Death at the Voyager Hotel (6 page)

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.

Paula jumped at
the idea. “That would be wonderful! We’d all love to see it. And I’m sure her
parents would like to have it.”

“I’ll start
working on it tonight.”

Paula felt
happy for Diane. She suspected that the collage would be a healing exercise for
her.

After all the staff and students had left school, Gale came
into the office to tidy up. Quick and efficient as a worker ant, she seemed to
have inexhaustible energy.

“I spoke with
Oliver this morning,” she said, moving a stack of folders to wipe off her desk.
“He’s truly grieving over Heather. I feel so sorry for him.”

“Me too,” Paula
said feelingly. “I offered him some time off, but he said he preferred to work.
It can’t be easy for him.

Gale finished
with the desk and started on the bookshelves. “I asked him if he noticed any
signs on Sunday afternoon that Heather was sad or depressed about anything. He
said no, that they went shopping together at the mall and she seemed to be in
good spirits.”

Paula began to
help Gale by removing books and folders from the shelves. She said, “I did
learn something new from Diane. On Saturday afternoon, while she and Heather
were sitting by the pool, Heather admitted that Oliver had been asking her to
help him get to the States. He even proposed marriage to her.”

“Marriage!” Gale
paused with her duster suspended. “Goodness.”

“Diane says Heather
was beginning to feel like the relationship was a mistake.”

Gale began to
slowly wipe each shelf, in turn. “Is it possible that on Sunday night Heather tried
to break things off with Oliver and they had a bad argument? So bad that
Heather decided to get drunk to banish her sorrows? And then she decided to go
swimming?”

“I suppose
anything is possible,” Paula said, doubtfully. “Did Oliver tell you how much
time he spent with Heather that night?”

“Until eight
thirty, and then he left to see his father who was in hospital.” Gale tossed
her duster onto the table in a gesture of frustration and sorrow. “I only wish none
of this had never happened.”

“I do too,”
Paula said. “Imagine what it must be like for Heather’s father.”

 “A nightmare
no
parent wants to live through,” Gale said, shaking her head.

The two women,
working in tandem, neatly refilled the bookshelves.

“Mr. Peterson
arrives tomorrow, if all goes as planned,” Paula said. “That’s when the full
reality will hit him. It’s going to be very painful.”

“Oh, look,”
Gale said suddenly.

Taped to the
end of the bookcase was a drawing by eight-year-old Lantey, one of the youngest
Academy students. It was his interpretation of the time Heather had gamely
taken part in a soccer match at school. He had depicted her hair in flowing
yellow, titled his masterpiece “Madam Heather,” and scrawled his name on the
bottom in uneven block letters. Paula and Gale locked gazes and their eyes
moistened. Heather could barely control a ball with her feet, but she had not
been afraid to give it a try. The drawing summed up everything about her
relationship with the children. She was from another land and culture, yet she
had been unconditionally accepting of the kids on their terms, and they had
loved and admired her for it.

The next morning, Friday, Gale burst into the office as
Paula was getting set for the day.

“You won’t
believe this,” she said, thrusting the
Ghana Herald
in front of her boss.

The paper was opened
to page three, and Paula read its headline: “ ‘High Street Academy Haunted by
Death and Donor Fatigue’ By John Prempeh.
What?
”

“Oh, just read
on,” Gale said, arms folded, jaw set. “It gets worse.”

“ ‘Accra’s High
Street Academy never had it so bad,’ ” Paula read aloud.

“ ‘As Danish
funding for the well-meaning project begins to dry up, the charity-supported
school appears to have been cursed. The number of its teachers’ aides falls
short of what it should be. Suffering the brunt of the increased work load, one
of those aides, Heather Peterson, went into a deep depression, drank herself
into oblivion and was found drowned and naked in a hotel pool last weekend as a
result of severe intoxication.’ ”

Paula’s blood
had turned to ice. “Oh, my God. ‘High Street Academy is another example of
Ghana’s addiction to handouts from the West and our fondness for securing funds
for projects that never live up to expectations. High Street Academy’s
headmistress Paula Djan confesses that only twenty percent of the children
being schooled ever make it to a public or private middle or junior high
school.

