by Kwei Quartey
That went along roughly the same lines as what DS Boateng had expressed. “But is she honest?” Emma asked.
Courage looked skeptical but said, “To be fair to her, I don’t really know.”
“What about the new inspector general of police?” Emma asked. “Would he also have interfered directly or indirectly with the evidence for any reason?”
“I doubt it,” Courage said. “From what I hear, his style is very hands off. He delegates everything to his deputies and otherwise keeps his distance. They do all the work. He’s more of a titular head. Most people don’t even know what he looks like.”
Emma grunted and gave an ironic smile. “I don’t either.”
“You see?” Courage said.
“And Justice Julius Seeza?” Emma asked. “Doesn’t he hold sway over the IGP?”
“That I’m not sure, but definitely over Madam Tawiah.”
“Why is that?”
“When Seeza was a district court judge and she was an officer in the field, he presided over many of her cases. She was in awe of him.”
“So, if he came to her,” Emma said, “and told her to prevent the evidence from being analyzed, you think she would comply?”
“Yes, I do. Tawiah may be incompetent, but she knows how to curry favor and with whom. I know the last director-general did some terrible things, but at least he maintained some independence.”
Emma gave him a look and felt her lips and jaw set. “Independence, huh? I see.”
Courage’s expression changed to concern as he saw her expression turn morose. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Emma shook her head and remained mute as her eyes moistened.
Courage moved closer and put his arm around her. “My God, did I say something wrong? Talk to me.”
Was now the time to tell him? She had kept it from him for over a year now.
“Emma, please,” he said. “What just happened?”
She stared at the floor without seeing it and Courage wiped away the tears on her face with his fingertips. He shook her gently. “Baby, what’s going on?”
She took a breath. “I didn’t tell you this before. I’ve been waiting for the right moment, but it never seemed to come—or I haven’t been ready. It’s about the former director-general of CID.”
“Yes?” Courage said quietly.
“As you know, the Ghana Police Council removed him from office after he confessed publicly to assaulting and raping new female recruits.”
“Right. He still hasn’t been prosecuted.”
“And probably never will be,” Emma said with a hint of bitterness. “When I started at CID Headquarters, they assigned me to the Commercial Crime Unit, which I hated, so I asked if I could transfer to homicide. DCOP Laryea sent me up to see the D-G about my request.”
In a monotone, Emma told Courage the rest: how the director-general had trapped her in a small, closed room; his sudden violence and attempt to rape her, and how she had escaped. When she was done, Courage stared at her without blinking for a moment, then got up and paced the room twice. He stopped in the middle of the space and growled, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I swear,” he said, “if I ever see that man, I will kill him.”
“Courage,” Emma said, with a hint of reproach in her tone.
“I’m serious.” He bunched up his fist and Emma saw his eyes shift to the wall closest to him. She jumped up to Courage’s side and grabbed his hand. “Oh, no—not that,” she said sharply, pulling his hand back down. “Why do men always punch walls when they’re mad? All it does is break your hand, and for what?”
All of a sudden, Courage’s demeanor changed, and a choking sound came from his throat as he pressed his eyes with his fingers to try to stem the flow of tears. Emma would never have expected this reaction, and it was her turn to put her arm around his shoulders. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry, Emma,” he said, his voice quivering and breaking.
“Why, Courage? Why do you say that?”
“Because I’ve made sex jokes in front of you before, and now I realize it must have hurt you—”
“No, no,” Emma said, in turn breaking down.
Embracing each other in the middle of the room, they were a crying mess of a couple. When they had regained their composure somewhat, Courage said, “I just wish you had told me. How could you hold it in all this time?”
Emma led him by the hand the few steps back to the sofa. “It’s one of those things you can’t talk about before you’re ready. Sometimes . . . sometimes, women feel shame over it.”
“Do you?”
Emma shook her head. “Not anymore, but I did for a while.”
Courage gently squeezed her hand. “Do you want to talk about it now? I’m here if you need me.”
Emma did want to talk, and now, far from ashamed, she felt a great unburdening of her soul.
TWENTY-NINE
Ten months after
Not much more than a hundred meters away from the CID front entrance, the University for Development Studies owned and ran a guesthouse. They also served a very good breakfast in the restaurant on the ground floor. This was the venue Sowah had chosen to meet with his old friend Cleo Laryea. From the many unoccupied tables, they selected one in the back corner.
After going through their litany of old jokes and ordering their respective meals, they got serious.
“So, Cleo,” Sowah said, lowering his voice a step, “about the Lady Araba murder case we’re working. We now know that DS Isaac Boateng did submit fingerprint and DNA evidence from the crime scene to the FSL administrator, Mr. Thomas.”
“And they did the testing?”
“No, they didn’t,” Sowah said, “but the evidence is apparently intact and still in Thomas’s custody.”
“How did you find that out?”
“I won’t detail it, but we’ve been investigating,” Sowah said cryptically. “The question is, why the delay? In a couple weeks, it will be eleven months since Araba’s death. Is someone preventing the evidence from being examined? Is Thomas himself withholding it for some reason, or has someone pressured him to?”
