He drove directly to Matthias Church, the ache in his head exceeded by the tenderness in the place where he’d been hit. He steered with his left hand and turned on his GPS tracking device with his right. The device wouldn’t come to life—it seemed frozen. Ali swore out loud, then realized that for the moment, this was irrelevant. Even if it were working, he couldn’t do anything to help Elise. Zaman had given him explicit instructions that should anything go wrong he was on his own. He couldn’t call for help. No one would come to his assistance. Thus, hard as it was, he pushed aside his concern about her life for now, and thought only of his impending meeting with the accused killer.
When he arrived at Matthias, it was clear that this time, news of the murder had not been effectively suppressed. Twenty or more dhimmis stood gathered near the police tape, and vehicles representing the state-controlled media outlets were omnipresent. Two dhimmis were seated in the back of a police cruiser, hands folded in the their laps. Material witnesses, Ali thought, waiting to be driven to the station so that their statements could be taken.
Ali flashed his ID and stormed into the church with a disturbing sense of déjà vu. Every wall sconce and overhead light shone but the church was still dim. Three uniformed cops stood chatting beside the altar while two CSI technicians knelt before it examining something. Ali assumed it was the body, no doubt wrapped in a blanket.
Ali looked around for Ismael. He found him sitting alone in a pew. His friend was leaning forward, head hanging in the pew in front of him, hands cuffed behind his back. Sitting with one’s hands cuffed behind one’s back—metal digging into bone, shoulders straining and back aching—was one of life’s truly miserable experiences. But for a man’s who’d finally been revealed to be a serial murderer, perhaps it was less excruciating, Ali thought. Perhaps there was a measure of relief that came from the type of confession Ali had just made himself.
Except, in this case, Ali didn’t believe it. Not for a minute. Ismael was a decorated crime fighter, among the most respected in all of Eurabia. And he was a Muslim. He believed in righting the wrong, not creating it.
Ali started toward Ismael when he heard his boss’ voice.
“Where have you been?” Zaman said.
Ali’s hand went to his wound of its own accord. “I was delayed.”
“Where’s the Christian woman? Did you drop her off at the station?”
“We can talk about her later. What’s the evidence against Ismael?”
“The evidence is he’s a murdering piece of shit,” Zaman said. “That’s the evidence. He took his hatred of the dhimmi a bit too far.”
“Ish isn’t a killer,” Ali said.
“How do you know?”
“Because he loves his job. And it’s his job to solve crimes, not commit them. How could a man who investigates crime scenes to solve murders also commit them?”
“Easy,” Zaman said. “He’s called a crooked cop.”
Ali shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
“Well then, believe this. The dhimmis that guard this place—the neighborhood patrol—they caught him carrying the dead girl’s body into the church. It was wrapped in a blanket. And the body had been washed and anointed with oil just like the other ones. How much you want to bet that the girl’s still a virgin like the other nine, too?”
“They said they saw Ismael bringing the body into the church?” Ali said.
“No, Ali. They said ‘watch this video’ of the man bringing the body into the church.”
“They made a video?”
“They’re the neighborhood dhimmi church patrol. They can’t carry weapons so they carry cameras instead. Got to give them credit, no?”
“And what does Ismael have to say?”
“Nothing,” Zaman said. “An innocent man would have jumped up and down and said he didn’t do it.”
“He said nothing?”
“He asked for you.”
Ali started toward Ismael, less certain about his friend’s innocence. There was no logical reason for Ismael to have been at the church if not for the purpose demonstrated in the alleged video—to deliver the body of the girl he’d murdered. He couldn’t have been investigating the crime scene as it related to Greta Gaspar’s murder—the church had been re-opened to its faithful. And Ismael certainly couldn’t have had personal business in the church. That was even more preposterous. His perverse and relentless sense of humor constantly demonstrated how much he loathed dhimmis.
Ali remembered how he’d hid the truth about the sins of his past from his wife, and how Elise had told him she’d been lying to herself her entire adult life. He wondered how well anyone knew anybody else.
“The Christian woman,” Zaman said from behind. “She’s at the station. She’s healthy and in one piece, right?”
Ali continued onward, lifting the index finger of his right hand to signal that he’d be right back. When he got to the pew in question, Ismael turned and saw him.
“It’s over for me,” Ismael said.
Ali slid into the pew beside his friend. “What’s over for you?”
Ismael stared at the body lying on the floor in front of the altar. “Now everyone’s going to know what I am.”
For the first time since Zaman had called him at the hookah bar, Ali began to think like a cop instead of a friend. Ismael fit the killer’s limited physical description—he was of average height and build. He travelled all over Eurabia training crime scene investigators—he could have easily been visiting the various cities when the murders of the other seven girls had taken place. Also, Ismael had scouted the perimeter of the Curry House before the noon rendezvous between the Gentleman from Prague and the owner of the Persian School of Dressmaking, Miss Mona. There’d been ample time for him to slip into a robe and bribe the retired cab driver to show up at the Curry House pretending to be the killer. And then there was the most damning evidence of all—why the hell else would he be photographed carrying a dead child at the dhimmi church? For the first time since Zaman had called, Ali began to accept the high probability that Ismael must have loathed the dhimmis far more than he’d ever imagined.
