by Tim Hoy
“It does indeed. How can I help?”
“By sitting down and drinking your wine. Tell me what’s up with you and the girls.”
Ken did. We took time with dinner. He had seconds. I had ice cream for dessert, which he didn’t touch. He took a small bowl of it in to Jonathan while I cleaned up. As I finished loading the dishwasher, Ken returned to the kitchen.
“Now, about your note,” he said. “What’s the proposition?”
I sat down with two mugs of tea. I knew how Ken liked his.
“Okay, this may sound nuts, but somehow, I don’t think it will. Not to you,” I said.
“Now I’m really intrigued.”
I got up and checked on Jonathan. Lions and tigers and bears had his attention. Precisely what I wanted. This wasn’t for his ears. “It’s about Jabirah,” I said.
“Did you find out what happened to her?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not for certain, but I know. I can’t stand it, but I know.”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” he asked.
I nodded. “Ken, she has to be. Nothing else makes sense.”
“How horrible. Her family?”
Nodding again, I said “Not her sister. But her brother, Ahmed. And her father at least. Most likely her mother as well.”
“Oh my God.” Tears came to Ken. “Sorry. I can’t imagine what I’d do if someone harmed one of my girls. But her own family? I can’t even imagine.”
“That’s what I think. They call it honor killing. Can you believe it?”
“Where the hell’s the honor?”
“Exactly,” I said.
“Have you arrested them?” Ken asked.
“No, and we never will.”
“You’re joking. Why not?”
“Other than Benazir, the only one of them left in Britain is the brother, Ahmed. He’s not talking. Yesterday I got word he’s on a flight to Karachi next week.”
“Fleeing the scene of the crime,” Ken said.
I nodded. “And there are no witnesses.”
“So they get away with murder? It’s unspeakable, Tessa.”
I let the question linger. Then I said, “That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.”
It took him a moment to say, ever so tentatively, “Okay.”
“One thing before I start.” I poured more hot water into Ken’s tea mug, and added a long, hard look.
“What?” he asked.
“Just hear me out, okay?”
He nodded. He did.
Not long after that dinner with Ken, Benazir rang. She left a voicemail, which I listened to in a small, shabby airport terminal in northwest Pakistan, where I’d landed not an hour earlier. I checked the time difference and rang her back.
“Tessa,” Benazir said instantly on picking up, “my brother’s gone!”
“What do you mean? He left?”
“Vanished! I haven’t seen him for at least three days.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“Yes! Sometimes our schedules are so at odds that we aren’t in the flat at the same time for days. This is different. He’s not answering his phone either. It’s switched off. I’m worried about him.”
It took effort to sound concerned, but I rose to the occasion. “What do you think happened?” I asked.
“I hate to say this, but I am so afraid he might have done something rash. Stupid.”
“Like what?”
“Like joining one of those terrorist groups, Tessa. You know, in Afghanistan or Iraq. He’s just stupid enough to do it.”
“Seriously?”
“I hope I’m wrong, but it’s not like him not to leave a voicemail on my phone or something. I’ve left him message after message. He doesn’t call back.”
“How can I help, Benazir? Do you want me to check on him?”
“Oh yes, please,” she said.
“Not a problem. I can make some calls. I can probably see if he’s used his passport or booked a plane ticket.”
“Thank you, Tessa. Thanks so much! I didn’t know what to do. I knew you’d know.”
“Benazir, I know you can take care of yourself, but seriously, why don’t you stay with us? At least until Ahmed gets back. I’m out of town for a day or two, but I’ll tell you where the spare key is if you like. I’ll be back by Sunday evening.”
“Thanks, Tessa. I think I’m okay. Can we keep the offer open?” Benazir asked.
“You’re always welcome, my friend. Is there anything you need right now? Do you have food?”
“I’m fine. Really. I’m just worried my brother’s gone and done something crazy.”
Crazy? Try criminal. “Okay, ring me anytime. I’ll get back to you when I find out something.”
