Death at the Voyager Hotel (9 page)

“There’s
absolutely no way to get from the lobby of the hotel to this rear exit without
being seen?” she asked Edward.

“I never say
never, but it would be difficult. Either the front receptionist or the security
guard would spot you.”

Paula gazed at
the pool in the distance.
What happened that night?
She was eager to
talk to Amadu. She hoped the night guard might know more than he had revealed
to his boss.

That night, after the twins were in bed, Paula and Thelo relaxed
in the sitting room and indulged in vanilla ice cream. She hesitated to tell him
about her visit with Edward at the Voyager. Despite the rationalizations she
had used to justify it to herself, there was no way around it: she had gone
“snooping.” Thelo would not be happy about that.

“I have some
news for you,” he said at length, licking cream off his plump lips.

“Oh? What’s
that?”

 “Do you
remember the forensic pathologist I used to tell you about—Dr. Anum Biney?”

“Mm. The one
you said is so good that all the detectives want him to do the postmortems on
their cases?”

“Correct. I thought
over what you said yesterday at the office and decided to call him this morning
about the case.”

“Oh,
good!
”
she exclaimed. “What did he say?”

“He couldn’t
talk long because he was about to do an autopsy, but he promised to get back to
me this evening or first thing tomorrow.”

“Wonderful,
wonderful! Thank you so much for doing that, my love.”

She gave him an
ice-creamy kiss on the cheek, and he laughed.

“I thought he
would be the best person to consult,” he continued, “because he has insights into
both detective work and forensic laboratory studies. He’s smarter than all the
rest of us put together.”

“I can’t wait
for him to call.”

“I need to
caution you though, Paula,” he said, leveling his spoon in her direction, “Dr.
Biney may not tell us exactly what you want to hear. He may side with the
conclusions of the pathologist who did Heather’s postmortem, and he might say
that her blood alcohol level was completely valid. Are you prepared for that?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Are you going
to accept what he says even if it’s not what you’d hoped for?”

“Yes.”

His eyes were
boring into her, and she had some difficulty meeting his glare.

He grunted. “Okay.
You’ve given me your word. I don’t want to hear you backtracking later on.”

“You won’t,”
she said, watching him as he got up. “Where are you going?”

“I want more
ice cream. Is it really made in Ghana?”

“That’s what it
says on the carton.”

“It’s as good
as Italian.”

“No ice cream
is good as Italian,” Paula said with conviction. Last year, Thelo had taken her
to Italy for a memorable weeklong trip in celebration of her birthday. It
helped to have contacts in the travel and tourist businesses. “That’s the last
I’m buying for the rest of the year,” she called out. “You’re getting too fat.”

“Yes, yes,
you’ve made that plain. Want any more?”

“No, thank you.
This is enough.”

He came back
with another generous serving. “Since you’re so concerned about my, em, rotundity,
why did you buy the ice cream in the first place?”

“Because you
asked me to.”

“Doesn’t mean
you had to agree,” he said, sitting down.

They both began
to giggle.

Dr. Biney called as they were getting ready for bed.

“Thank you very
much for getting back to us, Dr. Biney,” Thelo said, and Paula detected a
deferential tone that she was unaccustomed to hearing from her husband. “I’m well,
and you? Paula is here with me. Will you mind if I switch to speaker mode so
she can join the discussion? Great. Here we go. We’re all on now.”

“Hello, Paula.”
Even on the little speakerphone, Dr. Biney’s voice was a rich baritone. “How
can I help?”

She summarized
the case and what concerned her so much about it. “The bottom line, Doctor,”
she said in conclusion, “is that my colleagues and I knew Heather well, and we just
cannot believe that she could have gone swimming naked. Secondly, she did not
drink heavily, so it seems impossible that she would have a high blood alcohol
concentration. Third, she was a very strong swimmer, and was the least likely
person to have drowned.”

“Your reasoning
is sound,” Dr. Biney said with his clipped, precise diction. “First of all, let
me express my condolences. I read about this in the papers and I find it very
distressing indeed.”

“Thank you,
Doctor.”

“But it’s
fascinating as well,” he went on. “Two questions need answering. First is
whether the high blood alcohol concentration measured in this unfortunate young
woman’s bloodstream was representative of her true physiologic state before
death, and the second is, did she die by accident or homicide? Do you agree?”

“Yes,
absolutely,” Paula said, feeling a slight thrill that the doctor’s line of
thinking seemed, at least to start, in harmony with hers.

“Postmortem
measurement of blood alcohol levels is a tricky business,” he continued. “One
reason is that microbes involved in decomposition of the body can themselves
produce a mixture of alcohols, including ethanol.”

“Wait,” Paula
said incredulously. “Doctor, you’re saying that the microbes could actually
create
blood alcohol levels regardless of whether alcohol was in the person’s system before
death?”

“Correct.”

Paula glanced
at Thelo, who was mirroring her own look of surprise. “If she was in the water
for say, six or seven hours,” she asked Biney, “could enough decomposition take
place for that effect on blood alcohol to occur?”

