The Butcher of Casablanca

by Abdelilah Hamdouchi

  “I have somebody here who might be able to do an ID. We’d like to have a look right away.”

  “That’s possible. But I can’t promise you more information until I begin work on it.”

  He hung up and glanced over at Aisha to find her staring at him in alarm. She was an attractive woman in her sixties. Although her eyelids had begun to sag and the bloom had gone out of her complexion, her face was unwrinkled. Hanash would have had Hamid escort her to the morgue, but he felt that Dr. Amrani would have refused to break protocol for the younger officer.

  The chief medical examiner emerged from the corridor leading to the autopsy theater to greet them. To Hanash’s surprise, her white surgical coat was spotless. Even the surgical gloves she wore were immaculately white. She nodded a greeting to Hanash then turned toward Aisha and said, “You must be her mother.”

  The woman stared back at the doctor, unable to grasp what she had just heard. Hanash was annoyed by the doctor’s candor. Fearful that the woman might become hysterical, he hastened to ask, “May we go inside, please?”

  The doctor ignored him. Taking hold of Fanida’s mother’s arm gently, she said compassionately, “Try to be strong. Her face, thank God, hasn’t been damaged.”

  For a layperson, the interior, with its peculiar odors, was eerie. The staff took pains to keep visitors from feeling too disoriented and confused.

  The body was covered with a white sheet. The mother’s eyes were fixed on it, praying that it was anybody but her daughter. Hanash, who was sandwiched between the two women, was certain the mother would collapse the moment the doctor lifted the sheet. Dr. Amrani looked at the mother sympathetically and said, “Now try to keep a grip on yourself.”

  As though performing a delicate task, she carefully turned back the sheet to reveal the victim’s face. The hair had been gathered into a plastic surgical cap with the rim pulled down low enough on the forehead to conceal the gash on the skull. The doctor folded back the sheet to just below the chin, hiding the place where the head had been severed from the torso.

  Without uttering a sound, the mother reached out, in a mechanical motion, toward the edge of the sheet as though to uncover the rest of the body. Hanash quickly pulled her to his side and asked her gently, “Is this your daughter?”

  She nodded, her face taut with pain. Hanash felt her body go slack, her head resting on his shoulder. He steered her firmly toward the door as Dr. Amrani hastened to open it. The doctor followed them out to the corridor and gave an exasperated cry. “How many times do I have to tell them to leave at least one chair here. Nobody ever listens!”

  She took out her cell phone and made a quick call. Then, taking hold of the mother’s hand, she said to Hanash, “Leave her with me.”

  “There are certain details I’d like to know about the—”

  “I’ll make sure you get my report today.”

  Hanash nodded. He cast a quick glance at the mother. She was now leaning her full weight against the doctor’s shoulder, her eyes hollow, her face rigid. He understood that it would be of little use to try to question her now.

  On the way to his car, Hanash made a quick call to Hamid.

  “I want that other son of Hajj Belaid waiting for me in my office when I get back.”

  He hung up before the officer could reply. He’d been overcome by that fierce surge of aggression he felt whenever he found himself struggling against the tide. He climbed into the passenger seat of the car, slammed the door, and, without looking at the officer behind the wheel, commanded, “Take me to the Shifa Clinic. Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They screeched out of the parking lot. They were in a marked vehicle with the blue light flashing on the roof and the siren wailing, but the traffic was too dense for drivers to pull aside. Hanash fidgeted in his seat and fumed. “This is what Casablanca has come to: Casa chocka-blocka!”

  “The more they widen the streets, the more congested they get,” the driver ventured cautiously.

  Hanash ignored him. He was now focused on his cell phone screen, browsing the internet to see how the latest homicide was playing on the online news and social-networking sites. Every now and then he’d emit a sardonic grunt or wry comment as his finger worked the screen, flicking through dozens of video clips featuring Kahila’s mugshot with satirical voice-overs. At one point, Hanash could not restrain a loud guffaw. Kahila’s face had been projected onto a two-hundred-dirham banknote. The caption read: “If you recognize the man in the picture, deliver this note to the nearest policeman.” Despite it being a jibe at the pervasive bribe-taking in the force, Hanash had a good laugh at it.

