by Zoë Ferraris
Osama and Faiza and a forensics team followed Abdulrahman into the central courtyard, an enormous indoor space radiating green from the abundance of plants and the elaborate mosaics on every wall. Below, in a sunken atrium, was a swimming pool, its bottom tiled to resemble an enormous woven carpet. The doorways, twice normal size, were arched, every surface layered with polished stone and detailed carvings reading Allah and Allah Akbar. Osama’s first thought was that Abdulrahman would clearly have had no trouble supporting Leila. They walked through half a dozen gloriously decorated rooms, each bearing some evidence of a traditional style: an antique hookah sitting beside two stone benches; Bedouin antiques of all sorts, including a rifle and bandolier hanging on the wall; and a marble slab engraved with a passage from the Quran propped against another wall. Each room was floored with richly woven carpets, detailed stone tiles, or highly polished wood.
Climbing a wide flight of stairs, they entered a large sitting room, its upper balustrades rich with marble crenellations. There were sofas here, set in a large square so that three sat side by side against each wall. Beyond that, a massive round ornament looked like a Bedouin teapot blown up to the size of an automobile. It would have been tacky, but its exterior was screened metal and on the inside sat two chairs facing a large bay window. Between the chairs stood a handsome telescope.
Abdulrahman led them through the sitting room to a hallway that led to a series of upper-story bedrooms. The doors were open. Peeking in, Osama spotted king-size beds in each. He was beginning to think the house could sleep a hundred people.
“Was it only your family and Leila living here?” Osama asked.
Abdulrahman still looked angry. “Ra’id is here as well. He came a year ago.”
“Where is his room?”
“There.” Abdulrahman pointed to an open doorway and Osama glanced inside, half hoping to find Ra’id.
Leila’s room was at the end of the hall, perched in a corner of the house so that her windows gave a view of the garden, which wrapped around the back and sides of the building. Abdulrahman went to the wardrobe, a mighty structure of oak that stood against the wall. Sliding a key from a wooden niche on the side, he unlocked it. “Her closet,” he said. “Everything else should be open. There’s not much to see.”
“If you wouldn’t mind waiting outside,” one of the forensics men said. “One of the officers here will escort you.” A uniformed floater motioned to Abdulrahman, who went without protest.
Osama watched the forensics team sweep through the room. Faiza stood beside him, looking around.
They went to the dresser, another intimidating oak structure, and studied the pictures on top. None of them were framed, simply splashed across the wood as if they’d been dropped there. One of the forensics men gave Osama a pair of plastic gloves, and he put them on. He looked through the pictures and soon became aware that Leila and Ra’id had spent a lot of time together. There were pictures of the two of them lounging on a private beach, laughing at the bowling alley, splashing around in the swimming pool downstairs. Lots of photos of cats in various parts of the house. A few of Abdulrahman, looking hierophantic.
“He was right,” Faiza said, “there’s not much of Leila in this room.” A few clothes, a couple of dusty schoolbooks on the shelf. No jewelry or makeup. The bathroom had a few essentials but was missing the small armies of hair products and creams that Osama had come to associate with women. Most conspicuous of all, there was little sign that a filmmaker had ever lived in the room—no camera bags or cameras or lenses, no stacks of DVDs.
“She didn’t have her camera with her when she disappeared,” Osama said, thinking out loud. “It got destroyed at the Corniche when she was injured that day.”
“Maybe she bought another one,” Faiza said.
“Shouldn’t there at least be a camera bag here?”
“You’re right. There’s nothing.”
“There’s no computer either,” Osama said. “I’m no expert, but wouldn’t you need a computer to edit film?”
“I think so,” Faiza said. “Or you’d need some pretty expensive equipment.”
“Her brother didn’t say if she bought a new camera.”
They wandered back through the house, stopping in Ra’id’s room only long enough to be disappointed again. There were clothes here, most of them scattered on the floor, and a tall shelf of CDs. A computer on the desk was still sealed in its manufacturer’s box.