Ending the call, I returned the phone to my pocket. Ken approached me from the tarmac. The small, sleek passenger jet behind him was being refueled. Nearby, pallets of books were being loaded onto a beat-up truck. Even wearing sunglasses, I had to shield my eyes from the bright sun. A scarf covered my head and wrapped around my neck, framing, my face, obscuring it. As if I didn’t want to be seen, or noticed, which I didn’t.
“Once they’ve inspected the plane we’re done here,” he said.
“Let’s go home,” I replied.
Twenty hours later we were back in England. Ken returned to Potential House a few days after. He’d taken a week off work. The last half of it he spent at the seaside with his daughters; the other half he’d spent doing charitable work, which I admired. In fact, the charity he’d volunteered for was the Golden Fund. At the time of his vacation, we were about to send a shipment of books and medical supplies to tribal areas in Pakistan, near the Afghan border. The area is remote and very traditional. Illiteracy is high, especially among women. Rather than using our normal procedure, which was sending packages by ship through the Suez Canal to the port in Karachi, this time I decided to speed up the process. Through one of Ken’s former co-workers, I got a decent hire rate on what they called an executive jet, a Gulfstream G650ER, which Ken was certified to fly from his days as a private jet pilot. So Ken, bless him, flew the donated books all that way, landing in Peshawar at an airport guarded by soldiers from the Pakistan armed forces. He touched down, unloaded the plane, refueled, and headed home in less than two hours, meaning he got no sleep for well over twenty-four hours. I didn’t either, for I went with him. It was high time for me to see the land and people we’d been trying to help, the place we’d been sending books and other supplies. I knew if I’d given our beneficiaries prior warning, they would have greeted us warmly. But I didn’t want that; I wanted no one to know I’d been there. Some other time perhaps.
The only other passenger on the flight had a one-way ticket.
A few hundred pounds in the right hands made certain my passport wasn’t stamped on arrival in Pakistan.
Once back in England, Ken returned the plane. We were charged with the cost of one parachute, which somehow went missing on the trip. Otherwise, things went without a hitch. Admittedly, hiring a plane didn’t come cheaply. All in, the cost was around ten times what we would have paid to send the materials by sea. Fortunately, a timely contribution to the foundation offset these extra costs. I know this not only because I administer the Golden Fund but because I made the donation.
Within a week, news arrived via the BBC that a UK national had been killed by al-Qaeda forces in the Kurram Valley outside Parachinar in Pakistan. Nobody seems to know how the poor soul got to that remote part of the world. He carried no passport or other ID, only a backpack with food, water, and, oddly, an empty parachute bag. Stuffed in a hidden pouch at the bottom of the backpack, however, was a copy of a paperback book in English. The subject of the book was honor killings. The name Ahmed Rahman had been written on the book’s first page in Roman script, which is how the body had
eventually been identified.
So maybe Benazir was right. Maybe Ahmed did indeed go to Pakistan to wage jihad. He didn’t speak the local dialect, though, so when he approached some men looking lost and distressed, he was immediately suspect. Unable to communicate, without identification, it appears poor Ahmed was taken for a western spy and shot on the spot. Who knows how much of this story is true? I’ll make sure the Rahman family will never know. All they know is now, in addition to the apparent loss of their wonderful daughter, the Rahmans have lost their only son. As much as they’ll grieve him, I know it’s for the best. Truthfully, I didn’t expect Ahmed to die, at least not so quickly. I thought of his departure more as the needed deportation of an undesirable. Aerial exclusion from the UK. Apparently, though, once again karma stepped in.
Briefly, questions arose as to how Ahmed Rahman ever got to that forsaken part of the world. He did indeed hold a valid British passport, but it wasn’t on his body. There was no record of him being in the area. One news commentator said it was as if he dropped from the sky by parachute.
