by Kwei Quartey
“Chief Inspector Darko Dawson.” He had his ID out and ready. He wouldn’t show it to someone like Mr. Okoh or his wife, but to the likes of this guy, most certainly. The man looked at the badge, not really long enough to read it—if he could read, Dawson thought unkindly. “And your name, sir?”
“Godson.” He flicked his narrow eyes up and down Dawson’s frame, as if trying to size him up as a physical force.
“I’m looking for Mr. Granger,” Dawson said. “Is he here?”
“Follow me.”
Godson led the way, beyond the pits to a more shaded area at the fringe of the site where tree cover still existed. Dawson heard another droning sound of medium to high pitch as they proceeded farther, and then he spotted a large generator outside a cabin hidden by a thicket.
“Wait here,” Godson said.
He knocked on the shack door, put his head in for a moment, and then looked back at Dawson. “You can come in.”
Godson stood aside to let him pass. As he got in the door, the blast of cold air hit him. Unbelievable. In the middle of nowhere, this man had an air-conditioned shack. That was what the powerful generator was for, and Dawson guessed that the Explorer Channel had had the structure built. He saw now that it wasn’t really a “shack” in that ragged sense. This was more like a comfortable, brightly lit office space with a desk, chairs, file cabinets, a settee, and not one but two air-conditioning units.
The man at the desk was standing with his arms folded. He was surely an example of how the popular Ghanaian phrase “red white man” came to be. Granger had reddish-blond hair and skin that looked like it was permanently pink and moist in the Ashanti heat and humidity. He was a big man the way only Americans were made—lots of bulk, but not necessarily more powerful pound for pound than someone like Yaw or Chikata, who were smaller than Granger overall.
He greeted Dawson with a near imperceptible upward flick of the head. His nose was crooked, as if broken several times in the boxing ring or in bar fights.
“Chuck Granger?” Dawson said.
“Yeah. Who’re you again?”
Dawson still had his ID badge out. Granger looked at it considerably longer than Godson had, then indicated a seat for Dawson.
“I’m cool,” Granger said to Godson, who nodded and left.
Granger sat not quite opposite Dawson. “What d’you need, Mr. Dawson?”
“I’m investigating the death of Mr. Bao Liu. The one whose mining site is next to yours.”
Granger grunted. “Yeah, well, I dunno if I can help you. What d’you need to know?”
“Did you ever have any skirmishes with Mr. Liu?”
“The very first day I got here,” Granger said, “he and his goons came onto my property and accused us of trespassing. I told them to fuck off, but up till the time of his death, he came sniffin’ round here every few days like a jackal, trying to intimidate us.”
“Did you ever exchange gunfire with Bao Liu or his people?”
“Well, someone came onto the property one night to collect soil samples,” Granger said, “but we don’t know if it was Liu’s folks or not. Anyway, Godson fired warning shots and they took off.”
“They collect soil samples to estimate how much gold you have on your site?” Dawson asked.
“Supposedly.” Granger shrugged and his lip curled. “Stupid really, because you have to sample a whole lot more gravel than that.”
“Where were you last Thursday night through Friday morning, Mr. Granger?” Dawson asked.
“In Accra,” Granger said, with certainty. “I was there to see Tommy Thompson, director of PMMC.”
“Why were you there to see him?”
“Site licensing issue,” Granger said carelessly. “Not to bore you with the details, but I like to keep my nose clean and my records scrupulous, so I keep in close contact with Tommy.”
It sounded good, but it wasn’t enough for Dawson. “Do you have his phone number?”
“Sure.” Granger picked up his phone. “Give me yours, Mr. Dawson, and I’ll text you Tommy’s info.”
“Thank you.”
While Granger was doing that, Dawson got a better look at the room. Framed photos of Granger and his family—wife and two pretty teen daughters—stood on his desk. He had a coffee maker on the other side of the room, and in one corner, a pump-action shotgun.
Such a lot of guns around here, Dawson thought.
