Wife of the Gods (28 page)

“Wait there,” he said softly. “Inspector Fiti is coming.”

He hurried back to his post. Dawson heard Fiti barking an
order.

“Yes, sir, Inspector,” Gyamfi said. “I’ll bring it to you in
your office.”

He returned. “I’m going into his office,” he whispered. “Wait
till you hear the door close.”

Dawson waited, listening to the conversation between the
inspector and his constable. Thirty seconds later, the office door
shut with a bang and Dawson got out fast.

He walked to Isaac’s compound. Tomefa was outside sorting
firewood. “Isaac is out,” she told Dawson, “but he’ll be back
soon.”

While waiting, Dawson went to take a look at the spot where
Auntie Osewa said she had been gathering her firewood the evening
she’d spied Samuel and Gladys together. It was a cluster of trees
ravaged by overcutting. Dawson stood at the edge and confirmed that
Auntie Osewa would have had a good vantage point to observe Samuel
and Gladys entering the forest. From Isaac Kutu’s description of
where he had seen them together that same evening, they would have
been about three hundred meters away from where Dawson stood.

Dawson walked back to Isaac’s place wondering how to resolve the
conflict between Samuel’s and Auntie Osewa’s stories.

Isaac Kutu was standing in the middle of his compound as Dawson
walked in.

“Woizo, Darko.”

“How are you, Mr. Kutu?”

“I’m fine, sir.”

“I would like to look around your compound, if you wouldn’t
mind.”

“What for?”

“I’ll know when I see it,” Dawson said. But he thought,
A
silver bracelet would be nice
.

“What if I say you cannot search this place?”

“If you attempted to stop me, I would have to arrest you.”

Isaac laughed drily. “I don’t believe you would do that.”

Dawson took out his cuffs. “Try me.”

“You’ll have to catch me first.”

“You won’t run. You’re not the kind of man to run, so we will
fight.” Isaac smiled tightly and his eyes darkened. “Where do you
want to search?”

“Everywhere.”

♦

The first room was small, dark, and close, and had one of the
strangest smells Dawson had ever experienced. Hanging on the walls
were many things he didn’t recognize. The ones he did included
snakeskins, mummified lizards, roots, bark, and dried leaves of
several kinds. On the floor were clumps of powder of different
colors.

Dawson spotted a box full of small animal skulls that made his
skin crawl.

“Would you empty that, please?” he asked.

Isaac turned the box over, and the skulls rattled out. They
smelled ghastly.

“What are those for?”

“Snake skulls,” Isaac said. “You crush them into a powder and
use it to cure snakebites.”

Dawson peered into the box. There was no silver bracelet.

They moved to the second room, and Dawson poked around where he
could. He was becoming ill from the odors, and he realized that, if
Isaac had Gladys’s bracelet, there was an infinite number of places
he could have hidden it.

“What are all those things on the wall?” he asked Isaac in a
third room.

“Different things for different sicknesses. I can’t tell you all
of them.”

“Give me one or two examples.”

“There is a root called asreetsopoku – that one over there. We
use it to cure hernia. You cut it and wash it and drink it with
gin. We have another one there,
nereyu
, that we use for
heart trouble.”

“Are any of these the ones Gladys was interested in?”

“She was interested in all of them.”

“Did you try to hide anything from her?”

“I didn’t tell her everything.”

“Were you working on something secret she wanted to know
about?”

“Secret, like what?”

“I don’t know. I’m asking you.”

“Yes, I was.”

“Can you tell me?”

“Then it won’t be a secret anymore.”

“I can’t steal it from you, so what do you care? A certain
disease?”

“Of course.”

“One that has no cure.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve discovered something for AIDS?”

“I can tell you a little about it, but I need something in
return.”

“I don’t pay people for information.”

“Not money, Darko. Just a promise that you won’t go and tell
someone in Accra who will come to try to steal from me.”

“You have my word.”

“First, Gladys told me one of Togbe Adzima’s trokosi was
suffering from AIDS.”

Dawson’s stomach plunged. That almost certainly meant Adzima had
HIV. He thought of Efia and the other four wives.
The new
wife
.

