“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.