KH02 - City of Veils

by Zoë Ferraris

  Abdulrahman was turning red. “That fucking bastard,” he said.

  “It’s not Bashir,” Fuad said. “It’s just that Leila would have needed to tell him that. I presume she was at his store asking for money. She would have wanted to win his sympathy, and she knew how much he hated you.”

  Abdulrahman’s expression slowly revealed a grudging acknowledgment and finally settled into something like gratitude. It was obvious why he kept Fuad around. Even Katya had to admit that it was clever of him to have concluded that about Leila. However, Osama did not seem so swayed.

  “Did Leila go to a doctor that day for her fractured leg?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Do you have a copy of the medical report?”

  Abdulrahman glanced at Fuad. “No,” the assistant said, “but I can give you the name of the doctor.” While he went to the computer to get the information, Osama turned back to Abdulrahman.

  “You were fighting with your sister frequently,” he pushed on.

  “We had some discussions.”

  “More than one?”

  Abdulrahman grunted in consent.

  “What were the fights about, Mr. Nawar?”

  He seemed to be trying to remember to breathe. “I didn’t like her going out by herself. One time I found out that she’d been out alone all day. Ra’id was supposed to have been with her, but she came home without him. And I already told you she was attacked. I didn’t like her being out. It wasn’t safe.”

  “And Leila disagreed?”

  “I told her that as long as she lived in my house, she would obey my rules. If she wanted to have a different lifestyle, then she was going to have to find her own way.”

  “You were kicking her out?”

  “Of course not.” Abdulrahman looked offended. “I was telling her the rules.”

  “It doesn’t seem like she obeyed those rules,” Osama said. “In fact, not only did she interview this Western researcher, she went out to the desert with him, quite possibly alone. We also know that she spent time in the company of a married man, an American. Her cousin has already confirmed that he wasn’t around for those meetings.” Abdulrahman’s face was turning a dangerous red. “Did Leila tell you any of these things?”

  “If you’re going to keep accusing me of hurting my sister —” Abdulrahman never managed to finish the threat because Fuad intervened.

  “Of course she didn’t tell him what she was doing,” he said. “She was acting like a child, and she expected Abdulrahman to be her father.”

  Osama kept his eyes on Abdulrahman. “So she didn’t tell you any of this?”

  Abdulrahman shook his head.

  “What happened during your fights, Mr. Nawar?”

  “They were arguments, not fights. And nothing happened. I told her the rules, she agreed to keep them.”

  “And then she broke them,” Osama said. “And you must have found out about it or else why did you keep fighting? Because as you said yourself, it wasn’t just one argument. There were many.”

  “As I said before, I caught her coming home one afternoon without Ra’id.”

  “Only once?” Osama asked. “What about the other times?”

  Abdulrahman gripped his knees. Katya could see that Osama was wearing down the last of the brother’s patience, and she sat in rigid suspense, waiting for him to explode.

  “I don’t see what any of this has to do with her death,” Abdulrahman said.

  “Answer the question, Mr. Nawar. What did you learn about Leila that made you angry enough to confront her again? Did you find out about her meetings with the American man? Or about her trip to the desert with the researcher?” Abdulrahman’s fists were white. “Did you know about her documentary?”

  A tense silence filled the room. Abdulrahman was clearly making an effort to control his temper. After an interminable pause, he said, “No, I didn’t know what she was doing. I didn’t know about the American or the researcher. I had no idea. My sister was lying to me.” There was a terrible fury in his expression. “Is there anything else you want from me?”

  Osama was momentarily silenced. Fuad came over and handed them a business card with the name of Leila’s doctor on it.

  “Mr. Nawar,” Katya said. “You have an in-store security system, yes?”

  Fuad’s eyebrows went up a fraction of a centimeter. “And this is related to Leila?”

  The man’s brisk, businesslike snootiness had already gotten on Katya’s nerves, but now it struck her as arrogant. At the very least, when a homicide detective asked you a question, you answered yes or no before launching your own interrogation.

  “Just answer the question,” she said.

  “Our cameras are broken,” he said curtly.

  “That’s convenient,” Katya said. “Considering it’s the only way we can confirm Ra’id’s alibi. Did you only have one camera?”

  “We have dozens of cameras,” Fuad put in, “but they’re all linked to a network. It was the network that was broken. Something to do with a computer virus.”

  “Are they working now?” Katya asked.

  “No,” Fuad said. “The company we hired to fix them is not reliable, so we wound up having to find someone else. It looks like we’re going to have to replace the whole system.”

  Katya turned back to Abdulrahman. “It does look odd that your security system broke just before your sister disappeared.”

  “I am sick of this.” Abdulrahman stood up as he said it, and suddenly all the tension that had been building inside him broke out. He turned on Osama, towering over him, and pointed a finger in his face. Katya knew that the finger was actually meant for her. “You think she was kidnapped here? You think we did this?” he said, spitting out every word. “I told you I have no idea what happened to her. Didn’t you listen to me? I was the one who reported her missing. I kept calling the police for updates, and you stupid fucking people didn’t even know who I was talking about.” Osama was leaning back in his chair now; Fuad was clutching his cell phone, looking mortified. “The fact that you’re even here nosing around—all these stupid questions—tells me that you don’t have a fucking clue who killed my sister. You’re desperate? You need answers? Get the fuck out of my store and go find your answers, because you’re not going to find them here!”

