by Steven James
I shot him a text asking him to give me a call when he had a chance, then got back to the analysis of the crimes. Although this appeared to be a serial killer, it didn’t appear that he was abducting the victims, but rather encountering them at those sites.
Is he luring them? If so, how?
And what significance do those times and locations hold for him?
11:02 P.M., June 10, Maxine Nachmanoff. 3741 St. Clair Street. With the letter W cut into her forehead.
12:35 P.M., July 6, Gideon Flello. 168 Worcester Place. The letter O.
6:14 P.M., July 9, Dakota Sawatzy. 6347 Walton Street. The letter R.
And finally, Meredith Getz, 10:22 P.M. on July 21 in a house on 14156 Montrose Street. The letter R.
Jamika, no letter at all. Time of death—close to that of Dr. Getz.
Lunchtime. Lunchtime. After work. Then the last two, later at night.
I was processing the times in relation to the locations of the crimes when Sharyn called at just after eight.
After a quick “good morning,” she got right to it. “Listen, I know this is earlier than I said I’d contact you, but I just got word: Canyon Robbins, the boy who was stabbed last night, he’s recovering. He’s awake.”
“We need to talk to him, see what he can tell us about Igazi—who he is, how he’s involved in all this.”
“I figured you’d say that, but here’s the thing: Lieutenant Sproul scheduled a briefing for the Joint Task Force at nine. The precinct is pretty much across town from Grandshore Medical Center, the hospital where Canyon is.”
“Nine?” I checked the time. “No, that’s no good. I don’t want to be rushed with this kid.”
“And also, if I recall correctly, briefings are right up there somewhere next to root canals and camel spit on your list of favorite things.”
“I didn’t know I had a list.”
“I pieced it together. Induction.”
“Camel spit? Really?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Alright. Well, talking to Canyon is the priority right now. Maybe someone at the meeting can bullet-point things for us, fill us in over lunch.”
“That, or I’ll see if Sproul can postpone it a couple hours. With traffic at this time of day, I’m guessing Grandshore Medical Center is a good twenty-five minutes from your motel. Did Kramer get you a car?”
“A trusty old Crown Victoria.”
“Ah. Classic. A Vickie. So very stealthy. No one will see you coming in that.”
“This one’s been around since back when I was a cop, probably be around for another decade after I retire. He didn’t have a gun for me, though.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I stopped by the armory. I’ve got you covered.”
“I see what you did there—got you covered.”
“Right.”
“I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
“See you in a few.”
24
Ali’s prayers did not bring him peace, and he could not help but wonder if perhaps his lack of faith had nullified them.
He rolled up the mat and packed it in his suitcase.
The digital clock beside the bed blinked red with the time: 8:11.
For some reason it struck him that it was just one digit off from 9/11.
But in this case, the result would be many, many times worse.
How much did the Almighty, the Creator, the Knower of All, really become involved in the affairs of men? How much did He let things play out in the universe based on natural law, in contrast to inserting His will into orchestrating those events toward a certain end?
Do not ask such questions. Submit. This is your duty. This alone.
Truthfully, this week it seemed as if things were resting solely in his hands and not in God’s at all.
After all, he was the one who had to see things through to the end; he was the one who had to give up his life, not Allah.
Do not think such things!
Though still anxious about what step to take next, Ali knew better than to initiate any communication with Fayed. It was his job simply to listen and obey.
This, he had learned explicitly.
This, he had learned well.
During his training, when he’d first arrived at the compound in Yemen, he’d been taken to a room and told to sit on the cot and wait for further instructions. Then Fayed and the two soldiers who’d brought him there left him alone.
An hour passed. No one came.
Two hours. Then three. Five.
Six hours ticked by. They’d left him with his watch—perhaps just so he could chart the tedious passage of time.
When dusk stretched over the desert, he began to believe that they indeed had forgotten about him. He was tempted to walk outside, to find the men, to politely remind them that he was still here, still awaiting his orders.
But he did not.
After all, even if they had forgotten about him, they would not appreciate being reminded of that fact, of their failure.
He did his best to remain faithful in his prayers but obeyed the dictates of the brothers who had left him here and he did not leave the bed.
Night passed.
No one came.
Morning.
He waited.
Without air-conditioning or a ceiling fan, the room was stifling.
The airless vent on the wall offered no relief and its presence simply served to mock his situation.
Two days.
At times, he heard shouts and screams outside.
At times, the spray of gunfire or the single sharp report of a gunshot followed by a stretch of blank silence before another gunshot rang out, but he did not move from the cot. He did not let his curiosity get the best of him, did not even slide over to peer out the window.
Three days.
No food, no water, no toilet.
He made do.
Finally, as the oppressive sun baked that room on his fourth day there, Ali’s thirst was almost unbearable. He felt dizzy and delirious and nearly certain that they truly had forgotten he was there.
