Kwei Quartey - Gold of Our Fathers

Finally, lowering his voice, Huang said to Dawson, “Mr. Liu say he can give you a little something, is no problem.”

“Look here,” Dawson snapped, “Mr. Liu is in enough trouble already, and now he wants to bribe me?”

Wei stiffened when Huang translated that, and then seemed to droop completely. Dawson moved on. “Mr. Huang, I don’t think I’ve asked you how you know Mr. Liu.”

“I meet him one year ago. He come from his hometown in Shanglin-Guangxi Province. I meet Bao three year ago. He come buy ’quipment my store.”

“Was Bao married?”

“Yes. His wife Stay Kumasi”

“Did he meet his wife in China or in Ghana?”

“China.”

“Did they have children?”

“Daughter.”

“I see,” Dawson said. “Were Bao and Wei full brothers?” Dawson asked. “Same father, same mother?” He was thinking that a stepsibling situation might have hinted at conflict, although not necessarily. Huang checked with Wei, confirming that they had been full siblings.

Dawson sat back and contemplated Wei for a moment. “How was life in your town in China-in Shanglin County?”

Wei seemed uncertain or wary about the question, but after some hesitation, he said that life could be good for some, but not for others. When Bao left China, life had not been good for the Liu family. Like everyone else who left Shanglin for Ghana, the ultimate goal was to make a lot of money and return to the motherland rich.

“After Bao stay in Ghana two year, feel so lonely without Lian.” Huang continued. He beg her to come to him, and he tell Wei to come with her to protect her nothing bad happen.”

So technically, Dawson thought, the Lius were members of the “Shanglin Gang” in the country illegally, as Helmsley had described. Dawson was interested to know more, but perhaps some other time. For now, he needed to get on with the investigation at hand. Obviously Bao Liu had not tied himself up like a contortionist and buried himself under a pile of dirt, and grief-stricken or not, Wei was a potential suspect.

Dawson took out his pocket notebook. He used a fresh one for each homicide case, and at home he had a carton with enough to last him for years, courtesy of his Takoradi cousin who owned a stationery store.

“How did Bao and Wei divide the duties once Wei arrived here from China?” Dawson asked.

“Wei do the day-to-day things,” Huang replied. “Make sure everything work at site. Bao take care of the books-ordering, buying.”

Bao was firmly in charge, Dawson thought . And why not? He had started the business and his brother came along after that. “Where did Bao live?”

“Kumasi. Wei too.”

“In the same residence?”

“When Wei first come, they live together, but then Wei say he want to stay another place, so he moved.”

Dawson wondered if there had been arguments between the two brothers. “Has Bao’s wife been informed of the death?”

Huang asked Wei, who shook his head.

“He hasn’t had time call her yet,” Huang explained.

“Okay, we’ll take care of informing her as soon as possible.”

Huang translated, and Wei nodded.

“When was the last time he saw Bao?” Dawson asked.

The Chinese men conferred, after which Huang turned back to Dawson. “Yesterday morning,” he said, “he go to Bao house in Kumasi, tell Bao for two days now, something wrong with the excavator hydraulic”-Huang stumbled over the word-“arm, not working and need new part. So Wei and Bao went into the town to look for the part.”

“They find the part to buy, and so by the afternoon, Wei go back to the mining site in Dunkwa to try and fix the arm with one of the galamsey boys, but it take long and start to get dark, and still the arm have trouble. So he call Bao and say he gonna continue very early next morning before the work start, because you know, without excavator, lose time, lose money. And he ask Bao if he can come in the morning too so he can help, and Bao say, yes, okay, he will go to the mining site at four o’clock in the morning.”

With Dawson’s new and growing comprehension of alluvial mining, he recognized the importance of getting the excavator repaired. He didn’t know how much gold ore those huge machines could dig up in a day, but it was certainly thousands of times more than a human could. The Lius had already lost two days or more of excavation, and they were anxious to reverse the trend, even if it meant fixing the machine by flashlight.

Dawson jotted down:

Bao & Wei: plan to meet 4 a.m. Friday.

“Okay, what happened next?”

“So, Wei say too late to go back to Kumasi-too far,” Huang went on, “so rather he stay with some friend, one Chinese man who live in Dunkwa, so it won’t take him long to go the mine site in the morning.”

That stood to reason, Dawson thought. It was at least a two-hour drive back to Kumasi, prolonged mostly by the atrocious Dunkwa-Obuasi segment. If Wei was to get back to the mine by four in the morning, he would have to leave Kumasi at about 2 a.m.

“So,” Huang said, “he stay with that friend and suppose to wake up three thirty, but he so tired he forget to set phone alarm and not hear Bao trying to call him four twenty this morning. It was his friend who knock on the door of his room at six o’clock to wake him up and ask him if he not going to the mine.”

Alarm not set for o33o, woke up 6

Thinking about the panicky feeling that must have gripped Wei as he realized he had badly overslept, Dawson glanced up. The Chinese man held his head in his hands, the stark implications of his phone alarm lapse evidently not lost on him. If only he had joined his brother at the appointed time, he might have thwarted the plans of Bao’s killer-or killers.

“He arrive mining place at about six twenty-five,” Huang continued. “By that time, he see Bao pickup there already, and he ask the galamsey boys where Bao, and they say haven’t seen him. So he call Bao phone and don’t get no answer. He call another time, and another time.”

“What about between four and six? Did Wei receive any calls from Bao?”

“Only one, at four twenty, and then nothing after that.”

“Can he show me the call log on his phone to prove that?”

Huang asked Wei, and to Dawson’s relief, he agreed. The business of police investigation of personal phone data had become complicated in Ghana. One clever lawyer had won a case on a technicality that the investigating officer had examined all the accused phone’s SMS messages without asking permission. If Wei agreed to show them a limited amount of information, Dawson thought they would be okay. “Please bring him his phone from the confiscated belongings,” he asked Obeng, then turned back to Huang. “What time did the galamsey workers get to the site?”

“They usually get there about five forty-five.”

This is good, Dawson thought. It set the time of death between 4:20 and 5:45 in the morning.

Obeng got back with the smartphone, an LG with a Chinese keyboard, and Dawson asked Wei to bring up the call log. It confirmed Bao’s call at the time Wei had stated.

“So, the two pickup trucks I saw parked at the site belong to Wei and his brother?” Dawson asked Mr. Huang.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Which one is Bao’s?”

“The red one.”

“Thank you,” Dawson said. “After Wei got to the mining site, what happened next?”

Huang listened to the next part of the narration from Wei.

“While Wei try call his brother,” Huang translated, “one of the galamsey boy say he hit something inside the soil while digging. After that, Wei come, and he help the boys dig. Then they can see it somebody head, and they see it’s Bao. Take ’bout thirty minute get whole body out, and they put it on the ground. By that time, many people come to watch, and Wei say, no, he don’t want people to look at his brother like that. And so he carry Bao to the shack and try to wash the body.”