He held a hanky to Hosiah’s nose and he made a reasonable effort.

  “That’s better,” Dawson said. He kissed him on the forehead. “Now what’s wrong?”

  Hosiah spoke haltingly as he fiddled with his father’s fingers. “I don’t want you to go to look for the juju man.”

  “What juju man?”

  “The one who makes people’s heads come off. Sly told me that’s why you’re going to Takoradi.”

  “I see,” Dawson said. “You’re scared that there’s a juju man who might hurt Daddy?”

  Hosiah nodded, his face beginning to crumple again.

  “No, no,” Dawson said, forestalling another teary performance. “No more crying. Listen to me. What Sly saw isn’t because of juju. You know I catch bad people, right?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Okay, so this bad man is just the same as all the other ones I catch. He’s afraid of me, so he’s not going to try to cut off my head. In fact, you know what he’s going to do when he sees me?”

  “What?”

  “He’s going to run away.”

  Hosiah looked at him with a glimmer of encouragement creeping to his face.

  “And then you know what’s going to happen while he’s running away?” Dawson asked.

  “What?”

  “He’s going to run right into the kenkey woman at the market and trip over all her balls of kenkey.”

  Hosiah looked at him for a second of bewilderment and then giggled at the unexpected, conjured image of the starchy, solid balls of fermented corn meal flying all over the place. “No, he’s not, Daddy.”

  “He is,” Dawson insisted, grinning.

  “And then he’s going to get all stuck in the kenkey balls,” Hosiah laughed, his imagination sparked, “and the kenkey woman will say, ‘Hey, what are you doing in my kenkey balls?’ And then he’ll have kenkey balls all over his body, and she’ll make him pay for them, won’t she, Daddy?”

  “Yes, exactly right. And that will be the end of that. Then Sergeant Chikata and I will take him to the police station. What do you think?”

  Hosiah nodded uncertainly once and then with more conviction. Dawson glanced at Christine, who was smiling but still looked concerned.

  “Has he had lunch?” he asked her.

  “He didn’t have as much as he usually does.”

  “Are you hungry now?” Dawson asked Hosiah.

  He nodded enthusiastically and Christine took his hand. “Come along. I’ll get you some more to eat.”

  DAWSON RESTED HIS hand on Sly’s shoulder and guided him outside to the backyard. The boy was shaking and Dawson knew why. A sound beating was the only kind of punishment he had known while in the care of his ill-mannered uncle. Now he was fearful that his new father was about to continue the tradition.

  “Tell me what happened,” Dawson said as they took shelter from the sun under an awning he had constructed a couple of years ago. “Start from the beginning.”

  His gaze shifting around guiltily, Sly recounted how he had come home with Mama on Saturday while Dawson was next door helping the neighbor. He had noticed the folder on the sitting room table and, without giving it a second’s thought, had flipped open the cover. The picture of the severed head was the first and only thing he saw before he hurriedly closed the folder.

  Today, after the boys had returned from the hospital with Mama and she was making lunch, Hosiah and Sly were talking about what time Daddy would be going to Takoradi. Sly had remarked that maybe he had already left because he had to keep it a secret that he was going to look for a juju man who was making people’s heads get chopped off.

  “He asked me what did I mean,” Sly continued, “and I said I had seen that picture of the man’s head on a stick in your papers. My uncle always told me that if you see someone with his head cut off, it means a juju man or a witch is punishing him for doing something wrong. So I thought you were going to Takoradi to find the juju man who did it. I’m sorry I made Hosiah cry. I didn’t know he would get scared.”

  “He’s not as tough as you,” Dawson said, lifting Sly’s chin to hold his gaze. “He’s your little brother, so you have to think before you tell him certain things. Now I know your uncle used to tell you about witches and juju and all that, but you mustn’t believe him. You remember last year when those people from Agbogbloshie were killed? Juju didn’t make that happen. Murder never happens because of juju. It’s just a man or a woman who gets so angry, jealous, or greedy, that he or she wants to kill another person. Understand?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Now I made a mistake too. I’m not supposed to leave my work around the house because Mama and I don’t want you and Hosiah to be looking at that kind of thing. I’m sorry you saw it, but you have to remember that when you see anything in the house belonging to Mama or me, you leave it alone. You don’t go into our business unless we tell you to, you hear?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Come here.” Dawson brought Sly close and put his arms around him. “You know Mama and I love you and Hosiah both the same, right?”

