Desert Cut

by Betty Webb

  With all the fuss on the street, I figured my visit with Dr. Moustafa Abdou was doomed, so with no hope of success, I rang the doorbell. To my surprise, the door opened immediately and a stern face resembling a particularly handsome pharaoh peered out.

  “Enter. Quickly. Before that television creature sees.”

  I scuttled inside.

  Dr. Abdou’s house was larger than the Wahab’s, and sported a collection of silk Persian carpets that would put most museums to shame. Their vivid reds, blues, and golds blazed up from the underlying marble tile, while more carpet pieces in the form of plush toss pillows accented matching white sofas. Above the tall fireplace, a life-sized, full-body painting of Dr. Abdou frowned down on the room. This was a humorless man, and proud of it.

  “So you think you will now make trouble for the Abdou family as you did for the Wahabs?” he growled.

  Since it was always a mistake to back down from serious men, I replied, “Only if you deserve it. Do you?”

  He fell silent for a moment, then clapped his hands three times and shouted something in Arabic. Immediately, as if they had been lurking around the corner, a woman of around Dr. Abdou’s age appeared, wearing a long abayah with a matching hijab that covered her hair. Behind her trailed five girls ranging from around six years old to a gum-chewing pre-teen. They wore jeans, but like their mother, their heads were covered by hijabs. All were giggling.

  The sternness left Dr. Abdou’s face, but after a brief internal struggle, he regained it. “Girls, comport yourselves with dignity.”

  The giggling ceased. The grins did not.

  Feeling in control now, Abdou pointed to me and said, “This person, to her great shame, is interested in your health. Tell her all is well so that she may go annoy someone else.”

  The eldest snickered, then cracked her gum. “Yeah, yeah, we’re fine.”

  “Kyra!” her mother admonished. “Apologize to your father for your poor manners.”

  Kyra tucked her gum into her cheek and ducked her head toward her father the tiniest bit. “I apologize, Poppi.” To me, she said, “My parents wish me to tell you that all of the Abdou females are fine, with all body parts present and accounted for.”

  “Kyra!” Dr. Abdou sounded outraged.

  The girl shrugged. “We’ve been watching the news, Poppi, and besides, we already know about those awful Wahabs and what they did to Shalimar.”

  Aghast, their mother ordered, “Kyra, go to your room. And take your sisters!”

  Off they went in a flurry of giggles, hijabs flapping.

  Their mother remained. Her scowl made Dr. Abdou look downright cheerful.

  Ignoring her, Dr. Abdou said, “Is your husband aware that you are carrying on like this? Approaching strangers, asking unseemly questions?”

  Without realizing it, he had just described the life of every private investigator. “I have no husband.”

  “And probably never will!”

  The barest of smiles flickered across Mrs. Abdou’s face.

  “Thank you for that prediction, Dr. Abdou. Since you already know why I’m here, we might as well cut to the chase. Do you know who the Cutter is?”

  He hissed, as if I had said a filthy word.

  Mrs. Abdou walked up to her husband, put her hand, on his arm and said something in rapid Arabic. He answered in kind. She shook her head and said something else, this time in a tone as stern as his.

  “I forbid it!” he yelled, in English.

  Another spate of Arabic from her, and whatever she said made him gasp. He fled in the same direction as his daughters.

  Her face calm, Mrs. Abdou watched him go. “Good. Now we can speak freely. But before we begin, would you like coffee?”

  When I declined on the premise that I had already surpassed my caffeine allotment for the day, she gestured me to a seat. “First, you must understand I know nothing.”

  I’d played this game before, and was comfortable with it. “Then just tell me what you suspect.”

  Parameters drawn, Mrs. Abdou said, “There has been talk of a woman, an African, who clings to the old ways. We Abdous, of course, have contempt for such barbarism, but people like the Wahabs, who believe they can make money off their daughters, they are dirt. In our country, this cutting, as they call it, is said to benefit young women because it focuses their minds on Allah, not the pleasures of the flesh.”

  I didn’t challenge this monstrous philosophy, since it was not hers. Out of cultural solidarity, she had felt it necessary to mount a token defense.

