Out of Nowhere (30 page)

Who is the girl, Tom?

Ismail. We were Facebook friends. Hell, I’m friends with all the guys on the team.

“Oh. Wow.” Myla had opened the page.

“I can explain,” I said to her.

“That’ll be interesting,” she said. “Oh. My. God.” She was reading through the comments.

“You know when you went to the desk, to ask about Saeed?” I said quickly. “She was crying. I mean, she never cries! She’s always so … tough. Distant, especially with me. And I just felt
bad
for her, Myla …”

“That was why she practically ran out of the place!” she exclaimed. “I was wondering what was up.”

“Cherisse saw us and took a picture. I know, crazy, right? What were the odds of that? But it happened, and … Myla, you
know
this is all bullshit. I have nothing going on with Samira.”

“Tom. Please. Don’t even go there. The problem is way, way bigger than that.”

I already thought the problem was pretty big, so Myla’s comment didn’t make me feel too good.

“Wow,” she repeated. “This is baaaaad.” She was reading through more comments. “How glad am I that I’m not in high school anymore? Yours in particular.”

“These people suck,” I muttered.

“Not all of them,” she commented. “In response to ‘So Bouchard’s screwin’ a fucking raghead? Who gives a fuck?’ one very enlightened person replied, ‘It’s not a rag it’s a burka you fucking moron and Tom can screw whoever the fuck he wants!’ Now
there’s
a great person to have on our side. Although I am tempted to type in a little response myself and clear up this burka thing. Don’t they realize it’s a
hijab
?”

“Myla. Seriously.”

“Tommy, if I don’t joke around right now, I’m gonna cry. This is so, so bad.”

“Really? I mean, why so so bad? Why not just … bad?”

“Uh-oh,” I heard her say.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Who’s Ismail?” she said.

I sighed. She’d made it to comment number fifty-three.

“Guy on my soccer team,” I said.

“Friend of Saeed’s?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. There was a long pause, and I heard more keyboarding.

“Bad. Bad bad bad bad bad …”

“Okay, stop it, you’re freakin’ me out. What?”

“Are you friends with Samira? Facebook friends?”

“No.”

“I am. There’s one comment on her wall from a Somali girl named Fatuma. I don’t know her. She’s written, ‘You shame your family.’ ”

There was a long pause as I processed this information.

“I’m sorry. What?” I finally said.

“Shaming the family is huge. I can’t tell you how huge. And a big part, probably the biggest part, of a family’s reputation, is the purity of its women. How your girls behave, how they dress, what people think of them, is a direct reflection on the family. This comment by this Fatuma means the Somali kids on Facebook have seen the picture and someone recognized Samira. The wolves are circling.”

“But, Myla, Samira did nothing.
Nothing
!”

“What she did is irrelevant if people say otherwise,” Myla replied. “Welcome to the hell of Somali gossip. In a close-knit community like this, it spreads like wildfire. And on Facebook? We’re talkin’ viral. At least, within your high school.”

My head spun. This was so stupid.

“So what do we do?” I said.

“I hate to say this, because I’ve got serious amounts of reading to do before my class on Monday, but I think we’re heading over to the Bashirs’. Like, now.”

Until you’ve been on the other side of it, you don’t know how scary The Law can be.

I thought I knew. Thought me and Don’s brush with The Law over the rock was some life-altering moment in the up-to-that-point fairly charmed life of Tom Bouchard. But I didn’t know shit. I didn’t know real fear at the point of a gun. I didn’t know what it meant to be powerless, to stand by helplessly as your life blew up before your eyes.

If I’d had any clue about any of that, I never would have pushed Myla to report Saeed missing. And maybe if she hadn’t been so tired and so worn down by it all, she might have given me a bit more pushback. Because her instinct was to wait, to not rush to the cops.

Turns out she understood these people way better than I did.

We arrived at the apartment building to babies crying, doors open, nervous families peeking down the hall, and two plain-clothes detectives sitting in the Bashirs’ living room. Aweys answered when we knocked, just cracking their door and peering
through the space. When he recognized Myla, he threw it open wide.

