by Kwei Quartey
“You know for certain that Bao refused to play the game?”
“According to my source, yes.”
“But they don’t need to kill him for that,” Dawson pointed out. “They could just kick him out of the country.”
“And he’d come right back,” she countered.
She has a point, Dawson conceded. Still, it seemed extreme to him to murder the fellow for that. After all, he wasn’t the only gold miner around. The whole Ashanti Region was teeming with them. “What happened when you went to PMMC?” Dawson asked her.
“I got in to see Tommy Thompson, but as soon as I began interviewing him on the subject, he called security to escort me out.”
“Really?” Dawson said, surprised. “Did you even get a denial out of him?”
“Of sorts. He said I was talking nonsense and then got security in. But if he thinks I’m done, he’s very much mistaken. I have several other avenues, and I’m going to keep digging until I have the full story and all the names.”
Digging was an unfortunate word. Dawson sat forward. “Akua, these people carry shotguns.”
“I’m aware,” she said.
“Okay,” he said, trying to feel reassured. “Promise me something, however. If you are going into any situation that could be dangerous or risky, call me first.”
“All right.” But she responded so quickly, Dawson wasn’t sure if she meant it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
At just past six on Friday morning, as he was stepping out of the shower, Dawson’s phone rang. It was an unknown number.
“Good morning, Mr. Dawson.” It was a woman’s voice, low, rich, and soft, like warm custard.
“Good morning, madam.”
“This is Dr. Phyllis Kwapong.”
Dawson dropped his towel. “Yes, Doctor!”
“It looks like we have a time slot to perform the autopsy on the Chinese gentleman.”
Dawson wished he could dive into the phone and kiss the woman. “Oh, thank you, Doctor. I’m very grateful to you for this.”
“You are very welcome,” she said, a smile in her voice. “
“What time shall I meet you at the mortuary?”
“Nine. We may not get started till ten, but I want to be sure we’re ready to go.”
“All right. I’ll be accompanied by my partner, Inspector Chikata.”
“Thank you. Oh, by the way, we’ll be doing the postmortem in the new building.”
Dawson and Chikata arrived at KATH just before nine and reported to the new building for the sign-in procedures. No wandering around unauthorized in this facility. One of the office staff asked them to please wait for Dr. Prempeh, who would take them through. They sat down on comfortable chairs to the side.
“Nice place,” Chikata murmured.
“It’s a different world compared to the old mortuary.”
Dr. Prempeh burst into the lobby. “Morning, gentlemen,” he said briskly. “Ready?” He turned, and Dawson and Chikata jumped up to follow him. Walking faster than many people run, he led them down a wide, gleaming corridor to the changing room. “Dr. Kwapong is in already,” he told them as they entered. “This will be a learning experience for me as well. I can learn from her expertise as a bona fide forensic pathologist.”
Because very few autopsies, if any, had been done here, the familiar mortuary odor had not yet permeated the place, for which Dawson was grateful. They donned their gear and Prempeh gave them a look over and a thumbs-up, before proceeding through the double doors into the chilled mortuary chamber.
Four autopsy tables occupied the room, all well equipped with their own sink, water supply, overhead light, and scale. Nkrumah, the mortuary tech, was already busy with Bao Liu’s pale body on the first table. Dr. Kwapong, a tall woman, at first had her back to them as she read the coroner’s report on the side counter. When she turned to them, Dawson froze in place. She was in protective garb herself, but temporarily had her mask off. It was not so much that the doctor’s facial features resembled his mother’s as Dawson remembered them; it was her physique and carriage: the identical tallness and solidity, spine straight as a bamboo rod, and a slight royal lift of the chin.
“Detectives Dawson and Chikata,” she said. “Good morning.”
“Morning, Doctor,” Chikata said.
She flashed a smile. She had dimples. “Which one is which?”
