“Chuck Granger?”
“Yeah. You know the guy?”
“Yes, sir-if it’s the same one. I met him while investigating the murder of the Chinese miner who had a site adjacent to Granger’s.”
“Oh, right. I saw the Chinese guy a couple times when I went to talk to Granger-didn’t know he got killed. What happened?”
“He was buried alive in the dirt.”
“Shit. That’s messed up. It’s like the Wild West out there. Anyway, Granger is the one who was in that crappy reality show in Ghana about small-scale mining. The government kicked him and the crew out after a while.”
“That’s him.”
“Yeah, so, my Ghanaian friend is talking about this gold scheme and I’m like, whatever, whatever. Then, back in January, he invites me to a meeting in a hotel with some other guys I didn’t know, and he’s put together this fancy PowerPoint presentation about how this Granger dude has at least half a million dollars worth of gold available for purchase. Get that out of the country and sell it in the right market, I could make a profit of a cool million.”
“Where can you sell gold for that kind of profit?” Dawson asked. It seemed too good to be true.
“Dubai,” Tanbry said at once. “The UAE government doesn’t keep track of gold coming in or leaving the country. On the PowerPoint, my friend showed how the gold would be purified in Dubai from about seventy-five percent to ninety-nine point five, and sold for a massive profit.”
“What about Mr. Granger? Was he included in the scheme?”
“After the purification, he was supposed to get a kickback, yeah, for sure. My Ghanaian friend explained that if you get a good supplier, you gotta give them a reason to be loyal and keep supplying the stuff.”
“At this point, are you convinced by the presentation?” Dawson asked.
“I gotta say, it looked solid at the time, but I was still cautious and wanted to invest only ten thousand and not half a million-just to see how it went. But there’s this Houston oil guy who’s at the meeting as well, and he gets up and says he’s providing the private jet to Ghana and arranging all the customs and immigration stuff, and he’s not putting in those kind of resources for a measly ten thousand. ‘You gotta think big, Beko,’ he says, ‘or don’t think at all.’”
Dawson’s image of the Houstonian was straight out of the movies: a blustering, stout man in a cowboy hat with a cigar.
“So they all piled up on me, arguing, persuading me, until I agreed,” Tanbry went on, “but I had to see this gold for myself. Was I gonna trust just any dude with that kind of money? Hell, no. So it meant coming to Ghana. It wouldn’t be my first time. Five years ago I was in Accra looking into real estate, so it’s not like the place was completely strange.
“Took about six weeks to get everything in place. So I get out to Accra on the private jet, and then to Kumasi, then to Obuasi and Dunkwa and all that, and I meet Granger and I’m thinking I’m gonna buy the gold from him, but no, Granger only wants to do local stuff. He’s got a Ghanaian middleman who does the international. This guy’s name is Mr. Michael.”
Mr. Michael again, Dawson thought. Who is he?
“So, I ask Granger how the hell I’ma contact this Michael dude. ‘You don’t,’ Granger says. ‘He’s gonna call you.’ Okay, so I wait a couple hours, and Mr. Michael calls me. Weird voice-creepy as hell. He tells me to head out toward Pakyi, make a left onto an unpaved road just before I get to the village itself, and just keep going till I come to his place. ‘How far out?’ I ask him. ‘Not too far,’ he says, which don’t mean shit in Ghana, sorry to say, Inspector.”
“Okay, go on,” Dawson urged, ignoring the candid observation.
“I asked if I could bring an Obuasi gold expert with me to examine the goods, and Michael said okay. When we get there, it’s this big-ass building in the middle of nowhere that looks like a fortress. The dude must be making a ton of money-got a giant generator that runs everything including the AC. He had two armed guards outside who frisked us for weapons, and then one of them took us down a bunch of corridors deep into this mansion till we get to this den. All the furniture there is shiny glass and chrome, floor looks like marble. There’s an armed thug standing guard in the room, and this one little nerdy-looking guy sitting at the desk. So, of course, I think he must be Mr. Michael. I was wrong.”
“Who was he?” Dawson asked, curious himself.
“Some damn assistant!” Tanbry exclaimed with a snort. ‘“Where’s Michael?’ I ask. Hell, I didn’t come all this way to meet some assistant. But the assistant, who looks like he’s got ice in his veins instead of blood, says Michael isn’t available, but all the gold is set up and waiting for me according to his instructions.
“At first I was kinda doubtful, but when they brought out that gold for me to see, damn, it was beautiful, man. The gold expert with me told me it was top-notch and gave it the thumbs-up. So it’s all weighed out and stuff, and the machine counts the cash I brought, and I get my gold.
“Couldn’t believe how easy it was, man. I had a secret compartment in the ceiling of my SUV, so we put it all in there, but I was nervous. We’d driven about thirty minutes when we came around the corner and an SUV was blocking our way, and these two masked gunmen come out shooting, and I thought, this is it, I’ma get smoked. They make us lie facedown and tied us up, and they start ripping up the SUV looking for gold. Finally they find it and bolt, and I’m half a million dollars poorer, and I don’t have any gold. That pisses me off.”
“At any time, did you think that the attackers might have been in league with Mr. Michael?” Dawson asked, thinking that it was surely obvious.
“Are you kidding me?” Tanbry exclaimed. “That’s not even all I thought. I began to suspect the police were in on it as well.”
Dawson sat up. “Why do you say that?”
“Look, man, Longdon wasn’t not investigating any of this shit because he was lazy or incompetent. It was because he was in with this Mr. Michael dude. And the little sergeant guy down there who supposedly took the report was probably taking orders from the commander. For all I know, once I’d left, they put my case in the round file.”
“But do you have any solid proof that Commander Longdon was in league with Mr. Michael?” Dawson asked.
“I don’t, but maybe someone else does. You ever hear of a journalist called Akua Helmsley?”
Dawson was startled. “Yes, I have.” He hesitated to tell Tanbry she was dead. “How do you know her?”
“When I flew out of Ghana, she was in the seat next to me. We struck up a convo, and I told her pretty much everything that had happened to me. She said she’d like to do a story on it, and so we exchanged numbers. Months passed and I figured she’d forgotten about the whole thing when out of the blue she calls me.”
“When was that?”
“Three days ago. She said she’d gone to see the commander about the gold scam.”
Dawson frowned. Longdon hadn’t mentioned Akua’s visiting him three days ago.
“And then she said she planned to go out to see this Mr. Michael. I’m beggin’ her please, Akua, this is too damn dangerous. I was worried as hell, and I’m praying she’s okay.”
I have to tell him. “Mr. Tanbry, sir. I’m very sorry to tell you that Akua Helmsley was found dead this morning.”
He gasped. “No way. No fuckin’ way. Goddammit. Shot, right?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Am I right, or not?”
“Yes, you are sadly correct. Seems like she was returning on the same route that you were when you were robbed.”
“Ah, sweet Jesus,” Tanbry whispered. “They killed her straight up, man. They fuckin’ killed her.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Michael, man. Him and his goons. Go get ’em, Inspector. They fuckin’ killed her.”