City of Veils (28 page)

In the new quiet, Osama’s attention went back to the CDs lining the shelves. It had been a mistake to browse the titles. Many of them were artists that Nuha loved. He’d tried segregating his thoughts of her all morning but now he could feel her slipping in, ghostly quiet, shrouded in a new obscurity.

It was crushing how proud he had always been of her and of their marriage. He admired that she worked at the newspaper, that she could write, and that she got along with people so well. But every night they’d made love over the past two years, she’d let him believe that she wanted another child, that their lovemaking was leading up to that goal. More crucially, when the child didn’t come, she’d convinced him that a woman’s body was a mystery, that yes, she’d already become pregnant once and given birth to a healthy baby boy, but with most women things didn’t happen like clockwork, and sometimes stress and busyness depressed the body so that it wasn’t as fertile as it should be. They’d discussed how perhaps she should cut back on her work hours, and for the first year after Muhannad was born, she’d worked only part time. He didn’t pester her about it, since obviously there was little he could do beyond what he was already doing. He had never once suspected she was using birth control.

He wondered if Rafiq knew. Had Mona told him? Before Rafiq got shot, the four of them had got together all the time. The men would talk about work while the women talked about their marriages.

When the allegations began coming in about Rafiq, Osama told Nuha everything. He had thought she would be one of the few people who would understand, but instead of giving Rafiq sympathy, she had gone strangely cold. When Osama pressed her, she told him that she thought Rafiq was cruel. Mona had told her he had all these rules. He wanted Mona to wear an
abaaya
and hijab around certain friends but casual pants and no headscarf around others. He even made her label certain outfits so she would remember which ones to wear at which times. He gave her rules for wearing makeup (only with close friends, never with his family), rules for how to dress when they traveled to Egypt (always jeans or slacks, never a long skirt). She was allowed to take classes—she chose yoga, sewing, and a computer skills class—but Rafiq had to approve them first, and she was not allowed to go to a class if he was home, because he might need her for something.

Nuha told him these things with a disgust kept carefully in check—for Osama’s sake—but she finished by saying how grateful she was that her own life was nowhere near as controlled, that her husband respected her for who she was. It would never have occurred to him to treat Nuha that way.

Osama had been vaguely annoyed that, in the face of Rafiq’s tragedy, Nuha was criticizing his marriage. On one hand, Rafiq’s behavior was normal. It was very like him to boss people around. And Osama always had the impression that Mona was a special case, one of those helpless girls who never quite became women. Rafiq, who had once been attracted to her, had grown annoyed over the years, and no doubt willingly filled the vacuum of her nonexistent willpower. And anyway, there were plenty of men who micromanaged their wives. It didn’t mean Rafiq was also a liar, a thief, an extortionist, and a thug.

Osama rationalized it this way for a while, until he realized that he couldn’t stop thinking about what Nuha had said. Finally, during a conversation about women, he found the opportunity to ask Rafiq, “Why are you always telling Mona what to do?”

Rafiq had given him a strange look that Osama hadn’t understood at the time, but that he was able to interpret now with frightening clarity. It said
My wife tells you our secrets, and your wife tells us yours
. “If you don’t keep an eye on your wife,” Rafiq had said in a pointed way, “she’ll betray you one way or another.”

Osama stared miserably at the glass of orange juice, hating that Rafiq had been right.

K
atya was just leaving Farooha’s room when she heard footsteps in the hallway. As they passed outside the door, there was a thump on the wall, and a man’s voice said, “Stay in your room, you little freak. You’d better not come out until I’m gone.”

Katya glanced at Farooha.

“My brother Jamal,” Farooha muttered. “He must have just come in.” Katya was torn apart by the look on her face. She expected an expression of fury, but there was a wounded quality there, something much too raw and fresh. At the very least, Farooha’s brother should have worn her down over the years.

Katya swung open the door and went into the hall.

The man spun around with a vicious fury. “I said
stay in your
—” When he saw Katya, he snapped back. His face wore a look of horror of the fairy-tale kind, where a djinn slips into your house at night and replaces your ugly sister with a young princess. She might be a beauty, but then she casts a spell to switch your fingers and toes, and causes you to bleat like a sheep for the rest of your life.

He recovered quickly. “Cover your face, woman,” he snarled.

Katya recoiled. She would have given anything for an ID badge to flash in his skinny, pathetic face. Instead, she had Osama, who poked his head out of the
majlis
door, flashed his own badge, and called to Katya, “Officer Hijazi, when you’re finished, I’d like you to help me take care of this man.”

Katya nodded stiffly, watching with satisfaction as the man spun between them, trapped like a fox on a freeway between two oncoming trucks. Osama motioned him into the
majlis
with a threatening look, and the man went grudgingly.

Farooha was facing her computer, clicking idly on her mouse. “Is that all?” she said over her shoulder. “Because if you’re done, I have work to do.”

Katya wanted to say:
You spend all your time in your room. Your parents want you locked up here, and your brother threatens you if you so much as open your bedroom door. Aren’t you longing to get the hell out?
Instead, she wrote her cell phone number on a piece of paper from the notebook Farooha had given her and set it on the desk.

“Please call me if you think of anything that might be helpful.”

Farooha pinched the piece of paper between two fingers and looked over her shoulder at Katya. “Please call me when you find her killer.”

B
ack in the car, with Leila’s DVDs sitting heavily on her lap, Katya found herself suppressing the urge to thank Osama again for appearing in the hallway and without missing a beat making her his equal. The feeling was ridiculous, swelling in her throat, making her giddy. But the more she attempted to fold it away, the more another feeling ballooned in its place, a fierce kind of loyalty, warm and satisfying.

