Wife of the Gods (8 page)

As always in new surroundings, Dawson took a quick snapshot of
the room. A full-scale model human skeleton in the far corner,
bookshelf bursting with medical texts and journals, stethoscope and
ophthalmoscope on the desk, piles of folders and papers everywhere,
including on the floor. An outgrown office space of a busy man with
too much to do and too little time in which to do it.

Biney rose from his desk. “D.I. Dawson, welcome!”

He was a hearty man with a voice to match, standing at least six
two. He was taller than Dawson and heavier by far. He had a neatly
cropped head of hair and an amazing salt-and-pepper mustache that
sprouted straight out to the sides. When they shook hands, Biney’s
palm dwarfed Dawson’s.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Dawson. I trust the journey was
fine?”

“Excellent, thank you, Doctor.”

“Can we get you anything? Some refreshment, maybe?”

“No, thank you. I’m okay for now.”

“Come along, then. Shall we proceed to the morgue?”

♦

They suited up – gown, apron, gloves, face shield, and shoe
covers – and moved on into the autopsy room. Dawson had somehow
imagined a long row of tables, but there were only two, and upon
one of them lay the body of a young woman.
Must be Gladys
Mensah
.

Arranging a tray of instruments nearby was a man in a heavy-duty
apron and thick, knee-high rubber boots.

Dr. Biney introduced him. “Obodai is my most trusted assistant,
and without him, this place could not run.”

Obodai laughed bashfully and offered a feeble denial, but Dawson
had no doubt that Dr. Biney’s declaration was true.

“Are we ready to go?” Biney said.

“We are ready, sir,” Obodai said.

Dr. Biney turned to the body, standing to its right side as a
doctor always does. Obodai stood at the head, near the sink, and
Dawson took his position on the left. He looked down at the body. A
courier had delivered the police file last night, complete with
photographs of the body at the crime scene, but the Gladys Mensah
now in front of him looked waxy and strangely unreal. He could tell
she had been lovely alive, and he was trying to imagine her
speaking, moving, animated.

Dawson lightly touched Gladys’s arm. “So cold,” he murmured.
“Once she was warm and breathing.”

It was what he could never quite get his mind around – not just
how complex life was, but why it was so easy for life to leave a
person once so complex.

“Only twenty-two years old,” Biney said gently. “It seems a
shame, doesn’t it, Detective Inspector Dawson?”

“It does.”

Biney took a deep breath and let out a sigh as if to say,
Be
that as it may, we have work to do
. He first brought his face
closer to Gladys and examined her slowly from head to toe. He did
not touch her yet.

“In medical school we were always taught to listen, look, and
then
feel a patient,” he said. “It’s no different dealing
with a dead person.”

Dawson watched him, trying at the same time to spot anything on
Gladys’s body that might be significant. She was lean, with
perfectly smooth skin that had likely been the color of milk
chocolate before death had darkened her.

“Anything catch your eye, Mr. Dawson?”

“Not yet.”

“Measurements, Obodai?” Biney said.

“She weighs fifty-two kilos, and measures one hundred and
seventy-three centimeters long, sir.”

“Mm-hm. Thank you. No stab or puncture wounds that I can see so
far. Nor contusions, or ecchymoses. No evidence for fractures of
the skull or long bones…” He checked her fingers. “She kept her
nails short – they look clean, but get clippings later, Obodai,
would you?”

“Very good, sir.”

“Roll her up?”

Obodai smoothly and expertly turned Gladys’s body on its side so
Biney could look at her back.

“Ah, Inspector Dawson, take a look. Here we see blanching at the
shoulders and buttocks, indicating that she was lying on her back
for some time postmortem. The weight of her body compresses the
blood vessels in the areas in contact with the ground, preventing
accumulation of blood there. I still see no wounds of any kind. The
posterior scalp’s clear of contusions or hematomas.
Interesting.”

“Let her back down, Doctor?” Obodai said.

“Yes, please. And we’ll put her on the head block now and open
the skull.”

Obodai lifted the body at the shoulders and slid the wooden
block underneath it. As he did that and Gladys’s neck became
slightly more exposed, Biney seemed to notice something. He went
closer and peered at her chin.

