The Butcher of Casablanca

by Abdelilah Hamdouchi

  “Let’s have each of you read out the headline of the article you have in your hands.”

  They smiled awkwardly.

  Alami looked straight at Hanash. “We’ll start with you.”

  The detective recited his headline in a stiff but weary voice: “A new headless victim.”

  Inspector Hamid came next. He affected the deep, reverberant voice of a newscaster: “Casablancans alarmed by rumors of a serial killer who attacks women and mutilates their bodies.”

  The other headlines were equally sensational. Some invented lurid tales of other bodies discovered in other parts of the city. Others, probably inspired by Hollywood serial-killer thrillers, warned of a “Psychopath on a vengeance spree against women.” Still others spoke of a “Killer on a rampage!” undeterred by a “negligent police force that was only spurred into action by bribes and extortion payments.”

  Commander Alami broke in with an uncharacteristic bellow: “Did you listen to all of that? The press hates us and they’re turning public opinion against us. They’re spreading panic in the city! They’re inflating the number of murders. They’re publishing sensationalist photos that have nothing to do with the victims. They’re jacking up their sales at our expense!”

  He paused briefly and resumed ruefully, “The times are gone when they feared our wrath. This is the age of the internet, freedom of the press, online newspapers, YouTube, and Facebook. Our Public Information Department has released statements denying all those rumors, but no one believes them.” He’d begun to pace back and forth. “Some journalists are linking these crimes with terrorism and religious extremism!”

  The chief let this remark hang in the air for a second. Hanash seized the opportunity to raise his hand and request to speak. After all, he was the main object of this discourse as long as he was the person in charge of the investigation, in his capacity as head of criminal investigations. His was the name most frequently mentioned in the press in connection with these crimes. He passed his tongue over his parched lips and struggled to dispel the blackness descending in front of his eyes.

  “Those articles calling us negligent mean nothing,” Hanash said. “All teams are working around the clock on this case. If we haven’t made any progress on it so far, it’s because these homicides are unique. We’re looking at a pro, a guy who effaces the identifying features of his victims brutally yet systematically, leaving us without a trace to follow. He wants his crimes to be perfect but, as history has shown, there is no such thing as a perfect crime. Still, this killer is clever. He knows our methods so he uses sleight of hand. Is he a psychopath? Is he really out to avenge himself against women? Does he kill because he relishes the act? I should add that, apart from the MO, we have no concrete proof that the same murderer committed both homicides.”

  Snatching up several articles and brandishing them in front of Hanash, Alami interrupted him brusquely. “The reports that are submitted to me, and that I in turn submit to central headquarters, contain nothing. They offer no hope that the killer will be found, regardless of whether or not it is the same person.”

  “The fact that we’ve been unable to find the heads of the victims and that there are no fingers to give us prints has prevented us from identifying them,” ventured one of the officers timidly.

  “No corpse, no crime,” put in Hamid. “All we find are human body parts.”

  The others present were eager to speak as well. Somewhat mollified by their enthusiasm, the chief of police listened attentively to what they had to say.

  “The canvasses of the neighborhoods where the bodies were found produced zilch,” said another officer. “Nobody heard or saw a thing. We don’t have a single witness.”

  A psychological profiler said that his initial impression was that the perp would be an adult male, aged forty or under, educated, and employed in a decent job. “However, he’s proud and aggressive. Perhaps he’s taking revenge against the women in his domestic environment. This would be why he effaces their identity in order to put the police off his track.”

  “I’m more inclined to the idea that the killer hunts his victims randomly and that there’s no link between them,” said another officer.

  Hanash rapped on the conference table, then put in forcefully, “We have to presume that either the perp is the same for both victims or the second perp was a copycat killer. Is there a link between the two victims? God knows. Did the perp, if the same, commit the second homicide as a means to cover up a clue to the first?” He paused, suddenly struck by the painful implications.

  Alami looked at him anxiously and said, “Do you mean we have to wait for a third corpse?”

  Perhaps I’ve taken my theorizing too far, thought Hanash. But he said in a bitter voice, “Somebody who covers up his first crime with a second could cover up his second crime with a third.”

  Alami extracted a cigarette but then quickly put it back in the pack and tossed the pack into the wastepaper basket. The others remained silent and shifted in their seats. They were not about to risk saying anything. Hanash set his small notepad on the table in front of him and spoke calmly and methodically, glancing down at his notes from time to time.

  “First, the perp does not live in the neighborhoods where we found the body parts. We’ve combed the area. Our men have gone house to house questioning the residents, interrogating anyone who looked suspicious and pumping every doorman, parking lot attendant, shoeshine boy, and others for any information at all, however slight. We have an army of informants out there. If they haven’t produced a scrap of information, it’s because these murders were not committed by gangs, thieves, drunks, hash vendors, or dealers in hallucinogenic pills. Homicides of this sort are generally committed by an outwardly peaceful introvert who never meddles in other people’s business and never draws attention to himself. Our informants are useless in such cases.”