In a moment of confusion, Chikata automatically waited for Dawson as the senior officer to speak, but he was staring dumbstruck at Dr. Kwapong. He could feel Chikata glaring at him with a look that said, What’s wrong with you?
“Oh, sorry,” he said hastily. “That’s Inspector Chikata. I’m Chief Inspector Dawson.”
“Ah yes, okay.” She was evaluating him, and he knew he must have been looking odd. “You know, if autopsies are not quite your cup of tea, you don’t have to attend. I don’t like resuscitating officers who have fainted.”
“No, no, it’s not that, Doctor,” Dawson stammered, his embarrassment deepening. “I apologize.”
“No worries,” she said, appearing amused. “You weren’t expecting a man, were you?”
“Not at all, Doctor,” Dawson said. “I knew you weren’t a man. I mean—”
“I’m teasing, Mr. Dawson,” she said, chuckling. “Relax.”
“Actually it’s me who is the squeamish one,” Chikata said, rescuing his boss. “When I start to get that sour taste in the back of my mouth, it means I have to go.”
“Of course,” Dr. Kwapong said knowingly. “A rule of nature is that the tendency to faint over medical procedures is directly proportional to muscular development.”
The three men laughed at that, and the ice was broken. Dawson gave the doctor the police report, and she quickly read it over. Kwapong proceeded with the Y-incision, which she made very quick work of. Bao’s pale, now almost greenish body was quite lean and did not have the thick layer of subcutaneous fat before Kwapong’s scalpel got to the internal organs.
“I know you’ll be interested in time of death,” Kwapong said, moving to the right-hand side of the body. “In reviewing the details and just looking at the body preliminarily, I would say that it could be anytime within the twelve-hour period between six that Thursday evening to six Friday morning.”
“That agrees with our estimate, Doctor,” Dawson said crisply, trying to make up for his bumbling start. “We think he was killed between four twenty and five forty-five.”
“Excellent, then,” she said, surveying the corpse quickly from head to toe. “I’ll tell you one thing for sure. He put up a mighty struggle. Look at all those avulsed fingernails.”
Dawson saw what she meant. They were jagged, some of them partially or completely ripped off the nail beds. He felt queasy at that.
“So a central question for you, I know,” Kwapong said, “is the mechanism and cause of death here.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Dawson said. “Do you think it could be due to the gashes in his scalp? From say a machete?”
She bent forward to Bao’s scalp, parting the gray hair for a better view. “I think they may be postmortem, actually.”
Dawson had pleasurable brain shivers at the sound of her voice. “When the galamsey worker was digging,” he informed her, “the blade of the shovel struck the scalp.”
“I think that’s what happened. We’ll take a look inside the skull to see if there’s a serious internal injury like a cerebral hemorrhage.”
The tech put Bao’s shoulders on the block, made an incision and in the scalp, pulled it back. Then he went to work with the skull saw, a noise that bit into Dawson’s nerves like a fire ant. Meanwhile, Kwapong took a look into the chest and abdominal cavities. Dawson looked up at Chikata to see how he was doing, and he signaled he was okay so far.
The top of the skull was removed like a cap, and the two doctors
examined it.
“Anything?” Kwapong asked Prempeh, gently testing him.
“No fractures that I can see.”
“I agree.”
She wrestled a few seconds with the brain, and it came free with a sucking noise.
“No hemorrhages or signs of trauma on the outside,” Kwapong said, putting the brain down on a cutting board. “Would you section it, Dr. Prempeh?”
He sliced it with a large, sharp knife, and Dawson feared for how close it came to his fingers. “Nothing,” he said.
Kwapong transferred her attention to Bao’s neck. “No ligature marks, gentlemen. The hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage are intact. Very unlikely he was strangled. Which is not to say he didn’t suffocate.”
She picked up a scalpel and made a straight, sharp incision down the windpipe in one clean motion, and then spread the cartilage open. “Clumps and particles of soil in the trachea,” she said grimly.
