Wife of the Gods

by Kwei Quartey

  The watchman had a head shaped like a bullet. “Good evening.” “Do you know where Augustus Ayitey lives?” “The herbalist? Down there.” He pointed. “Take a right turn at Jesus Is Lord Chop House.”

  Dawson stopped the car just after the chophouse, locked up, and went the rest of the way on foot. The watchman outside Ayitey’s house saw Dawson approaching and trained a flashlight on him.

  “Who goes there?”

  “Detective Inspector Dawson.”

  “Stop.”

  The watchman scanned him up and down with the powerful beam and then approached warily, armed with a club.

  “Show me your ID.”

  Dawson held it out, and the watchman examined it.

  “Detective Inspector Dawson … Yes, sir, how can I help you, sir?”

  Dawson explained he needed to question Ayitey about a case that couldn’t wait till morning. The watchman listened carefully, nodded, and then opened the gate to let Dawson in.

  He banged on Ayitey’s front door. A couple of minutes later, a light came on inside the house.

  “Who is it?” Male voice.

  “Police.”

  There was a pause, and then two locks were released before the door opened a crack and two eyes peeped out.

  “Yes?”

  “Detective Inspector Dawson, CID.” He showed his badge. “Are you Augustus Ayitey?”

  “Yes?”

  “Open the door, please.”

  “What is this about?”

  “I need to speak with you. Open up, please.”

  Ayitey undid the latch on the door and it opened into a sitting room furnished with fat leather sofas and armchairs. There was a washroom and toilet in a short hallway to the right. Ayitey, in ice blue pajamas, eyed Dawson with wariness and curiosity.

  “What is this about, Officer?”

  Dawson hated being called “Officer.”

  A woman’s voice called out from the next room. “Gussy? What is going on?”

  “Nothing,” he replied over his shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Do you know a woman by the name of Gifty and her grandson, Hosiah?” Dawson kept his voice soft, trying to modulate his anger like the escape valve on a pressure cooker.

  “Yes, I know them,” Ayitey said cautiously. “Why?”

  “You recall they came to see you yesterday?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And you remember the boy suffered a blow to his head that cut his scalp open?”

  “That’s why you’re here in my house in the middle of the night?” Ayitey spluttered. “It was just an accident! What, you think I was trying to hurt the child?”

  A middle-aged woman appeared at the bedroom doorway in a colorful dressing gown. “What on earth is going on, Gussy?”

  “This Detective Inspector—Dawson, is it?—says he’s here at this time of the night because of the minor incident we had yesterday at the clinic. You know, the boy who bumped his head while we were washing him.”

  The woman came up to Dawson. “Detective Inspector? I’m Penny, Mr. Ayitey’s wife. What exactly is the problem? Perhaps I can help.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “We don’t understand what you are doing here, Inspector,” she said more sharply. “My husband has done nothing wrong, and why in heaven’s name could this not wait till daylight?”

  “Augustus Ayitey, I am Detective Inspector Dawson. I’m arresting you for assault and battery, abuse of a minor, and fraudulent medical practice.”

  Ayitey gasped. “What?”

  Dawson touched his arm. “I’m going to be handcuffing you. Turn around with your hands behind your back, please.”

  “Look, I don’t know who in hell you are or what you think you’re doing here,” Ayitey snapped, “but I’m an upstanding citizen and you don’t have any authority to come barging into my house in the middle of the night.”

  “Turn around, please.”

  “I will not.”

  “Gussy, Gussy please,” Penny said hastily. “Mr. Dawson, who is in charge of your division?”

  “Chief Superintendent Lartey.”

  “But we know him so well,” she said sweetly. “Perhaps we can go to him in the morning and discuss the whole problem with him. I’m sure we can work it out.”

  “Turn around, please, Mr. Ayitey. Hands behind your back.”

  Penny’s tone changed abruptly. “You are going to get in trouble for this. We know the chief superintendent, we know members of Parliament, we even know the president, and so you’d better think carefully about what you’re doing.”

