Zeitoun (31 page)

“But don’t you want—”

“Please,” the young man said, “just don’t say anything. Let me speak for you. Just sit and be quiet if you can. Don’t say a word.”

The charges against Zeitoun were read: possession of stolen property valued at $500. The prosecutor suggested setting bail at $150,000.

The defender countered that Zeitoun had no prior record, and that the bail should be far lower. He suggested $35,000.

The judge set the bail at $75,000. That was the end of Zeitoun’s hearing. The defender extended his hand to Zeitoun, and Zeitoun shook it. He was led out of the room as the defender opened the file for the next prisoner. On his way out, Zeitoun again asked for a phone call. The defender shrugged.

“But why set bail when I can’t tell anyone I’m in prison?” Zeitoun asked.

From the judge, the prosecutor, and the defender, there was no answer. Zeitoun was brought back to his cell.

Raleigh called Kathy.

“Okay,” he said, “they finally have a system arranged, and we’ve got a court date. They want to clear the docket as much as we want him out of there. So gather as many people as you can to come to court and testify on his behalf. Character witnesses.”

This seemed sensible enough to Kathy. It was a clear-cut task, and she dug in. But while making a list of friends to call, she realized she had forgotten to ask Raleigh where the courthouse was. She called him back and got his voicemail.

She called the New Orleans District Attorney’s office. A recording gave her a number in Baton Rouge. She called it, expecting to get a recording, but to her surprise a woman answered the phone on the second ring. Kathy asked for the address of the courthouse.

“We don’t have one right now,” the woman said.

“What?” Kathy said. “I just need the address of the courthouse where the hearings are, the hearings for prisoners at Hunt? I just need the court address.”

“We don’t have one of those,” the woman said.

“A court?”

“Right.”

“Where are people going to pay tickets?”

“No one’s paying tickets right now,” the woman said.

Kathy asked to speak to a supervisor.

She was transferred, and this time a man picked up the phone. Kathy explained that she had just gotten word that her husband had been arrested, and now there was a court date. She only wanted to know where court hearings were being held.

“Oh, we can’t tell you that,” the man said.

“What? You can’t tell me?”

“No, that’s privileged information,” he said.

“Privileged for who? I’m his wife!”

“I’m sorry, that’s private information.”

“It’s not private! It’s public!” Kathy screamed. “That’s the point! It’s a public court!” She asked to speak to another, more knowledgeable person. The man sighed and put her on hold.

Finally a third person, a woman, picked up the phone.

“What is it you want?” she asked.

Kathy composed herself, hoping that perhaps the other two officials hadn’t heard her clearly. She said, “I want to know the location of the court. The court where sentencing and bail hearings are being held.”

The woman’s voice was even and firm: “That is private information.”

Kathy fell apart. She wailed and screamed. Somehow this, knowing that her husband was so close but that these layers of bureaucracy and incompetence were keeping her from him—it was too much. She cried out of frustration and rage. She felt like she was watching a baby drown, unable to do anything to save it.

When she’d gathered herself, she called CNN.

She reached a producer and told her the story: her husband’s incarceration, the call from Homeland Security, the stonewalling, the courts that didn’t even exist. The producer said she would investigate, and took Kathy’s number.

Raleigh called back. He apologized. Now he knew where the hearing would be held—at Hunt itself. He told Kathy to call anyone she could and tell them to be at Hunt the next day, at nine a.m.

“I’m going to try to see Zeitoun today,” he said.

Kathy prayed that he would.

Kathy began calling friends, neighbors, and clients. In two hours she managed to secure at least seven people who said they would come, including the principal of her daughters’ school.

Zeitoun was again called out of his cell for a meeting. He was handcuffed, his legs were chained, and again he was led to the white van. He was driven to the front of the prison complex and was brought to another small cinderblock room, where he saw Raleigh, the first representative of the outside world he’d seen since his arrest.

He smiled, and they shook hands warmly.

“I want to get out,” Zeitoun said.

