The Butcher of Casablanca

by Abdelilah Hamdouchi

  Naeema paused. She was about to remind him that this was exactly what had happened when their daughter gave birth to her first child and that he always broke his promise on important family occasions. However, she held back. Her husband’s suggestion was an acceptable compromise.

  “I’ll give Atiqa your love and kisses and tell her how sorry you are you couldn’t make it.”

  Content that he had resolved that problem, Hanash replaced the receiver and pressed the bell to call the guard at the door. The door didn’t open. “Oh, it’s the weekend,” he muttered. He pushed himself out of his chair, walked over to the door, and opened it himself. He instructed the waste picker, who had been waiting in the corridor, to come into his office and close the door behind him.

  Something about him bothered the detective. He seemed like a strong youth, but at the same time he looked tired and his eyes kept darting away. He’d have to get to the bottom of that.

  Hanash asked him for his ID card. He took it, flipped it over, set it on the desk in front of him, and slowly turned his gaze back to the waste picker.

  “So, Allal, the place where you found the bags, do you know it well?”

  “Yes, I know it very well. I always go there at the same time so I can get to the garbage before the others.”

  Hanash looked at him closely. “So you were the first to find the bags. What time was that?”

  Allal didn’t hesitate for a second. “At a quarter to six.”

  “How do you know that none of your . . . colleagues got there before you?”

  The young man smiled. “When you talk to the police you gotta tell the truth. And the truth is that the doormen at those buildings don’t take the garbage out to the dumpsters before ten in the evening. By that time, the nighttime waste pickers are done for the day. I’m the first to get there in the morning before the garbage trucks arrive, which is at eight.”

  “Do you look through the garbage with your bare hands?”

  “I use rubber gloves as a precaution. Garbage these days is not as clean as it used to be.”

  Hanash laughed. “When was garbage ever clean?” He contemplated the young man more closely. “You junkmen get around. Wherever there are garbage cans, you go there. I bet you got some junkman friends. I want you to help us. Get in touch with them and ask them about the rest of the body. Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. You smoke?”

  Allal stiffened as he tried to grasp the deeper significance of that question.

  Hanash turned to a cabinet where he kept confiscated goods, opened it slightly so as not to reveal the contents, took out a pack of Marlboros, and tossed it to the waste picker.

  “If you don’t smoke, sell them.”

  He told Allal to go back outside and wait until an officer came to take down his statement. Allal said that he was ready to be of help whenever needed and ambled out of the room as though he had all the time in the world.

  Hanash left the office dejectedly and headed to the nearby coffeehouse to have a bite to eat. He hadn’t even had the chance to drink a coffee yet. None of the information he had would be of any use without a head and hands.

  The search crews had returned empty-handed again. No trace of the torso. He’d convened a meeting of his staff to discuss an action plan, and now he felt the frustration build up inside him as he cast about for words. He fidgeted in his seat, irritated at the expectant looks of his officers. He was afraid a torrent of rebuke would escape his lips, as though they were somehow to blame, whereas they’d done the best they could. They were dog-tired after having spent hours rummaging through garbage and filth and inhaling all those putrid odors. Finally, he marshaled a cool head and forced his brow to relax. He smiled as he looked at each of his men, nodding his approval at their efforts.

  “As you know, the first hours are of critical importance in the process of solving any crime. At the very least they help in formulating a workable hypothesis and staking out a trail that could lead to the perp or perps.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, we have nothing so far. As you know, this is no ordinary homicide. The body’s been dismembered and we still have only the lower limbs.” He raised his voice. “Where’s the torso? More importantly, where’s the head? Where are the hands that will give us the fingerprints?”

  Looking at each of his men in turn, he said, “Come on, speak. Say something. I want to hear what you have to say.”