  *

  Inspector Hamid and Officer Baba returned to the home of Lalla Hafiza, Hajj Belaid’s first wife. This time they found it hard to persuade her to let them in. Her daughter appeared at the door in an agitated state. Her headscarf had come undone and she kept fumbling to readjust it. What happened to her father’s wife was none of their concern, she said curtly. “He’s the one who abandoned us and sold himself to that belly dancer.”

  Inspector Baba thrust his jowly face forward and held up a pudgy hand to silence her. There was a reason his friends nicknamed him “the heavy lieutenant.”

  “We only want to speak with Adel. Hand him over to us and we’ll be gone.”

  Seeing a crowd beginning to assemble outside, Hafiza opened the door and said in a loud voice, “Please come on in. Let’s talk inside,” thereby signaling to all and sundry that everything was normal.

  After she closed the door she said, “There are only women and children here. Adel isn’t here. Go ahead and search—even what we’re wearing if you have to.”

  It was a delicate situation. The ex-wife was getting aggressive and the daughter was screaming in a hoarse wail: “He left us in order to marry a girl no older than me. He showered her with his money and forgot that we, his own children, even existed. He hasn’t given us a dirham in seven years. If only it was him that was killed. That would have made us happy!”

  “Shame on you!” her mother cut in, though more for the sake of propriety than admonition. “He’s your father in spite of everything. If it was him who died, I’d wear black. If not out of love, then out of respect because he was the father of my children.” Turning to the officers, she continued: “When I married him, he was dirt poor and couldn’t even put dinner on the table. All that money he made was thanks to my patience and endurance. He used to say that when he got rich he’d cover me in gold. But the richer he got, the stingier he got.”

  Hamid cut her off. “Where’s Adel?”

  “What do you want with Adel?” Hafiza asked as though suddenly aware of the demand.

  “We want to ask him a few questions.”

  The mother and daughter exchanged nervous glances. Their lips tightened and their faces froze into masks at the suspicion that some accusation was looming.

  “Questions about what?” the mother asked.

  “Where is he?” Baba repeated.

  Hamid said, “The last time we were here you said that he didn’t spend the night here. Where can we find him?”

  Just then the door opened and Adel walked in. He was a thin, melancholy-looking young man, stooped as though carrying the worries of the world on his shoulders. He had the scruffy beard of a young rebel. He flashed a sarcastic smile, jerked his chin derisively at the officers, and said, “I heard you’re looking for me.”

  His mother and sister rushed to him as though to shield him from the police.

  “Where did you spend the night yesterday?” asked Baba, narrowing his eyes at the young man.

  “On the beach, counting the stars.”

  Fatiha’s baby started crying in the adjacent room, but Fatiha didn’t budge.

  “Have you heard about what happened to your father’s wife?” asked Hamid.

  “The whole town’s talking about nothing else. The picture of the two-hundred dirham note with the killer’s face on it has gone viral on the
internet. You still haven’t caught him?”

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Officer Hamid said. “Could you please accompany us to the station?”

  The physician who had been supervising Hajj Belaid’s treatment had a fleshy face, broad shoulders, and a totally bald head. Unlike most members of the medical profession that Hanash knew, he did not wear prescription glasses. The physician led him to the nearest empty examination room and spoke hurriedly but guardedly, as though reluctant to divulge a professional secret.

  “The nurse told me you’re the head of criminal investigations. What can I do for you, sir?”

  Unaccustomed to this kind of reception, Hanash momentarily lost his train of thought. He said, “I’ve come because of a patient of yours, Hajj Belaid. Could you tell me when exactly he was discharged from the clinic?”

