Out of Nowhere

by Maria Padian

  The man held out his hand.

  “I’m Detective Lloyd Parker, this is Detective John Baylor.” He tilted his head toward the other guy. “We’re following up on a missing-person report. Are you the young woman who brought the Bashirs to the station earlier today?”

  “Yes,” she answered. Simple. Short. Telling the truth without volunteering information.

  “And this is …?” His eyes met mine.

  “Tom Bouchard,” I said. I held his gaze.

  “He is friend to Saeed!” Samira said.

  Parker looked at me with a bit more interest.

  “You know Saeed Bashir?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. His glance flickered briefly to his partner, who nodded at him. Made you wonder if police school had taught them how to communicate telepathically.

  “Why don’t we step into the other room, Tom. I’d like to ask you a few questions. If you don’t mind.”

  Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Everything about the whole scene felt wrong. The family was scared. Petrified, actually. Mrs. Bashir looked practically catatonic. Samira was a wreck. Even Aweys seemed to sense that this was not good.

  Trouble was, I didn’t have a good reason for not speaking with him. I followed him into the kitchen.

  It seemed like there were pots and dishes everywhere; a lot of cooking had been going on. Smelled like frying. Lloyd sat in one of the remaining kitchen chairs and gestured to another. I sat.

  “So, how do you know Saeed?”

  “We play soccer together at Chamberlain High School.”

  “Teammates?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you known him long?”

  I shook my head.

  “I just met him this fall.”

  “So this fall was the first time he’d gone out for soccer?”

  “He just moved here.”

  “From … where? Where was he before he moved to Enniston?”

  “You’d have to ask his family. Or check with our school. I can’t comment on what Saeed did or where he was before I knew him.”

  I think it was the “I can’t comment” comment that signaled to Detective Lloyd Parker that I wasn’t fooled by his friendliness. He leaned back in the chair and eyed me critically. Like he was sizing me up.

  “How well do you know Saeed Bashir, Tom? And please … think carefully before you answer.”

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know him well. He doesn’t speak very good English and he’s only been at our school since September. The people I know well I’ve known all my life. But here’s what I do know: He’s a good teammate. He gets along with everyone. He plays soccer really, really well. He’s friendly. I mean … that’s it.”

  “Religious?” he asked.

  I frowned.

  “He’s Muslim, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Parker laughed softly.

  “No, I knew that, Tom. But I’m wondering if Saeed struck you as particularly religious. Did he go to the mosque more often than usual? Belong to any religious clubs? Seem to be … rigid? Or orthodox in any way?”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t know. I mean, he’s a practicing Muslim. Like, they’ve been fasting for Ramadan, all that. He doesn’t drink. I know he went to the mosque to pray before our last game. He did tell me that.”

  Parker smiled.

  “And did Allah hear his prayers?” he asked.

  I stared at him.

  “As a matter of fact, he did,” I said. Do you want to know the score? I managed to not say. I took a deep breath instead.

  The detective changed directions.

  “Do you know if Saeed was upset about anything? Anything bothering him recently?”

  “Actually … yeah,” I answered truthfully. “He’s been benched. Another team, the one we beat last week? They’ve challenged his eligibility, claiming he’s too old. So Coach can’t play him until the whole thing’s resolved.”

  Parker nodded.

  “And how did Saeed react to that?”

  “He was pretty disappointed. He loves soccer.”

  “Was he angry?” he asked.

  I laughed.

  “Are you kidding? We’re all angry. You want to see really angry, you should go talk to our coach.”

  “No, I mean Saeed in particular,” he said, cutting me off. “Did you see him get angry about this?”

  I thought about that for a minute. Actually, I hadn’t seen Saeed angry about it. I saw him upset. Worried. Sad. Really sad that he’d been taken off the team.

  But Samira … she’d said he was angry. Could get angry.

  If I hadn’t seen it myself, was it fair to tell the cop?