“And what are you, Ish?” Ali said.
“I’m a dead man.”
CHAPTER 34
Elise sat in a comfortable Scandinavian chair before a wood-burning fireplace in the remote cabin, her spirits considerably improved.
They’d driven for half an hour, which meant they were probably fifteen to twenty kilometers outside of Budapest. When Darby’s men opened the trunk and let her out, she saw forest all around her. The cabin wasn’t the rundown shelter one might have expected Christendom to use as sanctuary for its agents and assets, but rather a slick contemporary structure made from black and mahogany timber panels. Odd-shaped windows—a triangle, circle, and a parallelogram—confirmed that the building looked more like the hunting lodge of an eccentric dentist and less like a safe house.
Darby’s men removed the tape from her mouth and apologized for their rough treatment of her. They said they couldn’t waste time on the street trying to convince her to go with them, and didn’t want her visible in the car just in case they were stopped for an alleged traffic violation or a random search—just as Elise had suspected. She had to agree with them that the most mundane occurrence could wreck even the most carefully crafted plan.
They escorted her into the cabin which was appropriately sleek, with a minimalist décor consisting of glass and light colored wood furnishings. They brought her a carafe of water, some cheese and crackers, and left her alone in a living room in front of the roaring fire.
Elise walked the perimeter of the room and looked out the door and windows to see where the men had positioned themselves. She found two of them sitting in the kitchen and the other two walking around outside. Both of the men inside the house effectively prevented her from leaving. None of the windows in the living room opened and she would have had to cross their line of vision if she decided to make a run for it. Not tha
t she was in a hurry to escape. If they wanted her dead, they wouldn’t be feeding her, she thought. Plus, she didn’t know what plight awaited her in jail.
Elise waited for almost an hour until the distant sound of a car engine grew louder and was accompanied by a pair of shining headlights. Darby arrived in a late model Mercedes Benz.
He greeted her with a pleasant smile. He was dressed in a blue blazer and charcoal slacks and carried a small black leather bag that doctors might have used in a prior century to store their tools and medicines.
“How is your tooth?” he said.
“What tooth?” Elise ran her tongue over the stump that remained. “I sacrificed it for your cover.”
He winced. “I know you did.”
“And this is my reward? Bound, gagged, lifted off the street and locked in the trunk of a car?”
“The trunk of a car?” Darby glanced at the door as though he was contemplating berating his men. Then he looked back, saw the carafe and scowled even more. “And all they gave you is water and cheese?”
“What should they have given me?”
“Some fine wine, obviously. But my good fortune they didn’t. We’ll have a chat, share a glass, and then I’ll have them run you back to the hotel where the delegation is staying. One of the emissaries will go with you to the police station, and you’ll be out in no time.”
“I’ll be out in no time?”
Darby snapped his fingers and grinned. “You’re being released. Don’t you know that?”
“No.” It was too good to be true, Elise thought. “How do you know that?”
“Christendom has been working relentlessly to get you released since you didn’t return to the hotel after your meeting with the man in the wheelchair.”
Elise wanted to kiss a cross. “They have?”
“You didn’t know.” Darby studied her. “The police didn’t tell you.”
Elise shook her head.
“Bloody brilliant. They had you believing you’d be disavowed, didn’t they?”
“Well …”
Darby put his bag on a table and sat down on a sofa opposite Elise. “Who was the fellow at the statue?”
Elise barely heard him. Relief gave way to ambition. Now that she was to be freed, Elise was already wondering how she could get to Valerie again before departing Eurabia.
She looked at Darby. “The man at the statue? He was the cop that arrested me.”
Darby lifted his eyebrows.
“But he was alone. I’m sure of it. It wasn’t about the man in the wheelchair or the treasure.”
Darby smiled politely. “On the contrary. Everything is about that treasure. Now, tell me what you’ve done with it and we can have that glass of claret. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.”
“What do you mean ‘what have I done with it?’”
“We’ve learned from our informant—actually, we learned it from our informant in the Kingdom of Hindu who learned it from their informant in the Kingdom of Buddha who have an informant here in Eurabia—that the treasure was sealed in the bellies of four ceramic cats—one to be sold to each of the major theocracies–and that three of those cats were present at the murder scene. But the fourth is missing.”
“I don’t have it,” Elise said. “Why do you think I have it?”
“Because stealing it would have been the smart move. There are treasures, and then there are treasures. We’re all human, and as humans when we dream, we dream of money.”
“I thought we dreamed of freedom and equality.”
“Exactly,” Darby said. “You can find those on a faraway island, and those islands are very, very expensive.”
“You’re being ridiculous. I’m not motivated by money. What about the housekeeper? No one had more opportunity than her.”
