Kingdom of Strangers

by Zoë Ferraris

  He moved up to 2007. Here was a bit more diversity. Most of the executions were for murder, but those that weren’t usually involved multiple crimes. A man from Chad had been sentenced for child abduction, rape, theft, and drug use. He was only twenty-one. There were more executions for drug dealing, and even one for homosexuality.

  He heard the slam of a door down the hall, footsteps squeaking on the linoleum. Daher came in carrying two more boxes. Sweat was dripping down his cheek.

  “Salaam aleikum,” he grunted, setting the boxes on the floor by the table. “This is the last of them.”

  “Good. Thanks for bringing them in.”

  Daher stood by the door, debating with himself. Then he pulled up a chair.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Ibrahim said.

  “Of course I’ll stay!” Daher said. “We should all be working overtime. This is an important case.” He sat down somewhat awkwardly beside his boss and pulled out a file. “What are we looking for?”

  Ibrahim explained what Katya had told him on the phone, being careful to credit the psychologist as well lest Daher’s envy find its focus solely on Katya. Surprisingly, Daher was all business. He even interrupted and said, “And of course this is why he buried nineteen bodies. He fancies himself an agent of Allah.”

  “It would appear so.”

  “So what exactly are we looking for?” Daher asked again.

  “It would be great if we could find someone who was punished for theft and who also had a relative die on the executioner’s block, but seeing as that might be impossible…” Ibrahim shrugged. “Just tell me if anything stands out.”

  Daher seemed to sense the futility of the work, but he plunged in anyway. They read in silence for a while.

  “What do you think about the nineteen thing?” Daher asked. “Do you think there’s a hidden pattern anywhere in the Quran?”

  He was referring to the spectacle of Islamic scholars letting themselves get carried away with conspiracy theories about numbers and the Quran. It was known, for example, that the word prayer appeared in the Quran five times (echoing the fact that Islam has five compulsory prayer times each day), that the word month appeared exactly twelve times, and that the word day appeared exactly three hundred and sixty-five times. But that did not mean that everything was part of a mysterious pattern.

  Theories about the importance of the number nineteen seemed to dominate the conspiracy thinking. Nineteen was the number of verses that the archangel Gabriel gave to the Prophet Mohammed in his first two visits to the cave. Nineteen was also the number of letters in the first verse of the first chapter of the Quran, a verse that was repeated fifty-four times throughout the holy book. To compound matters, the only chapter where the word nineteen appeared was entitled “The Hidden Secret.”

  “I think there’s no special significance to the number nineteen,” Ibrahim replied, “except maybe to our killer.”

  They read. Daher became serious and quiet in a way Ibrahim had never seen before. For a moment, Ibrahim could imagine him becoming chief someday.

  “Maybe Dr. Becker’s idea is right,” Daher said. “Who has experience cutting off hands? An executioner, right? Has anyone thought that maybe he’s our guy?”

  “As far as I know, you’ve just originated the theory.”

  “Whatever this guy is, he’s getting a thrill from doing this. At least that’s the word from Charlie Angel.”

  “I find it disturbing that Dr. Becker has unwittingly taken on the nickname Angel, just like our psychopathic killer.”

  “Well,” Daher replied, “he’s not an angel, he’s an angel killer.”

  “Ah.”

  “And they’re both American,” Daher added.

  “You’re going to have to toss that idea out of your head. I’ve read through five years of executions already, and do you know what I see? A whole bunch of Saudi killers. If killing is a virus, then we’re overdue for a mutation.”

  Daher gave this idea the polite room it deserved, then said: “Honestly, I think it’s fitting that we’ve got two angels in this case. One is good, one is bad.”

  “Very well,” Ibrahim said. “And you’re right, the executioner would have the tools for the job, including possibly enjoying it.”

  “But you’ve seen the executions,” Daher said. “You see how the minute he cuts off a head, the police pull the executioner away. They’re standing there waiting to pull him away because they’re afraid he’ll get the bloodlust and start hurting other people. Right there in the square! In front of hundreds of people! But bloodlust is real. They always have to pull him away.”

