Free The Garden of Burning Sand by Corban Addison Page B

He told me he was from Kinshasha. He was dirty, but at least he was kind
.
    On the following page, Zoe found a third letter addressed to “Jan.” The letter read a lot like the first two—a lament of poverty, disease, and violence—but by now Bella was living with Doris. Kuyeya was ill again, this time with a rash on her face. A client had asked for unprotected sex, and she had consented, but he had paid her the condom price and hit her when she protested. Another client—one of her steadies—had stayed the night with her and woken with a terrible hangover. When he saw Kuyeya’s rash, he screamed at her, terrifying the child.
    Zoe read until she could no longer see the notebook. Every page contained an undated letter, and all were addressed to Jan. Each lettercarried the same matter-of-fact tone, the same relentlessly depressing news. Bella used descriptions, not names, to refer to her clients. Among them were the “truck driver from Nairobi,” the “man with the penguin suit,” the “the AirTel boy,” the “man who paid double for all night,” and “the minister who thinks he should be president.” Jan himself remained a mystery. The only revealing reference in the first ten letters was a comment about
Mosi-oa-Tunya
—Victoria Falls.
    She went inside and warmed up leftover
nshima
and
ndiwo
—relish made of groundnuts, beans and collard greens—from lunch the day before. Setting the food on the dining room table, she uncorked a bottle of South African pinotage and lit a candle. Then she turned on some Johnny Cash and placed the notebook beside her. Somewhere buried in Bella’s mordant recollections was a clue, Zoe was sure.
    She would read until she found it.

Chapter 5
    On Wednesday morning, Zoe drove to the office, feeling inspired. Her examination of Bella’s notebook had revealed nothing about a suspect, but the handwritten letters had afforded her tantalizing glimpses into Bella’s past. The more she had read, the more she had convinced herself that the missing pieces of the woman’s story could shed light on the investigation.
    At nine o’clock, the response team met in the conference room. Joseph laid the doll and glasses on the table, and Zoe placed the notebook beside them.
    “It seems we’ve had developments,” Mariam remarked. “Please fill us in.”
    Zoe traded a glance with Joseph, and he surprised her with a nod that said,
Go ahead
.
    After collecting her thoughts, she offered the team a summary of their meetings with Doris, the discovery of the doll and glasses, and the appearance of a second eyewitness—Given. Joseph chimed in a few details but otherwise left the narrative in her hands.
    At the end of her report, Zoe held up the notebook. “In the last five years of her life, Bella wrote one hundred and eighty-nine letters to a person named Jan. In them she describes the disintegration of her health, her desperate attempts to provide for Kuyeya, and herwork as a prostitute. Joseph and I agree that Kuyeya’s rape was likely premeditated. If that’s true, the obvious suspects are customers. Unfortunately, Bella never named names. She referred to her clients in code. In addition, she never mentioned a client with an interest in her daughter.”
    She showed them the inside cover of the notebook. “That said, this is the third volume; the first volume, apparently, was lost and the second was destroyed. We know nothing about what Bella did before April of 2004. In the absence of a better approach, I propose that we fill in the gaps. I have a hunch that Bella will lead us to the man who raped her daughter.”
    After a pause Niza was the first to speak. “I’ll admit I haven’t read the letters, but Bella’s past seems like an odd place to look for a suspect.”
    “Granted,” Zoe said. “But even if I’m wrong, what I’m proposing should give us confirmation of Kuyeya’s age.”
    Until now Sarge had been leaning back in his chair. At the mention of age, he perked up. In