Kingdom of Strangers (40 page)

The killer liked everything organized. Planned. Maybe he was angry that the police had found his secret graveyard, but whatever anger he felt about the way the world worked was always turned into a structured response. He had probably seen Amina before he’d kidnapped her, and although she wasn’t his previous type, something about her had attracted him. What was it?

The housemaid returned with an apology and introduced herself as Joy. No one was at home except the other housemaid, Maria, who was preparing dinner. The children were out or at school and the father was at work. They were all, she said, making an effort to keep their hope alive. It’s what Amina would have wanted.

“I was wondering if I could ask you some questions,” Katya said.

“The police have already talked to Abu-Jamal,” Joy replied, referring to Amina’s husband.

“I’m thinking there may be things that Abu-Jamal couldn’t tell them about his wife,” Katya said in a carefully neutral tone.

“Oh no,” Joy replied. “Amina was a good mother and wife. She would never have kept secrets from her husband.”

They were standing in the living room, and Katya was beginning to wonder if she would be invited to sit down and have a drink.
That
, she thought,
is probably what Amina would have done
.

“This isn’t information that’s going to go into the official report,” she said. “You understand. As a woman, I don’t have an obligation to tell the investigators everything.”

Joy’s expression seemed to loosen a little.

“I’m sure Abu-Jamal has told us everything he possibly can that will help us find his wife,” Katya went on, “but was there something he couldn’t tell us, perhaps because he didn’t know?”

Joy pressed her lips together. It was surprising how quickly she capitulated. “Come into the bedroom.”

They went down a hallway and entered the master bedroom. The bed was covered in a floral quilt, a pair of expensive pillows, and a chenille throw. Various dressers and wall hangings exhibited the same shades of pink and pale green. Joy went through a doorway and into a closet and came back with a duster. “I brought you in here because I don’t want Maria to overhear this,” she whispered. “She’s been here longer than me, and she’s
really
devoted to the family, if you know what I mean.”

Katya came to the dresser and watched as Joy dusted.

“I don’t know if this can help you,” Joy said, “but I’ll just tell you. Amina went out a lot. Her kids are all in school now, and she hated being at home alone all day. She usually went to visit her sister or her cousin, but she didn’t do that all the time. Some days she would just go to the mall. She even went to that big one by herself—what’s it called? Red Sea Mall?”

“Did she usually tell you where she went?” Katya asked.

“Yes,” Joy said. “You see, Maria keeps tabs on her and reports things to Abu-Jamal. I don’t do that.”

“Can you tell me where she went before she disappeared? Anywhere she might have come into contact with men?”

Joy rolled her eyes. “Well, she got into cabs if she needed to, but only when Maria had a day off. I know the police were asking about that. She would never tell her husband about going to the malls, and I don’t think he would have minded that except that she had to get into a cab to get there because her son was at school and couldn’t give her a ride.”

There was a noise from down the hall and Joy dropped the duster. “Stay here,” she whispered, heading out the door.

Katya looked around. Amina’s closet was sparse, but the items in it were expensive. Not difficult to imagine why. An upper-middle-class woman with children in private school. A ball gown for weddings. A pair of designer jeans. Her taste was a bit conservative. Katya moved out of the closet and walked around the room.

A bookcase in the corner contained no books, just a few mothering magazines and a heart-shaped box full of glass beads that looked like it belonged to some abandoned craft project. The rest of the shelves contained photos of her family in expensive gold and silver frames. On the opposite side of the room, her husband’s closet was small and well organized. Black suits. Pinstripes. Yves Saint Laurent. One half of the closet was filled with white robes and neatly pressed headscarves. A row of shoes.

The housemaids kept it clean, but Amina had kept it sterile. Katya felt an ache. What sort of person felt comfortable living without at least one item of clothing discarded on the carpet? Come on. An old box on the closet floor? She was so annoyed by the orderliness of the whole apartment that she might have suspected the husband of being the killer if he hadn’t had a solid alibi.