  Ibrahim had seen executions as an officer, right up close. “That’s true, but it’s also the tradition. Does he ever look like he needs to be pulled away?”

  “Sometimes, yes!”

  Ibrahim tried to square the image that was forming in his mind of their serial killer with his impression of the one executioner he’d met. On many counts, Daher was right, but Ibrahim’s gut was already organizing a protest.

  “I talked to an executioner once,” Ibrahim said. “You know what he said about his job? He was raising awareness.”

  Daher let out a laugh.

  “That’s just how he described it,” Ibrahim went on. “Raising awareness of the horror of murder and trying to encourage people not to make mistakes in five minutes of rage that will ruin their whole lives.”

  Daher was grinning. “That’s funny. I guess he thinks that most killers have no self-control. Is that true?”

  Ibrahim shrugged. “Most people who kill lose their self-control, if only for a moment.”

  “But not the Angel killer,” Daher said. “He’s planning this stuff.”

  They heard footsteps in the hall and Daher sprang from his chair. In the split second before his body launched toward the doorway, his right arm swung to his hip. He was reaching for a gun he didn’t carry on Fridays to an empty office building. Ibrahim was startled by this.

  Daher spun around with a look of disgust. “Miss Hijazi is here,” he said.

  Katya stopped at the office door. She was holding two files.

  “Ahlan,” Ibrahim said, standing. “This is a nice surprise, Miss Hijazi. Please come in.”

  “Ahlan biik,” she replied. “I was just here picking up some files.”

  “Why are you working?” Daher asked with barely concealed disapproval. “It’s Friday!”

  “It’s not Friday for you too?” she asked, walking past him into the office. To Ibrahim she said: “I took a trip to the desert yesterday. I went out to the site.”

  “You went by yourself?” Daher asked.

  “No, I went with the Murrah. Talib al-Shafi and his nephews accompanied me and my husband.”

  “Did you have permission to do this?” Daher asked, looking at Ibrahim. “I didn’t hear anything about it.”

  “We didn’t spend much time at the site.” She was still speaking directly to Ibrahim. “We went west and were able to find the place that we believe the killer went back to. I guessed he had to have gone back, otherwise how did he know that we found the bodies? And we’re assuming that he knows that, because of Amina’s hand.”

  “Good thinking,” Ibrahim said, feeling flustered. “So you think you found the spot where he went?”

  “Yes. Talib said that a man arrived in a GMC truck and walked to a lookout where he could see the gravesites. He also said the footprints indicated that he was upset.”

  “But you’re not at all sure that this is the actual killer,” Daher said.

  “Talib was certain that the footprints at the lookout site matched the footprints from the gravesite.”

  “I thought the footprints from the gravesite weren’t especially clear,” Daher said.

  “They had enough to go on.”

  “So let me get this straight: some blind old Bedouin tracker is going to tell us this is our murderer? Those footprints could belong to anyone!”

  Ibrahim saw Katya’s face stiffen
. “It’s a very remote site,” she said. “There were no other footprints out there.”

  “That doesn’t mean that there was nobody else out there.”

  “The point is that Talib believes the footprints match,” Katya said. “So if it was our killer at the gravesite, then he went to the lookout site six or seven days ago.”

  “Next time,” Daher said, “something like that has to be cleared with the detective in charge of the case—that’s Zahrani—and it needs to be cleared with Chief Riyadh. You could have messed up the crime scene!”

  “I work in forensics.”

  “Yes, but you do forensics in the lab, not out in the field. How often have you gone to an actual crime scene? Once? Twice? There are rules, and just because you’ve been to a crime scene doesn’t mean you know how to handle it. Technically, you being there alone means that we can’t use that evidence in court!”

  “I wasn’t alone.”

  “Fine, the Murrah was there, and that may be admissible in court, but it could have ruined everything.”

