Kingdom of Strangers (18 page)

S
he was up and out earlier than usual that morning. The city was on its knees, its backside shimmering in the pinkish light of morning, its head buried in prostration. The muezzin’s song rang through the streets. Every mosque’s loudspeaker caught its own small section of the world. Men were praying in rows on the sidewalks, strangers brought together. A time to prepare for the day. Katya had never prayed on a sidewalk in her life, but sometimes on quiet mornings like these, she longed for it.

She had only just gotten out of the car in front of the station when Majdi texted her
Crime scene—now
, along with an address. She got back in the car with Ayman and they drove to the location.

When they reached the address, she gasped.

“What is it?” Ayman turned to her.

“Nothing,” she said. “I thought it was something else.”

Clearly, he didn’t believe her, but she thanked him and got out of the car, trying her hardest not to look panicked. She was standing in front of Sabria’s apartment building.

She took the elevator and emerged onto the fourth floor. The door to Sabria’s apartment was open, and two men from forensics were standing there. They moved to let her in.

She found Majdi in the living room. He looked harried. “You said you wanted to do live crime scenes.”

“What happened?” She could barely get the words out.

Majdi raised his hands. “It’s not a murder, don’t worry. A woman has gone missing. Someone reported it this morning.”

“Since when do we do missing persons like this?” She was struggling to control her panic.

“We don’t, but this woman used to work for Undercover and they sent a special request for forensics. Chief Riyadh called me this morning and asked if I’d be willing to do this before coming in to work. I would have texted you then but it was a little too early.”

Katya felt the heat rushing to her cheeks. “How long have you been here?”

“Over an hour. We’ve still got to do the bedroom and bathroom.”

It took all of her self-control not to dash into the hallway to call Ibrahim. She had to stay here and get her hands on as much evidence as she could. Frantic thoughts were rushing through her mind:
Can I destroy the evidence? Alter it? Can I even get ahold of it? Have they already sent it back to the lab, or are they sending it to Undercover to have them process it at a different lab? How long will it take them to find out that Ibrahim has been here?

“Did she live alone?” Katya asked.

“Yes, but she was married. They haven’t been able to track down her husband yet.” Majdi gave her a grim look. “In cases like this, it’s usually the husband.”

“What do you mean, cases like this?”

“I just mean when a woman goes missing.”

Majdi was worried about the way she was reacting. If she didn’t pull it together, he’d never invite her to a crime scene again.

“I’ve got to get back to the lab,” he said. “Are you okay here?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” On his way out, she called, “Majdi, thanks.”

He nodded and left.

She decided it was crucial to focus on the things that could implicate Ibrahim with Sabria sexually. She went straight into the bedroom and got to work. She had just flipped back the bedsheets when a thought struck her: Ibrahim had to know immediately.
He had to come here. If he were here now, finding his DNA wouldn’t matter.

She whipped out her phone and called him. He didn’t answer. She took a breath and tried again. The third time she left a message: “Come to Sabria’s apartment immediately. Someone just reported her missing and forensics is here already. Just trust me, you have to come.”

She hung up and prayed to God that he’d get the message before it was too late.

I overheard the older guys saying that we’ve had serial killers before,” Daher said.

Ibrahim and Daher were in the hallway outside the situation room. The door was shut, but from the sounds inside, the room was already full. Ibrahim reached for the door, but Daher stopped him. “They say they were just never able to prove it,” he said. “Why? Because nobody thinks we have these killers. The only serial-killer crimes that have been reported by the news were committed by foreigners, did you notice?”

“This is really bothering you,” Ibrahim said, “that he might be a Saudi.”

“
Have
we had a Saudi serial killer before?”

“I don’t know. Ten years ago in Homicide we had a few cases where a man would kill repeatedly, but it was never like this. Never this systematic, and certainly never this well planned.”

Daher seemed somewhat relieved. Ibrahim opened the door.

