Ikenga: Chapters 16–23

The editor in chief of the Kaleria Sun himself, Ikenne Kenkwo, sauntered in and walked up to Chief Ojini Okimba.

Bonny, Chioma, Ruff Diamond, and their parents, some neighbors, a few aunties and uncles and cousins, and a happy Mr. Oke (who’d returned to work when he heard of their return) all stayed at the house that night and a spontaneous celebration occurred.

The grandiose white mansion was surrounded by lush palm trees and a heavy white-bricked gate tipped with pointy wrought-iron designs.

The grandiose white mansion was surrounded by lush palm trees and a heavy white-bricked gate tipped with pointy wrought-iron designs.

Flamboyant geles fanned from women's heads like satellites.

He was far off, but you couldn’t miss the guy near the stage in the white caftan dancing spasmodically, graceless as an old chicken.

Everything he wore was probably brand name, but Nnamdi wasn't well versed enough in brand names to know which ones.

The house looked simultaneously like a five-star hotel and a gateway into an African kingdom. But the inside was even more striking. The rooms looked like the home of a very old-fashioned yet modern-minded wealthy man.

The house was a sprawling mansion that spread out on the ground like the palace of a king.

Nnamdi could feel the Man just under his skin, trying to push forward again, muddling his brain and swelling his appetite for violence.

Nnamdi, I may look like the kingpin of Kaleria's crime ring, but I’m a revolutionary just as dedicated to helping Kaleria as your father. Corruption is systematic.... Your father's goal was to stamp it out while mine was to channel it as much as I could.

Chioma had listened intently as he told her all that had happened and then she said, “Let’s just get out of here.”

He rested his head on his pillow and quickly fell into a fitful sleep, his mind still turning the question over and over.

As the sun rose, he sat up, realizing something he was sure was profound: He knew exactly who his father’s murderer was.

Why didn't I see it before? he groggily thought.

How could a man kill another man, then turn around and woo the man’s widowed wife?

He remembered how his father used to shout abomination! when he told his mother about the latest criminal deed he’d learned about at the police department.

His mother was growing lax. Now she was accepting more gifts from him.

Then, not far from Bonny as he walked to his car, Nnamdi glimpsed...his father’s dashiki, the long flowing robe he wore only on weekends.

And his mother dating her husband’s killer? She’d never ever be so easily manipulated. Nnamdi had been manipulated, by his own irrational need for justice.

He punched his pillow, got up, and trudged to the bathroom.

He pretended to fight crime but he was corrupt. He’d even been at the Chief of Chiefs’ party, dancing like a beer-soaked monkey. His father's successor. And he was a chief. The new chief of police!

Then he tried to bounce himself away, nearly capsizing the chair.

“She said she had no money to get home and buy food,” Okimba continued. “She was appealing to my sense of decency, you see. I brought her here to...get her some cash.”

If the incriminating lies the chief threatened to tell were inevitable, what good would it do to discuss things with Chioma?

Nnamdi didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this cramped newsroom. Not from a uniquely successful newsletter that thrived on embellished overblown stories and...murder.

He leaned back in his luxuriant chair.

“You scream and it’ll be the last sound to come out of your mouth,” Nnamdi said, his voice deep and sonorous.

His heightened senses picked up Kenkwo’s rapid heartbeat, his overpowering expensive cologne, and the scent of adrenaline wafting from his pores.

The newsletter reported that its own editor in chief was a “megalomaniac nutcase” who would rather see Kaleria writhing with crime he could report than clean and quiet.

He finally found her in the garden, staring at the yam. The healthy plant had started to grow a new tuber in the last week.

Darling was still at large.

He saw his father's ghost before he even got to the streetlight. Nnamdi could see right through him. He didn't look nearly as substantial as he had the first time.

It was the only thing in the world that both Nnamdi and his father's spirit could touch. Nnamdi grasped it firmly, relishing the moment when both he and his father held it.

Nnamdi stopped at his garden. It was flooded in moonlight, in serenity, peace, and quiet.