Detective Alwaar reached the door of the building where Yasmina Club was located. He waited a few minutes until he heard the sound of people coming down the stairs. He then saw a group of women wearing jackets on top of their workout clothes. They had just taken a shower.
He looked at his watch and saw it was seven in the evening. He began pacing in front of the building door with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t have any idea what time Naeema got off work. When he saw some other women go in the building with sports bags, he was sure another aerobics class was about to start. He decided to take advantage of the break between workouts and headed in.
The bright neon lights scattered through the club glittered along the wall mirrors. He heard some women’s voices laughing gracefully. The scents of perfume mixed with sweat clung to his nostrils. The ground was covered with yellow leather exercise pads. There was a door leading to the locker room, where the voices were coming from.
As for the workout area, it was empty except for two young women lying on their backs. Alwaar felt embarrassed by their tight spandex clothes that revealed the curves of their bodies. He turned around quietly and went back out to the street.
The first woman was Naeema and the second, shorter one was Selwa. No older than twenty-four, Selwa was extremely attractive, with short hair dyed light blonde.
The two were lying down, relaxing and talking in what seemed like a whisper.
“The old lady’s dead,” said Naeema, looking up at the ceiling.
Selwa sat straight up and looked over at her friend.
“Dead? That’s impossible. She was doing aerobics here yesterday with the best of ’em.”
“She didn’t die a natural death,” said Naeema without moving. “She was murdered.”
“Who killed her?” Selwa asked in a tone full of fear as she put her hand on her chest, staring at Naeema.
“God knows. Yesterday, I was with Othman at our usual place. When he went back to the villa, he found her murdered, with a knife stuck in her stomach.”
Naeema noticed her friend’s hands were shaking, and sat up.
“What are you thinking about?” Naeema asked, perplexed.
“If that’s what really happened, God will keep you safe,” said Selwa, smiling strangely.
A woman came into the workout area from the locker room. Naeema looked at her watch.
“Othman will have a lot of problems with the police before they find the killer,” she said, getting up.
“Do they suspect him?” Selwa asked with a hint of fear in her voice, putting her hand over her heart.
“He went to the police station this morning and hasn’t called me yet.”
A group of women, most of them overweight mothers, came out of the locker room. They were wearing tight sports clothes that accentuated their stomachs, breasts, and backsides, which had grown flabby from sitting in front of their computer screens for too long. Most of them were bank and company employees. Apart from them, there was a group of single and recently married women who were still fit. These were the ones Sofia would insist on working out with.
Naeema yelled out for them to follow along with her. She looked for Selwa and saw she had disappeared.
Outside on the street, Alwaar finished his second cigarette and decided to storm that place of perfume and sweat. He scaled the stairs for the second time, panting. He walked to the door at the end of the hallway and without hesitation went in the club.
“What do you want?” yelled Naeema at him immediately. “Women only!”
The detective nodded, but that didn’t stop him from looking closely at the face of this beautiful woman and at her perfectly round breasts.
“Are you Naeema?” he asked, struggling not to steal a glance at the others.
When she heard him utter her name, she knew immediately who he was. Her face went pale.
“Criminal police. Can we talk a bit?”
She didn’t want anyone to pay much attention to this visit. She turned around quickly and Alwaar took advantage of the opportunity to let his eyes wander over the women. It seemed he was enjoying the view so much that he didn’t hear Naeema ask him to follow her.
“Please go ahead,” she repeated in an embarrassed voice.
She led him to the next hallway, opened an office door, and asked him to go in. She left him alone for a minute and in no time, she came back wearing a light jacket over her sports clothes. She closed the door and stood opposite him. Alwaar noticed that her face was pale. He could almost hear the beating of her heart. He was waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t break the silence.
“No doubt you know why I’m here,” he said in a monotone. “You were expecting me.”
She shook her head to throw her hair back from her face.
“No, I wasn’t,” she said, looking away from him. “But I know why you’re here. Othman came over this morning and told me what happened. He then went to see you at the police station.”
Alwaar nodded, pleased with what she said.
“What’d he tell you exactly?”
“He said he found his wife murdered.”
“Didn’t he tell you where he was when she was killed?”
She hesitated for a moment, remembering that Othman told her to tell the truth. Her face betrayed how nervous she was.
“He was with me. We’ve had a relationship for two years. We don’t have a chance to meet, except late at night. We talk for about fifteen minutes in my car and then I leave.”
Alwaar looked at her with a knowing smile on his lips. The door opened suddenly and a brown-skinned woman wearing cleaning clothes and holding a broom stepped in the room. She was shocked to see a man in the office.
“Naeema, they’re asking for you outside,” she let out in a rough voice.
Alwaar took out his business card and handed it to her.
“Tomorrow at ten o’clock. I’ll be waiting for you at the station.”
Naeema finished work at nine in the evening. She took a shower, got dressed, and wrapped her hair in a wool cap without much care. She went down the building stairs and walked quickly toward the gas station where she’d left her car. She was agitated and wanted to get back to her apartment as quickly as possible.
