Gold of Our Fathers

by Kwei Quartey

  Asase gunned the jeep. At first the would-be assassin tried to reach his vehicle, but he looked behind him and saw Dawson and Asase coming too quickly for him to make it. He swerved left and headed for the bush. At the verge, he stumbled and dropped his weapon. As Asase hit the brakes, Dawson swung open his door and jumped out, followed by Asase a second later, both running after the man. Dawson had been a little closer to him to start with, and began to gain on him. Tough shrubbery covered a depression at the side of the road. The man leapt across it, but he had misjudged both its width and depth, and he fell. Dawson put in a burst of speed and jumped into the depression, landing solidly on the guy as he started to scramble up. Dawson pulled him down. They wrestled briefly until Asase leapt in, and he and Dawson immobilized the man facedown.

  Dawson fumbled for his cuffs, but Asase had his out already. Together they brought the man’s hands together behind his back and cuffed him.

  “Don’t move,” Dawson said to the man, gasping. He needed a second to catch his breath. He looked at Asase, who was pouring sweat. “Okay, we turn him over on three.”

  He counted and they flipped the man over. Dawson put his fingers at the base of the mask and ripped it off the man’s face.

  “Oh, my God,” Dawson said, flabbergasted. “Obeng. Obeng, why?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Obeng began to weep. “Mepa wo kyew. I’m sorry. Please, I’m sorry.”

  “How could you do this?” Dawson was stunned. “Is someone else with you? Are you alone?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m by myself,” Obeng said.

  “Are you lying to me?”

  “No, please. I swear I’m alone.”

  “Let’s take him to the jeep,” Dawson said to Asase.

  They pulled Obeng up to his feet and supported him as they climbed out of the depression, which was awkward and took some effort. The sun was ruthless and all three men were soaked with sweat. Asase went back to retrieve the shotgun.

  Desperate to understand what was going on, Dawson sat in the back seat with Obeng. “Now, start talking,” Dawson snapped. “Who sent you?”

  The sergeant bowed his head. “Please, I need protection,” he said weakly. “If you guarantee that me and my family will not be victimized for telling the truth, I know I can trust you, and I will talk.”

  “I will do my best,” Dawson said, not wanting to overcommit himself, “but I’m losing patience now. Who sent you, Obeng? Who ordered you to kill us?”

  The sergeant looked down at his hands. He seemed paralyzed.

  “Mr. Michael sent you?” Dawson asked.

  Obeng shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “Then it can be only one other person,” Dawson said. “Commander Longdon.”

  Almost imperceptibly, Obeng nodded his affirmation.

  In the driver’s seat, Asase recoiled and looked away. “No,” he said firmly. “That cannot be. Not the commander. Excuse me to say it, boss Dawson, but this is a lie. Why the sergeant is accusing ACP Longdon of this, I don’t know, but it has to be this Mr. Michael.”

  Obeng grunted, bitter amusement in his expression. “Constable, what you are saying is funny because Mr. Michael and the commander are the same person.”

  Asase’s head whipped around and Dawson jerked upright. “What?”

  “Yes,” Obeng said, nodding. “One and the same.”

  “How is that possible?” Dawson asked skeptically.

  “When, for example, a businessman wants to trade in gold,” Obeng began explaining, “a middleman like Mr. Granger will tell the businessman that Mr. Michael will call him about the deal. You can never call Mr. Michael. Granger will inform the people at the mansion—they are all Longdon’s family members—and they will take the number of the businessman, pass it on to the commander, and tell the businessman to wait for Mr. Michael’s call. The commander will call the businessman and arrange the deal. He disguises his voice and tells the guy what time he should go to the mansion. Anytime someone arrives at the mansion expecting to see Mr. Michael, they are told that he is not available but that he has left all necessary instructions to complete the deal.”