“They is police here,” he whispered to her as we kicked off our shoes. His eyes were enormous, round.

“Police?” Myla whispered back.

He nodded solemnly.

“They is want Saeed,” he said.

“What the fuck …,” I heard her mutter under her breath as she strode in the direction of the living room. Aweys and I followed her.

Everyone was sitting. Two men wearing dark suits, in chairs I recognized had been dragged in from the kitchen. The rest of the family—Mrs. Bashir, Samira, two little boys who seemed younger than Aweys—in a stiff, silent line on the couch. The low coffee table, which was usually strewn with toys, had been cleared for a ceramic teapot and mugs. Somali hospitality. Mrs. Bashir would have been sure to offer her interrogators a hot drink.

“Hi,” Myla began. “Is … uh, this a bad time?”

One of the men stood.

“This is Myla! The one I tell you about!” Samira said.

Her voice was altered. Not only was her grammar off, but the sound was higher-pitched, the words rapid. She wore clothes I didn’t recognize: a dark
hijab
and a skirt to the floor. In the dim room, she and her mother seemed shadowed and small.

The man held out his hand.

“I’m Detective Lloyd Parker, this is Detective John Baylor.” He tilted his head toward the other guy. “We’re following up on a missing-person report. Are you the young woman who brought the Bashirs to the station earlier today?”

“Yes,” she answered. Simple. Short. Telling the truth without volunteering information.

“And this is …?” His eyes met mine.

“Tom Bouchard,” I said. I held his gaze.

“He is friend to Saeed!” Samira said.

Parker looked at me with a bit more interest.

“You know Saeed Bashir?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. His glance flickered briefly to his partner, who nodded at him. Made you wonder if police school had taught them how to communicate telepathically.

“Why don’t we step into the other room, Tom. I’d like to ask you a few questions. If you don’t mind.”

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Everything about the whole scene felt wrong. The family was scared. Petrified, actually. Mrs. Bashir looked practically catatonic. Samira was a wreck. Even Aweys seemed to sense that this was not good.

Trouble was, I didn’t have a good reason for
not
speaking with him. I followed him into the kitchen.

It seemed like there were pots and dishes everywhere; a lot of cooking had been going on. Smelled like frying. Lloyd sat in one of the remaining kitchen chairs and gestured to another. I sat.

“So, how do you know Saeed?”

“We play soccer together at Chamberlain High School.”

“Teammates?”

“Yes.”

“Have you known him long?”

I shook my head.

“I just met him this fall.”

“So this fall was the first time he’d gone out for soccer?”

“He just moved here.”

“From … where? Where was he before he moved to Enniston?”

“You’d have to ask his family. Or check with our school. I can’t comment on what Saeed did or where he was before I knew him.”

I think it was the “I can’t comment” comment that signaled to Detective Lloyd Parker that I wasn’t fooled by his friendliness. He leaned back in the chair and eyed me critically. Like he was sizing me up.

“How
well
do you know Saeed Bashir, Tom? And please … think carefully before you answer.”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know him well. He doesn’t speak very good English and he’s only been at our school since September. The people I know well I’ve known all my life. But here’s what I do know: He’s a good teammate. He gets along with everyone. He plays soccer really, really well. He’s friendly. I mean … that’s it.”

“Religious?” he asked.

I frowned.

“He’s Muslim, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Parker laughed softly.

“No, I knew that, Tom. But I’m wondering if Saeed struck you as
particularly
religious. Did he go to the mosque more often than usual? Belong to any religious clubs? Seem to be … rigid? Or orthodox in any way?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know. I mean, he’s a practicing Muslim. Like, they’ve
been fasting for Ramadan, all that. He doesn’t drink. I know he went to the mosque to pray before our last game. He did tell me that.”

Parker smiled.

“And did Allah hear his prayers?” he asked.

I stared at him.

“As a matter of fact, he did,” I said.
Do you want to know the score?
I managed to not say. I took a deep breath instead.

The detective changed directions.

“Do you know if Saeed was upset about anything? Anything bothering him recently?”

“Actually … yeah,” I answered truthfully. “He’s been benched. Another team, the one we beat last week? They’ve challenged his eligibility, claiming he’s too old. So Coach can’t play him until the whole thing’s resolved.”