“ ‘Twenty-four-year-old
Miss Peterson, the drowning victim, was reportedly distraught over the long
working hours and the almost unmanageable assignment load that the permanent,
paid staff burdened her with for their convenience. A reliable source available
to the
Ghana Herald
described Peterson as being depressed and having
problems sleeping. Miss Peterson repeatedly complained about the “unruly and
disobedient” street children in the school. Mrs. Djan was either ignorant of
Miss Peterson’s anguish, or knew of the situation and neglected to take any
action. Miss Peterson’s nude state when she was found also raises a question
about her mental stability.’ ”

“No!” Paula
cried. “
No!
”

She read the
article to the end, and then threw the paper down furiously. “Why is Prempeh
doing this? ‘Unmanageable assignment load that we burdened her with for our convenience?’
That’s a complete lie. Heather kept begging for more work than I was giving
her. And her mental stability? How dare he!”

“Who is this so-called
reliable source?” Gale asked. “Do you have Prempeh’s number? Because you should
call him and give him a piece of your mind.”

“Oh, I intend
to,” Paula said, “but first, we need to find out who told him that Heather was depressed,
and whether it came from within these walls.”

“Should I call
a staff meeting?”

“Yes,” Paula
said grimly. “We’ll hold it this afternoon after the children have gone home.”

“I’ll see to
it, boss.”

Paula’s phone
rang. Her heart sank when she saw it was Kwame Coker calling. No doubt, he had
just read the
Ghana Herald
article.

That afternoon, Paula addressed her staff members, who sat before
her in a semicircle. “We’ve had a terrible week,” she began. “On Monday we met
to talk about the shock we all experienced at the news of Heather’s death.
Today, the topic is different but related.” She held up the
Ghana Herald
.
“By now, we’ve all seen the article by John Prempeh. It’s a reckless piece
filled with lies; it’s not even journalism. The
Herald
is notorious for
this kind of sensational rubbish, and now I’m sorry that I spoke to the man at
all. Mr. Coker read the article this morning and called me. He was furious and
upset, and I’ll tell you why.

“Our donors have
been making the conditions for their continued support more and more stringent.
Gone are the days when western countries tossed money at us without much
thought. Now they want to see results. High Street Academy must not only provide
our underprivileged children with the best education possible, we need to show
that we are successfully transferring at least one-third of our students to the
top middle and secondary schools
every year
. Last year, we did not come
close to that target.”

Her gaze passed
over each member of her audience. Their expressions were mostly neutral, but
Diane’s head was down, and so was Oliver’s.

“There’s
something else,” Paula continued. “We have to maintain a spotless image. The
Danes are kindhearted people, but they are also pragmatic. They have their own
people to answer to. This report in the
Herald
gives an impression that
we are lazy, that we have wild and uncontrollable children, and that we have
been dumping inordinate amounts of work on our unpaid foreign volunteer workers.
As if that weren’t enough, Prempeh claims that Heather became so depressed, she
drank herself into near unconsciousness and then drowned. People reading this
article will wonder what kind of hellish place we’re running here.”

As she said
that, everyone turned visibly glum; they seemed to wither under the bleakness
of the circumstances that had shattered the beginning of the week and grown
exponentially worse by the end of it.

“The part of
the article that worries me the most,” Paula went on, “is where it says that Heather
‘was described by a reliable source as being severely depressed and having
problems sleeping.’ I never saw any sign that Heather was severely depressed,
and no one brought that to my attention if it was the case. Maybe I wasn’t
perceptive enough about Heather, or I missed something, but if one of you saw
or knew something I failed to recognize, then I need to know. If the
Ghana
Herald
deserves to know, so do I.

“If this
so-called reliable source is in this room, then I appeal to you—please come to
me with the truth. If a tragic mistake was made, if I neglected Heather in some
way, I must learn exactly where I went wrong.”

Now Paula saw uneasy
fidgeting and furtive sidelong glances among the staff members. “I don’t need
anyone to come forward right now,” she added, “but if you have something to
tell me, I would like to hear from you privately, as soon as possible. Please
feel free to call me over the weekend. Do you have any questions?”