The street was empty except for some taxis speeding by. The trip back to her house seemed to take forever. Alone in her car, she felt overcome by fear. She kept checking her rear-view mirror and drove in the far right lane, trying to avoid the attention of busybody drivers. She was relieved when she got to the door of her building. As she was parking between two cars, the night guard came out like a ghost. He was about fifty years old. He wore a suit like a military uniform and had a thick stick in his hand. He greeted her with his head lowered and began waving enthusiastically for her to back up. The guard’s presence made her feel safe. She opened her purse, took out ten dirhams, and gave the coins to him as a tip on top of the monthly sum she paid him.
After getting out of the car, she opened the door of the building with her key and went up the stairs two at a time with her athletic agility.
Once she was gone, the night guard walked down the street, looking furtively around him until he stopped at a car parked in the distance in a dark space.
“That’s Naeema, his girlfriend,” he told the driver quickly and then walked off.
There were two inspectors inside the car, one of them holding the police radio. He called the station to pass on the information since the inspectors didn’t need anything else. They already got from the guard everything they wanted and more.
As she climbed the final flight of stairs to her door, Naeema suddenly put her hand on her chest, about to scream out in fear. She didn’t expect to find Othman sitting outside her apartment waiting for her. She wasn’t happy to see him submissively crouched on the ground with his head buried between his knees.
“Did any of the neighbors see you like this?” she grumbled, hurrying to open the door and get him inside.
She turned on the lights and shut the door, staring at him. He seemed like a stranger to her with his unshaven face, withered eyes, and distressed look. She dropped her purse on the couch and went straight into the kitchen. The small apartment had two rooms, an entranceway, kitchen, and bathroom. The furniture was neatly arranged and the place gave off an air of relaxation, proving its owner was a good decorator.
Before she met Othman, she shared the apartment with another woman who worked in one of the big companies in Casablanca. She made it hard for Naeema to meet Othman, so he suggested to her to ask the roommate to move out, offering to pay the whole rent, which was about Naeema’s entire salary.
“Why didn’t you call?” she asked, taking a bottle of water out of the refrigerator.
“I tried several times,” he said in an angry tone, throwing himself down on a small chair. “Your phone wasn’t on. Why didn’t you call me?”
She held the bottle of water up and drank until it was empty.
“That’s not important. What’d the police do with you?”
Othman felt she was overwhelmed by anxiety. She left him for a moment and came back after taking off her coat and cap. She shook her hair a number of times, spreading it out like silk, and then collected it in a ponytail. Othman swallowed with difficulty.
“They asked me about this and that and I kept telling them the story of what happened. I had to confess to them I was with you when I took the dog out for a walk.”
She threw herself down on the chair opposite him.
“A detective came to see me at work. He asked me to go to the police station tomorrow.”
She gave him the business card and Othman looked to make sure it was Alwaar’s.
“What’d he ask you?”
“He wanted to double-check I was with you.”
Othman’s eyes widened.
“What’d you tell him?”
“The truth.”
Othman nodded his head approvingly. She then stared at him with a doubtful look.
“Othman, you’ve got to be honest with me.”
The question scared him.
“I swear to you, Naeema,” he said in a low voice. “I didn’t kill her. You know we both wanted her gone. But if I was planning on killing her, I’d have taken every precaution. . . .”
“Who killed her then?” she asked, cutting him off sharply in a way he hadn’t experienced before.
His eyes strayed and he felt weak. He found himself thinking about the fingerprints.
“If you’re afraid for yourself,” he yelled out, agitated, “you can be sure I’ll clear you of any charges. Even if they frame me for her murder, they’ll be putting me to death, not you.”
Despite this, her scowl didn’t go away.
“Did you eat?” she asked, opening the fridge to see what was inside. “I normally only have cheese and fruit for dinner.”
He took her firmly in his arms and gave her a long kiss on the mouth but she didn’t react. Finally, she pushed him away.
“You reek of alcohol. How can you drink at a time like this?”
He threw himself down on the chair again.
“I left the police needing some time alone to think about what happened. I went into a bar and had one beer and then another. I was there all day. I couldn’t go back to the villa or my parents’ house. My father’s reaction to the news was disgusting.”
“What happened when you told them?”
“They cursed at me for marrying her. How quickly they forget all the help she gave them.”
Naeema put some plates on the table.
“After that cop visited me tonight,” she said, trying to hide her suspicions, “I’ll tell you the truth. I started to get scared. When I think about tomorrow, I feel like I won’t be able to sleep tonight. But what bothers me the most is that I feel you’re hiding something from me.”
“Don’t you believe I didn’t kill her?” asked Othman bitterly.
“I was angry when I left you at the park. I admit I acted harshly, so I’m afraid the way I treated you made you do something crazy.”
He took her hand and squeezed it firmly.