Her Majesty’s government, red-faced over the so-called “Rahman incident” and skewered in the House of Commons by the Shadow Home Secretary, pledged increased diligence at UK borders. Something told me this wasn’t going to make a difference.
I was so appreciative of Ken’s work for the charity that I tore up his next rent check. He immediately rose from a seat in my kitchen, walked up to his flat, and returned minutes later with a replacement check, which he insisted I take.
“It wasn’t a favor, Tessa. I’m glad I was able to do it.”
“As am I,” I said. “I didn’t necessarily want him dead, though, but shit sometimes happens.”
Ken smiled. “I’m sorry Ahmed wouldn’t say what they did with Jabirah.”
“No more than I,” I said. “She deserves a proper burial.”
“My suggestion—and only between us, mind you—is we mark down her brother’s death as another honor killing.” What a wise man Ken was.
“That sounds so very appropriate,” I said, for it was.
“And now, I think, we should both agree that this is the last time either of us will ever mention our charitable work together,” Ken said. “Ever.”
We shook hands on it.
Benazir fled the Kilburn flat when reporters started showing up at the door with questions about Ahmed. I was overjoyed when she came to us. Her intention was to go to Pakistan to be with her parents “eventually.” At least that’s what she said when she first arrived at Potential House, her possessions in tow.
After spending a few months with us, Benazir was thriving. She was working part-time in an office. She’d made friends there and elsewhere. She asked me what I thought about her applying to university. I told her I loved the idea. I have reason to believe her definition of leaving “eventually” has been stretched of late—elongated, if you will. It might even have left her mind. Few things would make me happier.
Benazir speaks with her parents on the phone, usually once a week. As the time of each call approaches, she gets increasingly quiet and anxious. They urge her to book a flight to Karachi, to come home to them. They are, after all, her family—all of it, now that her siblings are gone. Benazir is learning the truth of that old saw: You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. If I’ve learned anything from Potential House, it’s that you can make a family, and it doesn’t have to fit any preconceived notions of what a family should be. Benazir can leave anytime she wants. She knows we don’t want her to. I know I will always, always take care of her, wherever she is. What better way to honor her sister?
The last sighting of Ahmed Rahman’s elusive British passport, by the way, was in my basement, just before Benazir moved in with us. It was burning in one of those big furnaces some old houses like mine still have.
I watched it burn until, like Ahmed, it was gone.
Then I smiled. I climbed back up the stairs and closed the door.
Aside from the residue of sadness Jabirah left behind, life was pretty good. At least until Jonathan’s seventh birthday arrived. A card came from Nigeria. In it was a precious photo of the Obinna family. There were now four of them. Daughter Juba had arrived eight months after their return to Lagos. Though they were far away, Jonathan and I kept them close in our hearts—and on the refrigerator door. The only other birthday card Jonathan received had his name written in crooked block letters, as if a child had scrawled it. I intended to leave it for him to open when he got home from school, but something got me curious: There was no return address. That, and the stamp affixed in the upper-right corner had not been canceled by the post office. So I carefully slit the top of the envelope and pulled out the card. There was nothing special about it; the cartoonish rabbit on the cover held a bouquet of balloons. Inside, the greeting was simple and sweet.
When I read the handwritten note, I fell to my knees. “Hope you’re enjoying the ball, my friend!” It was signed “Andy.”
I screamed, but no one could hear me.
I knew Andy’s handwriting. I’d know it anywhere.
It was Alec’s.
For my friends, whom I cherish. Especially the readers.
BY TIM HOY
Still Death
Honor Role
About the Author
TIM HOY is a senior vice president of Wasserman, based in the company’s Los Angeles office, where he represents professional athletes, including a number of prominent NBA players. A graduate of Oberlin College, UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, and the University of Michigan Law School, Hoy is active in Democratic Party politics and has served on the Board of Trustees of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He is currently secretary of VoteRiders, a nonprofit which assists citizens with obtaining voter identification.
Every great mystery needs an Alibi
eOriginal mystery and suspense Random House
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