One of the male
teachers spoke up. “I never saw her looking depressed or sad.” That sparked a
burst of discussion within the group, everyone denying that Heather had
appeared troubled, and all saying that they had never told the newspaperman
anything to that effect.

Paula noticed
something else: Oliver and Diane were staring hard at each other. What message
was passing between them? Was it accusatory or conspiratorial? What secrets
could they be hiding?

Late that afternoon, Paula was by herself in the office. The
staff and the kids had gone home. All week, she’d held her emotions in check. But
now that she was alone, she quietly shed tears as she gazed at Lantey’s simple
yet touching drawing of Heather playing soccer.

She turned her
head as she heard a noise outside. Hastily dabbing her eyes dry, she pulled
herself together and opened the door to see who was there. Oliver was sitting
at a student’s desk, and was as surprised to see Paula as she was him.

“I thought you
had gone home,” she said.

“I went to get
something to eat,” he said, “but I came back here because it’s quiet and I
wanted to think.”

She nodded.
“I’ll leave you alone if you like. Or do you want to talk?”

“Sure,” he
said. “Why not?”

She took a seat
at the desk next to his. “How are you feeling?”

“Just…confused.
My mind is tumbling over itself. I don’t understand what has happened. How can
Heather be gone? I was with her on Sunday, but now she’s dead? How can that
be?”

“It seems
impossible,” Paula agreed in sympathy. “I keep waking up at night thinking I’ve
been dreaming it all and that Heather will be here at school in the morning.”

He looked at
her with anxiety in his eyes. “Did she…did she ever say anything bad about me?”

“About you?” Paula
shook her head. “No. On the contrary. She told me you made her feel loved and cherished.”

“Really?” A
smile crept to his lips and his expression turned soft as a memory came to him.
“Once, when I took her to the Western Region, we were at the beach at sunset
and she said it was like paradise there. She hugged me and told me I was her
Paradise Man. And from then on, whenever we were together, she said to me,
‘what’s up, my Paradise Man?’” A sound escaped from his throat that was a cross
between a laugh and a sob. “That’s why I don’t understand how she was behaving
on Sunday.”

Paula sat up
straight. This was something new. “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t tell
you this before,” Oliver said, looking uncomfortable, “but that day, she just
wasn’t herself. She was quiet, and when I asked her what was wrong, she just
said, ‘I’m okay.’ I know her mother isn’t well, so I thought maybe something bad
had happened, but Heather said no. I took her to the Accra Mall to try and
cheer her up. We watched a movie at Silver Bird and then we had some pizza—you
know, she liked pizza a lot. After that, she seemed a little better, and we
were walking around the mall when she saw a swimsuit in a shop there that she
said she liked—kind of a tangerine color—so I bought it for her. She tried to
stop me, but I insisted.”

Paula knew that
most prices at the mall were out of Oliver’s budget range.

“And after the
mall, did you go anywhere else?” she asked.

“No, we went
back to the Voyager and spent part of the evening together. I had to leave
around eight thirty to visit my father at Korle Bu.”

“So that was
the last you saw of her.”

He nodded, his
head down. She squeezed his arm. “Just know that she thought the world of you.”

“Sure?” he
asked, with a suggestion of doubt that Paula didn’t understand. Was there
something else?

“What’s
troubling you?” she asked gently.

Eyes closed, he
rubbed his forehead slowly. “I don’t know. I’m mixed up, Paula.”

She felt deeply
sorry for him. He was so strong physically, but he looked like a lost boy. “What
can I do, Oliver? Tell me how I can help you.”

He shook his
head. “It’s my battle. Thank you, Paula. You’ve always been good to me, and I
appreciate it very much.”

He was immersed
in thought for a while, but then, as if suddenly waking from sleep, he stood up
with what seemed a new burst of energy. Perhaps the little talk had helped.

“I’ll see you
on Monday,” he said.

She reached for
his hand and their fingers touched. “Get some rest tonight. I can tell you
haven’t been sleeping.”

“I’ll try,” he
promised
, and walked slowly away.