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 like 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 o
ut—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 want a trial. Do not talk to them.”
She’d never heard a defendant admit guilt but still demand a trial. Of course, it was his right and he could remain silent at the trial. What is wrong with this idiot? she wondered. She wanted out. Shoving her chair backward, she grabbed her bag and tried to squeeze past him to get into the hallway.
“If you will not replace yourself, I also know I have a right to represent myself.”
As she jerked open the steel door, anger and frustration clouded her mind until a new thought struck her. He was right. There was a provision in the rules of procedure that allowed a defendant to represent himself under limited circumstances. Maybe there was a way for her to actually get out of the case. She’d never done that before. In fact, most public defenders prided themselves on their ability to work with even the most difficult clients. But El-Amin made her uneasy. This was one case to avoid for many reasons. “Yes. Yes, you can. The judge would have to approve it.”
“I would prefer to have a male lawyer, but if it is to be you, I will defend myself.”
It was hard to breathe. “I’ll talk to the judge.”
El-Amin stood and leaned toward her. He smelled of onions. Through gritted teeth, he said, “I cannot have anything to do with you. I will be disgraced.” His eyes sparkled with fury. “You do not cover your head, you do not cover your legs, your breasts are revealed under your shirt—”
Zehra snapped. She pointed her finger into his chest. “Listen, I’d be happy to never talk with you again. And I don’t follow your archaic rules.” Her voice bounced off the hard walls.
“A woman cannot understand the words of the Prophet like a man.”
Her face flushed hot. Sweat popped out across her forehead. Zehra knew better than to argue with him, but her anger overtook her. His hate was disgusting. “Get out of my way,” she yelled.
“No woman will talk to me like this.” He gripped the back of the chair and started to lift if off the ground.
The room went silent but crackled with tension. She heard the lights above humming. The chair scraped across the floor as he gripped it harder.
Zehra watched his eyes. She knew it was time to bail out. She slammed the red panic button with her fist.
El-Amin had the chair off the ground. He twisted his shoulders to get better leverage. It gave her a moment to edge closer to the door. He grunted with the effort of picking it up to swing at her.
Zehra backed into the corner and raised her arms. The concrete wall felt cool. Clanking sounds echoed around the room. El-Amin swore something in a different language.
Two deputies burst through the door and clamped their arms over El-Amin’s shoulders. The chair clattered to the floor. One deputy seemed to enjoy the opportunity and twisted El-Amin’s arm high behind his back. Something cracked and he screamed. El-Amin dropped to the floor, and the second deputy cuffed the defendant. A third deputy arrived to help drag him out of the interview room.
“You okay, Zehra?” the deputy asked. “Sorry. We didn’t see anything until you hit the button.”
She waved her hand at him. At least she wasn’t hurt. Nothing this violent had ever happened to her before. “Don’t worry. I gotta get out of here.” Her blouse was drenched and stuck to her like cellophane.
Upstairs, she ran through the double glass doors to get back out into the sunshine. A linden tree arched over the entrance, protecting Zehra from the sun. The air smelled fresh. Like the branches above, her thoughts tangled around each other. Nothing like this had ever happened to her. Even though El-Amin had said he was guilty, Zehra’s reading of the case told her there was a good chance he was innocent. If so, why did he insist on his guilt? Why would he
demand a trial?
She shook out her hair as if to shake off the creepy feeling left from the interview. Above her a sparrow lifted off of the linden tree. It fluttered across the street to the hulking mass of City Hall, constructed over one hundred years earlier of gray granite. Along the wall of the building, the bird paddled upwards, unaware of the peregrine falcons who hid behind the top battlements. Sometimes they swooped down to grab prey like the sparrow.
Zehra took a deep breath, started for her cool office, and plotted how she might be able to get out of the case.
Chapter Two