Land, Jon

by [Kamal

  Ben swung toward her, but held his tongue.

  “Why so surprised, cop? You think you’d be the first official to leave here in the company of a kid or a woman? Who can we complain to? Maybe that’s why you bastards keep us locked up!”

  “You ever leave here with such an official?”

  “They never seem to choose me.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  She stepped in front of him and halted. “What is it you want?”

  “I want you to help me find this boy.”

  “What’s he done? You gonna arrest him?”

  “He hasn’t done anything. He may have witnessed a murder.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Frail. Long hair hanging just past his shoulders. Standard-issue clothes,” Ben finished, trying to recall all Rula Middein had said while she finished cooking dinner for the family that never came to eat it.

  The young woman’s laugh was real this time. “Should be easy to spot a boy looks like that. They’re all playing soccer now in our wonderful field. We call it Arafat Stadium, a testament to his devotion for his people.”

  She led the way to the right. They passed another grouping of the stained canvas tents and ramshackle huts and shanties, some missing chunks of their ceilings or walls. The dominant color was a faded, soiled oatmeal. There was no order to the construction, homes squeezed in wherever they could be, leaving narrow single-lane roads so vehicles could pass over the gravel and grime.

  “The boy I’m looking for has been sleeping in the streets around the Baladiya,” Ben told the young woman.

  “Then he eats better than he would on the inside.”

  “Could he come and go as easily as that?”

  “The sneaky ones get away with it. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they leave with men like you, sometimes they just leave.”

  They had reached the soccer field, a filthy, muddy, uneven patch of land. Given the obvious lack of water, the mud confused Ben until the breeze blew the stink toward him. This was the leaching field where all the raw sewage ended up when the pumps were operating. In spite of that, the children had appropriated it since it was the only open stretch of land in the camp.

  He stopped where the ground turned to ooze and studied the boys gazing at him suspiciously. There were literally dozens who fit the description of the boy from Rula Middein’s alley, all of them looking discomfited by his presence.

  “You said a witness,” the young woman said suddenly.

  “Yes.”

  “Plenty of them here who could be a witness. Tell me what you want them to say and I will arrange it.”

  Ben turned toward her. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “It does in here.”

  Ben swung on his heels and started to retrace his own filthy trail. He had been foolish to come to the camp, wasting time better spent on rehashing the casework on the previous murders, at least the one in Jericho ten days before. Two killings in a row in the same location. Al-Diib seemed to be deviating from his own pattern.

  He was glad for the thoughts since they distracted him from the squalor around him. When he came in sight of the gate, he thought he might be able to exit without further incident. Then, before he could reach it, the young woman caught up with him again, planting herself in his path.

  “This is our world, cop. What you expect when you walked in? You want us to bow and kiss your feet? You figure you deserve that for all you’ve done for us? Even God doesn’t bother about the crime that goes on in here. It’s a good thing there’s nothing to steal, eh?”

  Crowds were milling on either side of the main drag leading back to the gate Ben knew he had to pass through in order to leave. The mutters and whispers grew from a hum to a buzz in his ears. He didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate, just kept walking at a steady pace. The young woman continued to badger him, feeding the ire of the crowd. Ben fought back the urge to shove her aside, afraid the crowd was waiting for any reason at all to pounce on him.

  “Come on, cop! Why you so quiet?” she taunted. Maybe she wanted him to strike her, was disappointed that he hadn’t.

  The crowd turned ugly anyway.

  The first stone grazed his temple, felt like a hard slap to his head.

  Ben kept walking.

  The second stone caught him in the back of his head and sent a brief flash exploding before his eyes. Two in rapid succession struck his forehead and cheek. Warm blood leaked from both wounds.

  “Come on, cop!” the young woman taunted. “Use your gun. Shoot us!”

  Ben kept his hand plainly away from his holster. The urge to launch a mad dash for the gate rose in him, but he fought it down.

  He kept walking, the young woman silent before him now, watching his face.

  Some of the mutters, the whispers, had gained cadence and risen into chants. The stones that connected were accompanied by applause and cheers now. Ben’s nose took a big one and he felt his eyes water. He stumbled slightly, then quickly regained his footing.

  The front gate was still a hundred feet away and Ben feared he wasn’t going to make it. He could see the guards poised unsurely just inside, frozen, afraid for their own lives if they intervened. Or maybe they were just waiting for Ben to summon them in a desperate cry that would bring the crowd down upon him and leave him humiliated once the guards came to his rescue.

  Ben knew enough not to do that. The refugees might take him anyway, but at least they would be denied a certain satisfaction. Dirty, frustrated, and angry bodies reached down for larger stones, the pelting a game turning very serious. The next rock drew blood that trickled down his neck. A thud forced him one way, a whack shook him the other.