What happens to a woman who is made to sit at home all day while her kids are in school, who has one housemaid who reports to the husband about her behavior and another who kowtows to the senior servant? When everything is uniform, down to the matching blinds, doesn’t a sense of emptiness open up in your chest? It had hit Katya within minutes of arriving. She had an instinct to flee. Shake it off. Mess up her hair, dirty her shoes. How did Amina respond to the austerity?

Katya studied the items on the dresser. A hairbrush. A picture of Amina’s children in their school uniforms. Another picture of Amina and her husband. Behind a little screen stood a wooden jewelry box lined with velvet and filled to the brim with gold and baubles. The items had been tidied—probably by Joy—but the sheer volume of jewelry and the fact that the box was open suggested a reaction to the sterility.

Joy returned, vastly annoyed and shaking her head.

“Can I ask you something?” Katya said. “Did Amina ever have any artwork commissioned?”

“No.”

“What about calligraphy?”

“No, not really. Ah, but one thing!” Setting down the duster, she opened the top drawer of the dresser, revealing a few dozen jewelry boxes, the kind you could buy at most jewelry stores. Each box was about the size of a large wallet.

“Are those full?” Katya asked.

“Yes.” Joy let out a laugh. “This was her latest.” She took out a
red box and pried it open. Inside was a rather traditional display: half a dozen rings, six sets of earrings, a bracelet with charms. From the top half of the box hung a few necklaces in different lengths. In boxes like these, all of the items would be in a matching style and usually set with the same gemstones. This one was plain gold, and each piece was decorated with the name Amina written in a beautiful script.

Every woman had a box like this. If the jewelry inside didn’t show her name, it showed at least the first letter of it. But this collection was unusual. The name was not simply written; it was curved into shapes—a bird, a fleur-de-lis. The object was different on every piece. Even on one of the tiny rings, the artist had shaped her name into a perfect circle. The necklace at the center was the only thing that showed a simple
A
.

Something was racing through Katya’s mind, and she had to still herself to see it. The script. Calligraphy.
Amina
. The letter
A
.

The first letter
, she thought.
He’s doing a calligraphic primer. An alphabet
.

“Where did she get this?” Katya asked.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I don’t remember. Let me think….”

“May I?” Katya took the box and pried back the velvet lining. There, at the bottom, was a small square of fabric stamped with the name of the store:
RAYHAN JEWELERS
.

“Rayhan Jewelers. Where is that?” She did a search on her phone and discovered that it was at the Jamjoom Center. Her stomach dropped.

“How long ago did she buy this?”

“It’s been over a month now…”

Katya was out the door before saying good-bye.

T
he Jamjoom Center, near the King’s Fountain on Falasteen Street, was a beige concrete monstrosity that sat in the shadow of a dark blue glass-and-chrome office tower. The whole complex took up four city blocks and was owned and operated by the Jamjoom family, whose patriarch, Sheikh Ahmad, had served as everything from commerce minister to director general of the national airlines in his eighty years of life. The shopping center had been fashionable in the eighties, when it was the biggest such structure in the country. Now, compared to Jeddah’s modern supermalls, Jamjoom seemed dated. Recently, the Carrefour grocery store had moved out, and the number of shoppers had dropped drastically, leaving the place feeling even more depressed.

Just before evening prayer, Katya and Nayir entered the main hall and stopped at a building map that was posted in a glass case. The tile floors of the hall had recently been polished, and the overhead lights reflected against every surface, a gaudy display. Rayhan Jewelers was tucked between a perfume store and a video-game center, where children were running about in packs, screeching and howling, while cloaked mothers struggled to keep an eye on them all.

They stopped in front of the jewelry store and looked inside. It was a modest place, a bit shabby and small, but tidy, with two display windows at the front of the store and a single long counter stretching in a U-shape along the walls. There were no smiling
young saleswomen, just a single man standing at the counter talking to a female customer.

Pretending to look at the window display, Katya moved closer to the doorway and watched the shop owner. He was a tall man, thin and gaunt, with a broken nose and a large round head. He was leaning with one arm on the display case. He looked tired, bored. The woman said something and he reached into the case, extracted a small ring, and laid it on the counter. She picked it up.

The shop owner glanced over at Katya and she quickly looked away. Nayir was studying the jewelry in the window.

“Do you like any of these rings?” he asked.

