The Garden of Burning Sand (18 page)

“And where they were going,” she deduced. “The window they broke in the kitchen was repaired last week. That’s why the bars were gone.”

“Did you see the repairmen?” he asked, parking outside her flat.

“They looked like ordinary Zambians.”

“No doubt they were. They finished the job and took home a few hundred pin for leaving the window unbarred.” He took a breath. “The people who came tonight were professionals. Did you notice the way they broke the glass?”

She shook her head.

“They weakened it with a cutter of some kind. The hole they made was a neat circle and no larger than a hand. Just enough to reach inside and undo the latch.”

She remembered the sound of shattering glass that woke her from sleep. “It took time to plan this,” she said, thinking of Dunstan Sisilu parked outside her gate. “It wasn’t just about the DNA decision.”

She looked out the window and interrogated herself, wishing she weren’t so tired. How had she distinguished herself in the investigation? What had she done to make them afraid?

Then it came to her.

“I talked to the housekeeper,” she said. “They must have seen me. Or maybe they caught my Land Rover on camera when I was staking out the house. That was over three weeks ago.”

He nodded slowly. “That makes sense. She must have seen something on the night of the rape. Or they think she saw something. We have to find a way to reach her.”

“No,” Zoe disagreed. “Approaching her again would only endanger her. All we need to nail Darious is DNA.”

He studied her. “You should get some sleep.”

She looked at her building and felt the terror again. “Stay with me tonight. Please.”

“Of course,” he replied. He got out of the truck and led her up the stairs to the flat. “I’ll sleep here,” he said, pointing at the couch.

She shook her head and took his hand, drawing him toward the guest room because her bedroom was a haunted place. She climbed into bed with her clothes on and cast aside the covers. He put the gun on the floor and slid in beside her. She pressed her back against his chest and closed her eyes, trying hard to block out the memory of the intruder and the snake.

“I feel safe now,” she whispered, and realized that she meant it.

Zoe slept until ten o’clock and woke to an empty bed. She blinked her eyes against the sunlight pouring through the open window shades and remembered she was in the guest room. She put on her glasses and went to the bathroom to freshen up. A few minutes later, she walked to the kitchen and found Joseph drinking a glass of water.

“Morning,” she said. “Hungry?”

He set the glass down in the sink. “Famished.”

She whipped up a breakfast of coffee, scrambled eggs, and toast with jam, and they ate on the deck. After a few bites she asked, “Should we file a report about last night?”

“Ordinarily, I’d say yes,” he replied. “But this is the Nyambos’ neighborhood, too. If they have friends at the police post, I don’t want them nosing into our investigation.” He gave her a somber look. “You’re not going to like this, but I don’t think you should stay here for a while.”

She shook her head. “This is my home. I’ll get the landlord to replace the bars and install a security system.”

“You’re a brave woman. I admire that. But all the precautions in the world don’t matter if you can’t trust the people around you.”

She wrestled with her emotions. She had never run from a fight. She had been robbed at gunpoint in Johannesburg, but she hadn’t
stopped walking the streets of Hillbrow. She was partial to her flat and the freedom it afforded her. Hotels were a nuisance, as was guest status in someone else’s home. But she couldn’t protect herself in her sleep.

“Where do you suggest I go?” she asked.

He looked relieved. “You need a place that’s secure. You have friends at the Embassy?”

She nodded. “I know Tom Prentice, the director of the CDC office. His wife was a close friend of my mother’s.”

“You should talk to her. The home of an American diplomat is one of the safest places in Zambia. The Embassy has its own security company.”

As much as Zoe hated to admit it, the idea made sense. “They have an extra wing,” she said eventually. “And a live-in housekeeper. It probably wouldn’t be an inconvenience.”

Joseph looked into her eyes. “Please, Zoe. I don’t want to worry about you.”

“I’ll think about it,” she sighed, knowing the decision had already been made.

Zoe called Carol Prentice after cleaning the dishes. A twenty-year veteran of the Foreign Service, Carol was fearless and formidable, a champion of the cocktail party circuit and her husband’s greatest political ally. Zoe’s story, however, left her at a loss for words.

“My God,” she said at last, “you expect that sort of thing in Lagos or Kinshasha, not Lusaka. Of course you can stay with us.”

“You sure it’s no trouble?” Zoe asked.

Carol laughed. “Honey, your mother was one of my dearest friends. You can have the guest suite for as long as you like.”