Dawson followed his lead. “What do you see, Dr. Biney?”

“It looks like an abrasion,” he said, with a tinge of excitement
in his voice. “I’ve seen it before, in another case. The victim is
being strangled, she lowers her chin to protect her neck and gets a
bruise from the assailant’s hands. Strangling someone is not as
easy as people think.”

“Strangling
,” Dawson echoed.

“Indeed. Change of plan, Obodai.”

“Dissect the neck, sir?”

“Yes, let’s postpone the skull for the moment.”

“Very good. Your scalpel, sir.”

Dr. Biney began at Gladys’s chin and made a long, clean incision
straight down the middle to the sternal notch. There was very
little subcutaneous fat, and the muscle layer popped into view
after minimal dissection.

“Do I see subtle hemorrhages in the soft tissues around the
right sternomastoid,” Biney said, “or do my eyes deceive? I don’t
want to be premature, but I think we may have something here.”

He continued carefully with short, precise incisions with the
scalpel, peeling away the layers covering the larynx.

“Ah.”

“What is it, Dr. Biney?”

“Fractured thyroid cartilage. Gracious. Do you see it, Inspector
Dawson? Let me show you. This is the thyroid cartilage. It looks
like a roof we’re viewing from above. This is one side of the roof
sloping up, this is the other, and where they meet is the
prominence everyone knows as the Adam’s apple. We can’t see them,
but the vocal cords are behind the cartilage – underneath the roof,
so to speak. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Look at the left side of the cartilage here. It looks smooth.
When I poke it, it moves in one piece. Now look at the right. I
depress it firmly, and what happens?”

“It bends in the middle.”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because it’s cracked.”

“Ten points. There you have it. Fracture of the thyroid
cartilage.”

“Besides strangulation, is there any other possible cause of a
thyroid cartilage fracture?”

“There are – such as falling against something and striking the
front of the neck,” Biney said. “The armrest of a chair, for
instance. Another would be a karate chop to the neck. But fractures
of the larynx in circumstances like this mostly result from
strangulation, and my finding of perilaryngeal focal hemorrhage –
in other words, bruising – is consistent with this. I wonder if the
hyoid bone was damaged as well.”

He returned to Gladys’s neck and moved upward from the thyroid
cartilage to the apex of the throat.

“Dissecting around the hyoid bone now,” he said. “It’s a much
harder structure to fracture because it’s protected behind the
lower jaw.”

A few minutes later, Dr. Biney said, “It’s intact. No fracture.
But
, there’s swelling and hemorrhage around it. Again,
consistent with considerable force applied to the neck over some
sustained period.”

Dawson gazed at Dr. Biney, and their eyes met. It was, quite
frankly, breathtaking.

“What you’re saying is – ”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mr. Dawson. In the case of
Gladys Mensah, the cause of death is asphyxiation by strangulation.
Manner of death is homicide.”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

V
ictoria typed up the
official autopsy report in no time at all and gave Dawson a
copy.

“Would you like to meet my wife and have some lunch before you
set off to Ho?” Dr. Biney suggested as he saw Dawson out. “We have
a place on the water and a floating gazebo on the river, and my
wife makes an exquisite grilled tilapia.”

It was certainly tempting, but Dawson declined with thanks. “I
should get to Ho without delay,” he explained.

“Very well – perhaps another time. You are always welcome.”

They exchanged calling cards as they continued on to Dawson’s
car.

Just as he was about to open the door, Dawson thought of
something. “You know a lot of people, Dr. Biney. Would you mind
taking a look at this?”

He dug into his pocket and fished out the gold watch he had
confiscated from Daramani. “Stolen item, seems it belongs to a
doctor. Do you know this name?”

Biney looked at the engraving on the back plate. “Good
gracious,” he said in surprise. “I most certainly do know this
fellow. He and I were classmates in med school and we’re still in
touch.”

“Any idea where he lives or works?”

“In Accra. As a matter of fact, I have to be in Accra in two
weeks and I can see to it personally that he gets it back – if
that’s okay with you, that is.”

“It’s a million times better than okay. A huge relief, really –
one less thing to do.”

