City of Saints & Thieves(31)

“Well, that’s what I—”

“Could be they did get him. And then your dad killed him. Or her. Chopped the killer up into little pieces and fed him to the sharks. That’s a possibility.”

Michael scowls at me.

“Not that it does my mother much good, but that’s better for you and your dad as far as you’re concerned, right?”

“He doesn’t chop people up.”

“No,” I say, “he just pays people to do it. Sharks gotta eat, right?”

“Maybe we should think about motives, not body disposal.”

“Just trying to be helpful.”

Michael sighs. “Okay, let’s figure out possible suspects. Who were your mom’s enemies?”

My smirk fades. “Your father.”

Michael takes a deep breath but keeps his voice level. “What about in Congo?”

“Like I said, your dad.”

“What are you talking about?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “They met there. She knew him from before.”

Michael frowns. “Wait. So you’re saying they were enemies in Congo?”

“She knew stuff about Extracta. Bad stuff. That’s what she was saying she was going to go to the press with when he threatened to kill her.”

“But if they were enemies, why would she come here, all the way from Congo, and ask him for a job? And why would he be like, ‘Yeah, sure. Come on in’?”

“I . . .” I shake my head. “She came here because . . . Look, I don’t know why we ended up here. Maybe he forced her to work for him.”

“That doesn’t make sense. She wouldn’t have brought you here if it wasn’t safe, right? And he didn’t force her to . . . you know . . . Kiki . . .” Michael looks at his hands.

“He didn’t force her to have sex with him? You can say it.”

Michael fidgets. “I mean, I saw them together too—kissing and stuff. He didn’t have a bunch of other women. They . . . liked each other.”

I squeeze my hands under my armpits, practically crawling out of my skin with how much I hate discussing this.

“Anyone else?” Michael asks. He doesn’t look any less uncomfortable. “Enemies,” he adds quickly.

I give him a tense shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“What did she do before she came to Sangui? Was she in trouble, or . . .”

“She was a nurse. She helped people.”

“Nurses can have enemies. No ideas?”

“No. I don’t know.” I stand up and start to pace. How would I know if she had enemies or not? Only Donatien, the reporter, has been able to tell me about her life there. But he just knows bits and pieces. Important bits, but not enough. And Mama herself certainly never talked about Congo to me. When I think back on it, it seems like as far as she was concerned there was nothing to think or talk about.

Michael writes, Anju Yvette’s past in Congo? on a list of questions he’s making. “Do you know anyone you could ask about her?”

I don’t answer right away. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Who?”

I hesitate. Would Donatien recognize Michael? Probably not. Michael is always in Switzerland, and Mrs. G is notoriously fierce about keeping her kids out of the papers. I barely recognized the guy. “I’ll send him a text. Maybe he’ll meet us.”

As I’m typing, Michael asks, “What about the girl in the photo with your mom?”

I shake my head. “I told you, I don’t know who she is.”

My mother looked so happy in that photo. They must have been friends. But how would I even begin to find her? Would Donatien know her?

“Should we go through the police file?” Michael asks.

I make a face. “Okay. But I’ve looked at it a hundred times and I swear it gets less useful every time.”

I use his computer to get into my online files and pull it up. I hand him the laptop, letting him scroll through.

“This is it?” Michael asks, after a few seconds.

“Astonishing, isn’t it? Don’t you have a whole new depth of faith in Sangui City’s justice system?”

“They didn’t even spell ‘report’ right. It has an l in it.”

“Just wait until you see the analysis page,” I say. “Completely blank.”

I walk to the window to peek through the shades. I can’t look at the police file. It makes me too angry. The notes from the officer’s conversation with Mr. G and David Mwika barely fill a page. The forms are worse. Most are left half blank. Signatures from supervisors are missing. There are three photos: my mother’s body; a close-up shot of the wound; and for some weird reason the buffalo head above the mantel in Mr. G’s office.

“Maybe the buffalo did it,” I say darkly.

“These two names you’ve highlighted here—who are they?”

I walk back to see what Michael is looking at. “The only two people besides Mr. G and staff who were at your house that day, according to Mwika and your dad. I looked them both up. Joseph Gicanda is a Rwandan army general. And Ali Abdirahman is a rich Somali dude who owns a shipping company. Extracta uses them to get minerals from Sangui City to China and Dubai.”