The Bedouin tracker al-Shafi had suggested they look for a cabbie two weeks ago, but they didn’t have a decent profile of their killer back then. They had simply sent the most junior officers to collect information from the cab companies about their drivers’ criminal records. This turned out to be disappointing, since most companies didn’t keep track of such records. Those
companies that did were happy to provide the information, but, like the execution and amputation records, it was useless until they had a better profile of their killer.

The cab idea had begun to frustrate them all. It wasn’t surprising that they couldn’t find the killer among the fifty thousand taxi drivers in Jeddah. The problem was, once you set a hope in motion, it was hard to stop it from blowing through the investigation and leaving all kinds of discouragement in its wake.

Now he was going to tell them that their killer might have posed as a Red Crescent ambulance driver.

He got up in front of the crowd and saw frustration and anger all over the room. At the rear, Mu’tazz was sitting with his back to the wall, watching Ibrahim through a pair of lazy lizard eyes.

He told them about May Lozano and the ambulance on the night of her disappearance, leading gracefully into his theory that the killer could have used an ambulance or Red Crescent van to kidnap his victims. But even as he was talking, he could see the men mulling over the truth: they didn’t really have anything to go on. The killer had just left a bloody stump on the street, an act that said
I am killing women, and you can’t do anything about it
.

“We are assuming, for the time being, that the desert killer is the same man who has kidnapped and dismembered Amina al-Fouad,” Ibrahim said. “Now, the previous victims had their hands severed postmortem, but Amina’s hand was severed while she was still alive. The appearance of Amina’s hand came very shortly after our discovery of the gravesite, so we believe the killer acted in a rage after he realized that we had found the bodies in the desert.” He briefed the men on the footprints Talib had found in the desert, feeling a twinge of guilt for not revealing that Katya had been the author and executor of the idea. Mu’tazz needed no more fuel for his war machine against Ibrahim.

“So he wants us to know that he’s kidnapped Amina and that he’s going to kill her. But I want to emphasize to you all that
Amina al-Fouad may still be alive, and I don’t think I have to tell you that the search for our killer is more urgent now than it was when we found the bodies.”

This was met by a moment of silence before Mu’tazz spoke up.

“She’s probably dead,” he said. A few men turned to look at him.

“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel,” Ibrahim said, making an effort to control his voice. “What makes you say that?”

“She lost a hand. Unless the killer has a medical degree, he’s going to have a hard time stopping the bleeding.”

“Failing a doctor’s careful monitoring,” Ibrahim replied, “he could do what they did in the Middle Ages and dip the limb in tar.”

“I doubt very much that he cares to stop the bleeding,” Mu’tazz said.

The room seemed to grow even quieter.

“Okay.” Ibrahim did his best to appear cool. “And what do you suggest?”

“Since she’s probably dead,” Mu’tazz said, “it’s more important to find out why he chose al-Fouad, because it might help us understand who he will choose next. The only way we’re going to work that out is to understand his reasons.”

“In other words, profiling,” Ibrahim said, glancing at Dr. Becker. “If that’s something you’d like to be a part of, Lieutenant Colonel, I’d be glad to assign you to work with Dr. Becker.”

Got you
. Mu’tazz had trouble concealing his disapproval.

Ibrahim turned his attention back to the rest of the room. “It’s never a good idea to assume that a missing person is dead. It is our job to find her. I want to focus our energy right now on getting al-Fouad back alive, and the only way we’re going to do that is to find our killer. Mu’tazz is right: the way to find him is to understand what he’s already done. Dr. Becker provided me this morning with the most up-to-date profile of our man, and I’m going to
make sure you all get a copy. I want everyone on board and knowing what we’re looking for.

“I’m sending four men—you know who you are—undercover to the Sitteen Street Bridge,” he went on. “It’s very possible that’s where our killer found his previous victims.” Here he stumbled, felt himself losing focus.
Don’t be ridiculous
, he thought.
Sabria hasn’t been taken by a killer. He didn’t have enough time to plan it. It doesn’t fit
. “So the men I’m sending to Sitteen, your focus is going to be on ID’ing the victims. We’re trying to establish a link between them, and so far we have nothing other than ethnic type. Dr. Becker has said that the killer usually picks his victims from a familiar place, so they all may have some connection to the bridge. Also, you men who are looking through records, I want you to focus on anyone who has a connection to the Kandara area. Detective Osama Ibrahim has agreed to work exclusively on the al-Fouad case.”

