Wife of the Gods

by Kwei Quartey

  “How so?”

  Armah shrugged. “If he killed her, we say the motive is his fear and loathing of her, not robbery. So, then, why does he steal her bracelet?”

  “Because he’s a swine?”

  “Well, yes, he is,” Armah said quite seriously. “But it still doesn’t sit comfortably with me. Now, I could see him taking the bracelet off just as a petty thief with no respect for the dead.”

  “I get what you mean, but it would be a shame not to track him all the way down.”

  “You’re absolutely right, and I shouldn’t have implied it wasn’t a lead to be followed. Now, to Isaac Kutu. I think he may have had a motive, but he’s a difficult person to peg. When I was investigating your mother’s disappearance, I had the strangest feeling about him, but I was never able to connect any dots that included him. You remember what I told you about solving mysteries?”

  “That it’s a matter of making a few of the connections and the rest will fall into place.”

  “A-plus. That is what solving mysteries is all about. Now, let’s eat.”

  “Oh,” Dawson said brightly. “You cooked?”

  “Ha, you’re funny. When have you ever known me to cook? No, Maude prepared it and left it all ready to be heated up. Which is about all I know how to do.”

  DAWSON RETURNED FROM KUMASI on Monday morning after breakfast with Armah. He was sorry he had missed Maude and the grandkids, and he invited Armah and his family to come to Accra and visit in the near future. Armah’s last words were “By the way, my best advice is try not to beat so many people up.” He had said it in a humorous tone, but Dawson knew he had meant it, and it was advice well taken.

  Before he went into Ketanu, he took a detour to the VRA Hospital to look for Elizabeth. He found the female surgical ward and walked down the long row of stark metal beds looking for her. He found her in a vestibule that had been converted to accommodate a hospital bed, giving her more privacy than the patients in the general ward. She was propped up on ample pillows, and the bed was covered with a bright kente spread. He hesitated at the foot of her bed because it appeared she was sleeping, but she opened one normal and one swollen eye and said, “Detective Inspector Dawson. Come along, I won’t bite.”

  Her head was bandaged, and her right arm was resting across her middle in a cast and sling. He sat on the edge of her bed.

  “How are you feeling, Auntie Elizabeth?”

  “Like I’ve been kicked by a set of donkeys.”

  “In a way you have, but I would call them asses. What does the doctor say?”

  “My arm was broken, so Dr. Biney set it, and they had to sew my head up. I suppose to keep me from losing whatever little is inside.”

  She tried to chuckle but winced as she realized it hurt to do so. “Ouch. I’ve just been reminded I have two broken ribs.”

  “I’m not staying long,” Dawson said. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, Dawson, thank you. Dorcas and Kofi and Charles were here earlier, and they made sure I was taken care of.”

  “When will the doctor release you?”

  “In a day or two,” she said. “I’m so glad to see you, Dawson. I’ve been thinking over some things—since that’s about all I can do right now. When I get out, I want to continue what Gladys started.”

  “Specifically?”

  “She wanted to set up a shelter for trokosi women—somewhere they could escape and be protected from their fetish-priest husbands. I want to build a center to honor Gladys’s memory.”

  “You’ll have my complete support,” Dawson said. “As a matter of fact, here’s what I hope is your first private donation.”

  He dug into his pocket and peeled off some bills.

  “It’s not much,” he said, “but it’s a start.”

  “Thank you. You’re a very good man.”

  Dawson was about to leave when Elizabeth said, “I haven’t forgotten about the trip to Ho to see if we can track down the bracelet. As soon as I get out.”

  “Thanks, but get better first. Don’t worry about me.”

  Dawson went to Auntie Osewa and asked if he could stay with them for a while.

  “But of course you can!” she exclaimed, her face lighting up. “Stay as long as you like.”

  He would have to share Alifoe’s room, but he didn’t mind, nor did he care that the best mattress they had for him was made of foam as thin as a wafer.

