One Night in Tehran: A Titus Ray Thriller
Page 17
However, what possible motive could he have for killing her?
Perhaps he was on his way up to the second floor to find me, and she had interrupted him. If that was the case, why did he leave after murdering her? Why not continue on up to the second floor and finish me off?
I considered the scene on the stairwell and the state in which I’d found Farah’s body. There were no signs of a struggle. The murderer had simply slashed her throat.
In fact, it looked very much like a combat kill, similar to what I’d seen many times before in Afghanistan. I had no doubt Ahmed was capable of such an act. On the other hand, if Farah’s husband, Bashir, was a trained military officer, he was probably as skilled with a knife as he was with a gun.
Did Bashir have something to do with his wife’s death?
I remembered the dinner on Friday night and Bashir’s strange behavior. It was obvious the guy had some secrets, but I found it hard to believe Bashir had killed his own wife. However, I knew the police would consider him the most likely suspect.
However, Bashir might not be their only suspect, because it suddenly occurred to me that my situation looked precarious as well.
Not only had I called in Farah’s murder, but when I’d examined her neck wound, I had also deposited my DNA on her body. This created the possibility the NPD would look at me as the prime suspect in her killing and not even consider her husband.
Although I knew I could contact Carlton if the police took their suspicions too far, I decided to see how things played out before I did that. My gut feeling was that Farah’s death was not a random killing, but whether or not her murder had anything to do with me was something I needed to find out. To do so, I would have to find a way to get close to her murder investigation.
The moment I started entertaining some possibilities of how I might go about doing that, Officer Freeman opened the door and stepped inside.
“Mr. Ray, would you come with me, please?”
We took the elevator up to the second floor, and as we passed the ESL classroom, I glanced in.
Tucker was involved in an animated conversation with a police officer, while the students were sitting around in small groups. They looked disoriented. I could see Susan standing in a corner of the room all by herself. She was weeping.
“Would you mind stepping in here for just a moment, sir?”
The officer ushered me into another classroom two doors away from the ESL room, and then he keyed his shoulder mike and told someone I was in Room 223.
“Have a seat, sir. Detective Saxon will be right with you.”
CHAPTER 21
A couple of minutes passed before Detective Saxon entered the room. When she did, she paused at the doorway, took out a small notebook, and made a quick notation.
The detective was wearing a long-sleeved, black and silver blouse over a pair of dark slacks. Her brownish-black hair was pulled away from her face and fastened at the nape of her neck. Her minimalist hairstyle accented her large, almond-shaped eyes and oval face. Big silver earrings dangled from her ears. Whenever she moved, they twirled around like a set of wind chimes.
“Mr. Ray, I’m Detective Nikki Saxon.”
I stood up and extended my hand. “Please call me Titus.”
She gave me a firm, quick handshake.
She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
“Titus,” she replied, while writing in her notebook, “I understand you were the person who called 911. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And you discovered the body?”
“Yes.”
“Please tell me exactly what happened and begin with what you were doing before you discovered …” she paused and looked at her notebook, “Farah Karimi. When you’re finished, I’m going to take you down the hall so you can retrace your steps and show me exactly what you did after you discovered her body. Will that work?”
“I can do that.”
I quickly explained my actions, beginning with when I left the classroom and ending with when I returned to the room and informed Tucker that I had called the police.
As I was relating my story, the detective leaned against the wall and took notes. Several times, I saw her bob her head up and down as if she were agreeing with my actions.
When I finished the account, she paced around the room for a few seconds, tapping her pen against her notebook. All the while, her earrings moved in a kind of hypnotic rhythm.
As I watched her circling the room, I wondered how much coffee she’d consumed that morning.
She suddenly turned toward me and asked, “Tucker Steward identified you as a volunteer in the English class. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been a volunteer?”
“I was starting my fourth week today.”
She closed her notebook and asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to say?”
“No, I believe that’s it.”
She walked over to the door and spoke to one of the uniforms in the hallway.
When she returned, she said, “We need to wait here a few more minutes. The students are being released from the classroom now.”
I responded, “This has been a difficult day for them.” Then, I quickly added, “For me too.”
“I’m sure it has.”
The detective walked over to the windows and looked down on the parking lot, chewing on a fingernail as she observed the scene below. Her actions made me reconsider my original assessment about her coffee consumption.
Instead, I wondered if Detective Saxon was worried about something.
I guessed her age to be around thirty, so I suspected she hadn’t worked many murder cases before. More than likely, all the seasoned detectives were involved in the big publicity-grabbing homicide Officer Freeman had mentioned.
Maybe inexperience was the reason for her apparent anxiety.
