Kwei Quartey - Gold of Our Fathers

“Why did he try to wash the body?” Dawson asked.

Huang asked Wei this, and he didn’t seem to understand the point of the question.

“Because body dirty and is his brother,” Huang said simply.

Undoing , Dawson thought-trying to reverse the unpleasantness of the way his brother had been found. “Did he see any blood anywhere on Bao’s body or head?”

Huang asked Wei, who shook his head. “No.”

That was important too. “But who would want to kill Bao like that?” Dawson asked.

“Maybe some of the galamsey boys,” Huang said. “Two people from the village, while they were standing near that place where they were digging to free Bao, Wei say he hear them say, ‘These galamsey boys, now they kill the boss.’ Wei ask them, ‘What you say? Why you say that?’ But they turn away and go.”

“Why would the galamsey boys want to kill Bao?” Dawson asked.

“They hate him because sometime he don’t pay them at the end of every day,” Huang said. “Sometime he wait next day, so they think he cheat them. But he never cheat them. And they hated Wei too, so that’s why they want him to see his dead brother’s body inside the ground.”

Dawson supposed that in an environment where the mine workers’ pay was so low, withholding the day’s wages might motivate a killing, but the signature here was so full of anger and intent to torture that Dawson didn’t find it credible. It could be Wei was trying to shift blame. Dawson’s hunch was that he had not killed Bao, but Dawson wasn’t ready to completely dispel the notion yet.

“The man with whom Wei stayed overnight,” he said to Huang, “will he be able to confirm that Wei was there all night until morning when he says he woke up?”

This time, the discussion between the two was long and complicated and Dawson truly wished he understood Chinese- whichever type they were speaking.

“Okay,” Huang said, turning to Dawson and evidently preparing to launch into a long explanation, “this how it is. In the man’s house-his name is Feng-he has two room, so he let Wei sleep in one, but tell him close door because Wei snore very loud, and he disturb. So maybe you ask Feng. He tell you if he hear Wei snoring during the night.”

“How did he know about the snoring?” Dawson asked. “Had Wei stayed at Mr. Feng’s home before?”

“Yes, many time,” Huang answered.

Snore alibi , Dawson thought. That might be a first. “Okay, then you will take us to this Mr. Feng so we can talk to him. One more thing: Where is Bao’s phone? Did Wei locate it anywhere?”

The answer to that was no. Wei’s opinion was that whoever had killed Bao had also taken his phone, and he suspected the galamsey boys, who had scattered without a trace, were the responsible party. Dawson admitted that their disappearance was troublesome, but Wei’s imagined scenario didn’t quite fit the picture. There was still a lot that didn’t make sense.

Dawson stood up. “Let’s go to Mr. Feng’s house.”

Huang did not know where Feng lived, so Wei would have to travel with the group to show them the route. As Dawson, Obeng, Mr. Huang, and the handcuffed prisoner walked out of the station toward Huang’s SUV, Akua Helmsley and her cameraman Samuels were waiting outside in the shade of a mango tree bearing early fruit.

“Chief Inspector,” she said. “We meet again.”

“And I’m sure not for the last time,” he said, barely slowing his pace as he walked by, but she kept up with him.

“Progress?” she asked.

“Not much.”

“Is Wei Liu your prime suspect in the murder?”

“No.”

“Why is he still in handcuffs then?”

He looked at her. “Actually for a different offense.”

“For being an illegal miner?”

Dawson shook his head. “The legal status of miners isn’t my concern, Miss Helmsley.”

Obeng got in the backseat of the SUV with Wei.

“So, no prime suspect so far,” Helmsley said. “Where are you going now?”

“To make some inquiries,” Dawson said unhelpfully as he got into the front passenger seat.

“I’ll check back with you in a couple of days,” Helmsley said “Is that okay?”

“Yes,” Dawson replied, not certain he meant it.

Dawson, Obeng, Wei, and Mr. Huang picked their way through the thick weeds and shrubs that hampered the walk up to Feng’s house, which was literally in the bush off an unpaved road. Two Chinese men, one in his late twenties and the other in his midforties, were loading the back of a mud-caked red Toyota pickup. They turned as Dawson and Huang approached.

“N ǐ h ǎ o,” Huang greeted them.

They responded, and Huang introduced Dawson and explained the purpose of the visit. The older man was Feng, the younger was a friend who was helping him transport some new water pumps to a mining site around a village called Aniamoa. As Huang spoke, Feng was nodding. He had high, tight cheekbones and sharp wrinkles like starbursts at the corners of his eyes from squinting. He put a cigarette between his lips, lit it with a match, and said something.

Huang turned to Dawson. “He say, yah, it’s true Wei stay here last night, because he have to get up early and not want to go all the way back to Kumasi.”

“Does Feng know what time Wei went to bed?”

Huang conferred again. “He doesn’t remember exactly. About eleven o’clock, Wei went into his room to sleep.”

“Does the room have a door?”

Feng confirmed that.

“You want me to ask him if you look inside the house?” Huang asked Dawson.

Ten points for excellence, Huang , Dawson thought. “If Mr. Feng has no objection, I would appreciate it.”

Feng considered the request for a second and then said yes.

It was a small brick house that had never received a second coat of paint. Inside, it reeked of cigarettes and was rudimentary-a battered settee, a table, and two plastic chairs in the sitting room; a hot plate in the kitchenette on the far right with a couple plates, pots, and pans; and two buckets filled with water no doubt from the borehole Dawson had noticed outside. The toilet took up minimal space in the far left corner.

Feng indicated the “bedroom” in which Wei had spent the night. It was nothing more than an eight-by-six space with a mosquito-netted window and a thin foam mattress on the concrete floor. Most importantly, though, the room had a door.

“Did Wei shut the door when he went to sleep?” Dawson asked.

Feng said yes. Whenever Wei stayed there, he shut his door to minimize the disturbance his snoring might cause.

Dawson looked across to the other bedroom, which was considerably larger. Clothes were strewn across the bed and on the floor. He had no interest in seeing anything more than that, nor did he need to. “And did Feng also shut his door when he went to bed?” he asked Huang.

Feng replied that he had.

“Could he hear Wei snoring during the night?” Dawson asked.

He waited while the two men discussed this.

“Feng say he hear it little bit,” Huang said, “but when he wake up go to toilet, he hear it well.”

Dawson perked up. “What time was that?”

“Not look at the time, but he say he usually get up one time at night to piss around three o’clock.”

Dawson nodded. “And the next time Feng woke up was when?”

“Six o’clock,” Huang said. “He see Wei door still close and hear Wei still snore, and so he knock and open it and say, ‘Hey, man, what you doing? You not go to the mine?’ And Wei jump up and look at his phone and start to shout, and run out of the house to his truck.”