  He spun away from Osama and stormed out of the room. Fuad hesitated, looking as if he might apologize, then ran after his boss. Osama stood and motioned Katya out. She realized that her hands were shaking.

  It wasn’t until they were in the car that Osama spoke.

  “He was right. We’re fumbling around. But that was excellent work. You were very good.”

  Katya nodded, not sure what to say. Abdulrahman’s bullying had been a shock.

  “Do you think he was telling the truth about not hurting her?” she asked.

  Osama shrugged.

  It took forever to reach the station; traffic was sluggish, and they passed two accidents to which, thankfully, other police officers had already responded. Katya didn’t think she could stand getting out of the car in the heat.

  Once they’d parked and gone into the building, Osama went to his office. Katya realized she was hungry. It was lunchtime, and she hadn’t eaten breakfast. She hadn’t packed a lunch either, so getting food meant heading back out into the heat. She was too tired, so she stood in the lobby staring out at the street.

  Osama found her there. “Still no sign of Mrs. Walker,” he said. “We’ve got two guys posted outside her apartment. She must have left early this morning, and she hasn’t come back yet.”

  “Did you —”

  “We checked with the neighbors,” he said quickly. “No luck.”

  It occurred to her belatedly that he was telling her this for a reason.

  “Majdi pulled her recent cell phone activity just now,” he went on. “She called a number this morning before she left. It’s not a cab company. It’s an Arab name. The number is listed to a Nayir Sharqi.”

/>   Katya wished she’d had her burqa down, since her face reacted before she could stop it. Osama eyed her. “I thought there was a chance this was the same guy who came in…”

  “Yes,” she said abruptly. “I know him.”

  Osama looked as if he might say something harsh, but he waited.

  “I’ll contact him right now,” she said, “and see if he knows anything.”

  Osama handed her a card. “My number,” he explained. “Call me when you find out.” She took the card with embarrassment and quickly went up to her lab.

  29

  The family-section booth at Al-Baik was encased in opaque plastic so that curious fellow diners couldn’t peer in. Nayir sat there with Miriam, trying not to watch her eat. She had looked so pale coming out of the SynTech building that he had felt obliged to stop for takeout, but in a gesture he was beginning to recognize as typical of her, she’d insisted on coming into the restaurant. Once inside, she’d insisted on sitting in a booth, arguing that it would be safer if she spilled her mustard sauce on a restaurant floor instead of inside his obviously brand-new car. He wanted to say that it was far more improper to have to sit across a booth from her with her burqa raised, but the truth was that he didn’t want the mess in his car, and in either case she would raise her burqa to eat, so it was better that she did it in the privacy of a booth.

  Once he’d sat down with her, he was surprised to discover that he wasn’t too nervous to eat. Six months before, he wouldn’t have been able to do this; he would have stopped at a kiosk and bought her a shawarma and made her eat in the car. Miriam’s exposed face staring back at his made him realize that he was changing. He tried telling himself that this was only because she was a married woman, because she was American and not accustomed to the way things were done. There was certainly something in her manner that made it easy to treat her like a man.

  “It didn’t used to be like this,” Miriam said, making an effort to sound blithe. She opened her food tray and dug into her chicken. “I mean, between me and Eric. He used to tell me everything. We were really partners. But ever since we came here…” She twirled a chicken wing in the air as if the last part of her sentence should explain itself. “This is really good,” she added, motioning to the chicken.

  Nayir couldn’t help asking. “What happened when you came here?”

  “Well —” she sputtered, then eyed him as if determining how much to tell. “He fell in love with this place. And that’s great, it’s just that he really started becoming an Arab guy. He spends all his time running around with his friends. Going out to the desert, sailing, scuba diving, smoking hookah in the sitting room. I mean, even our house is segregated. It’s not that he gave up being an American completely, it’s just that when he takes me along, it’s always weird. He mostly hangs out with Arab guys, but even the American guys think it’s strange that I’m there. They’re American, but they don’t act that way when they’re here.” She took another bite of chicken. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said through a mouthful of food, “in America he had his guy time, too, but we did things together. You know, we used to go hiking. Or to the movies. Or to have dinner with friends. We don’t do any of that here.”

  “Why not?”

  She looked as if he’d just made her chicken come back to life. “Um, maybe because whenever we visit the neighbors, I go to one room and he goes to another? Don’t you know that for most of the world, making your wife sit in a separate room is a little strange?”

  “You could still go hiking together,” he said rather lamely.

  “What about you?” she asked. “You married?”

  His appetite fled. “No.”

  “Oh.” She seemed surprised. “But you have a girlfriend?”

  He couldn’t believe how bold she was being, but he supposed he deserved it, having already learned so much about her. “No,” he said again.

