Finding Nouf (19 page)

"You don't have to drive me," she said. "I have my own transportation, if you'd rather follow me."

He hesitated. One part of him revolted against the idea of escorting his friend's fiancée—into an American compound, of all places!—but he knew she was right: they were doing this for Nouf, and ultimately that was what Othman wanted. Still, there was no reason she had to come along, only that she was stubborn, or trying to impress Othman. The more generous part of him suspected that she was genuinely becoming involved in this case. It was no little thing for her to pursue the evidence trail on what had already been classified an accidental death. She was probably going against her boss's wishes, perhaps even jeopardizing her job. Grudgingly, he had to admit that he admired her persistence for the sake of truth.

"All right," he said. "Since you have your own transportation."

F
OLLOWING MISS HIJAZI'S TOYOTA,
Nayir wondered what sort of parents she had who would allow her to work in a mixed environment. They must be Westernized. He could imagine her father wearing a business suit, speaking perfect English; her mother was perhaps one of those women who wrote letters to the king and the ministers complaining about the laws against women. (Why can't we drive cars? Why can't we travel to Mecca without our husbands' permission?) But he had trouble matching this image of the Westernized family with the sort who would socialize with the Shrawis. It was more unusual still that Miss Hijazi herself was marrying into the family. It surprised him that Othman approved of her having a job, not only because it meant she would be interacting with men, but because it implied that she needed the money. The Shrawis might not be too happy about that.

They reached the gates of the American compound. To the left,
a neon blue sign read
CLUB JED
in ornate, mock-Arabic script. A security guard approached the Toyota and spent a few minutes talking with the driver. Finally he waved them through, motioning for Nayir to continue on as well.

Inside the compound, the environment changed. These were mostly Saudi-style homes, bright stucco buildings with ornate shutters and flat roofs, but the gardens were strangely American, bursting with flowers he didn't recognize. Americans lived here, as well as other Western workers who signed up for two, maybe three years of work in Saudi. Most of them came because the work was lucrative and completely tax-free; some companies even paid for their employees to fly back to America once or twice a year. There was a strong need for imported labor—a good number of Saudis were wealthy enough not to have to work, and, Nayir thought, they believed that work was beneath them—but despite the necessity for American workers, he still felt a twinge of resentment that they should come here and build their own little worlds, their own private compounds where they lived as if they were still in America.

Nayir followed Miss Hijazi's car along the checkerboard streets to a parking lot that was crowded with pickups and SUVs. They climbed out of their cars. To the right was a footpath that led up a short hill.

"According to the guard, that's a club," Miss Hijazi said, pointing to a building at the crest of the hill. Although the building was squat and grungy, a marble balustrade lent it an air of refinement. "We can ask about Eric there."

"It's a women's club?" he asked.

"An everybody club. A bar."

"A
bar?
" Even in the compound, alcohol was still forbidden.

"No alcohol, of course," she assured him. "Come on, let's look inside. We might find him there, or someone who knows him."

"Isn't your escort coming?" Nayir asked.

She hesitated. "There's no reason for it. Not while you're with me," she said, although something about the tone of her voice implied
Unless I'm mistaken about you.

The club was empty except for a sprinkling of tired customers. Dim overhead lamps cast a shellacked light. The stillness of the
clientele and the odd way the lighting bisected their bodies gave the room a depressing vacuity, like the parts depot of a waxworks. A stale smell pervaded the air. They passed a table where three women sat talking. One woman shot him a smile, but he looked away.

Miss Hijazi seemed subdued, perhaps a little nervous. With a casual movement, she lifted her
burqa.
Nayir tried not to look at her face, but he couldn't help it; it glowed like the moon. He noticed she was pretty in a quirky way—her nose a little long, her lips a bit crooked. If she had a speck of modesty she'd lower her veil in front of all these strangers, but then he noticed that no one stared.

They went through a sliding glass door to an outdoor patio. Iron café tables were scattered about. There was a border of grass here, a heap of unrecognizable plants, and—folly of follies—a swimming pool. The water shone with a cool aqua light, but the air was thick with its chlorine stench.

