“Now what?” Chikata asked.

“We wait.”

And wait they did. The more time passed, the worse Dawson felt. Even in the heat of the forest, he began to shiver.

I could leave now, he thought. Just go back to Accra, call it a day.

But he thought of Gladys and he thought of Samuel, and he knew he couldn’t leave.

A light breeze whispered through the trees. Dawson caught the smell of the moist earth and the lingering odor of the smoke from the fire. He looked up as he heard the soft crunch of feet upon moist leaves. Judging by the interval between footsteps, it was a man approaching. A final rustle past an obstructing bush and Isaac Kutu broke into the clearing. He recoiled when he saw Dawson and Chikata.

“What are you doing here?” he said in surprise.

“Waiting for you and Auntie Osewa,” Dawson said.

Isaac suddenly seemed to shrink. “Why?”

“Is this where you always meet, or do you choose a different place each time?”

Isaac’s shoulders slumped, and he passed his hand over his face like a cloth across a windowpane. “How did you know?”

“Just when you think no one is watching, someone sees.”

“You did?”

“Not me.”

A soft footfall, lighter and quicker than Isaac’s, came from beyond the clearing, and seconds later Auntie Osewa appeared. She went rigid and looked quizzically from Dawson and Chikata to Isaac.

“What’s happening?”

“I saw the signal and I thought it was you,” Isaac said.

“And I thought it was you.” Osewa turned to Dawson, mystified. “Darko?”

“Isaac loves you, Auntie, and you love him. When you signal for him to come to you, he comes. Not so?”

“This is none of your concern, Darko.”

“I’m sorry, Auntie. This isn’t easy for me either, because I’ve loved you from the first day I met you. The way you treated Mama and Cairo and me, your cooking, how you’ve cared for us… I want to thank you. I’ll never forget it.”

She softened. “It’s my duty as an aunt. I love you and Cairo, so I treat you with love.”

“Did you love my mother too?”

“Of course, Darko. Why do you ask such a thing? Of course I loved her.”

“But jealousy defeats love every time, doesn’t it? They’re opposite sides of the same coin, but jealousy always comes out heads.”

“My dear Darko, what you are talking about?”

“Jealousy,” Darko said softly, almost musing to himself. “And its twin, possessiveness.”

“I don’t understand.”

“How did it feel the day Isaac came to the house with Gladys? Did it seem to you like they were close, Auntie? Like there was romance between the two of them?”

“They were working together on the medicines, that’s all,” she said. “I don’t know why you or I should think anything else.”

“I don’t either, but that’s our heads talking. What our hearts say is different. The heart makes an impression on the head, but it’s never the reverse, and it’s the heart that drives our passions and motives.”

“All you’re saying may be true, Darko, my love, but-”

“It was very threatening, Auntie. I know that, and I understand it. Gladys was so lovely, and although she was no lovelier than you, she was young, she was educated, and she was going to be a doctor. To see her with your Isaac, the Isaac who has done so much for you and whom you love more than any other man in the world-maybe the only one you love.” Dawson shook his head. “Too frightening for Gladys to get so close. Who knows what they were doing together in Isaac’s compound? Hours spent side by side. I would have gone mad myself thinking about it.”

Osewa looked away.

“And that evening you were collecting firewood and you saw Isaac and Gladys standing together talking,” Dawson continued, “they stood closer together than was comfortable for you. You couldn’t bear it. Too much pain, too much.”

The other two men were watching, transfixed.

“Once Isaac had left,” Dawson continued, “you caught up with Gladys on her way back to Ketanu and lured her to the plantain grove in the forest.”

“Darko,” Osewa said softly “You are wrong. I already told you. I last saw Gladys with Samuel. She went into the forest with him, not me.”

“You saw them from the firewood spot, not so?”

“Yes, that’s what I said. I don’t know what’s going on, Darko. Is something the matter?”

“Auntie, what I’m getting at is how you knew Gladys’s skirt and blouse had Adinkra symbols on it?”

Osewa shrugged. “Because I saw it. What do you mean, How did I know?”

“You could see the pattern on her outfit from where you were at the firewood spot. That’s what you’re saying?”

“Yes.” But he could see she was suddenly wary.

“Auntie, it’s not possible. From that distance, you couldn’t see the Adinkra symbols.”

A wave of puzzlement and uncertainty passed across her face like a shadow. “What do you mean?”

“The symbols are too small to be seen from where you were. We’ve tried it ourselves, Chikata and I.”

“What?” she said.

“It’s true,” Chikata said quietly. “It’s impossible even for me, and my vision is better than normal.”

“Then how did I know Gladys’s dress had Adinkra on it?” Osewa challenged.

“You saw it only after you got close enough to see the pattern, but your mind played a trick on you and made you think you had also seen it from far off. You wanted to be sure we believed your story, so you gave us that detail and it was one too many.”

Osewa swallowed. She stared at Dawson without blinking, and he stared back. “And you led Gladys to the plantain grove. Maybe you told her you had some special herbs to show her. How long did you wait before you killed her, Auntie?”

Osewa recoiled.

“She didn’t do it,” Isaac said suddenly.

Dawson’s head turned. “What did you say?”

“Osewa didn’t kill Gladys,” he said. “I did.”

“Isaac Kutu, are you confessing to the murder of Gladys Mensah?”

“You’re right that Osewa lied about Samuel and Gladys going into the forest, but it wasn’t herself she was trying to protect, it was me.”

“How did she know you were the murderer?”

“She didn’t know it for sure. She suspected it because she knew I was angry with Gladys for trying to steal from me, and then she got worried when she learned how you were after my skin. And as for the Adinkra symbols, that was easy. She simply asked me what Gladys had been wearing.”

Osewa put her face in her hands and shook her head in disbelief.

Chikata stepped forward, cuffs in hand. “Isaac Kutu,” he said, “I am Detective Sergeant Chikata. I am arresting you for the murder of Gladys Mensah. Please turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

Osewa stood dumbfounded as the handcuffs clicked shut with staccato precision. Isaac bowed his head.

“Auntie Osewa,” Dawson said, “are you really going to let Isaac be taken away to prison like that? Do you really love him if you can stand there and do nothing? After all he’s done for you? Alifoe is your son with Isaac. He’s the father of your child. You’re going to let him go like this?”

Osewa’s eyes had gone wide. “Who told you Isaac is Alifoe’s father?”

“No one. Come on now. Kweku the father of a boy as beautiful as Alifoe? I don’t think so. Kweku is, and always has been, as infertile as the Sahara desert. You know that, and so do I.”

Osewa was looking from Isaac to Dawson and back again. She was torn.

“He loves you, Auntie,” Dawson pressed. “But do you really love him if you can let him take the blame for what you did?”

“Don’t judge me,” she said coldly. “You have no right to judge me.”

Dawson said nothing and waited. Chikata turned Isaac to face Osewa, and their eyes locked.

“Let him go,” she said resolutely. For the first time, she shed tears. “He didn’t kill Gladys. I did.”

Chikata, confused, looked to Dawson for guidance. Dawson nodded his permission to unlock the cuffs.