  The physician smiled. “If you want to know exactly,” he said, with a sarcastic emphasis on the word, “you can ask someone from admin. They’re the ones who issued the discharge slip.”

  “But he can’t be discharged without your approval.”

  “That’s true. Fortunately, after a battery of tests, we found the enlargement benign. The last time I examined Hajj Belaid was yesterday at nine in the morning. As for when he left the hospital exactly—whether it was immediately after that or an hour or two later—admin will be able to give it to you down to the split second.”

  “Thank you,” Hanash said and preceded the doctor to the door and into the corridor.

  The doctor caught up with him and pointed him in the right direction. When Hanash reached the administration department, he found several nurses gathered around a computer, cackling at something on the screen. He leaned over and saw that it was the YouTube clip he’d seen earlier, with Kahila’s face printed on the banknote.

  He smiled and said, “Which one of you was in charge of Hajj Belaid?”

  The youngest stepped forward and looked at him anxiously. “Hajj Belaid left the clinic yesterday. Are you one of his relatives?”

  “Did he leave by himself, or did someone come to accompany him?”

  “His wife came to collect him. Are you a member of the family?”

  “What time did he leave exactly?”

  “At noon. Who are you, sir?”

  Hanash turned abruptly, dismissing the nurse’s question with a flick of the wrist, and strode angrily toward the exit.

  Why did the old man say that she hadn’t come to pick him up yesterday? He certainly didn’t have Alzheimer’s. Was he so naive that he didn’t realize how easy it would be to corroborate his statements?

  When Hanash returned to the car, he instructed the driver to take him back to the university hospital, and fast. He snatched his cell phone out of his pocket and rang Dr. Amrani to ask if Aisha Haddad was still there. She responded that she’d had her kept overnight for observation. Thanking her, he hung up, looked down at his lap, and seethed.

  Hanash found Aisha in a private room in which she sat at the edge of a bed, ashen-faced, tears streaming from swollen, pain-filled eyes that seemed to stare at the unerasable vision of her daughter on the autopsy table.

  With no prelude, he said almost gruffly, “Could you tell me what time, exactly, you called your daughter and she spoke with you on the phone?”

  She nodded in the direction of her purse.

  Hanash went over to the side table, picked up the purse, and handed it to her. She pulled out her cell phone, flicked through the caller list, and said in a weary voice, “Yesterday in the late afternoon she was at home and alive. I called her at exactly five past five p.m.”

  *

  Hanash entered his office, hung up his jacket, and walked to the window. Sliding the curtain aside with a listless sweep of his hand, he stood staring blankly at the street below. He seemed to have lost every last drop of zeal for his job.

  He turned around at the knock on the door. Hamid entered holding Adel by the arm. Hanash smirked. The young man’s clothes irritated him more than anything else: baggy trousers with multicolored stripes, a black felt jacket, and a thinly twisted bandanna around his neck.

  “Where were you yesterday?” Hanash asked without bothering with introductions.

  “I just roamed the streets until I got tired. Then I hung out in the train station coffeehouse until dawn. I do this a lot when I can’t sleep.”

  “What do you have to say about what happened to your father’s wife?” Hanash asked, glowering, eyes pinned on his subject.

  “We were all wrong about her. We should have tried to remain neutral. There were things we couldn’t understand at the time.”

  “You can leave now,” Hanash told Adel.

  Hamid looked at his boss, stunned.

  After Adel left, Hanash said, “The old man lied when he told us his wife didn’t come to pick him up when he was discharged. The nurse there confirmed it. Fanida was at home, alive and kicking, in the company of her husband yesterday in the late afternoon. She spoke with her mother by phone at exactly five past five p.m.”

  The officer gaped. “Do you mean the old man did it?”

  “He can’t be so demented that he forgot that his wife took him home from the clinic and that she was with him at five p.m. yesterday evening. Her mother’s phone log proves that.”

  “The damned liar. But could he have even done a Kahila? I mean, could he have even been able to use his methods? And then don’t forget he said he’d never heard of Kahila before.”