  He flipped the page, glanced at the next, and continued: “Second, in both cases, the perp committed the homicide somewhere else and disposed of the parts that are useless to us in public places. As for the important parts—namely, the head and fingers—he disposed of them in a manner that would make it impossible for us to find them.

  “Third, I believe that the perpetrator does not kill randomly. Was he acquainted with the two victims? Do we have anything to prove or refute such a connection? If the motive of the first murder was jealousy, revenge, or just suspicion of betrayal, the motive behind the second murder, using the same MO, might be similar or it could be to prevent the second victim from reporting something she knew about the first.”

  He paused with a sense of relief. He had just ventured all that he had. He looked Alami straight in the eyes and added, as though he had rehearsed it in his mind: “I recently checked back over all the homicides in Morocco that might fall under the heading of ‘serial murders.’ They’re not many compared to Europe and America. In most cases, a second or third murder was committed out of fear of getting caught. The murderer is bound to make a mistake the next time, if he is indeed a serial killer.”

  He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes as though done with the matter and not interested to see the effect his remarks made on the others.

  The chief said with alarm, “Does this mean we’ll soon have another victim?”

  Hanash responded in a self-assured voice, “I wish I knew where and when he’ll strike next. The problem here is that our guy goes about his daily life normally, deceiving all around him because outwardly he’s the same as everyone else.”

  Chief Alami’s brow furrowed. He had to grant that Hanash’s observations were realistic. In the language of the force, this meant assigning as many men as possible to the case. He’d have to recall all staff on holiday and put the police on high alert, all of which would cause stress, anxiety, and long overtime hours.

  After the meeting, Hanash found Allal waiting for him outside his office. He seemed excited and eager to speak. Hanash ushered him into his office, indicated a seat, and grunted
a welcome that meant “So, you finally showed up.” But he remained silent as he contemplated the waste picker, who was even filthier than the last time. He smelled like he’d slept in a dumpster.

  Allal spoke nervously. “I might have seen the guy who did it this time.”

  Hanash’s eyes widened and gleamed as they remained pinned on the young man’s face. He nodded approvingly, waiting to hear more. Allal fidgeted as though expecting a question.

  “Go on. Talk. I’m listening,” Hanash said.

  Suddenly, Allal’s attention seemed to wander. He yawned like someone waking from a restful nap. Squirming under Hanash’s intense gaze, he muttered, “I said I might have seen him. That night, I saw this guy carrying a black plastic bag. He tossed it into a bin, but he pulled it out as soon as he saw me and rushed off.”

  “What did he do with it then?”

  “Maybe he tossed it into the container where you found that . . . thing.”

  Hanash did a quick mental calculation. “What time was it?”

  “Before midnight.”

  “Did you follow the guy?”

  “I tried, but he got away.”

  “Was it a man?”

  The question didn’t require much thought, but the waste picker hesitated as though afraid to answer.

  “Does it take such a long time to remember whether it was a man?”

  Allal quivered, unable to speak.

  “What did he look like, this guy?”

  “Tall . . . but I couldn’t make out his face.”

  “Why didn’t you get in touch with me before this?”

  “I only just found out what happened.”

  Now he had this Allal character sussed out. He had nothing useful to offer. The only reason he came to the station was to show that he was willing to serve and probably to get another pack of cigarettes.

  5

  Hanash’s instinct proved right. They only had to wait a week to find the remains of another body. This time, the bag containing them was discovered far away from the previous locations and the victim was a male. Otherwise, it was the same MO: total dismemberment, excision of the reproductive organs, and removal of all possible identifying features.

  Hanash never allowed anyone to interfere in his work; however, he had no choice but to bow to the order from central headquarters and agree to work with a SWAT team that had been sent down from the capital. He submitted to them the results of all his investigations and findings so far: a thick sheaf of papers containing about a hundred pages of repetitive routine reports.

  The elite team spent a week sniffing for clues that Hanash’s team might have missed, but came up with nothing. Nor could they find the slightest error, procedural shortcoming, or unexplored path in the work his department had done so far. After several meetings during the course of the week, the SWAT team leader took Hanash aside, smiled, and said with a trace of gallows humor: “Your work is spot on. Now all you have to do is catch the killer. Best of luck!”

  There was something that Hanash hadn’t shown the experts from Rabat: a study he had been putting together about serial killers in Morocco. A “serial killer” has been defined as a person who commits at least three separate murders with at least thirty-day intervals between them. The murderer is generally driven by some irrational compulsion, such as a desire to attract attention or a thirst for revenge. He applies the same modus operandi on all his victims, who have certain traits in common. According to psychological studies on the phenomenon, the victims’ profiles help define about fifty percent of the killer’s profile.