Beside the pool, two women were sunbathing. Nayir was hardly able to ignore them, so he squinted and raised a hand to his eyes, pretending that the sun was overwhelming him. In the corner a bronzed, wrinkled man sat on a lawn chair. He was sipping ice water and studying the newspaper on the table before him. He saw them and lowered his paper.

On instinct, Nayir approached the man and asked about Eric Scarsberry.

"You mean Scarberry," the man said. "Yeah, I know him. He lives here."

"Do you know the address?" Nayir asked. "We're investigating a crime and we need to ask him a few questions."

"Sure. He's on Peachtree." The man gave him the directions and the house number. "I haven't seen him in a while. Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"No, but he may be able to help us." Nayir saw that Miss Hijazi had hung back by the door. Her
burqa
was down again.

Nayir thanked the man and excused himself. He went back to Miss Hijazi. "I think I've got it," he said. "You can wait with your escort if you like."

She didn't reply but followed him as he went around the pool and crossed a very green lawn. The grass felt like rubber. Reaching a white fence, they ducked through an arbor and popped out on a sidewalk on a quiet, residential street. They walked along, looking at the buildings.

"The guy said it was down here," Nayir said, motioning to the left. They turned down a side street. Nayir wiped the sweat from the back of his neck. Miss Hijazi seemed calmer now, strolling easily along, unalarmed that she was alone with Nayir. Perhaps it was the effect of the Americanness around them that made her relax. He was still on edge.

"I'm curious about something," she said. "Why is it you never took Nouf to the desert?"

"Her father wouldn't allow it. He didn't think it was safe."

"Would it have been safe?"

For some reason—perhaps the wind gentled the air around them—her smell drifted into his nose. It was warm and clean, and as it flooded through him, his whole body tingled. She might have felt it too, because he noticed a sudden drawing back, an awkwardness, a not knowing what to do with her hands.

"She would have been safe with me," he said. He studied the street around them. This wasn't a Saudi street; there were no religious police here, no one to stop them and demand proof of marriage, yet he felt the skin prickle on his neck.

They found the street sign for Peachtree and cut to the left, into a housing complex that shone a crisp white. It was quiet here, and the clack of their footsteps on the sidewalk made them step onto the grass.

They approached a row of buildings and found apartment 229B, hidden by a high stone wall. Henna vines struggled in the cracks, and a lonely lizard clung to the wall, its body stiller than stone. They crept through another arbor. The house was a duplex, and both sides were quiet. The apartment on the right had a small backyard patio littered with oddments: a baseball, a plastic swimming pool, a shattered plate. They made for the left-hand apartment. Through a sliding glass door they saw an empty room. Nayir knocked, but no one responded, so he tried the door, and it opened.

They entered the house. There was a brown recliner in the corner and a little TV on top of a box.

"Stinky," he remarked. "What is that smell?"

"Animal." She sniffed the air. "A house pet, maybe?"

Silently they wandered from room to room. There was little to see. The only room with signs of activity was the bedroom. Laundry lay scattered about; the linens were rumpled; empty water bottles crowded the top of the armoire. There were no pictures on the walls.

"I have to say," Miss Hijazi whispered, "I don't see a woman's touch."

They made their way to the study, where a quick scan of the desk revealed paperwork belonging to Eric Scarberry: a pay stub, an insurance form. There were no books or computers, no evidence that he'd spent more than a cursory afternoon there, paying his bills.

"Do you think someone else has been here already?" she asked.

"No. He probably made this mess himself."

They moved into the kitchen, where paper plates and plastic silverware were the utensils of choice. The trash can was empty. Peeking into the refrigerator, they found a plate of moldy cheese and a month-old carton of milk. Miss Hijazi went into the living room.

Giving the kitchen a final scan, Nayir found a book wedged between the refrigerator and a cabinet. He pried it out:
1,001 Recipes from Arabia,
published by the American Ladies of Jeddah. Flipping through the pages, he noticed a few grease stains. Someone had used it, but judging from the dust, that had been a sultan's age ago.