  Hanash sighed. “If only Kahila had done it. At least he might have left us some clue that could lead us to him.”

  He saw Kahila elude his grip again. It seemed less and less likely he was implicated in this homicide. Despite the questions that remained, Hanash felt sure it fell into the copycat category. Kahila had become an inspiration to all sorts of human beasts and domestic savages.

  “What can I do for you?” asked Hajj Belaid as he closed the front gate. He turned to find the two men walking toward the front door. He stopped in the middle of the courtyard, but they kept moving until they entered the house. He followed them reluctantly. Inside, Hanash circled the old man then turned to confront him.

  “You lied to me, Hajj. Your wife was with you when you left the clinic.”

  The old man smirked. “Whoever told you such a thing?”

  “I checked at the clinic.”

  “Maybe I forgot,” the old man said.

  He cast around feebly as though searching for a place to sit. Hamid moved to block him.

  Hanash continued: “Why did you lie to me?”

  The old man spoke as though nothing mattered any more. “It’s over and done with. Fanida’s dead. May God rest her soul. They say she married me for my money, but it’s not true. People say a lot of things. She was a humble woman. She never asked for anything unless I offered it to her first. I had seven good years with her. She was like a fresh blossom that bloomed for me every day. She gave my life a new meaning . . . made me enjoy the simplest things. Whenever I prayed I’d thank God for blessing me with Fanida.”

  He began to teeter, so Hamid helped him to a seat. Irritably, the old man fumbled through his pockets. He fished out his cell phone and handed it to the detective without raising his eyes.

  “Take a look at WhatsApp. You’ll see a video that I received the night before I left the clinic.”

  As Hanash intently scrolled the screen, Belaid continued, “And all the while, I’m lying there dreaming of her.”

  Hamid positioned himself next to his boss so he could see the screen as well. Fanida was dancing with amazing skill in the middle of a wedding tent decorated with colored lights. She was in a gown that hugged her body and had a scarf wrapped around her hips, halfway up her protruding buttocks, to accentuate their movements. Her hair was loose and flowing down her back. She winked at someone off-screen. That person soon appeared and began dancing with her, his body almost touching hers . . .

  Everything fell into place. Hanash now understood why Fanida’
s mother had arrived so quickly with the certitude that her daughter could not have been the victim.

  “Did she go there behind your back?” asked Hanash.

  “Why don’t you ask me about that man dancing with her? He’d probably been her lover the whole time she was married to me.”

  “You told me you’d never heard of Abdel-Salam Kahila, yet you imitated him.”

  Belaid smiled mischievously and began to speak easily, as though unfazed by his own deeds.

  “She’s the one who told me about his murders, God bless her. She followed all the news about him. She was afraid to come home late at night in case he’d pounce on her in the street. She was horrified by the news reports about him, but she kept pestering me with all the rumors and jokes. I wish she were alive so she could get a good laugh at his picture on the banknotes.” He chuckled, as though all this had nothing to do with him.

  “Did anyone help you dismember the body and carry it to the dumpster?” Hamid asked.

  “May the Lord have mercy on her soul. She made it all so easy for me. I asked her to run me a bath. I’d already sharpened the cleaver we use for the sacrifice at Eid. In the bathroom, she was bent over the tub cleaning it. I brought the cleaver down on the back of her skull. She toppled into the tub and her blood flowed straight down the drain. The rest was a breeze. After putting her into the garbage bags, I put them into the trunk of my car and drove over to the Rahma neighborhood.”

  12

  Why do people prefer rumor to fact? The police had released an official statement announcing that they had solved the last homicide. They broadcast it over every conceivable media and furnished the press with details about the identity of the murderer and his motives. But still, Kahila remained Morocco’s digital hero number one, so his images refused to fade from the networking sites. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that he had fans, some so loyal they dismissed the official account and held that the police were merely “covering up” for the serial killer by attributing his crimes to others in order to reassure the good citizens of Casablanca.