  The officers fixed their gazes in midair, making them seem rather obtuse. None of them wanted to speak because they had nothing to show for their efforts. Also, if one of them ventured a stupid observation, Hanash might lash out at the offender with his venomous sarcasm and turn him into a laughingstock in front of the others. They were wary of that aggressive side of the Snake. Yet they also knew that one of them had to say something. Inspector Hamid nodded encouragingly at Officer Miqla, who was holding a file. He was the only one who had anything approaching a solid piece of information. Miqla cleared his throat. The file shook in his hands. He began to recite the information it contained without opening it, as though he had committed it to heart. He spoke in a mumble, pausing frequently to clear his throat.

  “According to the available information in our database and all other law enforcement platforms, there is no missing-persons report filed for an adult female matching the attributes of the victim.”

  Hanash lurched forward in his chair and fixed Miqla with a glare. “What attributes do you have that make you think that you can use the word attributes?” he snarled.

  Hamid quickly stepped in to smooth over the CO’s outburst. He was the only one the Snake wouldn’t bite. Shifting his eyes from one person to the next as he spoke, he said, “The perp or perps disposed of all the personal belongings of his victim. There are no identifying documents, no articles of clothing . . . zilch. Also—”

  Hanash cut in abruptly: “Which means that without torso, hands, and head, we’re going to be left sitting here, twiddling our thumbs.”

  He got up and strode across the room, swept aside the heavy curtain, flung open the window as far as possible, and looked out at the calm and almost empty street. The whole of Casablanca wished that every day of the week could be a weekend so they could always enjoy this tranquility. He took a deep breath. He needed to reconcile himself to the lack of progress while remaining open to all possibilities. He desperately needed all his men.

  He turned to them again and smiled, looking at each of them in turn. “I know our hands are tied without a solid lead. Still, if we can’t say anything yet about the victim, what can we say about her killer?”

  The brief speech, given without a hint of reproach, made the men’s face brighten with fresh enthusiasm. Now they were all keen to speak.

  Inspector Bu’u said, “In my opinion, the killer probably acted on his own. He murdered his victim in his house, then packed her lower half in the trunk of his car and got rid of it at the dumpster where we found it.”

  Inspector Kinko’s voice cut in with its chronic asthmatic wheeze: “Where did he dispose of the important part of the victim’s body?”

  “How do we know he disposed of it anywhere?” asked a corpulent officer, who thought himself astute. “This perp is very dangerous. He knows exactly how we work. He kept everything that might enable us to identify the victim: the face with its features, the hands with their fingers from which we could take prints.”

  In such meetings, as a rule, Hamid didn’t intervene until after learning everyone’s opinion. This time, however, he cut in: “The murderer’s aim is to destroy all clues leading to the identity of the victim. He’s operating on the premise that by concealing the identity of the victim he is forcing us to contend with the theory ‘no body, no crime.’”

  “We’ve got half a body,” Hanash cautioned wryly. He leaned over his desk to pick up a small stack of photos of that half and distributed them listlessly, as though performing a futile exercise. The photos said nothing.

  Hamid put in, in part to pick up his
boss’s spirits: “We’ll assign as many men as available to combing every quarter of this city. We’ll search every nook and cranny, under every stone if we have to. We’ve already notified every precinct and security agency in the city and in other provinces with instructions to contact us immediately in the event any body parts surface.”

  The officers, crime scene and autopsy photos in hand, began to speculate excitedly. Hanash settled back in his chair, closed his eyes, and let the words drift around him. He was tired and depressed. In all previous cases, he’d been able to discover a thread, however thin, and that thread would lead him to others that were thicker and surer. But this case was different. It was a whole project that been studied, planned, prepared, and carried out by an author who was familiar with police methods and how to elude them.

  The others in the room could read what was going through the CO’s mind from his grim expression, disinterest, and silence. They stopped jabbering and the room fell silent. Hanash sat up in his chair and fixed them with an intense gaze.

  “What if the killer cut up the upper half of the body into little bits, smashed the skull, ripped the face apart, amputated the fingers, and then scattered all those bits and pieces into different streams, sewers, and canals? After all, his aim is to erase the identity of the victim.”