She turned away from the window, picked up her notebook and said, “I was going to do this later, but since we have to wait, why don’t you go ahead and tell me something about yourself. Start with where you work.”
“I’m employed by a think tank in College Park, Maryland called the Consortium for International Studies. It goes by the initials CIS.”
“You’re a long way from home, Titus.”
“I’ve relocated to Norman temporarily so I can work on a book with Paul Franklin. He’s employed at the University.”
“Professor Franklin from International Studies?”
“Yes. You know him?”
“Only through reputation.”
I was tempted to ask her to expand on that answer, but since she was doing the interrogating, I finished summarizing my bio and gave her my address.
“East Tecumseh Road,” she said slowly, as if trying to remember something. “I don’t recall any rental property out that way, and I’m sure there aren’t any apartment buildings. Are you living with someone?”
“No, I live alone. I’m leasing the property from Phillip Ortega. He’s in Spain on a sabbatical.”
“Another OU professor.”
“You also know him?”
She smiled for the first time. “I graduated from OU. I took some of his classes.”
An officer motioned to her from the door, and she followed him out into the hallway, returning a few seconds later.
“Okay, Titus, I’m ready to go over your statement again. Let’s walk down the hall to the ESL classroom now.”
With the detective and another officer trailing me, I retraced my steps, beginning in the classroom and then proceeding to the stairwell. However, I stopped a few feet short of the stairwell door because officers had already strung yellow crime scene tape around the entrance.
The detective lifted the tape, and we ducked underneath it. As I opened the door, I paused and explained how I’d stopped on the first step because I’d seen Farah’s body on the landing.
Now, all I could see was a stark outline where Farah Karimi’s body had f
allen. Dried pools of blood remained behind. A crime tech was still processing the scene, and another police officer was standing on the descending steps watching him work.
The distinctive odor of death hovered over the close quarters.
“Describe what you saw.”
“I saw lots of blood, and I could tell she wasn’t moving.”
“Did you hear any noises or unusual sounds before you opened the door?”
“No.”
“Other than her body, did you notice anything after you opened the door?”
“No.”
“What did you do after you saw her body?”
“I went down the stairs and checked for a pulse.”
“Is that how you got that blood on your shoe?”
I looked down, and, for the first time, I saw a dark discoloration on the outside edge of my right shoe.
“Yes. I tried to be careful, but …”
“What did you do after you checked her pulse?”
“I called 911.”
“And then?”
Should I tell her I went down the stairs and checked the parking lot to see if I could spot Farah’s killer? Should I tell the detective about the Nissan? Would a scholarly fellow do that?
“I returned to the classroom and told Tucker about Farah.”
“Fine. Let’s go back down the hall. I have a few more questions for you.”
When Detective Saxon and I got back to the classroom, she had me take a seat while she consulted her notes.
“I’ve just reread the statement Tucker Steward made to an officer,” she said, looking down at her notebook. “Mr. Steward says when you returned to the classroom, you told him Farah Karimi had suffered an accident.”
She raised her head and looked at me with an intensity that might unnerve a guilty man.
“Yes, I did say that.”
“Why?”
“I was concerned about telling him she’d been murdered. Until the police arrived and told him something different, I thought it might be better just to say Farah was involved in a serious accident. I didn’t want him to get hysterical.”
“Is he ordinarily an emotional guy?”
“Excitable might be a better word.”
“How did he react when you told him she had had an accident?”
“He was definitely anxious about it, and his reaction made me realize I’d made the right decision. People know accidents occur on a regular basis. Murder, on the other hand, is unexpected and has a tendency to shock the system.”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. However, I told myself a small city detective, with very little experience, probably wasn’t going to notice my little slip.
“Have you had some experience to back up that statement, Titus?”
Maybe I’d underestimated her.
“I’ve watched a lot of crime dramas on television.”
Once again, I regretted making a foolish statement. I doubted I could name even one television program devoted to crime and criminals. I hoped she wasn’t about to ask me to elaborate on my answer.
I tried to analyze why a simple interrogation was tripping me up. I was a well-trained intelligence officer with years of experience, and I was used to being questioned under very stressful situations.
Perhaps that was the answer.
I was not in a stressful environment. I was in the heartland of America, sitting in a church with a worried young woman who was so beautiful she could have been on the cover of any fashion magazine.
“What made you so certain Farah Karimi had been murdered?”
I decided to add something extra to my scholarly legend and, along with that, throw in an attitude to get her attention.
“I was in the military before going to work for CIS. I’ve seen people with their throats cut before, Detective.”
For a couple of seconds, Detective Saxon studied my face. Then, she lowered her head and wrote something in her notebook.
When she looked up again, she asked, “How well did you know Mrs. Karimi?”