“Can I give you a tip, Mr. Dawson?” Granger asked, leaning back with hands behind his head, elbows wide and knees apart.
“Of course.”
“Look, I didn’t like Mr. Liu, but I got better stuff to do than worry about a little piece o’ shit like him. You looking for someone who could have killed him, you gotta look at folks who hated his guts.”
“Tell me more.”
“You heard about that one guy Liu dumped into a pit.”
Dawson nodded.
“Yeah, I figured you’d know. Young guy, had a nice girlfriend, hardworkin’ honest family, you know? And now Liu goes and kills the boy. Who do you think was really, really upset about that? His dad, his mom, and most especially his younger brother. From what I heard, those two boys were like this.” Granger held up his hand with his index and middle finger intertwined. “Shit, if Liu did that to my brother? Hell to pay.”
Dawson nodded. “Yaw has been mute since his brother’s death.”
“Mute, my ass.” Granger snorted. “He’s just getting away with murder. Can’t interrogate him if he won’t speak, right?”
Right. Dawson was interested in Granger’s analysis, even if crudely offered. “It’s been suggested that an excavator was used to bury Mr. Liu under layers of soil.”
Granger shrugged. “Well, Yaw knows how to operate excavators. I’ve seen him myself. And he’s damn good too.”
“But Bao Liu’s excavator was out of order that day.”
“Hey, you can bring an excavator over from practically anywhere if you give yourself enough time, Inspector. I mean, they’re all over the place.”
“Including one of yours,” Dawson pointed out. “And you’re right next door to the Lius’ mining site.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s just an observation.”
“If Yaw used one of our excavators, we would know, because the engine would have been warm when we got to work that morning—and it wasn’t.”
“How would you know? I thought you said you were in Accra.”
“I was, yes,” Granger said quickly. “But my guys would have reported something like that to me. I mean, I know you’re trying to get something on me,” Granger added, “and it’s your job and all, but seriously, you’re wasting your time. You need to concentrate on—what’s his name?—Yaw. Don’t be fooled by this ‘I can’t speak’ crap. He’s one smart, calculating dude, that guy.”
Maybe Granger is right. Dawson stood up. “Thank you, sir.”
“Yeah, anytime,” he said, not sounding like he meant it.
As he prepared to leave, Dawson noticed three keys with the CAT logo hanging from hooks in a corkboard on the wall. A fourth hook was empty. “You always use Caterpillar excavators?” he asked Granger.
“Yeah, the real thing,” he said, with a confident nod. “Not any of that cheap Chinese crap the Lius have.”
“Your excavators are all at work now,” Dawson observed. “So these are spare keys?”
“Yeah,” Granger confirmed, looking slightly puzzled by the question.
“Where’s the fourth key?” Dawson asked.
“One of the guys is using it.” Granger sighed, sounding tired. “I dunno where the original went. It sucks the way you gotta keep your eye on every little thing around here. Anyway, don’t wanna bore you with stuff you don’t need to know.”
“No problem,” Dawson said. “Are you traveling back to the St
ates anytime in the near future?”
“I don’t plan to. Why?”
“Because I might need to talk to you again.”
“No problem, man.”
In fact, Dawson was certain he was going to meet up with Granger again. He just didn’t know under what circumstances.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When Dawson was done with Granger, he took the opportunity to drop in at the Okohs’ home in the hope that they had seen Yaw recently or talked to him. As Dawson walked to the house, a young boy went by laughing as he pushed a little girl in a rickety homemade go-cart.
Dawson called out at the door.
“Yes?” someone replied from inside.
Dawson waited a moment, and a teenage girl came to the door wiping her hands on a towel. It looked like she had been washing clothes.
“Good afternoon. Are Mr. and Mrs. Okoh in?”
“No, please,” she said. “They have gone to farm.”
“Okay, thank you.”
Dawson thought that although he didn’t know exactly where the Okoh farm was, it couldn’t be too far away from the bridge where Amos had met his end.
“Ei! Hello, Mister!”
