“What’re we looking at?” the woman called to the nearest uniformed officer. Her voice was high-pitched and sharp.

“The victim is back in the bedroom there, Lieutenant,” the officer said. “Should we, you know, inform the FBI?”

“The Feds?” She stared at him.

“The victim’s Arab,” the big detective said. “That’s what he means.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” The patrolman nodded.

“You think he’s some kind of suicide terrorist?” The Arab detective fixed him with the mirthless sneer of an imam at an orgy. “Did he cut off his head and throw it at someone? Maybe he kept a stockpile of illegal hand-grenades in his cheeks and one of them went off by accident.”

The patrolman scraped his foot back and forth on the linoleum in the entrance to the kitchen. “Ah, Jesus, Lieutenant,” he muttered, appealing to the other detective.

She shook her head and beckoned to the Arab detective. “Come on. Let’s see what we’ve got back there.”

The big detective followed her into the bedroom. As he went, he let his eyes linger on Ala. They had a drowsy intensity that made him look like a wrestler gathering strength between bouts.

Through the open door, Omar Yussef heard the Arab carry on a low conversation with someone already in the room. The other detective’s sharp voice described the location and condition of the body. She came into the doorway and glanced at Omar Yussef, still talking into a small voice recorder.

As he listened to her catalogue of Nizar’s visible features, Omar Yussef wondered how the detective might have described him, had he been the subject of her investigation. Victim appears to be over the age of seventy, though identity documents show him to be fifty-eight. Hair: white, combed over liver-spotted bald scalp. Eyes: brown. White mustache. Gold-rimmed glasses, Gucci brand. Shoulders and chest show general lack of physical activity. Clothing expensive and good quality. Blue shirt, monogrammed OYS; fawn cardigan and windbreaker; brown pants, bloodstained. As he mused, Omar Yussef looked up. The lieutenant was still in the doorway. She held her recorder to her chin, but she had stopped speaking. He saw that she had noticed the blood on his knees.