City of Veils (17 page)

Eventually, Osama called the station and requested that a forensics team meet him at Abdulrahman’s house. He also requested backup to take Abdulrahman home. He could have done it himself, but he wanted to talk to Faiza alone in the car.

Osama went back into the office, where Faiza was keeping watch over Abdulrahman.

“Mr. Nawar, we’re taking you back to your house,” Osama explained. “We’d like to have a look at Leila’s room.”

“My wife is there,” Abdulrahman snarled. “And my children.”

“We’ll make sure they aren’t disturbed,” Osama said.

“
You
are not allowed to talk to them, do you understand?”

Osama nodded, annoyed by the bullishness of his tone and its implication that Osama wanted more from the wife than a simple interview. “We may need to ask them some questions, however,” he replied evenly. “Officer Shanbari here will talk to them.”

Abdulrahman eyed Faiza as if he’d just noticed her presence. He stared at her long and hard, then finally said, “Fine. She may talk to my wife, but I will be present when she does.”

Once the floaters had come to pick up Abdulrahman, Osama and Faiza went back to the car. Fuad saw them out and apologized for not having offered something to drink.

It’s only worse when you do
, Osama thought.

Back in the car, Faiza kept her burqa up. He was beginning to realize that this was a sign that she wanted to say something unpleasant. He started the car and drove, trying not to think about what she might say. She reached to the floor for the paper sack, took out another doughnut, and began to eat, casting him a slightly guilty look. He had to smile.

“They knew before we told them,” she said.

“Yeah, it was strange,” he replied. “Her brother seemed to know. But it could have been common sense. Police don’t usually show up unless there’s something wrong.”

She nodded. “Maybe our faces gave it away.”

“I thought you were going to tell me we should have given them a harder time,” he said, noticing that she had a dot of chocolate on her nose.

She smiled. “You could have been a little rougher.”

“How is it that the woman in this equation is telling the man how to be tough?”

“Isn’t that what always happens?” she asked. “Think back on your parents.”

“You don’t know my parents.”

“I don’t have to, they’re all the same.” She spoke with food in her mouth, and it was somehow endearing.

“No,” he said firmly, “they’re not all the same. And my wife never tells me to be tough. It’s only you, Faiza.”

With a deeply guilty look this time, she reached back into the bag.

“There’s a
fourth?
” he asked, incredulous. “When did you…? Give me that.”

“You can have half.” She split the doughnut before he could protest and handed him half.

“No, no. I don’t want it,” he said. “I just didn’t want you to eat it. That’s your fourth one!”

“My husband likes me fat,” she replied in all sincerity.

He watched a tentacle of cream filling dangle above the seat. She set the doughnut half in his hand, and he took it.

“Those men were lying,” she said. “Not about their alibis, but about Ra’id.”

“You think they let him go?”

She nodded.

“I agree,” he replied through a mouthful, hoping he sounded casual enough. In fact, he hadn’t suspected them of lying, and Rafiq’s words rose up in a haunting symphony in his head:
If you’re going to be so damn nice, Osama, at least do it to the people who deserve it. Like me.
He swallowed uncomfortably and took a swig of coffee. But he’d toughened up a lot since then.
I try not to be too mean in front of you
, he wanted to tell Faiza.
Someday you’ll see it. I can be hard when I need to.

He looked at her, but she popped the last of the doughnut in her mouth and lowered her burqa.

A
bdulrahman’s house was one of the most lavish Osama had ever seen. It was new, perhaps only a few years old, but built in a traditional style that, for all its unusual features, smacked of Jeddah through and through. On the outside was a tall façade of coral stone, with elegant screened woodwork covering the windows and a large patio overlooking the street. Abdulrahman led Osama, Faiza, and the first of many forensics men into the house. He was still looking nervous and shaken. A servant arrived, and Abdulrahman sent the man to bring them drinks.

“Actually,” one of the forensics men said, “we’d like it if you could wait outside.”

The servant looked to Abdulrahman for guidance. “Very well,” Abdulrahman said. “Do as these men say.” The servant left and Abdulrahman turned to Osama. “My wife is out,” he said. “I just spoke with her, though. She’s at her sister’s house across town.”

“We’re going to need to talk to her eventually,” Osama said.

Osama and Faiza and a forensics team followed Abdulrahman into the central courtyard, an enormous indoor space radiating green from the abundance of plants and the elaborate mosaics on every wall. Below, in a sunken atrium, was a swimming pool, its bottom tiled to resemble an enormous woven carpet. The doorways, twice normal size, were arched, every surface layered with polished stone and detailed carvings reading
Allah
and
Allah Akbar
. Osama’s first thought was that Abdulrahman would clearly have had no trouble supporting Leila. They walked through half a dozen gloriously decorated rooms, each bearing some evidence of a traditional style: an antique hookah sitting beside two stone benches; Bedouin antiques of all sorts, including a rifle and bandolier hanging on the wall; and a marble slab engraved with a passage from the Quran propped against another wall. Each room was floored with richly woven carpets, detailed stone tiles, or highly polished wood.

Climbing a wide flight of stairs, they entered a large sitting room, its upper balustrades rich with marble crenellations. There were sofas here, set in a large square so that three sat side by side against each wall. Beyond that, a massive round ornament looked like a Bedouin teapot blown up to the size of an automobile. It would have been tacky, but its exterior was screened metal and on the inside sat two chairs facing a large bay window. Between the chairs stood a handsome telescope.

Abdulrahman led them through the sitting room to a hallway that led to a series of upper-story bedrooms. The doors were open. Peeking in, Osama spotted king-size beds in each. He was beginning to think the house could sleep a hundred people.

“Was it only your family and Leila living here?” Osama asked.

