Death at the Voyager Hotel (16 page)

It was almost 10 p.m. Gale had texted Paula but not heard
back from her. Now her phone rang and she thought for a moment it was her boss
calling back, but it was Thelo asking if she knew where Paula was. He’d been
calling and texting her to no avail.

“I tried to
reach her myself earlier on,” Gale said. “I assumed the text didn’t get through
or she just hadn’t seen it.”

“Did she tell you
she was going to see the Dutch guy at the Voyager?” Thelo asked.

“Jost? Yes, she
wanted to ask him if he knew whether Edward and Heather were having a
relationship.”

“What?” Thelo
said, his tone alarmed. “She didn’t tell me that. She said she was going to
talk to him about solar power installations.”

Solar power.
Gale went rigid. Jost
Miedema had installed solar lights at the hotel swimming pool.
He knew how
to turn them on and turn them off.

“Thelo,” she
said urgently. “I think Paula might be in trouble. I’ll go to the Voyager right
now, and meanwhile is there someone at CID you can call and have them get over
there as quickly as possible?”

“Will do, and
I’ll see if Paula’s sister can come over and watch the kids. I’ll meet you at
the Voyager as soon as possible.”

In the darkness of the sitting room, Jost watched from the
window as the night security guard made the second of his routine rounds at the
rear of the hotel, swinging his flashlight back and forth. Ever since Heather’s
death, Edward had put an extra guard on duty overnight and mandated that he
must patrol the back of the hotel every hour. This one dutifully went to the
pool, where the lights were on, looked around and left, making one more sweep
of his flashlight before returning to the lobby.

Jost moved
quickly, exiting his chalet and running around the back of the other two.

He approached
the pool from its rear side and went to the control station, where he switched
off the inverter. The lights went out and he ran back to his chalet in darkness.

In preparation,
he had sat Paula up in a chair in the sitting room.

“It’s time,” he
told her quietly, slipping off his clothes and leaving on only his swimming
briefs.

Still in a
drugged state, she moaned softly and her head lolled forward as she dozed. He
slipped his arms around her upper torso, interlaced his fingers behind her
upper back and smoothly pulled her up against him as he stood up, a technique
he had learned as a young nursing aide temp. He lowered himself so that she
flopped forward over his left shoulder and then he stood up straight. Holding
her legs fast, he left the chalet again, once more circling around as quickly
as he could to the swimming pool. In the darkness he gently lowered Paula onto
the pool deck, unbinding her wrists, ankles and finally, her mouth. He saw the
whites of her eyes as they fluttered open. She murmured something unintelligible.

“I’m really sorry,
Paula,” he whispered. “Forgive me, but I have to do this.”

He got into the
water and lifted her in with him. “Goodbye, Paula.”

He pushed her
head under.

The security guard burst out from the rear entrance of the
hotel with Gale right behind him.

The pool was in
darkness. He switched on his flashlight and Gale followed him as he took off at
a run. His beam found a man standing inside the pool while holding down a
feebly moving body underneath the water.

Jost’s head
jerked up as he saw two figures running toward him. He leapt out of the pool.

“Get him!” Gale
screamed.

The security
guard on his tail, Jost made a dash for the rear perimeter of the premises. Gale
jumped into the water, and as tiny as she was, she pulled Paula up before her
body began its slow trajectory to the bottom. Her head in free air again, Paula’s
eyes popped open, she drew in a wheezing breath and began to cough and
splutter.

“It’s okay,
boss,” Gale said breathlessly. “I got you.”

Chief Inspector Agyekum stood over Jost Miedema, who lay
prone on the ground in handcuffs. The security guard had tackled him and
wrestled him to the ground, keeping him pinned until Agyekum arrived.

At poolside,
Paula sat with a large hotel towel wrapped around her as Thelo cradled her in
his arms. She was breathing heavily and shivering.

He kissed her. “I
don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”

Paula sat forward in the hospital bed of her private room as
the doctor listened to her lungs with his stethoscope.

“You’re lucky
and
you have a strong constitution,” he said. “Your heart and lungs are fine.”

“Thank you, Doctor,”
she said, sitting back against her pillows.

“Actually,” he said
folding up his stethoscope, “your assailant did you something of a favor by
administering the diazepam. He wanted to make it easier to drown you by making
your muscles too weak to struggle, but that also allowed you to conserve energy,
and because the drug suppressed your respirations, you didn’t inhale
significant amounts of water.”

If you say so, Paula
thought. Thanks to another effect of the drug, she remembered nothing of the harrowing
experience.

“Shall I call your
visitors back in?” he asked her.

