Reprisal

Prologue

After making a cut from just above the left ear across the forehead to just above the right ear, she rolled the skin up over the top of his head to expose the skull. She smiled at the beautiful, glistening glow of young bone.

This was her favorite part.

The skull was such a distinct color and a Divine feat of perfect engineering. The pieces came together in thin, jagged lines as tightly as those of the ancient Greek architects who had sculpted the marble in the Parthenon. If her assistant wasn’t standing next to her, she’d love to take off her glove and stroke the smooth, cool surface.

Although a small woman, Dr. Helen Wong was proud of her strength, particularly in her fingers. She reached for the Stryker saw and spoke into the microphone hanging above her head. I am preparing to separate the skull laterally to expose the brain. On a boy this young, the skull should come apart easily; she could always resort to brute force if necessary.

She sighed. It was a pity to destroy the beauty before her. The saw whined and Dr. Wong started her cut.

Even though she had the most modern of tools, Dr. Wong knew that fingers were often just as effective. And what difference did it make to this lifeless body? Because murder was alleged, Dr. Wong, as the chief Hennepin County medical examiner, had to perform an autopsy. Her job was to determine the medical cause of death. She felt pressure from the local law enforcement, the FBI, and the prosecutor to expedite her findings.

She had read the police report summary and knew about the case from the media. More than a dozen young Somali men had disappeared without explanation from Minneapolis and St. Paul. A few had turned up in Somalia as freedom fighters and had been killed there. The rest were still missing. The victim in this case had returned for some unknown reason, only to end up dead in Minneapolis. At least the police had caught a suspect, who was in custody and had been charged with first-degree murder.

As to the body slanting down on the aluminum table before her, there wasn’t any doubt, really, as to the cause of death. Anyone who had viewed the body could tell easily. The young man’s throat gaped open like a quartered watermelon from a cut that started from below one ear and slashed across to a spot below the other ear. The laceration extended down through all the tissue and muscle in the throat to reach the spine. If not for the bone in the spine stopping the weapon, the killer might have severed the head.

Unusually deep, she pondered. Strange. Why? What kind of person would do that? Dr. Wong momentarily felt sorry for the lawyer who would have to defend someone capable of inflicting this kind of damage and destruction.

Turn in the tox results yet? she barked at her assistant and instantly regretted her tone. She’d ordered the minimum tests to be run. The FBI has been hounding me to get the data. The assistant nodded in response. Dr. Wong hurried to finish, mindful of her appointment with the dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School later in the afternoon. That caused her to be impatient with her assistant.

Dr. Wong also felt she’d been cheated. Her male predecessor had filled the medical examiner’s position for the county government and, at the same time, was a professor at the medical school. It meant a double salary and much more professional visibility. When first hired, she had not been offered the same arrangement. Dr. Wong was determined to change that at her appointment.

Prior to opening the skull, Dr. Wong had completed the external exam quickly and noted that she found no identifying marks on the body. No other trauma presented itself except for the lacerated neck. Since the cause of death was clear to her, she scanned the body quickly. She studied the young black boy’s skin that had turned a shade of gray, like ashes.

The young man’s feet were heavily calloused, unlike most other people who lived in Minnesota and wore shoes twelve months of the year—or at least until summer, when everyone switched to flip-flops. The feet seemed to be tinged the color of a rotten eggplant. Hard to tell what that meant since the blood had been drained from his body earlier. She preferred performing autopsies on lighter-skinned bodies since trauma to the underlying tissues was easier to spot.

One thing bothered her: the same eggplant discoloration covered both his palms. Unusual. What would cause that? she wondered.

Dr. Wong was in a hurry, and she decided they were simply abrasions, which she noted, speaking into the microphone hanging above her. She thought they could have been the result of a struggle. But it didn’t matter much since it had nothing to do with the cause of death.

After the exterior exam, she hurried to perform the usual Y incision in the chest. To assist the team, the autopsy table had a body block, a plastic brick which rested under the body. It lifted the chest area in a high curved arc while the arms and neck fell away. The incision traveled down the length of the body. Dr. Wong preferred to use a good pair of garden pruning shears instead of the expensive autopsy equipment. The shears were stronger and cheaper. A small sheen of perspiration popped out from her forehead as she worked, since this aspect of the exam took simple, brute strength.