  “Oh, come on,” she said, “that woman at the house? I could tell that you liked her.”

  Nayir felt himself blushing uncontrollably.

  “What was her name?” Miriam asked.

  “Katya.”

  A small grin played at the corners of her mouth. “Well, Katya is very beautiful. And sweet, the way she took my hand…”

  He was nervously wiping grease from his fingers with a half-shredded napkin.

  “So I thought there wasn’t really any dating in this country,” she said.

  He looked at her then. “It’s improper, yes. But some people do it.”

  “Just not you.”

  “It’s improper.” He was beginning to feel foolish. How could he explain?

  “So when can you see her?” she asked.

  “We work together, sometimes.”

  “But you said you weren’t with the police.”

  “She asks for my help sometimes.”

  “And that’s it? Just when you drive her around…” Miriam’s mouth hung open, showing a partially chewed piece of chicken. She swallowed. “So that visit to my apartment was like a date for you guys?” He saw it all with clarity then, how it must have seemed to Miriam that his life was freakishly restrictive, backward, even pathetic.

  “Is she married?” Miriam asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  She nodded as if concluding something to herself.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing.” He frowned, and she said, “Oh, all right. It’s just that it’s a shame you can’t at least go out for dinner once in a while. Like this!” She spread her arms at the food. “At least have lunch together or something.”

  “We’ve had lunch,” he replied defensively.

  “What—once?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “I mean, you’re having lunch with me now, and I’m practically a stranger.” Something about this seemed to bring her mind back to Eric. “Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. You never see Katya, and I never see Eric. There is something very wrong with this place.”

  Nayir began to eat his own chicken so he wouldn’t have to answer.

  “You think he got sick of me or something.” She stopped chewing and swallowed hard.

  “No,” he said.

  “Look,” she went on, “ever since we came here, he’s been drifting away. I don’t know why exactly. I’ve blamed myself, too. But I don’t think I’m the reason.” She said this with defiance and a hint of desperation. “In fact, I’m pretty certain that something else was going on.”

  “What?”

  She took a breath, wiped her hands on a napkin. “Last night,” she said, “I got nervous being in the house all alone, so I spent the night with my neighbor. When I went back to my apartment this morning, there was an odd smell in the house. It was a man’s smell, like aftershave and soap and… it really freaked me out.”

  “Was it your husband?” Nayir asked.

  “No, it wasn’t his smell. But someone had been there. That’s why I left the house so early this morning. And actually,” she added, pressing her lips together, “that’s kind of why I called you. I mean, the cab company was busy, and that whole thing about the landlord’s address being wrong—I wanted you to know that. But when we were talking on the phone, I was so desperate to get out of the neighborhood. I kept thinking, what if whoever broke into my house was still lurking around somewhere?”

  Nayir’s eyebrows hurt, and he realized he was frowning deeply. “Was anything missing from your apartment?”

  “I didn’t stay to check, but I had my purse with me, and nothing else is really worth taking.” She looked at her tray and tentatively reached for another piece of chicken. “You don’t think it could have been the police in my apartment?”

  Nayir shook his head. “They probably would have checked with the neighbors if they were looking for you.”

  “There’s one more thing,” she said, setting down her chicken and reaching into her purse. Her hand stopped midway and she looked at him.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  She
drew out a folded sheet of paper. “I have to know that I can trust you.”

  He nodded, not sure what to say.

  “Just promise me that whatever this is”—she motioned to the piece of paper—“you won’t tell anyone unless I say it’s okay?”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It might be nothing. But please just promise me.”

  He could see that she was scared of something. “All right,” he said. “I promise.”

  She slid the paper tentatively across the table. “But I can’t read it. Could you just tell me what it says?”

  He wiped his hands and opened it, reading it over briefly. It was a marriage document, cheap enough to look like the misyar he’d once owned, a temporary marriage license that men and women sometimes used when they didn’t want to commit to a full marriage. The groom’s name was Eric Walker.

  “Where did you find this?” he asked, hearing the tension in his voice.

  “In Eric’s briefcase. At the house. Why? What is it?”

  Nayir looked down at the document. He hated to do this, given everything that Miriam had learned about her husband already, but he forced himself to say: “It’s a fake marriage document. Technically, it’s legal. It’s been signed by an imam. But it says here that your husband was married to a woman named Leila Nawar.”

  Miriam’s face had gone a frightening shade of gray. She was staring at him blankly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But this woman —”

  “Is the dead girl,” Miriam cut in.

  “Yes.” He folded the document, made as if to hand it back to her, then changed his mind. He wanted to tell her to shred the document, but he knew how damaging that would be to the investigation. “This really isn’t something you should —”

  “He didn’t do it,” she said mechanically, still frozen and unblinking.

  Nayir felt certain that this was a new shade of denial, and that perhaps everything she had said about Eric until now had been tainted by the same impulse. Clearly, Eric was guilty of adultery—or at least guilty of marrying a second wife without the first one’s consent. And his disappearance was making him look like a very good candidate for murderer.