His Last Wife

Val and Kerry followed him with their eyes as he spoke and walked to stand in front of the wall of flashing images from news channels.

“Tell me, what exactly do you need help seeing?” he asked.

Kerry tried to speak for Val, but Baba Seti held out his hand to stop her and allow Val to share her concerns.

“Kerry says on your blog you said Jamison isn’t dead and that you know where he is.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Well, I don’t believe that, because I saw Jamison at the morgue. I know he’s dead. He was thrown from a roof, so how could he be alive and wherever you claim he is?” Val posed.

“Interesting questions. May I ask one?”

Val nodded.

“What did you see at the hospital?” Baba Seti asked, crossing his arms over his chest to signify that he was interested in what Val was about to say.

“Excuse me?”

“I inquired about what you saw at the hospital. You said you saw him at the morgue and he was dead. Tell me what you saw.”

“Well, you know what happened to him, so you know there wasn’t much to see.”

“What did you see?”

Val knew where Baba Seti was going, so she argued, “They wouldn’t let me see his face. The coroner said it would be too difficult to see.”

“What did you see?” Baba Seti repeated in the same tone as before. He was allowing Val’s points to prove his point.

Val’s list hadn’t changed: the bloody clothes, his wallet, his hand, his feet. “I know what you think, but I know his hands. I know his feet. It was him.”

“No other person in the world has feet like his? Hands like his?” Baba Seti asked. “Look at your own hands. Are they one of a kind? Are you sure? Do you think that if you wanted to, say, make someone believe they were looking at your hands and feet, you could find someone with hands and feet at least similar to your own to make them believe they were looking at your hands and feet?”

Val aborted her point. “Kerry saw him being thrown off of the building.” She looked at Kerry, but Kerry turned away to Baba Seti.

“Dear sister, that morning she saw what you saw—what someone wanted her to see,” Baba Seti said calmly.

“So no one fell from the roof? People saw it. There

were police officers everywhere,” Val listed.

“Someone did, but it wasn’t Brother Taylor.”

Baba Seti told Val about the dead man who took the fall, the affiliations of the people speaking to the media, the coroner’s affiliations.

“They were all in on it?” Val said in disbelief. “They were all helping Jamison? They knew it wasn’t real?” Val shook her head. “No. That’s crazy. How could that many people in this big city be in on the same thing? All agree to the same thing? It would be impossible to pull that off.”

“Was it impossible for the police officers to show up on the scene and quickly discern that Kerry was the killer? Lock her up and do all else, except throw away the key?” Baba Seti asked.

“I don’t know everything about that.”

“Then how do you know everything about this?” Baba Seti walked back to the desk and sat on the edge in front of Val and Kerry. “You don’t want to believe, sister, and that’s their plan. Brother Taylor is a believer. He supports the Fihankra Center and the movement.”

“What movement?” Val asked.

“The movement to reclaim the soil for the people. The movement to have men judge men. There is no justice here and there won’t be until men are judged. That is how it’s supposed to be. We’ve gone too long without the men being judged and it’s almost time for that to happen. There’s this saying: The people should not fear the government. The government should fear the people. We are the people and soon they will fear us.”

“Again, with all of this they—who are they?” Val asked. “Do you mean the government—like the U.S. government led by President Barack Obama, who is a black man, might I add?”