Wife of the Gods (22 page)

“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?”

“Tuesday, I was off,” Susan said. “Monday I was here, but…no,
sorry, I can’t think of anyone.”

“Any kind of visitor that seemed out of the ordinary,” Dawson
persisted.

She pondered again but drew another blank.

“All right,” Dawson said patiently. “Let’s try something else.
How about
any
unusual visit to
any
part of the
residence, not necessarily to Gladys’s room? Anyone, going
any
where.”

She shrugged, taking a stab. “The only thing I can think of was
the man from the Ministry of Health who came on Monday, but Mrs.
Ohene knows about that already.”

Mrs. Ohene’s head snapped around. “What man from the Ministry of
Health?”

Susan froze. “Didn’t you ask for someone to come and take care
of a rat problem?”

“
Rat
problem! What rat problem? What are you talking
about? We do not have rats in my hall, young lady.” Mrs. Ohene was
appalled. “Someone came from the Ministry of Health and you didn’t
notify me?”

Susan’s eyes went wide with something approaching terror.
“Madame Ohene, I’m so sorry. He said he had already talked to you
about it earlier in the morning and that I didn’t need to bother
you.” Her voice was shaking.

“The Ministry of Health does not handle this sort of thing,
Susan,” Mrs. Ohene said witheringly “They deal with serious
national problems, like AIDS and malaria control,
not
campus
rats. The campus has its own pest control. Isn’t that something you
should know?”

“I do know that, I do, Madame Ohene,” Susan said, “but this man,
he said he was from the Pest and Parasite section of the Ministry
of Health.”

“Pest and Parasite!
” Mrs. Ohene exclaimed. “That’s the
most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

Dawson knew they were onto something now. “You say the man was
here on Monday, Susan?”

“Yes.”

Two days after Gladys’s body was found and the day before
Charles and Elizabeth had been here
.

Dawson went back a couple of pages to Monday and quickly scanned
the sign-ins.

“Here it is. ‘H. Sekyi, oh-nine-twenty, K block, MoH Pest and
Parasite’.” He looked at Mrs. Ohene. “He went to Gladys’s
section.”

She stared at Dawson, mystified. “Who on earth is this man? What
did he want?”

“Did he show any identification?” Dawson asked Susan.

“Yes. A badge that said ‘Ministry of Health’ and his name. He
said there were complaints about rats in several rooms in the wing.
He was very convincing.”

“Pest and parasite indeed,” Mrs. Ohene muttered.

“He asked you for a key to Gladys’s room specifically?” Dawson
asked Susan.

“Yes,” she said, looking anguished. “He told me that’s where the
complaint had originated and that he would send the rat catchers
out with special equipment.”

Mrs. Ohene cringed. “
Rat catchers?
Oh, my goodness
gracious me. Now I’ve heard it all.”

“Do you remember what this Sekyi man looked like?” Dawson asked
Susan. “Tall, short, slim, fat?”

“Not tall, but slim. And quite young. Boyish.”

“Clean-shaven?”

“Yes.”

“Wedding ring? I’m sure you noticed.”

“Yes,” she said a little sheepishly. “He did have one.”

“Any distinguishing marks? Tribal scars on the face, for
example?”

“No. Completely smooth skin.”

“Glasses?”

“No glasses.”

“One more thing. Try to picture him in your mind signing the
logbook. Think carefully before you answer. What hand did he use to
sign?”

“That’s easy – I know it was his left because that’s how I saw
his wedding ring.”

“You’re brilliant,” Dawson said. “Completely brilliant. Thank
you.”

“I am?” She was both relieved and incredulous, while the warden
looked utterly unconvinced.

“Look at it this way,” Dawson said. “If you’d called Madame
Ohene, this man probably would have bolted, but instead now we have
a name, and – I’m praying – I can find him at the Ministry of
Health.”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

D
awson’s drive back
to Accra was painfully slow, with traffic particularly heavy on
Independence Avenue. Lost in thought about the case as he inched
along, Dawson paid little attention to the opulent buildings in
this part of the city – the excessive presidential palace
glittering in the sun like a diamond, the Mormon temple with its
golden statue atop the tower, and the luminous College of
Physicians and Surgeons.

He came back to earth as he turned left on Liberia Road and then
left on the Kinbu extension to the ministries. He found parking
next to the Ministry of Manpower and crossed the lot to the
Ministry of Health, a cream-colored building with peculiar faded
mauve trim. He started his search at the front lobby. If he had
thought he would have an easy time looking for someone in a large
government office, he would have been mistaken. Fortunately, he had
readied himself mentally and physically. He went to a total of six
departments looking for an employee by the name of H. Sekyi, each
section directing him to the next.

He ended up in some kind of personnel office – or one of
several, he wasn’t sure. The bulky man at the desk was tapping away
at a computer keyboard.

“Good morning, sir,” Dawson said.

“Good morning,” the man said, giving him a quick glance and
returning to his screen. Apparently he was finishing up some
pressing document.

“I need some information, please.”

The man finished typing and looked up. “Yes? What kind of
information, sir?”

“I’m trying to find an employee by the name of H. Sekyi.”

“And you are?”

“Detective Inspector Dawson, CID.”

“Let me check for you, Inspector.” He changed the window on his
screen. “Is that Sekyi with
k-y-i
or c
-h-i
?”

“K-y-i
,” Dawson said. The other spelling would be the
anglicized form.

The man shook his head and got up.

“Let me try here,” he said, pulling a large ring binder from the
shelf. “You don’t know what department he is?”

Dawson resisted the temptation to say “Pest and Parasites.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“I can’t find any H. Sekyi,” the man said. “Please, Inspector,
if you can wait a little bit for Agnes, my co-worker, to come back.
She will know.”

Said Agnes walked in about ten minutes later, sucking on a Fan
Milk strawberry ice, which, in the gathering heat of the day,
looked very inviting.

“Agnes, this is Inspector Dawson. He’s looking for one H. Sekyi
he says works here.”

Agnes, who obviously knew her way around, shook her head and
clicked her tongue with regret. “Humphrey Sekyi? He used to work in
Archives up until about six months ago, when he was sacked, and
then only about one week after that, he was killed in a car crash.
Poor man.”

“Killed,” Dawson echoed, drawing back in surprise. “He’s
dead?
Could there be another H. Sekyi?”

“Not at all,” Agnes said. “There’s Ruth and Kwame Sekyi. No
H.”

“Who sacked Mr. Sekyi?”

“The Archives supervisor.”

“Is the supervisor still here?”

“No, he was transferred to Ho to be in charge of the Ghana
Health Service AIDS program in the Volta Region.”

A smile of disbelief crept to Dawson’s lips. “Transferred to Ho.
Do you remember his name?”

“Of course,” Agnes said. “I don’t forget such things. His name
was Timothy Sowah.”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

A
fter the town of
Juapong, Dawson continued past Ketanu on the Accra-Ho road. Both
sides of the route became less forested, giving way to open bush.
Under an hour later, the
REDUCE SPEED NOW
sign
marked his arrival in Ho. It was of course a much larger town than
Ketanu, but to Dawson it was still quiet and slow, like a kite
lazily catching an updraft rather than an airplane taking off.