“Gladys wanted her to take a government-supplied medicine,”
Isaac went on, “but the trokosi refused and Nunana brought her to
me instead. I gave her some traditional medicines, and she got well
for some time, but she died later.”

“What did Gladys do then?”

“First, she went to the wives to ask them to take a test for
AIDS. Second, she asked me if I could go back to Accra with her to
meet some scientists at her school about my medicine – maybe it
could be made to work better.”

“What did you say to that?”

“I told her I would think about it. I wasn’t ready to give her
an answer.”

“Did she try to get Togbe Adzima tested for AIDS too?”

“Why should she?”

Dawson frowned. “The trokosi come to him as virgins.”

“And so?”

“And so if one of them got AIDS, she can only have got it from
Adzima.”

“No, AIDS can come from a curse, or witchcraft.”

Dawson shook his head. “You should stop believing that.”

He turned to leave, and Isaac was surprised. “Where are you
going?”

“To see Togbe Adzima.”

∨
Wife of the Gods
∧

B
efore continuing on
to Bedome, Dawson took a slight diversion to talk to the handful of
farmers toiling on their plots at the side of the forest.

He called out, “Good morning.
Ayekoo!
”

They responded appreciatively, and Dawson introduced himself and
asked if any of them had witnessed the argument between Isaac and
Samuel. Two of them said yes.

“Where were they when you saw them?” Dawson asked.

The farmers pointed, and as he turned to look, Dawson realized
something that he hadn’t before. Although Isaac and Samuel would
have been within view from this spot, the Bedome-Ketanu footpath
was obscured by a clump of bushes. It meant that the farmers would
not have been able to see whoever accosted Gladys on her way
home.

“Did Samuel come back this way?” Dawson asked.

The older of the two farmers nodded. “He came and helped us for
a little while.”

“Did he leave you before it got dark?”

The farmer shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Did he seem angry after the quarrel?”

“He was annoyed, yes, but I told him not to let it trouble him,
and I think he was all right after that.”

Dawson thanked the two witnesses, and took down their names in
case he needed to get back in touch with them.

As he walked on to Bedome, Dawson wondered,
How could Samuel
have been in two places at one time – working on the farm and
talking to Gladys on the path?
It wasn’t physically
possible.

♦

Togbe Adzima was sitting outside bouncing one of his children on
his knee, but as soon as he saw Dawson approaching, he got up and
retreated into his house.

“Don’t come in here,” he shouted from inside. “Get away from
me!”

But there was no door to stop Dawson from entering.

“What do you want from me?” Adzima snapped.

“I need to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“I’m not here to do anything bad to you, but Togbe Adzima, your
life may be in danger.”

“What are you talking about?”

“One of your trokosi died.”

“Who told you that?”

“Mr. Kutu.”

“All right. And so what?”

“Have you had that blood test Gladys Mensah was giving?”

“I don’t need any kind of blood test.”

“Was the trokosi a virgin when she came to you?”

“Of course,” Adzima said contemptuously.

“Okay, listen to me. I have come to ask you to use condoms,
especially with your new wife. I can get you some.”

Adzima threw his head back and roared with laugher. “For what?
Mr. Detective Man, I’m not going to use any condom.”

“I’m begging you.”

“You are begging
me
?” Adzima spat. “You came here and did
all kinds of bad things, and now you say you’re begging me. You are
too funny, Mr. Inspector.”

After several more futile attempts to talk sense into Adzima,
Dawson left abruptly, annoyed and despairing. Even if he did find a
way to put the priest behind bars
today
and get him away
from Efia and his other wives, it might already be too late. He may
already have transmitted HIV to some or all of them.

♦

Dawson walked quickly back toward Ketanu. He passed a mango tree
laden with ripe, rosy fruit and badly wanted to climb up and pick a
few. He used to love doing that as a boy. The only problem was that
fire ants, just as fond of mango trees, made ingenious nests out of
clusters of leaves. If they were disturbed, these vicious little
creatures the color of fire launched an attack with bites that felt
like a thousand red-hot needles.