"I found the smell," Miss Hijazi called out.

He went into the living room. She was squatting by a birdcage on the coffee table. The bird inside was dead. Judging from its size, it was a parakeet. The water bowl was empty. Nayir inspected the food bowl and found that the seeds had all been eaten; only their shells remained.

"I guess he's been a gone for a while," he said. "It seems strange that a guy this messy would keep a bird."

"It's the latest thing. Birds are supposed to warn you of a chemical attack. They die first. I've heard that Americans keep them, especially in the compound."

He looked around. "Did you see a gas mask anywhere?"

She frowned.

Squeezing his hand through the cage door, he pulled out a section of the newspaper that lined the bottom. He shook off the feces and flipped the page over. It was the front section of the
Arab News,
dated one full month before Nouf disappeared.

He set the paper down. "Eric left here before she disappeared?"

She glanced at the paper. "Well, maybe he's been back and just forgot to change the paper. He doesn't seem to care about his house very much."

Miss Hijazi scooped the parakeet into the paper and took it to the bathroom. Nayir stared at the cage, wondering if Eric had run away or if he'd ended up like his bird. In either case, there had to be a way to track him down.

H
ER DRIVER
was still waiting when they returned to the parking lot. Nayir half imagined that he would be upset, or bored, or dead of heat stroke, but he was sitting in the car, leisurely reading the Quran. The Toyota was running. The air conditioning must have been at full blast, because when Nayir opened the door to let Miss Hijazi in, a cold burst of air blew over his chest. It gave him a moment's chill.

She didn't climb into the car right away. She seemed reluctant to say goodbye, and it surprised him to realize that his perceptions of her had altered slightly. She was not exactly modest, but not brazen either. She was something in between, shifting like a mirage. Remembering that this was Othman's fiancée, a wall went up in his mind, and he motioned her into the car.

"There's one more thing I wanted to do before heading back to work," she said. "My driver has another appointment, so he's going to drop me off, and I don't think I can do this alone."

"What is it?"

"Um Tahsin told me that she received a phone call from an optometrist. Nouf ordered a pair of glasses before she ran away. Um Tahsin had no idea. She was going to send one of the servants to pick them up, but I offered to do it. I felt that it would mean something to her if I did. I think she wants to have the glasses."

It struck Nayir as terribly sad that Um Tahsin would want to keep a pair of glasses that Nouf would have worn if she had lived.

"I can escort you," he said.

She nodded gratefully and climbed into her car.

As Nayir followed the Toyota downtown, he told himself that he was doing Othman a favor, escorting his fiancée, but a small part of him knew that he wasn't doing any favors, he was committing a sin of
zina,
being in the company of an unmarried woman, and he was committing a sin against a friend who trusted him.

Even though Miss Hijazi's visit was highly inappropriate, he had to admit that it presented an opportunity. She might be able to tell him things about Nouf that he would otherwise never find out—things even Othman didn't know. She might also know something about the autopsy that the examiner had kept shrouded in the secrecy of the cover-up. And, he admitted to himself, he
wanted
to escort her. He couldn't say exactly why.

When the Toyota pulled over on a busy downtown street, he pulled behind it and parked. He climbed out of the Jeep, glancing quickly around for religious police. There were a few men on the street, but no one looked suspicious. They were only a few blocks from the coroner's office.

Miss Hijazi watched her car pull away. "I think it's that way," she said as she started to fish in her purse. It was a cavernous bag, the size of a small tugboat, and it took her a few minutes to navigate through all of the smaller purses, the keys, the calendars, a freak upswell of change. Annoyed, she flipped up her
burqa
and went back to searching. In an effort to keep his eyes from her face, he switched his gaze to the purse and saw a cell phone charger, a prayer schedule, an extra
burqa,
and, surprise of surprises, a bottle of nail polish.

"You paint your nails?" he blurted.