City of Peace Page 10

  “St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church,” Sofia answered, “up in Fairfax. We feel very much at home there.”

  “The Coptic Church is one of the oldest Christian groups in the world, isn’t it?” asked Harley.

  “Indeed it is,” said Youssef, “and the largest Christian community in the Middle East. We are proud to trace ourselves back to St. Mark, who introduced Christianity to Egypt just a few years after the ministry of Jesus.”

  “That explains our church name,” added Sofia with a smile.

  “I’m so sad about what ISIS is doing to your brothers and sisters throughout the Middle East,” said Harley. “The executions. The beheadings. Absolutely horrible.”

  “Yes,” agreed Youssef, “but persecution is not new to the church. We grieve those who have died, but give thanks for their faithfulness.”

  Harley wondered how the Ayads could stand to live so close to the Bayatis, given the violence being inflicted on Copts by Muslims. “And now we have experienced a murder right here in Occoquan—not a Copt, but a Muslim.”

  “Isn’t it terrible?” said Sofia. “We are still in shock. Fatima is one of my closest friends.”

  Harley was stunned, but he tried not to show it.

  “We moved to Occoquan at the same time,” explained Youssef, “completely coincidentally. At first I was not sure what to make of Muhammad, since relations are strained between our religions back in Egypt. But here in the United States, we both had a hard time getting started in our businesses. The old-timers in Occoquan were not helpful.”

  “One day,” Sofia added, continuing her husband’s story, “Youssef and Muhammad found themselves in the permit office together, trying to get permission to modify these old buildings for their businesses. They were both getting the runaround from county officials, so they complained to each other and then decided to help each other. Ever since, it has been a beautiful friendship.”

  “We never had any children,” continued Youssef, “so Norah, Sarah and Omar became like our children. We are not as close to them now as we were when they were young, but even so, Norah’s death has been devastating.”

  Harley paused. “I had a chance to visit Muhammad in jail.”

  “I’m glad you did,” said Youssef. “I saw him before we took a trip to see relatives overseas, and I need to visit again. I regret that our travels took us away at such a difficult time.”

  “He understands about that,” said Sofia in a soothing voice. “He knows how important it is to be with family.”

  “Everyone is wondering about Muhammad’s guilt,” said Youssef, “but let me tell you what kind of a man he is. Do you remember when the terrorists killed those twenty-one Coptic Christians on the beach in Libya?”

  “Of course,” said Harley. That incident had been the subject of his controversial sermon.

  “Muhammad came to my shop after that horrible day. He had tears in his eyes, and he told me how moved he was by the faith of those Christians, how they bravely professed their trust in Jesus in the face of a certain death. He thought the murders of those innocent men was an abomination. He said that he wished he could have been there, so that he could say to his fellow Muslims, ‘Their God is my God.’ Can you believe that? Muhammad, a devout Muslim, wanted to point to the faith of those Christians and say, ‘Their God is my God.’”

  Harley made his living by speaking, but he couldn’t find the words to respond to what he was hearing.

  “They are such a good family,” added Sofia. “Always devoted to their children, trying to support them when they had troubles at the public schools.”

  “Fatima invited us to a fast-breaking dinner soon after I met Muhammad,” said Youssef. “During Ramadan, the first year we were in the United States. We were so impressed by their hospitality. That deepened our friendship, and our meals together have continued to this day.”

  The conversation bounced back and forth between the two like a ping-pong ball, and Harley could do nothing but watch.

  “In the year 2000, Fatima was in a terrible car accident,” said Sofia. “She lost a lot of blood. I rushed to the hospital and made a donation. It turns out that we have the same rare blood type. That made us feel like sisters.”

  “They certainly are like sisters,” Youssef said. “Sofia has been with Fatima every day since Norah’s death, except when we had to be away.”

  The door opened and a woman with bright-red hair stuck her head in.

  “Hello, Ayads,” she called out. “Welcome home. We missed you.” Then she looked at Harley and said, “I think I know you: the new pastor of the Methodist church. I’m Doris King. I saw you at the park, the day that the hoodlums attacked the Bayatis.”

