He found the spot he was looking for… Dawson going into the office with Genevieve. As he watched them standing together by the painting, Socrate felt the suffocation returning. He concentrated on imagining Genevieve’s voice. Slow down your breathing… slow… slower… that’s right. You’re doing fine.
Part Three
37
Dawson turned over in bed and gazed at the ceiling splashed with Saturday morning sunlight. A little over two weeks had passed since Tedamm’s arrest. DNA analysis showed a match with the semen inside Comfort. It was her blood under his fingernails. Ofosu’s account of the rape had corresponded to Antwi’s. It was a strong case. Tedamm had been charged with rape and first-degree murder. He denied both, claiming Comfort had been actively soliciting sex, which had therefore been consensual. The blood under his fingernails, he said, was from her nosebleed, but he had not murdered her. He was sticking to that. Neither would he confess to the murders of Musa and Ebenezer. The autopsy had confirmed that Comfort had had a nosebleed, but that little island of truth did not exonerate Tedamm.
As for Flash, that sliver of scum, his alibi in Comfort’s case had checked out, including his drinking session with his friends at the Jesus Is Coming chop bar. Still, he was in jail for the prostitution racket. Tedamm would get bundled into that charge as well. So, although Dawson wasn’t completely satisfied about the way everything had turned out, there was at least something to be happy about.
Hosiah came in, jumped on the bed, and snuggled into a spot between his mother and his father.
“How are you, champ?” Dawson asked him, kissing the top of his head.
“Fine.”
“Fine, what?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“That’s better. Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you. Daddy, look.” Hosiah held up his most recent toy creation, a turbo sports car.
Dawson examined it. “Nice!” he said. “How fast can it go?”
“One hundred and fifty.”
Dawson smiled. “That’s fast.”
Making appropriate zoom-zoom noises, Hosiah pushed his car along an imaginary road on Dawson’s chest and up his chin.
“Hey!” Dawson said in mock protest. “Where you think you’re going?”
Hosiah giggled. “Driving up a mountain. The Daddy Mountain.”
No longer did he and Dawson have playful wrestling matches on a Saturday morning like this. Dawson missed the tussles. He knew his son did too, but there was nothing they could do about it. Hosiah could not sustain that level of exertion anymore. Sometimes when Dawson looked at him, he had to swallow down the knot in his throat and blink away the pricking tears. His son was dwindling before his eyes.
Before breakfast, Christine came and stood in the doorway. “You have a visitor, Dark.”
“Who?”
“Surprise,” she said mischievously.
She moved to one side and brought someone else into view.
Dawson leapt to his feet, flabbergasted to see his old mentor standing there. “My God! Armah!”
They laughed as they embraced.
“How are you, Darko?”
“What a surprise! Welcome, welcome. I didn’t even hear you arrive.”
“I smuggled him in,” Christine said. “I spotted him out of the kitchen window as he was walking up.”
Daniel Armah, in his early sixties, friend, father figure, and mentor, was shorter than Dawson. His hair was speckled with gray, his face wide and welcoming. His eyes held deep thought and a twinkle of humor that often caught people by surprise.
“It’s so good to see you, Armah. You’re looking well.”
“You too, Darko.”
“Please, come and have a seat. Would you like anything? We’re about to have breakfast, if you’d like to join us.”
“I would love to. Thank you.”
Christine went about finishing up breakfast while Dawson and Armah talked.
“So what brings you to town?” Dawson asked.
“My cousin is ill,” Armah explained. “His wife asked me to come down and see him. He’s not doing well, and she’s afraid he may not last long.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How long will you be in Accra?”
“It depends on how my cousin does.”
“I understand.”
Washed and dressed, Hosiah came marching into the sitting room.
“Look who’s here, Hosiah,” Dawson said.
“Uncle Daniel!”
Armah hugged him. “How are you, Hosiah? My goodness, you’re growing tall!”
Hosiah beamed. “Daddy says I’ll be taller than him when I grow up.”
Armah laughed. “I don’t doubt it.”
After breakfast, Christine took Hosiah with her to run weekend errands. Dawson sat with Armah in the small backyard.
“I was closely following your case in the papers,” Armah said.
“It must be providence that brought you here,” Dawson said, “because I had been thinking about calling to talk to you about it. I wish I could feel completely happy with the result, but I’m not.”
“What’s troubling you?”
“Well, Tedamm is a rapist and a bully, no doubt, and maybe even a murderer, but in locking him up I have the same feeling you get when you put a piece of equipment together and there are nuts and bolts left over. For instance, a boy called Antwi, who was a witness to the rape, told me that, on the night Comfort was found dead, someone drove up in a vehicle while Tedamm was in the act. Thinking it was the police, Antwi and his friend Ofosu ran off, leaving Tedamm. We still don’t know who this person in the car was. Could it have been him who killed Comfort after Tedamm had left her? It’s a missing piece, and it bothers me.”
“Of course, the car could be a red herring.”
“True, but here’s another thing. We know Tedamm and Ebenezer were enemies because of turf battles, so there could be motive there. Maybe there was also a turf battle with Musa that Tedamm doesn’t want to admit to, but a turf battle with Comfort? That’s unlikely. And again, Comfort’s murder looked like a sexual homicide because of the rape, but that doesn’t fit with the motive of the other two murders.”
“Yes, I see what you mean.”
“What do you think I should do? I feel like I’ve achieved something but not the thing.”
“Are you still working full-time on the case?”
Dawson shook his head. “With all this excitement over Ghana’s new oil industry, practically everyone is focused on the murder of this Ghana Petroleum exec. Lartey’s asked me to help as well. Look, as he put it himself, poor people, prostitutes, and street children versus oil executive. Who wins?”
“What about Professor Botswe? He’s quite sure this is serial murder?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
“I have to say yes. That identical signature in all three cases is hard to ignore. Identical with only one exception.”
“What is that?”
“The killer took body parts from Comfort and Musa as trophies, but he didn’t do the same with Ebenezer.”
“So we have no explanation for that either.”
“No. Can you make any sense of any of this?”
Armah reflected a moment. “I think you have Tedamm in prison for rape just as he deserves. I also think you and Dr. Botswe are right-there’s a serial killer-it’s just not Tedamm. We’re looking for someone who deals regularly with street children. That gives him the opportunity. I believe it’s someone with a truck, SUV, or large car, because these victims appear to have been brought to the places they were found, not murdered on the spot.”
Dawson nodded but sighed in frustration.
“I haven’t been a lot of help, I know,” Armah said. “A couple months ago I was having a small medical problem-nothing serious, it turns out, but at first the doctor couldn’t figure it out. He said something very interesting to me. He said, ‘Sometimes you just have to let the disease declare itself.’ And as blithe as that might sound, I think that’s what happens with murder cases too.”