  Ben righted himself and kept walking. He fought against the temptation to draw his gun and use it to clear a path for himself to the gate.

  Instead, a strange calm came over him and he realized with detachment that he didn’t care if he died here. In that irrational moment, death seemed preferable to both the past, which gave him a pain worse than the rocks, and the future, which gave him nothing at all. He knew the stones were still hitting him, but he didn’t feel them anymore. The people lined up on either side of him were disappearing, the tunnel between them all he could see.

  Then, incredibly and inexplicably, the rocks and stones stopped pelting him. Maybe the refugees had realized there was no sense in killing one whose lot seemed as bad as their own. The gate, a moment before so impossibly far away, was now before him. One of the guards was opening it with a trembling hand. The young woman whirled in front of Ben as he started to pass through, grasped him at both elbows, and spoke very quietly.

  “You a fool, cop. Brave, but a fool. The boy you seek calls himself Radji. He ran away after hitting one of the guards with a rock.”

  “How long ago?”

  “A month. Maybe two. I haven’t seen him since then.”

  “Where was he from, originally I mean?”

  “Same place we all are, cop: nowhere.”

  Ben slipped through the gate and one of the guards slammed it closed, leaving him and the young woman on opposite sides. She hung her hands through the links.

  “How do you know him?” Ben asked her. “How can you be sure the boy I’m looking for is this Radji?”

  “Because he’s my brother.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 11

  H

  e’s having one of his better days,” the nurse said, leading Danielle toward her father’s room in the convalescent home. “Lucid, smiling, his mind drifting, but only briefly.”

  They reached the door and Danielle thanked the woman for her help. It was always a chore to prepare herself properly before entering. No matter how many times she visited, usually every day, the shock of seeing her father like this did not dissipate. She could not overcome her memories of the strong and strident Israeli war hero who glistened with pride at the accomplishments of his daughter. The fact that she had no husband and was chi
ldless, unheard of for an Israeli woman of thirty-two, had meant nothing to him in the face of her vast accomplishments in service to Israel.

  Danielle took a final deep breath and entered the room wearing a smile like an ill-fitting coat.

  “Hello, father,” she greeted, striding to his bed and kissing him lightly, feeling the drool and spittle against her cheek.

  He sat up and brought the notebook computer from the night table to his lap. The machine had served as his voice since a paralyzing stroke had left him without the ability to speak Danielle positioned herself so she could see the screen.

  IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU, DAUGHTER.

  “I need to talk to you about something. You’re the only one I can share this with.”

  I’M LISTENING, he typed, looking attentive.

  “I have been given an assignment . . .”

  FOR THE ARMY?, he typed before she could finish.

  “No, I’m not in the army anymore, father. I’m with Shin Bet.” He eyed her quizzically. “They are sending me to the West Bank, to Jericho.”

  He seemed to shudder, though it was hard to tell.

  “I’m to assist the Palestinian authorities there in pursuit of a killer. It’s to be a joint effort, the first ever between our peoples.”

  He typed fast, eyes glowing alert, SOME HISTORY IS BETTER LEFT UNMADE! And he tapped the keyboard to further emphasize his point.

  “I agree, but I was not given a choice.” She elected not to burden her father with all of that morning’s events, and chance losing him in the confusion. “If I do not accept the assignment, I risk demotion. From the field certainly, perhaps from service altogether.”

  BASTARDS, he typed.

  “They feel this is a great opportunity.”

  What was left of Shim Barnea’s expression turned suspicious, THEY NEVER DO ANYTHING BECAUSE IT IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY. THEY ALWAYS HAVE SOMETHING MORE THEY ARE AFTER. I KNOW.

  Danielle started to speak, but he kept typing:

  I WAS ONE OF THEM.

  He typed another line and Danielle found herself staring at the stern look in his usually blank eyes before reading it:

  DON’T TRUST THEM.

  “I could resign,” she said, half hoping her father would agree that was her only choice.

  YOU’D NEVER . . .

  But then his eyes wavered, the life starting to flicker from them, the blank darkness not far behind. He seemed to catch himself briefly.

  STOP REGRETTIN AOIHOIWHWW

  His shaky hands grabbed for the screen in frustration, able to make nothing but gibberish now. Danielle pried them away gently, grateful for the alert moments she had been given today and feeling reassured that these visits she paid him were truly worthwhile since they provided the chance for her father to use his mind. Taken so for granted until it’s gone. Like life itself.

  And today it had been sharp, one especially clear thought of her father’s lingering in Danielle’s mind as she fed him his lunch minutes later:

  DON’T TRUST THEM.

