by Kwei Quartey
“Do you know one Musa Zakari?” Dawson asked.
“No. Who is he?”
“They found him dead in the lagoon about two weeks ago.”
“I heard something about it, but I didn’t know him.”
Dawson suddenly thought of Sly. He asked Issa if he knew a boy by that name. Again, no luck.
A scream rang out and whipped their heads around. It came from the general direction of the railway station. And a second one, now more like a woman keening.
“Let’s go,” Dawson said to Chikata.
They began to run.
27
Inside the railway station courtyard where Dawson had been just hours before, a crowd had gathered to stare at something going on in the garbage dump abutting the wall. There was some light coming over from Nkrumah Avenue but not much. Dawson and Chikata went around the crowd, skipping across the gutter and running up to the rear section of the trash pile, where a fat man was shining a flashlight on the body of a partially disrobed woman.
“Police,” Dawson said. “Get back, please.”
They did. Dawson and Chikata crouched on either side of the woman. With their flashlights trained on her, they saw she was young, probably in her midteens. She was lying on her stomach. Her buttocks were like enormous melons, but her limbs seemed collapsed and crumpled, like those of a squashed insect. Dumped, like trash, was Dawson’s first thought. He was faintly aware of someone crying in the background.
“Blood,” Chikata said, pointing.
Her disheveled blouse was soaked with it, and more so on the right. Dawson touched her. She wasn’t cold. She wasn’t warm either. She was tepid. Tepid. He’d never used that word for the temperature of a human being. That was for bathwater or a beverage.
Her head was turned in Dawson’s direction. He shined his flashlight in her face. Her eyes were open, but her pupils didn’t react and the corneas were already turning opaque. There wasn’t a pulse.
“Dead,” Dawson said. “See if you can get Bright and the crew.”
“I’m on it,” Chikata said, phone already out.
Dawson looked up at the fat man.
“Did you find her?”
“No, massa.” He pointed his beam about ten meters away, where a young man was comforting a weeping woman. “That woman over there.”
“Do you have a mobile?” Dawson asked.
“Yes, massa.”
“Give Detective Sergeant Chikata your number in case we need to get in touch with you. Stand to one side, please—over there—but do not leave, understand?”
“Yes, massa.”
“I can’t reach CSU,” Chikata said.
“Why not?”
“No network coverage.”
“No network coverage in the center of Accra? Ewurade.” Dawson pulled out his own phone, and handed it to Chikata. “Try mine.”
He went over to the crying woman and the guy with her, who told Dawson his name was Patrick. The woman, Faiza, was his friend. She was eighteen or nineteen and pregnant, her belly stretching out her T-shirt.
“Are you okay?” Dawson said.
She moaned but didn’t really answer.
“What happened?” Dawson asked.
Patrick spoke to her in Hausa. She babbled something incoherent in reply.
“She was coming to throw something away and she fell over the body,” Patrick translated.
“We heard a scream,” Dawson said. “Was that Faiza?”
“Yes, we all heard it too and came running.”
“Does she know the dead girl?”
“No. She’s just shocked, that’s why she’s crying.”
“I understand. Did she see or hear anyone else around here?”
Patrick asked her and translated her reply to Dawson.
“No, she didn’t see anyone. And she says she begs you, don’t take her to jail.”
“I’m not taking her to jail,” Dawson said. He looked around. How did the dead girl get here? Was she carried through the entrance? Or from the station?
Chikata walked up, handing Dawson back his phone. “Bright says they’re on another case in Mataheko.”
“How long before they get here?” Dawson asked.
“At least one hour.”
Dawson grunted. That really meant considerably more than one hour.
Chikata was staring at the body. “Is it the same killer, Dawson?”
“If that’s a stab wound to the right side of her back, then I think it is.” He glanced at the spectators. Some were dispersing while a fresh bunch was arriving to take a look. “I need you to question people who live in and around the station—ask them if they saw anything suspicious this evening. We want to know how this girl got here.”
“I’ll try my best, Dawson.” As he walked away, Chikata added over his shoulder, “But you know how Accra people are—they don’t talk to policemen.”
“Have some faith,” Dawson called back. Chikata’s question was echoing in his mind. Is it the same killer? He made a call. As it rang, he prayed there’d be an answer. There was.
“Dr. Botswe? Inspector Dawson here.”
“How are you, Inspector?”
“I’m well, but there’s been another murder.”
“Really. Where?”
“Inside the railway station courtyard. We’re waiting for the CSU to arrive. Can you come to the crime scene? I would like your opinion.”
“I’ll be there as soon as possible, Inspector. I’m not too far away.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
The crime scene team had still not arrived. The corpse, now covered by a length of cloth someone had produced, was getting colder and stiffer.
“Inspector?”
Dawson turned at Allen Botswe’s voice.
“Thank you for coming, Doctor. You got here very quickly.”
“I was close by on Graphic Road.”
“Are you ready to take a look at the body?”
“Yes, I am.”
Dawson pulled aside the cloth. “Her blouse is full of blood,” he said. “Looks like it’s a stab wound to the back, but I don’t want to disturb her clothes until CSU gets photos.”