“It could, yes.
Decomposition is slower in water than in air, of course, but this time of the
year in Ghana, ambient temperatures even at night are high, and the water in
the pool was probably warm as well from natural solar heating during the day.
Both those factors would increase decomposition. Once she’s out of the water,
putrefaction starts to accelerate, so one has to get the serology samples drawn
as quickly as possible to avoid errors, even if the body is refrigerated. If it’s
not done expeditiously, the alcohol levels will rise even more.”

Paula’s heart
was racing. Dr. Biney’s eye-opening information was bolstering her case. Out of
the corner of her eye, she saw Thelo sitting very still, and she knew that he
had not been expecting this at all.

“What about the
autopsy itself?” she asked eagerly. “Shouldn’t the pathologist have been able
to distinguish between homicidal and accidental drowning?”

“That brings us
to the second question,” Biney said. “A shortcoming of law enforcement all over
the world is the tendency to assume that a drowning death is an accident,
especially when it takes place in a swimming pool, which is particularly associated
with recreation and fun. If Heather’s body had been discovered under a bush or
even at the
side
of the pool, everyone from the first policeman on the
scene to the pathologist would have a high level of suspicion regarding foul
play.

“Not so with
drowning deaths. Signs of struggle may be absent, altered, or difficult to
interpret because of the changes induced by hours of immersion in water. So
while I don’t approve of a hasty rush to the conclusion that a drowning is
accidental, the bottom line is that homicidal drowning is a more difficult case
to prove, and it’s for that very reason that I personally believe that there
are many, many more homicidal drowning deaths annually than we realize—not just
here in Ghana, but internationally.”

“That’s a lot
of people getting away with murder,” Thelo said somberly.

“Indeed,” Biney
said. “There’s something else, too. If Heather was murdered by drowning, it
means she would have struggled terribly for a minute or so. That tremendous
exertion of the muscles would also accelerate decomposition and bring the
alcohol levels up.”

“Oh, my God,”
Paula whispered in horror at the thought of Heather fighting for her life.

“I apologize
for being so graphic,” Dr. Biney said.

“No, it’s all
right.” She looked at Thelo before going on. “Doctor, is there a chance you
could get the case reexamined, and that you could do the autopsy this time?”

Biney
hesitated. “Em…I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request, but in practice we
may run up against a lot of opposition, from the pathologist who did the case right
up to the Director-General of CID. It will take a lot of persuasion to reopen
the investigation, and even then—well, you know how slowly things move over
there.”

“Yes, we know,”
Paula and Thelo chorused.

“I’m going to
be out of town until next Wednesday,” Biney said, “but let me see what I can do
when I return. I don’t want you to get your hopes up too high, though.”

“We understand,
Doctor Biney,” Thelo said. “Thank you for offering.”

“Not at all. If
there’s anything more I can help with, please feel free to call.”

Thelo hung up
and looked at Paula.

“Well?” she
said.

“I’m flabbergasted,”
he confessed. “I didn’t know all that stuff about the bacteria.”

“It validates
everything I’ve been saying,” she said quietly. “This was no drowning accident,
Thelo. Heather was murdered. Someone has to reopen the case. Should we call
Agyekum?”

He frowned. “No,
better let Dr. Biney take it up when he gets back—like he said he would.”

She looked at Thelo
for a long time, pondering.

“What?” he
asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m
skeptical,” she said finally. “Skeptical that Dr. Biney is going to try that
hard to reactivate the investigation.”

Thelo looked
insulted. “How can you mistrust one of the most principled men alive?”

“I don’t
mistrust him at all,” Paula denied. “I think he’ll make a bona fide argument
that the case should be reopened, but if he runs up against opposition, which
he said is likely, he’s not going to fight for it. And when you think about it,
why should he? He’s busy, he travels all over the country, and his plate is
more than full. He doesn’t have
time
to fight for it.”

“But the bottom
line,” Thelo said firmly, “is that he’s still our best chance. So, my advice is
that we wait until he returns next week and see how he can help refocus
attention on the case.”

He got into
bed, cast around for the TV remote and switched through the channels until he
got Al Jazeera English. While he was watching the news, Paula fetched a blank
sheet of paper and a pencil and sat up against her pillows next to him. She had
learned a few things about detective work from watching him in years past. He
had always made lists and diagrams to help organize his thoughts. She wrote
Heather
Peterson Murder
at the top of the page and underlined it. After a moment’s
thought, she added,

1.
    
Heather:
A little wine/beer(?) but not intoxicated when she drowned: falsely elevated
BAC

2.
   
Found
naked in public pool—out of character for her

3.
   
Murdered—who
drowned her? Motive?

Suspects

1.
 
A
robber
who tried to steal her clothes and swimsuit, she
challenged him, resulting in a struggle?

Her handwriting was small and most
of the sheet was blank, as was her mind. She looked at Thelo, and he took his
eyes off the TV screen to lean over and read what she’d written. After a
moment, he shook his head.

“A robber?” he asked
in some amusement. “You learned about enough homicide cases from me to know
that the first suspects in a murder are people the victim knows. The closer the
relationship, the more suspect they become. The reason you can’t write anymore
is that you’re close to the same people Heather was, and that means the
suspects you name could be men and or women you care about.”

She sighed. He
was right.

Thelo switched
off the TV and sat up. “Heather was seeing Oliver, right?”

“Yes.”

“So you have to
put his name there along with the motive. What would his motive be?”