She measured the subcutaneous fat of the abdomen and looked at the peritoneal surface. She found both lungs adherent to their respective pleural cavities. After her visual check, Dr. Wong used her fingers to feel around inside the opened cavity. She began to remove the organs. They would be observed, weighed, and sometimes sliced thinly, like a loaf of bread, for further analysis. In this case, she saw no need for any further analysis beyond weighing.

The contents of the stomach revealed the remains of onions, tomatoes, meat, and what looked like pie crust. Dr. Wong and her assistant had become pretty good at guessing what the person had eaten prior to death. It was like a game to them.

Gyro sandwich? the assistant said.

Dr. Wong chuckled. I don’t know. She sifted through the contents with a scalpel. There’s no pita bread. This is a new one, I guess.

Yeah. Not as easy as Big Macs that congeal into a glob of fat. You can tell right away.

She spoke into the microphone again while examining the heart. The atria and auricular appendages appear normal. The valves appear normal in circumference and are thin. She droned on until the exam of each of the organs was completed, including the kidneys, prostate, coronary artery, spleen, liver, pancreas, and thyroid.

Dr. Wong could do this part in her sleep. While speaking, she thought ahead to the meeting with Dr. Johnson at the university. When Dr. Wong set her sights on a goal, she seldom missed. Still, her success wasn’t guaranteed.

As she lifted the brain out of the skull, she said, The vessels at the base of the brain appear to be intact. I detect a very subtle contusion of the right temporal tip in an area measuring one and a half centimeters.

Dr. Wong wondered which outfit she should wear for the meeting with Dr. Johnson. What color would be best? Something serious but not too formal. She glanced at the digital clock on the wall. Come on, Henry. We’ve got to finish up here.

If you have to run, I’ll sew it up and clean things, he offered.

Thanks. She raised up on her toes, spoke loudly, and indicated the time they’d finished the autopsy.

Outside the exam room, she stripped off the gown, face mask, protective glasses, and latex gloves, throwing them all in the cleaning receptacle. Into the bathroom for washing and a quick check on her hair and makeup; then she’d go home and change.

Dr. Wong climbed the stairs from the basement lab where the exam rooms were to the modern complex that housed her office. Outside, sunshine warmed her face. From the sun’s heat, a layer of snow melted away on the ground to reveal secrets from underneath, abandoned there since last fall. Someone’s worn sock, a crushed cigarette package, a broken pair of glasses with a missing lens—each looked lifeless and gray and carried a story that was now an old mystery.

Dr. Wong climbed into her Lincoln Navigator and scrunched over the gravel as she left. Like the dirty clothing she’d dumped in the cleaning bin, she left any thoughts of the routine autopsy behind.

Later, of course, she recognized her mistake.

But then, how could she be blamed? The year she started medical school, it didn’t even exist.

Chapter One

Although never convicted of a crime, Zehra Henning had to go to jail. One of dozens of public defenders in Minneapolis, she forced herself out of the office and down Fourth Avenue toward the concrete building known as the Public Service Facility. In spite of the benign title, it was still a jail. She never liked going there and, especially today, dreaded the first interview with her new client.

She’d been appointed to defend the terrorist accused of killing a missing Somali boy who’d returned to Minneapolis. Zehra remembered her first appearance with the defendant. One of the arresting cops, who was a friend of hers, approached her after the hearing. He said, Watch this dude, Zehra. He’s bad news. Though she was an experienced lawyer, she’d make this interview quick.

Hot sun pressed across her shoulders like a thick shawl. For May, this was unusually warm. Bright light glanced from the tall glass buildings surrounding her. Heat curled up from the sidewalk to clutch at Zehra’s bare legs.

She opened the door to the PSF and thought of the air-conditioned reward on the other side. But once inside, she still felt clammy and hot. Zehra took a deep breath, patted her damp forehead, and headed for the elevator that would take her down two floors into the suffering and struggles of the inmates below. Tugging the sides of her suit coat over her hips, she waited for the elevator to open. When she’d first moved to Minnesota years ago, she thought of it as the tundra. Siberia with family restaurants, one of the filmmaking Coen brothers had said after they left the city themselves.