With a small grunt, Botswe crouched next to the body. “If it is indeed that—a stab in the back—then it resembles Musa Zakari’s.”
“There’s something you don’t know,” Dawson said. “This is the second case since Musa’s.”
“Second?”
“Yesterday we found a young male teenager murdered in the same way, dumped in a muddy ditch in Jamestown. And his neck was broken with his head twisted around one hundred and eighty degrees.”
“Goodness.”
“Again, my question is whether these could be ritual killings.”
“Were there any other mutilations of the teenager? Eyes, genitals?”
“No.”
“What about his background?”
“He was a shoeshine boy living on the streets.”
Botswe was nodding. “These are not ritual killings. This is a serial offender with motivations completely different from those of the ritual killer. You can see what his signature is—single stab wound to the back with an additional mutilation, and then throwing the body in a distasteful place: the dirty lagoon, the muddy ditch, and now the garbage dump. His M.O. is to prey on these street youth. I have no doubt that we’ll find this girl to be in that category.”
“I’m still not sure about the signature. Why chop off Musa’s fingers but not do something similar to Ebenezer?”
“Evidently that macabre twisting of the head is similar in the mind of the offender.”
“Wait,” Dawson said, snapping his fingers. “Dr. Botswe, you said the killer does what? Throws the body in a distasteful place.”
“Yes, that’s right. What is it, Inspector?”
Dawson sprang to his feet. “I’m a fool,” he said. “The killer didn’t drag the body here. He threw it.”
Dawson turned, leapt across the gutter, and r
an out the railway station’s entrance. Now on the outside of the wall running along Nkrumah Avenue’s sidewalk, he turned left and trotted up about thirty meters to four concrete blocks piled on top of one another next to the wall. Stepping up on them brought Dawson’s shoulders past the top of the wall. He could easily see everything on the other side. The garbage dump was right below him.
Botswe looked up as Dawson’s head appeared, and the light of realization dawned on his face.
Dawson returned to him at the crime scene. “You get me now?”
“Yes, I believe I do, Inspector.”
“Here is my theory,” Dawson said. “Level with the garbage dump on the pavement the other side of the wall, there’s a stack of concrete blocks. The sidewalk is wide enough to accommodate any size vehicle, even up to an SUV. The killer drives up with the dead body in the boot or whatever. He mounts the sidewalk with the vehicle, backing it up to the concrete blocks. He stands on those while dragging the dead body out of the boot, then tosses the body over the wall.”
As they were talking, CSU arrived. There were four of them, including Bright.
“We meet again,” Dawson said.
“And in the same kind of place,” Bright observed. “Smelly and dirty.”
“Aptly put,” Botswe said. “Part and parcel of the signature.”
Bright looked at him, wondering who he was. Dawson introduced them.
Chikata came up. “Dawson, Issa is with a friend who says he might know the victim.”
“Good,” Dawson said. “Let’s go and talk to him.”
Dawson followed Chikata to where Issa and his friend stood next to the gutter.
“Hi, Issa,” Dawson said. “What’s happening?”
“This is Jonathan,” Issa said, indicating the boy beside him. “He says maybe he knows the dead girl.”
Jonathan looked to be sixteen or so. He had a lazy eye. “I heard someone say her name is Comfort,” he said, “and I know a girl called Comfort.”
“Who is that someone?” Dawson asked.
“I don’t know the man,” Jonathan said. “He was here earlier, but he’s gone now. I heard him telling people that he recognized that girl and that her name is Comfort and that she’s a head porter at Agbogbloshie Market.”
“What did this man look like?”
“Tall,” Jonathan said, lifting his right hand high above his head. “And thin like he hasn’t eaten for two months.”
“How old?”
“Maybe … thirty? I don’t know. He looks old.”
“Was he wearing some colorful clothes?” Issa said.
“Eh-heh, yes,” Jonathan said. “Some crazy orange and purple clothes.”
“Then that must be Flash,” Issa said. “The prostitutes at Timber Market pay him to use a tent belonging to Tedamm.”
Tedamm. Again.
“And you think you might know the same Comfort this guy Flash was talking about?” Dawson asked Jonathan.
“I know one Comfort Mahama who is a kayayo at Agbogbloshie Market.”
“Are you willing to look at the body and identify her if possible?”
Jonathan looked nervously at Issa, who said to Dawson, “Please, can I go with him? He’s afraid.”
“Sure.”
The three of them walked over to where the girl lay under the sheet.
Dawson looked at Jonathan. “Ready?”
Issa put his arm around his friend’s shoulders. Jonathan swallowed and nodded.
Dawson uncovered the girl’s head, shining his flashlight on her.
“Yes,” Jonathan said tightly. “It’s her.”
“You’re sure?” Dawson said.
“Please, yes, I’m sure.”
Issa drew in his breath sharply, looking at Dawson in surprise.
“What’s wrong?” Dawson said.
“Please, she’s the same girl I saw with Tedamm and his boys tonight.”
28
Chikata stood slightly behind Dawson in the morgue at the autopsy table as Dr. Biney looked over Comfort’s body. It was his first autopsy of the morning.