Abdulrahman still looked angry. “Ra’id is here as well. He came a year ago.”

“Where is his room?”

“There.” Abdulrahman pointed to an open doorway and Osama glanced inside, half hoping to find Ra’id.

Leila’s room was at the end of the hall, perched in a corner of the house so that her windows gave a view of the garden, which wrapped around the back and sides of the building. Abdulrahman went to the wardrobe, a mighty structure of oak that stood against the wall. Sliding a key from a wooden niche on the side, he unlocked it. “Her closet,” he said. “Everything else should be open. There’s not much to see.”

“If you wouldn’t mind waiting outside,” one of the forensics men said. “One of the officers here will escort you.” A uniformed floater motioned to Abdulrahman, who went without protest.

Osama watched the forensics team sweep through the room. Faiza stood beside him, looking around.

They went to the dresser, another intimidating oak structure, and studied the pictures on top. None of them were framed, simply splashed across the wood as if they’d been dropped there. One of the forensics men gave Osama a pair of plastic gloves, and he put them on. He looked through the pictures and soon became aware that Leila and Ra’id had spent a lot of time together. There were pictures of the two of them lounging on a private beach, laughing at the bowling alley, splashing around in the swimming pool downstairs. Lots of photos of cats in various parts of the house. A few of Abdulrahman, looking hierophantic.

“He was right,” Faiza said, “there’s not much of Leila in this room.” A few clothes, a couple of dusty schoolbooks on the shelf. No jewelry or makeup. The bathroom had a few essentials but was missing the small armies of hair products and creams that Osama had come to associate with women. Most conspicuous of all, there was little sign that a filmmaker had ever lived in the room—no camera bags or cameras or lenses, no stacks of DVDs.

“She didn’t have her camera with her when she disappeared,” Osama said, thinking out loud. “It got destroyed at the Corniche when she was injured that day.”

“Maybe she bought another one,” Faiza said.

“Shouldn’t there at least be a camera bag here?”

“You’re right. There’s nothing.”

“There’s no computer either,” Osama said. “I’m no expert, but wouldn’t you need a computer to edit film?”

“I think so,” Faiza said. “Or you’d need some pretty expensive equipment.”

“Her brother didn’t say if she bought a new camera.”

They wandered back through the house, stopping in Ra’id’s room only long enough to be disappointed again. There were clothes here, most of them scattered on the floor, and a tall shelf of CDs. A computer on the desk was still sealed in its manufacturer’s box.

They carried on, touring the house in a leisurely way, stopping to read the Quranic inscription—it was
all
Quranic inscription, everywhere words were hung—above a ceramic, wood-burning chiminea and a media shelf right out of Ikea that was packed with CDs.

As he stood above the central courtyard, Osama’s thoughts shifted between competing ideas of Abdulrahman. At first he had assumed that Abdulrahman was the older Syrian bachelor type, busy snipping away at tiny scraps of lingerie for the bustling business that was practically Syria’s birthright, and yet now he saw that Abdulrahman was all Jeddawi. He must have dumped millions of riyals into this house, and you wouldn’t build a house like this in the first place unless you loved the city and its architecture. Abdulrahman seemed conservative. Of course, he designed and sold lingerie for a living, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t remain traditional in every other respect. After all, lingerie was meant to arouse a husband in the privacy of the bedroom. There was something frank and square about Abdulrahman that had caused Osama to think he was old-fashioned. The fact that he wouldn’t let a male investigator talk to his wife seemed to confirm the point.

But now that Osama had seen the interior of the house, he realized that Abdulrahman fancied himself just as modern as anyone. It was in the CD rack, the satellite television, the iPod speaker system playing dulcet jazz in the sitting room. And perhaps that was what was so peculiar: that in Abdulrahman, the extremes of traditional and modern coexisted so comfortably.

They found Abdulrahman loitering outside the kitchen, watching the forensics men work, apprehension on his face.

“Mr. Nawar,” Osama said, motioning him away from the kitchen door, “did Leila buy a new camera after the old one was broken?”

“Yes,” Abdulrahman replied after a hesitation. “Yes, she got another.”

Osama took out his notepad. “Where did she get it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What kind of camera was it?”

“A video camera… no, it was digital, I believe. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Digital cameras are pretty expensive. Where did she get the money for one of those?”

Abdulrahman shrugged. “Leila kept her business matters to herself.”

“And you never asked her?”

Abdulrahman moved back toward the kitchen, which Osama found insulting.

“Mr. Nawar, we’re not finished.” He waited for Abdulrahman to turn around.

“In order to edit film, your sister would have needed a computer, but I didn’t see one in her room. Did she have one?”

“Yes,” Abdulrahman said, glowering now. “If it’s not in her room, then I don’t know what happened to it.”

“Was it there after she disappeared?”

“I didn’t notice,” he said. His face was like a stone mask. Osama didn’t have to glance at Faiza to know that they were both thinking the same thing: that Abdulrahman was lying. Osama was getting annoyed.

“Your sister went missing, and you didn’t check her room?” he asked.

“Of course I checked her room!” Abdulrahman exploded. “But I wasn’t looking for a computer, I was looking for my sister!”

“It seems strange, Mr. Nawar, that your sister bought herself a brand-new digital camera and that you didn’t ask her how she came by that kind of money. Yet you said earlier that Leila’s job didn’t pay well enough that she could support herself. How did she come by that money?”

“I already told you: I don’t know.”

“And you never asked her?”

“No.”

“Did you ever ask her about her work? Do you know what she did when she left the house?”

“Of course!” he blurted angrily. “She worked for the news station! And she occasionally took other jobs.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“Private work. For individuals. People she knew.”

“What was the last thing she was working on before she disappeared?”