“Add them?”
“No. What else could we do?”
Hosiah thought for a minute. “Oh. Multiply them.”
“Good. So what do we get?”
“Um… twelve.”
“Right.” Dawson gave the pencil back to his son. “Draw a line and put twelve underneath. Now, what do we do with the top numbers-the numerators?”
He guided Hosiah through the steps until they got the correct answer.
“Not so bad, right?” Dawson asked, rubbing his son’s head.
Hosiah smiled. “Can I do the next one by myself, Daddy?”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
With only a couple missteps, Hosiah arrived at the correct solution. Dawson helped him with the remaining thirteen calculations.
“You’ve done a good job,” he said to Hosiah. “I’ll talk to Mama and see if you can go out and play now. First, you have to explain why you got into a fight today at school.”
He listened as his son stumbled through his account of what had happened. Abraham, one of the bigger boys at school, had cut in front of Hosiah as he waited in line for the midmorning snack. Hosiah had reacted by trying to push Abraham away, and a shoving match had escalated quickly into a full-blown fight on the ground.
This was tricky. While Hosiah should be able to stand up for himself, Dawson wanted to steer him away from fighting. “Did you say to Abraham, ‘I don’t like it that you got in front of me?’”
“No,” Hosiah said sulkily. “If I said that, then he would just hit me.”
“And that’s when you defend yourself. Remember some of the techniques I showed you?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“But instead what happened is that you started a fight.”
“He started it because he got in front of me!” Hosiah whined.
In some ways, he’s right. “Don’t raise your voice,” Dawson said quietly.
“Sorry, Daddy.”
“You always defend yourself, but you should never be the first one to hit, push, or kick another person. That’s not the way the Dawsons behave. Okay?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“In the end you didn’t get your snack. You and Abraham had to carry buckets of water, and Mama has now given you extra homework as more punishment, and you can’t go to play football with Sly. So you see what you ended up doing? You only hurt yourself.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
Dawson pulled him over to his lap, holding him close. “Remember when your heart was sick and you were so good and smart at the hospital?”
Hosiah nodded.
“Mama and I were very proud of you, because you handled your heart condition so well, and all the doctors and the nurses admired you. I even had doctors who weren’t taking care of you stopping me in the hospital to tell me how amazing my son is. And then they left me standing there thinking, ‘I don’t even know who that doctor was.’”
Hosiah giggled.
“But fighting isn’t something that will make Mama and me proud of you,” Dawson said, “and nobody else will respect you for it. Okay?”
He nodded.
“Good,” Dawson said. “You want to go with me to the park and play some football together? Just you and me? ”
Hosiah looked up at his dad, eyes shining. “Yes!”
Later on, before bed, Christine asked Dawson what had happened with Hosiah.
“Actually,” Dawson said, “I’ve figured it out. Punishment is not what he needs more of.”
“Oh, really?” she asked, smoothing cocoa butter into her gorgeous skin. “Tell me.”
“Put yourself in his little shoes. It’s been about a year since your heart operation and you’re doing well. Now you play football, and you’re good at it, and you have new friends and popularity. Now your father comes along; uproots you from your environment, your school, and your friends; and takes you to a strange school, and a strange home in a strange city. Now you need even more support, especially from your father, but he’s so busy with work that he almost seems to be ignoring you. You’re angry, but you can’t take it out on your father, so you take it out on others.”
Christine tilted her head, considering. “Maybe. So what now?”
“I’ll try to get home earlier from now on,” Dawson said. “I’ll check both of their homework and talk to them about school, and then go with them to the football park.”
“Wow,” Christine said admiringly. “I like that! I’m assuming you’ve got the Obuasi office more organized now.”
“It’s much better,” Dawson said, pulling his T-shirt off and getting ready for a shower.
“And the case?” Christine asked, putting her hair up for the night. “All settled, or still having doubts?”
“Still having doubts, but I’m stuck. Don’t know where to turn.”
“Something will come up,” Christine said confidently. “It always does.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
It was only the following afternoon that Christine’s prediction proved accurate. Dawson was at the office digging up more reports of armed robberies of victims who were carrying gold or cash for gold, when he received a call from Chikata. He had visited Tommy Thompson at the corporate offices of PMMC in Accra.
“Something strange is going on, boss,” Chikata said. “Akua Helmsley said she talked to Thompson, right?”
“Correct.”
“I had a solid conversation with him. He was very cordial and open with me. You know what he told me? He said not only has Akua Helmsley never spoken to him, she has never visited PMMC.”
“What? Never?”
“He called each of his underlings separately into his office and all of them said exactly the same thing: they have never seen the woman set foot on the premises.”
Dawson frowned. “That can’t be, surely. You say Thompson didn’t seem evasive in any way?”
“Not at all,” Chikata said. “You know, when I asked him why Helmsley would have claimed to have spoken to him, he looked at me as if I had just come from another planet and said, ‘So you don’t know about Miss Helmsley’s MO?’ ‘What MO?’ I asked. ‘Miss Helmsley either deliberately makes up her facts or gets them wrong,’ he said.”
“Can he prove that?”
“The network was down for the moment,” Chikata said, “so he couldn’t get access to her articles, but he said several of the figures she cited in her article were wildly inaccurate, and on occasions when he’s tried to call her to object, she hasn’t taken his calls.”
At first, Dawson had been certain Helmsley would not do something like this, but now he was wavering. Could he have over-idealized her? What if her zeal for the truth had slipped down a slope of fabrication?
“So then I asked him about Helmsley’s claim about the PMMC and the Ministry of Lands, Forestry, and Mines,” Chikata continued, helping Dawson to focus, “that they use illegal gold earnings to inflate the official revenue figures, and he began to laugh. He said the idea is so ridiculous that if Helmsley publishes that she’ll be laughed out of town.”
Dawson remembered that he himself had been skeptical when Akua had stated the accusation to him, and he began to feel uncomfortable, experiencing doubts about her.
Chikata continued. “And then Thompson made another comment that he was almost certain that if Helmsley really has a so-called inside source, it’s probably one of the three disgruntled employees they’ve sacked in the last year or so.”
“Who are they?”
“Thompson gave me the names and contact phones, so I’ll get onto that and see if I can interview them.”
“Good work, Chikata. Thanks.”
“Welcome, boss.”
Dawson was lost in thought for a moment. What Chikata had just told him was bothersome. “How are things with the new boss?” he asked, perhaps just to get away from the pondering for a moment.