  He needed to go into town to look for Constable Gyamfi, but Osewa wouldn’t allow him to leave without a full lunch of fufu and palm nut soup. They ate in the courtyard under the shade of a piece of canvas strung from the wall to a post. Alifoe and Kweku were at the cocoa farm.

  “Auntie, you’re going to make me want to take a long nap this afternoon,” Dawson said as he ate.

  “You should, Darko,” she said firmly. “It would be good for you.”

  “I wish I could, but I have work to do.”

  “Are you still trying to find out who killed Gladys?”

  “Yes.”

  “Samuel was not the one, then?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why do you think not?”

  Dawson took a mouthful and closed his eyes for a moment as he savored the flavor. “What did you say?”

  “About Samuel.”

  “Oh, yes. There are many reasons why I don’t think he did it.”

  “I see. Well, you know your job …” She paused.

  “But what?” he prompted.

  “But from what I heard, he was … No, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you heard, Auntie Osewa. He didn’t kill Gladys Mensah.”

  “Yes, yes, it’s all right. I believe you. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing. Auntie Osewa, I might have to live with you and get fat.”

  She laughed, leaned over, and pinched his cheek. “You’re a sweet boy.”

  He smiled. Still a boy to her.

  Dawson did not have to tackle the police station to find Gyamfi because, as he was on the way into town, the constable called him to say he was headed to Auntie Osewa’s to see Dawson. They met about halfway and found a quiet spot to talk.

  “Did you find out anything?” Dawson asked.

  “Yes,” Gyamfi said. “The last evening Gladys was seen alive, Adzima had had a quarrel with her—you know that already. Now, after he got angry with his wives and started to beat them up, a cousin of his comes to Bedome and asks him why he’s making so much trouble and tells him to come to Ketanu to drink beer.”

  “Who is the cousin? Do you know him?”

  “Now I do. The cousin brought him to Jesus My Soul Chop Bar, and they ate chinchinga and drank beer and got drunk.”

  Dawson’s heart was sinking again. “He was with the cousin all the time?”

  “Yes. And that cousin has some friends who sat and drank with them also, and I found one of them and the stories agree. They drank till late, and then Adzima went back to Bedome drunk.”

  Just as with Timothy Sowah, the chance that Adzima had killed Gladys was dwindling quickly.

  “What about the bracelet?” Dawson asked, without enthusiasm. It didn’t make much difference at this point.

  “That I had a little more trouble with,” Gyamfi said. “I told Togbe that some boys from Ketanu got to the body first after Efia had left, and that when they heard Togbe coming, they ran and hid and saw him steal the bracelet. He denied and denied it until I told him Inspector Fiti and I would take him to Ho Central Prison. Then he confessed.”

  “What did he do with the bracelet? Does he still have it?”

  “No, he sold it to a trader in Ho. I will try to get it back.”

  “Thank you, Gyamfi.”

  Dawson clasped the constable’s hands, and their eyes met warmly.

  AUNTIE OSEWA’S MEAL THAT night was rice and grilled tilapia spiced with ginger and hot pepper, with slivers of ripe plan
tain fried in palm oil until crispy. They ate outside by lantern light and talked. Alifoe was quite the comedian. As Dawson recovered from a stitch in his side from laughing, Uncle Kweku turned to his wife. “Darko sounds so much like his mother when he laughs,” he said to her.

  “Really?” Dawson said. “No one has ever told me that.”

  “I always thought the same thing,” Osewa said quietly. “But I didn’t want to say so in case it brought sadness to you, Darko.”

  “No,” he said. “On the contrary.”

  “What happened to Auntie Beatrice?” Alifoe asked.

  “Alifoe,” Osewa said sharply.

  “It’s okay,” Dawson said. “No one knows what happened, Alifoe. I was twelve years old, and you were a baby, of course. After you were born, she came twice to visit. The second time, she stayed a few days and then she said she was going back to Accra. She never arrived home.”

  “What could have happened? Maybe the tro-tro had an accident?”