Zoe hung up and went to her bedroom to pack. She laid two suitcases on the floor and stuffed them with clothing and personal items.
Afterward, she took a shower and pulled her hair back in a ponytail. A few minutes before noon, she met Joseph in the parking lot and threw her bags in the Land Rover. They drove to the Prentices’ separately—Zoe in the lead and Joseph behind. She watched her mirrors for the blue sedan but saw nothing.

The Prentices lived in a sprawling bungalow in nearby Sunningdale. The house was a model of colonial charm, its solid block construction, white stucco, terracotta roof, and plant-covered terraces reminiscent of a bygone era.

Carol greeted them at the door and gave Zoe a hug. “I’m so sorry about what happened,” she said. “I phoned Tom right away and he
insisted
you stay with us. The house needs a little spunk. It feels like a museum since the kids left.”

She held out her hand and escorted them to the guest suite. Inside, the bungalow had the feel of a safari lodge, with breezy living spaces, wood ceilings, and animal carvings in every corner. The guest suite was in a different wing from the Prentices’ sleeping quarters and had its own sitting room and bathroom.

Carol handed Zoe a set of keys. “You can come and go at your leisure and have visitors any time.” She winked at Joseph. “You’re not a guest; you’re at home. We eat dinner at six. If you’re here, you can join us. If not, we’ll eat without you. No expectations either way.”

Zoe touched her arm. “It’s very kind of you.”

“Think nothing of it,” she said. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” She tossed a “Ciao!” over her shoulder and left the room.

Joseph was impressed. “I like this place. It’s built like a bunker.”

“You’ll have to get to know it then,” she replied, taking his hand and drawing him toward her until their faces were inches apart. She searched his dark eyes and waited, feeling shivers along her spine. He smiled and leaned in to kiss her. At that moment his phone rang.

“Let them leave a message,” she urged. “It’s Saturday.”

He grunted. “My job never ends.” He took the phone out of his pocket and frowned. “It’s Mariam.” He took the call and listened intently. The muscles in his jaw tightened. “Tell him to stay where he is. I’m on my way.”

“What happened?” Zoe asked.

“The samples at UTH. They’re gone.”

They found Dr. Chulu pacing in the hallway outside the hospital’s library. When he saw them, he led them to the cabinet without a word. The library was a clinical cube, outfitted with a conference table, computer benches, and two rows of cabinets. The cabinet in the corner was missing a door—it had been carefully removed and placed on the floor.

“They took out the hinges,” Dr. Chulu said hoarsely. “I don’t know how they got into the room. We always keep it locked.”

Joseph walked to the open cabinet and examined the frame. “When did this happen?”

“I don’t know. No one has been in here since last night.”

“Are you the one who found it?”

Dr. Chulu nodded. “I’ve already talked to my staff. No one saw anything.”

“Who knew the samples were here?”

“I keep all evidence in this cabinet. My assistants knew about it.”

Joseph’s eyes blazed. “I want to talk to them. And I want to talk to anyone who was in this wing after you left last night.”

Dr. Chulu scratched his chin. “It’s going to take a while to round them up.”

“I’ll wait.”

When the doctor left the room, Zoe sat down at the conference
table and buried her face in her hands. After all they had achieved, after all Kuyeya had suffered, after Flexon Mubita had commandeered the bench and set the prosecution of Darious Nyambo on an historic course, the evidence that carried the truth about a little girl’s horror had just disappeared. She felt too deflated for anger, too enervated to rebuke the voice of despair.

A memory came to mind, a patchwork of words her father had spoken to her mother before she left for Somalia. “They’ve been killing each other for centuries,” he had said, standing by the bay window at the Vineyard house. “Nothing you do is going to change that.”

“Damn it, Jack,” Catherine had retorted, “their children are starving; their daughters are being assaulted; their sons are being slaughtered. They see our planes, our doctors, our supplies, and they remember how to hope.”

Jack had shaken his head wearily. “After centuries of rape and murder, hope is the smile stamped on the face of a fool. Achebe said it, not me.”

It was the only time Zoe remembered her mother wavering in her resolve. A week later she was dead.

Joseph’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Mariam,” he said into his phone, “all of the samples are gone. And last night someone broke into Zoe’s flat and left a snake.” He paused, listening. “She’s fine. She’s here with me. I want you to call Benson Luchembe and tell him that his client is obstructing justice. Tell him I’ve made it my mission to bring Darious down.”

Zoe borrowed strength from his words.

“How soon can you arrange another hearing?” Joseph asked Mariam. “I want Sarge to put me on the stand and let me tell Mubita why he should hold the defense in contempt.” He listened for a moment and then said, “Good. Arrange it.”

He put the phone away and regarded Zoe in silence.