  Once again, Harley felt a deep sense of shame.

  CHAPTER 10

  Cotton-ball clouds in a brilliant blue sky, dry air and temperatures in the eighties made for a perfect day. Harley desperately wanted to escape Occoquan and enjoy the day alone on his boat on the Potomac River. His week had been filled with numerous hospital visits and counseling sessions, plus a couple of contentious church committee meetings filled with people anxious about the ailing air conditioner and the anemic church budget. He was confused by his conversation with the Ayads and unnerved by his encounter with Doris King. Striding along Mill Street, Harley was hoping that he would not get sucked into a conversation with anyone—just as he ran into Tim Underwood.

  “Pastor, how’s it going?” chirped Tie-dye Tim. “Long time no see.”

  Tim was sitting in a Town of Occoquan golf cart, with a toolbox in the seat next to him. Harley had no choice but to stop and chat. “I hear you visited Muhammad Bayati.”

  “Yes, I did,” said Harley, gathering that small talk was out of the question. “Word gets around, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, this is Occoquan,” said Tim with a smile. “No secrets here. I think you did the right thing.”

  “Thanks. Not everyone would agree.”

  “Since when does that matter? Remember the liberty pole?”

  “Yeah,” Harley nodded. “That was not a smashing success. Well, it was smashed, but it was not a success. So, what’s the word on the street?”

  Tim sat back and stretched, settling in for a long talk. “The Prince William police caught one of the thugs who attacked the Bayatis.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. And get this, he’s not anti-Muslim.”

  “What?”

  “No, the guy is a Muslim. No kidding. He is an Iraqi immigrant, just like the Bayatis. The police are holding him and questioning him right now.”

  “Why in the world would he attack them?”

  “Who knows?” said Tim. “A personal beef? Something tribal? Sunnis versus Shiites?” He shrugged.

  “Well, that does surprise me,” Harley said.

  “I guess we’ll see if he has any connection to Norah’s death,” Tim continued. “It would be nice for Muhammad if the guy confessed.”

  “You’re right,” agreed Harley. “But at least Muhammad has ended his hunger strike. Did you see the article in Thursday’s Post?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “It was written by a journalist named Henry Kim. He is married to one of my colleagues in Sterling. I called him right after I met with Muhammad, and he got interested in the case. He wrote the article, which I hope will speed up the process for Muhammad. But most importantly, he agreed to start eating again.”

  “Good work, Pastor.”

  Harley leaned against the golf cart. “Hey, Tim, I’ve been wondering. Do you know Will Beckley?”

  “Sure. The young vet.”

  “I’ve heard a rumor that he was involved with Norah Bayati.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that, too. He lives right behind the Bayatis. But I don’t know. They don’t seem like a match to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Norah was a real pistol—exuberant, energetic, surprising. In high school, her parents wanted her to dress modestly, covered up, so she
would wear skirts with multicolored leggings underneath. She wore headscarves, but always with the wildest patterns. I loved to watch her leave her house and run for the school bus. I never knew what crazy outfit she would be wearing.”

  Harley realized that he had composed an inaccurate mental picture of Norah. She had not been a meek and submissive Muslim girl. “Did she have a problem with the local high school kids?” he asked.

  “Surprisingly, no,” said Tim. “Most of them loved her. Sure, the cool white kids snubbed her, same as they treated most of the blacks and the other immigrants. But Norah was a champion of the underdog, and she didn’t care if kids were poor or awkward or new arrivals from Africa or Central America. She was elected homecoming queen! She had so many friends that she won in a landslide. She rode into the football stadium in a convertible, along with the rest of the homecoming court. When the car stopped she jumped off the side—wearing leggings under her dress. She ran to the center of the field and the crowd went wild!”

  Harley smiled and shook his head. “So, you are saying that Norah was a bit much for Will Beckley?”

  “Yeah, probably. I know that opposites attract, but Will seems to be so reserved. So quiet. But what do I know? I’ve never been married.”

