Death at the Voyager Hotel

by Kwei Quartey

  Thelo threw his jacket aside in the sitting room and yanked off his tie. He had been slim as a detective, but now his belly bulged as a result of too much rich food and too little exercise. He shaved his head clean instead of displaying the hair loss that had begun by the time he had reached thirty.

  Earlier in the afternoon, Paula had called to give him a short version of the shocking news.

  “Have they found out anything more?” he asked her, plopping down onto the sofa beside her.

  “Chief Inspector Agyekum said they think it was a tragic accident,” Paula said, “but that doesn’t sound right to me. What was Heather doing in the pool naked? She would not have gone swimming without her clothes on.”

  “I agree,” Thelo said. “She didn’t seem to be that type of person.”

  Relieved to be home, Paula leaned forward, closed her eyes, and pressed her throbbing temples.

  Thelo gently rubbed her back. “You’ve had a terrible day. Did you tell the students the news?”

  “I had to. I didn’t want them to hear it from elsewhere.”

  “How did they take it?”

  “Very badly. They all loved her. You remember Ajua, the one who was especially attached to Heather? She was hysterical—almost collapsed.”

  “Poor thing.”

  Paula’s eyes misted over. “This has been the worst day of my life—except when my father died.”

  Her phone rang, showing an overseas number. “Oh, this might be Mr. Peterson,” she said, sitting up quickly. “Hello?”

  The male voice was gravely. “Is this Paula Djan?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Mr. Peterson, Heather’s father.” He paused. “I’ve already heard the news. The detective in charge of the case got in touch with me by phone—Inspector Adgie-something. I’m not too clear on his name.”

  “Agyekum,” Paula prompted. “Mr. Peterson, I don’t know how to express how very sorry I am. All of us at High Street Academy are in a state of complete shock.”

  “Yes,” he said. His tone was flat. “Thank you.”

  “Heather was wonderful with the children and they adored her,” Paula went on, her voice trembling. “They all said they never wanted her to go back to the States.”

  “She talked a lot about the kids,” he said, now sounding very sad. “She said she wished she could adopt one of them. She seemed happy, but now this. I just don’t understand. The inspector was saying she drowned. How could she have drowned? She taught swimming lessons in Portland every summer. She swam in the ocean. Are you kidding me? I mean, you saw the superb shape she was in. I’m sorry, but none of this makes any sense.”

  “It doesn’t to me either.”

  “It wasn’t an accident,” he said, his voice growing sharper. “Someone either drowned her and left her in the pool, or killed her elsewhere and then threw her in.”

  Paula swallowed hard. The thought was horrifying.

  “I never wanted her to go to Ghana,” he continued. “I had a bad feeling about it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Paula said helplessly. She didn’t know what else to say.

  “I mean, I’m not saying anything against you specifically,” he hastened to add.

  “Yes, I know, but I feel terrible.”

  “I expect to be in Ghana Friday morning to make arrangements for Heather to be flown back home,” he said, sounding weak and battered. “I spoke to the people at the American Embassy in Accra, and they’ll be able to help with that, and I want to get the FBI involved in the investigation, too.”

  “Oh.” Paula hadn’t thought of anything like that. “Did you mention the idea to Chief Inspector Agyekum?”

  “I did,” Peterson said. “He didn’t really respond. But I know the FBI sometimes goes to other countries when there’s a suspicious death of an American citizen—like they did in the Natalee Holloway case in Aruba.”

  “I see,” Paula said. She knew nothing about it. “Well, I can ask my husband if he can help in any way. He used to be a homicide detective here in Accra.”

  “Really? Yes, if there’s anything he can do, please let me know. Thank you, Paula.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  “What am I helping with?” Thelo asked her after she had hung up.

  “Mr. Peterson is convinced his daughter’s death was due to foul play,” Paula said thoughtfully. “He says she was a very good swimmer and can’t believe she accidentally drowned. He wants to get someone from the FBI to come to—I guess to help with the investigation, or supervise it—or something.”

  Thelo gave a small snort of derision. “Spoken just like an American. He thinks the FBI can just march in and take over the case? The Ghanaian authorities have to request assistance first, and knowing the Director-General of CID, I can practically guarantee he won’t. He has a brand new, state-of-the-art forensic lab and crime scene unit, the lab director himself trained at Quantico at Ghanaian taxpayer expense, and now he’s going to turn around and ask the FBI for help? The media would have a field day.”

  “You’re right,” Paula agreed. “What do you suggest Mr. Peterson should do?”

  Thelo held up his index finger. “The first thing is to wait for the autopsy result, then go from there. It’s premature to be talking about the FBI and all that.”

  “But I do understand his bewilderment,” Paula said. “Heather’s death makes no sense.”

  “Wait for the autopsy,” Thelo said firmly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On Thursday, having done little or no paperwork in the past three days, Paula went to the office early to try to make some headway writing up the goals for the next quarter. She had been working twenty minutes when her phone rang. It was Chief Inspector Agyekum.

  “Good morning, Chief Inspector.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Djan. I have some news regarding the death of Miss Heather Peterson.”

  “Yes?” she said tentatively.