“I needed to hear that,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Words are cheap. The payoff is all that matters.” He turned toward the window and searched the sky beyond. “You once asked me why I’m doing this. It’s because of moments like this, when the powerful take advantage of the weak.”

“You told me you made a promise,” she ventured, recalling their cruise on the Zambezi. “It didn’t seem cheap to me.”

He hesitated. “I made that promise to my sister.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That her death wouldn’t be in vain.”

Zoe was perplexed. “I thought she died of AIDS.”

“The virus was the bullet,” he said. “My uncle pulled the trigger.”

She processed this in an instant. “He …?”

Joseph nodded. “When she was nine. I caught him in the act, but I couldn’t stop him. I was twelve. He threatened to kill us if we talked. We never spoke of it again. We had no choice. He was Deputy Commissioner of Police.”

Zoe shuddered. “Where is he now?”

“He died four years before Elaine. Of course, they didn’t call it AIDS. They called in pneumonia. But when she died, too, I knew.”

Zoe took his hand and squeezed. “I’m so sorry, Joseph,” she said, understanding everything at once—why he waited to go to college, why he was obsessed with his work, why he wanted to be Inspector General of Police.

She heard footsteps in the hallway outside the library. The door opened and Dr. Chulu led a group of people into the room.

“All of them were here last night,” the doctor said. He pointed to two young women. “These are my assistants. You’ve already met Nurse Mbelo.”

Joseph nodded. “I’ll talk to her first. The rest of you wait in the hallway.”

The interviews lasted over an hour. Joseph drilled down deep, probing every inconsistency, watching faces and mannerisms for anything that might signal guilt, but neither the night staff nor Dr. Chulu’s assistants yielded anything of value. When he dismissed the last of them, he looked at Zoe in frustration.

“Where you’re from, a forensics team would take fingerprints, hair samples, skin samples, and check them against an electronic database. In Zambia, we have trained technicians but nothing to do with the evidence without a suspect. What do you call it? A Catch-22.”

She nodded. “And even if you did find a suspect, you wouldn’t be able to connect him to the Nyambos. We need to talk to the judge. Then we need to go back to the drawing board.”

“The
ngangas
,” he said.

“The housekeeper,” she added. “And Cynthia in Kitwe.”

He shook his head. “We could have set a precedent with this case.”

She smiled, her old confidence beginning to return. “Perhaps we still will.”

Thanks to Sarge’s efforts, the case was scheduled for a hearing the following Tuesday. After everyone assembled in Courtroom 10, the judge climbed the bench and waved to the deputy who swiftly cleansed the chamber of all spectators, including Frederick Nyambo. The deputy nodded to the judge and stepped outside, closing the door behind him.

Mubita gave Benson Luchembe an icy stare. “This Court will not tolerate threats to members of the prosecution or the theft of critical evidence.”

Luchembe stood, affecting a look of surprise. “Your Worship,” he
said deferentially, “my client insists he had nothing to do with the break-ins. He submitted a blood sample yesterday, pursuant to your order.”

Anger flared in the judge’s eyes. “Evidence disappeared from a locked room barely twenty-four hours after I ordered it to be tested. Who benefited other than the accused?”

Luchembe held out his hands. “I don’t know, Your Worship.”

Mubita shook his head and turned to Sarge. “I realize you have witnesses who would like to testify, but unless they can prove the involvement of the accused, I can’t do anything with it.”

Sarge nodded reluctantly. “It appears the perpetrators left without a trace.”

The judge leaned forward, looking at Luchembe. “While I have no grounds for contempt, the loss of evidence prejudices the prosecution. With DNA, we would have known your client’s guilt or innocence in a matter of weeks. Without DNA, we must try this case the old-fashioned way. I want you to know that I’m going to give the prosecution wide latitude to present its evidence at trial. I’ll take this incident into account to the extent I’m permitted by the rules.”

Mubita’s eyes swept the courtroom, confronting every lawyer with equal intensity. “I have not prejudged this case. The accused is innocent until proven guilty. But I will not allow any man or woman to tilt the scales of justice. This Court is adjourned.”

As soon as the magistrate left the bench, the defense team piled out of the courtroom. Zoe conferred with Joseph in a whisper while Sarge and Niza packed their briefcases.

“I’ve been thinking about how to get the housekeeper alone again,” she said.

“If your interest in her triggered the attack on your flat,” he replied, “they’re going to watch her carefully.”

“They can’t live without food. I’m going to hang out at Shoprite.”

“That won’t work if you’re being followed.”

She pictured Dunstan Sisilu. “I haven’t seen him since the attack.”

“Neither have I, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t there.”

She met his eyes. “It’s a risk I have to take.”