  “Why are you asking me these questions?” I said instead. “Shouldn’t you be asking me, like, when was the last time I saw him? Answer: K Street Center, two days ago. Where does he like to hang out? Answer: the Somali store on Market Street. They watch international soccer pretty much 24/7 over there. How about, who are his other friends? Answer: I can tell you who I know, and give you their numbers.

  “Meanwhile, shouldn’t you be looking for him?”

  Parker was silent. He seemed to be trying to make up his mind about what to say next. Maybe trying to decide whether I was keeping anything from him.

  But I didn’t have much to keep.

  “Do you know what’s been happening in the Somali community in Minnesota?” he asked.

  I shrugged.

  “No clue.”

  “Young Somali men, mostly teens, are disappearing. Into thin air, with no word to their families. Recently, federal authorities tracked down a few of them. They were in Somalia, where they’d joined up with an Islamic militia. Apparently they’d been recruited through their mosque in Minneapolis and were training to be terrorists.”

  Whoa. The guy was serious. This wasn’t Alex tossing around rude Osama comments. This was … real.

  “Are you a fed?” I asked without thinking. First thing that popped out of my mouth.

  He shook his head.

  “No, we’re Enniston detectives. But there’s a very clear protocol we have to follow in cases like this. So if we don’t start getting some answers about your friend, Saeed, very soon, our next step is to contact federal agents.”

  “Hold it! Hold on. You think Saeed is a terrorist?” The word sounded strange in my ears.

  “We don’t assume anything. But he’s beginning to fit the profile. Young, observant Somali male. Recently suffered a big disappointment. Disappears without a word to his family—”

  I cut him off.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me! Saeed is, like, the last guy who would ever do something like that! He likes this country and he loves being part of things here. Being part of a team.”

  “The last young man who blew himself up in a shopping area in Somalia was an honors student at his high school in Minnesota and ran varsity cross-country. He took out ten people with a homemade bomb strapped to his chest.”

  Parker said that without a trace of emotion. He wasn’t trying to convince me I was wrong. He just knew I was, and didn’t care what I thought as long as I told him everything.

  I shook my head slowly, trying to shake my thoughts clear. Like one of those little plastic boxes with the tiny silver balls you roll into the indented spaces. You had to be deliberate, careful, if you wanted to set everything straight.

  I looked up at Detective Parker then, completely ready. To tell all. Anything. Everything I could possibly dredge up, from the handful of very confusing conversations I’d had with Saeed over the past weeks. Maybe there was something he could use. Some random detail that didn’t mean much to me but revealed everything to him.

  That’s when I saw him. Standing in the kitchen entrance. He had his backpack slung over one shoulder, and his clothes looked crushed. Like he’d slept in them all night. He looked tired.

  “Hello,” said Saeed, his eyes resting on Lloyd Parker. “Who you are?”

  Chapter Twenty-
Nine

  The Chamberlain High School soccer team wasn’t the only one Saeed played for. In Portland, someone had organized a league of immigrant kids, and whenever he could manage to find a ride, he’d go there for games.

  Something I didn’t know, and his family and Ismail and the other guys didn’t think to mention. Or that the detectives would think to ask. Maybe, if they were actually looking for a missing teenager, instead of building a “profile,” they’d have pulled that sort of information out of someone. Realized he was in Portland, with a bunch of his other teammates, when the power went out and his Tracfone ran out of minutes. Too clueless about the weather and what a nor’easter was all about to realize he should have stayed put. Unable to find a ride back to Enniston until late the following day.

  Here’s the thing that really sucked: they’d almost got me believing their story. They’d almost convinced me, despite everything I knew and felt about Saeed, that maybe, deep down, he couldn’t be trusted.

  Myla and I beat it out of there pretty soon after he turned up. Even the cops didn’t seem to want to hang around when Mrs. Bashir lit into her son. You didn’t need to speak Somali to get her drift, jumping up from the couch and throwing her arms around him when he stepped reluctantly into the living room. Her cries of relief quickly switching to something more like hysterical anger. The universal language of worried, pissed-off moms. No translator required.