  “I am.” Dawson gritted his teeth. He had been patient, but his restraint was dwindling like water draining from a kitchen sink. “Turn around, Mr. Ayitey.”

  Penny squeezed her husband’s arm. “It’s okay, Gussy. Don’t fight it. Just go quietly. I’ll have you out by morning’s light. Mr. Dawson, you don’t need to handcuff him. He won’t give you any problem.”

  Dawson weighed the options. “You agree to that?” he asked Ayitey.

  “Yes, yes, all right,” Ayitey said, but he was seething. “I need to put on some proper clothes.”

  Dawson had not planned on all this fuss. He should have walked in, cuffed the man, and marched him out in his pajamas.

  “Bring him something to wear,” he said to Penny. “Stay right here, Mr. Ayitey.”

  She brought him a shirt and a pair of trousers.

  “I would like to change in there,” Ayitey said, pointing to the washroom.

  Whether Ayitey was stalling for time or just demanding special treatment, it was getting on Dawson’s nerves.

  “No. Change right where you are.”

  He watched as Ayitey sullenly put on his clothes over his pajamas.

  “Don’t worry, Gussy,” Penny said. “I’ll take care of everything. Mr. Dawson will regret he ever stepped into this house.”

  “Let’s go,” Dawson said, falling in slightly behind “Gussy.” What an annoying name. Everything about the man annoyed him.

  “Three o’clock in the morning and you come to my house to disturb me,” Ayitey muttered truculently. “If the stupid child had just behaved properly, he would not have wounded himself.”

  Dawson’s emotional wire, already stretched to its limit, snapped. He grabbed Ayitey by the neck and kicked his legs out from under him. The herbalist went down like a felled tree, as heavily and just as loudly.

  Penny let out a shriek. Ayitey was dazed as Dawson rolled him onto his belly and snatched his hands up behind his back. The cuffs clicked them in place. He grabbed Ayitey by the collar and dragged him to the toilet.

  “What are you doing?” his wife screamed. “What are you doing?”

  “Dose of his own medicine,” Dawson said.

  Ayitey began to struggle.

  “Kneel in front of the toilet,” Dawson said.

  “No, please, I—”

  “I said kneel.”

  Dawson straddled Ayitey, lifted his shoulders to the rim, and pushed his head into the bowl until his face touched the water. Ayitey bellowed like a wildebeest in the jaws of a crocodile, and Dawson felt a surge of satisfaction.

  “You almost drowned my boy,” Dawson said, raising his voice. “This is what it’s like.”

  He flushed the toilet and held Ayitey’s head underwater as he bucked and kicked like a goat.

  Penny ran to the front door and began to scream. “Watchman, help! Watchman!”

  The watchman came running in.

  “He’s trying to kill him!” Penny shrieked.

  Dawson let Ayitey’s head up for a moment and allowed him to catch his breath.

  The watchman seemed paralyzed.

  “Do something, you fool!” Penny yelled at him furiously.

  “Madam, he’s a policeman,” the watchman said helplessly. “What can I do at all?”

  The water in the toilet reservoir had replenished itself.

  “One more time,” Dawson said.

  H
e flushed again as he held Ayitey’s head down in the bowl and the torrent of water engulfed it to overflowing.

  “Okay. Get up now.”

  He helped Ayitey up, moaning and choking and staggering while his wife screamed uncontrollably.

  “Let’s go,” Dawson said. “We’ll find some room at the jail for you.”

  As Dawson marched him out the door, Penny ran after them like a small flying insect.

  DAWSON CAME HOME A LITTLE before five, after booking Ayitey into Madina station. Christine stirred and asked where he had been.

  “Taking care of some loose ends,” he said.

  She grunted, muttered something, turned over, and went back to sleep.

  Dawson checked on Hosiah, took a catnap for an hour, and was up again with the sun. He got dressed and shook Christine gently. She started awake.

  He kissed her. “Have to go, love. Don’t get up.”

  She propped herself on an elbow. “Be careful, Dark.”

  “I will.”