  Officer Hamid put in gloomily, “Or he might also be keeping the head at home, in his fridge. Who knows?”

  *

  That night, Allal went about his work with extraordinary enthusiasm. He called Hanash several times up to the early morning hours to “report,” as though he were now an official employee of the state. Hanash constantly had to wake up his officers and dispatch them to the dumpsters the waste picker had indicated. Each time, they found themselves examining chicken carcasses, the remains of rotten sausages, or animal intestines.

  In the month that passed since the half-corpse was discovered, Hanash grew increasingly grumpy. He couldn’t bear to be among his aides, unable to express his satisfaction at any initiatives they took. Nor could he bear to talk about work with his wife or anyone else at home. Often unable to sleep, he’d get out of bed, put Kreet on a leash, and take long nighttime strolls to the place they had found the body or to other neighborhoods in the vicinity.

  Naeema felt exasperated and at a loss. She sensed that Hanash had taken on too much and was unable to let time take care of things. She watched her husband grow tenser and more defeated by the day. He’d grown accustomed to solving crimes in record time and to receiving congratulations from his superiors and looks of admiration and esteem from friends and colleagues. But this case had severely shaken his self-confidence. And the press didn’t help. He was deeply offended by the headline that mocked the “old snake who could no longer change its skin.”

  She did her best to comfort him and to encourage him to be patient. She’d remind him of his past achievements in the hope that this would gird him against giving in to despair and inspire him to muster his self-confidence, go on with his work, and prove his worth. But no matter what she said or did, he would turn away from her and sink deeper into his depression.

  4

  The telephone wouldn’t let him finish shaving. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror and a sink filled with bristles and shaving foam. He’d only managed to shave the right half of his face. Naeema stood at the bathroom door holding his cell phone.

  “It’s been ringing nonstop,” she said.

  She waited as her husband slowly stroked the shaved half of his face. He no longer seemed to care whether his phone would bring him good news about his main case. He’d also lost interest in the details of his other cases, which he had mostly delegated to Hamid.

  At last, he reached for the phone and put it to his ear. He grimaced as though what he heard gave him heartburn. He plopped his razor into the sink, wiped the remaining soap off his half-shaved chin, and pushed past his wife to avoid speaking with her. His face was livid.

  It was so crowded that it was hard to discern the police from the civilians. Hanash’s eyes came to rest on the large plastic garbage bag. He avoided Hamid at first and he felt an urge to shout at the crowd of onlookers gawking from the other side of the crime-scene tape. Some journalists pushed forward, but the guards held them back and, at a gruff command from Hanash, forbade them from taking pictures. They grumbled and snapped some shots from a distance.

  There were more techs from forensics this time. A few of them climbed into spacesuit-like overalls that made them look like astronauts and covered their faces with heavy masks. One of them plunged into the dumpster and began to poke at and sift through the bags and boxes. Another followed a specially trained police dog on a leash. A third fired his camera incessantly at everything from all angles.

  Hamid approached and spoke in a hushed, strained voice. “It’s the lower half of an adult female, again.”

  Hanash ignored him. He’d already learned most of the important details over the phone on the way over. He headed directly to the bag and cast a quick look inside. Grimacing in revulsion, he turned angrily in the direction of a member of the forensics team, who began to speak in an apologetic voice.

  “The lower limbs and pelvis of an adult female. The thighs were mutilated by a sharp instrument.”

  Hamid, reading Hanash’s mood, hurried over and said in a voice meant to soothe his CO’s anger. “Miqla, Bu’u, and Baba are canvassing the nearby apartment blocks, shops, and stores. More than ten men are searching for the rest of the victim.”

  Hanash’s blood boiled as he surveyed the scene. It was almost the same place as the last time. Only a couple of narrow streets away.

  Hanash opened his mouth and snapped it shut again. He had nothing to say. He strode away from the bag containing the remains and then turned slowly in place, ignoring the wave of a journalist from behind the crime-scene tape. A number of thoughts passed through his mind, but he was only able to focus on one: This murder must have been committed by the same guy as the first.