  He nodded. “You’re not going to beat me?”

  “No. That wouldn’t make you learn your lesson any better, would it?”

  Sly thought about that for a moment and then shook his head.

  “You still need to do something, though,” Dawson said. “You need to go to Hosiah and hug him and say you love him and you’re sorry you scared him.”

  “Okay,” Sly said happily, his zest for life restored. He made a dash for the backdoor of the house.

  “But don’t hug him too hard,” Dawson added. “Remember, his chest is still sore.”

  Gazing at the door long after Sly had disappeared through it, a thought struck him and he smiled. The boy had more insight than he probably even realized.

  IN THEIR BEDROOM with the door shut, Christine insisted that Dawson show her the picture that had caused all the trouble.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “It’s terrible.”

  “I know it’s terrible, but I have to know what we’re dealing with.”

  Reluctantly, he opened the folder and extracted the photo. She looked at it for not more than a second, gasped, and turned her head away.

  “Oh, Darko,” she said furiously. “How could you leave something so horrible lying around?”

  Dawson sat down heavily on the bed. “I don’t know,” he said hopelessly.

  “You’re usually so careful.” She shook her head and grimaced. “That’s Dr. Smith-Aidoo’s uncle?”

  “Yes, Charles Smith-Aidoo. He was the director of corporate affairs at Malgam Oil.”

  “Poor man.” Christine frowned. “Wasn’t there another oil company executive who was murdered not long ago? The one who was shot dead at his home?”

  “You’re right. Lawrence Tetteh, CEO of Goilco, the government’s oil company. Shot execution-style in the head in June about a month before the Smith-Aidoos were murdered. They arrested and charged Tetteh’s stepbrother, a guy called Silas. He’s awaiting trial now. Some people think he was framed.”

  “What do you think?”

  “There are still questions. Everybody agrees it was a professional job, but this Silas was definitely not a professional killer.”

  “Hmm. Well, regardless of who killed Tetteh, do you think the Smith-Aidoo murder could be related?”

  Dawson gave her an impressed look. “That’s what I’ve been wondering myself. Tetteh and Smith-Aidoo were both in the oil industry, both shot in the head, and only about a month apart.”

  “Wh
o’s handling the Tetteh killing?”

  “Some kind of political monkey business went on at the top, and the Bureau of National Investigations took it over from CID. I know Chief Superintendent Lartey was incensed over losing the case. He doesn’t get along with the BNI director. Anyway, I’m still going to keep the Tetteh murder in the back of my mind while I’m investigating the Smith-Aidoo case. One big difference between the two cases, though: the beheading.”

  Christine shuddered. “Why cut someone’s head off and then display it on a stick tied to a canoe?”

  “Sly said something that made me think. He said his uncle had always told him that when you see a body part severed, it means it has something to do with witchcraft or juju.”

  “And you, Darko Dawson, believe that a witch did this?” Christine said disbelievingly. “Come on, I know you better than that.”

  “No, I don’t, but maybe the murderer wanted people to think so, in order to shield the real motive behind it. That’s what I have to find out: the real motive.”

  Chapter 6

  ON THE STATE TRANSPORT bus to Sekondi-Takoradi, Dawson squeezed in between the window and a large woman with no boundaries. Christine and the boys had seen him off at the house and Hosiah had been close to tears, which brought a lump to Dawson’s throat. Christine was right. Brave as their son was, he needed his father to be with him right now. Emotionally and physically, he was still fragile.

  Gazing out his window, Dawson tried to stop his brooding as the bus sped along the George H. Bush Highway. He turned his thoughts to his destination, the twin city of Sekondi-Takoradi. It was the capital of the Western Region (WR); Sekondi was the administrative section, while Takoradi was more commercial. Dawson’s father, Jacob, had grown up in Takoradi and moved to Accra as a young man. In Accra, he met Dawson’s mother, Beatrice, an Ewe woman. Although Jacob seldom if ever visited Takoradi these days, he still had family there, including a nephew called Abraham, or “Abe.”