Dawson turned at the female voice. It was Miss Smoothie emerging from between two crumbling brick houses. Her hair done to cornrow perfection, she sashayed up to Dawson with an exaggerated swing of the hips and slipped her arm into his.
“So you have come here again, eh?” she said, her tone dripping with honey.
“Yes.”
She slipped her hand into his. “Darko, how are you? I’m Queenie.”
Her fingers were playing with his and he gently withdrew them.
“Ah, Queenie! Can’t you leave him alone?”
Dawson turned again. This time, it was Queenie’s hairstylist, who had appeared out of nowhere and was walking up to them.
“Good morning, sir,” she said, smiling. “Please, is she troubling you?”
Dawson smiled too. “No.”
“You see?” Queenie said coyly. “I’m just talking to him.” She looked Dawson over with approval. “Hm, Darko. Such a fine man from Accra. Do you have a wife?”
“Yes, I do.”
Queenie pouted. “Where is she?”
“Gyae, gyae!” the hairstylist scolded her, using the Twi word for “stop it.” To Dawson she said, “She has so many boyfriends already.”
“Adwoa, you are telling lies!” Queenie dismissed her friend with a backward flap of her hand. “Don’t mind her, Darko. It’s not true. Did you come to Dunkwa to see me?”
“But did you invite me?” he challenged back.
Adwoa laughed gleefully. “Eh-heh, Queenie, what’s your answer?”
“Maybe the two of you can help me,” Dawson said, the idea striking him on the spot. “Do you know Yaw Okoh?”
Queenie looked away, pressing her lips together. The hairstylist looked at her and burst out laughing.
“What?” Dawson asked.
Queenie glared at her friend. “Don’t say anything!”
Adwoa immediately turned to Dawson and spilled the beans. “She wanted to be his girlfriend but he won’t even look at her.”
“Adwoa!” Queenie protested, as her friend giggled convulsively at her expense.
“Do you know where I can find him?” Dawson asked, skipping the fun.
“He lives in the bush,” Queenie volunteered.
“Do you know the place?”
She nodded, and Adwoa grinned. “She used to follow him there.”
“No, I didn’t,” Queenie said, sulking.
“Can you take me?” Dawson asked, assuming her denial was an admission.
“Yes, we can go,” Adwoa said, before Queenie even had a chance to speak up.
Dawson and the two women tramped through the bush and ended up at the banks of the Ofin. A felled tree across a narrow segment of the river created a partial damming effect on the milky water, providing them a crossing to the other side. Dawson immediately named it Fallen Tree Bridge. As a result of the recent storm, most of the tree trunk was submerged.
They crossed. The foliage was thin for a while where tree clearing, probably illegal, had taken place, but it grew denser quickly. Queenie, who was wearing only slippers, picked her way more and more carefully. Dawson congratulated her on her sense of direction as they turned left and right, but he had some remembering of his own to do in case he needed to return by himself, and he had no doubt that he would. He was silently counting the number of rights and lefts, grouping them in his mind as sharp or gradual, while noting any landmarks along the way, like a clearing, or a felled tree.
“It’s here,” Queenie said finally.
They had arrived at a rudimentary shelter: a simple sheet of corrugated metal on four poles.
“He normally stays there at night,” Queenie said, pointing.
“Hmm,” Adwoa said teasingly. “And did you stay here with him too?”
“Oh, shut up,” Queenie said crisply.
While the two women giggled and traded good-natured insults, Dawson went over to have a better look at the humble abode. There was almost nothing there except a rolled-up mat, a soiled T-shirt, a pair of cargo shorts, and the type of small, old-fashioned charcoal stove that people rarely used nowadays.
“During the day,” Dawson asked the two women, “where does he go?”
They shrugged. “People say they have seen him around. They say he drives excavators sometimes, or helps the galamsey dig for gold.”
“Why won’t he talk to anyone?” Dawson asked. When he saw Queenie wrinkle her nose, he added hastily, “I mean after Amos was killed.”