Parker nodded.

“And how did Saeed react to that?”

“He was pretty disappointed. He loves soccer.”

“Was he angry?” he asked.

I laughed.

“Are you kidding? We’re all angry. You want to see
really
angry, you should go talk to our coach.”

“No, I mean Saeed in particular,” he said, cutting me off. “Did you see him get angry about this?”

I thought about that for a minute. Actually, I hadn’t seen Saeed angry about it. I saw him upset. Worried. Sad. Really sad that he’d been taken off the team.

But Samira … she’d said he was angry. Could get angry.

If I hadn’t seen it myself, was it fair to tell the cop?

“Why are you asking me these questions?” I said instead. “Shouldn’t you be asking me, like, when was the last time I saw him? Answer: K Street Center, two days ago. Where does he like to hang out? Answer: the Somali store on Market Street. They watch international soccer pretty much 24/7 over there. How about, who are his other friends? Answer: I can tell you who I know, and give you their numbers.

“Meanwhile, shouldn’t you be
looking
for him?”

Parker was silent. He seemed to be trying to make up his mind about what to say next. Maybe trying to decide whether I was keeping anything from him.

But I didn’t have much to keep.

“Do you know what’s been happening in the Somali community in Minnesota?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“No clue.”

“Young Somali men, mostly teens, are disappearing. Into thin air, with no word to their families. Recently, federal authorities tracked down a few of them. They were in Somalia, where they’d joined up with an Islamic militia. Apparently they’d been recruited through their mosque in Minneapolis and were training to be terrorists.”

Whoa. The guy was serious. This wasn’t Alex tossing around rude Osama comments. This was … real.

“Are you a fed?” I asked without thinking. First thing that popped out of my mouth.

He shook his head.

“No, we’re Enniston detectives. But there’s a very clear protocol we have to follow in cases like this. So if we don’t start getting
some answers about your friend, Saeed, very soon, our next step is to contact federal agents.”

“Hold it! Hold on. You think Saeed is a
terrorist
?” The word sounded strange in my ears.

“We don’t assume anything. But he’s beginning to fit the profile. Young, observant Somali male. Recently suffered a big disappointment. Disappears without a word to his family—”

I cut him off.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! Saeed is, like, the last guy who would ever do something like that! He likes this country and he loves being part of things here. Being part of a team.”

“The last young man who blew himself up in a shopping area in Somalia was an honors student at his high school in Minnesota and ran varsity cross-country. He took out ten people with a homemade bomb strapped to his chest.”

Parker said that without a trace of emotion. He wasn’t trying to convince me I was wrong. He just knew I was, and didn’t care what I thought as long as I told him everything.

I shook my head slowly, trying to shake my thoughts clear. Like one of those little plastic boxes with the tiny silver balls you roll into the indented spaces. You had to be deliberate, careful, if you wanted to set everything straight.

I looked up at Detective Parker then, completely ready. To tell all. Anything. Everything I could possibly dredge up, from the handful of very confusing conversations I’d had with Saeed over the past weeks. Maybe there was something he could use. Some random detail that didn’t mean much to me but revealed everything to him.

That’s when I saw him. Standing in the kitchen entrance.
He had his backpack slung over one shoulder, and his clothes looked crushed. Like he’d slept in them all night. He looked tired.

“Hello,” said Saeed, his eyes resting on Lloyd Parker. “Who you are?”

The Chamberlain High School soccer team wasn’t the only one Saeed played for. In Portland, someone had organized a league of immigrant kids, and whenever he could manage to find a ride, he’d go there for games.

Something I didn’t know, and his family and Ismail and the other guys didn’t think to mention. Or that the detectives would think to ask. Maybe, if they were actually looking for a missing teenager, instead of building a “profile,” they’d have pulled that sort of information out of someone. Realized he was in Portland, with a bunch of his
other
teammates, when the power went out and his Tracfone ran out of minutes. Too clueless about the weather and what a nor’easter was all about to realize he should have stayed put. Unable to find a ride back to Enniston until late the following day.