They carried on, touring the house in a leisurely way, stopping to read the Quranic inscription—it was all Quranic inscription, everywhere words were hung—above a ceramic, wood-burning chiminea and a media shelf right out of Ikea that was packed with CDs.
As he stood above the central courtyard, Osama’s thoughts shifted between competing ideas of Abdulrahman. At first he had assumed that Abdulrahman was the older Syrian bachelor type, busy snipping away at tiny scraps of lingerie for the bustling business that was practically Syria’s birthright, and yet now he saw that Abdulrahman was all Jeddawi. He must have dumped millions of riyals into this house, and you wouldn’t build a house like this in the first place unless you loved the city and its architecture. Abdulrahman seemed conservative. Of course, he designed and sold lingerie for a living, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t remain traditional in every other respect. After all, lingerie was meant to arouse a husband in the privacy of the bedroom. There was something frank and square about Abdulrahman that had caused Osama to think he was old-fashioned. The fact that he wouldn’t let a male investigator talk to his wife seemed to confirm the point.
But now that Osama had seen the interior of the house, he realized that Abdulrahman fancied himself just as modern as anyone. It was in the CD rack, the satellite television, the iPod speaker system playing dulcet jazz in the sitting room. And perhaps that was what was so peculiar: that in Abdulrahman, the extremes of traditional and modern coexisted so comfortably.
They found Abdulrahman loitering outside the kitchen, watching the forensics men work, apprehension on his face.
“Mr. Nawar,” Osama said, motioning him away from the kitchen door, “did Leila buy a new camera after the old one was broken?”
“Yes,” Abdulrahman replied after a hesitation. “Yes, she got another.”
Osama took out his notepad. “Where did she get it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of camera was it?”
“A video camera… no, it was digital, I believe. I don’t know anything about it.”
“Digital cameras are pretty expensive. Where did she get the money for one of those?”
Abdulrahman shrugged. “Leila kept her business matters to herself.”
“And you never asked her?”
Abdulrahman moved back toward the kitchen, which Osama found insulting.
“Mr. Nawar, we’re not finished.” He waited for Abdulrahman to turn around.
“In order to edit film, your sister would have needed a computer, but I didn’t see one in her room. Did she have one?”
“Yes,” Abdulrahman said, glowering now. “If it’s not in her room, then I don’t know what happened to it.”
“Was it there after she disappeared?”
“I didn’t notice,” he said. His face was like a stone mask. Osama didn’t have to glance at Faiza to know that they were both thinking the same thing: that Abdulrahman was lying. Osama was getting annoyed.
“Your sister went missing, and you didn’t check her room?” he asked.
“Of course I checked her room!” Abdulrahman exploded. “But I wasn’t looking for a computer, I was looking for my sister!”
“It seems strange, Mr. Nawar, that your sister bought herself a brand-new digital camera and that you didn’t ask her how she came by that kind of money. Yet you said earlier that Leila’s job didn’t pay well enough that she could support herself. How did she come by that money?”
“I already told you: I don’t know.”
“And you never asked her?”<
br />
“No.”
“Did you ever ask her about her work? Do you know what she did when she left the house?”
“Of course!” he blurted angrily. “She worked for the news station! And she occasionally took other jobs.”
“What kind of jobs?”
“Private work. For individuals. People she knew.”
“What was the last thing she was working on before she disappeared?”
“She was taking pictures of a religious-art collection.”
“Was this for a museum?” Osama asked.
“No, a person. His name was Wahhab Nabih. He lived here in Jeddah, I’m not sure exactly where, so don’t ask.”
“Is that all she told you about the job?”
“Yes.”
Abdulrahman was making to leave again, but before he could turn away completely, Osama said, “If you remember anything about the computer, you’ll let me know.”
15
Katya was trying not to fall asleep from boredom. Her eyes were fixed on the computer screen. The second of Leila’s discs was in the drive, and the dead woman’s film footage was playing out—silent but for the typical background noises of a city street.