After dishing out a short but heavy dose of intimidation, Osama had learned that Farooha’s brother was an auto mechanic, that he lived down the street with his wife, who was expecting their second child, and that he thought his parents had made a huge mistake not giving his sister up for adoption when they had the chance.

“You fit our profile for the killer,” Osama had said with a serious face.

He’s married,
Katya had to remind herself when her admiration for him threatened to burst out,
and apparently so am I.
She told him everything about the interview with Farooha, raising her biggest concern: that it was going to take forever to get through all the video footage Farooha had given them. She was also worried that these were backup discs.

“You didn’t find the originals at her house?” she asked.

“No,” Osama said. “And we still haven’t found her computer.”

“Farooha mentioned that Leila would have hidden them well.”

“We stripped her room, but maybe they’re in another part of the house,” he said. “I’ll make sure to send someone back there to broaden the search.”

When Osama asked about the girl, Katya admitted that Farooha, intelligent and charming, was also an introverted, self-conscious homebody who seemed possessive of Leila, her gregarious, edgy, courageous friend. The biggest revelation she had imparted was that Leila and her brother didn’t get along and that they were fighting about Leila’s work.

Osama looked troubled by this but didn’t interrupt.

“She also told me that Leila’s ex-husband was abusive,” Katya went on. She took out Farooha’s notebook to remind herself of the details. At the next stoplight Osama asked to see the notebook, so she handed it over. As she blathered on, her mind was secretly still reeling with the news that Eric Walker knew Leila. When she reached the point of having to explain who Walker was and how Leila knew him, Osama seemed to notice the skip in her voice, because he looked at her suddenly.

She blushed, and sighed. “There’s something you should know.”

He studied her coldly, as if expecting the worst. She had to force herself to continue.

“I know this probably wasn’t a good idea,” she said, “but I heard that Chief Riyadh was planning to cut back your staff.” He looked confused by this, and stung. She had the feeling that she’d learned about it before he had, and that she’d just made a very big mistake admitting it. “So I wanted to help. I learned from Majdi that Leila was working on two things before she died—the B-roll for the news station, and photographing a private art collection.”

Osama waited.

“Because Majdi was having trouble getting in touch with the art collector, I went with a friend of mine to the apartment, just to see if we could track him down. There was a woman there,” she said quickly, hoping he would catch the implication:
It’s a good thing I went, because we wound up having to interview a woman
. But Osama didn’t blink. “An American woman,” Katya went on. “It turns out the art collector was her landlord. She gave us another address for him.”

“This is the guy we
think
might be connected to the Quranic documents we found in Leila’s bedroom.”

“Right,” Katya said. “Mr. Nabih. Anyway, this American woman was helpful, but she also seemed nervous. Here’s where the story gets odd: we learned that her husband had disappeared. He’d been gone for three days, and she had no idea where he was. She seemed… scared.”

Katya, who had been unconsciously turning her engagement ring in circles, stopped when she noticed him staring at her hand.

“The husband’s name,” she said, “was Eric Walker.”

All the coldness left Osama’s face, replaced by a look of meaningful surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I didn’t tell you before because I wasn’t sure that it meant anything to the investigation. This art collector was only their landlord.”

Osama nodded. “So Leila was probably lying to her brother. Maybe the landlord was an art collector, but it could have been a fabrication. She was actually going to meet with Eric Walker?”

“I think it’s possible,” Katya said. “Farooha said that Leila had met Eric the way she met everyone—by filming them. She met Eric at a mall, and he may have introduced her to his landlord for this photography job. In any case, I doubt she would have told her brother that she was seeing an American.”

“I’ll find out,” he said, and immediately fell into an uncomfortable silence.

“I’m sorry, I know it was taking a lot of liberties —” Katya said. Osama cut her off with an impatient wave of the hand, but she blurted: “I want you to know that I haven’t done anything else, it was just the one thing.”

When Osama turned to her, she saw relief on his face. “That’s all right,” he said. “You did the right thing telling me. But in future, be aware that every single detail is important, even the stuff that doesn’t seem like it at the time. Don’t ever keep secrets.”

She nodded. They were just pulling into the station lot, but instead of parking, he pulled up to the door. “Take those discs to Majdi. Or actually, start looking at them yourself. He’s working on a lot of things right now. But first, do you have this American woman’s address?”

She fished around in her purse until she found the slip of paper, which she handed to him.

“And what about the landlord’s address?”

“It’s in Al-Aziziya,” she said.

“All right. I’ll check that out.”

“You did very well,” he said, closing her notebook, which had been sitting on his lap. “Mind if I borrow this?”

“Go ahead,” she said. “I have another one in my desk.” She cringed at the presumption that he’d ever be taking her out on another interview.

Distractedly, Osama nodded.

D
huhr prayers had just finished and the sky was a blinding white, draping the city in a blanket of nuclear heat. Osama was sitting in his car in the parking lot of his favorite Indian restaurant when his cell phone rang. It was Fuad, the assistant from the lingerie boutique. He sounded nervous, and it was difficult to hear what he was saying over the background noise of rushing cars. Osama had an image of him walking furtively down a busy street.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Jamia, I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Ra’id is back,” Fuad said, finally loudly enough.

“Leila’s cousin?”

“Yes.” Fuad launched into a plea. Osama could only make out every third word, but it sounded as if he was saying
Don’t tell my boss
.

“Of course not,” Osama said, but the line was dead.

T
he address Miriam Walker had given them for Mr. Nabih turned out to be useless. Katya spent half the afternoon on the computer before discovering that it was an address for a postal store in Abu Dhabi. When she finally reached it on the telephone, a voice told her they didn’t have a box registered to anyone named Nabih. She had reached a dead end.