“The Okohs are my friends, so I know something about what happened,” Adwoa said, mixing her Twi with English. “It isn’t that he doesn’t talk to anyone; it is his family he won’t speak to. Mr. Okoh wanted Yaw and Amos to work with him on his farm. Yaw said no, he wanted to learn how to operate an excavator with Amos, because they could make more money mining gold than they can make at the farm. Mr. Okoh didn’t agree, and he tried to command the two boys to be with him. Yaw, his head is hard, and he walked away, but Amos, he was softer, and he agreed to go with his father to the farm.
“So then, while Amos was working with Mr. Okoh and Yaw was trying to get work as an excavator operator, a division came in the family. After Amos died, Yaw said to his father that if he hadn’t forced Amos to work with him, this would have never happened. Then Mr. Okoh went to a fetish priest who put a curse on Yaw that he will never be able to speak again.”
Oh, Dawson thought. This was a new wrinkle. “Did Yaw know Mr. Okoh was going to the fetish priest to place the curse?”
“Oh yes,” Adwoa said, nodding vigorously. “The whole town knew about it.”
Could it have been that Yaw’s knowledge of the alleged curse had had such a profound psychological effect that it actually happened?
“Thank you, Adwoa,” Dawson said with a smile. He always appreciated a well-informed account. He walked around the perimeter of the clearing, poking around in the bushes with a stick and wondering half seriously whether he was conducting an illegal search without a warrant.
As they left, Dawson cast one last look at Yaw’s shelter. He was rapidly planning what to do next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
While he waited eagerly for Chikata’s arrival, Dawson spent most of Wednesday morning cleaning up and rearranging the office. Then he met with some of the junior officers to review their cases and any difficulties they were having. Lack of resources to get things done—evaluation of crime scenes, for example—was a common refrain, but sometimes Dawson saw these obstacles as an excuse rather than a justified reason.
“This is Ghana,” he told one officer. “Resources are scarce, so you work with what you have, or you devise a stopgap, but you don’
t just shrug your shoulders and forget about it. If you don’t care about your work, you might as well do something else.”
And to each and everyone, Dawson’s stern warning concerned the daily diary. “There should be an entry practically every hour. I don’t want to see an empty space from midnight to six in the morning. For all I know, it means you were sleeping. The government does not pay you to sleep.”
By early afternoon, Dawson had not heard from Chikata and he became anxious. Finally, at two thirty, Chikata called. “I told them to reserve a jeep for me to go up to Kumasi,” he said, sounding frustrated, “but one of the chief inspectors grabbed it. He’ll see how much trouble he’s in when he returns and gets called to Uncle’s office.”
Dawson smiled slightly, but actually, Chikata wasn’t joking. The culpable chief inspector was about to face something worse than a firing squad.
“Sorry, boss,” Chikata continued. “I can’t make it there today, but I’ll be in tomorrow morning. The driver and I will start out by five, so God willing we’ll arrive around ten.”
“Sure, no problem,” Dawson said casually, to hide the heavy feeling of disappointment. “So we’ll meet tomorrow, inshallah.”
After a couple of hours more of work, he locked up the office and left for the day. To entertain himself, he went to one of Kumasi’s best and most crowded sports bars and devoured fufuo and piping hot groundnut soup while he watched Arsenal battle Manchester United in a fierce soccer match.
Close to his prediction, Chikata walked in the door at division headquarters around ten thirty Thursday morning. Dawson hugged him hard, surprising himself by just how glad he was to see his right-hand man. “How was the journey up?”
“It was okay, boss,” Chikata said. “Traffic wasn’t too bad.”
He was wearing dark slacks and a blue pinstripe shirt that fit perfectly across his broad chest.
“Have a seat if you can find somewhere,” Dawson said. “I’ve been trying to clear the place up. You should have seen it when I first arrived.”
“Looks like a lot of work.” Chikata sat. “I can take over if you tell me what to do.”
“We’ll go over it in detail tomorrow. Let me bring you up to speed on the case first.”