  As the perp in this case had destroyed everything that might have made it possible to identify the victims, he had deprived the police of that fifty percent they need to set them on the trail. This was why Hanash decided to review the case files of the most famous Moroccan multiple murderers. They were not many and most of them only partially fulfilled the criteria of “serial killer.”

  They all came from poor and broken families and were victims, to varying degrees, of marginalization, depression, sexual repression, and drug addiction. Some had been sexually abused as children. All, without exception, had low levels of education and came from families that had recently migrated to the city, settled in its wretched slums, and suffered unemployment and destitution. This was certainly the case with Ghaffar Aissa, aka al-Khanfouri, whose vocation was to attack weddings, rape and kill the brides, and disappear. The “Monster of Sidi Moumen,” from Casablanca’s most notorious slum area, cold-bloodedly slaughtered his whole family: his mother, his pregnant sister, and her son and husband. Another killer confessed to having committed six murders in less than a year by brutally striking their heads with a large stone. His savageness was rivaled by the notorious Abdelaâli Hadi, aka the “Monster of Taroudant.” Himself molested during his adolescence, he exacted revenge by raping minors, nine of whom he killed, burying their bodies in the courtyards of abandoned houses.

  Most of the other cases were of this sort. The murderer and the victims were all from the lowest strata of society. The exception was Mjinina, “the man with the severed head,” who decapitated his victims, then would go into a bar, pull the severed head out of a plastic bag, set it on the counter, and order a beer for himself and another for the head.

  But this case was different. None of Hanash’s research shed any light on it.

  Not so long ago, Hanash would have buried his frustration in drink and cigarettes. They would ease his troubles and lighten the burdens of life. But those habits ended after Officer Qazdabo came into his office, shot Hanash, and then shot himself. He also stopped surrounding himself with friends. He now preferred solitude and no more than the company of his own family and his dog.

  He roamed from one street to another, trying to keep his mind occupied by something other than the atrocious murders. He wanted to be alone. As he walked, he began to single people out, boldly scrutinize their faces, and measure the degree to which they squirmed beneath his piercing glare. That was one of the tools of his trade. He’d use it against suspects, breaking them down, forcing them to backtrack and eventually to confess.

  After over an hour of turning from one street to the next, he found himself near his daughter Manar’s beauty parlor.

  Rather than going on to university, Manar had decided to obtain a diploma in hairdressing. She loved her work and had many customers who called her salon “The Commissioner’s Daughter.”

  His spirits soared when he realized where his feet had led him. The storefront with its bright neon sign saying “Salon Manar” filled him with pride. It had cost him a small fortune and he had to call in quite a few IOUs in order to obtain the deed for his daughter and outfit the place with the most modern equipment.

  As it was nearly closing time, Hanash went to sit in a nearby café to wait for Manar to finish up.

  Inside the salon, Manar was combing out the hair of one of her preferred clients. Her assistant was giving another client the full treatment in the hope of a generous tip. The assistant’s client glanced down at her watch and said, addressing the entire room, “Have you heard about the latest murder? The killer butchered a man this time. He scattered the pieces all over the city.”

  “They haven’t found the head or hands,” added Manar’s client excitedly. “They say that there are now six victims, five women and a man. The police are trying to keep the real number secret.”

  Manar’s assistant said, “They found another body right here in Bernoussi.”

  “They say that they found another half a corpse in Ain Diab,” said Manar’s client.

  The assistant’s client said angrily, “Everyone’s beside themselves with dread while the police act as though they’re on another planet.”

  Manar’s fingers cramped around the comb, which trembled in her hand. Should she tell them her father was in charge of the case? A wave of hatred welled up inside her. These silly women kept prattling on and on without the faintest idea of how hard her father and his men had been working. She
wanted to scream at them, tell them right to their faces that they were a bunch of silly gossips and that because of these murders her father had been working around the clock. He didn’t have a moment to spend with his family. He’d even stopped playing with his faithful friend, Kreet. Life at home had become hell, what with her father’s nasty temper, and her poor mother constantly at the brink of tears and worn thin with worry. Their whole lives were run by that goddamned case, and all for the sake of the safety and security of the people.

  Despite such thoughts racing through her mind, Manar smiled and said, “People are exaggerating. So far there have only been three murders, and the last victim was a man.”

  The other women’s eyes flashed indignantly as they resumed trading the lurid details of imaginary crimes built from hearsay and hyperbole. They were only doing the same as everyone else in town. Social-networking websites were having their telltale effect. According to some, the killer was a religious fanatic who was waging a war against vice and wanton women. Others said he prowled the streets disguised as a woman in a burka, so the police now had female Salafis under surveillance. In some cartoons posted on the web, the killer was an elegant and cultivated man plagued by sexual impotence. Of course, “news” proliferated about dismembered body parts surfacing in other towns and cities.