  Hamid noticed his boss’s half-shaved face. Hanash preempted him. “I know,” he said in a weary voice as he rubbed his hand over the stubble.

  He scanned the area again and then yelled a command to his men: “Broaden the search for the rest of the body as far as possible. Spread out in all directions.”

  The detective didn’t have to wait long this time. Only two streets away, a police dog sniffed out another bag next to a dumpster. It had been clawed open, exposing human remains. Police guards rushed over to the place and cordoned it off with crime-scene tape. Hanash’s team hastened over, followed by a crowd of gawkers and journalists.

  The disappointment came like a punch in the stomach. It was a mutilated adult female torso from which the head and fingers had been severed.

  Hanash staggered backward and almost tripped. He erupted into a roar aimed at everyone around him: “Look for the head everywhere! Search the whole damn city, day and night!”

  He suddenly thought of Allal. Where was that waste picker when you needed him?

  Back in their labs, the forensic technicians pored over the items that had been culled from the crime scene, which, of course, were not plentiful. After conducting analyses and documenting their observations, they concluded that the perpetrator had covered his tracks very well. He left no fingerprints because he wore gloves. The garbage bags containing the remains had no brand name or logo. The second victim had been dismembered in the same manner as the first. Anything that might give a clue as to the second victim’s identity had been systematically eliminated or mutilated beyond recognition. The information confirmed the detective’s hypothesis that it was the same perp.

  Professor Amrani not only submitted a timely report, but she invited Hanash to her office this time in order to spare him the discomfort of the autopsy theater. There was nothing of note to show him there, anyway. Just the horrid sight of mutilated human body parts.

  Sensing Hanash’s frustration, she knitted her brow and shook her head in dismay. There was
not a hint of the professional sparkle in her eyes as she reiterated her findings.

  “The second victim was subjected to even more extensive mutilation than the first. The motive could have been revenge. That likelihood is inescapable given the brutality with which the body was dismembered, marred, and mutilated. In this case, the murderer inflicted numerous slashes on the thighs and buttocks using a very sharp instrument, most likely a razor blade. This signifies that for him it was not enough just to kill the victim. He vented his rage against her after killing her.” She paused, offered Hanash a commiserating smile, and said, “But none of this amounts to much without the head of the victim and the identifying features of the face.”

  “And the fingers, from which we could get her prints,” Hanash added with a sigh. His shoulders slumped, as though he knew in advance that his next question was futile. “Is there any way we could learn something about the nature of the murderer’s profession from the way he dismembered the two victims?”

  “The limbs were severed more skillfully in the second case. The killer might be a butcher. But he is certainly not a surgeon.”

  Hanash smiled feebly as he extracted his ringing phone from his pocket and pressed “answer.”

  The chief of police’s meeting with the Criminal Investigations Unit was restricted to senior officers and above. They jumped when he thumped a pile of newspaper articles and printouts from the online press on the desk. Gesturing toward them, he said frostily, “They’re all about us. They’re calling us negligent and incompetent. They’re turning public opinion against us.”

  He snatched up a handful of articles and distributed them at random. Then he went over to a small table in the corner on which there were some bottles of mineral water. He poured himself a glassful and gulped it down in one go. Mohamed Alami, the chief of police, was the type of person whose every feature and gesture bespoke their profession. One would never doubt for a moment that he was a senior security official. His features were sharp, his expression stern. His every gesture projected authority and a readiness to use it. Even the way he spoke was awe-inspiring. It blended an element of courteousness with a firmness that left no room for a second’s hesitation in carrying out his orders. He scrutinized his small audience briefly, then gestured toward the large map of Casablanca that stretched the full length of the wall. He indicated two large circles connected by a red line. There was no need for him to explain that those were the locations where the body parts of the two victims were discovered. He drew in a deep breath and addressed the men in a voice that carried a strong hint of ridicule.