  I waited until the next day, Sunday, to call him. Did he want to go out, get something to eat? I’d pick him up?

  We went to McDonald’s. He loves Big Macs.

  It was the same McDonald’s I’d gone to with Donnie the night of the rock. I thought about that as we carried our plastic trays and bags of food to a table. Donnie with his wrinkled flannel shirt that had bits of wood chips sticking to it. He’d partied most of the night, stacked wood all day, then sat here with me to plot more action. Made you wonder: was he incapable of sitting still, or was he afraid to sit still? Was all his restless bouncing from thing to thing beyond his control, or was it a way to keep from thinking too much? Feeling too much? It’s hard to think when there’s a lot of background noise; easy to think when you’re alone and it’s quiet.

  He was going to have plenty of quiet time on his hands now. I’d stopped by the hospital on my way to pick up Saeed. They’d moved him out of the intensive care unit, but no one could tell him when he’d get sprung from the hospital.

  Saeed seemed tired. He had sunken half-moons beneath his eyes. He told me he’d slept on somebody’s couch the night before, and when the power went out it had gotten cold. He hadn’t known, until he arrived home, that everyone had been worried about him. He was sorry about that. He was sorry that Myla had had to drive his sister around looking for him.

  We’d taken about a dozen ketchup packets, and squirted most of them over our fries. Saeed also got a big Coke. I got a shake.

  “Did Samira tell you what happened at the hospital?” I began.

  He nodded. He looked out the window.

  “How your friend? Don?” he asked.

  “Bad,” I said. “I mean, he’ll live. But he’s pretty hurt.”

  “He drinking,” Saeed said. Not a question.

  “Yeah. He won’t be drinking now. Not for a looong time.” I took a big swig of shake. It was so cold it made the back of my head hurt.

  “In Islam, is haram. Forbidden. To drink,” he said seriously.

  “Not a bad rule,” I said.

  “Is good rule,” he said.

  I took another pull on the shake.

  “Samira didn’t break any rules,” I told him, redirecting the conversational ball.

  “Tom. In Islam, there is many, many rules—”

  “Samira didn’t break any rules,” I repeated, a bit more slowly.

  He sighed. He didn’t seem very interested in his food.

  “Samira is a nice girl. She’s smart. She works hard. You know she’s a good kid, Saeed. You know.”

  He looked me frankly in the eyes.

  “Yes, I know this, Tom.”

  “I broke a rule, Saeed. Not her. Okay? She was worried about you, and she was crying, and I … felt bad for her. Like I felt bad for Donnie’s mother. Same thing.”

  “Somali girls is different, Tom,” he said quietly.

  I threw myself back in the plastic chair. I was hitting a wall here. A glass wall, and I couldn’t figure out how to bust through and make him hear me.

  “I get that, okay? I know I screwed up. But there is nothing going on between me and your sister, and that picture is a lie. I mean … the picture isn’t a lie. It happened. I hugged her. But the posts and the captions? Total lies. That’s my old girlfriend, Cherisse, making that stuff up.”

  “I think she not nice girl,” he said.

  I laughed.

  “That’s one way to put it.” I wasn’t gonna get into all the other choice adjectives I could’ve used to describe Cherisse. “That’s why I’m not seeing her anymore. I’m going out with Myla now.”

  He looked at me skeptically.

  “Samira say that. I think, Tom, you with lot of girls.”

  “I only go out with one girl at a time. I’m a serial monogamist.” He frowned. Of course he didn’t know what that meant. And why was I making jokes at that point? I think I just wanted to erase the closed, shut-down expression on his face. It was so not the guy I knew.

  Saeed pushed his food to one side and leaned forward. His hands on the table formed this little teepee as he spoke.

  “Is good that Samira smart. Is good that she work hard. I know these things, Tom, of my sister. But for Somali peoples is one most important thing. And that is religion.”

  I nodded.

  “Okay. I get that. So …?”

  “In Islam, it say woman must not show hair, or the skin, to man outside family. Woman must not touch man outside family.”