“I didn’t kill her, Naeema. What I told the police and what I’m telling you is the truth. But whenever I think about the real killer, I feel dizzy. I can’t think of anyone who has a reason to kill Sofia but me. Because of how much I hated her and how often I imagined killing her, I feel like I’m the one who did it. Her death was exactly what we both wanted. But I didn’t do it. You’ve got to believe me.”
Naeema let out a deep sigh of relief and pressed down on his hand gently.
“Thank God,” she said. “You didn’t do anything crazy.”
“I’m innocent, even if the whole world’s against me,” blurted out Othman.
They went into the bedroom, took off their clothes, and got under the covers. The soft light from the bedside lamp illuminated the room. Othman now had all the time he wanted and didn’t have to make love quickly, like he used to when he’d rush home to Sofia full of dread. He breathed in the scent of youth emanating from his love’s body. What a difference there was between her and the old lady who’d crumble in his arms like a bag of rotten potatoes. His soul was filled with disgust at his past life and he thought about how he’d spend this night without any kind of deception.
Even though they weren’t talking about Sofia’s death anymore, he couldn’t stop himself from obsessing about the fingerprints. He lay in bed afterward, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
“There’s something weighing on me, Naeema,” he said in a voice full of tension, letting out a sigh and pulling her to him forcefully. “I have to confess it to you, but I beg you, I beg you to keep trusting me. When I left you and went back to the villa, I didn’t find Sofia dead. She was dying and pleading with me with her eyes to pull the knife from her stomach. I didn’t have to, but I did it. The situation was stronger than me. I pulled out the knife and put it on the bed. I then rushed to the phone to call an ambulance and the police. I thought she was still alive and would tell me who attacked her. But she died a few seconds later. In all the confusion and agitation, I forgot to wipe my fingerprints from the knife handle. Or maybe I did. I just can’t remember. And that’s what terrifies me. If the police find my prints on the knife, that’ll be hard evidence of my guilt and I’ll face many problems, especially if the police haven’t found the real killer yet.”
He pressed his chest against hers.
“All I want from you, Naeema, is that you don’t ever doubt my innocence. I didn’t kill Sofia.”
Her tears wet his chest. She didn’t utter a single word.
It was ten thirty at night when the commissioner called in Detective Alwaar and Inspector Boukrisha urgently. He went over the latest developments in the case with them and read aloud the most important parts of the medical examiner’s report, which he’d just been faxed.
“She received two deep stab wounds,” he read, proceeding slowly with the key information, skipping through lines that weren’t important. “The first was in the kidney and stomach, and the second pierced the heart deeply. There isn’t any evidence of resistance on the part of the victim. . . .”
“That means she wasn’t surprised when she saw the killer,” Alwaar said, cutting him off. “He’s someone she knows.”
“Her husband,” said Boukrisha, trying to make his voice less hoarse. His comment didn’t garner the least bit of attention.
The commissioner continued reading the rest of the report and then put it down in front of him on the desk.
“From your report on the crime scene,” he said, addressing the detective, “the furniture wasn’t overturned and nothing was broken. There’s not even any evidence the killer tried to flee the crime scene. It’s as if the victim surrendered completely and the killer knew exactly what he was doing.”
“What’s the time of death?” Alwaar asked in his tired voice.
“About quarter after midnight,” said the commissioner, scanning the report.
“And what about the lab report?” asked Alwaar, shaking his head.
The commissioner waved his hand in a way that revealed his annoyance.
“I don’t know how they work at that lab,” he said, losing his patience. “We still haven’t gotten anything from them.”
Boukrisha’s cell phone rang in his pocket. He rushed to get up and scurry over to the farthest part of the office. He was afraid it was a personal call but he relaxed when he heard the voice of one of his inspectors assigned to watch Othman.
“Okay, all the lights are on?” he said, trying to raise his voice so the others could hear him. “Then he’ll probably spend the night with her. No, don’t move from your spot. Wait for my orders.”
“The target’s still at his girlfriend’s,” he told the commissioner directly, putting the cell phone back in his pocket. “Looks like he’ll sleep there.”
The commissioner leaned back in his chair, rubbing his fingers under his chin.
“Excellent, excellent,” he said spontaneously. “I think our theory’s solid: Othman’s the killer and his girlfriend’s an accomplice, if not in carrying out the crime then in planning it. She won’t be of any use to him as an alibi since they were together near the villa at the time of the crime.”
“Why don’t we go arrest them right now on the charge of perversion and carrying on an illegal sexual relationship,” blurted out Boukrisha. “That way, we can take our time grilling them about the murder.”
The commissioner liked the idea and then looked over at the detective.
“What do you think?” he asked, double-checking with Alwaar.
“Why dirty our work with some marginal charge?” he said, after a moment of hesitation. “We’d look like we’re bumbling around and reaching for evidence. One more day and our man will break down and start singing like a sparrow.”
The chief laughed out loud, his white teeth flashing.
“You’re right,” he said gratefully, “especially since the French embassy and the press are following the case.”