“You have to pay to get out,” Raleigh said. He sighed deeply. “We’ve got a situation with this bail.”

Zeitoun could either find and pay $75,000, and if he eventually won his case he would be refunded the full amount. Or he could pay thirteen percent of the bail to the courts and three percent to the bondsman—about $10,000 total. And regardless of the outcome of his case, he would lose that amount.

“Isn’t $75,000 a lot for petty theft?” Zeitoun asked.

Raleigh agreed it was. It was about a hundred times what it should be. Zeitoun could find the $10,000, but it seemed silly to him to throw away that much money. It would be, in effect, paying the government for incarcerating him for a month.

“Can’t you reduce it?” Zeitoun asked.

“I’ll have to fight for it,” Raleigh said.

“Well, then fight for it,” Zeitoun said.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Raleigh asked.

“Then check if we can use my property as bail,” Zeitoun said.

“You don’t want to pay the bond?”

“No,” Zeitoun said.

If he paid for his release, what would he do, after all? He couldn’t work. There was nothing to do in New Orleans, not yet. And by now he knew that Kathy and his kids knew he was alive. He trusted that he would be released. So he would be paying $10,000 to be free for a few extra days—and he would spend that time pacing around Yuko and Ahmaad’s living room. He would see his daughters, yes, but they knew he was safe now, and that money would be better spent elsewhere—in their college trusts, for example. He had already been kept two and a half weeks; he could wait a few more days.

“I’ll check about using your property as collateral,” Raleigh said.

“Call Kathy,” Zeitoun said.

Kathy drove into Hunt, holding her breath. It was a surreal sight—the tidy white fencing, the bright green lawn. It looked like a golf course. White birds scattered as she made her way down the long driveway and up to the gate.

In the parking lot, she stood outside and waited. It was eight-thirty in the morning, and she needed all the friends they had. They began to arrive a few minutes later. Rob and Walt had driven from Lafayette. Jennifer Callender, who worked with Walt and whose house Zeitoun had renovated, arrived with her husband and father. Tom and Celeste Bitchatch, neighbors on Claiborne, had driven from Houston. Nabil Abukhader, the principal at the girls’ school, had driven from the French Quarter.

They all embraced. No one had been sleeping. They all looked terrible, and were shocked that such a thing had brought them together. But they were heartened, somewhat, to know that they would be able to speak about the character of Abdulrahman Zeitoun. They were confident that when the judge heard from them all and realized that the police had imprisoned a well-known businessman, the judge might very well release him that day. Perhaps they could all celebrate together.

Kathy couldn’t stop thanking them. She was a wreck of tears and gratitude and anticipation.

When Raleigh arrived, he was impressed. He gathered everyone together and gave them a brief rundown of how the proceedings would go. He wasn’t sure exactly where the hearing would take place, or even what time. But he was confident that between Zeitoun’s reputation, lack of any prior infractions, and this showing of character witnesses—a wide swath of upstanding New Orleanians—the judge would release Abdulrahman Zeitoun with profuse apologies.

They waited through the morning. No word. Finally Raleigh went to see what was happening. He came back out, his face a cloud.

“They won’t see any of you,” he said.

The hearing had been canceled. There was no explanation why.

*    *    *

Now the only chance was to post bail. Kathy would have to go back into the city and find papers proving ownership of their office building. They would use the building as collateral against the bond.

Adnan insisted he drive Kathy into the city.

They took I-10 and exited at Carrollton. Immediately they were struck by the smell. It was so many things—acrid, rotten, and even, from the branches and trees lying in the sun, sweet. But most of all the smell was overpowering. It was loud. Kathy wrapped her scarf around her face to blunt its power.

The city looked like it had been abandoned for decades. The cars, their colors washed grey from the toxic water, were strewn about like playthings. They took Carrollton to Earhart, and at one point had to cross over to the opposite lane to avoid downed trees. The debris was everywhere and bizarre—tires, refrigerators, tricycles, couches, a straw hat.

