Gold of Our Fathers

by Kwei Quartey

  Just as he was to take a peek, an electric power cut plunged the house and the yard into darkness, and the compressor went silent. Shit. An alert went off in Dawson’s mind. If the generator wasn’t wired for an automatic switchover from the grid, Lian or Wei—or both—would come outside to turn it on. That meant Dawson had to be ready to bolt in whichever direction would keep him hidden.

  He waited, counting out fifteen seconds, which was the usual interval for a switch from the grid, and to his relief, the generator wheezed, and the engine started up and roared into action. The light in the room came on again, and the AC started up. Good, Dawson thought with relief, bringing one eye level with the window frame.

  Curtains partially blocked his view, but Dawson saw enough. Intently watching their briefly interrupted TV movie, Lian and Wei lay in bed in each other’s arms. At intervals, he pulled her close and gave her a kiss on the lips. Dawson had begun to suspect something was going on as Lian arrived at the house, but actually witnessing the event was still startling. Wei and Lian were seriously involved with each other. For how long? If they were adulterers before Bao’s death, it changed everything.

  Dawson took photos of the couple’s tender embraces, as well a short video segment, stopping as Wei began to get more aroused and the TV movie faded from their attention. Dawson felt a little perverted, but business was business.

  The light in the room went off, and Dawson heard the couple murmuring and moaning. He called Manhyia Station for assistance. The Lius’ lovemaking was about to be rudely interrupted.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Dawson sat up and squinted at the dawn creeping in the window and wondered for a second where he was. He had slept only a couple of hours, resting his head on his arms folded across one of the tables in the CID room at the Manhyia Division. Had last night been a dream? No, it hadn’t.

  At first, Wei had resisted arrest, and a small struggle between him and two officers had ensued. Lian became oddly limp and almost as difficult to handle. On the way to the station, both were quiet, their heads bowed.

  It was twelve after six now. Dawson went to the washroom to freshen up. When he returned, he acknowledged the two CID detectives who had come in and were sitting complaining about the increasing frequency of electricity cuts.

  Dawson called Christine. She had obviously been waiting for his call and answered before the second ring. “You’re okay?”

  He chuckled. “Yes, love. Everything’s fine. Sorry—I should have texted you earlier.”

  “It’s all right. When will you be home?”

  He sighed. “It will be a long day, for sure. Early evening, I hope.”

  “Okay, I’ll let the kids know.”

  At times like this, the clash between a “normal” life and dedication to his job hit home hard.

  •••

  In the male cell, a sea of black prisoners, the bulk of them between eighteen and twenty-four years old, swamped one little Chinese island—Wei Liu. He looked both resentful and scared as Dawson called him to the front. “Good morning, Mr. Liu.”

  He didn’t return the greeting. He appeared dispassionate, perhaps too tired to show much emotion.

  “I will be interviewing you very soon,” Dawson said.

  Wei drooped, and turned his face away.

  At the female cell, though, Lian was not taking things as calmly. She was distraught, weeping at intervals. Her Ghanaian counterparts stared at her, and some of them began to giggle. Furious, Lian turned to yell at them in Chinese. Poor woman, Dawson thought. Her husband dead, she and her lover in jail with people she didn’t like in a country she hated.

  Asase brought Wei to the CID room and sat beside him. Dawson took a seat on the opposite side of the table. Wei fidgeted and did not make eye contact.

  “How do you feel this morning, Wei?” Dawson asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “We’re going to have a talk,” Dawson continued. “No more lies. Just the truth. Okay?”

  Wei’s jaw contracted rhythmically, but still he said nothing.

  “When you and I first met,” Dawson said, “Mr. Huang told me that your brother Bao came to Ghana about three years ago, correct?”

  Wei, resting his forehead in one palm, nodded.

  “Mr. Liu, I need you to answer my questions so that we can hear you.” Dawson said. “After Bao was here for two years, he wanted Lian to join him, and he asked you to accompany her, am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You and Lian love each other, not so?”

