Kwei Quartey - Wife of the Gods

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,” she 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?”

“Away.”

They went farther down the footpath. Two women talking to each other went by them with cassavas balanced on their heads, and Dawson and Efia wished them good morning.

“I came out from here.” Efia showed Dawson.

There was a break in the bushy vegetation, and Dawson recognized it as the same access he and Inspector Fiti had used. He looked back the way they had come. “I noticed a place up there that might be another path into the forest. Come with me.”

They retraced their steps to the spot. It was true there was a split in the vegetation, but it wasn’t very pronounced.

“Could you go from here to the plantain grove?” Dawson asked.

Efia looked doubtful. “It looks tough. I’ve never done it.”

“Let’s try. You lead.”

The going was not at all easy. They had to weave and duck to get through, and the underbrush was tangled and difficult to negotiate. They arrived at the plantain grove after about eight minutes.

They stood looking around the clearing.

“This is the first time I’ve come back here since Gladys died,” Efia said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m all right.”

“I want to show you something,” Dawson said.

He led her behind the plantain trees and stopped at the juju pyramid.

“Have you seen this before, Efia?”

“Yes, one time.”

“Are you afraid of it?”

“No, but I stay away from it.”

“What would happen if someone took all these rocks off to see what’s underneath?”

Efia shook her head slowly and disapprovingly. “No one should do that.”

“Do you know who built this?”

“No. And I don’t ask.”

He smiled at her. “Okay. Well, let’s go back the way you went after you found Gladys’s body. You say you ran?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s do that. Try to run as fast as you did. I’ll follow you.”

Dawson had to admit Efia could tackle the forest a lot better than he could. At an all-out run he almost fell twice as he tried to keep up with her.

They came out on the path again, and both were breathing heavily.

“Ei, that was hard,” Dawson said, looking at his watch. Four and a half minutes.

She smiled. “City man, that’s why.”

They laughed.

“I have to go back, Mr. Dawson.”

“I’ll walk with you. Thank you, Efia. You’ve helped me a lot.”

“Not at all, Mr. Dawson.”

On the way back to the farm, Dawson was thinking of a scenario. What if Isaac had killed Gladys that Friday evening?

Saturday morning, he returns to the plantain grove because he thinks he might have left an incriminating clue, or he wants to make sure he hasn’t. While there, he hears Efia approaching. He escapes through the bush to the Ketanu-Bedome footpath by a route that takes him seven or eight minutes. Meanwhile, two or three minutes pass as Efia enters the grove, discovers the body, and screams for help. She runs back to the footpath, which takes another four and a half minutes. Add that up and we get about seven minutes. Isaac Kutu is emerging from the forest at about the same time. That’s when Efia sees him and calls out to him .

“Let me ask you something, Efia,” Dawson said, “and if you know the answer, I want you to tell me the truth.”

“I will try.”

“Gladys was interested in Mr. Kutu’s medicine. Do you think she was trying to steal it from him?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Gladys didn’t need Mr. Kutu. She had everything in the world-what does she need him for? No, it was Mr. Kutu who needed Gladys.”

“Do you think he was in love with her?”

“Once when she came to Bedome, I saw him looking at her with desire. I can’t go inside his mind to know whether he was feeling love or not. Mr. Kutu does that with a lot of women. Sometimes he has looked at me the same way.”

“And whom else has he looked at in that way?”