Certainly, the first winter matched her expectations. Then she experienced spring with the warmth that grew stronger every day. When the temperature hit forty degrees, most Minnesotans started wearing shorts again. Hidden previously under snow banks were caches of unexpected discoveries. A variety of life was revealed in bright green colors and small animals roused from sleep—all greedy for renewed life. The spring thaw also uncovered other odd things: people’s lost treasures, unexplained mysteries, and even a dead body on occasion.

The elevator came and Zehra rode alone as it descended. After graduating from law school, she’d been thrilled to get a job in the public defender’s office in Hennepin County, the largest in Minnesota. She loved the courtroom, the chess match of trials, and felt a passion to defend the underdogs. But one of the necessary difficulties of the job involved representing clients who were dangerous enough to be held in custody.

When the elevator opened, Zehra rushed out into a small room with a beige tile floor. The bright fluorescent lights above reflected an image of herself on the thick windows. She liked her face, her large hazel eyes, and her complexion—darker than most of the Scandinavian people in the state. Thick black hair curled around the edges of her chin. Then there was her nose—too long. A remnant of the distant relatives on her mother’s side from India. Her father was Caucasian.

Down here, she smelled metallic air. When she pressed the button on the intercom to ask for admission, a deputy looked up, recognized her, and waved. Zehra heard the loud metal clank in the door as the lock shot open. The handle was chilly. Presenting the admittance pass given to her by the security people on the main floor, Zehra asked to see her new client.

She’d grown up in Dallas but moved to Colorado for college, mostly because she loved to snowboard. After graduating, she moved to Minnesota for law school, followed by her parents after they wilted in the hot weather of Texas summers.

Zehra walked through the dead air of the jail toward an interview room. She missed the colors of her garden down here. Everything was beige and brown. She found an open room and stepped into it. In two steps she reached the table bolted to the wall, flanked by two plastic chairs. Zehra set her leather bag on the table. It had been a gift from her mother and could carry everything she might ever need during the day. Next to it was a red button about the size of her palm that protruded from the wall. In an emergency, if she hit it, three to four deputies would charge into the room. She’d never had to use it in the past, even with some sketchy characters.

Zehra pulled out the thin file she had on the client. It read State of Minnesota v. Ibrahim El-Amin. With the amount of publicity generated by the disappearance of so many young Somali men from the Twin Cities, the police and FBI had worked overtime to discover what happened. They’d caught and convicted a few and thought they’d solved the cases. So this murder had surprised everyone, since the victim had also disappeared earlier, like the others. No one knew why this young man had returned or what he’d been doing when he was killed.

Zehra stood—she never liked to meet new clients sitting down. She had to control the meeting. Not that she believed much of what defendants told her. Through many years of experience, she’d heard just about every story. So many of them lied, made excuses, denied, and minimized their behavior. The savvy ones threw in a few truths like glue, to try and hold together their preposterous stories.

Still, she believed in the work. Actually, most defendants were young boys, more stupid or chemically dependent than evil. They needed protection from the power of the government—even if many were guilty. As a public defender, she was appointed by the court to represent the poor people who qualified. Zehra didn’t have any choice about taking a case or refusing it. Luckily, she’d only had to defend a handful of truly evil and dangerous people. She suspected this new client might fall into that category.

She watched two deputies escorting El-Amin toward her. He had closely cut, curly black hair and a short, flat nose, dark skin that shone under the LED lights, and a ragged beard. A short man, he walked slowly, erect and proud. He wore the jail’s private-label clothing line—an orange jumpsuit with plastic slippers for shoes. One deputy pushed on his arm. El-Amin jerked it away and came through the door to meet Zehra.

He paused. His eyes rose slowly and traveled up and down across Zehra. They were black and focused, surrounded by deep cavities of smudged gray, making him look old. Even though his shoulders were narrow, Zehra could see wiry strength in them.

Behind El-Amin, the door closed and the lock scraped through metal against more metal. Zehra nodded. Hi, Mr. El-Amin. I’m Zehra Henning, your lawyer. Usually, she shook the client’s hand firmly. This time, she let her arm hang at her side.

He didn’t respond but continued to stare at her. His eyes probed her face, shoulders, chest, then circled her hips and legs. It was creepy to the max, but she’d experienced it a few times with other clients—the Stare. Almost always, it came from young gangbangers who used it to great effect on the streets, just before they started shooting.

This defendant was different. He wasn’t a gangster, and at thirty-four, was older than most criminals. She stared back for a minute, then broke it off. She nodded at one of the chairs and waited for him to sit first. He pushed back his chair from the table, and Zehra saw strong hands with thick calluses edging each finger.

