Efia couldn’t speak. She was paralyzed with shock. Nunana, the oldest, most experienced wife, her body worn and wiry and her breasts wrung dry by the toll of six children, pulled Efia up and led her protectively away.

“What happened?” she said softly. And suddenly more sharply, “Stop crying and tell me what’s wrong.”

As Efia was sobbing out her answer, Togbe Adzima came out of his hut shirtless and yelled, “What are you people doing standing around like cocoa trees?”

He was in his late fifties. He was oily and never looked clean, and his eyes were red and muddy from drinking.

“Nunana!”

She came to him quickly.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Please, Togbe. Efia says Gladys Mensah is dead in the forest.”

“What?”

“She found her at the plantain grove.”

“When?”

“Just now, Togbe.”

He looked baffled. He beckoned Efia over, and the children of the shrine fell in behind her, eyes wide with curiosity.

“What are you saying, Efia?”

She repeated what she had told Nunana. Togbe Adzima frowned. “Are you sure?”

Efia nodded. She tried to wipe her tears away, but they kept pouring.

Adzima went into his hut and came back out buttoning his shirt. “I’m going to see for myself. Finish your work. Make sure my akasa is ready when I return.”

The Boatengs’ home was a ramshackle house on its last legs. When Inspector Fiti entered, Mr. Boateng looked wary and his wife was visibly nervous. She offered Fiti some water, which he dismissed as if she had suggested poison. Four of the seven children were at home, all of them in tattered clothing.

“Where is Samuel?” Fiti asked in Ewe.

“Please, Inspector, he went with some friends to somewhere,” Boateng said.

“Find him,” Fiti said. “I want to talk to him. Right now.”

Boateng’s eight-year-old son went to look for Samuel and came back with him a few minutes later. Samuel was nineteen, compact and wiry, the striations of his ropy muscles showing through his faded shirt. chale-wate sandals clung to his muddy feet by threads. He looked suspiciously from the inspector to his parents.

“Sit on the floor,” Fiti told him.

Samuel’s face was fluid and mobile. His forehead creased and relaxed in rapid waves like a physical manifestation of his mind at work. He sat down looking both wary and defiant. The inspector moved closer and stood over him.

“Have you seen Gladys Mensah today?”

Samuel’s brow furrowed. “Please, no, sir.”

“What about yesterday? Did you see her?”

“Yesterday? No, sir.”

“Don’t lie, boy. Some farmers saw you with her.”

“No, sir. It wasn’t me.”

“Hello, Inspector?”

Everyone turned in the direction of the voice. Isaac Kutu was standing at the door.

“Yes?” Fiti saw the grave look on Isaac’s face. “What’s the matter?”

“You should come, Inspector. Gladys Mensah is dead.”

3

BAD NEWS SPREADS THROUGH any small town like fire through dry savanna bush. Kweku and Osewa Gedze first heard about Gladys Mensah’s death as they were working on their cocoa farm. The golden ripe cocoa pods were particularly beautiful this year. Each was perfectly almond shaped with sculptured ridges that ended in a point like an erect nipple. One pod held thirty to forty fleshy seeds that were scooped out, fermented, and then dried for days before they were ready to be shoveled into sacks for shipping. It was back-splitting work, and for all of it Osewa and Kweku would probably never savor a single mini-square of the final product-chocolate. It all went to fancy stores in the big cities at prices that they could never dream of paying.

Kweku wiped the sweat off his face and watched his wife for a moment. She was on her knees deftly slashing the pods open with a cutlass. Fifty-one years old and nine years his junior, she was strong and skilled with powerful hands that wielded a cutlass or shovel better than most men.

They looked up at the sound of running footsteps, and Alifoe, their twenty-three-year-old son, burst into view. He was tall and beautifully built, with the deepest black skin possible, glossy and silky with its natural oils.

“Have you heard?” he said breathlessly.

“Heard what?”

“You know the Mensah girl who was going to be a doctor?”

“Yes, what about her?” Kweku said.

“They found her dead early this morning.”

“Oh, no.” Osewa dropped her cutlass and stood up. “Where?”

“In the forest not far from here. Everyone is going there. I’m going too.”

He turned and started out.

“Wait for me,” Kweku called out. “Osewa, we’ll be back soon.”

Moving quickly with Isaac Kutu, Inspector Fiti made a call on his mobile to his constable.

“Gyamfi,” he snapped, “where are you-at the station? Eh-heh, good. Stop everything. Gladys Mensah has been found dead in the forest… Yes, that’s what I said, are you deaf or what? Go there now and secure the place… You’ll know where it is because everyone is going there. That’s why you need to hurry before they destroy the scene. You hear? Go!”

He pocketed his phone and took a few trotting steps to keep up with Isaac, who moved as swiftly and easily as a river over its bed. The police station was closer to the scene than the two of them were at the moment, so Gyamfi would get there first. The forest was on the eastern edge of Ketanu. To reach it, Inspector Fiti and Isaac had to cross the breadth of the town. Its dwellings and shops sprawled along either side of the busy road to Ho, the capital of the Volta Region, twenty kilometers due northeast. In his time, Inspector Fiti had seen three new roads built in Ketanu as it had mushroomed in size, and many of the mango, banana, and palm trees in which the town had once nestled had gone the way of chopped wood and compost.

Bedome village was in turn on the east side of the forest, a wellbeaten footpath connecting it to Ketanu. Fiti had been right-scores of people were breaking off into the forest from the footpath. As the inspector closely followed Isaac, he shouted at people to get out of the way, which they did. Everyone was familiar with Inspector Fiti’s rough, gravelly voice. He was not a particularly patient man.

Gyamfi had already arrived by the time Isaac Kutu and Inspector Fiti made it there, and he had managed to mark off a wide perimeter using a length of rope wrapped around the trunks of plantain trees. Now he stood guard at the edge of the cordoned-off area looking as fierce as he could to keep away a gathering cluster of spectators. People sometimes teased him and called him Boy Constable Gyamfi, because even though he was twenty-four, he looked nineteen and still had no serious facial hair.

“Who is it there?” Fiti asked Gyamfi as they came up to him. “Is it really Gladys Mensah?”

The constable nodded. “Yes, sir. It’s her.”

Fiti lifted the rope and ducked under. Isaac was about to follow, but Gyamfi put a gentle restraining hand on his shoulder. “Please, when we’re ready for you, we will call you.”

Isaac stepped back, looking a little insulted.

“Where is she?” Fiti asked Gyamfi.

Gyamfi pointed to just beyond a palm tree and led the way. He pulled aside the bush, and the inspector looked.

“Oh,” he said softly, shock in his voice. “Oh.”

It was midmorning by now. The sun was already scorching and the first of the bluebottle flies had begun to buzz around frenetically, but Fiti didn’t see a wound of any kind on Gladys’s body. She was missing a shoe, though. The left one.

“Is this how she was when you first came here?” he asked his constable.

“Yes, sir.”

“With the plantain leaves on her body?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you find something else?”

“Yes, sir.” He moved away about five meters. “Here, sir. Her shoe.”