“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.