Cleo was coating a chunk of white bread with a thick layer of butter. “You want me to find out, is what you’re saying,” he said with a smile.
Sowah smiled back. “Well, yes, that’s what I was driving at.”
Cleo let out a low groan. “Sowah, you are killing me, oo!” he said in mock agony. “This is a political minefield. Are you trying to get me sacked just before my retirement?”
“Oh, never,” Sowah protested, grinning. “Besides, no one can sack a legend like you.”
Cleo almost snorted tea out of his nose, and the two men had another round of laughter.
“You’re the master of flattery,” Cleo said, wagging his finger. “Well, I’ll see what I can do, but it will be a tightrope walk. For one thing, Madam Tawiah doesn’t like me much.”
“Come on,” Sowah said confidently. “Everyone likes you.”
Sowah knew Bob Agyekum from way back when. In their respective roles as private investigator and TV station manager, their paths had crossed, and each of them had on occasion asked the other what they knew about some rumor or whisper around town. Still, they hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, and they had a lot of catching up to do when Sowah dropped in for a visit at Agyekum’s Metro TV office.
Both of them were grandfathers now, so they spent some time extolling the achievements and capers of their grandchildren. Agyekum enjoyed laughing at any good story.
And then it was down to business.
“I’m looking into the Lady Araba murder,” Sowah said.
“Ah,” Agyekum said, leaning back. “What aspect of it?”
“A family member brought the case to us. She’s not satisfied with the way the police conducted the invest
igation, if you can even call it that.”
“I’ve been wanting to do an investigative report on it, but the problem is conflict of interest, since Augustus was once an employee of the station and has been implicated in the murder. I mean, he hasn’t been charged with anything, but many people still believe he did it.”
“May I suggest something?” Sowah asked. “If you broaden the topic and make it not just about Lady Araba, but also about how CID investigates homicides and the role of the police forensic science lab, then there will be less of a conflict—or at least the perception of one. The question to frame it around is: What is the true level of expertise that the Police Service has in forensic analysis? We have a crime lab, yes, but for all that expensive equipment, is it being used to capacity or not? They have police officers doing the work. Isn’t that an opportunity for more corruption?
“We’ve had some high-profile cases recently, like the four murdered teenagers in Takoradi. DNA studies were certainly used successfully for identifying the Takoradi girls, but what of the others, like J.B. Danquah, the MP killed four or five years ago? What part, if any, did DNA play in that case? Reportedly, the crime scene was badly contaminated, particularly by senior officers. We have a forensics lab, but if people don’t know how to secure a crime scene or collect evidence from it, what’s the point? If you could get Madam Tawiah on your new Tough Talk episode, it could be a great discussion.”
“Yes, but there’s a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“You know, of course, who owns this station,” Agyekum said.
“Minister of Science & Technology, Adam Kyei. Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”
“He’s related to Madam Tawiah—sibling or half-sibling, I’m not sure which, but I don’t think he would appreciate his sister grilled on Tough Talk.”
“Oh,” Sowah said, making a rueful face. “I didn’t know Kyei and Tawiah were related.”
“Let me ask you something,” Agyekum said. “You mentioned available DNA—do you know if there is such a thing in Lady Araba’s case?”
“A trained police officer—one of the few—a guy named Isaac Boateng, took DNA and fingerprint evidence from the crime scene and submitted it to the FSL. As far as we know, the evidence has not been submitted for testing.”
“Is it possible the evidence has been destroyed?” Agyekum asked.
“At last check, it was in safe custody at the FSL.”
“You know that for sure?”
“Yes, I have photos.”
Agyekum looked intrigued. “Really. Can I see?”
“Yes, you can, although you can’t have them. Before I show you, may I ask you a few questions?”
“But of course.”
“From your perspective, what’s the story of Augustus Seeza’s downfall and his ups and downs with Lady Araba? Was he forthcoming to you about her?”
“To some extent, yes, because when he started his downward spiral, I forced him to tell me what was going on. He and Bertha were at each other’s throats and he became depressed. I suspect he was drinking more heavily at that time, but not to the point that his performance was adversely affected. I think he got over it quickly, and he entered a period of about a year of sublime performance on TV. At that point, I didn’t know he had started to see Lady Araba until a reporter snapped a photo of them together at Sky Bar in Osu. I can’t say I was surprised. He was an incorrigible womanizer. The office romance at this station alone, God help us. At one point, it seemed he was messing around with at least three women on staff. The tension in the station was suffocating.”
“And as far as you know, did Augustus continue his philandering when he was with Araba?”
Agyekum folded his fingers together. “I don’t believe it compared with how he behaved with Bertha. I think it was genuinely a good time for both Gus and Araba until Bertha wedged herself between them. She dogged and harassed them both on Instagram and Facebook, went on radio programs and made wild, scandalous claims about Augustus and Araba. She sent a photo to Augustus of Araba supposedly hanging out with a rapper at a club, but it turns out it was a Photoshop job, and Araba had never even been there.
