Kwei Quartey - Wife of the Gods

“I don’t know much about witchcraft,” Dawson said, “but for sure we know now she was murdered.”

“Oh!” Kweku said, shocked. “Who could do something like that? She was such a good person. She came to see us one day, not so, Osewa?”

She nodded. “She did.”

“Really?” Dawson asked with interest.

“Yes,” Auntie Osewa said. “You remember Mr. Kutu?”

“Very well.”

“Maybe you don’t know, but he helped me to bear a child through his herbal medicines. Gladys Mensah, well, she wanted to learn about those kinds of medicines-how she could use them to help more women who could not have children, or something like that. So one day she came with Mr. Kutu to meet us.”

“How did you find Gladys to be as a person?”

“Oh, just a very fine young woman,” Auntie Osewa said. “Very fine. She sat and ate with us, and we talked about many things.”

“How was she with Mr. Kutu?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did they behave with each other?”

Osewa shrugged. “I think everything was okay. What do you think, Kweku?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I saw that they liked each other very well.”

Dawson caught a movement from the corner of his eye and turned to see a young man in the doorway.

“Alifoe!” Osewa said. “Come and greet your cousin.”

Their son was not as tall as Dawson, but his shoulders were much broader. He moved easily and had a bright, spontaneous grin. Dawson stood up, and Alifoe embraced him and then stood back at arm’s length to gaze at him.

“So, finally I get to meet my cousin in the flesh,” he said, smiling.

“Welcome back to Ketanu, Darko,” Alifoe said. “How is Accra?”

“Big and dirty,” Dawson said.

“But you like it?”

Dawson turned his palms up. “It’s home. I complain about it all the time, but I’m not leaving.”

“I want to live there,” Alifoe said. “I like the big city.”

“Alifoe, do you want some coconut?” Osewa said suddenly, and Dawson found the interruption striking.

“No, thank you, Mama,” Alifoe said. He fell silent, Kweku looked away, and Dawson felt tension spring out of nowhere like water from a hidden underground stream.

“Darko, you and Gyamfi must eat with us,” Osewa said, hurriedly filling in the lull.

Darko’s salivary glands squirted into action at the thought of Auntie Osewa’s cooking.

He looked at Gyamfi, who nodded enthusiastically.

“We would love to,” Dawson said. “Thank you, Auntie.”

T HE MINISTRY OF HEALTHkept a guesthouse in Ketanu for the occasional stay by a minister or one of his or her deputies. It was small but comfortable, with a kitchenette and bath. The bedroom-cum-sitting room had one small table, an armchair, and a desk. The two beds were narrow and firm.

Dawson immediately took a cold shower-cold was the only temperature available. The water pressure was low, but it still felt good. In the bedroom he opened the window louvers to get in as much air as possible. He wanted to call Christine, but he would first have to recharge the battery of his mobile. He plugged it into the wall and hoped there wouldn’t be any surprise electricity cuts within the next hour.

Ever since that night twenty-five years ago when he had first stumbled through a tune for Mama on the kalimba she had given him, he had loved the instrument and continued to practice. It soothed him whenever he played, and it connected him to his mother. He now had quite a collection of kalimbas, and he had selected an eight-note to bring along to Ketanu.

He sat and played for a while, both improvised tunes and ones he had composed, and then he rolled a joint and smoked. He needed it. The kalimba had taken away some of the tension the day had built up but certainly not all.

He thought about Gladys Mensah. She must have been quite someone to know, a force to be reckoned with, and that might have been exactly the problem. Someone feared her or hated her enough to kill her. Or loved her and was rejected by her .

He began to think about it in a circular way. Round and round until it no longer made any sense. He knew it was the THC infiltrating his brain. Tetrahydrocannabinol. What a cold, clinical name for stuff that soothed him with silky, molten warmth. He felt it infusing like rainwater saturating thirsty soil. His muscles started to relax, and his body felt light and floating. He sighed. It was very good, this feeling.

The world seemed to expand when he smoked. Sometimes that gave life more meaning, but on other occasions it only made it seem more mysterious. Marijuana had a sense of humor too. Dawson stared at the bed, and it looked longer, wider, and higher, but in an odd, distorted way. The angles seemed all wrong, and he giggled at how ridiculous it appeared as a piece of furniture.

He sobered again. Christine loathed his habit. She knew he smoked, but they never talked about it, and he kept it strictly away from her and Hosiah. This trip was ideal for getting some good marijuana in-far from home and CID Headquarters.

Possession and use of marijuana was illegal in Ghana, but it didn’t bother Dawson that he was breaking what he considered a silly law.

He finished his joint, lay down on the bed, and returned to thinking about Gladys. Who would kill her? Togbe Adzima? Maybe. She had evidently infuriated him. Samuel Boateng? Perhaps. Dawson didn’t know enough about him yet. What about family members themselves? Inspector Fiti had discounted that proposition, but even as a boy, Dawson had learned that a detective should never overlook a “loved one” as the victim’s possible slayer.

As soon as Papa had returned from Ketanu, he went to Accra Central Police Station to report Mama officially missing. It was two weeks before anyone got back in touch with them. A plainclothes policeman came to their house. Darko stared at him. He was about Papa’s age, late thirties, neat, and small . Darko had always thought policemen had to be big.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Daniel Armah,” he said to Papa. “Is Beatrice Dawson your wife?”

“Yes,” Papa said.

Armah shook hands with him and then with Darko and Cairo, who was in his wheelchair.

“So,” Armah said. “She’s still missing?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” Armah’s gaze was flat and steady, and Darko couldn’t tell what he was thinking. At first he thought the detective simply wasn’t that interested in Mama’s case, but when Armah sat down and took a long and painstakingly detailed report, Darko realized he had been wrong. Armah took his time and asked Papa a lot of questions-sometimes the same question twice-and wrote everything down. After more than an hour, the detective left. Darko stood at the door and watched him walking away, oddly wishing he could stay longer. Suddenly Armah turned around and waved to him as if he had felt Darko’s gaze.

Papa stayed in the house, and Darko played in the yard with some friends. Cairo sat in his wheelchair watching them. After a while they got together and pushed him careening around the yard while he laughed at the top of his lungs.

Darko looked up as Detective Armah appeared again at the side of the yard and beckoned to him. He walked a little way with Darko out of sight of the house and stooped down face-to-face with him.

“You want your mama back, eh?”

Darko nodded.

“She’s a good mother to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your father? Is he good too?”

Darko hesitated too long. “Yes, sir. He is good too.”

“He never beat your mama or threatened to do something to her?”

“No.”

Armah asked him a few more questions like that-actually the same question in different ways. At first, Darko couldn’t understand why he kept doing that, but then like a flash of light in the dark, he realized what the detective was after. That was Dawson’s first, chilly lesson that, in murder cases, those closest to the victim could well be prime suspects. It took Darko’s breath away. It had not even entered his mind before now that Papa could remotely be involved with Mama’s disappearance. It was a terrible, awful thought. Darko began to tremble.