“We spoke to each other several times in class. She was just learning English, so our conversations weren’t very detailed or significant.”
“Do you know …” she consulted her notebook again, “her husband, Bashir Karimi?”
“Yes, Bashir and I are actually good friends,” I said, “and I have no idea how he’s going to take this. He loved her very much.”
“You’re good friends with him?”
“Yes, Farah introduced us. When I shared my military experience in Iraq with him, we really hit it off.”
“Do you know if they have any family in the area?”
“None that I’m aware of.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
I asked, “Has he been contacted yet?”
“Officer Freeman called OU and discovered he was attending a class when his wife was killed, but, according to the professor, he left a few minutes before the class was over. When we’re finished here, I’ll be going over to his residence.”
I slowly shook my head back and forth and tried to look very concerned. “As his best friend, I can tell you he’ll take this very hard.”
“Well, then,” she said, closing her notebook, “would you mind following me over to his house while I break the news to him about his wife? This is a time he’ll need his friends more than ever.”
“I’d be happy to help you out, if that’s what you want.”
CHAPTER 22
As I followed the detective to a subdivision south of Norman called Eagle Cliff, I took the opportunity to call Danny Jarrar.
“Hi, Danny. It’s Titus.”
“What’s up? Everything okay? ”
“Everything’s fine, but I need some information.”
“Carlton told me about Simon Wassermann. I’m sorry, Titus. I know the two of you were good friends.”
“I believe that bullet was intended for me.”
“Carlton didn’t sound as certain of that as you do.”
“Well, you know how he operates—ever the cautious one.”
“Anything new on the shooter?”
“Not yet. You haven’t heard anything from your contacts, have you?”
“No. Is that why you called?”
“Not really. Tell me what you know about a detective named Nikki Saxon. She’s with the Norman Police Department.”
“Okaaaaay,” he answered, stringing the word out to make it sound like I was asking about dating her. “Something going on I should know about?”
“I’m inquiring on a strictly professional basis.”
“You’re in trouble with the locals already?”
“Funny.”
I told him about Farah Karimi’s murder and the circumstances of my involvement.
Like me, Danny immediately considered the possibility Ahmed might be her killer. However, I also told him that Farah and her husband appeared to be keeping their Iranian nationality a secret. Then, I mentioned my suspicions about Bashir’s military training and his denial of it.
“So, you think the husband killed her?”
“I did at first, but the police just told me he was in an OU classroom when it happened. However, I’m sure he’ll be considered a person of interest, which is why I overstated my relationship with him to Detective Saxon. I’m following the detective over to his house right now so we can deliver the news of Farah’s death to him in person. Do you know Detective Saxon?”
“Just barely. I met her at a seminar right after she made detective. We probably talked for about fifteen minutes then. Another time—maybe a year ago—she called me for some assistance with a drug-related case. That’s it. I can’t tell you very much about her, except that she’s very attractive. You probably already noticed that, though.”
“Hard to miss. How long do you think she’s been a detective?”
“Probably three or four years.”
“She seemed nervous when she arrived at the scene.”
“You’re right. I slipped up, and she caught it immediately.”
“Carlton won’t think you’re flying under the radar if the local police start probing into your background. Are you sure it’s a good idea to get involved in this woman’s murder?”
“I’m already involved, Danny, and, since her murder looks exactly like a combat kill, there’s a possibility Ahmed is responsible. Naturally, if he killed her trying to get to me, I need to know that. In fact, if that’s what happened, I’m going to feel responsible.”
“While I agree the timing is suspicious because of Simon, I don’t see why you would hold yourself responsible for her death.”
I decided to tell him the truth. “Before her murder, I saw a car parked near the back entrance. It was out of place, and I’d never seen it before, but I didn’t check it out. I would hate to think another person was murdered because of my negligence. ”
“Did you give the police a description?”
“What could I tell them? I saw an unoccupied car when I arrived at the church, and it made me suspicious? That sounds crazy. And I can’t tell them why I was surveying the cars in the parking lot without drawing attention to my real identity.”
“The car was empty? Maybe whoever killed her was already there in the building.”
“Yeah, maybe. She doesn’t drive. Her husband always drops her off late. Somehow the killer must have known her schedule and waited for her inside the building.”
“If you really want to help the police catch whoever did this, you may have to break your cover and tell them about the car. But I’m warning you, that won’t play well with the Agency.”
“Warning noted.”
Detective Saxon pulled her silver Toyota in the driveway of a mid-sized ranch house with a large oak tree in the front yard. As I pulled in directly behind her, I wondered how Bashir Karimi, an Iraqi engineering student, had the means to live in a neighborhood of redbrick homes and well-kept lawns. I’d pictured the couple living in a more modest house or an apartment closer to the campus.