  “Some couples do surprise you.”

  “In addition, Norah was gorgeous,” Tim added, blushing slightly. “I mean, she was beauty-pageant beautiful. The hair, the eyes, the perfect skin. I think she could have been Miss Iraq, or at least first runner-up.”

  “Really?” said Harley. “She must have had lots of guys interested in her.”

  “Oh, yeah. The Bayatis tried to set her up the old-fashioned way. I saw a steady stream of eligible young Iraqi men coming by to court her. But since no one ever came twice, I’m thinking she didn’t care for her parents’ matchmaking.”

  “I don’t think I’d want to be an Iraqi kid in America,” Harley admitted. “It’s tough to be caught between two worlds.”

  “Norah always turned heads,” Tim added. “Here in Occoquan, and wherever she went. I liked watching her, and I’m sure Will Beckley did as well. Heck, I’ll bet those FBI guys liked taking her picture more than they liked taking pictures of Muhammad and Fatima.”

  “You know about them?” Harley asked, surprised.

  “Sure! Everybody knows about them. They’ve been watching the Bayatis for a few months now. For a week, they even had a stakeout in an empty apartment in Will’s building. One of the guys is the son of your buddy Dirk.”

  Harley knew this, of course, and had assumed that it was confidential. But he was beginning to see that it was hard for anything to remain confidential in Occoquan.

  “Yes,” he said. “I knew Matt was FBI.”

  “Maybe he was the one involved with Norah,” suggested Tim. “He sure had his eye on her—officially, that is.”

  Matt had been given the job of watching the Bayatis, so of course he would be keeping an eye on the beautiful Norah. A young man and a young woman, in close proximity, day in and day out. Naturally, they weren’t supposed to have any contact, but nothing was sweeter than forbidden fruit. Could the two of them have been involved? Did Matt somehow contribute to her death? Or did he kill her? Harley’s thoughts were racing.

  Matt had been awfully reserved when they had their day on the river, so maybe he was grieving her death or struggling with guilt. But Harley told himself not to jump to conclusions, especially based on a single day with the man. Perhaps Matt wasn’t wrestling with anything at all, but was simply a no-nonsense, serious guy.

  “I really can’t say,” Harley responded, finally. “I’ve only met him once.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Tim, realizing that Harley might take offense at such an insinuation. “I’m not accusing the guy of anything. I’m just saying that he is one more guy in the orbit of Norah Bayati.”

  “Fair enough. It sounds like she was able to draw a crowd. Problem is, I’ve not heard any talk of a motive, except for those who want to accuse Muhammad of honor killing.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Tim. “And I’m not buying it.”

  “Neither am I, at least not now.”

  “So maybe this violent biker will prove to be the one. Who knows what has been motivating him. We can just be glad that Doris King gave a good enough description of his motorcycle that the police were able to pick him up.”

  Doris King? Why did she have to be the one with the eagle eye? Harley thought back on the destruction of the Riverview Bakery tent, and how he had felt strangely gratified by the bikers’ attack. It felt like frontier justice to him, a rebalancing of the scale that had been tipped by the killings of Karen and Jessica. But if the thugs had been Muslims, what was the point of the attack? He shook his head and said, “I have absolutely no idea what his motive might be.” Then, since they were talking about the bakery, the two men who visited Fatima Bayati popped into Harley’s mind, and he asked Tim who he thought they might be.

  “Well, I can’t say for sure,” Tim admitted, “but it sounds like they might have been Jefferson Jones and his partner, Abdul.”

  “Jones?” asked Harley. “Any relation to Tawnya?”

  “Her father,” said Tim. “He has gotten into real estate development and is pretty aggressive about going after distressed properties. I think he takes Abdul with him to intimidate people. The guy is ripped!”

  “No kidding.”

  “Not that I’ve ever heard of Abdul hurting anyone,” Tim clarified. “Jefferson is known for making cash offers and never paying a penny more than is absolutely necessary. Some people complain he is trying to rip them off, but the truth is that he knows what the market will bear. Abdul goes with him on his business meetings, and doesn’t say much. Just looks tough. When a deal is completed, Abdul gathers a team of contractors and goes to work on tearing down or renovating a place.”