  * * * *

  Chapter 12

  I

  am supposed to lend you my fullest cooperation,” Bassim al-Shaer said with little enthusiasm, holding the door open for Ben. “The mayor called me personally.”

  “Appealed to your compassionate side, did he?”

  “Only if I ever want to practice real medicine again. Speaking of which,” al-Shaer added, an edge of pleasure creeping into his voice, “what happened to your face?”

  “I ran into some stones in a refugee camp.”

  “I could bandage it for you.”

  “Stick to the dead, Doctor.”

  Al-Shaer snickered. “I’m a patient man, Benny.”

  Jericho’s bulbous medical examiner locked the entry door behind him and drew the blind down over it.

  “Come,” he said, beckoning. Al-Shaer was still wearing the wrinkled khaki-colored pants from the morning, but his jacket was off and he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He reeked of stale sweat, cigarette smoke, and the many chemicals he spent his life around.

  The medical examiner’s office, temporary as many things were in Jericho, was located in the rear of a storefront veterinary clinic. In addition to an examination room converted into a pathologist’s lab, there was a tiny windowless office that had once been a storage closet. The lab was only large enough for two gurneys to fit inside comfortably. Cold storage for the remains was a slightly renovated meat freezer obtained from Jordan.

  Al-Shaer led him down a short, dark corridor toward the lab. Ben could have found it on his own by following the stench of formaldehyde. Inside the windowless room, fluorescent lights blazed off age-stained walls. An empty gurney had been shoved into a corner, leaving a single one occupying the center covered by a white plastic sheet. A bloody body apron hung from a peg on the far wall. Al-Shaer made no move to put it on. Only when he closed the door did Ben recall he was in one of the very few air-conditioned buildings in all of Jericho, aside from the plush hotels and inns on Jericho’s eastern side within distant view of the Jordan River.

  In the veterinary clinic occupying the building’s front, Ben could hear dogs barking.

  “The findings I am about to share with you came up in the preliminary. I haven’t gotten much farther than that. I doubt I have to. Almost identical to the first body they brought me ten days ago.”

  “Pretend it’s the first. Start from the beginning.”

  Al-Shaer grasped the sheet but made no move to expose the body beneath it. Instead he lit up a cigarette and puffed away. “Seventeen separate stab wounds, of which any of eleven could have proven fatal. The seventeen wounds, and this I can tell, were made by a single knife.”

  “What kind of knife?”

  “A very sharp one.”

  “Thank you.”

  Al-Shaer smiled, pleased with himself. He leaned against the gurney. “The truth is, I don’t know. What I do know is that the same blade that made the puncture wounds was also used to perform the mutilation on the face, abdomen, and genitals.”

  “Genitals?”

  “I’m getting to that. The blade was as sharp as a razor, but sliced in a pattern and width altogether inconsistent with any razor in existence.”

  “How so?”

  The medical examiner wedged the half-smoked cigarette into the side of his mouth and reached behind the corpse’s head for a tray table where instruments were soaking in an alcohol-rich bath. The blood drawn from them had turned the solution pinkish. Al-Shaer pulled a scalpel from within the froth. Ben noticed he hadn’t bothered to don latex gloves.

  “The edge on this is comparable to that of a straight razor,” he explained, words slightly muffled by the cigarette dangling from his mouth. “Notice the thinness. The weapon of mutilation was considerably thicker than this but equally as sharp. And the cuts it made flow in both directions.”

  “A double-edged weapon.”

  Al-Shaer nodded. “There may be something else as well. In the last killing, I found traces of an oil-based substance coating the stab wounds.”

  “I don’t remember reading about that in your report.”

  Al-Shaer tensed a little and ashes dropped from his cigarette, fluttering to the floor. “I didn’t mention the oil in my official report, because I was unable to identify it and therefore assumed it was just some kind of lubricant the killer used to make his work faster and easier.”

  “What kind of lubricant?”

  “A mystery.”

  “One of many.” Ben turned back to the gurney. “Is it present in the wounds on this victim?”

  “Haven’t gotten that far yet. But I did review the autopsy reports on the other victims. Nothing mentioned about any oil or lubricant being found in the wounds. Though I doubt my counterparts bothered to check for it,” al-Shaer added with a smirk.

  “What else can you tell me about the manner of this victim’s death?”

  “It was violent.”

  “I got that point alr
eady.”

  “Very well.” Al-Shaer spoke without benefit of notes. “Severe body trauma, aeroembolism, cadaveric spasm, exsanguination—that’s blood loss.”

  “I know what it is.”

  “Cutting of the throat is the primary cause of death, though. It caused the sudden exit of air from the lungs—”

  “Aeroembolism,” Ben said, before al-Shaer had a chance to explain.