Wife of the Gods (10 page)

“That way,” Dawson said, pointing with his chin. “Southwest
headed northeast.”

If he had been blessed with one attribute, it was the ability to
tell direction with compass precision, which few Ghanaians
concerned themselves about. Fiti frowned at him as if he had spoken
Greek.

“Let’s go back,” he said.

This time Dawson took the lead.

“Ah,
here!
” Fiti suddenly exclaimed. “This way – I
remember now.”

He made a direction change – due west, Dawson noted.

After another few minutes, Fiti said, “Yes, it was near
here.”

They went a little farther, and then Fiti stopped. “This is the
place. She was lying just past this palm tree under that bush.”

Dawson stooped down. “In what direction?” He had studied the
photographs but wanted to be sure he had his bearings.

Fiti made a forward and back gesture. “Like that.”

“And the shoe that was missing – where was that?”

“Over there.” Fiti pointed a few feet away. “And then the
briefcase she was carrying was farther up. It had a mobile inside,
but the crime scene people say the rain completely spoiled it, so
they have to see if they can get it to work again.”

Dawson nodded. All Gladys’s items found at the scene were now at
the crime lab in Accra.

“You didn’t notice any footprints around?” he asked.

Fiti shook his head. “No.”

Dawson looked around. “A lot of banana trees,” he commented as
he stood up.

“These are plantain,” Fiti corrected.

“Ah.” Dawson went closer and saw fat green bunches of the fruit
hanging. “Yes, I see.”

Fiti was amused. “City man doesn’t know how plantain tree
look.”

Dawson smiled absently. He took a few additional steps,
searching some more.

“What are you looking for?” Fiti asked him.

“Nothing in particular.”

Dawson penetrated some way into the plantain cluster and kept
going without knowing why. At length, he found something curious: a
collection of fifteen or so rounded rocks piled on top of one
another to form a pyramid about two feet in height. Dawson knelt
down in front of it.

“What is this?” he called out to the inspector.

Fiti came up behind him and stared at the pyramid for a moment.
“Maybe some kind of juju to chase away evil spirits or
witchcraft.”

“Why here?” Dawson said. “Spirits like to be around plantain
trees?”

“They can be anywhere, Inspector Dawson,” Fiti said charitably.
“People put juju near their farms so their farming won’t be
spoiled, understand?”

Dawson reached for the top rock of the pyramid, but Fiti
deflected his hand.

“No!
Inspector Dawson, I’m sorry, but you don’t touch
something like that, sir. Something could happen.”

“Happen like what?”

Fiti sighed and shook his head. “Please, I’m just telling you
for your own good – don’t touch it.”

Dawson shrugged. “All right. Where would someone get those
rocks?”

“There is a stream not far away that has some like that.”

The forest had grown dark, and the sky was black. Lightning,
flittering from one horizon to the other, lit up the juju pyramid,
and a rumble of weighty thunder lumbered through.

“We have to go now,” Fiti said. “The rain won’t wait
anymore.”

♦

It began to pour before Fiti and Dawson made it back to the
police station, and they were soaked enough to need a change of
clothes. Dawson grabbed a shirt and pants from his bag and changed
in Inspector Fiti’s office.

They talked about the case, and Fiti told him about the Mensahs.
It was obvious how much admiration he had for them. They were
relatively successful people who ran several different enterprises,
and their talent was clear: Kofi, the patriarch, and his wife
traded in cocoa, palm oil, and cassava. Charles, the oldest son,
helped with the farm as well, but he was also a carpenter who could
put up anything a hundred times faster than any
government-sponsored project. Kofi’s sister, Elizabeth, was a
seamstress and cloth trader, and of course, Gladys, the star, had
been a medical student. Her becoming a doctor would have been the
pinnacle of the family’s successes.

In contrast, Fiti had nothing but distaste for the Boatengs,
particularly Samuel, whom he accused of petty theft in the recent
past. Fiti was determined to arrest him, and he wanted to do it
before dark. It was now going on five in the afternoon.

“The rain is stopping,” he said, rising from his chair. “We can
go now.”