Dawson looked up at Dr. Kwapong and met her eyes. “So that means . . .”
“Correct, Chief Inspector,” Kwapong said. “That means your victim here was buried alive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Buried alive,” Chikata said, shaking his head before taking a swig from his bottle of water. “That is pure wickedness.”
Dawson savored a sip of Malta that he had bought during a sudden and intense attack of craving for the rich drink. They were back at Obuasi headquarters to discuss the case.
“Wickedness, fury, sadism,” Dawson said. “All those things. A desire not just to kill Bao, but to make sure he suffered in the process. To me it points to the people who had the most reason to hate Bao—Yaw Okoh and his father. So how could either one of them, or both, carry out this murder? You start.”
“Yaw Okoh,” Chikata began, “adores his brother Amos, whose death leaves a terrible void in his life. He wants to avenge Amos’s death by killing Bao Liu. He knows that the Chinaman is going to be at the mining site that Friday morning around four to fix the excavator. Yaw waylays him there around four twenty-five or so, just after Bao has tried to call his brother, ties him up in that terrible position, and then with an excavator, he scoops up large piles of soil and dumps it on him.”
“How did he know that the excavator was out of order,” Dawson challenged, “and that Bao was going to come in at a certain time on that particular day to repair it?”
“He asked one of Bao’s galamsey boys, who told him all about it,” Chikata answered.
“Ah, how can Yaw have asked one of them when he has been mute since the death of his brother?”
“He’s only pretending to be mute, though. It’s a subterfuge, because the man is guilty.”
“Okay, that’s a good comeback, but where would he obtain the excavator?”
“He bribed Chuck Granger’s guys to give him the key to one of the excavators so he could use it that night.”
Dawson shook his head. “Too dangerous. He would be exposing himself.”
“Okay,” Chikata said without blinking, “then when one of the excavator operators was taking a break, Yaw stole the ignition key.”
Dawson laughed. “That’s stretching it a bit, but your point is good. We need to go back to Granger and also question his security guy, Godson.”
“What about Mr. Okoh?” Chikata asked. “How would he be involved?”
Dawson picked up. “Mr. Okoh feels as much pain over the loss of his son as Yaw does, maybe even more. Amos was his favorite son. Okoh hates this Chinese man, the same one who drove the Okohs off their farm and reduced his plot of land to a pittance. And now the Chinaman has killed his son. To not avenge his son’s death would be a dishonor to Mr. Okoh and his family.”
Chikata nodded. “Okay, go on.”
“He wants to kill Bao in a way that will cause maximum suffering, but he needs Yaw’s help. Together they plot Bao’s death, but they need the opportunity to carry out the deed. That’s when Yaw goes to one of the Lius’ galamsey workers and asks if he can let him know when Yaw is planning to come in early.”
“Yes,” Chikata said uncertainly.
“You don’t look happy,” Dawson observed.
“Yes, because we don’t have a link between Yaw and Bao Liu’s workers.”
Dawson thought about that for a second. “We should question Kudzo Gablah again. Maybe he has conveniently left out some facts.”
“Could Kudzo have helped Yaw?”
Dawson shook his head. “I’ve ruled him out. I just can’t see him doing it and he has an alibi. This is the way I see it. Watch.”
He reached for a pencil and piece of paper and made a quick list.
Established alibi
Kudzo Gablah - with friends Ekaw & family overnight till 0530 Fri
Wei Liu - with friend Feng overnight till 0600 Fri
NO ESTABLISHED ALIBI MOTIVE
Yaw Okoh Revenge for bro Amos’s death
Thompson Somehow profits from Bao’s death?
SUSPICIOUS 1QUESTIONABLE ALIBI MOTIVE
Mr. Okoh: What time did he Revenge for son Amos’s death
really wake up Friday morning?
Granger Get rid of uncooperative Bao
Mine more gold through Wei
“Do you know who isn’t on there but should be?” Chikata said, after gazing at the diagram for a few moments.
