by Kwei Quartey
Alarm not set for o33o, woke up 6
Thinking about the panicky feeling that must have gripped Wei as he realized he had badly overslept, Dawson glanced up. The Chinese man held his head in his hands, the stark implications of his phone alarm lapse evidently not lost on him. If only he had joined his brother at the appointed time, he might have thwarted the plans of Bao’s killer—or killers.
“He arrive mining place at about six twenty-five,” Huang continued. “By that time, he see Bao pickup there already, and he ask the galamsey boys where Bao, and they say haven’t seen him. So he call Bao phone and don’t get no answer. He call another time, and another time.”
“What about between four and six? Did Wei receive any calls from Bao?”
“Only one, at four twenty, and then nothing after that.”
“Can he show me the call log on his phone to prove that?”
Huang asked Wei, and to Dawson’s relief, he agreed. The business of police investigation of personal phone data had become complicated in Ghana. One clever lawyer had won a case on a technicality that the investigating officer had examined all the accused phone’s SMS messages without asking permission. If Wei agreed to show them a limited amount of information, Dawson thought they would be okay. “Please bring him his phone from the confiscated belongings,” he asked Obeng, then turned back to Huang. “What time did the galamsey workers get to the site?”
“They usually get there about five forty-five.”
This is good, Dawson thought. It set the time of death between 4:20 and 5:45 in the morning.
Obeng got back with the smartphone, an LG with a Chinese keyboard, and Dawson asked Wei to bring up the call log. It confirmed Bao’s call at the time Wei had stated.
“So, the two pickup trucks I saw parked at the site belong to Wei and his brother?” Dawson asked Mr. Huang.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Which one is Bao’s?”
“The red one.”
“Thank you,” Dawson said. “After Wei got to the mining site, what happened next?”
Huang listened to the next part of the narration from Wei.
“While Wei try call his brother,” Huang translated, “one of the galamsey boy say he hit something inside the soil while digging. After that, Wei come, and he help the boys dig. Then they can see it somebody head, and they see it’s Bao. Take ’bout thirty minute get whole body out, and they put it on the ground. By that time, many people come to watch, and Wei say, no, he don’t want people to look at his brother like that. And so he carry Bao to the shack and try to wash the body.”
“Why did he try to wash the body?” Dawson asked.
Huang asked Wei this, and he didn’t seem to understand the point of the question.
“Because body dirty and is his brother,” Huang said simply.
Undoing, Dawson thought—trying to reverse the unpleasantness of the way his brother had been found. “Did he see any blood anywhere on Bao’s body or head?”
Huang asked Wei, who shook his head. “No.”
That was important too. “But who would want to kill Bao like that?” Dawson asked.
“Maybe some of the galamsey boys,” Huang said. “Two people from the village, while they were standing near that place where they were digging to free Bao, Wei say he hear them say, ‘These galamsey boys, now they kill the boss.’ Wei ask them, ‘What you say? Why you say that?’ But they turn away and go.”
“Why would the galamsey boys want to kill Bao?” Dawson asked.
“They hate him because sometime he don’t pay them at the end of every day,” Huang said. “Sometime he wait next day, so they think he cheat them. But he never cheat them. And they hated Wei too, so that’s why they want him to see his dead brother’s body inside the ground.”
Dawson supposed that in an environment where the mine workers’ pay was so low, withholding the day’s wages might motivate a killing, but the signature here was so full of anger and intent to torture that Dawson didn’t find it credible. It could be Wei was trying to shift blame. Dawson’s hunch was that he had not killed Bao, but Dawson wasn’t ready to completely dispel the notion yet.
“The man with whom Wei stayed overnight,” he said to Huang, “will he be able to confirm that Wei was there all night until morning when he says he woke up?”
This time, the discussion between the two was long and complicated and Dawson truly wished he understood Chinese— whichever type they were speaking.