“Consider it done, then.”

“Thank you, Doctor. For everything.”

“You’re most welcome, Inspector Dawson. If there’s anything I
can help you with, please don’t hesitate to call. Good luck, and
drive safely.”

♦

To get to Ketanu from Akosombo, Dawson went south again to
Atimpoku and took the Adomi Bridge across the Volta River. He
fiddled with the radio dial until he found a station playing
hip-life music – something to keep him company for the hour-long
journey. Much of that time was taken up by slowing at police
checkpoints. Togo, Ghana’s neighboring country, was not far away,
and as Dawson knew only too well, the Volta Region was a hub for
illicit drugs going back and forth across the border.

No drug-sniffing dogs at the checkpoints, thank goodness
.
Dawson had a little marijuana on him, and though his CID badge
would get him easily past the human police, nosy canines were
another matter altogether.

Traffic was light up to Ketanu. Along the road, pedestrians
trudged between one town and the next, and not for the first time,
Dawson marveled at the stamina of even small children carrying
firewood or buckets of water on their heads.

By the time he reached Juapong, he was good and hungry and kept
thinking about Dr. Biney’s alluring invitation to dine on grilled
tilapia. Dawson would have to settle for something gastronomically
simpler, and he pulled over to buy golden-roasted plantain and
groundnuts from a roadside trader.

On the way again, Dawson noticed how the vegetation began to
change from open bush with isolated skyscraper trees to denser
semi-deciduous forest, but that in turn gave way to buildings as
Dawson approached Ketanu. He passed a sign announcing
YOU
ARE ENTERING KETANU
and slowed down over the brain-rattling
speed strips.

If Ketanu had been an impressionist painting, it would have been
dots and daubs of tan and brown. Buildings were a cream color or
darker, and the rusted tin roofs exactly matched the color of the
ground. Tro-tros and taxis plied the streets, and shops and trading
kiosks lined the roadside with entertaining appellations like
Nothing but Prayer Electrical Goods and the God Is Great Hair
Clinic. Dawson loved these names.

He was looking for something recognizable from long ago, but
nothing familiar had struck him so far. Even the road he was on was
newly constructed and not the same one he had traveled with Mama
and Cairo.

Dawson was to meet an Inspector Fiti at the police station. The
directions were in his head. He turned right onto a fitfully paved
road, drove slowly up a small incline, and pulled up to a small,
stand-alone square building painted the signature dark blue with
the words
GHANA POLICE SERVICE – KETANU
across the
top in white.

Before the entrance itself, there was a small covered veranda,
where three people were seated on a wooden bench. As he walked in,
Dawson saw a counter at the front with space to fit no more than
two people behind it. To his left, down a couple of steps, were two
small jail cells, and to his right was an office whose door was
shut.

Two constables in the standard GPS gray-and-black
camouflage-like uniform were behind the counter doing some
paperwork. The younger, round-faced one, who looked to be in his
mid-twenties, looked up inquiringly.

“Good afternoon, sir. You are welcome.”

“Good afternoon. I’m Detective Inspector Dawson, Accra CID.”

The constable stood up even straighter.

“Yes, sir, Inspector Dawson, sir. I’m Constable Gyamfi.” They
shook hands. “That is Constable Bubo over there.”

“Good afternoon, sir,” Bubo said, standing up with an
acknowledging nod.

“I will let Inspector Fiti know you are here, sir,” Gyamfi said,
coming around from behind the counter. He knocked on the closed
office door, opened it, and put his head in.

“Please, sir, Detective Inspector Dawson from Accra is
here.”

“Who?” Dawson heard the inspector say.

“D.I. Dawson, sir. From CID, sir.”

“From
Accra
, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was silence for a moment. The door opened fully, and
Inspector Fiti emerged. He was probably in his late forties,
pointy-faced with a thick neck and sweat rings at the armpits of
his olive shirt, which was coming undone from underneath his
paunch. He seemed both puzzled and wary as he approached
Dawson.

“Good afternoon, Detective Inspector,” he said. “Can I do
anything for you?” His voice was coarse and sticky, like freshly
laid asphalt.