“Okay,” Dawson said, “turn off the TV and let’s get started.”
He sat in the desk chair while Chikata perched on the love seat in the corner to listen to the briefing. The sergeant had seen the now infamous picture of the impaled head, but he knew very few other details. At Dawson’s account of his meetings with DeSouza, Chikata gave a one-sided smile.
“The most indignant guys are sometimes the most guilty,” he observed.
“True,” Dawson agreed.
He related his encounter with Hammond, warning Chikata to watch his step when dealing with the superintendent.
“Okay,” Chikata said. “I’ll be careful. So, what’s next?”
“I want to go to Takoradi Tech to double-check DeSouza’s alibi. Baah can drop me off there, and you continue with him.”
“What am I going to do?”
“I’ve been looking at the family angle of this murder,” Dawson explained, leaning forward. “Now it’s time to find out whether traditional religious beliefs played a part-juju, witchcraft, ritual sacrifice, and so on. I want you to dig around fetish priests, shrines, and the like for any inside information relevant to the murder. In the past year, has anyone visited a shrine to ask for guidance for a problem for which the solution was to sacrifice Charles and/or his wife? And we want to know the significance of a severed head on a stake.”
Chikata let out a mild expletive. “You go to Tech, but I have to go to these juju people? What kind of welcome is that?”
“But you’re so good at that kind of thing,” Dawson said, grinning.
Chikata looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t think there’s any kind of juju involved in this case,” he declared.
“Why do you say that?”
He shrugged. “It’s just my impression.”
“Impression!” Dawson exclaimed. “You’ve just arrived on the case, you have been here barely one hour, and you’re already tossing impressions around?”
Chikata threw his head back and laughed, showing a set of perfect white teeth. Dawson found a scrap of paper on the desk, balled it up, and threw it accurately at the Sergeant’s head.
“I say no juju at all involved in this case,” Chikata asserted. “You say yes. We’ll see who is right.”
***
CHIKATA’S CHAUFFEUR HAD had to return to his duties in Accra, so Baah would get to keep his post as driver for the detectives. He was waiting for them downstairs in the car park. After Dawson had introduced him to Chikata, he got into the front passenger seat and Chikata sat in the rear.
As they set off, Dawson called Jason Sarbah to ask a question. “Technically, the