  “So why do you think they were visiting the Riverview Bakery?”

  “Classic distressed property. One family member dead, another in jail, family trying to keep the business afloat. Plus, I’ve heard a rumor that Jefferson wants to buy up the whole block and redevelop it. Wine bars and gourmet restaurants instead of neighborhood bakeries and such.”

  “What’s the deal with the Abdul guy? Name seems Muslim. He seemed African American to me, not Middle Eastern.”

  “He is African American. Converted to Islam while in jail. From what I’ve heard, Jefferson Jones took a chance on him, and he has stayed out of trouble for as long as they have worked together.”

  “Could he have had anything to do with Norah’s death?”

  “No idea,” said Tim shrugged. “At this point, everyone is a suspect.”

  Muhammad. Will. Matt. Abdul. The Muslim motorcycle guy. The list of suspects seemed to be growing every day. A month ago, Harley would have thought that such a case would be open and shut. Occoquan had more drama and mystery than a city ten times its size. Harley didn’t know what to say, so he just stood there and stared toward the river.

  “So where are you heading, Rev?” Tim asked, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Over to Town Hall to get my car sticker. Then maybe a boat ride.”

  “Your sticker fee will help to pay my salary.”

  “Money well spent,” Harley smiled.

  “While you are there, check out the town photos by Omar Bayati. Really elegant black and whites. The kid has talent.”

  Harley thanked Tim, gave him a pat on the shoulder, and then continued his walk west on Mill Street. He looked up and down the street, hoping that he would not run into Doris King, the one person in Occoquan who had quickly developed the ability to make him feel awful about himself. Fortunately, there were enough people on the sidewalk that he figured he could duck unnoticed into an alley or a shop if he crossed her path.

  He passed the Riverview Bakery, which seemed to be doing a booming business on a Saturday morning. Somehow Fatima and her children were keeping up with demand, even without Muhammad. He looked
into the brewpub, where waitresses were sweeping the floor and moving chairs in anticipation of the lunch rush. Then he looked into the bridal boutique and puzzle store, tenants of a ramshackle old industrial building on the river, before crossing the street and entering Town Hall.

  The building still looked like an Episcopal Church from the outside, and as Harley pushed through the red front doors he discovered that it resembled a church from the inside as well. The pews were gone, as were the pulpit and altar, but the nave in which the congregation gathered for worship had been largely untouched. Rows of chairs filled the space, facing the raised chancel in which the town council gathered for monthly public meetings. The right side of the room had been partitioned off for office space for the mayor and town clerk, but the walls were only six feet high, so the soaring ceiling of the nave remained in place. The room felt sacred to Harley—not in the sense of Christian holiness, but in terms of respect for local governance, practiced in Occoquan for almost 300 years.

  He looked around the freshly painted white walls and saw a display of photographs carefully mounted in black frames between the clear church windows. Moving closer, he saw that the first photo was a black-and-white picture of Rockledge, the stone Georgian mansion that had been the site of the liberty pole. On the matte was the name Omar Bayati, with a small head shot. So that’s what he looks like, thought Harley: A slender face like his father’s, and the same large brown eyes. Cute, as Jessica Simpson said he was. Next was a picture of the pedestrian bridge shrouded in fog, again by Omar. Moving along the wall, he saw a shot of the town museum by another photographer, and then pictures of the various shops and residential buildings along Mill Street, ending with a photo of Riverside Methodist Church. About half of the photos had been taken by Omar, and in Harley’s opinion they were the best—carefully composed and attentive to the distinctive atmosphere of the little town. If Omar learned his craft at Lake Ridge High School, he clearly had an excellent teacher.

  Harley moved to the window of the town clerk’s office, introduced himself and then purchased a sticker for his car. He asked the clerk about the photographs on the wall and learned that they were the winners in a contest tied to the town’s annual arts and crafts festival.