  Her next words confirmed my suspicions. “As you know, the procedure is now illegal in Egypt, which is as it should be. However…” She paused, searching again.

  I waited. She wanted to be frank, but hadn’t yet figured out how.

  Her hands clasped so tightly that her knuckles whitened, she resumed. “However, few are in agreement with the new law, which is never enforced, anyway. Parents believe that without the procedure, their daughters will become wild and bring disgrace to the family. Also, they worry that an uncut girl cannot make a good marriage. You realize that the Middle Eastern attitude toward marriage is different than the West’s?” She made it a question.

  I nodded. “In America we marry for love.” And divorce as soon as the glow wears off.

  Her smile matched my cynicism. “To Muslims, marriage is an arrangement that benefits both families, the bride’s and the groom’s, not simply the young people themselves. This is an entirely different philosophy from yours.”

  I drummed my fingers on the sofa’s arm rest. “I understand all that and am sympathetic to cultural differences unless it involves butchering little girls. Now, could you please tell me about the Cutter?”

  “Very well. Since you are in such a hurry—another problem with America, if you will allow me to say—I tell you that this African woman does not attend prayers or our woman’s discussion group. Perhaps she does not feel comfortable with us. As I have said, I do not know her, just of her. They say she lives near the Safeway, with her brother, his wife, and their children. Her first name is something like Deeke or Seike. I forget. When she is spoken of, which is not often, she is merely called the Cutter.”

  My disappointment grew. “You don’t know her last name?”

  “Sorry.” Now it was her turn to fidget. She plucked at her hijab, drawing it closer around her face. For the first time I realized how uncomfortable she was with our conversation.

  “How can I find her, then?”

  “Los Perdidos is no crowded Cairo, so why should the search be difficult? I hear that the wife is tall and fat, but the husband short and skinny like his sister. There have been many jokes about this. There are four children, all boys. A good thing, do you not agree?”

  I certainly did.

  Now all Sheriff Avery had to do was figure out how to talk a judge into giving him a search warrant for any house near the Safeway resided in by an unnamed thin woman, an unnamed thin man, an unnamed fat woman, and four unnamed young boys. The judge might enjoy the laugh, but probably not enough to issue the warrant. I, however, was not hampered by such legal sensitivities. If I had to crawl through windows or dig my way into cellars to find Precious Doe’s killer, I would.

  “One more thing, Miss Jones. I hear that the Cutter’s sister-in-law is with child again and will give birth soon. So you see? How many families can there be like that?”

  Not many.

  Before I left, I asked one final question. “You have been very helpful. Why?”

  “Because it is terrible what has been done to those girls. And also because Mrs. Wahab once called my youngest daughter a bad name.”

  Vengeance, thy name is Mother.

  We talked for a while longer, but when further questioning elicited no more information, I rose to go.

  “Wait!”

  I sat back down.

  “I must say one more thing. My husband did not want to speak to you, and therefore he made unkind statements, hoping to discourage
you. Pay no attention. Men speak for effect, not to state the truth. That is part of what is wrong with this world.”

  I suspected she might be right.

  ***

  For the next hour, the Jeep’s police scanner kept me apprized of Los Perdidos’ petty crimes. While listening to accounts of purse-snatching and break-ins, I orbited the Safeway in ever-expanding circles searching for likely candidates for the Cutter’s family, or even the Cutter herself.

  For a Sunday, front yards appeared oddly deserted and, in keeping with Arizona’s love of motor vehicles, few pedestrians strolled the sidewalks. Around two, my growling stomach reminded me that I hadn’t yet eaten lunch, so I parked in the Safeway lot and headed for the deli section. The pre-wrapped sandwiches had already been pretty much picked over, but the smiling African woman behind the counter offered to make me a fresh one.

  “Special today is salami, mozzarella, smoked ham, sweet Italian peppers, tomatoes, onions, fresh greens, and hot mustard on a six-inch submarine role. Medium soda included. You like?”

  Oh, yeah. I liked.

