“Before you dropped the soil on him, did you strangle him?”
“Strangle him?” Yaw frowned slightly, as if puzzled. “Please, for what? He will try to breathe inside the soil and die like that.”
Solid. But Dawson wanted to be completely sure. “In which direction was Mr. Bao’s head facing when you buried him with the excavator?”
“If the pit is here,” Yaw said, making a circle on the desk with his index finger, “then his head is here and his body is here.”
He was correct and his account was accurate. “Why did you bury him alive?” Dawson asked. “Why not kill him on the spot?”
“Why?” Yaw asked indignantly. “He made my brother suffer by drowning. Shouldn’t I make him suffer too?”
“Why bury him in the earth instead of drowning him in the pit water like Amos?”
“Because the gold he has stolen is in the earth, not in the water. What you have destroyed returns to make you suffer.”
“What did you do after you buried him?”
“I reversed the excavator and dragged the bucket over the tracks to cover them.”
Dawson threw a test at him. “Does the excavator have reversing lights?”
“Yes, and a reverse camera in the cab too.”
He knows the excavator inside out.
Dawson, searching his brain for something more, looked at Chikata to see if he had any questions.
“Mr. Yaw,” Chikata said, “after you buried Bao, where did you go?”
“By that time I was staying at the place in the forest where you found me. I took the Chinese man’s lantern and went back there to sleep, and I slept well because a heavy load had been lifted from my shoulders.”
Dawson gazed at Yaw Okoh. The man seemed to be truly at peace with himself, and ready for the charge of first-degree murder to be pronounced.
KUMASI, ASHANTI REGION
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
On a Saturday afternoon, Dawson and Christine sat with Daniel Armah and his wife, Mercy, while Hosiah and Sly spent time with the Armahs’ grandchildren in the backyard.
The adults commiserated over the terrible state of the economy. In order to bring in some more income, Armah, who was mostly retired and had a head of gray hair, was considering going back to his private detective company. Prices of fuel, food, and lodging were soaring on an almost weekly basis.
After weeks of searching, Christine had found a part-time job at a school and was earning a little money at last-not enough, but better than nothing.
“How are the children doing in the new school?” Mercy asked. A gentle, bespectacled woman, she had an idiosyncratic stripe of gray like a lightning bolt on the left side of her pulled-back hair.
Dawson exchanged a glance with Christine.
“Hosiah’s been having some adjustment difficulties at school,” she said.
Dawson nodded. “He doesn’t do as well with change as his older brother does. He missed the home environment in Accra as well as his schoolmates, and he had a brief period of behavior problems both at home and at school.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that,” Mercy said, looking concerned. “I hope he’s straightening out now?”
“Yes, little by little,” Dawson answered with a smile of relief, “but not without trying our patience.”
The conversation drifted until the women were having one conversation, the men another.
“So you got your murderer,” Armah said to Dawson. “Congrats on a job well done.”
“Thank you. I owe thanks to Christine for that.”
“Really? How so?”
“She pointed out to me that Yaw Okoh might be trying to punish his father psychologically for forcing Yaw’s brother Amos to go to farm with him.”
“A great husband-wife collaboration,” Armah said.
Dawson’s phone rang and he stepped out to take it. It was Akua Helmsley. She had reported two stories about Bao’s murder. Dawson had found her accounts to be factual and fair.
“Chief Inspector,” she said, after exchanging pleasantries, “I wanted to do a profile on you and how you solved the mystery of the Chinese man’s murder. Would that be possible?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so,” Dawson said doubtfully. He had never had a profile done, at least not in depth.
“If Mr. Samuels could have one or two photos of you in a couple different settings, then I’ll do the actual interview. It will just be about your background, what made you want to become a detective, your inspirations, and so on.”
Dawson told Helmsley that Commander Longdon would need to authorize an engagement like this.
“Of course,” she said at once. “I understand. When will you know?”
“I can ask him on Monday.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t feel quite comfortable about the photographs,” Dawson added, after a moment’s thought.
“All right then. That isn’t a problem.” She paused. “There’s something else. We have another set of photographs that you’re not aware of, and they might be useful for you to have a look at. Also, I’d like you to indicate which of them I can use for my online article.”
He said yes, and they ended the call.
“Who was that?” Christine asked
“Someone who wants to interview me for a newspaper.”
“Ooh,” Christine said teasingly. “So famous now.”
“Not really,” Dawson said, laughing.
“Is that Akua Helmsley, by any chance?” Mercy asked.
“Yes,” Dawson said.
“Who is she?” Christine asked.
“She writes for The Guardian online,” Mercy answered. “I’ve been reading her work. Very interesting. People say she’s just a pretty face, but I think they are being sexist. Her reporting is solid.”
“Oh, really, she’s attractive?” Christine asked with interest.
Dawson wished Mercy hadn’t said that.
“You always used to avoid the press,” Christine said slyly to him. “No wonder you’re so eager to cooperate this time.”
He felt his face getting warm. “Don’t be silly,” he said with studied nonchalance.
Christine burst out laughing. “I’m only teasing you, Dark. Don’t get so flustered.”
Commander Longdon okayed Dawson’s interview with Akua Helmsley. In another time, the answer might have been no, but the GPS was trying to launch a new era of good relations with the press, including the construction of the brand-new and Internet-ready GPS press relations building in Accra. The only proviso Longdon had for Dawson was that he couldn’t go into detailed descriptions of police procedure or inside politics, and that he take no longer than two hours for the whole meeting.
Early on Tuesday morning Dawson met Helmsley in a meeting room at the Golden Tulip Hotel conference center. She had invited him to have breakfast, but he had declined. He did not want to have to tell Christine that he had had breakfast with the attractive Akua Helmsley, or lie about it.
She used a small digital device to record their conversation, asking about his childhood and what life had been like for him. He was evasive about his relationship with his father and told her that he preferred not to discuss it, but he did tell Helmsley about the disappearance of his mother when he was a child, how that had shaped his desire to become a detective, and how Daniel Armah had inspired him.
In talking about the Bao Liu case, Dawson gave light details only and emphasized Yaw Okoh’s presumed innocence until he went to trial in several months and was proven guilty.
“Here are some of the pictures we have,” Helmsley said, opening up her laptop after the interview was over. “Some are of the crime scene and I want you to feel comfortable about my putting them up on The Guardian website.”
As she clicked through them, Dawson realized with shock that Helmsley had not a few, but dozens of pictures showing the progress of the unearthing of Bao Liu’s body, from when his head was first revealed through to his complete removal from the soil.