  “So no one has ever seen the Mr. Michael they think they are speaking to,” Dawson said, “because he doesn’t exist.”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. “Commander Longdon gives the orders for the robberies after the person has left the mansion. Whether they sold or bought gold, whatever they have on them is stolen and goes back to the mansion. The victim loses twice. When the victim reports the crime, the case goes to the Obuasi Division. What happens with such case is the same thing Mr. Tanbry experienced.”

  “In other words, the investigation goes nowhere,” Dawson said grimly.

  “The commander will tell the victim about the increase in this kind of crime over the past year,” Obeng continued, “and how the department will do its very best to get to the bottom of it. Some people like Mr. Tanbry are suspicious, and the lady, Akua Helmsley, was getting close to understanding how the scam worked. She was dangerous to Commander Longdon. He wanted to destroy even the slightest threat.”

  It was worse than Dawson ever could have imagined. “He had her and Samuels killed?” he asked.

  Obeng nodded. Dawson thought bitterly back to the day before when Longdon had called him about Akua’s murder. At the scene, the commander had expressed his outrage. Cold-blooded brutality. It’s a terrible shame. Dawson recalled his words clearly. And all along it was Longdon himself who was responsible?

  Could Obeng be lying? Dawson didn’t think so. “Who carried out the ambush on Miss Helmsley and Samuels?”

  Obeng looked up wearily. “Two guards at the mansion—the machomen. They did it early in the evening the day before Miss Helmsley and Samuels were found.”

  “Where were you?” Dawson asked.

  “I was on duty in the charge office that day,” Obeng said.

  That would be easy enough to check, Dawson thought.

  “You see,” Obeng continued, “the first time I was caught drinking on the job, the commander told me he would spare me from being sacked if I could help him with some simple services, and I’d also get some money out of it. I started being a guard at the mansion one or two times when I was not on duty, and then one day Commander Longdon’s cousin asked me to substitute for one of the guards in a certain kind of operation. I didn’t know what it was until almost the time of the ambush, when the guy I was with said all I had to do was help him get the two men in the vehicle out at gunpoint and then stand guard while he got cash out of the vehicle.”

  “And you were paid for the job?” Dawson asked.

  “Yes, please. I got my share of the cash.”

  Dawson could deduce what had happened over the last few hours. “Early this afternoon, Commander Longdon called you to say he had an emergency job?”

  “Yes, please. He told me two people would be traveling in a jeep and that I should shoot to kill, but he didn’t tell me who would be in the vehicle. When I saw it was you, I couldn’t do it. I just fired the shotgun and hoped it would scare you away.” Obeng looked at Dawson. “You don’t know how much the commander hates and fears you.”

  The “fear” part surprised Dawson at first, but what Obeng really meant was Longdon feared that the truth would be found out.

  “One more question, Obeng,” Dawson said. “Was it you who told some of the Chinese miners when a raid was coming?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Did the commander tell you to do it?”

  “No,” Obeng said, head down. “I did it for the money. The Chinese people gave me a small dash for the information. This is Ghana. You do whatever you can to get money.”

  How very true that is, Dawson reflected.

  KUMASI

  NOVEMBER

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Dawson sipped his Malta while D
aniel Armah had beer on a late Saturday afternoon as they sat on the back porch and reminisced. The older man had about five stories for every one of Dawson’s. They came around to the topic of Commander Longdon.

  “Tell me again how you took him into custody,” Armah said, settling comfortably back in his chair. “I never get tired of hearing about it.”

  “This is how it went,” Dawson began. “When we went to the commander’s house, he was in the sitting room having drinks with friends. He was surprised to see us. ‘What are you doing here?’ I went up to him and touched him on the shoulder. I told him he was under arrest as an accessory to murder, armed robbery, and all the rest of it.”

  “His reaction?” Armah asked.

  “Surprisingly calm. He told me that as a junior officer, I could not arrest him and that I should get out. And at that point, in walks DCOP Manu, who says coolly, ‘I am your senior officer, so I’ll do the arresting.’ Commander looked confused, as if he didn’t really know what was happening to him. DCOP Manu cautioned him, and told him, ‘Come along, it’s time to go.’ And the best part is she turned to his guests and said, “‘Excuse the interruption. Please carry on.’”