“Yes, please.
Thank you again, Doctor.”

Thelo, Gale, Diane,
and Oliver returned to her bedside.

“Don’t tire her
out too much,” the doctor warned.

Thelo kissed
Paula on the cheek and she smiled wanly and held his hand.

“How do you
feel?” he asked her.

“Surprisingly
hungry.”

“Well,” he
joked, “seeing as how you didn’t show up for dinner last night.”

Paula laughed
weakly, and then winced as a muscle somewhere reminded her she was far from
back to normal.

“Thank you for
what you’ve done, boss,” Oliver said quietly. “You’ve restored Heather’s good name
and found her killer too.”

They gave her a
round of applause.

“Now can we get
back to our normal lives?” Thelo said dryly.

“I think so,”
Paula said.

“What do you
mean,
think
so?” he asked suspiciously.

“I mean, yes,”
she responded hastily. “When will Stephan and Stephanie get here?”

“I just spoke
to Ama. She’s on the way with them.”

“Any word on
how long you’ll be out, boss?” Diane asked.

“I don’t plan
to stay here long,” Paula answered.

“Don’t rush it,”
Gale advised. “Not to worry, we’ll hold down the fort.”

“Diane?” Paula
said. “Can you continue Ajua’s tutoring and keep a special eye on her? She
needs our support. You know how much she idolized Heather, and I don’t want her
backsliding.”

“Of course, I
will, Paula.”

“How are the
rehearsals going?” she asked eagerly.

“A little
chaotic,” Gale said, “but the kids are doing a fine job. It’s going to be great
show.”

“I know it
will,” Paula said.

 “Come on,
Oliver, Diane,” Gale said, “let’s go. There’s a full day of school ahead.”

“Thank you,
guys,” Paula called out as they left.

Thelo plumped
up her pillows. “Get some sleep, now.”

“Okay. You
leaving for a while?”

“No, I’ll be
right here.”

She woke hours later to Thelo’s soft voice. “There’s someone
here to see you, honey.”

Paula looked to
her side. Mr. Peterson was smiling at her. “How are you?”

“Better, thank
you.”

“I didn’t want
to leave without saying goodbye and thanking you from the bottom of my heart.”

She smiled and
held out her hand. He took it and gently squeezed.

“Have all the
arrangements been made?” she asked.

“Yes, we’re
leaving Friday, and I must say that everyone has been wonderful. Things have
gone smoothly after that rocky start and Heather’s all set for the flight back
home.”

“Good, I’m
glad. I was worried you would go away with the most awful impression of Ghana
and its people.”

“No, not at
all. But I do have one little piece of advice: guys, you gotta pick up the pace
just a tad.”

She laughed
with him. “Point well taken. Thank you for coming to Ghana and watching over
Heather.”

“Goodbye,
Paula, and God bless. Get better real soon.”

The nurse came in with a light meal, which left Paula hungrier
than before. Thelo went out on a secret mission to get her some “real food.”
Minutes after he had left, with a light tap on the door, Chief Inspector
Agyekum came in.

“Good
afternoon, Mrs. Djan,” he said, smiling. They shook hands. “How are you
faring?”

“Much better,
thank you. Please have a seat. My husband stepped out for a moment.”

Agyekum pulled
up a chair. “I must say, I owe you an apology.”

“Oh?” she said
innocently.

“I didn’t
believe your convictions about Heather. You were right, I was wrong, and I’m
sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

She smiled. “In
many ways, I don’t blame you. You were going on past experience and you didn’t
know either Heather or me.”

“I’m glad you
persisted, however.”

“Thank you.”

“Not that I’m
glad you had to tangle with a dangerous criminal and end up in the hospital,”
he added quickly. “Not that part.”

They laughed.

“Has Mr.
Miedema confessed?” she asked him.

“He has, and if
I can have your assurances that you will keep it confidential, I will tell you
what he said.”

“Yes, of
course.”

“Mr. Miedema
fell in love with Heather Peterson probably the first moment he saw her at the
hotel swimming pool,” Agyekum began. “The way he has always told the story is
that when she learned he was a triathlon champion, she asked him to help her
improve her stroke and stamina. In fact, it was the other way around. He
suggested it rather to
her,
and after some persuasion, she thought it
was a good idea. On the pretext of analyzing her swimming style, he took pictures
and videos of her performance supposedly to instruct her on how she could
improve. He gave her the false impression that he was taking only a few photos,
but in fact he took hundreds of them with his high-speed camera.”

“Did he tell
her how he felt about her?” Paula asked.