  “The medical examiner has done the autopsy and found no signs of foul play. However, Miss Peterson’s blood alcohol concentration was very high, so it appears that she had an excessive amount to drink prior to entering the pool. We therefore conclude that this was an accidental death, and that she most unfortunately drowned as a result of being highly intoxicated.”

  Paula was stunned. “Highly intoxicated? I don’t understand. Heather was not a heavy drinker. In fact, she drank very little.”

  “Could it be simply that you never witnessed her drinking heavily?”

  She thought she detected some sarcasm in his tone. “But no one else has reported her drinking heavily either,” she objected. “Otherwise, I would have surely heard something about it.”

  “Sometimes the findings at autopsy come as a shock to the loved ones of the deceased,” he said. Maybe he was trying to be sympathetic, but to Paula he only sounded condescending.

  “But why was she naked in the pool?” she demanded, hearing her voice rise. “Can you explain that?”

  “Please, Mrs. Djan, as I’m sure you know, alcohol reduces one’s inhibitions. I have seen many strange things as a result of alcohol consumption. This is not the worst of them.”

  “Maybe you can imagine Heather taking off all her clothes to swim naked,” she said heatedly, “but I cannot. Are you sure this isn’t some kind of mistake? Perhaps her blood sample was accidentally switched with someone else’s?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so,” he said, and Paula could hear him smiling in tolerant amusement, which annoyed her.

  “Something doesn’t fit, Chief Inspector,” she said emphatically. “I just know something is wrong.” He didn’t comment, and that aroused her suspicions. “I think you sense it too. I think you know something is wrong but your superiors at CID would much rather drop this. I know how it works over there. They’ve instructed you not to go any further, am I not correct?”

  “The case will be officially closed by the day’s end,” he answered decisively.

  “Please, you didn’t answe
r my question.” She felt desperate. “Your higher-ups ordered you to discontinue the investigation, didn’t they?”

  “No, Mrs. Djan. I’m very sorry for the bad news. Goodbye.”

  She sat staring at her desk without seeing, and jumped as Gale came in.

  “Morning, boss.” She stopped in her tracks. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t believe it!” Paula exclaimed in shock. “I’ve just gotten off the phone with Chief Inspector Agyekum. He says the conclusions from the autopsy are that Heather drank heavily and became so intoxicated that she went swimming naked in the pool and drowned.”

  “No!” Gale exclaimed, dropping her backpack on the floor. “Heather? How can that be? I’ve never seen her drink to excess. Have you?”

  “Certainly not. The first time she was at my house was for the Sunday lunch for the staff, and she might have had one beer at the most. The second time was that Saturday evening to celebrate her birthday—remember?”

  “Yes,” Gale said, nodding. “She had a glass of champagne—said it was sweet the way she liked it, and that she wasn’t much of a drinker.”

  “I’m sure there’s more to this story,” Paula said. “How can Chief Inspector Agyekum not see how strange it is that Heather was found naked?”

  “He doesn’t know her the way we do.”

  “Well, did he ask what she was like?” Paula asked sharply. “No, he did not. What kind of detective is he?” She brooded. “And this is going to drag Heather’s name through the mud. People will say, ‘ah, well, she suffered the consequences of swimming while drunk. And what in heaven’s name are they doing over there at that school? Some alcoholic woman coming from America to teach our children? Swimming naked in a public area?’ You know, we don’t like that kind of thing in Ghana.”

  Gale sucked her teeth three times in rapid succession as she imagined the troubling scenario.

  “And then we have the kids to worry about,” Paula said in growing dismay as all the implications began to dawn. “Especially Ajua. How will she respond when she hears these terrible stories about her teacher?”

  “And we’re struggling to keep this Danish grant going, too,” Gale added. “Bad publicity is what we don’t need.”

  “We have to do something,” Paula said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Paula got up and paced the distance the small room would allow. “But we will do something.”

  Mid-morning, John Prempeh called Paula to ask her if she had a statement to make on the death of Heather Peterson. Paula had prepared herself for media inquiries, but Prempeh was the last person she wanted to talk to.

  “We’re devastated and saddened by her death,” she said. “She was a valued asset to the Street Academy. Because it’s an ongoing investigation, I can’t comment any further than that.”

  “Had she been drinking heavily?”

  “Mr. Prempeh,” she said sharply, “as I just said, I can’t comment any further.”

  “What about the possibility that she committed suicide?”

  “Nothing further, Mr. Prempeh. Good day.”

  She dropped the call in disgust.

  At the end of the school day, Paula found Diane sitting alone at the teacher’s desk in the first classroom marking students’ papers. Paula asked her how she was feeling. Since Heather’s death, she had been very quiet.

  “I’m a little better, I think,” Diane said. “I haven’t been sleeping that well though, and I’ve been thinking of moving out of the Voyager. Every time I catch a glimpse of the pool, I feel sick to my stomach.”

  Paula pulled up a chair. “Diane, the chief inspector called me this morning about Heather’s autopsy and toxicology results.”

  Diane sat up straight. “What did he say?”

  “They’ve concluded that Heather drowned accidentally. They claim she had a high alcohol concentration in her blood, so they think she drank heavily, went swimming and drowned because she was so intoxicated.”