  Armah laughed. “What a wonderful woman she is.”

  “She will oversee the Obuasi Division until they find Commander Longdon’s replacement,” Dawson said.

  “She will do more than a capable job,” Armah said. “But listen, there’s one other person I’m curious about. The American guy—Chuck Granger? How does he fit in, if at all?”

  “I think he’s in the clear,” Dawson replied. “He has an alibi provided by Tommy Thompson, and even though Thompson could have cooperated with him to provide a fake one—meaning Granger really came back to Kumasi from Accra earlier than he said he did—I don’t think Granger had the slightest interest in Bao Liu.”

  “I see. Well done, Darko.”

  “Thank you, Daniel,” Dawson said warmly. He hesitated before speaking again.

  “I sense something is bothering you, isn’t it?” Armah said, smiling gently.

  Dawson sighed and leaned forward, rubbing his forehead as if it hurt. “I’m just not one hundred percent sure that Yaw Okoh really killed Bao Liu. I lose sleep over it every night.”

  Armah nodded. “That little voice of intuition of yours always speaks the truth. If this is bothering you, you must go back again over the same territory and look for something you missed.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  In Sunday’s sweltering noon heat, Dawson found Mr. and Mrs. Okoh working on their cassava farm. Both were hoeing and turning the dry soil, but she had the additional burden of carrying a small child on her back.

  “Ayekoo!” Dawson called out, recognizing their hard work.

  They responded in kind, mopping their brows of sweat as he came up to them, and, exchanged greetings. They invited him over to the shade at the edge of the plot, and they sat on a fallen log.

  “How are you?” Dawson asked them.

  Mr. Okoh turned the corners of his mouth down and turned his palms up briefly. “By His Grace, we are managing.”

  Dawson nodded. “And who is this little one?” he asked, gently passing his fingers over the soft hair of the infant strapped to Mrs. Okoh’s back.

  “That is Ama,” she said with a smile, glancing over her shoulder. “Amos’s child.”

  “She is sweet.” Dawson said. He looked up at them. “Have you seen Yaw?”

  “Yes, please,” Okoh said, looking sad. “We went to visit him last week at Kumasi Central Prison. All the life has left his body.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dawson said.

  Mrs. Okoh cast her eyes down. “He is suffering,” she said. “He won’t eat. He has become very thin.”

  Dawson couldn’t imagine a thin Yaw. “Mr. and Mrs. Okoh, deep in my heart, I no longer feel your son killed the Chinese man,” he said. “He wanted to save his father from going to prison.”

  “Yes, please.” Okoh said, and his wife murmured agreement. “God bless you, Owura Dawson.”

  Dawson sat a little forward. “Is there nobody else that you know who might have wanted to kill the Chinese man?”

  Okoh looked at him with weary eyes. “Please, I can accuse someone just to get my son out of prison, but that won’t bring me any peace either, will it?”

  Dawson didn’t need to answer that. “I will do my best to free your son.” And he added, importantly, “By His Grace.”

  In the evening, while Christine and the boys played a noisy board game, Dawson sat at the table in the sitting room and went back over his notes page by page. This is exactly why he jotted things down. Once something was said, done, or observed, it was over forever. One might think one has a good memory, but the mind always distorts, regardless.

  Dawson read through Wei Liu’s interrogation after the man had almost assaulted Kobby. He could understand why the Chinese man, in his distraught state, had done that, but it was absolutely not an acceptable excuse. Again, he wondered how these Chinese illegals viewed Ghanaians. With disdain?

  Some of Dawson’s notes were short—like those about his chat with Danquah at Ofin Trading. Not that they weren’t important, just that Dawson didn’t think their content was as crucial as that of others. He read over what he had quickly written down after he had visited Wei at his home.

  misses Bao

  grief stricken, if only heard alarm and Bao trying to call

  denies he knew about police raids b4hand

  Dawson went back to his interview with Wei at the police station and frowned. He skipped forward again. And then back.

