Baba stared at Hanash, at a loss for how to respond.
Evidently no one was at home. Sumaya must be out and they knew that Khaled was in custody awaiting prosecution on the charges of manslaughter, human trafficking, and unlawful restraint.
“I wonder where the wife is.”
“With her son murdered and her husband in jail, the best place to go would be a mental institution,” said Baba with a grave face.
Hanash smiled and raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Baba said, “As long as I’m leading this investigation, sir, I propose a brief recon of the neighborhood.”
Baba preceded Hanash into the grocer’s, the one who had discovered the body. By the way Baba circled the grocer with a train of routine questions that seemed to lead nowhere, Hanash began to suspect that the officer was up to something. All of sudden, Baba told the grocer, “You’re
from Souss.”
Responding in the dialect of the Amazigh from the Souss region, the grocer said, “Yes, sir, I’m from the village of Imintanoute.”
Baba took off his thick, fogged-up glasses, wiped the lenses on his jacket with agonizing slowness, and replaced the glasses on his nose. He studied the grocer carefully, then said, “I bet you knew that the murdered child, Saad, was a zouhari.”
The grocer mumbled something indistinct. The silence built as he fumbled with some objects on the counter while working out what to say. To Hanash this was enough to arouse suspicion. He paid closer attention to the interview without interfering.
“I’ve got nothing to do with such nonsense,” the grocer said as he turned to arrange some biscuit packets on the shelves.
“I bet Saad used to buy candy from you. When he held out the money, you’d have seen the palm of his hand, wouldn’t you? You’re from Souss. The wise men from Souss are the only ones who know how to read the zouharis’ palms, aren’t they? They’re the only ones who can tell how those lines lead to treasure.”
“I’m not a wise man, sir.”
“Maybe you’re not a wise man. But I bet you know a wise man back home.”
Baba’s tone was sharp and accusing. As he stepped further inside, he added, “Little Saad was killed because he was a zouhari. You’re from Souss. Who do you think did it? You must have a theory.”
“I can’t understand what makes you make think a poor grocer like me would have anything to do with this,” the grocer said heatedly. He was a short man with a round, pale face and piercing eyes. His most curious feature was his disproportionately small hands.
“If I were a wise man involved in treasure hunting you wouldn’t find me here, living alone, hundreds of miles away from my family, in this cave in the middle of this filthy neighborhood with nothing but garbage for a view.”
The detective was impressed by how coolly Baba responded to this.
“I haven’t accused you of murdering the child. But I think you know something. So you’re going to accompany us to the police station where we can spend some time discussing things calmly.”
“Discussing what things?”
“Things like zouharis and treasure hunters.”
“I can’t help you with those things. I’m just a grocer.”
“You’re a grocer from Souss. And we have a homicide victim who was a zouhari child.”
The grocer was forced to lock up his shop and leave.
Hanash took the wheel this time. He was enjoying playing the role of obedient aide. When he glanced up at the rearview mirror and caught sight of the grocer in the back seat, it struck him that the man no longer resembled a humble grocer.
At the station, the man was taken to Baba’s office for preliminary questioning. It was a cramped, windowless office with two desks and no visitor’s chair. The grocer grew still and somber as he entered this alien setting. Baba asked for his ID and passed it to Hanash, who’d positioned himself in a corner where he could observe the proceedings in silence. Baba unleashed a battery of questions with the general purpose of wearing the suspect down. Where was he on the day Saad was killed? When was the last time the child came into his shop? How well did the grocer know the child’s parents? Baba then turned to the grocer’s family in the village: names and occupations of his parents, siblings, cousins, and uncles. Eventually the grocer confessed that one of his uncles in Souss was a wise man. Baba suddenly thrust the palm of his hand into the grocer’s face and narrowed his eyes at the man.
“You see? I’m a zouhari, too. When I was a child, I was abducted by a man from Souss. He might even have been from your village. He was a wise man who specialized in treasure hunting. But I was lucky. I was saved by pure chance.”
At this point, Hanash stepped out of his corner, placed a hand on the grocer’s shoulder, and said in an amicable tone, “You’d better answer the officer’s questions. Don’t spoil his mood and make him angry.”
On cue, Baba slammed his fist down on the desk and shouted, “He’s already spoiled my mood. I am angry!”
He removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves with a menacing slowness.
“Time’s up for the legal niceties. I asked him simple questions and got no answers.”
The grocer’s eyes widened in alarm. He was certain the two men were about to torture him. He stared openmouthed at Baba and then began to speak.
“The child wouldn’t stop crying. I put my hand over his mouth to make him shut up, but he suffocated.”
“Where did this happen? In your store?”
The grocer burst into tears. Hanash gently put his hand on the man’s shoulders again and said, as though to console him, “It is what God has willed for you. It’s your fate.”
“When did you bring him into the store?” Baba yelled at him.
The grocer’s voice filled with bitterness and remorse. “That afternoon when the Awlad Sidi Rahal troupe performed in the square. I took advantage of all the noise and commotion. While everyone was watching the troupe, I lured the child into my store. I’d known he was a zouhari ever since he was a baby. When I told that to my uncle, the wise man back in the village, he came here to check out the child for himself. That was about a month ago. We agreed that I’d kidnap him. Then, after we’d extracted the secret of the treasure and divvied it up, I’d planned to return him to his family, somehow . . .” His tears started to flow again. “But he just wouldn’t stop crying and screaming after I’d trapped him in the store . . . and he suffocated to death.”
Hanash filled in the rest. “Then, that night, you put his body next to the dumpster and in the morning you pretended to discover him.”
The grocer nodded mournfully. But Baba exploded with pent-up fury: “No child abducted by one of your charlatan wise men has ever been returned to his family alive! Once the zouhari leads them to the so-called treasure, they have to bargain with the jinn guarding it. They are meant to use the child’s blood as a bargaining chip! After I was abducted I had a miserable childhood. I grew up frightened, closely guarded by my parents, and I was never allowed to play with other children.”
Despite the successful close of the tragic case of Saad Wazzani, it was the discovery of Abdel-Salam Kahila that dominated the news. The chief of police convened an official press conference, inviting newspaper representatives from across the political spectrum. Authorities broadcast the news about Kahila across all media platforms, presenting it as a victory that crowned the indefatigable efforts and selfless sacrifices of the country’s law-enforcement agencies in the course of their unswerving dedication to the security and safety of the people. Heads of these various agencies took turns fielding hundreds of questions.
Hanash kept his remarks brief and general. He didn’t have a flair for eloquent sound bites, and anyway, he was not entirely satisfied. It was coincidence, not a carefully planned and executed operation, that led to the capture of Kahila. He summed up the whole affair with the well-known Moroccan saying: “A grand funeral procession for a dead rat.” After having terrified the largest city in the country and confounded
the police for months, Kahila ended up killed while cowering in a squalid rathole. To Hanash, the case ended there. He had no desire to talk about it.
Selected Hoopoe Titles
Bled Dry
by Abdelilah Hamdouchi, translated by Benjamin Smith
Whitefly
by Abdelilah Hamdouchi, translated by Jonathan Smolin
The Final Bet
by Abdelilah Hamdouchi, translated by Jonathan Smolin
*
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The Butcher of Casablanca Page 18