“Okay,” Huang said, turning to Dawson and evidently preparing to launch into a long explanation, “this how it is. In the man’s house—his name is Feng—he has two room, so he let Wei sleep in one, but tell him close door because Wei snore very loud, and he disturb. So maybe you ask Feng. He tell you if he hear Wei snoring during the night.”
“How did he know about the snoring?” Dawson asked. “Had Wei stayed at Mr. Feng’s home before?”
“Yes, many time,” Huang answered.
Snore alibi, Dawson thought. That might be a first. “Okay, then you will take us to this Mr. Feng so we can talk to him. One more thing: Where is Bao’s phone? Did Wei locate it anywhere?”
The answer to that was no. Wei’s opinion was that whoever had killed Bao had also taken his phone, and he suspected the galamsey boys, who had scattered without a trace, were the responsible party. Dawson admitted that their disappearance was troublesome, but Wei’s imagined scenario didn’t quite fit the picture. There was still a lot that didn’t make sense.
Dawson stood up. “Let’s go to Mr. Feng’s house.”
CHAPTER NINE
Huang did not know where Feng lived, so Wei would have to travel with the group to show them the route. As Dawson, Obeng, Mr. Huang, and the handcuffed prisoner walked out of the station toward Huang’s SUV, Akua Helmsley and her cameraman Samuels were waiting outside in the shade of a mango tree bearing early fruit.
“Chief Inspector,” she said. “We meet again.”
“And I’m sure not for the last time,” he said, barely slowing his pace as he walked by, but she kept up with him.
“Progress?” she asked.
“Not much.”
“Is Wei Liu your prime suspect in the murder?”
“No.”
“Why is he still in handcuffs then?”
He looked at her. “Actually for a different offense.”
“For being an illegal miner?”
Dawson shook his head. “The legal status of miners isn’t my concern, Miss Helmsley.”
Obeng got in the backseat of the SUV with Wei.
“So, no prime suspect so far,” Helmsley said. “Where are you going now?”
“To make some inquiries,” Dawson said unhelpfully as he got into the front passenger seat.
“I’ll check back with you in a couple of days,” Helmsley said “Is that okay?”
“Yes,” Dawson replied, not certain he meant it.
Dawson, Obeng, Wei, and Mr. Huang picked their way through the thick weeds and shrubs that hampered the walk up to Feng’s house, which was literally in the bush off an unpaved road. Two Chinese men, one in his late twenties and the other in his midforties, were loading the back of a mud-caked red Toyota pickup. They turned as Dawson and Huang approached.
“Nǐ hǎo,” Huang greeted them.
They responded, and Huang introduced Dawson and explained the purpose of the visit. The older man was Feng, the younger was a friend who was helping him transport some new water pumps to a mining site around a village called Aniamoa. As Huang spoke, Feng was nodding. He had high, tight cheekbones and sharp wrinkles like starbursts at the corners of his eyes from squinting. He put a cigarette between his lips, lit it with a match, and said something.
Huang turned to Dawson. “He say, yah, it’s true Wei stay here last night, because he have to get up early and not want to go all
the way back to Kumasi.”
“Does Feng know what time Wei went to bed?”
Huang conferred again. “He doesn’t remember exactly. About eleven o’clock, Wei went into his room to sleep.”
“Does the room have a door?”
Feng confirmed that.
“You want me to ask him if you look inside the house?” Huang asked Dawson.
Ten points for excellence, Huang, Dawson thought. “If Mr. Feng has no objection, I would appreciate it.”
Feng considered the request for a second and then said yes.
It was a small brick house that had never received a second coat of paint. Inside, it reeked of cigarettes and was rudimentary—a battered settee, a table, and two plastic chairs in the sitting room; a hot plate in the kitchenette on the far right with a couple plates, pots, and pans; and two buckets filled with water no doubt from the borehole Dawson had noticed outside. The toilet took up minimal space in the far left corner.
Feng indicated the “bedroom” in which Wei had spent the night. It was nothing more than an eight-by-six space with a mosquito-netted window and a thin foam mattress on the concrete floor. Most importantly, though, the room had a door.