Cramped, weak, repulsed from sitting in his own filth, he finally decided to leave, to walk out the door and go back home and be done with all of this.
Yes.
Leave.
Whatever the consequence of that choice turned out to be.
Outside the building, he would tell the first person he met that he’d been waiting for these four days without food or water, that there must have been some kind of mistake, that—
The sound of voices outside his room filtered in through the door.
Two men. Possibly more.
One was laughing.
After a quick deliberation, instead of rising from the cot, Ali stayed there and eyed the door apprehensively.
If they walked past, he would go and find them and explain everything, but if they came in, he would take the—
The door swung open and Fayed entered, sipping from a sweating and crinkled plastic water bottle. The soldier who followed close behind him wore fatigues and a black ski mask and carried an automatic rifle. Even more unsettling, however, was the imposing curved sword that hung from the thick leather belt encircling his waist.
Ali recognized that type of sword from the recruitment videos he’d seen while he was still in Kazakhstan: a scimitar.
It was the sword of choice for the beheadings carried out by The Brigade of the Prophet’s Sword.
The man’s fatigues were flecked with dark splotches of dried blood.
But not all of it was dry.
No, no, no. Please—
“Ali,” Fayed said. “We’ve been watching you.” He gestured toward the door, which still stood open. “This has been unlocked the entire time and yet you have not left your room
. In fact, you have not even moved from that cot to look out the window. Not for four days, brother. Were you not curious?”
Ali had suspected that they might have a camera hidden in the dead vent above the bed, and Fayed’s words made that seem even more likely.
“I was not brought here to be curious.” Ali hadn’t spoken since being left alone, and his voice didn’t sound anything like he remembered it.
“And why were you brought there?”
To protect my sister, he thought. To save her from people like you.
“To serve Allah,” he replied. “To receive orders. To carry them out. To establish the worldwide Caliphate.”
Fayed exchanged a glance with the soldier who bore the scimitar.
Ali’s pulse quickened.
Perhaps he hadn’t answered properly. Perhaps they could see through his words and read the doubt in his heart.
Duplicity.
Lies.
Fayed strode toward Ali and he thought it was over.
He knows, he must know. It is—
But instead of slapping him or binding him or shooting him in the head, Fayed handed him the bottle of water. “Drink up, my brother. Stand. Stretch. You have passed your first test.”
Ali guzzled the cool water.
And water had never tasted.
So.
Good.
Before.
He tried to stand, but when he pushed himself to his feet, the stiff, abeyant muscles in his legs refused to accept his weight and he collapsed.
“Here,” Fayed offered. “Let me help you.”
With his assistance, Ali rose and stretched his legs slowly until his circulation got moving again.
After allowing him to wash himself and change, Fayed said, “Ten were brought here. All have failed. All. Apart from you.”
“The gunshots?”
“We could not have them leaving and betraying us by disclosing our location or our methods. You understand, yes?”
All the other men are dead? All the ones you arrived with?
“Yes,” Ali replied. “I understand.”
Dead.
All in the name of Allah.
All for the cause of the Caliphate.
Fayed led him outside into the blazing, unyielding desert sun.
Ali’s eyes weren’t used to the brightness and he had to shield them against the stabbing light. However, the soldier with the scimitar was prepared and handed him a pair of dark sunglasses from a pocket in his fatigues.
“We want people who will await orders however long that might be,” Fayed explained. “An hour, a day, a year, a decade—and will then carry them out without question, without hesitation, without reservation or restraint. Are you ready to learn the ways of true Islam?”
“Yes.”
Fayed led him around to the back of the building, where a man knelt on the ground, his wrists bound behind him, guarded by two other fighters with the distinctive insignia of The Brigade of the Prophet’s Sword sewn onto their sleeves and over their hearts.
After handing off the rifle, the ski-masked soldier drew his scimitar and approached the kneeling man.
And then it happened.
Everything changed when that sword came down.
Now, here in the hotel room, Ali felt a shiver of revulsion, and despite his disquieting doubts about God, Ali prayed for those memories to become mist, for Allah to blow them away with the wind of His mercy.
You must not get distracted, he rebuked himself. You must not be ruled by the past. You must think only of what lies ahead and not what lies behind.
After he’d dressed, he placed his phone beside him and then sat on the bed just as he had done on the cot at that compound in the desert—awaiting his orders so that he could carry them out without question, without hesitation, without reservation or restraint, just like a faithful follower of Allah would do.
25
Sharyn was waiting for me in Grandshore Medical Center’s well-appointed lobby.
In contrast to the rest of the neighborhood, the hospital looked newly renovated and impeccably maintained. Clearly, someone had poured some real money into this place—maybe before the streets surrounding it became hollowed out in the wake of so many people fleeing the city—or maybe afterward, in an attempt to draw residents back to this part of Detroit.