“Not for some
time,” Agyekum said, “but Mr. Miedema sensed that she saw him only as her informal
coach, an older athlete with the benefit of years of experience, and he wasn’t
satisfied with that. He wanted a romantic relationship with her. He spent hours
looking at the photos he had taken of her and fantasizing about how he might
become her true love.”

“A dangerous obsession,”
Paula observed.

“Yes,” Agyekum
said, “but there was one big problem: Oliver. Sometimes Jost would watch him playing
around with Heather in the pool. That made him crazy with jealousy, and he began
plotting to get the couple apart. He tried to gain Heather’s trust, and little
by little she became more free with him—maybe regarding him as kind of father
figure. One day, when he asked her about her parents, she poured out her
troubles about her relationship with her mother, who is sick with multiple
sclerosis. Heather told him she rarely shared that with anyone, and he felt
proud that she had confided in him.

“Then he began to
slowly poison her mind about Oliver, persuading her that he was using her as a cash
machine and a means of getting to the United States. His tactic must have worked,
culminating that Sunday when she and Oliver had their big argument and decided to
part ways.”

“She trusted
Mr. Miedema,” Paula said, seeing it clearly. “That’s how he was able to sway
her against Oliver. Miedema knew how to inspire trust while lying to her face.
I know that because I myself fell victim to his deception.”

“If only
Heather could have seen through him the way you eventually did,” Agyekum said. “His
fantasy was that her ending her romance with Oliver meant she was turning to Miedema
as her new love. When she called him that fateful night to say she had broken
free, as he called it, he invited her down for some champagne to celebrate. He
told me in the interrogation that it was possibly the happiest day of his life
in a very long time. After he and Heather had talked a while, he suggested they
go for a swim and look up at the stars, which were brilliant that particular night.

“Heather went
back up to her room and returned in a new tangerine swimsuit Miedema had never
seen before. He thought she looked lovely in it and she told him it had been a
gift from Oliver. His whole world changed in a second. He said to me that he felt
as though he had been slashed across the face with a dagger. He asked Heather
why she was wearing a gift from a man she hated, to which she replied that she
didn’t hate Oliver at all. They had parted ways romantically because she did
not see her future with him, but it wasn’t the same as hating him, and although
she was no longer going to sleep with him, she was still going to work with him
at the school.”

“Out of wishful
thinking,” Paula said, “Jost had misinterpreted the motive behind the breakup.”

“He had,”
Agyekum agreed. “When he and Heather went out to the pool, he turned off the
lights—but not to kill Heather, as you might be thinking. It was so that they
could see the stars better. But all the time they were in the nice warm water
looking up at those stars, he could not stop thinking about the tangerine
swimming outfit. It was eating his soul, but it was what happened next that
delivered the full shock to him. Heather suddenly blurted out that she thought
she had just made a mistake—that she had been too hasty with Oliver and now she
wanted him back.”

“It must have
shattered Jost’s whole, elaborate fantasy,” Paula said.

“He says he
felt like he was being buried alive. He became frantic, telling Heather he
couldn’t bear it if she left him, that he loved her and wanted to be with her
forever—that he was even planning to fly her to the Netherlands to visit with
him. Then, according to him, Heather’s behavior abruptly changed at that point.
He describes her as becoming hostile and telling him she wouldn’t dream of
being in a relationship with an old man like him, that she would prefer Oliver
any day.”

“I don’t
believe she said it that way,” Paula interjected, shaking her head. “Knowing
Heather, I doubt that she was anything less than tactful with him.”

“I’m sure you
are right, Mrs. Djan. Whatever she said, Heather excused herself and began to
leave the pool. Miedema says he felt, even
heard
, something snap in his
mind, and he hit her hard across the side of her head. It knocked her back, and
for a moment she was speechless. But then she tried to scream and he became
even more enraged. He pushed her underwater and never let her up again. Her writhing,
her resistance to him was like pouring fuel on a fire. The more she fought him,
the more he wanted to kill her.”

Her hand over
her open mouth, Paula was transfixed by the vivid picture of terror and violence
that Agyekum was painting.

“Miedema claims
he barely remembers the struggle,” the chief inspector said, “and that it was
like a dream. When it was all over, he was dazed, but he remembers walking back
to his chalet, fetching his camera and returning to take a picture of Heather’s
dead body in the water. The orange swimsuit troubled him, so he removed it and took
a final photograph and video of her naked. He said it was a hauntingly
beautiful image, and although he kept urging himself to erase the evidence from
his computer, he was unable to do it. He was always wanting to look at it just
one more time.”