♦

Dawson took Gyamfi in his car, and they followed Fiti and
Constable Bubo in the official police vehicle. It was impossible to
drive right up to the Boatengs’ house. A gutter ran directly across
their path, and the rain had swelled it with mud. They parked the
cars just in front of the gutter, jumped over it, and walked the
rest of the way. It was barely drizzling now, but there were huge
puddles and broad patches of sticky mud in their path.

“That’s the house,” Gyamfi said, pointing.

It was constructed of mud brick and a rusty corrugated tin roof.
The outer walls were eroded away by rain at their junction with the
ground, making the house sit on steadily thinning support.

Fiti led the way and went in unannounced. There were six people
in the front room, one sleeping, three of them playing a boisterous
game of cards, and the two most senior, whom Dawson assumed were
Mr. and Mrs. Boateng, were chatting. In the corner was a woodstove,
cold at the moment.

“Boateng, where is Samuel?” Fiti asked.

Mr. Boateng – Dawson’s guess had been right – jumped to his
feet.

“Good evening, sir.” Thick voice, something like treacle.

“Good evening. Where is Samuel?”

“Please, he’s not here, sir.”

“Where did he go?”

“Please, I don’t know, sir.”

The adjoining room was small, windowless, and dark. Fiti
switched on his flashlight and took a quick look inside. No one was
there.

“We’ll find him,” Fiti said. “Split up. Gyamfi, stay with
Inspector Dawson, Bubo is with me. Come on.”

Outside, the two pairs went in opposite directions.

“Where might he be?” Dawson asked Gyamfi.

“He can be anywhere. Probably with his friends going around
looking for girls.”

Gyamfi described Samuel to Dawson so he would recognize him.
After about ten minutes of trudging around, they hadn’t spotted the
suspect anywhere.

Suddenly they heard running footsteps approaching and then a
shout,
“Stop him! Stop him!
”

A man was coming toward them fast, running for his life, bare
feet kicking up mud. Close behind him was Constable Bubo, and
Inspector Fiti brought up the rear.

“Catch him!
” Fiti yelled.

The man saw Dawson and Gyamfi, and sharply veered away to avoid
them. But Gyamfi was nimble. He sprang as if out of a cannon and
cut back at an angle to intersect the man’s path. They collided and
spun to the ground like wrestlers. Bubo got to them a second later.
For a moment there was a lot of thrashing around and shouting, but
out of it Constable Bubo extracted the screaming man and yanked him
up. As he did that, Inspector Fiti came galumphing, belly wobbling
with the exertion.

“Hold him well!” he shouted.

A crowd was gathering fast. Both constables had a firm grip on
their captive, who was putting up a healthy struggle. Dawson now
saw that he was only eighteen or nineteen.
Samuel Boateng
,
he realized.

Inspector Fiti came up to him, face twisted with anger.

“Stupid boy!” he screamed.
“Stupid!
You think you can get
away from us? Heh?”

Samuel’s shirt had been ripped off in the struggle. His chest
was heaving and his skin ran with sweat.

“Take him away,” Inspector Fiti ordered with a furious backhand
swipe through the air.

Some of the crowd began to hoot as the two constables hauled
Samuel off to the police car. His feet dragged as he tried to
resist. Mr. and Mrs. Boateng trailed after the constables and
pleaded with them to let their son go.

Fiti hitched up his pants. “Go home!” he yelled at the crowd.
“Foolish people. What are you looking at?”

They laughed as they turned to slink back to their houses.
Terrific entertainment this evening.

♦

Gyamfi rejoined Dawson and Inspector Fiti while Constable Bubo
kept an eye on Samuel in the backseat of the police car. Fiti
ordered everyone out of the Boatengs’ house.

“Only you in here with us,” he said, pointing at Mr. Boateng.
“You hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

The dark of early evening was approaching. A kerosene lantern
hanging from a hook on the wall provided dim, shadowy illumination
in the main room of the house. It was the smaller adjacent sleeping
room that was of greater interest to Fiti. On the floor was an
assortment of mattresses, sleeping cloths and mats, clothes in
several piles, and a tiny radio. There was a large battered
portmanteau next to the door.