  Ibrahim was, once again, immobilized by these two. If he defended Katya, he risked alienating his best officer; if he didn’t defend her, he risked losing the one person who was in his closest confidence about Sabria—and the person who was approaching the Angel case most creatively.

  “And how was your Thursday?” Katya asked Daher.

  He jerked back, looking offended. “We identified one of the other victims.”

  Katya turned for the door.

  “Do you have a driver?” Ibrahim asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ll walk you to the garage.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Katya said.

  “None of us should be here alone, especially when it’s empty like this. If the killer knows about the gravesite, he knows about us.”

  Katya nodded reluctantly.

  Once they were out of earshot, Katya said, “Actually, I hoped to find you here. I have the results from the blood sample we found on the carpet outside Sabria’s apartment door.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She hesitated. “The DNA isn’t yours, but it is from someone related to you.”

  “What?” He stopped walking.

  “Yes,” she said. “And it’s male.”

  A rush of terror and fury and sharp disbelief. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yes, I double-checked it. That’s what took me so long.”

  “Okay.” He noticed his breath was short. “Okay, I’ll take care of this.”

  “You know who it is then?”

  “I think so,” he said.

  “Do you want to get some DNA from this person?” she asked, pulling a swab out of her pocket.

  He shook his head. “No. I’ll just ask.”

  “All right.” She seemed uncertain. “I thought you said no one in your family knew about her.”

  “Obviously I was wrong.”

  Jamila met him at the door with a look of wild excitement. Apparently, they’d already concocted their drama. It came out, as he moved past her into the living room, that she’d pulled off a phenomenal stunt, one not likely to be replicated for another ten years: she had managed to arrange a husband for Hanan, the older of the twins.

  “She’s only ten,” Ibrahim said. He glanced in the bedroom, saw it was empty. He was looking for his oldest son, Aqmar. Aqmar’s wife, Constance, had answered the door downstairs and said he was up here.

  “It doesn’t matter if she’s ten!” Jamila cried. Farrah stood to the side, looking awkward. “She won’t marry until she’s sixteen anyway. But I’ve arranged it! It only needs your approval.”

  “Who is this man?” He pushed past her and went into the women’s sitting room. It was empty too. “Where is Aqmar?”

  “The man is named Taha al-Brehm; he’s the son of my cousin Abdullatif, who lives in Riyadh.”

  “Have you ever met him?”

  “He owns a textile factory and three cell phone stores, and his father has more money than anyone in the whole family.” Jamila clapped her hands.

  “Have you told Hanan about this?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Where is Aqmar?” he asked again.

  “I don’t know. What do you think? He’ll make an excellent match for her. He’s very traditional. He likes to ride horses and train falcons, think of that!”

  He turned to Farrah. “Have you seen your brother?”

  “He’s on the roof,” she said, glancing guiltily at her mother.

  “He’s not on the roof,” Jamila said with irritation, blocking Ibrahim’s passage to the front door. “Now, what do you think?”

  “I think you must be crazy to believe I’ll approve of letting anyone marry Hanan without her permission. I don’t care if he has more money than the king.” He pushed past her and made for the door before the barrage could start. But indeed the noise followed him up the stairs.

  He couldn’t believe she would even try it. He had only agreed to Zaki’s wedding because Zaki had agreed—and you would think after that fiasco, she might have shown a little restraint.

  Aqmar was sitting on a carpet on the roof, looking like a grim mujahideen. He was wearing khaki pants and an old army-green T-shirt that he hadn’t worn in years. Ibrahim often thought that if he hadn’t put his foot down and refused to let his son run off to Iraq to fight jihad against the West, Aqmar would be dead now. The phase of wanting to be a hero had passed as quickly as it had come, but in a father’s heart, such things never die. The coals on the hookah pipe beside him were nearly expired, and the fragrance of shisha still hung between the walls.

  Ibrahim and Sabria had been driving back from the private beach one evening a few months before when she had needed to stop at the grocery store. They had stopped. Getting out of the car, he had spotted Aqmar and Constance strolling along the sidewalk, window shopping. Ibrahim had hastily ducked into the car and prevented Sabria from getting out. He had driven off at once. He couldn’t be sure, but he felt that his son had seen him. They never spoke about it. Aqmar’s behavior toward him hadn’t changed, so Ibrahim told himself he was just imagining the worst.