The streets were deserted. They saw no one—no human or vehicle—until a police cruiser pulled up behind them a few blocks from the office. Kathy told Adnan to let her do the talking. It was a long-held strategy she developed with Zeitoun. It was always easier and quicker when she did the talking; a Middle Eastern accent would only provoke more questions.

Two officers approached their car, both with their hands on their sidearms. The officer at the driver’s side window asked Adnan what he was doing in the city. Kathy leaned over to explain and extended her driver’s license through the window.

“I live in the house down the street,” she said. “Just coming back to assess the damage, pick up anything that survived.”

He listened to Kathy but turned back to Adnan. “What are you doing here?”

Kathy preempted him. “We’re contractors,” she said. She gave the officer her business card.

The officer took it back to the squad car. He and his partner spent ten minutes there before returning to Adnan’s window.

“Okay,” the officer said, and let them go.

They decided to drive straight to the office, for fear that the next time they were stopped they would not be so fortunate.

When they reached the building on Dublin, Kathy could see the remains of the homes that had burned to the ground. It seemed miraculous that the fire had stopped only a few yards away. The office appeared damaged from the outside, but not in a way that would hint at what they would find within. Kathy went to the door. Her key didn’t work. The lock was rusted inside and out.

Across the street, Adnan spotted something. He jogged over to a neighbor’s house and came back carrying an ancient, ruined ladder.

“I’m going up,” he said. “You stay here.”

He set the ladder against the building and began to climb. The steps were crooked and some of them broken, but he went up carefully, and when he arrived at the second-floor window, he climbed through and quickly disappeared inside.

Kathy heard some thumps and scraping, and then it was quiet. Soon there was a voice from the other side of the door.

“Move away,” he said. “I’m kicking the door down.”

He kicked it four times and the door gave way, falling flat.

“Be careful when you’re going up the stairs,” he said.

Inside, the building was ruined. It looked like it hadn’t been inhabited
in decades. The ceiling was half-destroyed, dotted with jagged holes. Exposed wiring and papers everywhere. A grey sludge covered the floor. The smell was strong. Mildew and rain and sewage.

Kathy and Adnan carefully climbed the stairs to the office. It was unrecognizable. The carpet squished with every step. She could smell the presence of animals, and there were scurrying sounds as they walked through the office. She opened a closet door and a dozen roaches fell onto her hands. She screamed. Adnan calmed her.

“Let’s just get the papers and go,” he said.

But nothing was where she remembered it. The file cabinets had shifted. The desk organizers were all over the floor. She searched through the cabinets and desk drawers, sweeping bugs off the few files left undamaged. Some of the files were so wet and soaked in mud that they were useless. She made a pile of the files that were unreadable, hoping that among the few that she could recognize was proof that they owned this building. It seemed so absurd, that she was searching through her own building, widely known as the headquarters of their well-known business, for a simple, filthy piece of paper that a makeshift court would accept in exchange for her husband. And what if she didn’t find it? Her husband might fall deeper into the abyss of this broken judicial system for lack of this piece of paper?

“Please help,” she asked Adnan, choking on the words.

They searched for an hour. They opened every drawer and every file, until she thought they were simply examining the same, few, undamaged files they’d already read repeatedly. But finally, in a drawer she was sure contained nothing of value, she found it, the act of sale for 3015 Dublin. She was on her knees, her abaya filthy, and she held it in her hands, and cried. She sat back and shook.

“This better work,” she said.

*    *    *

With the papers in hand, they returned to Raleigh’s office in Baton Rouge. Raleigh prepared the paperwork and faxed it over to the bondsman. The bondsman confirmed that he had received it and that the bond had been paid. Raleigh called Hunt to confirm that all the paperwork had gone through for the surety bond. He was told that they had the paperwork, but that the office had closed early. It was three p.m.

Zeitoun would have to spend another night at Hunt.

In the morning, Kathy and Adnan drove to the prison, arriving before eight. They went into the office and were told Zeitoun would be released that day. They waited in the same room where Zeitoun’s friends had gathered two days earlier.