“Aha,” Fiti said, handing the flashlight to Dawson, who trained
the beam on the portmanteau while Fiti lifted the lid and looked
inside. He rummaged around, removing items – a few tins of
sardines, evaporated milk, and two bags of
gari
– and
dropped them on the floor. Fiti grunted as he got to the bottom of
the portmanteau without finding anything significant.

“Boateng,” he called out. “Come here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fiti took the flashlight from Dawson and shone it full in Mr.
Boateng’s face. He flinched and blinked in the beam.

“Which one is Samuel’s sleeping cloth?” Fiti asked him.

Boateng pointed to the opposite corner.

It was dark brown and rolled up in a neat bundle. Fiti unfurled
it with his free hand, and something fell out. He pounced on
it.

“What’s that?” Dawson asked.

Fiti showed him. It was a small plastic pack of three
individually wrapped condoms.

“So now we know he was having sex,” Fiti said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Dawson said, but Fiti didn’t appear to have
heard him, or more likely, he was ignoring him.

He beckoned to Mr. Boateng.

“Yes, sir?”

Fiti showed him the condoms. “You see now? You see what your son
was doing?”

Boateng looked mortified with embarrassment.

“Did he sleep with some girls here?” Fiti said.

Boateng was appalled. “NO, sir.”

“With whom was he sleeping?”

“Please, I don’t know. No one, sir.”

Fiti smirked and waved the condoms in Boateng’s face. “He’s your
boy but you didn’t know he had these prophylactics. So how do you
know he wasn’t having sex? Don’t try to be clever with me because
you aren’t clever enough, you hear?”

Boateng looked away, and Dawson saw his jaw muscles working with
suppressed anger.

“Was your boy trying to sleep with Gladys Mensah?” Fiti snapped.
“I’m talking to you, Boateng. I say, was he trying to have sex with
Gladys?”

Boateng shook his head. “No, sir.”

“We’ll see about that,” Fiti said. “I don’t think you know what
kind of person your son really is, and if you do, then you’re
trying to protect him.” He turned to Dawson. “Let’s go. Samuel will
spend the night in the jail. In the morning he will be ready to
talk.”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

T
here was no more
police work for the day. Dawson was tired and wanted to go to his
lodgings, but before he did that, he wanted to pay his respects to
Auntie Osewa and Uncle Kweku. He asked Gyamfi to show him the way
to the house.

The flickering kerosene lanterns of night traders lit up the
evening like a constellation. The kiosks and chop bars had
electricity, but many homes were still using kerosene lamps as
their light source. The air smelled of smoke and the tantalizing
aroma of
kelewele
, fried fish, and red-hot meat stews. The
flying termites that always appeared after a rain shower were
fluttering around whatever fluorescent lights they could find,
irresistibly drawn to them but rendered flightless the instant they
made contact with the bulbs.

It was a torturous route to Auntie Osewa’s. Dawson followed
Gyamfi through alleys and over gutters and muddy paths. Ketanu had
grown and sprawled so much since Dawson had been here that so far
nothing was familiar to him, and the darkness did not help.

Suddenly, though, as they walked a little farther, Dawson was
struck with déjà vu that raised goose bumps on his skin. He
recognized where he was, and yet he didn’t. Houses and huts
occupied the space that Dawson had known as trees and bush, and the
edge of forest he and Cairo had explored had been pushed far, far
back.

“There it is,” Dawson said to Gyamfi. He had spotted Auntie
Osewa’s house, but some sixth sense must have enabled him, because
although there was a hint of light coming from within, there was
practically no illumination of the exterior.

Gyamfi switched on a powerful flashlight and gave it a panoramic
sweep. Now Dawson could see the original dwelling had been added on
to. There were two small additional single-room houses built around
an open-air courtyard strewn with firewood, stone stoves, pots, and
pans.

A woman came out of the house with a lantern.
Auntie
Osewa?

“Who’s there?” she said, squinting into the darkness.

Dawson came close enough to see better by the light of the
lantern. It
was
her.

“
Fien na wo
, Auntie Osewa,” he greeted her in Ewe.

“Fien
,” she replied pleasantly, but Dawson could see the
puzzlement still in her expression. “Do I know you?”

“Yes, you do.”

He was giving her a chance, but she still wasn’t making the
connection.

“Auntie, it’s me, Darko.”

Her expression changed.
“Darko?
”