Zehra took a deep breath. Considering that she had ambitions to be a judge in Minnesota, defending someone in a high-profile case might help her. But then, Muslim terrorists were not popular, and it was even less popular to defend one accused of murder. It would be a tough case, if even for those reasons alone.

We met in court, Zehra began.

El-Amin bobbed his head.

First, we should talk about bail. Is there anyone who could afford to come up with money—?

I demand a male lawyer.

She’d heard this one before, too. Sorry, you get me.

Are you Muslim?

That’s irrelevant, but no.

In my country women are not allowed to work like this. It is contrary to the Qur’an.

Well, this isn’t your country, and women do work like this here, Zehra said. Do you want to talk about your case or religion? ’Cause if it’s religion, I’m leaving.

El-Amin leaned back and refused to answer. His nostrils flared as if he smelled something.

Zehra was surprised. Most defendants were desperate to get out—but not this one. And the crap about Muslims really put her on edge. Be-cause she had a long nose and darker skin, occasionally she was mistaken for a Muslim. That didn’t bother Zehra except for the negative responses she’d get as a result.

Now, she faced a radical Muslim who probably hated all women and had probably killed an innocent young man. Zehra felt herself losing control of the interview. That scared her. She wondered if there was someone in the office she could get to trade his case for any other one.

Clearing her throat, she started again. Okay, let’s look at the complaint. From the file, she pulled out the document written by the prosecutor. It alleged facts to make the defendant guilty of the charge of first-degree murder. "It says that on March 19th, a witness was standing on an open porch at the back end of the Horn of Africa deli on Cedar Avenue. The witness saw a young black man come out of a patio next to the deli through a wooden gate in the fence below the witness.

Just as the boy got through the gate, another man, wearing a mask of some sort and identified as you, came up behind the younger man and grabbed his forehead with the left hand. With his right hand, he cut the boy’s throat with a knife. Then the killer fled.

Zehra looked up at El-Amin. His expression remained frozen.

A week later, she continued reading, a confidential, reliable infor-mant, a CRI, reported to police that talk around the coffee shops near Augsburg College was that you were bragging about ‘bringing a lamb to Allah.’ Police had enough information to get a search warrant for your apartment. They found a knife and a shirt. Both had been cleaned, but forensic testing determined the victim’s blood showed on both items.

Under his hooded forehead, his eyes moved from the paper on the table to Zehra’s eyes again. He crossed his arms over his chest and said nothing.

A tingling feeling crabbed its way up her back. At this point, after reading all the damning evidence, most defendants raved about how the facts were all lies and insisted that they were innocent. But her training as a defense lawyer asserted itself, and she started to see some holes in the government’s case against her client. When the cops did that lineup with the witness and he picked you, that seems highly suggestive. The killing occurred in an area where the lighting was probably bad, so how reliable is the witness’ ID of you?

It does not matter. There are more important things.

What things? You don’t think a murder case—against you—is important?

Besides, you are not qualified.

Zehra didn’t get mad but remained patient.

You are a woman and an infidel. I will not be associated with you.

She leaned back in her chair. You know, I was just thinking the same thing. But see, the thing is, we’re stuck with each other. The court ordered me to represent you.

El-Amin raised his arm with a finger pointed to heaven. Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other. It is so written in the Qur’an.

Zehra scraped her chair backward. It was hard to breathe around him, as if there was a vacuum sucking the air out of the room. She felt split in half. On the one hand, her duty as his lawyer meant to defend him zealously. But what he had probably done sickened her, and now, his extremist talk of Islam angered her.

His body jerked forward. I have a right to a trial, do I not?

Yes.

Then I demand to have one now—with a new lawyer.

Well, you can’t have one immediately. There are procedures we have to go through, investigation, legal research—

I do not want to wait.

You’ll get your trial, she shouted.

A woman does not talk to me in such a tone.

This interview is over. Zehra stood and reached for her bag. She hoped he would agree and just leave with the deputies when they came back for him.

I did it. He spoke softer.

She dropped the bag onto the table. What?

It was necessary.

You killed the boy?

It was not intended but had to be carried out.

Zehra stammered, I could talk to the prosecutor about a deal for you. Something—

"I told you I