He divvied up the rest of the assignments quickly. When he was done, Osama came forward to collect his men and take them to a different office for briefing. The men who had been chosen for the Sitteen operation came to the front of the room. Ibrahim was relieved that the crowd was dispersing. It left Mu’tazz on the outside. He didn’t belong to a team. He was stuck doing desk work. And yet he remained at the back of the room, watchful.

T
he operations room of the Jeddah police was more like a day spa than a dispatch room. Large potted palms, plush carpets, the neutral decor and quiet efficiency of a five-star hotel. The whole thing was a giant raised fist to the idea of a dispatch room. There was no crackling static or shouting, only calm workers speaking in concierge tones. They were determined to uphold the seven-minute rule: that it would take no longer than that for police to respond to any call. They even assisted people who requested wake-up calls, since the emergency number, 999, was unfortunately similar to that of the main-desk number for most hotels, 99.

Major Hamid always seemed more like a tour guide than the head of Operations. He led Ibrahim to a bank of computers at the side of the room and excused himself. When he returned—Ibrahim clocked it at six and a half minutes—he brought the recording of the man who had reported Sabria missing. Ibrahim took a seat at the counter and listened through a pair of headphones to the conversation.

“Yes,” the man’s voice said, “I’d like to report my neighbor missing.”

“Very good, sir, I’m going to transfer you to Missing Persons.”

“No, I don’t have time for that. I just want to give her name and address.” He spooled off the information as if he were reading it from a card, leaving the dispatcher no time to protest. “She hasn’t come in or out of her apartment for seventeen days.”

“All right, sir,” the dispatcher said. “Thank you—”

The man hung up before the dispatcher could finish.

Ibrahim listened again and again. He didn’t recognize the voice. At first, it had sounded hurried and annoyed, but the more he listened, the more expressionless it seemed. He couldn’t hear the impatience; he was simply assuming it.
I don’t have time for that
. But the voice itself was even and calm.

Who was this man?
I don’t have time for that
. He only said that because he didn’t want to talk to Missing Persons. He didn’t want to answer anyone’s questions. (
Who are you? Why are you keeping an eye on a woman’s apartment? Does she live alone? Where is her
mehram?) Anonymous callers were common enough, but Ibrahim feared he was listening to the voice of a kidnapper.

Katya had already left Sabria’s apartment by the time he got there, and then it was too late. He’d called her immediately. She said she wasn’t sure if she’d gotten everything. They may have sent some evidence to Undercover already. Homicide had told them that they were backlogged with the evidence from the Angel case.

He had spent the next hour beating back panic, his mind in a death-defying acrobatic swing. Would they find out that he’d been her lover? Or would they simply assume the DNA was her husband’s? When would the call come from Omar? (He had to have put it together already—why else would Ibrahim have asked for those files?) Or would Omar tell himself that it was work-related and never speak of the matter again?

Strangely, nothing happened. The building had hollowed out for lunch. The Angel case had consumed the rest of them. The few men who weren’t in the field were reviewing files. Ibrahim had gone to forensics and talked to an overstressed Majdi about the Angel case. When he’d tried to discover if they were working on any other evidence, such as whatever they’d collected from Sabria’s apartment, Majdi had simply waved it off. They were too busy to think of anything but the Angel case.

He replayed the tape.
She hasn’t come in or out of her apartment for seventeen days
. It was far too precise. The kidnapper knew exactly how long ago he’d nabbed her. But why on earth did he want the police to find out?

“Here’s the trace.” Major Hamid handed him a slip of paper. “It was a disposable phone. Looks like the call came from the vicinity of the Red Sea Mall.”

“That’s the really big one?” Ibrahim asked.

“Yes, eighteen entrances and four thousand parking spaces. You need a tram to get around there. But we’ve got him pinned here near the entrance to Danube when he made the call.”