  Discrepancy. His heart began to thump in his chest. Was he mistaken? He looked again. No, there was a discrepancy. He leaned back and for several minutes watched Christine, Hosiah, and Sly as they moved pieces and counted out spaces on their board game. Christine groaned as she was returned right back to the start. “Oh, goodness,” she said. “Why can’t I ever win this silly game?”

  Dawson got up and went to the bedroom to lie down for a while and stare at the ceiling as he tried to tie everything up. He must have dozed off for a while, because the next thing he knew it was 10:25. The boys were already asleep, and Christine was watching the news in the sitting room. Dawson came around to her and kissed her on the cheek. “I have to go out,” he told her. “Something has come up in the case, and I might not be home tonight.”

  She looked a trifle anxious, but it wasn’t as if she weren’t accustomed to Dawson’s episodic late-night police operations. “Please be safe, Dark,” she said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  As he drove to Kwadaso Estates, Dawson thought about the questions he had for Wei Liu, questions that could be crucial to solving the case. As he approached the house, a glistening silver Mercedes pulled up in front of the gate from the opposite direction. Was that Bao’s car that Lian was now driving? Dawson stopped the Corolla and watched as a woman got out. Yes, it was Lian.

  She unlocked the door to the side of the gate and entered. Seconds later, she pulled open the gate with some effort, and Dawson deduced that David the watchman had Sunday off. Dawson parked quickly as Lian got back in the Mercedes. He jumped out, stayed low, and trotted up behind the car at an angle as Lian drove through. The motion sensor lights in the yard lit up as the Mercedes parked next to the Kia.

  Dawson scuttled right to hide behind the wooden shed in the corner of the yard. Lian returned to the gate to close and padlock it, then went to the front door of the house. Wei opened it, greeted her, and she entered. The door shut firmly behind them, and Dawson heard the turn of two locks.

  What is she doing visiting her brother-in-law at this hour? The sensor light turned off, but Dawson had spotted more along the side of the house underneath the eaves. He hoped he was right that the sensors were probably set so it would not be triggered by something moving close to the ground, like a dog or
cat. Still, approaching the building was risky, and he hesitated to do it.

  Try it. He got down on his belly and slowly pulled himself along the ground like a crab until he reached the house. From his previous visit, Dawson figured out that the window above him belonged to the sitting room. An external AC compressor was on full blast a few feet to his left. The window was heavily curtained, and Dawson could see nothing inside, but he could hear Lian and Wei chatting and laughing with the TV on in the background. A pleasurable visit for both of them, obviously, he thought. He soon heard the clink of bottles and glasses. Bao’s wife and brother seemed to be extraordinary happy so soon after Bao’s death. Or perhaps they were drinking in his honor—some kind of Chinese custom. Not that Ghanaians were any better—drinking to oblivion at funerals.

  After twenty-five minutes of crouching by the wall and hearing no change in the pattern of conversation and drinking, Dawson was getting stiff and began to wonder if this move had been wise. He’d learned nothing all that special, and worst of all, he was trapped inside the compound. The wall and gate were topped by an electric fence, so he could not get out that way.

  Then, the TV went off, and the voices faded. They must be leaving the room. Dawson reversed his position, crept back in the direction he had come, made a right-angled turn along the next wall, and traveled laboriously at a crawl to the other end. It was exhausting and he was breathing heavily. A bulky generator stood at the rear of the house. This time he saw no sensor lights mounted along the wall, but the darkness was more pronounced than at the front of the house, so he wanted to be sure. Fumbling for his miniature Maglite, he realized he had forgotten it.

  No matter. Skirting another droning compressor mounted on the wall, Dawson ran low along the ground until he reached a lit, tightly shut window. He could hear muffled music from within, and Chinese dialogue that he guessed was a TV movie. He stood up slowly, off to the side of the window.