  Dawson shook his head. “That was checked by the detective assigned to the case. There were no accidents between Ketanu and Accra that day.”

  Alifoe looked perplexed. “Then she must have got off somewhere on the way.”

  “That we don’t know,” Dawson said. “But why would she do that?”

  “Are we even sure she got on?” Alifoe persisted.

  “Of course we’re sure,” Auntie Osewa said, sounding irritated. “How many times do I have to tell people that it was me who went with her to the tro-tro stop to see her off?”

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” Alifoe said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Tell us about it, Auntie Osewa,” Dawson said. Now was as good a time as any.

  “It was before noontime,” she began. “She wanted to get home a little early, so she didn’t want to wait until the afternoon to start out for Accra. Do you remember that, Kweku?”

  He nodded in agreement.

  “So anyway,” Auntie Osewa continued, “we walked to the bus stop talking and laughing. She seemed so happy. Even when she talked about Cairo she was cheerful. Both of us were happy together, and we agreed I should visit Accra and bring Alifoe when he got a little older. When we got to the stop, I wanted to be certain she got a tro-tro that was safe, so I let the first one go on because it was a broken-down old boneshaker, but the second one was all right. I made sure she got a good seat at the front near the driver, and then we kissed good-bye.”

  “And that was the last you saw of her?” Alifoe asked.

  “Yes,” Auntie Osewa said sadly.

  Dawson had stopped eating. He felt sick.

  “Darko?” Auntie Osewa said. “Are you okay?”

  He looked at her without seeing all her face. Had he heard her right?

  “You said Mama sat at the front of the tro-tro?” he asked. His voice sounded distant and small.

  Auntie Osewa looked quizzically at him, hesitating. “Yes, that’s right. Why are you asking me that?”

  Dawson’s blood turned chilly. What his aunt had just said could not have been. She must have had a false memory of what had happened.

  Or she was lying.

  Mama had always been scared to death of sitting in the front section of a tro-tro. She wouldn’t do it. What did she always say? If there’s an accident, I don’t want you flying through the windscreen. Nor me.

  They went to bed late. Dawson lay on his back in Alifoe’s room with one arm crooked under his head as he stared up in the darkness and his thoughts roamed. Nothing felt right to him. What Auntie had said was twisting in his mind like a fish on a hook. A good seat at the front of the tro-tro … at the front… at the front. That phrase over and over. Memories of his boyhood visit to Ketanu flooded back. Something had been wrong back then too.

  Sitting at that table in Auntie Osewa’s house and eating her delicious meal while the grownups chatted about things that bored Darko and his brother stiff… and then suddenly, Mr. Kutu’s fleeting look at Mama. Dawson remembered it clearly. Mama’s eyes had met Kutu’s in a snatched instant so brief that no one would have expected it to bear a message. But it did, and Auntie Osewa had read it and understood. In turn, Darko had seen everything. One, two, three stolen glances whose meaning disturbed him without his quite knowing why.

  What about later that evening, as they played oware? Auntie Osewa had disappeared for a while. To set the rabbit traps, she had said, and the quality of her voice had felt so strange to Dawson that he had looked at her in surprise.

  “Cousin Darko?”

  Dawson lifted his head in surprise. He had thought Alifoe was asleep.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re not sleepy?”

  “I never sleep well.”

  “Oh.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, nothing.”

  Dawson waited. He knew there was more.

  “Cousin Darko, have you ever kept something inside you that you wished you could tell someone but you didn’t know whom to trust?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “And when you find someone you trust, you feel like telling him?”

  “Whom do you trust?”

  “You.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What would you do … I mean, how would you feel if you knew your mother and father didn’t love each other?”

  “Mine didn’t.”

  “Really?” Alifoe sat up in the dark. “It’s the same with Mama and Papa. I want to see them love each other, but it never happens.”

  “And you can’t make it happen either. That’s what you mustn’t forget. If they fell out of love at one time, only they can get themselves back in.”

