“Yes, you have,” Dawson said. “Brian Smith-Aidoo, Charles’s bitter younger brother who was jealous of his success and his influence over Sapphire Smith-Aidoo.”
“Does he have an alibi?”
“He says he was at home all of Monday, the seventh of July, sick with gout. He lives alone, so it’s not confirmed.”
Chikata sat forward in the backseat. “Shall we go back to him and interrogate him again?”
“Yes, I think so,” Dawson said, “but I’ve been thinking about the juju angle to this case. I don’t feel like we have probed deeply enough into it. Baah, please take us to Kweku Bonsa’s shrine.”
“Yes, sir,” Baah said. He adopted a mocking tone. “So-called best fetish priest in Takoradi.”
“You don’t believe it?” Chikata asked.
“No, he’s just chopping people’s money.”
AS THEY ENTERED Bonsa’s shrine, Dawson discreetly commented to Chikata that he had expected much less. Three surprisingly modern buildings with four labeled consulting rooms surrounded a clean cement compound. Maybe Baah was right-Bonsa was making good money.
“He even has a website,” Chikata said.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, look over there,” Chikata said, pointing his chin to a wall emblazoned with the URL.
They found an assistant and asked to see Mr. Bonsa.
“Please, you can wait for him,” the assistant said.
“Mepaakyew,” Chikata said politely, using the word for “please” in Akan, “tell him we’re policemen from Accra, and we don’t have time to wait.”
“Yes, please,” the man said, scurrying away.
Dawson looked at Chikata and smiled. “I like that. You asserted yourself well. And beat me to it, too.”
Chikata smiled. “I’ve already missed him once while he was doing his spiritual dance special. I’m not coming back a third time.”
The assistant returned. “Please, he says he can see you in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes turned out to be thirty, but by general standards, that was very good. Dawson and Chikata took off their shoes at the doorstep of Consulting Room One and entered.
A small pile of cowry shells in front of him, Kweku Bonsa was sitting on the carpeted floor of a slightly elevated stage around which four attendants stood. Bonsa was a slight man with a severe defect in the left side of his face as though it had been gouged out as a child. A pink, rigid scar tugged at the lower lid of his left eye, which watered constantly because it could not close completely.
One of the attendants prompted the visitors to introduce themselves. Dawson spoke on Chikata’s behalf, since the sergeant didn’t speak Fante.
Bonsa stared at them and nodded. “What problems do you have?” His voice was hoarse and scratchy.
“We are looking for the person who killed a man and his wife last July,” Dawson said, deciding on the blunt approach.
“Why have you come to me?” Bonsa asked.
“We want to know if it was a human sacrifice. The man was Mr. Charles Smith-Aidoo. He and his wife were shot, and then he was beheaded. Can I show you the picture?”
“If you want.”
He brought up the image on his phone and gave it to one of the attendants, who showed it to Bonsa. He looked at it for a moment with not even a twitch in his expression and then handed the phone back.
“I don’t deal in such blood practices,” he declared.
“I didn’t say you did,” Dawson said. “I’m asking your opinion.”
Bonsa leaned slightly forward and swept his hands back and forth over the cowry shells, scattering them. One of his assistants picked up the few that had strayed outside of reach and threw them back in the pile. Bonsa studied the shells as he muttered something inaudible. He repeated the cycle of scattering and studying twice, and then he looked up with the good eye narrowed to a slit.
“If someone is saying it is a sacrifice,” he said, “the person is uttering a falsehood. It is a killing of a different purpose. The one who did it is trying to make it seem like a human sacrifice.”
Dawson wasn’t sure if his next ploy would work, but he took the plunge. “I heard that in April of this year, a man came to you asking your help for his dying daughter.”
Bonsa stiffened and stared at Dawson for several moments. “Not me.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t concern myself with imposters.”
Dawson wasn’t sure what the priest meant. “You’re saying that this man consulted a fake fetish priest about his daughter?”
Bonsa blinked slowly but said nothing.
“Was the name of the man Jason Sarbah?” Dawson pressed. “What did that fetish priest instruct Mr. Sarbah? That he should have Mr. and Mrs. Smith-Aidoo killed in order to save his daughter?”
Bonsa maintained his silence. He had closed his eyes and appeared to be in a trance. Abruptly, one of the attendants held the door open for the two detectives to leave. The meeting was officially over.
DAWSON AND CHIKATA didn’t speak until they were back in the taxi.
“Agh,” the sergeant said. “That was unpleasant. I don’t like that man.”
“Strange atmosphere in there,” Dawson agreed. He glanced at Baah, who was staying silent.
“Why did you make up that story about a man consulting Bonsa about his dying daughter?” Chikata asked.
“It popped into my head,” Dawson replied. “What if, out of desperation during the final days of Angela’s fatal illness, Jason Sarbah consulted a fetish priest? From the way Bonsa responded, it seems I hit a nerve. So maybe Jason did go to a fetish, but he went to a quack and Bonsa heard the story.”
“Then why didn’t he want to confirm whether or not it was Jason?”
“Because I don’t think he wants to get involved. It’s like if a TV reporter or someone like that came to you and asked about a corrupt policeman. Even if you’d heard something about it, you might not want to talk about it with someone like that because of the mess it would drag you into.”
“True,” Chikata said. “Okay, so, let’s say Jason goes to the quack priest. And then?”
“And then this imposter fetish priest recommends to Jason that he perform a human sacrifice on the man who denied him money for the operation Angela needed. There’s no way Jason can do this himself, so he hires two or three people to do it.”
“So now we have to go looking for a quack fetish priest Jason went to see? That could take us years.”
“There’s a much easier way,” Dawson said, taking out his phone. “We’re going to ask Jason himself about it.”
BY THE TIME Jason appeared at the Takoradi central police station with his lawyer, it was well past nightfall. Dawson had reached him at a pool party at Planter’s Lodge, an upscale hotel not far from Shippers Circle. Jason had sounded annoyed that Dawson wanted to question him.
“Can you give me a couple of hours?” he asked.
“Yes, all right,” Dawson replied, but when he had hung up, he began to worry. Why did Jason need a couple of hours? He dispatched Chikata and Baah immediately to Planter’s Lodge, instructing them to park discreetly outside the entrance and watch for Jason. Dawson wanted to be sure he didn’t bolt.
He didn’t. It turned out that he needed time to contact his lawyer and have him accompany Jason to the station. The lawyer, Calvin DeGraft, was contracted with Malgam Oil.
Smart man to come with DeGraft, Dawson thought.
They met in the CID room, Jason and DeGraft sitting opposite Dawson and Chikata.
“What is this about, Inspector?” the lawyer asked. He was a large, imposing man with a razor edge to his voice. “Today is Sunday. This is a considerable disruption of my client’s leisure time.”
“I do apologize for that, sir,” Dawson said. “However, we need to ask your client some questions, if you would allow it.”