  Wei shifted his weight. “Yes,” he said sullenly.

  “When did you fall in love with each other? In China, before Bao and Lian got married?”

  Wei shook his head. “No. After they marry.” He sighed. “Sometimes, Bao go away to do mining for one month, two month—leave Lian alone.”

  “So you used to keep her company,” Dawson prompted, thankful Wei seemed to be emerging from his cold, hard shell. “And that’s how it happened that you fell in love.”

  “Yes.”

  “And Bao never knew about it?”

  Wei sneered slightly. “No.” He shrugged. “And he don’t love her either.”

  “I see,” Dawson said, pausing. “Then when Bao left China for Ghana, you and Lian were left together for two years?”

  “We were happy,” Wei said, with sudden enthusiasm. “Very happy.”

  “I understand. How did you feel when Bao asked Lian to come to Ghana?”

  Wei shook his head. “Lian not want to leave China, but she have to obey her husband. Only thing, she happy I go with her.”

  “And while you were here,” Dawson said, “you continued to be with her whenever you had a chance and Bao was away.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You said Bao didn’t love Lian. Why do you say that?”

  “He don’t love her like I love her,” Wei said fiercely, pointing at his heart.

  “Did Lian hate Bao?”

  Wei nodded. “Yes.”

  “And you hated Bao too?”

  The Chinese man shook his head. “I never hate Bao. Only love Lian.”

  “Did Lian ask you to kill Bao?”

  “No!” Wei exclaimed in alarm, perhaps realizing that his words were being misconstrued. “She never do that.”

  “But you wanted to kill Bao,” Dawson said, “so that you could have Lian to yourself. Just like you had her to yourself for two years in China.”

  “No,” Wei said flatly.

  “I know you killed your brother, Wei,” Dawson said evenly.

  “No.” He gestured simply by turning his palms up. “How I kill him? I sleep Feng house by that time, but you wan’ me say I kill Bao because you Ghanaian guy and you no like the Chinese people. You know is that guy Yaw who kill Bao, but you wan’ me take blame.”

  And there, Dawson conceded, Wei had him in a corner that was going to be difficult to get out of.

  Tired, Dawson set off for home. The afternoon had worn on and worn him down. He would try again with Wei in the morning. The man was bound to confess. But a small voice nagged at Dawson. Are you sure Yaw Okoh is not the killer? Was Dawson hunting for something that simply wasn’t there? Was he really biased against Wei because he was Chinese? It was the first time an accusation like that had come up in Dawson’s career.

  When Dawson got into the house, he heard the boys in hysterics and found them watching a DVD on the laptop while Christine was cooking. He glanced at the screen, saw they were watching a cartoon, and then went to his wife’s side to put an arm around her waist.

  “Mm, smells delicious,” he said, lifting the pot lid and getting a whiff of heavenly groundnut stew. “I’m famished.”

  She smiled at him. “We’ll eat in a few minutes. Just boiling the yam.”

  “What’s so funny, guys?” Dawson ask
ed, sitting down at the table.

  Hosiah and Sly looked at each other conspiratorially and started to giggle.

  Dawson sent an inquiring glance at Christine.

  “I’ll tell you exactly what they’re laughing at,” she said, appearing miffed. “They’re watching a cartoon called The Sleepy Hippo or something like that, and they say when the hippopotamus starts to snore, it sounds like me.”

  This sent the two boys into stitches again, with Hosiah almost falling out of his chair. “Look, Daddy,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

  Dawson waited while Hosiah found the right spot on the DVD where the hippo sank to the ground and began to snore. Sly and Hosiah looked at Dawson for his reaction, and as much as he tried to keep his face straight, he could not hold his snort in. Seconds later, he was stifling laughter as the boys went weak with hilarity.

  “Oh, you too?” Christine said, shooting Dawson a daggered look. “Look, I don’t snore. You guys are crazy.”

  Through the boys’ giggles, Dawson told them to put the laptop away and get washed up for dinner, both because the joke had outstayed its welcome and because he was hungry.