“Not really.” She went back to watching the owner. The woman set the ring on the counter and he replaced it in the case. As the woman thanked him and turned to leave, he pushed himself up. Katya heard a clunk. It had come from his wrist. Now that he was upright, she could see that he had a prosthetic hand. It had hit the glass counter when he pushed himself up.

She spun around, feeling a painful shot of adrenaline.

“What is it?” Nayir asked.

“Let’s go.”

They began walking back toward the mall’s entrance. She regretted not having explained to Nayir what she was doing here. She hadn’t had the energy and she didn’t want him to ask questions. When she’d said jewelry store, he’d assumed it was for the wedding. She reached into her purse for her phone and it fell to the ground. Nayir picked it up. She glanced back at the store, saw the shop owner standing in the doorway now. He was watching them. There was something feral and suspicious in his eyes. He turned and went back inside.

She snatched the phone from Nayir and called the station.

“Put me through to Mu’tazz.”

It took a minute to do this. In that time, she saw the owner
pulling down the metal grille, shutting his store for prayer time. He was locked inside.

“This is Mu’tazz.”

“This is Katya Hijazi. I think I’ve found the killer.”

She couldn’t tell if his silence was opprobrium or interest.

“On what basis do you make this claim, Miss Hijazi?”

“He works at Rayhan Jewelers at the Jamjoom Center. He made a set of jewelry for Amina al-Fouad that she purchased shortly before her disappearance. I’m at the center right now. The owner is about one point nine meters tall, balding. He has a strangely shaped head and big ears.”

“How big?” Mu’tazz sounded interested now.

“They really stick out. He’s also missing a hand. He wears a prosthetic.”

“We have a team nearby,” he said.

She was frankly surprised at Mu’tazz’s compliance.

“I’ll send them to Jamjoom immediately.”

“He just shut his store for prayer time,” she said, “but there may be a back entrance.”

“Don’t do anything,” Mu’tazz said harshly, “until the police arrive.”

She heard sirens immediately. It couldn’t be them.

The phone went dead. She stuffed it back into her purse and saw Nayir staring at her in frank amazement.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“You stay here where people can see you,” he said. “I’ll go check for a back entrance.” And he was gone.

She stood, too scared to move. But she had to get closer. She had to see if he was there. She moved forward slowly, saw that the lights behind the counter were out. Only the display lights were on. The shop was empty.

On instinct, she started walking toward the far entrance. Nayir
had left the building. She would exit through the east entry, swing back, and meet him coming the opposite way.

Outside it was dusk, but lights filled the parking lot. She saw Nayir at once. He was moving along the front side of the mall at a slow jog. She walked toward him, scanning the parking lot and the various private entrances to the building. The lot was busy. There were crowds of young men loafing around their cars, listening to music and looking bored. A large family was climbing into a minivan. Some mall workers were gathered around an ashtray stand.

Suddenly, movement.

Nayir had spotted him and was running across the parking lot. She hitched up her
abaaya
and took off. The jeweler saw Nayir chasing him and began to run. He was faster than them both, his long legs pumping, unencumbered by a robe. He headed east across the lot, two hundred yards from Katya, farther from Nayir. Even sprinting, she wouldn’t be able to cut him off.

She ran anyway, gave it everything she had, dropping her purse and yanking her skirts well above her knees. Halfway between her and her quarry was a group of young men.

“Thief !” she shrieked.

The boys needed no prodding; they saw where she was pointing and took off after him.

“The one in the green shirt!” she screamed.

Shouts echoed around the parking lot.

“Thief !”

“Stop him!”

One of the young men caught him. Katya realized too late that the jeweler might have a weapon. There was a tussle. A young man went down. Blood on his shirt. But there was another man behind him. Three more coming from the other side. All these boys, their young lives wasting in mall parking lots, were waiting for an opportunity to prove themselves. To take down a thief who
was also a killer. To save a woman from shame. To civilize society when the police could not. They took him like a pack of wild dogs, throwing him to the ground, falling on him, tearing at his limbs. It was savage and beautiful. She’d forgotten what it felt like to see human justice, to see a man who preyed on innocents being taken down.