As he passed by, Dawson heard a hiss from somewhere behind the
mango tree. He stopped and turned.

“Mr. Dawson!” A loud whisper.

He moved back toward the tree. “Who’s there?”

“Can you come, please?”

He circled around to see who it was.

“Nunana? What are you doing?”

She was crouched behind the tree trunk.

“So sorry to disturb you, please, sir,” she said, still speaking
in a whisper. “I saw you coming from Bedome. I have to tell you
something, but I don’t want anyone to see me talking to you.”

He knelt down beside her and dropped his voice in the same way.
“What is it you have to tell me?”

“You are looking for a silver bracelet belonging to Gladys
Mensah.”

“Yes, I am! You know something about it?”

“Please, I have seen one, sir.”

“Where?”

“In Togbe Adzima’s room, sir. In a tin he keeps with his drink.”
She swallowed hard and looked around nervously, as if convinced
they were being watched. “I was cleaning his house, and I saw
it.”

“When was that?”

“On Tuesday.”

Dawson’s heart surged. That was the
day before he and Fiti
had searched Adzima’s room
. This could be the lead he had been
praying for.

“Inspector Fiti and I didn’t find the bracelet,” he said. “Do
you think he’s hidden it somewhere?”

Nunana shook her head. “I don’t think he has it anymore, sir. I
think he has sold it.”

“To whom?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“How do you think he got Gladys’s bracelet?”

“I don’t know, but when Efia came to tell us Gladys was dead,
Togbe went to see where the body was, and he went alone.” Nunana
dropped her voice even further. “Maybe he stole it at that
time.”

“Do you remember what the bracelet looked like?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dawson took his notebook and pen from his top pocket. “I want
you to draw it, if you can. Just do your best.”

“All right, let me try.”

She rested the notebook on her knee, and with her tongue
sticking out with the effort, she painstakingly drew the bracelet,
laughing with both embarrassment and pride as she finished her
rendition. It was rudimentary, but it showed clearly enough that
the bracelet was a double strand of loops.

“Beautiful,” Dawson said.

She laughed again, pleased.

“Now, Nunana, tell me the truth,” Dawson said. “Think about this
carefully and tell me the truth. That evening before Efia
discovered Gladys’s body, did Togbe go anywhere? Did he disappear
somewhere?”

She looked away for a second. “I…I don’t know. I’m not
sure.”

Her voice was stretched tight like a rubber band at its limit.
Lying
. She knew, or had seen, something.

“You’re afraid,” Dawson said. “Afraid of Togbe, not so?”

Her eyes swung back and forth like a pendulum.

“If you’re so afraid,” Dawson pressed gently, “why come and tell
me anything at all? Because, Nunana, you have honor. You can’t just
let it be that a man takes a bracelet from the wrist of a dead
woman. Is that right?”

Nunana nodded. Dawson waited as she gathered courage.

“After Togbe quarreled with Gladys that evening and she had left
Bedome, he was angry and he started to hit all of us. Then one of
his friends from Ketanu came and he went with him to have
beer.”

“Do you know that friend?”

“No, I don’t know him.”

“Can you describe him?”

Her description was not the best in the world, but Nunana was
certain that Togbe’s friend was fat, short, and had speckled,
graying hair.

“Do you have anything else?” he asked Nunana.

“No, sir. Please, I beg you, don’t tell him – ”

“That you told me about the bracelet? I won’t.”

She was shaking. He touched her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid.”

♦

Dawson went looking for Constable Gyamfi while praying he would
not bump into Inspector Fiti. He sidled up to the front entrance of
the station and briefly put his head around the door to see who was
inside. Bubo was leaning against the counter picking his nails, but
Gyamfi wasn’t there. Dawson circled around the side and ducked down
below Fiti’s office window. He peeped in from one corner. Gyamfi
was standing up talking to the inspector, who was seated with his
back toward the window.

Gyamfi spotted him, and Dawson quickly pressed an index finger
to his lips. The constable acknowledged him without giving him
away, and Dawson went to the rear of the building.