“What did he say?”
“He said he would kill Mr. Bao for what he did to Amos.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After he wrote his report about Obeng in painstaking longhand, Dawson called Commander Longdon to tell him about it. Although he didn’t answer, he called back about thirty minutes later. Dawson gave him a summary of events.
“You did the right thing, Dawson,” Longdon said after listening to the account. “This is very disturbing and I’ll get on it as soon as I get in on Monday.”
“I gather that Sergeant Obeng has assaulted prisoners before, sir,” Dawson said.
Slight pause. “Why do you say that?”
“The way he responded to my questions, I could tell.”
“I see.” Longdon heaved a heavy sigh. “Nothing like that has been reported to me.”
Of course not, Dawson thought in annoyance. Because no one reports anything to anyone around here-or in the GPS in general, for that matter. It was a generalization, he realized, and not completely true. He had been in a state of irritation from the moment he had stepped foot in Gifty’s guesthouse this morning.
“What about his drinking, sir?” Dawson asked.
“I know nothing about it.”
It was possible, Dawson reasoned. Commanders had more interaction with chief inspector rank and above, and less with the very low ranks. It was up to the chief inspectors to report problems like alcoholism to the commander. And it could be, too, that Obeng had successfully hidden his addiction until now.
“I’ll attend to the matter on Monday,” Longdon stated. “Do you have your report ready?”
“If one of the secretaries is available, I can have it typed early in the morning, sir.”
“Yes. Please give it to my assistant, Lance Corporal Asante, and she’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” He added quickly, “I have a request, sir.”
“Yes, what is it?” he said, a slight edge of impatience creeping into his voice.
“I’m assuming that since Sergeant Obeng will be suspended, I won’t have a partner to work on the case, so I would like to request that my normal partner, Inspector Philip Chikata from Central Headquarters, join me from Accra.”
“What?” Longdon said, sounding incredulous. “Why from Accra? I have another sergeant in Obuasi we can replace Obeng with, and if that fails, we have officers at Kumasi Regional Headquarters, for example-which is much closer.”
Dawson wasn’t going to let it go quite that easily. “Working with someone I know and trust will expedite the case, sir.”
“I won’t agree to it, and Central won’t either, Dawson.”
“Please, sir, why won’t you agree to it, sir?” he said, aware that if he wasn’t challenging Longdon’s wisdom and authority, he was dangerously close.
“Because that’s the way it is,” the commander snapped, plainly cross now.
He ended the call abruptly, leaving Dawson in an exceedingly bad mood. His mother-in-law, Obeng, Longdon, Obuasi, Kumasi… you name it, he was annoyed with him, her, or it. And if the commander thought he was going to forget about getting Chikata up here to Obuasi, he was very much mistaken.
At that moment, Dawson could have really used Chikata so he could split the next important investigation steps: talking to Chuck Granger, and going to look for Yaw Okoh, the man who, according to Kudzo, had once threatened to kill Bao Liu in revenge for Liu’s allegedly murdering Yaw’s brother Amos by dumping him into a water-filled mining pit.
Which one should Dawson do first? He thought he would tackle Yaw today, and Granger early in the coming week.
His phone rang, and seeing it was his wife, he decided to make an effort to be nicer than he had been during the prickly last call.
“Hi, love,” he said cheerily.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said, more matter-of-factly. “Okay, I think we have this set up so things will go well from now on. Mama called Uncle Joe and put pressure on him. He promises to meet with the contractor at the house tonight, and then Mama will go up to Kumasi tomorrow to reinforce.”
The plan had been for Christine and the boys to make the big move from Accra the following weekend. Knowing how things went where building contractors were concerned, Dawson could almost guarantee that the guesthouse would not be ready for his wife and kids. In any case, they would have to vacate the Accra house imminently to give way to the new set of renters who were waiting to get in with a one-year lease.
As much as he told himself to take a more positive outlook, Dawson remained relentlessly pessimistic as he got into the Corolla and headed to Dunkwa.
It was later than Dawson had wanted it to be by the time they got there. The sun was making plans to retire for the day, and heavy rain clouds were moving in.
He had no idea where to look for Yaw Okoh, but he thought The Lord Is My Shepherd Chop Bar ahead was a good start. If Yaw wasn’t there, someone might know where to find him. He pulled over and alighted.
The chop bar was bigger than Dawson had imagined, and hip-life music with the almost mandatory auto-tune vocals was blaring. Men and women-mostly men-sat talking and drinking at bare wooden tables painted blue. In fact, everything was painted blue.
Dawson greeted a group of five guys at one table and, raising his voice above the music, asked if they knew Yaw Okoh.
“Which Yaw Okoh?”
Fair question. “The one whose brother Amos died,” Dawson said promptly, because that was the most likely tidbit to get to the right person.
The men looked at each other knowingly.
“Yes, I know where he and his family live,” one of them said.
Rather than get directions that were likely to be confusing or simply wrong, Dawson asked the man if he would please come with him to show him the way. He looked reluctant, but Dawson told him he would dash him enough money to buy another beer, which, if his pungent breath and heavy-lidded eyes were any testimony, he did not need. He nodded, drained his glass, and got up unsteadily to follow Dawson out to the car.
The drunkard gave him slurred instructions where to go, at one point nodding off to sleep, only to be jerked awake by Dawson barking, “Hey! Chaley, wake up!” When they got to the destination, the drunkard pointed to the putative house. Dawson gave him a couple cedis, and the intoxicated man lurched away somewhere-possibly to another drinking spot.
Dawson walked to the house. On the veranda, a woman around his age was doing an expensive hair weave on another woman whose bare shoulders were so soft and smooth Dawson could almost taste them.
“Mema mo aha,” Dawson greeted them, using the most courteous of forms for “good afternoon.”
“Yaa nua,” they replied in kind.
“Is this the house of Yaw Okoh?”
“Yes.” The hairstylist looked at him. “Who are you?”
“My name is Darko Dawson.”
She finished one cycle of a weave. “Please wait here. I will call him to come.”
“Thank you.”
She went into the house, pausing to leave her slippers on the veranda before entering in her bare feet.
Smoothie looked at Dawson. “Darko. Are you from Accra?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“The way you speak, I can tell you’re not from here.”
“Oh,” he said, marveling at the clarity of her skin. “Is that bad?”
“No, not at all. I like it.” She laughed, raking him from head to toe. “Dunkwa is boring. I like Accra men.”
Something told Dawson she had claws he shouldn’t get anywhere close to.
The hairstylist returned.
“Please,” she said, shooting a knowing glance at Smoothie, who kept her gaze down, “Yaw is not in, but his father and mother are there. You can go inside.”
“Thank you very much.”
He took off his shoes before entering. Showing respect went a long way to getting answers. Light and ventilation were almost nonexistent inside the house. Mr. and Mrs. Okoh were seated on a haggard sofa in an otherwise bare sitting room. He greeted them and shook hands with the lady first. The man was dressed in traditional cloth slung over one shoulder, the woman in a more ordinary skirt and blouse. He smelled smoke on her and guessed that she had been cooking at a wood stove. She was small, in her late forties, and unlike Smoothie outside, had one of the worst cases of relaxer-fried hair Dawson had ever seen.