Storm Front

of mailboxes, and 220 said: “Awad.”
    “We should talk to the manager?” Yael asked.
    “Why? She doesn’t want to talk to
us
,” Virgil said. “Let’s go upstairs and knock on his door.”
    —
    T HE INTERIOR of the apartment building resembled a lower-end travel motel, with a central atrium going up three floors to a skylight, and two sets of red-carpeted stairs winding up on either side of the atrium’s core. There were also elevators, but Virgil took the stairs, with Yael at his elbow.
    There appeared to be about a hundred doorways down the corridors stretching north and south from the central atrium, the doors painted in varying shades of red, blue, and yellow in a failed effort to make them look stylish. Awad’s was blue-green. Virgil knocked on the door, and a second later, heard a thump from inside.
    “Somebody’s home,” he said. He stepped a bit sideways from the door, gestured to Yael to get behind him, knocked again, and put a hand on his pistol. A moment later, the door opened two inches, and a man peered out through the crack behind a chain: Virgil could see a single dark brown eye. “What?”
    Virgil held up his ID. “We need to chat with you, about Reverend Jones.”
    The man’s eye narrowed, and Virgil thought he’d slam the door, but then he said, “Ahhhh . . . I will take the chain.”
    The door closed an inch, and the chain rattled and the man said, “Come in,” to Virgil, and then, “Why are you bringing an Israeli?”
    Virgil was inside, with Yael a step behind him. “How’d you know she was an Israeli?”
    The man shrugged: “She looks like one.”
    Virgil: “You’re Faraj Awad?”
    “Yes, but everybody calls me Raj,” the man said. “And you’re . . . Virgil?”
    “Virgil Flowers. Yes.”
    Virgil looked around. Awad’s apartment was small, with a kitchenette, a fourteen-by-twelve living room, and a tiny balcony overlooking the parking lot. A bedroom was off to the right, and through an open door Virgil could see that it was barely big enough to contain a queen-sized bed. The bathroom was apparently out of sight off the bedroom.
    The living room was furnished with a couch, two chairs, a coffee table, and a worktable with a laptop and a printer in the middle, and a small flat-panel TV sitting on one end of it, facing the couch. A soccer ball was half hidden under the coffee table, along with stacks of books, American magazines and newspapers, and two twenty-five-pound dumbbells.
    Awad was an inch or two shorter than Virgil, slender and square-jawed, with a short, carefully cut beard, longish black hair, and large dark eyes. He had a gold earring in one ear. He would, Virgil thought, do well with the Mankato State coeds, if he was inclined to. He said, “Come in and sit down. Even the Israeli, as long as she builds no settlements behind my couch.”
    Virgil asked, “Why’d you break into Jones’s house this morning?”
    Awad dropped on the couch and shook his head, not bothering to deny that he’d been there. “I didn’t. I was invited to come over to look at a stone. I was on time, I knocked, but nobody answered. I knew he was sick, so I went inside—the door was not locked—and called to him. Nobody answered. I was writing a note to him when you came in . . . I suppose it was you.”
    “It was,” Virgil said. “Why did you run?”
    “I thought you might be the Turk,” Awad said.
    “The Turk,” Yael repeated.
    “Yes. You definitely do not want to mess with the Turk. He cut your good parts off. Well, maybe not you, but”—he pointed at Virgil—“you.”
    Virgil thought,
First things first
, and asked, “Where’s this note you were writing to Jones?”
    “Should still be there, in the kitchen.”
    Virgil said to Yael, “Don’t let him run—I’m going to make a phone call.”
    “Yeah, I’ll stop him,” she said. “I’ll hit him with my purse.”
    Awad said to her, “Your personality alone would be enough. You are one very attractive Jewess.”
    “Keep talking,” she said.
    “Ah, Jesus,” Virgil said.
    —
    V IRGIL CHOSE to step into the hall, leaving the door mostly open, in case one of them tried to strangle the other. He called Mankato PD to get the cell number of the crime-scene guy, and when he had it, called and asked about the note.
    “It was on the floor by the kitchen counter. All it says is, ‘Dear Mr. Minister Jones . . .’ That’s it.”
    “Thanks,” Virgil said, and rang off. He had no case on Awad,