  “Do you think I shouldn’t care so much about it?”

  “You can care as much as you want, but don’t let it stop your life.”

  Alifoe lay down again.

  “Do you feel any better?” Dawson said.

  “Yes, I do. Thank you, Darko.”

  As soon as the first cock crowed in the morning, Dawson’s eyes popped open. He had been dreaming he was forcing his mother into the front seat of a tro-tro and she was screaming at him to let her go.

  He looked at his watch. Five forty-five. Alifoe was still fast asleep.

  Dawson got dressed and went out to the courtyard to find Auntie Osewa starting a fire for breakfast.

  “Morning, Auntie.”

  “Morning, Darko. Did you sleep well?”

  “I did, thank you,” he lied.

  “Good. Would you like to take some breakfast?”

  “I would love to. Can I wash first?”

  “Yes, I filled two buckets for you, and there is soap there too.”

  First he went to the pit latrine—a necessary evil—and then he took a refreshing bucket bath.

  As he ate breakfast, Auntie Osewa was chatty and Dawson did his best to respond in kind, but he felt as though a two-way mirror had gone up between them. Auntie was on one side seeing her reflection and talking through it to Dawson, who was on the other side looking at her.

  “So,” she said, “what will you be doing today?”

  “To start, I have to go and meet with Efia,” he said.

  “That’s the one who found the body? One of Adzima’s wives?”

  “Yes.”

  “It must have been terrible for her when she found it,” she reflected.

  “It was. It’s affected her deeply, probably for life.”

  He finished breakfast quickly and stood up. “Thank you, Auntie. It was delicious. I’d best be going now.”

  Dawson walked the footpath between Ketanu and Bedome, and as he came to the farm plots, he spotted Efia and Ama hoeing the soil along with a few other farmers. Efia waved at him as he came up to them.

  “Morning, Efia. Morning, Ama.”

  “Morning, morning, Mr. Dawson.” They spoke and smiled simultaneously, just like twins. Both were sweating, Efia a little more.

  “How goes it, Efia?” Dawson asked.

  “Fine,” sh
e said. “I’m so happy to see you. They told me you were going to leave Ketanu, and I was feeling so sad.”

  “Who told you?”

  “That man from Accra—Mr. Chikata?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s my workmate. They told him to take over the case from me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because … Well, it doesn’t matter. Can you help me a little bit?”

  “But of course.”

  “I hope you don’t mind, but could you show me the way you left the forest after you found Gladys dead, and also exactly where you saw Mr. Kutu? Do you have time?”

  “Yes, I can come.”

  She handed Ama her hoe. “I’ll be back soon,” she told her daughter.

  Dawson and Efia walked back toward the footpath.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Togbe Adzima,” Dawson said.

  “Yes?”

  “Did one of his wives die last year?”

  “Yes. Her name was Comfort.”

  “She died of AIDS?”

  “I don’t know. They said she was cursed.”

  “Efia, if it was AIDS, then it was Togbe Adzima who gave it to her.”

  She frowned as they turned onto the Bedome-Ketanu path, her head down as she thought about the implications.

  Dawson’s heart was in his mouth as he prepared to ask the next question.

  “Efia, did Gladys do a blood test on you? For AIDS?”

  “Yes, and she said it was okay.”

  Dawson breathed again. “I know it would be very difficult for you, but if there’s any way you can avoid Togbe Adzima being with you, any way at all. You and all of the wives—especially the new one.”

  Efia was troubled. “I don’t know what to do. The only thing that works sometimes is when he drinks too much.”

  “I’ll buy him a gallon of schnapps then,” Dawson said, “and you can feed it to him every day.”

  They looked at each other and laughed.

  She slowed her pace.

  “Mr. Kutu was somewhere here when I saw him,” she said, making a circular motion with her hand.

  Dawson nodded. “And how far away were you from here?”

  “Down there.” She pointed. “I’ll show you.”

  “Was he walking toward you or away from you?”