Randy Singer - Fatal Convictions

On that point, Alex couldn’t argue. He talked to Shannon for a few more minutes while he assembled the pleadings. After ending the call, he tried to find labels that would work on manila envelopes. He searched his desk drawers, then Sylvia’s. There were labels for file folders but no labels for large manila envelopes. He wanted to punch something. He had been working for nearly two hours on a simple task that should have taken thirty minutes. Sylvia’s migraine was spreading.

Alex’s BlackBerry buzzed again-the same unknown number as before. It had to be some kind of crisis. Reluctantly, he picked it up.

“Alex Madison.”

“Mr. Madison, this is Khalid Mobassar. Thank you for answering my call.”

“No problem,” Alex said, still searching for the labels. The imam sounded a little tense. Maybe something had happened to Ghaniyah.

“There are two detectives from the Virginia Beach Police Department at my front door,” Khalid said, his voice nearly a whisper. “They want to question me about a woman in our mosque who disappeared over the weekend. I told them I needed to call my lawyer first.”

Alex stopped searching and focused on the phone call. It always made him nervous when the police wanted to question a client. “What do you know about this woman?”

“Her name is Ja’dah Fatima Mahdi. She is the wife of one of our leaders at the Islamic Learning Center. She has been missing since Saturday night.”

“Are you a suspect or a person of interest?”

“I do not know.”

Alex looked at his envelopes and second-guessed his decision to pick up the phone. It would probably be fine for Khalid to talk with the detectives. They probably just wanted information about the victim’s family. But what if there was more to it? What if Khalid was a person of interest?

“Do you know anything about why she’s missing?” Alex asked.

Khalid hesitated for a moment. “Not really.” His voice became softer. “Nothing other than what I might have learned in confidence from Ja’dah or her husband.”

“Which is what?”

“As their spiritual advisor, should I not keep that confidential?” Khalid asked.

Now it was getting complicated. “Maybe,” Alex said. “Would it help them locate the woman?”

Khalid hesitated again. “I don’t think so. But I don’t actually know.”

Alex sighed into the phone. This was not what he needed. Khalid might have information that would help the police. But there were issues of priest-penitent privilege involved, or whatever you call that privilege when it’s a Muslim imam. And those issues tended to get messy. “Tell them you can’t speak to them without your attorney present. Ask them to wait outside until I get there.”

The next call, which came less than three minutes later, was not from Khalid but from a man who identified himself as Detective Sanderson. “Is this Mr. Madison?”

“Yes.”

“Do you represent Mr. Mobassar?”

Not really, Alex thought. But this was no time for technicalities. “Yes.”

“Good,” Sanderson said, as if that would solve everything. “We’re in the critical first forty-eight hours of a missing person investigation. We have reason to believe that the potential victim was taken against her will. And we think your client might have valuable information to help us find her kidnapper, but he says he can’t talk to us-”

“Is he a person of interest?” Alex interrupted.

“At this stage, Mr. Madison, most everyone who knows the victim is a person of interest. But we’d like the opportunity to clear your client. And more importantly, we think he can help us find her before it’s too late.”

Alex thought about this for a moment. The line about clearing Khalid was something the cops said every time… just before they finagled a confession and slapped on the cuffs. But the part about helping them find this woman might be legit. Could he really sit by and tell his client to withhold information that would help the police find a kidnapped woman?

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Alex said. “I’ll want to talk with my client first. And I’ll stop the questioning if I sense that you’re trying to set him up.”

“Time is of the essence, Mr. Madison. We really need to talk with him right away.”

“What do you want to ask him?”

“I’d rather not say over the phone.”

“Half an hour, then,” Alex said. “It’s the best I can do. And wait outside. I don’t want you talking to him until I get there.”

“We’ll be in our squad car.”

Alex pulled a pen out of his desk drawer and addressed the manila envelopes by hand. He would leave the documents on Sylvia’s desk and call a courier service on his way to Khalid’s house. He had a bad feeling about Khalid’s “interview.” In a kidnapping, the cops didn’t usually question a family’s spiritual advisor. They had something. And there was only one way to find out what it was.

Alex sat down next to his client on a soft leather couch with old cushions that sagged under his weight. Alex felt like he was sitting on the floor, knees in the air. Unlike the detectives, Alex had removed his shoes out of respect. The officers took the two chairs in the room, the same ones Alex and Shannon had occupied last week.

The seating arrangement put Alex and Khalid at a definite psychological disadvantage. The officers were erect in their chairs, looking down at Alex and Khalid, who slouched into the couch like two schoolboys in the principal’s office.

The female officer sat across from Khalid and leaned forward, a clear posture of aggression. She was thin and intense, midforties, with curly blonde hair, small blue eyes that seemed too close together, and a narrow face that looked like somebody had placed it in a vise and squeezed. Age wrinkles spread from the corners of her eyes and mouth, and her left eye was bloodshot. When Alex first shook her hand outside, she had introduced herself as Detective Brown.

“I’m Alex.” He flashed a disarming smile. “Do you have a first name?”

“Yes.”

Alex waited… “O-kay… then,” Alex said. Guess I’ve discovered which one’s the bad cop.

Detective Sanderson sat directly across from Alex. He was a pleasant guy with clipped brown hair and a linebacker’s build. He had a pug nose that made Alex think he might have been a boxer in his younger days. He placed a recorder on the table. “Mind if we record this?”

Alex put his own digital recorder next to it and turned it on. “I was going to ask the same thing.”

Sanderson gave his partner a look that wasn’t hard to read- this guy’s going to be a jerk -and shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Detective Sanderson stated the names of everyone in attendance and the time and place of the interview, then assured Khalid that he could terminate the interview whenever he wanted.

“Is my client a suspect or a person of interest?” Alex asked. It was the same question he had asked over the phone, but he wanted a response on the record.

Brown gave him a sharp look, but Sanderson responded with a calm tone. “Right now, this is still a missing-person investigation. But to the extent we determine a crime has been committed, everyone who knows Ja’dah Fatima Mahdi will be a person of interest. So yes, that would include your client.”

“Fair enough,” Alex said.

The questions began innocently, mostly background questions about Khalid’s relationship with Ja’dah and Fatih Mahdi. The two families had been part of the same mosque in Beirut and had resettled in the United States within six months of each other. The husband of the missing woman was a friend of Khalid’s and a respected leader in the Islamic Learning Center. Ja’dah, a second wife, was fifteen years younger than her husband.