  “She didn’t. I did. And for the record: she ran.” He nodded gravely.

  “Samira say that. I believe, Tom. My sister is … true. But in picture, Tom, she don’t run. And picture is what peoples see.”

  And a picture’s worth a thousand words, stupid. In spite of what I know about my sister, and what I know about you, my friend, the world and its pictures tell a different story.

  “What are we gonna do?” I asked him. About everything. About your sister. About soccer. About this. Misunderstanding, wide as the ocean.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Is bad. I get message from Ibrahim. He say, ‘What your sister do, Saeed?’ I says to him: ‘Nothing! You know Samira! You know Tom!’ But is just me says that. We have no father. No family here. My mother? She cries and she says she wish we had uncle. Or somebody.” He unwrapped one of the Big Macs. It smelled of onions and special sauce.

  “Just keep telling the truth,” I suggested.

  Saeed looked me in the eye. He raised one brow skeptically.

  “Hmph,” he said, biting into his sandwich. One little hmph, which pretty much summed up how well he thought the truth stacked up against what people wanted to believe.

  Chapter Thirty

  Cherisse didn’t look too happy to see me.

  When you hear your name called over the loudspeaker, asking you to report to the main office, you never know what’s up. Sometimes it’s good news, like you left your lunch at home and your mother just dropped it off. But usually … not. A buddy of mine, last year? He got called down in the middle of class to find a cop waiting for him.

  “Christopher LeVoie?” they’d asked when he walked in.

  “Uh, no, I’m Christian LeVoie,” he explained. They let him go back to class while the main office secretary hunted down Christopher, who, it turned out, had been reported speeding by one of the bus drivers.

  So yeah, nobody likes to get called down to the office, so when the conference room door swung open and Cherisse walked in, she wore this expression like she was ready to face the lion in the den. But then she saw me, and her jaw dropped.

&
nbsp; I think she would’ve been happier to find a couple of cops. Or a lion.

  “Good morning, Miss Ouellette,” Mr. Cockrell said. He was there, too. Along with Mrs. Swift, Mr. Haley (Cherisse’s guidance counselor), Coach, and some black guy named Mr. Aden. I wasn’t sure why he’d been invited. He was slim, dressed like a teacher. Light-skinned, with a long horse face and a thin nose.

  “Please, have a seat.” Mr. Cockrell said, gesturing to the empty chair across the table from me.

  Cherisse slipped into it without a word.

  The girl’s a pro. She knew better than to speak before they asked her a direct question.

  A red flush had started at her neck and slowly crept up her cheeks. I glared at her, watching it spread, but amazingly, she could look everywhere in the room except at me. Mr. Cockrell began.

  “Cherisse, we have heard a very disturbing report this morning from Tom. He says you’ve been cyberbullying another girl at Chamberlain High School.”

  Cherisse’s big, blue, darkly rimmed eyes widened.

  “I don’t even know what that is,” she said.

  I heard Coach snort.

  “It means bullying on the Internet,” Mr. Cockrell explained. “Or on the phone.”

  Cherisse shrugged.

  “I haven’t bullied anyone. I don’t know what Tommy is talking about.”

  There was a cell phone on the table before Mr. Cockrell. Mine. He flipped it open and pointed the screen at Cherisse. Right there on the display was the photo she’d taken of me and Samira, with the caption she’d texted to all her contacts: Somali slut.

  “This is Tom’s phone. This is a message you sent to Tom on …” He looked at the date and time. “Saturday at one-thirty in the afternoon.”

  She shrugged again.

  “So? Is there a law against me sending a photo to my boyfriend? I didn’t send it to her. I don’t even know who that girl is! It’s just a joke!”

  “I’m not your boyfriend” flew out of my mouth. Which wasn’t helpful. Cherisse finally looked at me.

  Drop dead, the big blues said in no uncertain terms.

  “Tommy and I are in a fight,” she said evenly. “I sent him that picture to make him mad. That’s all.”