Majdi had already gone over the first disc but he hadn’t had time for the rest of it, so he’d given it to her. Katya had imagined, after her coup with the Bluetooth burqa, that they might start giving her the really interesting evidence. Perhaps this was interesting and she just didn’t know it. The footage was long and uncut, and the past forty minutes had been nothing but B-roll. Scenes of black-cloaked women walking through shopping malls, cars driving at night down a busy, nameless street, men praying at a mosque, the kinds of mind-numbing images that one could see every night on the local news.
This filler was not even part of Leila’s last assignment filming B-roll for the local news station. It was dated five months ago, but Katya watched it anyway, just in case.
This morning, however, she’d had a small victory. She had managed to analyze some of the fibers that the coroner had pulled from Leila’s wounds. They were goat hair dyed black, the sort that was typically found in a man’s ‘iqal. The black goat-hair cord the Bedouin used to hobble camels was the same cord men wore to fasten scarves to their heads. Unfortunately, every man in Saudi owned an ‘iqal, and the chances of being able to match the fibers to one ‘iqal in particular were extremely low. However, if they could find the ‘iqal, they might find traces of blood and skin on it.
She stopped fifteen minutes later and stood up to stretch her legs. The air outside was sticky and wet, and it left a filmy coating on the windows. The reflected sunlight danced in watery patterns on the opposite wall. She took a bottle of orange juice from the little fridge by her desk and sat back down.
Finally, the B-roll came to an end. There was one more segment on the disc. It was shorter than the rest and titled Games. She opened it.
A woman’s face appeared on the screen. She was in her twenties with a small pointed chin and almost grotesquely large eyes, a comic mixture that she used to wonderful effect.
“On the subject of game cards,” the woman said in formal speech, noting every short vowel with a tilt of the head, “scientific researchers have finally proven that in fact the famous children’s game Pokemon is indeed representative of evolutionary principles.” At the bottom of the screen a text box popped up. Farooha Abdel Ali, Pokemon Specialist.
Katya chuckled. “Being of the generation of children who were briefly exposed to Pokemon in Saudi Arabia before the religious authorities banned it, I can attest to their claim that the game is a” —here Farooha checked a notecard in her hand —“ ‘a Jewish-Darwinist theory that conflicts with the truth about humans,’ as they say. I can also confirm that it is a ‘front for Israel’ that ‘possesses the minds of Saudi children.’ However, that is not to say that children don’t enjoy trading the game cards and, in effect, learning the basic principles of gambling.”
Offscreen, Leila laughed, a loud, staccato burst that carried top notes of contagious glee.
Katya sat up. She stopped the disc and went back to listen to it again. It was such a beautiful laugh, and its effect was odd. Aside from the occasional exclamation, so far there was a conspicuous absence of Leila herself on the DVD. That short, unguarded laughter had charged the room with her presence.
Katya flipped open the file and looked at the Bluetooth photo again, but the look on Leila’s face was self-consciously seductive. Hi there, gorgeous, it seemed to say. It was the same generic expression worn by models in fashion magazines.
Watching the segment on Pokemon again, Katya wrote Farooha Abdel Ali on a sheet of paper and turned to the other computer. She did a quick people search on the police database for Farooha and found her immediately. The girl had registered with an ID card in Jeddah. Thank Allah for ID cards, Katya thought, quickly gathering up the disc and leaving the room.
Majdi was sitting in his lab as usual, a cup of Starbucks in one hand, the other hand adeptly clicking the computer mouse. Katya stood behind him, dizzied by his quick scroll through a series of digitized documents. They were photographs of old manuscripts.
“They found these in the victim’s bedroom,” he said. “They were taped to the underside of a dresser drawer.”
“What are they?” Katya asked.