  But as the family ate and talked, Dawson gave more thought to the sleepy hippo, and then he began to understand who murdered Bao Liu and how.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  En route to Kumasi Headquarters, Dawson heard the doubt in DCOP Manu’s voice as he spoke to her on the phone and tried to explain why he needed an emergency search warrant, which a senior officer was authorized to sign.

  “It can’t wait for a magistrate’s approval, madam,” Dawson said. That tedious process could take a day or more. “By that time, we may have to release the suspects.”

  She sighed. “I’m in a meeting right now. We are about to interview Commander Longdon. I will call you as soon as I’m done.”

  “Um, madam, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble to do it immediately,” Dawson said in his best suppliant voice, “I would appreciate it, because actually I’m on the way to you now and will be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  Manu said something under her breath that Dawson didn’t quite hear. “All right,” she said, defeated. “Hurry up.”

  Asase drove the police jeep, Dawson sat in the front next to him, and the Lius sat in the backseat. They arrived at Wei’s house, and David let the vehicle into the front yard of the house, watching with curiosity as the group alighted, including the Lius in handcuffs.

  The warrant was for the entire premises, both inside and outside the house, but they would start with inside. Asase and Dawson guided the prisoners to the sofa in the sitting room and they sat down.

  “We are examining all pieces of electronic equipment,” Dawson told Asase. “Search the bedroom for any computer, laptop, tablet, phone, and bring them out here if you find any. I will start on these.”

  Asase disappeared into the bedroom. The sitting room center table held Wei’s Samsung tablet, an iPad, two Xiaomi phones, and a laptop, which Dawson asked Wei to turn on and access with his password. Dawson looked at the browser history, which showed sites selling mining equipment, from large machines like excavators to smaller items such as sluice boxes.

  On the Samsung, Dawson found Chinese news sites and a few for downloading Chinese movies, but the history was otherwise uninteresting. One of the phones was inoperable, and the other had an insignificant browsing history. The iPad was pretty new and had little on it besides the software that came with it.

  Asase came out of the bedroom with another mobile phone and put it on the table. It looked newer and sleeker than the other two.

  “Which of these phones do you use?” Dawson asked Wei.

  He pointed at the newest one, and Dawson asked him to open up to messages. But Wei had the phone set to Chinese, and Dawson had no idea what the messages said.

  Dawson hadn’t found what he wanted. He and Asase looked through the kitchen as well, to no avail.

  “Let’s go outside,” Dawson said. “We’ll take the suspects with us.”

  The small wooden shed behind which Dawson had hidden after following Lian into the yard seemed inconsequential, but it was all that was left to search.

  The door was padlocked, but the latch was flimsy, coming apart with Dawson’s firm tug. The shed’s interior was musty and damp. Barely enough to fit one person, the space was filled with electronic waste: two old TVs, circuit boards, a couple of discarded laptops and desktop computers, keyboards, and the skeletons of three vintage flip phones—nothing like what Dawson had imagined when he first saw the shed.

  Leaving the others clustered around the door, he stepped in and moved some of the clutter aside, stirring up a puff of dust. He sneezed twice as he sifted through the piles of discarded equipment on the floor. Nothing of any use there. He transferred his gaze upward to a listing shelf containing a ball of tangled copper wires, which he took down. Behind it was a padlocked, grayish-blue lockbox. It stood out because it was much newer than anything else in the shed and nowhere near as dusty.

  Dawson took it down and tried the lid without success. “Whose is this?” he asked Wei. “Where is the key?”

  Wei shrugged. “I don’ know.”

  Dawson didn’t believe him. He examined the box, which had a simple lock on the top. The question was where the key was. A locksmith down the street could probably have this open in seconds, but there might be an even quicker way. Where had Dawson seen a bunch of keys? He remembered now.

  “Go back inside the house,” he told Asase. “At the side of the door is a bowl with keys in it. Bring them all.”