“Who?”
“Bao Liu’s wife. She has no alibi because the man who could have vouched for her being at home while he was being murdered is obviously quite dead.”
“So well put,” Dawson said dryly. “But what could be her motive? He is the money earner, and apart from him and Wei and perhaps one or two Chinese friends, Bao is her connection to her culture. Besides, this signature is that of a male.”
Chikata tilted his head side to side as he considered it. “Okay. I think you are right on that one.”
“So, our only loose ends now are Yaw, Granger, and Thompson.”
Chikata looked bothered. “Boss, seriously, this thing Akua Helmsley has cooked up is not credible. The PMMC or Director Thompson having Bao Liu killed because he won’t accept a low price for gold? Come on. Who is Bao Liu? He’s small fish in a big sea. PMMC doesn’t care about some little shit guy like him.”
“I’m skeptical as well,” Dawson said, “but we can’t let something like that go when it’s sitting right under our noses. There might be a wider picture to it. So here is what we need to do. Call Thompson and set up a meeting in Accra as soon as possible and then go down to meet him face to face. It shouldn’t be anything confrontational, but you’ll be watching for his reaction, body language, tone of voice, and so on.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s try and get through some more of this mess,” Dawson said, looking around the office, “and then it will be time to go down to Dunkwa so we can catch our man, Yaw Okoh.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
By four thirty that Friday afternoon, Dawson and Chikata were at the Dunkwa Police Station with Constables Kobby and Asase. Dawson was glad to see they were both prompt. It was a good omen. For about thirty minutes, Dawson outlined the plan and answered any questions they had. They would split into pairs—Asase and Chikata, Dawson and Kobby—and leave Dunkwa by different routes fifteen minutes apart to avoid attracting attention. It was best that no one got wind of a police operation.
Dawson and Kobby left first, taking the route he had followed with Adwoa and Queenie to Fallen Tree Bridge. The sun was in the finishing stretch of its journey across the sky, but it was still hot and humid, and by the time the pair of them had reached the rendezvous, Dawson and Kobby had worked up a healthy sweat. They found some shade to wait for Asase and Chikata while keeping in touch with them by phone.
They arrived after twenty minutes.
“Ready?” Dawson said. “Let’s go.”
>
He led the three other men farther along to the riverbank and the bridge. Since the storm, the water level had dropped, exposing most of the large tree trunk.
“Nobody fall in,” Dawson said over his shoulder. “Because I can’t rescue you.”
They laughed, and none of them had any trouble as they crossed.
It was a test of Dawson’s sense of direction and his ability to remember the route Queenie had taken him. He quietly counted out the right and left twists and turns.
“It’s somewhere here,” he said, slowing down after they had trekked for several minutes. “At least it was. I hope he hasn’t moved.”
“Maybe there,” Kobby said, pointing. “I see something white.”
They moved in that direction and discovered that the constable was correct. In the slight clearing, Yaw had hung a shirt from the low bough of a tree. It had been washed and was still damp, a sign of its recentness and that Yaw would be back. The question was, would it be tonight?
Yaw’s shelter spot was unchanged from when Dawson had seen it, except that he noticed an LED lantern that he did not recall from the first time. A hen, tied to one of the poles of the shelter, was pecking at the ground. It didn’t know that it would soon be a meal.
Dawson and the other three discussed how they would position themselves to provide the best coverage if Yaw chose to flee, and then they went to their stations. It was just before six, and they settled into what might turn out to be a long wait.
As it turned out, it was just under forty minutes. Darkness had fallen. Dawson’s phone buzzed with a message from Kobby, which meant that he had spotted the target, and then Dawson saw Yaw’s bobbing flashlight as he approached the clearing. He walked to his shelter and put a sack of something down—some cassava perhaps—and proceeded to turn on the lantern.
Dawson moved quietly so he wouldn’t give himself away prematurely. “Yaw Okoh.”