  Now, on the roof, Aqmar saw his father and raised his hand, which was clutching a cell phone.

  “Zaki just called to say he’s camping with some friends in the desert this weekend. He wants me to make sure Saffanah has everything she needs. Can you believe this guy?”

  Ibrahim sat beside him, leaned his back against the wall, and tried to relax. “Any shisha left?”

  “No.” Aqmar looked guilty and made to get up. “I’ll make some more.”

  “Don’t worry, just sit.”

  Aqmar leaned back and threw his phone on the carpet. “I don’t understand why he married her. He knew it was a bad idea. And now he wants to throw the whole problem on us.” By us, he meant the two of them.

  “Did he tell you about the divorce court?”

  “Are you kidding? He wouldn’t shut up about it.”

  Ibrahim pressed his back into the wall and tried to breathe. He wanted to take some time, weave his way like a boxer who doesn’t mean to strike a blow, who doesn’t want to be struck but who’s stuck in the ring nonetheless. But any minute Jamila would come trudging up the stairs, or perhaps one of the grandkids.

  “Let’s go to the mosque,” he said finally. Aqmar looked resistant, so he added, “It’s Friday.”

  The night air was a cool pleasure once they were moving through it. They didn’t talk much but decided to walk all the way to the big mosque on Makkah Street, not to the smaller one they usually went to. The big mosque was a modern structure, square and blunt, its only flourish the minaret, which was ornate with tile work. The inside was so crowded that they had to squeeze into the back with barely enough room to tip their heads in prostration. After prayers, they left before getting sucked into conversations. They stopped for ice cream at a boofiya. It was a tiny one-room establishment with a pair of white plastic chairs by the door. Two men w
ere sitting there, one sipping tea and reading the paper, the other eating what looked like a Sambooli sandwich. It wasn’t until they were heading home that Ibrahim dared to start the conversation.

  “An associate of mine from Undercover went missing last week.”

  Aqmar looked confused, obviously wondering what this had to do with him.

  “Her name was Sabria Gampon.”

  His son’s face, unaccustomed to deceit, revealed shock and shame and anxiety, in that order, which Ibrahim took to mean that Aqmar indeed knew who she was and that he was embarrassed about it.

  “What happened?” Aqmar asked.

  “We’re not sure, but they found someone’s DNA on a nail in the carpet just outside her front door. Someone cut their foot there.”

  Aqmar flushed painfully. “I went to your work one day and saw you leaving the building. I thought I’d catch you in traffic but I couldn’t, and then I saw you parking….”

  It was a truism that police wisdom—the ability to spot liars, to see emotions in a glance, to tease out vulnerability and thus the most deeply buried secrets—disappeared when the subject was someone you loved. It panicked him to realize that he couldn’t tell if his son was lying.

  “So you were there?” Ibrahim asked.

  Aqmar nodded. He lifted up the strap of his sandal to show where the cut had been. It was smoothing over but still red.

  “I figured you were visiting a friend.” Aqmar’s voice was pinched. I thought I found you cheating. Tell me she was a friend.

  Ibrahim saw his entire life as a father opening up into a giant precipice at his feet, and he stood perfectly poised between the impulse to tell the absolute truth and the knowledge that the truth can be the most destructive force in any relationship.

  “We were finishing up a final assignment,” he said. “Did it surprise you that we have women in Undercover?”

  He hated himself.

  “No. You’ve said that before.” Aqmar still looked embarrassed. “You said one time that most of the theft in Jeddah was committed by women.”

  “Or men dressed like women.”

  A dozen questions were driving nails against the inside of his skull. Did you knock? Did she answer? Was I in the shower? Did you stand there listening? He tried to remember if Sabria had seemed different. If she’d known Aqmar had come, if she’d answered the door.