  While the constable was gone, Dawson stood and stared at Wei, who looked studiously away with his jaw clenching. Asase came back with the bowl, which contained five keys. One of them looked like the right size, and Dawson inserted it into the lock, which turned easily. He opened the box. On the top, he found Chinese and American currency, a large wad of cedi bills, and some receipts for purchases made at a warehouse.

  At the very bottom, the box held two objects. The first was another key, this one bearing the CAT logo. Dawson held it up to Wei. “The spare key to one of Chuck Granger’s excavators. Am I right?”

  Wei didn’t answer, but Dawson was perfectly sure that it was the one missing from the four hooks in Granger’s office.

  The second object in the box was an electronic device of about four by one and a half inches, with a small screen at the top. Dawson picked it up at its edges and rested it on the lid. “Olympus digital voice recorder,” he read out. “Made in China, naturally.”

  Dawson used the corner of his voter ID card to turn it on, and then alternated between the fwd and play buttons. No sound came forth, and Dawson could tell from the screen, that the recorder had had three erased recordings. The fourth, however, was still there. He glanced up at Wei and smiled. The Chinese man looked away. Dawson pressed play, turned up the volume, left the recorder where it was, came out of the shed, and shut the door behind him. From within came the sound of someone snoring.

  “That’s what you left playing in your room at Mr. Feng’s house when you went to kill your brother,” Dawson said to Wei. “Feng heard it in the middle of the night and thought you were in the room sleeping, but by that time, you had already left the house through the window early enough to give yourself enough time to wait for your brother at the mining site and then to murder him.”

  Wei stayed motionless and kept his gaze down.

  “Chuck Granger gave you the key to the CAT excavator,” Dawson said. “He tied up your brother and you operated the excavator to bury him alive. Because you and Granger worked together, you had enough time to return to your room in Feng’s house before six o’clock when he came to wake you.”

  No one actually saw Lian move. She did so with the swiftness of a cobra strike. Her hands cuffed in front of her, she came at Wei and hit him in the face with a double fist. He f
ell over with a grunt. She went down with him, screaming in Chinese while striking Wei repeatedly. Dawson and Asase pulled her off. Now, so weak from her emotions and physical exertions, she could only crumple to the ground weeping.

  Asase helped Wei sit up. Blood was streaming down his face from a deep cut in his forehead where Lian had hit him. He turned to her, calling her name several times, trying to get her to look at him, and then saying something in Chinese in a tone that Dawson thought sounded anguished and pleading. But what exactly was Wei telling her? He grabbed the voice recorder from the shed, switched it on, and came close to Wei so that he got it all.

  As Wei continued to address Lian, he broke down completely and sobbed.

  “Bring something to stop the bleeding,” Dawson said to Asase, who ran to the jeep and returned with a not-so-clean rag, but it would have to do. Asase pressed it to his forehead and told him to hold it there.

  Dawson knelt down beside Wei. “Why is she so angry with you?” he asked, rubbing his back gently. “What was she saying to you? Eh? Come on now, Wei. It’s time to tell me.”

  “She never tell me to kill Bao,” Wei said, looking up at Dawson imploringly, “but I do it for her. I thought make her happy now she only have me, but now she say she like Bao for husband, make her feel safe. She like me too, but for lover only. She want us both.Why she say that, Inspector? She love me, she hate Bao, but now I kill him, she say want him back. Why she say that?”

  Wei fell back, looked to the sky, and bellowed in the purest agony.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  The Dawsons were dressing up for a Sunday afternoon outing.

  “What I don’t understand,” Christine said, adjusting her earrings in the mirror, “is what you were looking for on Wei’s computers and all that.”

  Dawson pulled on his socks. “You remember when Sly and Hosiah were joking around about the snoring hippo?”

  “How could I forget?” Christine said dryly.

  “It got me thinking how you can get almost any sound effect online, including someone snoring. I was searching for evidence in Wei Liu’s browser history that could show that’s what he did, but nothing was there. It never occurred to me that he could simply record himself snoring with a device and play it back. He tried three different times to get the recording just right and he erased them all. The fourth one was the best, and that’s the one he forgot to erase.”