“Did Wei shut the door when he went to sleep?” Dawson asked.
Feng said yes. Whenever Wei stayed there, he shut his door to minimize the disturbance his snoring might cause.
Dawson looked across to the other bedroom, which was considerably larger. Clothes were strewn across the bed and on the floor. He had no interest in seeing anything more than that, nor did he need to. “And did Feng also shut his door when he went to bed?” he asked Huang.
Feng replied that he had.
“Could he hear Wei snoring during the night?” Dawson asked.
He waited while the two men discussed this.
“Feng say he hear it little bit,” Huang said, “but when he wake up go to toilet, he hear it well.”
Dawson perked up. “What time was that?”
“Not look at the time, but he say he usually get up one time at night to piss around three o’clock.”
Dawson nodded. “And the next time Feng woke up was when?”
“Six o’clock,” Huang said. “He see Wei door still close and hear Wei still snore, and so he knock and open it and say, ‘Hey, man, what you doing? You not go to the mine?’ And Wei jump up and look at his phone and start to shout, and run out of the house to his truck.”
Dawson was satisfied. “Okay,” he said to Huang. “Thank you. How do you say that in Chinese?”
“Xièxiè.”
Dawson looked at Feng. “Xièxiè.”
Feng smiled and gave an appreciative, phlegmy laugh.
•••
They took Wei back to the Dunkwa station and locked him up. Dawson, cognizant of how much of Huang’s time he had taken up, asked him to please bear with him for just a little longer, and Huang graciously agreed.
Dawson took Kobby aside. “I have been telling the Chinese man that we will be prosecuting him for the assault, but I don’t think it’s worth it, the way our courts and remand prisons are already clogged. So, unless you insist that we proceed, I intend to have the charges dropped and release him. Are you okay with that?”
“Yes, sir,” Kobby said, nodding. “What he did is not worth so much palava. Thank you, boss.”
Getting started on the paperwork, Dawson decided he would carry out what the GPS sometimes did for offences it decided to overlook. Before release, Wei would be asked to sign a warning letter that said if he ever were to repeat such behavior, he would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That was about as far as Dawson wanted to go.
CHAPTER TEN
Freed from jail, Wei had the task, along with the police, of notifying Bao’s wife that her husband had been murdered, but everyone including Wei agreed that the burdensome duty shouldn’t be done over the phone. Besides, for Dawson, it was always helpful to witness the reaction of the family member receiving the bad news, because those closest to the victim were so often involved in his or her murder.
Huang drove back to the mining site so that Wei could retrieve his pickup. Dawson thought about Bao’s vehicle. It shouldn’t be left alone for too much longer, as it was potentially a piece of evidence. “Does Wei have a spare key to Bao’s truck?” Dawson asked Mr. Huang.
Wei took out a substantial bunch of keys from his pocket and looked through. He found one and tried it in the door of the red pickup. It opened up.
“Thank you,” Dawson said, holding out his hand. “May I have it?”
Wei handed it over and Dawson gave it to Obeng. “Drive it to Obuasi for now,” he told the sergeant, “and then we’ll transfer it to Kumasi HQ when they can take it.” Dawson had no idea how packed Kumasi’s MTU was, but if it was anything like Accra’s, it would be jumbled and overflowing. Sometimes crime-related vehicles sat there for years.
With Dawson in the passenger seat, Wei took the lead to Kumasi, followed by Mr. Huang, whom Dawson had persuaded to help with translation when they paid the fateful visit to Bao’s wife. Wei drove like a maniac, even over the punishing Dunkwa-Obuasi portion of the journey. Dawson thought his internal organs were being rearranged. After a two-hour drive, they were back in Kumasi.
“Where do you live, Mr. Liu?” Dawson asked.
“Kwadaso Estate,” Wei responded, looking at him with a smile. The Chinese man seemed friendlier now that he was free and the stress had abated somewhat.