  He stopped by Hosiah’s room and gave him a kiss as well. His son’s smooth breathing pattern did not alter and he didn’t stir.

  Before Dawson started the car up, he speed-dialed Chikata’s number, and it rang four times before he answered, voice thick with sleep.

  “Wake up,” Dawson said.

  Chikata cursed fluently in Ga.

  “Did you have a chance to go to Gladys’s room?” Dawson asked, ignoring the profanity.

  “I’ll do it today Dawson.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of it.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In Accra, but I’ll be returning to Ketanu later on.”

  He headed for the University of Ghana campus at Legon. Since it was on the way to Madina, he took exactly the same road he’d been on just a few hours ago. Same road maybe, but Legon was a very different world from Madina. Oh, that Dawson could afford those six-bedroom homes in East Legon.

  As he approached the arched front entrance of the university campus, a guard stepped forward and held up his palm. Dawson pulled up next to him and showed his CID badge.

  “Carry on, sah.”

  The campus was built on a hill whose pinnacle was topped by the vice-chancellor’s residence. Dawson drove past the buildings with their signature orange-tiled roofs. It was the end of March, a few days before the short Easter break. Students had begun moving to class, although Dawson imagined a few were still in bed trying to squeeze in another fifteen minutes of sleep after pulling an all-night cramming session. He could pick out the first-year students. Their faces were fresher, more eager and purposeful, and they walked faster. The third-years sauntered while affecting a bored look.

  The clock in the tower of the pagoda-style Balme Library began to chime eight, sounding like Big Ben. Past the post office, Dawson turned right to the women’s hall and parked in front of the steps leading up to the entrance. At the top of the steps a sign read, PLEASE STOP AT RECEPTION FIRST.

  A young, well-dressed receptionist was behind the counter. “Good morning, sir,” she said with a bright smile. “You are welcome. Can I help you?”

  “Good morning. I would like to see the warden, please. Is she here?”

  “I’ll see if she’s available,” she said, picking up the phone and punching in four digits. “May I tell her who’s calling?”

  “My name is Detective Inspector Dawson.”

  “Oh,” she said, her expression changing.

  Dawson smiled. “Don’t worry. She’s not in trouble.”

  “Oh, good.” She looked relieved. “Hello? Good morning, madam. This is Susan at reception. There’s a gentleman here to see you. A Detective Inspector Dawson. Yes. Of course. Thank you.” She cradled the phone. “She’ll be happy to see you. I’ll show you the way. Do you mind signing in first?”

  Dawson scribbled his name, arrival time, destination, and purpose of visit in the large sign-in book on the desk.

  Susan came around to the front and led him into the courtyard of flowering jacaranda trees, bougainvillea trailing up the walls of the dormitory buildings, clipped hedges, and neatly potted plants around a center fountain. It was pretty. So, for that matter, was Susan. Dawson had not let on, but he had already taken in her small waist and lovely, ample buttocks, which moved so succulently underneath her rather short skirt. Mercy. It should be against the law to torment souls in this way.

  “What is it like working as a detective, Mr. Dawson?” she said sweetly as she walked alongside him.

  He shrugged. “It’s all right. What’s it like working as a receptionist?”

  She laughed. “I’m sure it’s not as stressful as your work. It must get very tense for you sometimes.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Her office is just over there.” She pointed ahead a few meters to the warden’s clearly marked office door.

  “Thank you, Susan.”

  Her hand touched his and moved lightly up his arm. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Detective Dawson.”

  “And you.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”

  He smiled and winked at her and stole one more glance at her lovely rear as she walked away. Anything else I can do for you. Several possibilities skipped devilishly through his head before he mentally slapped himself back to reality.

  The warden, Mrs. Ohene, was Susan’s corporeal opposite. She seemed as wide as she was tall, and the fat had filled out all her curves so that she was squared off like a small bungalow. She had an attractive hairdo and wore a pleasant, light perfume. Her office-cum-residence was nicely furnished, and she had obviously been at work at the computer on her desk. They sat opposite each other at a comfortable distance.