  After paying for the sandwich, I looked for a place to sit, but the deli’s few tables were filled. Knowing that Los Perdidos City Park was only a couple blocks away, I decided it would be more pleasant to dine there under a tree in the front seat of my Jeep, so I headed there.

  That turned out to be crowded, too, which explained the neighborhood’s relatively deserted streets. Children screamed with laughter from swing sets, teens kicked soccer balls across jewel-green grass, lovers cuddled on wood-and-iron benches. For a town its size, the park was amazingly well appointed, and would not have been out of place in Scottsdale. Then I remember seeing, as I walked by the park’s main entrance, a small sign bearing the words, PARK LAND AND EQUIPMENT DONATED BY APACHE CHEMICAL.

  Ah, the largess of insecticide.

  I spotted an empty bench near a family huddled around a picnic table, and the aroma of charcoal-broiled hot dogs and hamburgers made my stomach growl even louder. But before I reached the bench, a soccer ball slammed into the back of my knees, almost knocking me down.

  “Sorry, miss!” piped a small, bright-eyed boy, as he snatched the ball away.

  “Herman!” yelled a thin, middle-aged man I took to be his father. “Did I not tell you to stop playing and eat? You could have hurt that lady! Tell her you are sorry.” An African accent.

  Clutching the soccer ball to his chest, the little boy ducked his head. “Sorry.”

  I winked at this budding Beckham and said, “I’ll live.”

  With an expression of relief, he ran to his family.

  I reached the shaded bench without further incident, and was soon munching happily. The sandwich was every bit as good as the deli woman promised, but probably twice as fattening. If I didn’t watch myself, I could conceivably wind up as obese as the young soccer player’s jolly mother, who was laughing with the father.

  Oops. Not merely obese. Pregnant, too, and already with a handful of children, all boys. At least the wizened woman with them was helping out, shoveling beans onto the children’s plates, even though her tiny hands trembled with Parkinson’s.

  Parkinson’s, a bad disease. A slow decline, if its sufferers were lucky, then death. However, medical science created small miracles every day, and a cure loomed on the horizon. If the old woman could hold on long enough, she might live to see her great-grandchildren. As I watched, I wondered if her family would work her to death first. A real possibility, since the thin man treated her like a servant, not allowing her to sit down and eat with the others. He just kept snapping orders for her to do this, do that, and stop making such a mess.

  The poor old thing’s manner toward the pregnant woman—she even bowed when she handed the smug-faced bitch a heaped plate—smacked of servility.

  Frowning at this injustice toward an ailing grandmother, I started to take another bite of my sandwich, then stopped with it halfway to my mouth.

  I studied the family again and counted heads.

  A short, thin father. A tall, obese mother in the late stages of pregnancy. Four boys. A tiny, thin woman, who, because of the ravages of illness, I had assumed was a grandmother. As I watched them, I considered the way the man treated her. He exhibited none of the deference Africans usually accorded their elders, just a surly impatience with her Parkinson’s-induced clumsiness.

  Because she wasn’t the children’s grandmother.

  She was their aunt.

  The Cutter.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  This time Sheriff Avery not only listened, he acted.

  Within minutes of my arrival at his office, he dispatched a cruiser to pick up the Cutter, whose family I had followed from the park to their house. Ten minutes later, two deputies ushered in a frail old woman whose fear was so marked I actually felt compassion for her. Parkinson’s made the woman’s hands tremble so badly she could hardly hold the cup of water a deputy handed her, and sloshed the liquid over the rim onto the floor. To think those hands had cut into little girls!

  But they had, and the inevitable finally happened. One slip of the knife and it was all over for my beautiful Precious Doe. And for Tujin Rafik, probably, although we would never find her body.

  Sunday or not, the sheriff soon obtained his search warrant. As the deputies left to search the home of Dekah Ellyas Daahir, who, as it turned out, was the wife of Ellyas Dalmar Gulleet, not his sister. The pregnant woman was the man’s second wife, and no, there had been no divorce. When Dekah had been found unable to bear a living child—a frequent complication of the genital amputation she herself had undergone—he took another wife, keeping the first as his maid. So Avery brought in Dekah on suspicion of child abuse and her husband on suspicion of bigamy, a fine irony in a state which seldom prosecuted its many polygamists.