Dawson had heard the name, but wasn’t sure exactly where it was. At any rate, he thought he should know where Wei lived in case of an emergency. They were now on Melcom Road in the Ahodwo section of the city, passing The View Bar & Grill and a few hundred meters from that, a bed and breakfast called Four Villages Inn.
Wei turned right at J. Owusu Akyaw Street and pulled up to a black and gold metal gate three houses down on the right. He pumped his horn and a young watchman in a tattered pinkish T-shirt opened up and directed them to go through into the yard shaded with mango trees, where Wei picked a good spot to park behind a black late-model Kia SUV and a sleek silver Mercedes- Benz.
The front door was some kind of metal painted to vaguely resemble wood. The Ghanaian housemaid let Dawson and the two Chinese men into the air-conditioned house. She looked as if she never got enough to eat.
The sitting room was full of overstuffed shiny black imitation-leather sofas and chairs and black glossy tables with gold trim. In fact, gold seemed to be everywhere—a kind of assault on the senses. The dining area and kitchen were comparatively small, both with a lot of gleaming plastic and glass.
“Please, you can have a seat,” the housemaid said softly. “I’m going to call her.”
Wei and Huang sat on one sofa, but Dawson took a look at some framed family photographs on a black-lacquered sideboard. One was a posed color portrait of a twenty-something man in a suit and tie and a woman with a frilly lilac blouse standing close together and smiling out at the camera—Bao and his wife, Dawson guessed, perhaps fifteen to twenty years ago. Another was an old sepia photograph of a large group of what Dawson imagined was extended family, with all the little ones in the front. It struck Dawson that no one was smiling in the photos. Everyone appeared stiff.
Dawson turned to Huang. “What is Bao’s wife’s name?”
“Lian,” he replied.
“Does that mean something in Chinese?”
Huang thought about it for a moment. “Something like graceful flower.”
As he said that, a woman appeared at the doorway leading farther into the house. She was tiny, girl-like, and pretty, with dark hair pulled back from her face to accentuate her defined cheekbones. She looked puzzled at the sight of the three men in her sitting room.
Wei stood up, appearing nervous. “Lian, nǐ hǎo,” he said, coming forward to clasp both her hands.
She seemed to sense his edginess and responded uneasily. “Nǐ hǎo, nǐ hǎo,” she replied, smiling uncertainly.
Wei began talking to her in Chinese, and even to Dawson’s ears, it was clear how halting and tentative his speech was, as if he were trying to choose his words as carefully as he could. The more he spoke, the more Lian’s face clouded over, and when Wei was done, she regarded him with an expression somewhere between incredulous and affronted. She took a step back, and for a moment Dawson thought she was about to retire to some internal chamber of the house, but instead she began to shout questions at Wei in a disturbing barking manner. He seemed to be trying to answer, but he never got very far, and after a while, overwhelmed by emotion, he covered his face with his hands and began to take deep, heaving breaths.
Lian staggered past him, looking confused, lost, and bewildered. Dawson watched as she swung around and shouted something else unintelligible at Wei, and then bolted for the door. Wei caught her before she got there, trying to hold her without hurting her as she struggled, screaming.
My God, Dawson thought. Worse, much worse than he had imagined, but then it often was.
Wei was trying to talk to her even as she was flailing. Then, like a light switched off, the energy left her and she collapsed into a ball on the floor sobbing in a strange braying fashion. The housemaid, who had appeared in the sitting room in alarm, knelt down by Lian, gently patting her back. After some moments, Lian’s crying lost strength, but quiet episodes were interrupted by bursts of more grief.
“Can we help her to get up and sit down?” Dawson suggested.
Huang asked her, and she agreed. Wei assisted her to the sofa.
“Please,” Dawson said to the maid, “can you bring her some water?”
She hurried then to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. Lian took one sip and gave it back, staring ahead blankly with swollen eyes.
“What was she saying when she first heard the news?” Dawson asked Huang.