  “I’m sure I’m not wrong in guessing you’re here about Gladys Mensah,” Mrs. Ohene said.

  “Yes, you’re not wrong.”

  “What a loss, what a terrible, awful tragedy. Her brother and her aunt Elizabeth were here the day before yesterday to retrieve her personal effects. It was sad, so sad.”

  “Elizabeth tells me Gladys kept a diary or a journal that has gone missing. Do you know anything about that?”

  “She asked me about it too—but no, I knew nothing about the diary.”

  “Could I take a look at the room Gladys occupied, Mrs. Ohene?”

  “Yes, you can,” she said, hesitating, “although nothing of hers is left and another student has taken her place. There’s a huge demand for space, so it’s a matter of only a day or so before a vacancy is filled.”

  “Of course. It’s just for the record. I’ll need to include a full description of the room in my report and say that I conducted a reasonable search.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said. “Come along, then.”

  Like most university dormitory rooms, this one was tiny. There were two narrow wood-framed beds and a small desk and chair at the foot of each. Mrs. Ohene stayed discreetly in the doorway while Dawson looked around. He opened the doors of the shared built-in closet packed with clothes. He checked the top shelf, where four books had been stacked, and he lifted each of them to see if the diary was hidden underneath. Nothing. He quickly flicked through the pages of each book—just in case. He didn’t expect to find anything, and he didn’t.

  Dawson left the books the way he had found them and turned to the desks.

  “Which side of the room was Gladys’s?”

  “That one,” Mrs. Ohene said, pointing to the right.

  “And none of the furniture has been changed since she left?”

  She shook her head. “No reason to.”

  The desk on the right had a single drawer that couldn’t hold very much—pens, paper, and a few folders. It had a flimsy lock, the type whose key is so small it’s barely worth the trouble, and Dawson noticed something wrong with it. The metal catch was up, in the locked position, and the corresponding slot in the underside of the desk was splintered apart. The drawer seemed to have been forced open. Interesting. He checked
the drawer’s contents for the diary. Definitely not there, no matter how much he wanted it to be. Had someone broken in and taken it? He opened the drawer of the other desk. No diary there, either, but significantly, the lock on that desk was intact.

  He lifted the mattress of each bed to look underneath and checked under both beds themselves, on the floor and on the wood planks that supported the mattresses. Nothing.

  Dawson stood with arms akimbo and looked around.

  “That’s about it, I think,” he said. “Not much to search, really. Can you think of anywhere else?”

  Mrs. Ohene shook her head. “No, I’m sorry I don’t have any brilliant ideas.”

  Dawson was rubbing his chin.

  “To your knowledge,” he asked her, “did anyone besides Gladys’s brother and aunt come to this room after her death?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I signed in at the reception desk. Do all visitors do the same?”

  “Because it’s a women’s hall,” Mrs. Ohene said, “I instituted that process for the security of the residents, and everyone is supposed to sign in, but I know people slip through from time to time.”

  “Can I see the book?”

  “Of course.”

  They went back down to reception, where Susan was busy at the computer. She jumped up and came to the counter, eager and willing.

  “Hi, Susan,” Mrs. Ohene said. “We need to look through the sign-in book.”

  “All right, madam.”

  The pages were much longer than wide. Each was headed by the date, with columns for name of visitor, time in, destination, purpose of visit, time out. Most were garden-variety family or friend visits, a few were to Mrs. Ohene.

  “The room number is K-sixteen, correct?” Dawson asked. He had noticed the number on the door.

  “Correct,” Mrs. Ohene said. “K is Gladys’s block.”

  Dawson ran his finger down the page and stopped at his target. “Here’s Charles Mensah’s sign-in. Tuesday, eleven thirty in the morning. Let’s go to the day before.”

  Susan was watching with interest, and Dawson suddenly realized how stupid he was not asking for her help.

  “We’re looking for visitors who went up to Gladys’s room Sunday, Monday, or very early Tuesday, the twenty-fifth,” he explained to her. “It would have to have been before Charles and Elizabeth arrived. Do you remember anyone in particular?”