He shook his head. “I’ve just scanned them into the computer and have been trying to figure them out. From the looks of it, they’re Quranic, but I have to double-check. I don’t know the Quran very well,” he added, casting a quick glance at her, checking for a reaction.
“You mean you haven’t memorized the holy book?” she asked.
He gave her an appreciative smile. “Unfortunately, I’m lacking in that area. But I am seeing references to prayers in these texts.”
The manuscripts were yellowing. The script was neat and loopy, the ink smudged in places. Katya struggled to read it, but Majdi was flipping so quickly through the pages that she only caught a word here and there.
Majdi skimmed through a few more documents before forcing himself to stop and turn to Katya. “Anyway, what’s going on upstairs?”
She told him about her discovery of Farooha. Majdi was not the sort of person who could express enthusiasm when his mind was obsessively focused on something else, but he gave a quick nod.
“Osama’s out this morning,” he said, “but I’ll tell him when he gets in. Or you could tell him yourself.”
“Where is he?”
“Out looking for the victim’s cousin. And the ex-husband. There’s no telling when he’ll be back.” Majdi finished the last of his coffee and threw the cup in the trash.
“What’s the story with the ex-husband?” she asked.
“Leila hadn’t seen him in months.”
It seemed a waste of resources to hunt down someone the victim hadn’t seen in months. “And her cousin?”
“A person of interest who disappeared when they were questioning the family at the lingerie store.”
“Ah. What about her last assignment?” she said. “There was something on the missing persons report about a photography job.”
“Yeah,” Majdi said, motioning to the computer screen. “I’ve been toying with the idea that this is it. Leila’s brother said she had done some film work for a man named Wahhab Nabih. The brother had no idea what kind of work Leila had done for the guy. She just told him it was a private religious-art collection.”
“These documents could be considered an art collection, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, but the only problem is that I can’t find anyone named Wahhab Nabih.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no Wahhab Nabih in Saudi Arabia, and if there is, the guy has no passport, no ID card, no bank accounts, and no immigration records. The only thing I could find was a property here in Jeddah owned by a W. Nabih. So if it is the same guy, he owns a home but no ID card.”
“Maybe he’s a Bedouin?”
�
��Believe it or not,” Majdi said, “most male Bedouin have at least registered with the government.” He turned back to the screen. “And anyway, Nabih isn’t a Bedouin name. You don’t happen to know anyone with expertise in analyzing old Quranic documents, do you?”
Katya shook her head slowly. “If this really was the last job she did, then wouldn’t it be wise to send someone to find Mr. Nabih?”
Majdi gave her a wry look. “Yes, wouldn’t it?”
“Will Osama —”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll get on it once he tracks down the cousin.”
“What about floaters?” she asked.
“I’m not sure he has any left,” Majdi said.
“Why would these be taped to Leila’s dresser drawer?” she asked.
He shook his head. “According to her brother, Leila preferred video, but occasionally she did photography jobs on the side. Her brother had some Quranic art in the house, but he didn’t recognize the photos when we showed him these this morning.”
“I don’t understand why she would hide them,” Katya said. “Especially if they’re pages from an old Quran. Her brother isn’t opposed to religion, is he?”
“No,” Majdi said. “I get the impression he’s very religious. Aside from the fact that he runs a lingerie store. But you’re right, it is weird that she’d hide them. Maybe she did a job her brother had forbidden her to do for some reason. Or maybe she took the photos for someone who wanted them to stay secret, but if that’s the case, then why hide them at her house?”
“I don’t know,” Katya said. “Maybe she wasn’t supposed to have kept any copies of the work?”
“Perhaps.” Majdi’s attention turned back to the screen. “So do you want to tell Osama about this friend of Leila’s that you found, or should I?”
“You’d better do it,” Katya said. “I don’t want to bother him if he’s busy.” She felt foolish for saying it. The truth was, she just didn’t have the nerve to face Osama. She knew little about him and about how direct contact with him might be received. “But I trust you’ll give me a glowing recommendation,” she added, smirking.
