“Thank you, Doc.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome. Do you need to see anything more?”
“I think I’m fine for now.”
He collected the boxes of documents from the office, and she accompanied him downstairs back to the taxi. He asked her to get in touch with him if she remembered or came across anything that might be important. As he and Baah left, Dawson called Jason Sarbah’s number and left a voice mail explaining who he was and requesting a meeting.
He thought about the potential suspects so far: DeSouza, Cardiman, and Sarbah. They all had reason to hate Charles and Fiona, but under different circumstances and for different reasons. According to Dr. Smith-Aidoo, Mr. DeSouza, the chief executive officer of the powerful STMA, hated and resented Fiona for unseating him and hated her husband for his hostile visit to DeSouza after the radio “tirade” was broadcast.
Reggie Cardiman, the Ezile Bay owner Dawson had not yet met, was evidently in fierce opposition to Malgam Oil because of its potential threat to the survival of the flora and fauna of the sea and coast. Charles Smith-Aidoo, whose job it was to show his company in the best possible light, embodied the public face of Malgam, and for Cardiman, he would have been the most accessible and symbolic target for murderous wrath. The killing occurred not far from Ezile Bay and not long after Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo had left Cardiman. What had happened at their meeting? Perhaps it was acrimonious, leaving Cardiman infuriated and motivated to kill.
Jason Sarbah, too, could have had a strong motive to kill if he viewed Charles Smith-Aidoo, his cousin, as the person most responsible for the death of Jason’s beloved daughter Angela. Charles had refused to help Jason out financially, and Dawson could imagine how much pain and fury that might have engendered in Jason. This hadn’t merely been an appeal for assistance with buying something or paying the rent, this was a cry for help in saving a life. Charles’s point of view was that there were other ways to solve the problem, but that could hardly have been any comfort to Jason.
What troubled Dawson most about these three as suspects was that he couldn’t see any of them committing the crime without assistance. First, it would have been difficult for one person to handle two dead bodies. Second, someone knowledgeable about sea navigation would have been needed to take the bodies out as far as the Malgam rig. That was why Dawson was eager to speak with Abe’s fisherman friend, Forjoe, who might have heard, for example, that a fellow fisherman had been hired for a “job” of some kind. Dawson would then simply make the connections. Who knows, he could be close to wrapping this case up in record time.