To accent her trim, stylish blazer, Sharyn had on a pair of elegant aqua blue earrings and a matching necklace that I recognized right away.
They’d been a gift from me back when we were together.
“Sleep alright?” she asked.
“Yes.” I didn’t comment on the jewelry. “You?”
“Like a rock. Your loaner Glock is in my car. I’ll get it for you when we leave. You just need to sign your life away with a few dozen forms.”
“What would work in the Bureau be without paperwork?”
“Part-time.”
“I think you might be right.”
“The Glock was the best I could do on short notice,” she said. “I know you prefer a SIG.”
“You do know me pretty well, Sharyn.”
“Well, I guess . . . I mean, I used to.” An uncomfortable and slightly flirtatious stillness drifted between us. “Sorry about that,” she said. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Don’t worry. It’s alright.”
“Okay.” She lowered her eyes demurely for a moment to gather herself, then at last looked up and pointed down the hallway. “Main admitting is this way.”
As we navigated past the lobby’s chairs and end tables, I said, “This hospital still has that new-car smell to it.”
“Less than two years old. The Ferilex Corporation has made a huge investment in this community.”
“Ferilex?”
“A multinational firm. I’m not even sure what they’re all into. They make medical supplies, do some work with GMO food, trying to help produce more crops in Africa. They were recently granted a government contract to provide emergency medical equipment here in the state. That’s about all I know. They have a distribution center here in Detroit.”
“A medical supply company put money toward the hospital?”
“Well, officially their foundation did—and I wouldn’t say they exactly ‘put money toward’ it. They paid for nearly the whole thing from the ground up. Including the region’s finest autopsy facility.”
“Huh.”
“I know: it might have raised some eyebrows elsewhere, but in Detroit when that much money meets this much need, well . . .”
“Money talks.”
“Yes. The hospital is part of a growth initiative to revitalize the city to try to lure people back to the— Oh, that reminds me. You were right about the timing. I checked into it: the family who owned the house where Jamika Karon’s body was found moved out in April and never came back. I spoke with the wife. They never boarded up those windows.”
“Have the evidence techs look for prints on the edges of the boards where they might have been handled. Who knows. It’s a long shot but it might be worth a look. Were you able to find out anything about the picture that would’ve been on the wall in front of Jamika?”
“An old painting of Jesus. The woman I spoke with said it wasn’t worth anything. It’d been there for years. They left it behind. Left almost everything behind. No idea how long it might have been gone or why anyone would have taken it.”
The receptionist greeted us with a pleasant smile and directed us to Canyon’s room. “One fifty-three,” she said chirpily, in true morning-person fashion that would’ve certainly annoyed Christie’s daughter. “Just go down the hall past the café. It’s right across from the fountain.”
“Café and fountain?” I said. “Nice.”
“Uh-huh.” She tilted her head effusively when she smiled, as if s
he were auditioning for the Morning Person of the Year Award.
Her landline rang and she wished us a glorious day as she reached for the receiver.
That incoming call got me thinking, and when Sharyn and I were about halfway to the café, she said, “I can see the wheels turning. What’s going on in that noggin of yours?”
“The victims’ phones. In each case they were found not just at the scene, but in the victims’ pockets. That tells us a couple things.”
“Hmm.” She reflected on that. “If the victims realized they were in danger, they would’ve likely taken out their cells to call for help. And in the case of Jamika, there was that text to the person you ended up chasing. It hadn’t been erased.”
“Right. There’s no record that any of the victims tried to call 911. If the killer was messaging them, he certainly would’ve been aware that there would be evidence on the phones that could lead us back to him.”
“So, either the victims weren’t worried enough to try calling for help, or the killer placed the phones in there after he . . . well, afterward.”
“And either way, he wasn’t concerned about us finding them—and perhaps even wanted us to.”
“He hasn’t left any prints or DNA,” she noted. “But yet he leaves the phones. Why?”
“I don’t know, but I think we take a closer look at the contents of each of those phones, what apps the victims had downloaded—photos, contacts, texts—and which ones were open when the phones were recovered. That might be the link we’re looking for.”
“You think he’s toying with us?”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Why’s that? Wait, let me guess: more of a chance of him making a mistake.”
“Exactly. As soon as offenders stop simply trying to get away with their crimes and start trying to rub it in our faces, they typically show their hand.”
“I like how you approach things, Pat. I think I would have enjoyed working with you over the years.”
“Yeah,” I said without really thinking. “You too.”
You too.
“Me too,” I corrected myself.
She contacted Detective Schwartz to have his team get started on analyzing the phone apps. As we passed the café, the aroma of freshly roasted coffee, good coffee, along with the smell of eggs and bacon drifted through the hall.