  “Is this a pile of shit or what?” Sheriff Avery asked, after his deputies led Dekah and her husband into separate interrogation rooms.

  “Steaming,” I said. “But aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “All right, I’ll bite.”

  “We still don’t know who killed Reverend Hall.”

  He gave me a stupefied look. “She did. Dekah.”

  “Motive?”

  “The usual reason felons fall out, to protect her own ass. She was afraid that Hall—who loved the sound of his own voice, remember—would eventually implicate her in his scheme to ‘purify’ Los Perdidos’ female population. Hell, by the time we wrap up our investigation, we’ll probably find a trail of dead girls leading to her place.”

  He was right, not that it mattered. “Sheriff, Hall wasn’t dumb. I listened to his rant on his church steps just before he was killed and noticed how carefully he couched his words. Not once did he come right out and say that he actually ordered genital amputations, just that his right to practice his religion was being compromised by a fascist government. He knew perfectly well that a person can’t be prosecuted for believing in criminal behavior, that the criminal action has to actually take place in order for any kind of prosecution. He was a careful man, and a smart one.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ve got our ‘criminal action’ now. Her name’s Nicole. What’s left of her.”

  I shook my head. “Nicole told me she never saw the Cutter’s face, that she only heard her speak. So I ask you again, why would Hall implicate the Cutter when to do so would implicate himself?”

  “Maybe Hall wasn’t as smart as you believe and the Cutter knew it. So, zip.” He made a cutting motion across his throat.

  It would have been poetic justice, Hall dying of a slit throat, perhaps by the same knife that had sliced up so many little girls. But he died of gunshot wounds.

  The sheriff gave me a condescending smile. “You’ve been a big help, Ms. Jones, but we’ll handle it from here. I’m needed in the interrogation room.” He held out his hand.

  I shook it, but hung onto it for a moment, loathe to let him get away before I said my piece. “While you’re in there,
make sure Dekah gets another glass of water.”

  He tugged his hand away. “In Los Perdidos, we always see to our prisoners’ comfort. No rubber hoses, no water-boarding. All the Diet Coke and water they can drink.”

  “Water will work fine. And watch her drink it. After she does, or tries to, ask yourself how someone in her condition could shoot Hall three times. Twice while he was a moving target.”

  With that, I let him go.

  Outside, the media was waiting. The brunette newscaster, apparently tired of harassing Dr. Wahab, pounced as soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk. “Is it true that the sheriff arrested a Somali refugee?”

  At her use of the word refugee, I froze. The hardships of Africa’s refugees had justly become an international concern, and there was a chance the Cutter might be awarded automatic victim status right along with them.

  I hadn’t planned on speaking to the media again, but their continued inaccuracies about Dekah’s crimes worried me. Cautiously, I said, “Arrested, no. However, a woman has been brought in for questioning in the case of Precious Doe. She is also being questioned about another child’s disappearance.”

  “But isn’t the woman in flight from terrorism?” The reporter had focused on Dekah’s possible victimhood, and why not? Victimhood made for great stories, regardless of the truth.

  My anger made me throw verbal caution to the wind. “Dekah Ellyas Daahir is the chief suspect in the death of two innocent, seven-year-old children. She is also suspected of mutilating that teenager you acted so outraged about the other day, so save your pity for the real victims here, not that child-butchering bitch!”

  Slander lawsuit all but guaranteed, I hurried to my Jeep with the ladies and gentlemen of the press baying at my heels.

  I tore out of the parking lot without regard for the speed limit, but the cops were too busy controlling the media to worry about me. By the time I reached the edge of town, somehow miraculously avoiding a collision, I realized I needed a quiet place in which to cool down. The guest cottage at the Lazy M came to mind, followed quickly by an image of all those guns on Selma’s living room wall. The river held no attraction for me, either, and the Los Perdidos Library was closed.