“Age sixteen to seventeen,” Biney said. “There’s a penetrating knife wound to the back on the right side, identical to the two previous cases we’ve seen.”
“Any mutilations like Musa’s?” Dawson asked.
“Yes, there are.”
George, the venerable morgue attendant, turned the corpse over.
“Here are those mutilations, Inspector,” Dr. Biney said. “Deep wounds to both knees inflicted well beyond the joint capsule, followed by excision of both patellae. In other words, wholesale removal of the kneecaps. Almost as if he scooped them out.”
“Like the amputation of Musa’s fingers.”
“Yes, but there’s something else. I see signs she was raped.”
“Raped,” Dawson said, startled. “Oh. Now I’m confused.”
“Why?” Chikata asked.
“Rape says sexual homicide,” Dawson said, “and that’s not what the other two were.”
“Maybe Dr. Botswe can shed some light on this?” Biney suggested.
“I agree,” Dawson said. “I had him come to the crime scene, so I’ll go back and tell him about this rape thing.”
“Were there any helpful leads at all at the scene?”
“We’re looking for two people who may be involved,” Dawson said, “and they appear to know each other—the ubiquitous Tedamm and a new character known as Flash. We searched for them last night but came up short.”
Dawson glanced at his detective sergeant, whose fine forehead had begun to bead with sweat. He didn’t look too good.
“What’s wrong with you, Chikata?”
“I feel somehow hot.”
“That’s because you’re getting faint,” Biney said. “You’d better go outside for some fresh air.”
Chikata walked out quickly.
“Good call, Inspector,” Biney said, with a smile. “This place can get to you after a while. Another few seconds he would have been on the floor.”
“He’s on the squeamish side,” Dawson said, with a tint of disdain.
“Low threshold, I call it,” Biney said. “What’s next in your investigation?”
“We have to find Tedamm and Flash. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave you to do the rest of the post without me.”
“Of course. I’ll call you later with the full report.”
As Dawson got to the door, he hesitated. For several days now, he had been turning something over in his mind, something he had been planning. The only question was, When was the right moment?
“Something else, Inspector?” Biney said.
Now was the time.
“Doctor, I wanted to discuss something with you, if you wouldn’t mind,” Dawson said falteringly. “It has nothing to do with any of the cases.”
“But of course. Let me get off all this garb and we can talk in the office.”
They went back together to a bare, echoing room and sat side by side at the table where the pathologists usually wrote up their final reports.
“How can I help, Inspector?”
“I know I mentioned my son, Hosiah, to you when we first met,” Dawson started. “What I didn’t tell you at the time is that he has a ventricular septal defect.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Is he doing all right?”
“I’m afraid not. He’s slowly getting worse, in spite of his medicines and salt restriction. He needs the surgery, but we’re up against a sum of money we simply can’t afford, and what we have in savings is still meager compared to the amount we need. We made an appeal to Korle Bu for financial clemency, but that was turned down. We didn’t qualify for a personal bank loan either.”
“The Ghana Police Service can’t help?”
“They can reimburse us. However we have to pay for the operation first. I’m not asking you for money, Dr. Biney—I wouldn’t do that. I’m just hoping you might have a suggestion as to what my wife and I can do at this point.”
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“It’s a dire situation for you,” Biney said sympathetically. “If I were a cardiac surgeon, I would perform the operation myself and not charge you one pesewa. Alas, I’m not that. But there still might be some way I can help. I know the director of the Cardiothoracic Center, Dr. Solomon Gyan. Let me talk to him about it and see if we can work something out.”
“Thank you so much, Doctor,” Dawson said, brightening. This sounded promising.
“Of course I can’t guarantee anything,” Biney cautioned hastily, “and it may take me a little time. Give me a few weeks to work on it. Dr. Gyan is constantly out of town.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Dawson said again. “This means a lot to me.”
“Don’t mention it at all, Inspector. This is what friendship is all about.” With a twinkle in his eye, Biney added, “So when I show up at CID with a sticky problem, I’m marching straight to your office.”
The two men laughed together.
His heart uplifted, Dawson joined Chikata outside and they returned to the railway station to ask around for Tedamm. The name was from the northern regions, so they thought one of the kayaye might know him. But no one had seen him around.
“All right, then,” Dawson said, “let’s go to the Timber Market to look for this Flash guy,” Dawson said.
Wednesday morning traffic was predictably heavy along High Street. Dawson sat in front next to Sergeant Baidoo. Chikata was in the backseat.
“Wow,” he muttered, swiveling around to look at a pretty woman walking by.
“Chikata, when are you going to settle down and get married?” Dawson asked.
He laughed. “I don’t know. Soon.”
“Are you dating anyone?”
“There are two women I like,” Chikata said. “I can’t decide between the two of them.”
“Maybe it’s neither, then. One of them should stand out.”
“Maybe so.” Chikata smiled. “Ei, Dawson! You surprised me. You never asked me anything like that before.”
“Just interested in your well-being.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chikata staring at him.
“What, you think I have no heart or something?” Dawson said.
“Oh, no, Dawson, I would never think such a thing.”