  Diane jerked her head back, as if someone had tried to prod her in the face with a garden fork. “What? Intoxicated! But she hardly drank. And no way she’d go swimming in the nude. What kind of crappy investigation is this?”

  “That’s what Gale and I were saying to each other this morning,” Paula said. “We’ve been asking ourselves if we missed something? I feel like we have. Did you see Heather on Sunday?”

  “No, only Saturday afternoon. We hung around the pool for a while and then went back to our rooms when the light started to fade.”

  “Was she downcast?” Paula asked. “Did she say whether she and Oliver were having any problems?”

  Diane dropped her gaze.

  “What’s wrong?” Paula asked.

  “The police inspector asked me if Oliver and Heather had been getting along well, and I answered that I thought they were, but that isn’t true. On Saturday, while Heather and I were talking by the pool, she said she needed some advice on something. She told me that in the time she’d been seeing Oliver, he’d gone from asking her to help him get to the States to asking whether he could accompany her when she went back home to Portland; and just recently, he proposed marriage to her.”

  Paula’s eyebrows shot up. “Go back to Portland with her,” she echoed. “Marriage? What was Oliver thinking?”

  “That was essentially Heather’s question. Honestly? I think she started something she would never have been able to finish properly. The way I saw it, she was less in love with Oliver than with the novelty of being with a black man.”

  Paula was surprised. “Oh? Why do you say that?”

  “I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed these white women who come to Ghana and get swept up by the whole African virility myth. You know, all that jungle fever nonsense.”

  Diane’s tone was bitter and she was frowning in distaste. Paula had never seen this judgmental side of her, and she was shocked.

  “And on the other hand,” Diane continued, “Oliver may have had ulterior motives in their so-called relationship.”

  Paula was puzzled by these analyses. “You don’t think he was in love with her either?”

  “In a way, but…”

  “You don’t trust him? I mean, what exactly are you saying?”

  “I guess that’s it,” Diane said with a shrug. “I don’t trust him.”

  Paula watched her for a moment as she brooded. “Let me ask you something, Diane. It’s very personal, so you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Did you and Heather ever fight over Oliver?”

  Diane sighed and put her pen down. “Okay, I’ll tell you what happened. A while after I started working at High Street Academy, I got interested in Oliver. I mean, look at him. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t be?”

  Paula smiled slightly, but wasn’t about to admit she agreed.

  “But after I got to know him a little,” Diane continued, “my character meter started sending me alarm signals. It’s hard to explain; but at first, his focus seemed to be all about me; but then I realized that underneath it all, he’s really all about himself. That’s when I backed off and left him alone. Then Heather got here and I saw her falling for him, and I didn’t like it—for her sake, I mean.

  “So, about a month ago,” Diane continued, leaning closer to Paula and lowering her voice, “I was coming out of my room at the Voyager when I saw Heather going downstairs. She’d left her door ajar. As I passed it, I saw Oliver inside her room, watching TV with his shirt off. He didn’t see me. When I got downstairs, I bumped into Heather as she was coming back up. I don’t know what got into me, but I blurted out to her that she shouldn’t do anything she would later regret.”

  Diane paused, wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt. “Of course, as soon as I said that, it was me who regretted it. Heather got upset and accused me of being jealous of her relationship with Oliver, and then we started bickering. Oliver heard us, and he came down the hallway to find us arguing. The whole thing was ugly and embarrassing, and I blame
myself for starting it. But, you know, in the end, I was only concerned about Heather. That’s all it was. I know it might have seemed like jealousy, but it wasn’t.”

  “I see,” Paula nodded, even though she wasn’t convinced that no jealousy had been involved. Diane’s head might be saying that, but Paula doubted her heart was.

  “So anyone suggesting I had it in for her,” Diane said with a weak grin, “don’t pay them no mind.”

  “Anyone like whom?” Paula asked curiously. Perhaps she meant Oliver.

  Diane shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Anyone.”

  Paula rested a gentle hand on Diane’s shoulder. “Are you going to be okay? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No, nothing.” Diane smiled at her. “You’ve done a lot already to help me get through this. Thank you.”

  It looked like she wanted to say something else.

  “What is it?” Paula asked encouragingly.

  “D’you think Heather was murdered?”

  Paula gazed at the floor to frame her thoughts, and then looked up. “It isn’t something we like to think about, but what we know about Heather doesn’t fit the picture the police are trying to paint, and so I reject it. I’ve been casting around for explanations, but each time I come up with the same answer: there must have been foul play.”

  Diane was studying her closely. “That’s a relief in a weird way. Just like you, I can’t see Heather being responsible for her own death. I mean, all this stuff about going swimming while drunk…there’s just no way.”

  Paula nodded. “Agreed. It feels like we should do something to set the record straight.”

  “Well,” Diane offered. “If you need me to help persuade that chief inspector he’s got it all wrong, let me know, because I’m happy to do it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Meanwhile, I had an idea today,” Diane said, brightening. “I want to put together a collage of all the pics I took of Heather as a tribute to her.”

  Diane was no professional photographer, but she loved taking photographs, particularly candid shots.