by Kwei Quartey
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.
CHAPTER FIVE
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.
Paula didn’t want to wait until the evening to talk to Thelo, so she drove to his office in East Legon, calling him to let him know she was on her way. It took her more than an hour. The Tropical Expeditions building was a single story with a glass façade revealing a spacious seating area for customers, and a floor-to-ceiling carved map of Ghana with a different color wood assigned to each of its ten regions. Of the four desks supplied with laptops, three were occupied with agents and their clients. The youngest travel agent, who was dressed smartly in a white shirt and black tie, stood up respectfully as Paula entered. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Djan. You are welcome.”
“Thank you,” she smiled at the young man, who was one of Thelo’s best workers. She continued to the rear of the room where Thelo’s office was located. She knocked and put her head in.
“Oh, there you are,” he said, getting up from his desk. “Did the traffic monster swallow you?”
“Whole,” she said, and then she held up a copy of the Ghana Herald. “Have you read John Prempeh’s article about High Street Academy?”
“No,” he said, taking it from her. “You know I don’t read this horrible paper.”
She joined Thelo on the sofa and gazed around the office while he began to read. Her husband liked sleek, clean designs, and it showed in his uncluttered, airy office space and ultra-modern furniture.
At intervals, he grunted as he went through the article, but as he got further, his exclamations became more expressive.
“This is disgusting,” he said, shaking his head as he finished. “I’ve never liked that man Prempeh. Have you called him?”
“I’ve tried, but he doesn’t pick up. He’s probably avoiding me. Thelo, we have to do something. He’s ruining the names of both Heather and the school.”
“Beyond protesting to him about it, what can we do?”
“We need to get to the truth to prove Prempeh wrong. Not only him, the medical examiner as well. It’s simply not possible that Heather went swimming drunk and in the nude and then drowned accidentally.”
“Maybe being drunk was the reason for the nudity.”
“You’ve met her, Thelo. You know she wasn’t some crazy party girl.”
“So, what are you saying? That someone killed her and threw her in the pool?”
“Or drowned her deliber
ately, yes.”
He was skeptical. “But how can you dispute the laboratory results showing a high blood alcohol level?”
“It must be an error,” Paula said firmly. “I know it is. Can’t we call the medical examiner or Chief Inspector Agyekum about it?”
“And say what? Order them to reopen the case? And he’s just going to say, ‘yes, massa?’”
“What about your friends at CID?”
“What friends?” he asked, flipping his palms up. “I was done with that place long ago.”
“You still know quite a few people there.”
“Paula, I can’t tell them to revisit the case any more than they can tell me how to run Tropical Expeditions.”
“No, no, no,” she said, shaking her head vigorously. “It’s not that you can’t call them, it’s that you can’t be bothered. You can do anything you want to, Thelo. You recovered from your leg injury with sheer willpower, and you built all this”—she gestured around the room—“with determination alone, but you can’t call your guys at CID? Has running this business changed you so much? What happened to the detective I married who cared so much about justice and doing the right thing?”
He started to speak, but apparently found himself at a loss. She saw his mind working as he wrestled with what she had just said.
“We just can’t let this go,” she pressed, sensing momentum. “If Heather’s death wasn’t really an accident, we’re doing her a great injustice, and as an ex-detective, I expect you to appreciate that.”
“Okay, okay—you’ve made your point.”
“So you’ll call someone at CID?”
“I didn’t say that. I have to think it through first.”
“Thank you. Now, you’re looking more like the man I married.”
“But in the meantime, Paula,” he pleaded, “don’t start calling people up, asking questions and snooping around, okay?”
“All right, I promise.” She looked at her watch and stood up. “It’s getting late. Do you want me to pick up the kids?”