“At any rate, the seeds of suspicion Bertha sowed began to grow in Araba’s mind, and she started questioning Augustus at every turn—sometimes calling him several times a day while he was at work. So, then he felt under siege from both women, and the drinking came back with a vengeance. It was during that time he conducted the now infamous and disastrous interview with Chief Justice Waters. That’s when we suspended him, and then the night he didn’t show up for work on time when he was supposed to resume the show, we sacked him.” Agyekum sighed. “It was not a pleasant experience. I wanted to give him more chances, but Kyei said no. Full stop.”
“Seeza’s condition worsened even further after the dismissal,” Sowah commented. “Am I correct?”
“Yes.” Agyekum looked regretful. “I don’t feel good about it at all. And because he took a turn for the worse, Araba went back to him even after she had supposedly disowned him at the behest of her family.”
“Do you have an idea of how the relationship was going after she came back to him?”
“It was, what, a good eight months together again before she died?” Agyekum said. “I think he was up and down, but the eve of the murder, Augustus was definitely depressed.”
“Did he ever direct any threatening language at her? Or express it to you?”
Agyekum shook his head. “No, he was just despondent. Listen, I know there’s been a lot of talk in the press about how Gus is probably guilty and getting away with murder, but in my opinion, he was basically a good man who fell from grace at the hands of alcoholism and, in some ways, just plain bad luck. Is he a somewhat pathetic man now? Sadly, yes. But a murderer? I don’t think so.”
“Well, perhaps you’re right,” Sowah said, reserving his doubts. He stood up. “Thanks for your time, Bob. It was good to see you again.”
“Hey, wait!” Agyekum said indignantly. “What about the pics you were going to show me?”
“Oh, yes,” Sowah said with a laugh. “Almost forgot.”
“Sure,” Agyekum said dryly.
Sowah obliged and let his friend have a good look.
“This is important,” Agyekum said. “Thank you for sharing this.”
They walked to the entrance together. As they shook hands and Sowah prepared to depart, he placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Think about my idea, would you?”
“About interviewing Madam Tawiah? I’ll look strongly into it, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
THIRTY
Eleven months after
Walter, with Gideon behind him, knocked on the solid black gate of the Tagoes’ house on Ndabaningi Sithole Road in Cantonments, a particularly nice part of town where homes constructed decades ago were mixed in with modern, expensive high-rise apartments that ruined the view for their one- and two-story neighbors.
Dusk had fallen, and already the street lights were on and houses were lit up as if Ghana had all the energy in the world and no deficits to worry about. Cantonments residents almost never experienced the rolling blackouts that the Electricity Corporation foisted on other neighborhoods for the simple reason that Cantonments people actually paid their bills and wouldn’t put up with blackouts, in any case.
A dog barked from behind the wall and a woman’s voice yelled, “Heh! Shut up!” The owner of the voice opened up the gate. “Yes?”
“My name is Busia,” Walter said. “We are expected.”
“Oh, yes,” the woman said, opening the gate wide. “Please come in, they are waiting for you. I’m Esi, the housekeeper.”
She had a worn face, but her expression was open and welcoming. The dog growled at the newcomers but ran off with its tail between its legs as soon as Esi shooed it away. “Busia” and Gideon,
whose name was “David” for the purpose of this visit, followed Esi along a stone path lined with low-profile lamps. Off to the side were two SUVs and an Infiniti Q50. Like other priests and pastors in Ghana, Tagoe was rolling in money.
When they got to the front porch full of patio chairs and a parakeet in a hanging cage, Esi asked the two men to wait there while she informed the Tagoes their guests had arrived. As they stood looking around at the comfortable surroundings, Walter reflected that Father Fifi Tagoe had not initially seemed open to the idea of the two “journalists” conducting an interview, but something must have changed his mind, because he had called back later to say he was okay with it.
The front door opened, and a woman, very slim in a two-piece print outfit, came out. She looked as if she had just arrived from the hair salon and was heavily made up.
“Mr. Busia, is it?”
“Correct. Good evening, madam. You must be Mrs. Tagoe. This is my assistant, David. He’ll be taking some notes, if that’s all right with you.”
“Yes,” she said. “No problem. Please come in.”
The sitting room was spacious, the furniture solid—the way they used to make it, Walter thought. A man who could only have been Fifi Tagoe was in a large armchair with his feet up on a large, classically designed leather pouf from northern Ghana. He was reading a newspaper, spectacles halfway down his nose and his head tilted back to get that sweet spot on his bifocals.
“Good evening, Father,” Walter said, offering his hand. “Busia, and my assistant, David.”
Tagoe looked over his glasses at them. “Oh, was it tonight we were supposed to meet?”
“I reminded you, dear,” Miriam said with a little laugh.
“Fine,” the Reverend said. He waved vaguely at the chairs in the room. “Please, have a seat.”
Miriam offered Walter and Gideon water, which they declined. She sat in the chair closest to her husband, facing their guests.
Fifi took off his glasses and rested them on the table beside him. His wife leaned over and put them in a case she had magically produced. He gave her a quizzical look, and she said, “You know you’re going to forget where you put them, dear. I’ll hold on to them.”