“An illiterate, invalid leper? I don’t think so. She doesn’t know how to spell treasure let alone sell it on the black market. You, on the other hand …”
Elise stood up. “I what? I had my tooth drilled to keep up your appearances. My loyalty to Christendom has no price.”
“Whenever someone says it’s not about money,” Darby said, “it’s always about money. There’s always a price.”
Elise stormed toward the door but one of Darby’s men appeared and blocked her path.
“You’re not going anywhere until you answer my question,” Darby said. He stood up, took his jacket off, and reached for his black bag. “And you will answer it one way or another. Now, where is the treasure you stole from the man in the wheelchair?”
CHAPTER 35
Ali touched Ismael’s shoulder. There was no substitute for the touch of another human being during a time of despair. No matter what he’d done, Ismael was still his friend.
“Why are you a dead man, Ish?” Ali said.
“Because no one will ever forgive me,” Ismael said. “And no one will ever forgive her.”
“Forgive who?” Ali glanced from Ismael to the body at the altar and back at his friend. “This girl? Or the other girl, Greta Gaspar? Or all the girls in all the towns?”
Ismael stared straight ahead. “One girl. There’s only one girl.”
Ali shook his friend’s shoulder. “Ish, you’re not making sense. You asked for me, remember? Zaman said you wouldn’t talk to anyone else. So I’m begging you, speak to me, friend. What girl? How can you say there’s only one girl when there were nine? And now ten?”
Ismael nodded, then turned to Ali and frowned. “What are talking about? Are you saying I killed all these dhimmi girls? Your grandmother’s vagina, A.”
“So you didn’t kill them?”
Ismael glared at him.
Ali sat up straighter. “All right, all right. That’s more like it. Why didn’t you tell Zaman?”
Ismael scanned the room on the sly and lowered his voice further. “Because he wouldn’t understand. It would be all over for me as soon as he learned the truth. And all over for her, too.”
“All over for who, Ish? Who are you talking about?”
Ismael sighed. “My girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend? What girlfriend? You have a girlfriend?”
“She’s a dhimmi. A divorced dhimmi.”
Ali stared at his friend in disbelief. Sitting before him was the last person he knew who would ever associate with a non-Muslim in a fraternal let alone a romantic way.
Ismael seemed to deduce what Ali was thinking, because he cast a knowing look at him. “We can’t control who we fall in love with, A.”
An image of Sabida greeting him in the doorway of his home with his suitcases packed flashed before Ali. The suitcases were still in the trunk of his car.
“How does your girlfriend explain what you were doing here?” Ali said.
“This is her church. She comes to pray here every day. You have to admit, it’s a beautiful place. All the gold icons, the statues, the pictures. It’s peaceful, man. I was waiting for her outside after work. I didn’t see anyone from any neighborhood watch. I was just standing all alone, enjoying the air, when all of a sudden she comes running out, shouting and screaming.”
“What was she saying?”
“’Call an ambulance, call an ambulance. I think she’s dead, I think she’s dead.’”
“She saw the body?” Ali said.
“She was carrying the body. She said she was praying in the pews and saw this bundle near the altar and figured it was something the priest had left. I mean, no one walks up that close to the altar unless you have a reason and curiosity got the better of her.”
“And what did you do?”
“What do you think I did? I saw right away that the kid had been dead for hours, checked for a pulse anyways, then took the body back into the church.”
Now Ali understood. “To recreate the crime scene.”
“I knew what the prior crime scene looked like and there was nothing to it. Just a bundle in front of the altar. Plus I was fighting for our lives at that point. I didn’t want anyo
ne to see us.”
“And that’s when the neighborhood watch shot a video of you.”
Ismael nodded. “I told Gabriela to run as soon as I took the body from her so that no one would see us together. She’s probably outside right now with all the other dhimmis waiting for me to come out. Man, she’s going to be devastated when she sees me in cuffs.”
Ali didn’t need to ask Ismael why he feared being exposed as a dhimmi woman’s lover. His colleagues would look at him differently, and none would ever trust him completely again. After all, he was consorting with the people the government was trying to tax out of the kingdom. And the same could be said for his girlfriend. Once Dhimmi Town learned she was dating a Eurabian cop, she’d be ostracized.
“I’m going to have to tell Zaman the truth,” Ali said. “But I think I can do it in a way that keeps your girlfriend out of it.”
“Really?”
“You were going for a walk, just happened to be passing by, some woman comes running out carrying a body … You take it from her. You don’t know if the girl is alive or dead and you see a storm is brewing, you feel the raindrops, and you want to give her shelter. And you need light to see what’s going on. So you hurry back inside the church to get that shelter and get that light …”
Ismael brightened. “Come to think of it, that’s not that far from the truth.”
“You have a picture of this Gabriela?”
“A picture? What for?”
Ali checked his watch to see how much time had passed since he’d been hit over the head. “So I can find her outside and get our story straight. Come on, Ish. Do you have a picture of her?”
“Wallet. Front right pocket.”
Ali fished the wallet out and found the picture of an unremarkable middle-aged woman.
Girls of Yellow Page 22